Gog

Overview

Gog--or GOG, as it was originally released, is another of Ivan Tors' speculative melodramas about the activities of the fictional Office of Scientific Investigation. This time, OSI operative David Sheppard (Richard Egan) looks into sabotage being directed against the New Mexico installation where the first manned space station is being built. The base is under the "command" of NOVAC, an anagram for Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer. It turns out that NOVAC has been overriden by enemy agants, who've reprogrammed the computer to undermine the space-station project and even commit murder. To this end, NOVAC dispatches two robots, GOG and MAGOG, to do its dirty work. Can Democracy be saved? Gog was directed by Herbert L. Strock, who later helmed many episodes of Ivan Tors' Science Fiction Theater TV series.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/22/2011
UPC:	0883904244172
Original Release:	1954
Source:	Mgm Mod
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Sound:	[monaural]
Language:	English
Time:	1:23:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Richard Egan	David Sheppard
Constance Dowling	Joanna Merritt
Herbert Marshall	Dr. Van Ness
John Wengraf	Dr. Zeltman
Philip Van Zandt	Dr. Elzevir
Valerie Vernon	Mme. Elzevir
Steve Roberts	Maj. Howard
Byron Kane	Dr. Carter
David Alpert	Peter Burden
Michael Fox	Dr. Hubertus
William Schallert	Engle
Marian Richman	Helen
Jean Dean	Marna
Tom Daly	Senator
Alex Jackson	Vince
Patti Taylor	Girl Acrobat
Beverly Jocher	Girl Acrobat
Aline Towne	Dr. Kirby
Al Bayer	Pilot
Andy Andrews	Security Guard
Julian Ludwig	Security Guard

Technical Credits

Harry Redmond	Special Effects
Herbert L. Strock	Director
Ivan Tors	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Herbert L. Strock's Gog -- or GOG, as it was originally released -- was one of a series of speculative science fiction movies released by producer Ivan Tors during the 1950's; others in the same body of work included The Magnetic Monster and Riders To The Stars. These were science fiction films that were highly restrained in their use of the genre, and mostly far heavier on the science than the fiction. Indeed, character development was kept to a minimum and the real focus was more on the speculation of how mankind, as represented by certain representative "types" of mostly government officials and scientists, would react and respond to the technological developments in their midst. In the case of Gog (as had also been true of The Magnetic Monster), Tors' and Strock's approach may have been slightly too restrained for the kiddie audience of the period, who expected their action fast and furious and their heroes and heroines colorful -- in striving for realism in the settings and the use of science (or, more properly, keeping the science fiction elements rooted in reality), most of the characters are either realistically dull, or quietly eccentric (an attribute Tors and company seem to have appropriated from Dragnet), and the movie sometimes seems almost more like a science lesson or a visit to a science exhibit than a science fiction film. So it lost some of the younger audience for the genre, but at the same time Gog appealed to older, more mature filmgoers, especially with the presence of veteran leading man Herbert Marshall, who lent this movie a level of respectability that few sci-fi films of the period possessed; and Tors scored a real coup in getting Richard Egan -- one of the movies' more popular leading men of the period -- and Constance Dowling for the other two leading roles; their presence gave adults and mainstream audiences something more than the usual B-movie casting that filled out most sci-fi films. The other major notable component of the movie's original release is that Gog was shot in 3-D and issued that way initially -- Strock is surprisingly restrained in his use of the effect, so much so that audiences accustomed to the exploitation of 3-D, with lots of objects coming right at the camera (it really only happens here near the end) would have been disappointed; on the other hand, the careful use of color in the costumes and sets -- the underground lab and the uniforms worn by everyone are color-coded -- makes this one of the more engagingly subtle 3-D releases, closer in spirit to, say, Dial M For Murder than to House of Wax, despite being in a genre much closer to the latter. Ironically, the distributors pulled the 3-D version of the movie fairly quickly -- the craze was dying at the time and too few theaters were willing to book it in that format -- and Gog went out "flat" for most of its distribution history. Then, when it was subsequently sold to television, it was in a black-and-white version, no less; few people were ever even aware that it had been shot in color (much less 3-D) until the early 1980's when it showed up that way on the small screen. And unlike the Magnetic Monster, Gog never made it onto laserdisc. [Note: In 2003, Gog was screened in 3-D at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to an enthusiastic audience, with director/editor Strock (who died two years later) in attendance to a sold-out house. Despite the positive response, MGM/UA, which owns the movie, chose not to strike new 3-D elements for a national re-release to repertory theaters.]