I'd be grateful if anyone here could help me out. I've been asked to identify a movie which very probably starred Robert Vaughn, in which he played the bad guy who turned out to be a robot.

I've been watching his movies since the days of Napoleon Solo, but this one must have passed me by. Thanks.

The only thing that popped into my head is THE LUCIFER COMPLEX (1978). That ends with Vaughn confronting his evil clone.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077877/

THE DEMON SEED (even though Vaughn isn't exactly in it)? Or, and I haven't seen this movie, THE MIND OF DR. SOAMES?

There's nothing like that in MIND OF MR. SOAMES- just human beings.

And a spikey ball.

Maybe it's not Robert Vaughn (which kinda opens up the field...). Unless, could it be a tv episode rather than a movie? He's done a tonne of tv work.

It ain't this, but in SUPERMAN III his sister (played by Annie Ross) gets turned into a cyborg. Hmm, Vaughn and robots, who knew?

There's a MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) connection. Vaughn was one of the original Seven in that film, along with Yul Brynner, who later dressed in his black western M7 outfit to play a lethal malfunctioning robot in WESTWORLD (1973).

Thanks to everyone who replied, or even thought about it.

Given that the collective brain of Mobius is unable to identify this movie - and I don't know anywhere smarter when it comes to this sort of thing - I will go back to my sister-in-law, and politely suggest that she has sent us on a wild goose chase.

Didn't Vaughn's character in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS want to be immortal by replacing his body parts with robotics or something? Or was that John Saxon's character?

That would be Saxon's character. And it was mostly with other peoples' body parts, using robotics as a last resort.

Well it turns out that William was right, even if the question was wrong - THE LUCIFER COMPLEX is our answer.

The original question-setter says thanks, it was indeed a clone not a robot, and "the other worrying thing is that I remember it as being a top film but the consensus is that it's a dog". I suspect that's a feeling most of us became used to many years ago.

Of course I was! Did you ever doubt me? Payment can be made through Paypal. :) Seriously, I'm glad your friend's dilema is now over (until he watches the movie again).

The problem now is that looking at the plot and cast, I need to see it more than he does so my DVD budget for this month is blown. Good job the exchange rate is on my side.

Anyway, I love this site. How many places can give you answers to questions you haven't even asked?

:D

I need some help of my own naming three movies. These shouldn't be too hard for you folks since I think they're pretty well-known, but I'm bad with names.

1. A silent movie, sci-fi/horror. I'm guessing 1924-7, American. It deals with an underwater expedition to the bottom of the sea. The creatures they encounter are inky, man-sized sperm-looking things that chase the protagonists. They're creepy-looking but not in it a whole lot. Runs about 75 minutes. It was on TCM years ago and I taped it to VHS but can't find the tape now.

2. All-black cast, circa 1935-45. Gorgeous pastel Technicolor, I'm guessing it was MGM. Retelling of Biblical stories, set in the South. I came into this halfway through and liked what I saw but I didn't see the beginning and forget the name.

3. Vaguest memory from early childhood afternoon TV. Horror anthology from the 70's, pretty sure American not British. Someone--a woman I think--gets a box with a ribbon around it, opens it up and there's a severed arm inside. It's not the movie The Severed Arm and it's definitely not a head or a heart in the box. No other memories.

My guesses:

1. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1929) - part silent, part sound. Based on the Verne novel.

2. Your description matches GREEN PASTURES (1936) from WB, but it was in b&w, never in Technicolor, unless you saw a Turner colorized version. (I don't recall Turner ever colorizing that particular title, but I could be wrong.) The earliest all-black cast film that was in color would be CARMEN JONES (1953).

3. I'll leave that to the horror buffs.

Believe the answer for #3 is Force of Evil, the pilot for Tales of the Unexpected.

From Joe Bob Briggs' "Find that Flick" column:

Thanks very much, Brian and Adam. It was definitely MYSTERIOUS ISLAND and GREEN PASTURES, though I don't know why I remember the latter as being in color. I trust Brian more than I trust my brain, though.

As for the third one, it definitely played on TV as TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED when I saw it as a kid. That title and the bit about the class ring come back to me now. Funniest thing about this is that the guy who wrote in to Joe Bob Briggs back in 2003 lives in a town 5 minutes from me!

That "Tales of the Unexpected" tv-film was once releasd on VHS by Worldvision Video. The video is under the "FORCE OF EVIL" title, but the film itself still opens with the "Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected" intro. I just watched that tape about two weeks ago and still didn't connect the dots between your description and what I just saw so recently. Your description was perfect, though, so I guess I should take a memory class!

By the way, it's a pretty good tv-thriller that made me interested in tracking down the rest of those episodes (as far as I know, none of the other ones were ever released on video). The "Force of Evil" episode does run a full 100 minutes and features Jan from "The Brady Bunch" as a sister to one of the lead characters. Speaking of Eve Plumb and tv-movies, I found a bargain-bin DVD of "Alexander - The Other Side of Dawn" a few weeks ago. The quality is atrocious and I strongly question if it's legit, but it was nice to finally see the film. I paid $2 for the DVD and it even has a bonus Charlie Sheen 'suicide' tv-move on it which was actually pretty good. If only we could get the first "Dawn" movie released!

Whaddya mean memory class was yesterday?! D'oh!!