MovieChat Forums > Forbidden Planet (1958) Discussion > Robby is an accomplice to murder

Robby is an accomplice to murder

posted 10 years ago by notorious918
14 replies | jump to latest

Watching movie right now on TCM.

Have watched this movie at least a dozen times, including seeing it in 1956 at the cinema.

I just noticed something.

In the scene where Robby is delivering the "60 gallons of Kentucky bourbon something strange happens.

While the Cook is sampling the booze, You see Robby looking around in a suspicious way, twice in fact.

The Cook shudders and asks "Is someone coming?"

Robby says "NO nothing is coming".

The very next scene we see the electric fence short out, then giant footprints in the sand, then weight crushing the stairs up to the craft.

Later we find Capt. Quin was murdered.

Could Robby have known what was happening and he covered for Morbious?

The last scene of the movie showed them all happy happy with Robby learning how to fly the space ship like he is one of the buddies now that the Evil Morbious is dead. They should have put Robby on Space trail.

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[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] notorious918 10 years ago

Quite please, I am analyzing.

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[–] CovertThunder 9 years ago

The id monster (at least what I always thought) was that when it wasn't actively being a monster it was basically just energy flying around or something in a kind of "passive mode." To humans maybe this energy just felt like the wind or something, which is why the Cook shudders. Since Robby is a robot perhaps he could pick up this energy, which is why his head started looking around; he was trying to scan for something. However, Robby wasn't aware that this was the monster, and possibly even regarded it as a regular phenomena which is why he said "No, nothing is coming."

Keep in mind, there's hardly been any visitors to this planet yet Dr. Morbius' work with the Krell Machine has been going on for some time, so even if Robby wasn't really familiar with the monster he was aware of the energy which constituted the monster. However, since he kept picking up the energy, he probably assumed it was a natural part of the planet's ecosystem.

Can't be too careful with all those weirdos running around.

[–] notorious918 9 years ago

Very Good CovertThunder. I like your reply.

I do not want to believe that Robby was in on the murder. But I always wondered how Robby could detect the id monster when it was attacking the house. Remember when he said..."Morbiuos....Morbious.....something is approaching from the Southwest". But earlier while with cookie he denied that anything was coming.

Thanks This is trulley my fav. Sci Fic Flick...of all times!!!

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[–] arbilab 9 years ago

Um, Robby specifically said "nothing coming this way". And there wasn't.

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[–] notorious918 9 years ago

The very next scene we see the electric fence short out, then giant footprints in the sand, then weight crushing the stairs up to the craft.

this was going on exactly at the time that Robbie and Cookie were discussing the merits of Kentucky whiskey.;

[–] Harold_of_Whoa 9 years ago

Right. So I think what arbilab is saying is that, since Cookie and Robby are away from the ship, and since the invisible assault occurs at the perimeter, then by definition there is nothing coming the way of the bourbon aficionados.

"Morbius, something is approaching from the southwest. It is now quite close."

[–] notorious918 9 years ago

Hahahahaha...good one Harold. I love your style when you say "bourbon aficionados".

So I guess you don't see any conspiracy here on the part of so called Robby, if that IS his real name.

[–] Harold_of_Whoa 9 years ago

Lol. One thing I bet we can agree on is that Robby knows more than he lets on.

Seriously, I always really liked that little touch of Robby sensing something but not able to quantify it...or else unwilling to talk about it. It's a nice tension builder and the voice actor (sorry I don't remember his name) really nails all of the lines, but that one in particular. What a quantum leap over typical B-movie portrayals of robots and thinking machines!

And, it foreshadows my signature line.

"Morbius, something is approaching from the southwest. It is now quite close."

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

The actor voicing Robby was Marvin Miller, a heavyset character actor seen in many 50s films and on TV.

Originally I had misidentified the voice actor as Paul Frees, but poster arbilab below caught my mistake, so I'm correcting this post with thanks to him for the correction. (The only reason I can think I made such a mistake about something I knew better is that I had been watching a movie with Paul Frees and had him on my mind.)

To the thread topic, if Robby was complicit with the Id's attack, he wouldn't have said anything to the cook about it; after all, it was he, not Cookie, who detected the being. This scene also makes it clear that Robby doesn't seem to know what this "thing" is; he finally realizes it near the climax, after Adams tells Morbius it's his own inner self. Even though Morbius is at first in denial, Robby immediately understands the truth, which is why he can't destroy the Id and shuts down, since his programming prevents him from harming rational beings.

Of course, even if Robby had known this when the Id attacked the camp, he couldn't have done anything other than warned the men, because of that very programming.

[–] arbilab 9 years ago

Not like they're never wrong, but IMDB and Wiki list Marvin Miller as the voice of Robbie, using his regular stage voice as heard/seen in The Millionaire.

What reference says Paul Frees did it?

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[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

You're absolutely right, arbilab, that was my mistake. It was indeed Marvin Miller. I've edited my previous post to delete the Paul Frees stuff and make it Miller, and thanking you for catching my error.

As I said in my edit, I must have made such a dumb mistake because I had just watched a movie with Frees in it (Suddenly) and he was on my mind; I even pointed out some of his other work to my wife. In fact I did know Robby's voice was Marvin Miller, but that's one of the perils of not stopping to think. Thanks.

[–] arbilab 9 years ago

That's OK. I still get Paul Frees and Daws Butler mixed up. Which one was the voice of Quickdraw (Queekstraw) McGraw?

Edit: Made me look it up. Frees was a cartoon voice for MGM, and John and George in the Beatles cartoon. Notably, Boris Badenov. And speaking of Marvin Miller, Frees was the voice of his employer John Beresford Tipton.

Daws Butler was many of the Hanna-Barbera characters including Queekstraw.

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[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

That's right, we got both Frees and Miller on The Millionaire. Great show. But of course while Miller was the star, we only heard Paul Frees as JBT!