Tim’s Pics #3: The Creation of the Humanoids

Typically, a Tim’s Pic would be one where my pal Tim Kozlowski mounts a campaign to ensure that I really watch a given flick; said campaign would be subtle, repeated references to a title on a regular basis throughout an email thread. That’s not the case with the film at hand, though. I’m not sure what clicked most; the overall conceit of a sixties’ B-movie with something more on its mind than most or that Dudley Manlove was in the cast.

Moreover, it had a ridiculous amount of talent in the crew: the practical make-up and effects were handled by Jack Pierce (his last film), whose credits include “Frankenstein” and “The Bride of Frankenstein” and the cinematographer was no less than two time Academy Award winner Hal Mohr (1943’s “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Four Poster”). I might also add that the director, Wesley E. Barry, had a career that stretched back to 1915 as an actor, but/and racked up plenty of producer and A.D. as well as full director credits. “The Creation of the Humanoids” was his only science fiction film and one wonders how he came to make the choices he did, though to be sure, I am glad he made them.

It is easily the talkiest sci-fi film I think I’ve ever seen; almost as loquacious as a Kevin Smith film (sans dick jokes) but remarkably ambitious, clever, and philosophical. Jay Simms also wrote “Panic in the Year Zero!” He also penned “The Giant Gila Monster” (one of my childhood favorites) and a bunch of TV shows from the fifties through the seventies. If “Panic” and this one are any indication, Simms was of a truly thoughtful bent and here, he takes on nothing less than what it means to be human and what comprises identity. 

The film is set in a post-nuclear war period where humanity isn’t reproducing fast enough and robots have been built to serve just about all human needs. Their AI developed enough that they became capable of near-sentience and could actually achieve full humanity (emotions, reproductive capacity, etc.) plus live for 200 years before needing a recharge. But that’s not the most interesting part of all this.

There is a pivotal character, Dr. Raven, who has developed increasingly more sophisticated “clickers” to the degree that there are models that have successfully blended in with humanity. One night, two robots are interrupted on their way to “The Temple” to get recharged as they explain to two members of The Order of the Flesh and Blood - a reactionary group that wants to regulate and/or check completely any further evolution of the robots into more humanlike beings. Once inside The Temple, we discover that that evolution is very much on track. However, we will eventually learn that this is not merely a plan to evolve to overcome the human race but to assist humanity in its continued survival. 

But for now, that aspect is kept in the background. What we see in this first act is Dr. Raven resuscitating an almost fully human robot using a “thalamic” implant. The good doctor is able to transfer the entirety of a person’s memories and brain functions into an exact robotic/humanoid replica of that person’s body. Unfortunately for Dr. Raven, he’s interrupted as he’s bringing “Mark” back to consciousness. The Flesh and Blooders are at the door to his lab and he knows that if he’s caught, they’ll wipe his brain and all his work will be doomed. Rather than be reduced to a vegetative state, he insists Mark kill him and once subdued, his attackers realize that Mark is a robot, and one that broke the primary rule not to harm humans. 

Of course, this is lifting Asimov’s First Law of Robotics wholesale and here we pause for a second to consider that “The Creation of the Humanoids” is sometimes said to have been based on Jack Williamson’s “The Humanoids”. There is a thematic similarity in the sense that Williamson posited a future in which humanity has grown passive and atrophied owing to having all needs met by humanoids. That is about the only similarity; the narratives are completely different from what I’ve seen, in other regards. Full disclosure: I have the book and am looking forward to reading it.

One of the members of the Order of the Flesh and Blood whom we encountered earlier is present when Mark is apprehended. He is well-established in the Order and realizes that with the death of Dr. Raven at the hands of a robot, the Order’s cause will gain greater traction. There is an emergency session held to discuss the events of the night and Craigis opens with a full salvo against the robots and that now is the time to act and begin a movement to decommission the higher functioning models.

It is at the session that Mohr’s cinematography becomes pivotal; he shoots the speakers from close angles looking up at them and then in mid-shots where, with each man at a podium, you could be forgiven if you thought you were watching a presidential debate. What’s fascinating is that as static and set-bound as the movie is, it’s a beautiful piece of pop art with a rich and bright color palette and extremely simple sets that are framed in camera to lend an architectural quality to the drama. Morris Hoffman had worked on “House on Haunted Hill” and would go on to work with John Huston on “Fat City” and Mel Brooks on “Blazing Saddles”; here he is actually working in a kind of opposite sense of space from “House…” Where that film has a closer, more intimate feel in some cases coming close to a claustrophobic space that helps ratchet up the suspense, Hoffman (and art director Ted Rich, I would assume) works to open up the space, less for dramatic content than for the ideas that form much of the dialogue. 

Click on any of the images below to open enlarged versions/gallery view.

That last bit brings me to another element of this strange, wonderful little film: the delivery is almost flat, but it’s too studied to be the result of sub-par acting. From the outset, I felt like I was listening to a proto-Hal Hartley or even Robert Wilson approach to oratory. Craigis is the only character who seems to get riled up over anything (everything? He does get cranky). When he discovers his sister has entered “rapport” with Pax, her robot servant, he pays a visit to her to call it off. 

His sister Esme is not to be trifled with. “Entering rapport” is a fully synched up relationship where both robot and human are aware of each other’s feelings (inasmuch as lower order models are capable of some emotional spectrum, as Pax is). She dismisses Craigis’s rhetoric as stunted and bigoted. To be sure, the best that he and the Order can come up with is that if we let the robots become more sophisticated in caring for us and taking over our tasks, we humans will become useless and lethargic. Who will learn anything if all you have to do is ask a robot? Man, he’d hate Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Having said as much, Esme seems to be more of the mind that might not be likely, though she doesn’t say as much. Her emphasis is very much on the unconditional love that she and Pax share. His lack of anger, pride, or arrogance puts him far ahead of human men in her eyes. 

Halfway through the scene, Esme’s friend Maxine shows up to pay her respects to Esme after having stood her up (she was three hours late and came by to say sorry…no cellphones in the future?) We had encountered Maxine earlier when Craigis and his partner hassled her for information about why she was out and about. She told them curtly that she didn’t have to tell them anything and she could report them for their officious behavior.

In short order, Craigis gets the googly eyes for Maxine (and vice versa) and continues to lose ground to Esme’s arguments. Suffice it to say, he’s a dick; but Maxine digs him and he her, so we’ll see…

Doesn’t take long: Craigis and Maxine leave (Craigis in a huff, Maxine not so much; she’s cool) and go from talking about being attracted to each other to discussing marriage, uh, being “in concert” I think was the term. Craigis stresses that he’s too old and may not be able to procreate owing to exposure to high levels of radiation in his childhood, but Maxine doesn’t care. 

I might add here that normally I’d be laughing my ass off at any conversation like this except that it does follow the film’s internal logic; we are in a heightened sense of playing off emotions (humans) against logic (if not philosophy) (the robots). The formalized delivery draws attention to the ideas behind it rather unobtrusively.

At this point, two robots approach Craigis and Maxine and ask them to accompany them to The Temple. Once inside, both are rendered immobile and placed in human sized tubes (again, really nice minimal set design and super saturated hues). Here be big spoilers, but I think you would see this coming were you to watch the movie (and I do recommend it, if that’s not obvious). 

Craigis and Maxine are the most sophisticated models of robots. Dr. Raven appears since he had set up his own reviving and simply had his thalamic unit placed in a younger version of himself. What follows is a discussion between three robots (including one played by Dudley Manlove) and Dr. Raven about the development of the robots’ own religion (apparently, there is a singular database or mainframe that drives robotic knowledge referred to as “the Father-Mother” by the robots and cursorily or dismissively by humans as “The Brain”) and the future of humanity, given the strides Dr. Raven has made in producing nearly fully human robots. 

Craigis has been working - unbeknownst to him - as an agent for the robots infiltrating The Order of Flesh and Blood. Maxine was also being used in a similar manner embedded in the world’s or the nation’s media organization. However, she was too low a functionary to be of much assistance and we discover later that it was the Order of Flesh and Blood that had bombed the organization, hoping to damage or destroy the robots that worked there. 

After some deliberation, the robots and Dr. Raven conclude that they are going to have to tell Craigis and Maxine the full story; that they’re both robots (though I think it’s safe to say that by now, “humanoid” would be more appropriate, despite them calling themselves robots). The concern is that, in other models, when the truth has been revealed, the result is so traumatic that the individual “re-dies”, this time for good. Still, Dr. Raven suspects that Craigis can handle it (not much thought given to poor Maxine, though, eh?)

And Raven is right; Craigis (and Maxine, dammit) handles the news well, but begins questioning whether or not he’s actually Craigis. Raven asks him if a man loses a leg, is he any less a man or two legs, for that matter. Craigis says no, of course not. Dr. Raven simply tells him that in this case, you’re still you in a newer, better body. Maxine, too. 

There’s an awfully dated moment (and there had been others like it) where Maxine is repulsed by the idea of being a robot because a machine can’t give birth and says something about not being able to fulfill a woman’s highest calling. Surprise, says Dr. Raven: if we level you up to being an R-100 model, you can procreate, too! Both Craigis and Maxine accept that this isn’t such a bad deal and ask if the operation will take long. Raven assures them it won’t take long and then he turns to the screen and says, “Of course, the operation was a success…or you wouldn’t be here.” End film. 

All in all, it’s a provocative-for-its-time think piece. There were quite a few of these philosophically oriented B’s throughout the fifties and sixties that stand out markedly when you encounter them. 

“The Creation of the Humanoids” is not successful by any “normal” genre metric, but in some ways it presages more reflective (and accomplished) works like “Solaris” or “2001: A Space Oddity”, films in which there may not be a tremendous amount of action, but where the films are driven by ideas and the execution is artful enough to place those ideas at the fore, or at least, throughout the narrative.

Speaking of throughout the film; running through every scene just about was “electronic harmonics” provided by I.M.F. Much of the soundtrack was reminiscent of Bebe and Louis Barron’s electronic score for “Forbidden Planet.” It was difficult to discern if what was playing was a soprano voice or a theremin (or a treated voice). It didn’t detract or intrude, though, as I was leery it might.

To be honest, this probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. There is little to no information about the film’s reception (it was shot in August 1960 and not released until 1962); no contemporary reviews or box office figures to give an idea of the movie’s reception. 

Afterthoughts and miscellaneous musings:

The idea is that the thalamic units have to be removed from a freshly deceased individual into a new model. Dr. Raven ordered a younger version because he was tired of being old. Don Doolittle gets to have the most fun with his character.

Dudley Manlove! Yep, that’s his real name and his first role was as Eros (“You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”) in “Plan 9 From Outer Space”!!! And I haven’t seen it, but he worked with Ed Wood a second time as a narrator for a short, “Final Curtain”. I swear if I find it, I’ll do a Short Take on it! Promise!

I was jazzed to see Don Megowan as Craigis; he played the Gill Man in “The Creature Walks Among Us” in the on-land portion of that movie. I really need to watch the whole trilogy again. “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” is a stone classic (and I got to see it in 3-D at the River Oaks Theater in the early 80s), but “Revenge of the Creature” and “…Walks Among Us” are also swell. 

I was sorry to hear Frances McCann, who played Esme was murdered in Italy in 1963. Her only other credit was an episode of “The Jerry Colonna Show”.

I wish there was more documentation on this film; an interview with Wesley Barry, at least. It is a singular piece of work that stands out for its stylized approach and simply sticking with exploring ideas. Just the fact that it’s in some of the most glorious color of the period when most science fiction B movies were shot in black and white adds to its uniqueness.

There’s a nifty moment of body horror when Dr. Raven is testing a disembodied arm for movement (see photo below). This leads me to stump for an upcoming Long Read on four early films of David Cronenberg! If the idea of using genre movies to interrogate and explore larger themes was gaining traction in the fifties and sixties, it really began to take off in the seventies and eighties. My feeling is that this cooled for fifteen or twenty years and in the past decade and a half or so, we’ve seen renewed engagement with deeper dramatic themes in genre films, particularly horror and science fiction. 

Once again, thanks for reading and let me know if you have a film you’d like me to take a look at. Check out my Patreon page and if you feel so inclined and want to see more, support is always appreciated, either one time or monthly.