His huge crowd-pleaser act was when he would act like a mechanical man, clicking and popping back at the dawn of the 70s. Yes, this is the Robert Shields who invented what break dancers call The Robot. While working a Sid and Marty Krofft Special (!), he meets his future partner and wife, Lorene Yarnell. She uses her extensive dance background to become a mechanical lady and street mine with him, together becoming the team Shields and Yarnell. They ride a comet into Vegas and then onto television with a cavalcade of appearances until landing as a regular act on The Mac Davis Show. The film follows the perils of their success as things got better and worse at the same time. We then follow Shields’ adventures in Sedona as he turns to painting and sculpting. Meanwhile, generations of hip-hop dancers like Chadd Smith and Poppin John studied Shields’ work and built a movement of his movements. You find out when reviewing for Film Threat that there is no high higher than when you realize you are watching a ten. Happens earlier on, as the film just keeps hitting all the marks and then some. Some films can’t keep the greatness up and stumble. Others start great and end well enough. But those rare films that keep getting greater than the sum of all the parts, those are those fabled tens that are so sweet. In the case of Robert Shields: My Life As A Robot, ten is not a high enough number.
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