DVD review: 'The Colossus of New York'

An appealingly cheesy amalgam of Frankenstein conventions, alien invader mayhem, sci-fi philosophizing and B-movie resourcefulness, “The Colossus of New York” is a cultish, 1958 monster movie finally getting a freshly scrubbed DVD release.

Helmed by French art director Eugene Lourie (distinguished for his art design on Jean Renoir’s “Grand Illusion” and Charlie Chaplin’s “Limelight”), “Colossus” is a small-scale, cut-rate programmer notable for Lourie’s stark visual inventiveness; a haunting, minimalist piano score credited to “Van Cleave” (veteran studio orchestrator Nathan Van Cleve working under musicians’ strike restrictions) and sterling performances by future TV star Ross Martin (“Wild, Wild West”) and suave, journeyman character actor Otto Krueger (“High Noon”).

The movie was produced by William Allard, a former Orson Welles assistant and some-time ensemble actor, who was under contract from Paramount to turn out a bunch of low-budget, low-tech, black-and-white pictures to be included on double bills.

“The Colossus of New York” briefly features Ross as Dr. Jeremy Spensser, a brilliant scientist on the way to receive a Nobel Prize for a breakthrough in solving the world’s “hunger problem.” Tragically, he’s killed in a traffic accident, and his loopy, mad-with-grief father, Dr. William Spensser (Krueger), a renowned brain surgeon, manages to keep his son’s brain alive and transplant it into the lumbering, eight-foot-tall metal robot with an eerie, skeletal face.