Who’s an android and who’s not!?

It’s hard to keep track in The Human Duplicators.  Dr. Kolos (Richard Kiel) is an alien who is sent down to Earth.  He thinks that he’s not an android but how can he be sure?  He goes to the laboratory of Dr. Vaughan Dornheimer (George Macready) and tells Donheimer that they will be working together to create androids that are perfect duplicates for humans and that Kolos will be the “master.”  But then an android is built of Dornheimer himself and android Dornhiemer declares that he is the master.  Kolos is distracted because he’s fallen in love with Dornhiemer’s daughter, a blind pianist named Lisa (Dolores Faith).

Glenn Martin (George Nader) of the National Intelligence Agency is assigned to figure out what is happening at the Dornhiemer mansion and, wouldn’t you know it, there’s already an android version of Glenn.  Glenn’s girlfriend is played the brassy Barbara Nichols, a comedic actress who was briefly groomed to be the next Marilyn Monroe and who comes on like the star of a burlesque show.  Glenn’s boss is Austin Wells and he’s played by Hugh Beaumont, which makes this film feel like a weird episode of Leave It To Beaver where Wally has to save the world.  I don’t think the bad guys ever duplicate Hugh Beaumont and that’s good because real trouble could be created by an evil version of Ward Cleaver.

The presence of Richard Kiel and Hugh Beaumont is really the only thing that The Human Duplicators have going for it.  There are plenty of fights between Glenn and the androids but it turns out that the androids are easy to beat into oblivion so there’s not much suspense or excitement to be found.  At times, it feels as if it’s trying to be an episode of The Avengers just without the wit of Patrick Macnee or the charm of Diana Rigg.  The Human Duplicators seems to take itself very seriously and I’m not sure why.

After The Human Duplicators, Richard Kiel later went on to play Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.  Hugh Beaumont retired from the movies.