New Release: The Colossus of New York DVD

The Colossus of New York movie scene

Tall, dark, handsome...and mechanical!: The Colossus of New York finally comes to DVD.

The Colossus of New York, the 1958 sci-fi thriller classic that can rightfully takes its place in the pantheon of such great killer robot movies as The Terminator, RoboCop and Demon Seed, finally arrived on DVD on Aug. 16, 2011, courtesy of Olive Films. It carries a list price of $24.95.

Written by Thelma Schnee (TV’s Science Fiction Theatre) from Willis Goldbeck’s story, the intriguing film turns on the accidental death of a brilliant scientist (Ross Martin), a tragedy that prompts his lunatic father (Otto Kruger) and brother (John Baragrey) to transplant the dead man’s brain onto the body of a giant robot. The operation is successful, but the Colossus Robot mourns for his wife and child and doesn’t want to be the guinea pig in his father’s psychotic project and starts displaying homicidal behaviors.

Incidentally, the movie’s director, Eugene Lourie, had one helluva career leading up to Colossus, most notably as art director on Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight (1952) and Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937) and Rules of the Game (1939). As a director, Lourie also helmed such genre favorites as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Gorgo (1961)

No bonus features are on the DVD, but the film was newly mastered in high-definition from a 35mm archive print.

Check out the vintage trailer:

 

Buy or Rent The Colossus of New York
Amazon graphic
DVD
DVD Empire graphic Movies Unlimited graphicDVD Netflix graphic

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.