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Creepy Classics Spotlight Movie Last Weekend - KRONOS (1957) Every week, readers here are selecting a movie to view...then we all try to watch it together utilizing our DVD/video library. This past Saturday night, many of us watched KRONOS (1957). This was suggested by Paul Speidel, Winnipeg, Canada. Details about movie nights to come are HERE. Please include your name and location after your comments, so we can see how we're all joining together from diffeent locals around the globe! Let's all Synch-Up Saturday nights at 7:30PM, or catch it sometime over the weekend!
Hey Synchers! Welcome to the commentary on my second life time viewing of this Sci Fi flick, KRONOS. I remember seeing the first time many moons ago on a Saturday afternoon, found it interesting. Looking forward to this new look. The theme and credits are cool, simple and dramatic. Next week, Equinox! - Ken, San Luis Mexico
Hi all, Kronos has to be one of my favorite monster-run-amok movies of the 50's. It has a great cast of sci-fi veterans, including Jeff Morrow as the brave scientist Dr. Leslie Gaskell (a promotion from being "chief cook and bottle washer in a one-man bird watching society", I guess!), John Emery, having apparently returned safely from Mars in Rocketship XM as the possessed head of "Lab Central" (THAT must be a cool place to work....I'd love to see their business cards), and the always great Morris Ankrum as psychologist Dr. Albert Stern. -the possessed John Emery (Dr. Eliot) sitting at his desk telepathically commanding Kronos to attack...Navarez electro....NAVAREZ ELECTRO!! GREAT flashlight work there! In a movie like this the romance tends to be superficially explored, and it's no different here. Barbara Lawrence as Vera was an eyeful as Morrow's long-siffering girlfriend, and sidekick George O'Hanlon as Dr. Arnold Culver provided some OK comic relief with his compuer "girlfriend" SUZIE. By the way, if you closed your eyes when listening to Arnold you had another piece of interesting casting. George was eventually the voice of George Jetson (hey, didn't John Emery look a little bit like Mr. Spacely?) Paul Speidel
A great 50's sci-fi film starring Jeff Morrow as a scientist who is trying to stop a huge mechanical monster that is rapidly sucking the earth dry of all energy. Barbara Lawrence also stars as Morrow's love interest and assistant. Sometime the effects of the monster is more like a cartoon, but it never distracts the viewer. - Kevin Coon
Hi Ron, “I can’t get over the awful feeling that this is the calm and that the storm is going to break out at any minute.” Steven Thornton
Hey everybody. Hey Ron, hope you had a good vacation, I was listening to the Valley 1620 while I writing this when the song Classical Gas came on. Brought me back to happier times. See you. Bob Swaney
Hi Everybody, Just Watched "Kronos" this SUNDAY afternoon for the FIRST time ever RIGHT before I sent in my review here to CREEPY CLASSICS! (I taped it off of the old AMC when Nick Clooney was the host of all of these old flicks!- I believe he took over for Bob Dorian when he left!) ANYWAY here are my points of interest concerning this very interesting and offbeat sci-fi flick: 2) Love the SPFX of the energy accumulator (the alien robot) in this film. Writer Irving Block, who created the design of Kronos and came up with it`s name as well really did a nice job of creating a scary, original and interesting alien menace from beyond the stars (not the usual "monster" type of menace seen in most other 1950`s sci-fi flicks) --I also love the scenes of destruction when Kronos attacks the nucleur power plant.WELL DONE! There are also a few neat shots of the inside of the alien machine AND the SPFX at the end of the film (when Kronos is destroying itself) are to be highly commended! 3)It`s too bad that this picture did not have a bigger budget! (Can you imagine what they could have done with the story then?! (Especially with the effects?!) 4) Director Kurt Neumann, who directed Kronos, also did "Rocketship XM" (1950) "The Fly" (1958) and "She Devil" (1957) 5) Great climax and ending here! Ingenious way of having a menace be destroyed without using the usual methods (guns, tanks, bombs, etc.) My bottom line: I enjoyed this interesting film, though I did find that it dragged in spots (poor pacing) Some of the elements of the story were introduced and then not totally explained.
The special effects in general, were well-done. The acting/cast was pretty good and the music and direction were par for the course. My Rating: 3/5 stars. Dan Brenneis-Strongsville, Ohio- Monster Bash Staff Member And Lifetime FilmFan Extroadinairre.
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I've always liked the twist that, instead of a giant insect or a dinosaur, the rampaging monster was a giant battery (ok, an energy collector)! It was a simple design, but I thought it worked really well, especially in what must have been a fairly limited budget. Sure, the scenes where Kronos is moving is clearly upon animated cartoon legs, but overall I thought it looked pretty impressive. 
-the scenes with John Emery in the care of Morris Ankrum. Two great movie vets chewing the scenery! Emery was especially effective looking; first tortured, then possessed! 
That’s one helluva computer room. Susie is almost like a king-sized version of Robbie the Robot.
Its amazing but the first time I saw this movie as a kid in the sixties, it wasn't on a program such as Chiller Theater but on ABC's Sunday Night Movie. My how times have change. OK lets get this plot straight. This giant robot box (Kronos) that looks like a walking refrigerator comes down to Earth and starts sucking up all the energy it can find and the only thing we have to fight it are three fighter planes left over from the Second World War pilot by someone who looks like your grandfather. Oh, I also forgot about the bomber with the H-bomb that gets suck into the box making it stronger. Now at this point everybody has given up, but thank goodness for the guys at Lab Central (I think I took my blood work there) and their computer S.U.S.I.E.who come up with some untested and untried scientific theory to destroy the giant box. I have seen this movie several times and still can't figure out what they are talking about. By the way one of the Lab Central guys have been taken over by one of the aliens who controls the box, yet he some hows manage to fight it off (he kills himself) and helps our hero's out. So while the box stands there, looking over the city of Los Angeles, they try this theory out destroying the box in a giant atomic blast. Somehow the city of Los Angeles remains untouched and then they go to the movies. Yeah right. 
1) acting-wise, Jeff Morrow really carries this movie quite well (he plays the hero, Dr. Leslie Gaskell) Of course, I have never seen him in a movie where he did not do an admirable job! Barbara Lawrence, John Emery and the ever dependable Morris Ankrum provide nice supporting parts as well. 
