Scene III

Time to meet the film's antagonist, Dr. Morbius...or is it? The answer is, sort of!

Fade to The Residence. The artists rendition looks like a more a flying saucer than C-57D. The verdant growth around the property, compared to the barren landscape, implies ultra-high water bills. I hope the realtor disclosed that in the brochure. One doesn’t like to get nasty surprises. Also there’s a pool that looks about twice the size of the house.

Our heroes arrive at The Residence. In front of it is a statue which appears to be the skeletal remains of a large sea bass, perhaps one of Altair IV’s long departed fauna. The creature bears a surprised look, as if it had been excavated and plonked there just to make a point. Behind it, in the entrance, lurks a shadowy figure - arms folded in a stance reminiscent of a teacher waiting for three unruly students to return to class. Adams, the Doctor and Jerry disembark and stand a respectful distance from the fish-corpse, which looks like it could stink out a Morbius pool party from fifty feet. Morbius announces himself. Not Edward Morbius or Dr. Morbius, just Morbius: doctor of philology and, prima facie, our villain. 

Adams introduces himself as Commander Adams. So he’s not a Captain yet, perhaps there’s a hint of inexperience? Jerry is introduced and finally we learn the good Doctor’s name: Ostrow (which sounds like ‘Astro’). 

We see Morbius clearly as he moves into the sunlight.  He’s a character so Shakespearean that it’s a wonder he’s not sporting a cape and cod piece. His manicured beard is worthy of Doctor Faustus, or perhaps Shylock - since we’re unable to spot a better antagonist. He’s bemused as to why an “army” has come to his planet. For a linguist he’s proving radically extravagant with his language. Robby must surely have filled him in on the woeful security detail from Scene II. Perhaps this is a philological joke?

Adams gets the hump straight away and resorts to the time trusted military excuse for anything, he’s just following orders. Morbius backs down. Round 1 to Adams. The trio accept Morbius’ lunch invitation and, as they move to enter the house, we’re treated to a fine shot of the fish - now shown to be a piece of modern art. Not one of the three gives it a second (or first for that matter) glance. Yet it’s stunningly positioned at the house’s entrance. An ideal ice breaker. Surely in real life the meeting would have gone like this:

MORBIUS: Gentlemen, welcome to my humble abode.

ADAMS: Thank you Doctor. I was just admiring your…fish?

OSTROW: As was I, Doctor Morbius. 

Ostrow points at the fish.

OSTROW: Is it an artifact?

MORBIUS: It’s a piece of art I created. JERRY (mutters): Don’t give up the day job.

Lunch is synthetic which, considering the monstrous bowl of fruit and veg on the table can only be considered a high insult on Altair IV. Or perhaps C-57D arrived on Synthetic Sunday, sadly missing Taco Tuesday or Fillet O’Art Sea Bass Friday. 

We’re treated to some ‘business’ (in the theatrical sense of incidental stuff and nonsense to get to the point). Household disintegrators, chemical laboratories, claims of house toppling abilities. All to get to a fundamental principal which will be crucial to the later plot. Morbius gives Adams’ blaster to Robby and asks him to point it at an innocent tree on the terrace. Bah! Right next to the target is another of Morbius’ artistic flounderings. I’ll bet Robby’s been waiting years to get a legitimate opportunity to blast one of the damn things. But no, a tree has to die instead. Once arboreal murder has been committed, it’s on to the main event. Adams gets lined up for an experiment in Altairian roulette. Notice that Morbius doesn’t offer himself up, which would have defeated the plotting point. Nielsen’s expression is so serious that you wonder how he ended up in comedy. Actually you can see why, he doesn’t have a chin cleft. Cary Grant had one, so did Kirk Douglas. But Leslie Nielsen? Not even a small divot; he’s not leading actor material. From there, it was surely a hop, skip and jump to the life of a comedic actor. 

Of course Robby can’t kill Adams, he has a mechanical stoke instead. The art team does a nice job of sprucing up his meltdown, and the SFX crew toss in some short circuitry for good measure. If you didn’t get the point, Robbie’s impotent when it comes to harming humans. Shrubbery, yes; people, no. Asimov’s three laws of Robotics are alive and well. Too well in fact, because Asimov’s laws of robotics prevent harm to a human being, but Morbius programmed Robby not to harm “rational beings”. Uh oh, a loophole! 

Ostrow asks Morbius where he got Robby from. Was there a sale at Walmart? Not at all, Morbius cleaned up at a Radio Shack closing down sale and “tinkered” Robby together. Adams - his tact circuits still probably blown by having a blaster pointed between his eyes - reminds Morbius he’s only an Arts major, so how did he accomplish something that the combined power of all Earth’s boffins couldn’t produce? Morbius, perhaps realizing that he’s blown his cover, tries backtracking. They’ve overestimated Morbius (possibly) and Robby (impossibly). C’mon Morbius, you can’t big up Robbie’s skills then downgrade him to a smart fridge. Either he’s rockin’ or he’s not. To deflect the conversation, Morbius wows the trio with a magic trick. 

Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.

Down come the steel shutters, exhibiting home security that housebeings in the 21^st century can only dream of.  That’ll keep the heroin addicts out. 

In movies there’s the concept of the inciting event. This is the point in the film that the protagonist’s life changes from normal to not-normal. It’s the start of the real story, triggering the rise of the main plot’s story arc. Sometimes it comes right at the start, at other times it’s a slow boil. In rare events we find the exercise happens after the ‘ah ha’ moment near the end (think The Usual Suspects, or The Sixth Sense). We’ve not had an inciting event yet and, in fact, it’s not easy to pin one down in Forbidden Planet. Yet here we see a contender. Morbius laments the loss of the Bellerophon crew - excepting himself and his wife - to a mysterious planetary force. Torn limb from limb they were, apart from the last three who were vaporized in the ship as they tried to take off. Adams switches to Sherlock Holmes mode and inquires if Morbius has seen the perp? Only in his nightmares Morbius replies. But he has the feeling that it’s around somewhere, ready to commit murder. 

If I could wave my magic film wand, I’d cut this last part. Bellerophon crew torn limb from limb, yes. Ship vaporized on takeoff, absolutely. Wife dead of natural causes shortly thereafter, right. But this tell, this plot spoiler - why, why, why? The only reason I can think of is to titillate bored audience members into putting bums back on seats (or taking hands out of bras/pants). There’s going to be a gore-fest at some stage, we promise. Also there’s the specter of murder, which implies method, motive and opportunity. I’d argue that a planetary force ripping people limb from limb isn’t murder at all, no more than is a tornado or tsunami causing fatal destruction. It’s death by natural causes, or perhaps death by unnatural causes in this case. But murder? Who murdered whom, and why?

Such ponderings are broken by the entrance of Morbius’ daughter, Altaira. Played by Anne Francis, then twenty-six years old. She’s not a classic beauty, perhaps why she didn’t make A-list. But here she brings a homely, otherworld charm to the film. The trio react as if Athena has stepped onto the set. Jerry (who’d screw one of Morbius’ fish sculptures if he could get away with it) springs into action, immediately fancying himself up to the challenge. Altaira plays dumber than she looks and gives him the brush off. Morbius ponders what to do with the firecracker he’s harboring. Ostrow diagnoses a serious case of single fatherhood. Clearly sending her to a girls’ finishing school back on Ye Olde Homeworld is the best treatment. 

Jerry starts to diss the competition by naming Ostrow as only trustable in the daytime, and Adams as having the death penalty in seven star systems…oops, wrong movie. Sorry it’s being “notorious throughout seven planetary systems.” [Wars Alert: close enough to not be a coincidence?]

Alta (as Morbius calls her) summons her ‘friends’, and we’re treated to the worst art of the film. My father, no stranger to the cunning ways of theatrical staging, will recognize that mainstay of the thespian world: a back cloth. They don’t even try to hide it. As deer are gracefully prodded on screen by some off-stage handler, their shadows even run up it. Urgh it’s so fake, but the pool does look nice. Wait…WTF is this? Now we see where the art budget went for this scene, on a frickin’ tiger! Where’s Joe Exotic? I imagine that MGM protected Francis with the same sort of ‘invisible’ barrier that Harrison Ford was given for the cobra scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. However it tickles me to imagine that studio executives just let her face the beast down, on the basis that - if mauled death on set - her character had only just been introduced. They could roll in a replacement and do a quick re-shoot with some mid-West unknown beauty. Well perhaps they’d re-patch the fake grass to remove the blood spots first. As they stand next to each other, Francis and the tiger, you see some haziness in the tiger’s body. It turns translucent in the rear and phases in and out;  here’s a definite edit line as it moves away. So I’m voting for technical chicanery and give it B-, with the comment ‘nice try’.

Chief Quinn takes a ticket at the Alta deli counter by wolf whistling at her from Adams-cam. Morbius, with males fawning all over his daughter, looks down - ever the embarrassed father. Adams announces he has to phone home for further orders and Morbius, clearly wanting to be rid of the pesky Earthmen, offers Robby’s assistance. Our trio depart with the fatherly Robby reminding them to fasten their seatbelts. We leave Scene III with Alta bearing a smirk one can only describe as lecherous. Someone on C-57D is in for trouble. Many someones in fact.