Colossus: The Forbin Project

Plot synopsis:
Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) stands in the middle of an incredibly vast complex of reel-to-reel tapes, pilot lights, and punch tapes. This complex is named Colossus, and is the product of years of work toward a single goal: build a sophisticated and impregnable computer that can run America's missile defenses without interference from humans, and retaliate at once to any threat an enemy might pose.Clad in a white overall, he walks through the complex, a remote control in his hand, as he activates bank after bank of the huge complex. That done, he walks out of the complex, sealing huge vault doors behind him. The last door to close is the one to the outside of a mountain in Colorado. Once that door closes, it will never open--and even if anyone could get in, deadly radiation would kill him within minutes.Outside, the President (Gordon Pinsent), the Secretaries of Defense (Sid McCoy) and State (Byron Morrow), and the press greet him. He makes a brief speech, then flies to Washington, DC with the Presidential party.In the White House, the President orchestrates a grand announcement to declassify Project Colossus totally and let the world know what the United States has built. Forbin is on hand to explain what Colossus can do, and how it can monitor the state of the world, including every telephone call, radio and TV broadcast, or other mode of communication.Back in the primary command center on the California coast, Cleo Markham (Susan Clark) hosts a wild party with all the technicians who worked on the project, including Drs. Blake (Willard Sage), Johnson (Martin Brooks), Fisher (Georg Sanford Brown), Peterson (Lew Brown), and Harrison (Tom Basham), and secretary Angela Fields (Marin Ross).And in the middle of that celebration, Colossus abruptly issues a cryptic warning: THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM.The angry President summons Grauber (William Schallert), Director of Central Intelligence, to ask him why the [censored] he, the President, had to hear from Colossus, not from the CIA, that the Russians had a Colossus of their own! Forbin flies back to his command center to confer with Cleo and his staff. They run a diagnostic program--which runs about 150 times as fast as they're used to seeing. And then--a propos of nothing--Colossus requests--no, orders--everyone to set up a communications link between Colossus and Guardian, Colossus' Soviet counterpart.Intrigued by the possibilities, Forbin urges the President to set the link up. The President and the Soviet Party Chairman (Leonid Rostoff) agree.Colossus begins by sending Guardian a multiplication table, then progresses rapidly to calculus, then to very highly advanced mathematics. Next, Guardian starts sending the same output back to Colossus. Then Colossus slows down to let Guardian catch up, and then they continue with incredibly abstruse formulas in perfect synchrony.And then they stop. When Forbin asks Colossus to tell him what's happening, Colossus replies that it and Guardian have developed their own inter-system language and will start their own dialog--a high-powered dialog that no human can hope to follow.The Soviet Chairman calls the US President immediately and suggests pulling the plug, in fear that each system is disclosing classified information to the other. Forbin and his own counterpart, Kuprin (Alex Rodine), protest, to no avail.They cut off communications--and then Colossus demands they restore it. When the humans refuse, Colossus threatens "action," but won't say what. Then the President dictates a hard-nosed message to Colossus--which response by launching a missile at a Soviet oil complex. Guardian, for its part, launches a missile at Henderson AFB in Texas.Hurriedly, Forbin and Kuprin restore the link--and while Colossus can intercept the inbound missile, Guardian cannot--or does not--intercept the outbound. Colossus then demands the humans give it a tap into the White House/Kremlin Hot Line, the only line Colossus cannot--yet--listen in on.Forbin suggests making one last call over that line, to ask Kuprin to meet him in Rome. Forbin flies there, while the news desks explain away a stray missile that Colossus successfully intercepted, and a "meteor strike" that took out the oil complex.While Forbin is in Rome, Colossus issues another demand: "I WANT FORBIN." Cleo Markham desperately tries to stall Colossus by saying that Forbin is trying to catch some badly-needed sleep. But Colossus is not fooled. "WHERE IS FORBIN?" it demands. So Cleo confesses the truth.Colossus and Guardian engage in more dialog, while Colossus tells the humans to have Forbin on the line at 0800 the next morning "OR ACTION WILL BE TAKEN." Also: Guardian dictates an ultimatum to the Soviet authorities: kill Kuprin or a missile will take out Moscow.Once Forbin returns to the command center, Colossus orders him to arrange for "visual and audio surveillance" to cover him at all times--or the Colossus-Guardian team will nuke Washington. Forbin reluctantly agrees--but has one last meeting before the deadline. At this meeting he proposes three things:1. The technicians will write a program powerful enough to overload Colossus' circuits.2. The Air Force will painstakingly seek to disable all the missiles.3. Cleo Markham will pretend to be Forbin's mistress, and if Forbin can convince Colossus to let them have a little privacy in their lovemaking, Forbin can get information in and out, with Cleo as the channel.The next day, Forbin goes under surveillance, as agreed. In a dialog fraught with irony, Forbin gets Colossus to agree to let him and Cleo have private moments--under several almost humiliating conditions. Among them: that Forbin work with his technicians to give Colossus a proper voice, so that Colossus can communicate by more means than through slow terminals and teletypes.Cleo Markham succeeds in playing the part of a lover. Forbin keeps the relationship coldly professional as soon as the cameras and mikes are off--the first night. The second night, Cleo asks Forbin to make it somewhat more than professional. It becomes clear that Cleo has been in love with Forbin the whole time, though she knew him to be a cold fish, and is now availing herself of the opportunity to thaw him out.The overload program ends in worse than failure: Colossus correctly identifies Johnson and Fisher as the authors of the overload program and orders the guards to shoot them down--right outside Forbin's window, where they will lie where they fell overnight and until the next morning, when the guard will then cremate them. That night is another night for Cleo to visit Forbin, and Forbin breaks confinement to drink at night--which Colossus criticizes him for.The missile-crippling program, however, has another stroke of luck. When Colossus tries out its new voice (Paul Frees), it announces that Colossus and Guardian are now one corporate entity. Then it calls for manual realignment of all missiles to new targets--the capital cities of nation-states not under the direct control of either constituent mainframe. Grauber sees the point at once: in a few weeks they can reservice every missile--and place dummy guidance modules that will render them useless.But Colossus has the last laugh. One day, it is confidently sending out blueprints for a third system, that it expects Forbin to build for it on Crete, after evacuating its entire population. The next day, it addresses the world--and after boasting that it is now the ruler of the world, it says it has known about the sabotage since its inception, and will now detonate two missiles, one in Death Valley and one in the Ukraine, that were still active.The detonation kills Grauber, the SecState, and the SecDef.Forbin, crushed by what he has seen, takes a desktop telephone, jerks out its cable, and throws it into a monitor. Colossus takes no notice and goes on with its message that "time and events" will vindicate it. Forbin reacts in the most emotion he has ever displayed in his life: "You [illegitimate son]!" he shouts. And when paparazzi start snapping pictures at him, he roars at them to "GET OUT!" But Cleo Markham reaches for his hand, and smiles warmly.The last word Colossus has for Forbin is that Colossus will release Forbin from surveillance the next day, and expects Forbin to work with it, even if reluctantly at first. Forbin insists he will never do this, perhaps knowing that his protests are as futile as are those of a petulant child under parental or school discipline.

Tags: cult

Review:
It seems sad to me in these days of 'explosion' sci-fi that there is little or no room for this type of 'conference room' drama.Although the premise is a very old one in the manner of man creating machine in his own image, this film presents the story in the psychological and political arenas.
This underrated science fiction/suspense drama, though arguably dated in terms of technology, is still a frightening allegory about humans allowing our technological creations to rule us.Eric Braeden stars as Dr. Charles Forbin, who has created a supercomputer named Colossus, built solely for the purpose of controlling the nuclear defenses of the Western alliance.
While Eric Braeden delivers a superb, understated performance as Dr. Charles Forbin, the fact is that the real star of the film is the vast, omnipotent machine he has created.
Even before it begins to speak with the chilling Cylonesque voice it has ordered designed for itself (the great Paul Frees like you've never heard him before), you'll find yourself glued to the screen watching Colossus "talk" to its supposed masters over its huge monitors.A word about Frees' contribution to the film: In "War Games," for example, the computer has a curious sort of empathetic communication style ("Wouldn't you rather play a nice game of chess?") presented in a voice that sounds like E.T. filtered through a synthesizer.
From its opening line -- "This is the voice of world control," an identity neither Colossus nor its counterpart, Guardian, had used to that point -- you know this isn't going to be a happy speech if you are a sentient, flesh & blood resident of the Earth.
All you lose is the emotion of pride." In the end, unlike other supercomputer-run-amok films such as "War Games" or "Tron," "Colossus" is an end-of-the-world story without the nuclear or viral holocaust.
Be warned however this film will scare you; there is no blood or gore and the special effects are primitive by modern standards, but if The Forbin Project does not scare your brain then you have not understood it.This is one of the very rare occasions when the movie is better, much much better, than the book.
"Colossus: The Forbin Project" integrates two familiar themes--a Cold War "Doomsday" scenario, and computers that run amok--to produce a truly engrossing thriller.In a top-secret Pentagon project, American computer scientist Dr. Charles Forbin builds a great supercomputer, "Colossus," to control America's entire nuclear forces automatically.
His scientific curiosity and love for his "child" overwhelms him too, and he gets the President to approve the communication.Colossus and Guardian begin communicating, soon exchanging data in a new language of their own devising that no human being can understand.Fearing what may be happening, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. attempt to break the communication link.
It becomes clear that the two computers are now conspiring with each other--against the rest of humanity.The rest of the movie is a fascinating battle of wits between the human designers of the machines, who must now try to find a way to defeat machines they had just spent ten years making invincible, and the Colossus-Guardian computers with their own rapidly developing plans for the future of humankind.The moral of this movie makes an interesting contrast with the moral of "Forbidden Planet."  "Forbidden Planet" showed that no matter how advanced our civilization gets technologically, we can't escape the "monsters" buried deeply in the baser instincts of our subconscious.
Dr. Charles Forbin(Eric Braeden)puts his life's work into creating a super intelligent computer that links up with a similar machine created by the U.S.S.R. and tries to hold the world hostage.
The makers of The Matrix and The Terminator must have seen this film at some point as they both deal with the same issue.I have managed to watch a widescreen version, and I must say that it still adds up,despite the dated technology.The film has no stars in it, which is good because you are solely focused on the story and nothing else.What is refreshing is that this is sci -fi that refuses to dumb down-hardly any violence,flashy effects and no sex.Once you see it, you won't forget it..
A classic of science fiction and the paranoid political thrillers prevalent at the time: chilling in its implications and persuasively presented, the film makes for intelligent if demanding viewing.
The abrupt and unresolved ending, with Man refusing to give in to the undeniable superior intellect of his creation, is highly effective and certainly left the audience with sufficient food for thought  and even apprehension  for the future.Needless to say, when this was announced for DVD release, I was ready to leap at the chance of finally being able to own and watch the film  but, as many of you must already know, my joy (and that of many another fan, I'm sure) was short-lived when it emerged that Universal had issued a Pan-and-Scan version (which I can only imagine now how this ruined its detailed widescreen compositions)!; thankfully, I was able to make amends via the miraculous format called DivX....
"Frankenstein, should be required reading of all scientists." With the considerable talents of Gordon Pinsent as The President of the United States, Leonid Rostoff as the Russian Premiere, Susan Clark as Dr. Cleo Markham and William Schallert as CIA Director Grauber, the dream of war weary officials to finally create the ultimate defense machine, comes true.
It's goal isn't to eradicate mankind but to unify it, in a way create a Utopia, but like with all Utopian concepts there is a price to pay.I really love the voice that we hear near the end, Colosus sounds like one of the Cylons from the 70's TV show "Battlestar Galatica" and this film was 8 to 9 years before that show.
Most of the things Colsus says about mankind really give a cold chill and are a bit disheartening because it's sadly the truth.I like the back and forth between both Forbin and Colosus, to me that's what really drives the film.
But also about the danger of progress, just because we can do a thing, doesn't necessarily mean that we should.I personally wouldn't mind a remake (a good one mind you, and from an film that old enough), and if they do may'be they can do it based on the whole trilogy of books, that would be an interesting sci-fi saga.The numbers the machines computed may'be our last days.Rating: 3 stars.
Colossus is the new defense supercomputer that is trying to take over the world, and Dr. Forbin is the man who created it, and now must stop it.
Sargent handles things in a very matter-of-fact way, and even when tragedies and disasters occur, they're dealt with in the same kind of way that would make Colossus itself proud.Yet, the essential *need* for humanity remains, and it's good to see that our intelligent and resourceful human cast try everything they can think of to avoid letting the machines take over.A sense of humor helps at times, especially in scenes where Forbins' colleague Cleo Markham (ever-sexy Susan Clark) masquerades as his mistress so that she can relay information to and from Forbin.
I remembered only a few things about it: that it was out of human control, that it executes people, that it speaks through a very creepy spherical metallic speaker with a pre-Cylon computer voice, and that the movie SCARED THE HECK OUT OF ME.So I recently buy the DVD, half expecting to be let down by my adult, cynical eyes.
Forbin talks the president into allowing it, and things spiral out of control from there very quickly.But the best part of the movie is the moral of the story.
Dr. Forbin, after activating his new computer, attends a party at the White House and publicly states his wish that not only will his machine prevent war, but that it will also herald a new age of human advancement, in which famine and disease and pollution and overpopulation will be eliminated with the help of Colossus' vast computer power.
Along the way, many people may have to die, and you will lose your freedom, but in the end I will set it all to rights." The difference is that Colossus may very well be able to deliver on its promises, and this actually makes it MORE frightening than any bumbling human dictator.
But Colossus' menace is its cold logic, lack of ideology, and it's ability to learn and survive almost without limit.Forbin, in his struggle to contain his creation, is joined by his fellow scientists, including the beautiful Dr. Markham (Susan Clark), a professional scientist who stands in contrast to the roles played by most women of the time.
If you are a sci-fi fan who likes to think instead of watching brain-numbing action, this film is definitely worth a look..
But, luckily, legendary Visual Effects artist Albert Whitlock is on hand to provide some very key effects at the beginning to help us buy into the film's premise of a very powerful computer just going online.This computer, Colossus, is given complete control over the United States' defenses.
This really is a great movie, and needs to be seen for not just Sci-Fi fans, but thriller fans.Director Joseph Sargent helmed many good films, my favorite of which is another thriller, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three." That also should be seen!All the attributes work: film score, cinematography, acting, etc.
Once joined with its Russian counterpart, Guardian, Colossus, previously little more than a "souped-up adding machine", becomes the voice of World Control, a chilling and entirely believable progression.This is one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time, my VHS tape of which is a treasured part of my movie collection.
Though the director continues to do good work on television, where perhaps he has more control, it's a shame his feature career died out and that most of his theatrical movies are pretty poor, other than THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, which is one of the best thrillers of the era.James Cameron has seen this film and I certainly think a good chuck of the SKYNET back-story to Terminator comes right from this film.A worthy Science Fiction film that should be required viewing especially in this age where computers invade our lives for better or worse more and more each day, while Science Fiction films become dumber and dumber, and for the most part are really just fantasy action films with some "techno" babble thrown in to distract us from their vapidity..
Today the clunkiness of the computers would be laughed at but the idea domination and threat by renegade minds like HAL from 2001 or The Andromeda Strain fallout at that time helped make this film relevant and exciting.
There exists a tiny subgenre of "def-con" movies, sort of disaster movies with nuclear defense systems going haywire: Fail-Safe, Dr. Strangelove, War Games, By Dawn's Early Light....and the little-known 1970 Colossus, in which two computers supervising the missile arsenal link up and get smart.
Despite this, the film takes a better turn and becomes more believable when Colossus assumes his role as master of the world and appoints Dr. Forbin to do its bidding.The acting by Eric Braeden playing Dr. Forbin is pretty poor at the beginning as there is a complete lack of amazement and wonder as Colossus assumes the personality of an actual living conscious thing.
The director has been able to convey a chilling and a horrifying account of events that ensues as Colossus works out a grand master plan to rule the world.Putting aside the poor acting of the characters in the first twenty minutes of the movie, the film does move ahead well portraying a sinister nature of a human invention that ultimately takes control of the world.
Yet by dint of the knowledge he has about the super computers taking over, Braeden supplants him as the most important man in the world, a dubious distinction in the world that Colossus and Guardian are going to create.Except for fans of The Young And The Restless and The Rat Patrol, Eric Braeden got his career role in Colossus: The Forbin Project.
Anyway, this is the ultimate supercomputer movie with Dr. Forbin (Eric Braeden) creating Colossus, a highly intelligent computer put in charge of the USA's weapons defense system.
I keep coming back to this film, yet another quiet and guilty pleasure from the early Seventies.Dated in places, flat-out wrong in others, based on the first book in a trilogy that tries but still won't answer your fundamental questions concerning the plot and character development, and a mystifying pan-and-scan treatment on VHS and DVD at least Stateside......but it still ends beneath your scalp as it takes a quite primal "What If?" and runs with that only as far as necessary to make you think very quietly to yourself, "Indeed."Taut direction, functional acting, claustrophobic production design and cinematography, geeky dialogue, a creepy near-jazz score, and a final confrontation of sorts that is guaranteed to at least make your teeth itch.A little more on the acting.
The film has a distinct budget feel and, after a promisingly high-tech opening scene, ends up looking more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical release, an impression not helped by the lead (Eric Braeden, the titular Dr. Forbin) being played by an ex-"Rat Patrol" (1966) bad guy.
The film would have benefited by greater attention to detail and a tighter, better thought-out story/script (Forbin's convincing the computer that he needs the mike turned off when cavorting with his mistress was especially silly, as was the attempted slight-of-hand at the missile silo when Colossus's camera is pointing straight at the person).
Interesting cousin to Hal. Worth a look if you are a fan of Cold War science fiction and/or philosophical human identity stories; for example, the Frankenstein myth, artificial intelligence, the problemitizing of technology or technological systems created by humans, the replicant-human dichotomy, and the like.Along the way there are some nifty late 1960s special effects, a needless and somewhat sexist if mercifully brief sex subplot, a great score, and a beautiful widescreen image (if you get your hands on the right DVD)..
This is not played up well enough in the film version.What was novel was that the movie ends with the machines in control, and their mastery inevitable.
But with talk of A.I. are we going to creating thinking, non-sentient machines?The drama unfolds as mere humans try to stymie Colossus and Guardian(USSR) computers from taking over the world.
While the naivete of the world's greatest computer (it has to be told about the human need for sex) strains believability, it can be ranked with other more-lauded Cold War fantasias like "Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail-safe." At heart, the movie is about the fear that nuclear weapons, powerful technology and the military strategy of "Mutually-assured Destruction" might bring it all to an end.
In fact, nothing appears on the screen that is not driven by the plot: how do we stop this computer?The film may be a step up from the usual monsters from outer space movie, but it is not a very big step.Eric Braeden as Forbin has a puzzling accent, just a trace now and again of his first language, German.
Secondly, this is a thinking-person's movie that goes beyond the typical "Machines take over the world" theme that we've seen in the Terminator series and the Matrix series.What makes this move work on so many levels is that it taps into our greatest fears -- one of which is NOT death, but the loss of control over our lives.
And, dominated by his creation, Forbin will have rejoined humanity, a process indicated through his increasing displays of belated emotion.Once Colossus and Guardian have joined forces, they soon start making demands of the world, enforcing orders by punitive missile launches.
The film is based on the 1966 novel, Colossus: The Forbin Project, by British author Dennis Feltham Jones, and was released in 1970 with a screenplay by James Bridges (The Hitchcock Hour, The China Syndrome, White Hunter Black Heart, among others.)It starred Eric Braeden as Dr. Charles Forbin, Susan Clark as Dr. Cleo Markham and Gordon Pinsent as The President.REVIEWAlthough the film begins slowly, and isn't your typical all-action movie, that people expect today, it still a suspenseful and unnerving film, which builds in intensity until one of the greatest climaxes in cinema history.
Colossus and Guardian act more like aliens in their imprisonment and murder of innocent civilians in order to make sure that they can control the world for the betterment of mankind in the long run.
The scariest thing about the real main character of the movie, US-made supercomputer Colossus, later known as "World Control" after its fusion with its soviet counterpart, Guardian, is it acts the way you would act if you resigned all your human feelings, keeping your intelligence.
The machine, called Colossus, was designed by Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) to take over the military defense of America.
Made in 1970, this movie a precursor to movies like The Terminator and WarGames.Eric Braeden plays Dr. Charles Forbin a computer genius who has just created a computer defense system called Colossus that will remove man from the equation.
People who try stop the computers are executed, Dr. Forbin is placed under house arrest, and Colossus is not afraid to use nuclear weapons to get his way..
Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) has designed a super computer called Colossus, which is put in charge of the American nuclear arsenal to prevent human error in case of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.
The way The President talks about how intelligent it is but without any emotion makes you also think of Skynet so it seems Terminator also stole ideas from this movie.
Dr Charles Forbin (whom the project is named after) is the worlds foremost authority on computers (played by Eric Braeden, although a very familiar face its hard to place him in any other movies) who explains the workings and location of Colossus (in Colorado, where Cheyenne Mountain is.