Dr Heller (Walter Janssen) runs a company that has just taken up the
production of work robots for all purposes, especially mining. But the
head scientist of Heller's company, professor Wolf (Walter Franck), wants
more, he has created the ultimate war robot. Heller disapproves of this,
he wants to create robots for the good of mankind, not for destruction,
and orders Wolf to dismantle the war robot - but Wolf instead has his
robot kill Heller, and he manages to make the murder look like an
accident, too ... Baumann (Siegfried Schürenberg), foreman at a local
mine, has met Heller on an airplane, and was fascinated by the man's ideas
but also the humane spin Heller has given to things. So when he learns
Heller's robots are starting work at his mine, he is overjoyed ... until
he learns using robots means laying off the entire staff. He complains to
Heller's board of directors, since this have not been Heller's original
intentions, but to no avail ... Baumann has one ace up his sleeve,
though, only a short time ago and completely by chance he has made the
acquaintance of Heller's widow Vilma (Sybille Schmitz), and she has grown
quite fond of him - and she still owns her husband's shares in his
company. Of course the board of directors tries to buy her out, figuring
her to be a major stumbling block in the expansion of the company, which
is long controlled by professor Wolf of course. Baumann dissuades Vilma
from signing over her shares - and thus, eventually, Wolf takes her
hostage in his lab, and when Baumann comes to the rescue, Wolf releases
his war robot on both of them. But Baumann and Vilma somehow manage to
make an escape, the robot turns on his master due to a malfunction, and in
the finale, the whole factory blows up sky high. Ultimately, and with
Vilma's help, Baumann has taken control of the company, and he sees to it
that all the workers laid off due to Heller's robots will be beneficiaries
of the company's increased gains ... A film that certainly
features some interesting (political) ideas and some great (for their
time) robot-effects - and you can tell the directors fascination with
these things -, but somehow the storytelling comes off as a bit
heavy-handed (as is often the case with German movies from the early talky
era), suffers from a too slow pacing, and the extended happy ending after
the finale derives the finale of some of its effect. Still, a perfectly
interesting early science fiction film.
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