Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot
Considered one of the best science-fiction films of the 1950s, Forbidden Planet essentially transposes Shakespeare's The Tempest into a futuristic era of space travel with Anne Francis (shown) as the Miranda figure and Robby as a (relatively lead-footed) Ariel substitute. Robby looks after his human charges (think Sarah in the TV series Eureka) with such benign diligence that he ranks as perhaps the most appealing movie robot of the pre-Star Wars era.
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Republished with permission from PC World (view original version)
