Kino is about to release a box set of Harry Houdini’s movies from the early part of the 20th century. One of these features what some have claimed is the first instance of a robot (called “The Automaton”) on film, in a serial called The Master Mystery.
The Master Mystery (US-1920; dir. Harry Grossman and Burton L. King ) [note: date: IMDb: 1920; Kino: 1919; Answers.com: 1918!)
Synopsis (from Answers.com):
This independently produced serial starred world-famous magician and escape artist Harry Houdini as Quintin Locke, a secret service agent battling an international conspiracy to suppress any sort of scientific progress. Among the conspirators are the vicious DeLuxe Dora (Ruth Stonehouse), the “Madagascar Strangler” (William Pike), and a strange would-be robot known only as Q. (Floyd Buckley). The ubiquitously imperiled heroine was played by Marguerite Marsh, the older sister of Griffith star Mae Marsh. Despite Houdini’s enormous fame, The Master Mystery proved a disappointing failure. The problem, apparently, was the great escape artist himself who, a stickler for authenticity, escaped his many perils too easily. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Source of picture: BoingBoing
The following “trailer” for the box set includes a scene of the robot’s attack!
WOW!! It seems that robots have been a big part of cinema since the very earliest days!! They definitely give a story that sense of awe.Maybe it’s just the simple fact that’ it could happen’ that makes them so appealing.
The fascination originates much further back, and probably has to do with the whole concept of creating artificial creatures as such — men being gods, as in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein, or A Modern Prometheus”, Prometheus being the mythic figure who stole fire from the Gods. Before cinema, there were many automata — chessplaying machines, fluteplaying dolls, an artificial duck that appeared to eat, digest and then excrete. Dolls themselves are part of the fascination. There’s a terrific book on the subject, “Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life” by Gaby Wood, that I recommend to anyone who’s interested in the subject.
Pingback: Undead Backbrain » Blog Archive » Vintage Robots, Part Six: Who Came First?