Cyborg 2087 (1966)

While the seventies might have represented the Golden Age of US TV movies, the latter part of the sixties saw the rise of their precursors, hybrid low budget movies designed primarily to be released direct to TV but which, nonetheless, often enjoyed theatrical releases prior to their TV debuts.  American International, of course, had a whole division - AIP-TV- devoted to making such movies, although they tended to specialise in putting together packages of specially made low budget films and re-dubbed and re-edited foreign films, for TV stations.  Most notably, they had self-styled 'King of Schlock' Larry Buchanan film a series of ultra low budget films, mostly remakes of existing AIP properties, for direct release to TV.  Another company specifically formed to exploit this new market was United Pictures Corporation which, between 1966 and 1970, turned out nine low budget films in various genres intended for direct-to-TV distribution, although, in the event, all had theatrical releases.  Probably the best known of these was Dimension Five (1966), a spy thriller with science fiction elements and starring Jeffrey Hunter.  I remember back in the seventies that it used to regularly turn up on the BBC.  While this was more of straightforward Bond knock off, the film which preceded it in United Pictures Corporation's production schedule, Cyborg 2087 (1966), was a somewhat more ambitious, in plot terms, full on science fiction picture.  Thanks to the marvels of a certain online video site, I was finally able to catch the film the other day, (while I recall it also having British TV showings in the seventies, I never managed to see it then, as it was always on too late, after which it just seemed to vanish).  

Cyborg 2087 is essentially a time paradox story, with a cyborg (played by Michael Rennie) being sent back in time from the repressive society of 2087, to 1966, where he is to try and prevent a scientist from making public his latest research which will pave the way for the mind control technology used in the dystopiain future.  He is followed back in time by two other cyborgs programmed to try and stop him.  Eventually, the good cyborg is able to defeat the evil cyborgs and persuade the scientist to accompany him back to the future to see the kind of society that will result from his work.  Upon his return to 1966, the scientist decides to repress his work, thereby ensuring that the future he saw will never come about, meaning that the cyborg never existed and nobody who helped him has any memory of him, or the events that unfolded during the film.  (Paradoxically meaning that he couldn't have come back i time in the first place to create this new timeline as he never existed in it).  While the plot is surprisingly well thought out for a low budget film, (you can't help but suspect that James Cameron must have seen it on TV as a kid, influencing his similarly themed Terminator films), its realisation on screen is, well, threadbare, to say the least.  The production values are on a par with poverty row productions of twenty years earlier, with flatly lit, generic and featureless interior sets and obvious back lots used for the exteriors.  In this latter respect, it is lucky that the scientist has his lab in a small desert city which easily be represented by some over-familiar town sets.  Moreover, much of the action takes place in a nearby ghost town - a familiar looking western town set - as a further cost-cutting measure.

The direction by Franklin Adreon is curiously lifeless for a man who had served his apprenticeship working on all action Republic's serials.  The pace is far too slow to generate any real excitement, although there are a couple of decent fight scenes involving the evil cyborgs, (both played by veteran Republic stuntmen).  The lack of action was, perhaps, dictated by star Michael Rennie, (doubtless cast to evoke memories of his performance as Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)), being, by then, in his mid-fifties.  Indeed, Rennie seems less than animated in his role, in part due to the nature of the character he plays - cyborgs, apparently, are programmed to repress their emotions - but also partly due to the fact that he simply looks uninterested in the part and is just going through the emotions.  In the event, a lot of the action is carried by Warren Stevens, (of Forbidden Planet (1956) fame), playing a doctor who helps the cyborg, who gives a somewhat more animated performance.  All of that said, Cyborg 2087 remains an interesting film - Arthur C Pierce's script is extraordinary ambitious for such a low budget production, which, of course, is its downfall.  The repressive future is barely glimpsed - just an interior set right at the beginning - so the script has to resort to Rennie describing it to 1966 characters in a series of talky scenes which just slow the film down.  (Script writer Pierce was involved in a large number of these low budget productions in a variety of capacities, not just for United Pictures, but also for other independent producers, turning director for Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1965) for Realart).  Cyborg 2087 is another of those films where you are left wondering  how much better it might have been if just a bit more money had been lavished on its production. well, in a way I suppose we do know - it would have been Terminator.