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This movie used to scare the crap out of me when I was a little kid, mainly for the reason that a dead woman that is shown at the picture's opening looks EXACTLY like a neighbor that we had back in 1964. When you're 8 years old, that's enuff to frighten the bejeebers out of you. After seeing "Target Earth" the other day, for the first time in over 40 years, I must say that I no longer find it as scary as I once did. The film's opening, in the abandoned, nameless city, is well done, but that giant lumbering robot that used to be such a thriller as a kid, these days is just a laff riot. (The shot of the dead woman is still kinda freaky, although I honestly don't recall what my old neighbor looked like now!) Anyway, the picture is competently acted, the leads are likable, and at a mere 70 minutes, the film never outwears its welcome. It's good for fans of Grade B, 1950s sci-fi. You know who you are!

TARGET EARTH sounds like an epic sci-fi movie on paper: see! Earth attacked by an army of killer robots with death rays! Sadly, as is usually the case with these things, the real story is far more prosaic, and a dearth of money means that this is a typically cheap and plodding sci-fi pic with more in common with ROBOT MONSTER than WAR OF THE WORLDS.

Cult producer Herman Cohen delivers us a tale of a quartet of survivors trapped in a deserted city and at the mercy of a robot seemingly made out of cardboard boxes. A few scenes of military speak are interspersed with the main narrative, no doubt to pad out the running time a little. Whit Bissell plays in support.

Nothing much happens here. There are a few cheesy death scenes and attempts at suspense that will disappoint all but the smallest child. Needless to say there are few effects. I like 1950s B-movies but this really doesn't have much going for it, although Robert Roark is fun as the human villain of the piece, Richard Denning is the likable everyman hero, and Kathleen Crowley certainly fills out a form-fitting sweater. What more could you want?

This movie starts out in promising fashion. The first scene is nearly silent, with minimal use of a score, as the camera slowly pans across a woman lying in bed, a mirror, an open bottle of sleeping pills. The woman awakenings, her suicide unsuccessful. It could almost be the opening of a well-directed, stark 1950s melodrama.

Unfortunately, the best things about this movie are the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes (plus the fantastic poster art).

In between is a mishmash of C-grade romantic melodrama, crime melodrama, and military stock footage, blended with a few unimaginative scenes of a couple of government scientists working in a little low-budget brick room in a basement to find a way to defeat the enemy.

And of course the requisite sexism of the era. Our two main protagonists meet each other and bond over a man-on-woman slap, because, naturally, he perceives her as being hysterical. Fortunately, she apologizes, and they move on.

Regarding the latter, I don't blame this movie for being "a product of its time," but I nonetheless cannot understand why it has managed to stay in the consciousness of fans of 1950s American science fiction and Cold War pop culture. It is somewhat interesting as a post-apocalyptic Cold War melodrama, of which the movie Five is another example, and has obvious cultural relevance in that context. But there are so many other better, more interesting and entertaining examples. It might be worth one viewing for die-hard fans, but having seen it more than once now I can say it is certainly not worth repeated viewings.

A group of people wake up to find their city deserted due to an invasion of alien robots from Venus. While the military tries to figure out a way to fight back, these people hole themselves up in a hotel where they are safe. That is, until a psychopath shows up! After an impressive start, it drags some as they sit around the hotel room scared of the robots outside. The cast is decent, with stars like Richard Denning and Virginia Grey leading the way. Both were somewhat successful but should've been bigger than they were in their respective careers. Beautiful Kathleen Crowley and character actors Richard Reeves, Arthur Space, and Whit Bissell are also good. Robert Roark, however, is another story. According to the trivia section here on IMDb, he got this part because his father would only invest in the film if they cast him. I can believe that as he's the weakest part of the cast and seems to be imitating characters he saw in other movies.

The interactions between the group are pretty clichéd and cheesy but somehow I couldn't help but like them (except Roark) due to the charisma of the actors. It's kind of funny to watch Denning deduce the invaders are from Venus because of stuff he learned from reading his friend's sci-fi magazines in college. The inevitable romance between he and Crowley comes on super fast, with them falling for each other hard within hours of meeting. This is made all the more implausible when you see how much of a jerk he is to her in the first part of the film.

As others have pointed out, the special effects are limited. There's one rather silly-looking robot that they keep filming yet they tell us there's supposed to be a whole army. Look, '50s sci-fi was the best but sometimes its charm was in its goofiness. The robot here is pretty goofy. The actual invasion stuff takes place off-screen and stock footage is used a little too much. Still, despite its shortcomings, it's an entertaining movie.

In this low-budget '50's sci-fi movie, a young woman (Kathleen Crowley) awakens only to find herself being an apparently lone survivor of some event and everyone has disappeared, eventually she runs into a few more people. They find out that the place has been evacuated on account of an invasion of robots from another planet. The movie is fairly decent, until said robots (or in this case, robot, as thats all the budget allowed for) shows up, then it loses all sense of forward momentum that the film had going for it.

DVD Extras: Commentary by Producer Herman Cohen; 20-minute video tribute to Mr. Cohen; Biographies; Theatrical Trailer; and Trailers for "Horrors of the Black Museum" and "The Headless Ghost"

My Grade: C-

Acting: THE GOOD. Richard Reeves and Virginia Grey. Although they both started the movie completely intoxicated, they suddenly become sober at the sight of a dead body. But I found them to be the only two characters with any hint of personality in this movie. THE BAD: Everybody else. Kathleen Crowly runs through the vacant city with a smile on her face, isn't she supposed to be frightened? Richard Denning is just the opposite. His face is so straight throughout the whole movie, I was beginning to believe HE was a robot. And finally, Robert Roark...ugh!! What is that?? A Humphry Bogart impersonation?

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE GOOD: You'll only have to look at the robots a few times,the rest is left to our imaginations. THE BAD: Is that robot bow-legged? Well, I have seen worse in other B-movies.

CLASSIC LINES: FRANK: "Take it easy, I'm not going to hurt you!" Just before slapping Nora in the face. And, FRANK: "It's(Venus)covered by a heavy layer of clouds,that means plenty of water, oxygen, and hydrogen in it's atmosphere." VICKI: "Say, where did you learn all this?" FRANK: "College." Overall, this is your average 50's sci-fi with more focus on character studies than on the cheap looking robot. Which saves it from the Ed Wood level of movie making.

1954's "Target Earth" was an alien invasion ripoff of "The War of the Worlds," too impoverished to afford more than a single robot built, a screenplay credited to James H. Nicholson, who would soon parlay his experience with Realart Pictures to form a new company with attorney Samuel Z. Arkoff, American International Pictures, catering to the double feature crowd (also credited is "Robot Monster" author Wyott Ordung, director of Roger Corman's "Monster from the Ocean Floor"). Allied Artists definitely looked more like Monogram on this seven day wonder, despite a suitably eerie opening with Kathleen Crowley's unsuccessful suicide awakening to find the metropolis deserted, and no electrical power or utilities. She meets up with Richard Denning, then Virginia Grey and Richard Reeves (as a couple celebrating free drinks in a bar), the quartet unable to escape the city so they hold up in a nearby hotel. We see only a shadow of the robot (effectively making us believe it to be much larger than it is), the only suggestion that the invaders come from Venus due to its cloud cover and moisture in the air. The second half splits time between endless discussions between the four principals, and the military trying to discover how a disabled robot's cathode ray tube was shattered, since bullets have no effect. The picture starts off fairly strong but peters out all too quickly, only a few corpses shown lying in the streets, and the late arrival of a wanted killer hardly enough to break up the tedium (director Terence Fisher tried essentially the same story a decade later in "The Earth Dies Screaming," with similarly underwhelming results).

Since it was co-written by the man behind ROBOT MONSTER (1953), I really wasn't expecting anything from this one (whose SE DVD I bought dirt-cheap from VCI outright). However, the film proved worthy of some attention – though failing to keep up the initial momentum, despite a brief 75-minute duration.

The plot starts off with a typical 'Last Man On Earth' scenario (albeit restricted in this case to just one big American city, and the reason it's deserted is due to evacuation rather than decimation). Eventually, a handful of people (including a constantly squabbling couple) band together in a hotel; we gradually learn their individual reasons for being left behind – which would actually be replicated in the much later THE QUIET EARTH (1985) – and, amidst fighting one another (especially the bossiness of an armed criminal on the run), they heroically withstand the alien invasion (consisting of a single solitary robot!) which is threatening the planet. Ultimately, the military springs into action – scientist Whit Bissell having finally hit upon a particular sound wave which can 'kill' the clunky automaton(s), also able to shoot a deadly ray a' la Klaatu from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) – and rescues those still standing (obviously the hero and heroine).

The male lead is once again played by Richard Denning, whom I had just watched in THE BLACK SCORPION (1957): amusingly, as in that film, for all his ruggedness he's made up to be something of a dope as well, since Denning cluelessly purports to defend himself with a mere firearm (at the end, when he's told the alien was actually a robot, his character displays genuine amazement – duh!). In the end, though no classic, the film is extremely typical of its time and reasonably entertaining while it's on (with, as I said, the best moments coming at the very beginning via the eerie depiction of deserted city streets).

The extras are perhaps over-generous for such minor genre fare: that said, I haven't listened to its late producer Herman Cohen's Audio Commentary – while I was already familiar with the tribute featurette to him from its inclusion on VCI's own edition of HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959).

I'm probably one of the biggest admirers of 1950's Sci-Fi cinema that is still walking around today, and I've loved practically every single movie that fits into this category from the moment I laid eyes on it. There's just something unique about the mixture of the genre and the decade that has never again been equaled before or after the fifties. The almost standard atmosphere of paranoia and mass hysteria is mesmerizing, the long and intellectual scientific speeches/dialogs are dazzling and the black and white photography creates an unbearable tension. I'm personally convinced that milestones such as "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "War of the Worlds" and "This Island Earth" define and emphasize the essence of science fiction cinema. With "Target Earth" I was hoping to have come across another obscure gem to add to my long list of favorites, but unfortunately it became a bit of a disappointment. The opening sequences are still pure Sci-Fi gold, however. Heroine Nora King awakes in her disorderly apartment and, having narrowly survived an act of desperation, slowly realizes that she's left all alone in the giant metropolis of Chicago. The sight of the empty city streets and the disturbing sounds of silence raise the impression that "Target Earth" is a predecessor of apocalyptic masterpieces like "Last Man on Earth", "Night of the Living Dead" or "The Omega Man", and therefore the first twenty minutes of the film are sublime and absorbing. Nora then bumps into Frank Brooks, an equally confused lone ranger, and together they find out that the entire city has been evacuated while they were sleeping, apparently because they're under the attack of large robotic creatures from outer space. What follows – sadly enough – isn't an intense fight for survival against the alien opponents, but a tedious and dull portrait of a handful of people hiding in an abandoned hotel room and waiting, occasionally interfered with scenes of military men discussing their defense strategies. There are only two (!) notable robot moments throughout the entire film and the biggest menace actually comes from a human villain during the climax. That's just a wasted opportunity, regardless of how little budgetary means the cast and crew had available. Needless to say that "Target Earth" is overly talkative and overlong in spite of its barely 75 minutes running time. The robots look cheap and boorish, but still typically fifties and charming and I would have loved seeing them in action a bit more. They parade around the streets like they're on a sightseeing trip

When I first viewed this movie,I was 11 years of age. Needless to say I couldn't sleep for a couple of nights. The movie is vintage post-World War II paranoia that has reached cult classic status (see The Astounding B-Monster web site).

All right!! So it isn't hi-tech or academy award winning material, however, the premise is a good story.

So what! The robot looks like a Maytag washer-dryer combo gone mad. Give us a break!! Stop comparing yesterday's movies by today's computer F/X standards. Think (if you can) what it was like in the fifties with no internet, no laptops and no cell phones! And you couldn't trust those Russians! The fifties reached their peak with UFO's sightings and stories and that's what this movie is all about.

Enough said!. Turn the lights down low, make some popcorn and enjoy this movie with a friend, because that robot might just be looking over your shoulder.

8 out of 10.

Robots from outer space are now invading an unnamed American city, and most of the citizens have been evacuated. Some people were overlooked, such as an out of towner named Frank Brooks (handsome Richard Denning, who was a regular in B flicks like this one) and an unhappy young woman named Nora King (Kathleen Crowley). Frank & Nora meet up with a couple named Jim & Vicki (Richard Reeves & Virginia Grey), and together they try to figure out their plan of action. Meanwhile, the film eventually starts cutting back and forth between our main characters and a group of military men and scientists who attempt to find a weakness in the robots.

"Target Earth" has an interesting pedigree. Directed by Sherman A. Rose, it was based on a story by Paul W. Fairman called "Deadly City". A.I.P. head honcho James H. Nicholson and Wyott Ordung of "Robot Monster" infamy get credit for "original screenplay", while a man named William Raynor gets final screenplay credit. It shows its low budget at every turn, although the filmmakers do well at establishing the initial mystery, when none of us know what the situation is. The picture was shot on Sunday mornings in L.A. when the streets were more likely to be deserted. Actually, considering the budgetary limitations, this is fairly compelling in its depiction of various characters under crisis situations. It only gets cheesy when we see a robot invader clunking around. (Only one costume was made, so you only ever see one robot invader at a time.). Then it becomes quite funny.

The acting is capable from our four main cast members. Robert Roark, however, is merely adequate as a mad-dog killer who is needlessly inserted into the story to add some drama. Roark only got the role because his father was a doctor / investor who insisted that his son be cast as a major character, yet he was able to parlay this opportunity into a fairly decent career. Denning is a welcome presence as always, Crowley has some appeal, and Reeves & Grey are amusing as a couple who playfully snipe at each other all the time, no matter their circumstances. The supporting cast consists of other familiar faces like Arthur Space as a general and Whit Bissell (nice to see this guy in anything) as a scientist.

It would have been nice if the filmmakers could have opened up the scope of their action a bit. As it is, though, this is a decent, fairly intimate story, albeit one with a rather low-key finish. Fortunately, everybody involved plays it straight, with none of the winking at the audience that we began to see more and more of as the decades wore on.

Six out of 10.

Having too much time on my hands, I often reimagine old science fiction movies from the 1950s that could have been done far more effectively given a larger budget. The premise of Target Earth is interesting and does play on the emotions of isolation and paranoia. The thought of killer robots from another planet is pretty cool and at least if you are kid watching, it's the stuff of modern nightmares. Of course, this "army" of robots is never seen. They could only afford one robot. Not a bad design as 1950s robots goes (It was no Robby the Robot for sure). This brings me to my main thesis. What if Ray Harryhausen could have designed and animated an army of alien killer robots? Given the special photographic techniques used in the The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Earth vs. The Flying saucers, I believe Target Earth could have been a classic sci-fi movie of its kind, and not this tedious version of "Waiting for Godot".

Although dated, this science fiction thriller asks the question, "Is it possible for outer space aliens to invade our earth?" The script was well written and the acting was just as good. Richard Denning and Kathleen Crowley have been seen in other top notch "B" 50'S sci-fi and horror films. But this is one of the best.

The plot line is so simply you'll swear you've seen it before...

People wake up to find that their city has been evacuated and is under siege by alien robot thingees (of which we never actually see more than one on screen at any given time.) While survivors try to keep one step ahead of the monsters, the Army is bravely trying to figure out how to defeat them.

Can't say the movie was all that great. It was clearly done on a budget, with characters talking about what was going on rather than showing us things going on. (Something a modern film would never do.)

The acting was fairly decent, but the threat just wasn't all that impressive.

The story opens on a scene from the air zeroing in on L. A. and slowing down to silently show an unconscious woman (Kathleen Crowley); beside her is a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills.

The story is of a hand full of people who wake up to find the city is empty of humankind, that is live humankind, they must piece together the missing parts to the puzzle they must learn to cooperate with each other and huddle together.

Soon they will realize that they are at ground zero on "Target Earth."

The film has all the feel and dialog of an old twilight zone episode, However, the actors of frontline majors. Virginia Grey was in over 140 movies and programs including Un soltero en el paraíso (1961). Richard Denning was in El monstruo de la laguna negra (1954).

The whole movie was made on a shoestring budget, so they only had one robot (Steve Calvert the head bartender at Cerro's nightclub) that they tinkered together in a garage. The car (Oldsmobile convertible) with the dead uh...err... battery belonged to the producer (Herman Cohen.) And they used a buddy in the police forces to stop the traffic for the empty street shots. All shot in seven days, mostly in the deserted L. A. streets on a Sunday morning.

One of the most horrifying parts of this movie was that they were forced to drink warm beer.

This film starts extremely well as its cast gradually assembles on the deserted streets of Los Angeles (filmed on Sunday mornings) standing in for Chicago and at first resembles Lippert's 'The Earth Dies Screaming' (1964), made ten years later in Britain.

Unfortunately, in the case of 'Target Earth' it's when the robot first appears (Chicago is supposed to be full of them roaming the streets, but we only ever see the one) that things go rapidly downhill as they spend most of the rest of the film indoors cowering from 'them' (the robots in 'The Earth Dies Screaming' were much scarier, and they had two of them).

Considering that director Sherman Rose had several years as an editor behind (and ahead of) him, 'Target Earth' is surprisingly slackly paced, with very few close ups, and doesn't employ even a modicum of creative cutting back and forth to suggest that there is indeed more than one invader.

Hero Richard Denning curiously persists right until the end in thinking that 'they' are some sort of human life form rather than robots - or at least wearing spacesuits - which renders somewhat redundant his theory that 'they' come from Venus, since "as far as I know it's the only planet that might be capable of supporting human (sic) life. It's covered by a heavy layer of clouds, that means plenty of water, oxygen and hydrogen in its atmosphere." (Actually we now know that Venus has a constantly churning atmosphere composed mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, has a surface temperature of 872 °F and air pressure of 9.3 MPa, roughly equivalent to the pressure found at a depth on Earth of 3,000 ft underwater.)

It's always good to see Virginia Grey and Whit Bissell, although Grey is largely wasted until she shows that she's the one with the cajones at the end; and the cutaways to Bissell, Arthur Space and other military top brass - like his role in 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' - seem like an afterthought that doesn't really mesh with the main narrative.

This one begins in a fashion which no doubt influenced Day of the Triffids and the subsequent 28 Days Later, with a character waking up to find the city deserted except for dead bodies and finally a small group of survivors. What could be responsible? Alien robots from Venus, that's what! This one has a quite decent group of characters to propel the drama but its best asset in my opinion were the robots (or more precisely the ONE robot). It is a truly hilarious dime store wonder, like Maximillian from The Black Hole made by kids for a school project. And I, for one, loved it! But if you would prefer a second opinion then you could refer to the American magazine 'TV Guide' who proclaimed that "the robots are just plain disappointing."

All in all it's a fairly original idea that remains quite tense for about 30 minutes. Sadly wardrobe, monster design and bad acting let the last half down.

I saw the last hour of this movie on TV when I was about eight years old and the robot walking along the deserted city street was an image that has stayed in my brain for 40 years. I had dreams about that robot periodically throughout my life. I never learned the name of the movie until recently and, of course, was disappointed when I viewed it again. As an adult I can appreciate the character studies but I wanted to see an army of robots. There was only one and it had little screen time. It seems to me now that it would have been easy enough with some different placements of the single robot and clever editing to make it appear that as if there were many of them.

Anyway, that said, the robot was pretty original looking. I've seen many robot movies of that time period, and this one didn't look like any of those. It's little to recommend this film, but old science fiction buffs shouldn't miss this one. It shows how much can be made of so little.

The beginning of this movie could have been a Twilight Zone episode. The dialogue is similar to what you hear in War of the Worlds; you might say it's a typical post-WW2 outer-space movie. There's not much violence, but the suspense from "What's going on here?" to "Run for your life!" as the robot gains on the hapless couple makes good early-50's sci-fi the way it should be.

Crackerjack opening: awakening from a deep, self-induced slumber, Nora King discovers a strange new world. Imagine, for a moment, you wake-up, after an evening of popping pills, to find that everyone has vanished. You are left alone in a quiet, empty metropolis. You search the city streets and edifices for signs of life. You find nothing. And fear begins to creep into your thoughts. Target Earth, a b-movie pioneer from the 50's, begins in such a manner. It's a powerful beginning. After about ten minutes of screen time, Miss King meets a business man, Frank, from Detroit. A few stops later they hear music and stumble across a married couple, bickering and boozing it up at a high class joint. A nervous fellow soon joins the quartet--but is dispatched quickly by one of the army (never seen) of robots from Venus. Of course this makes very little scientific sense on any reasonable level. But we are along for the ride, anyway. I enjoyed the performances by the four main characters. I also felt Robert Roark's "killer" was quite good and smart. Towards the end we get a burst of ice cold violence. Not unexpected. The one mechanical man we do see is properly menacing despite the crack in his view plate. I wish the final had been filmed on the roof of a real building, instead of an indoor set. And a few more shots of the robot vaporizing some soldiers would have been appreciated.