Alpha The Robot 1934

This posting on Paleofuture features Alpha the Robot, a mechanical man built by a British scientist in 1932, and brought to the U.S. in 1934 as a demonstration display in Macy's Manhattan store.  I cannot help remarking that Alpha appeared only 5 years after Fritz Lang's film epic, Metropolis, which featured a seductive female robotrix.  Alpha had a ways to go to reach that level, although like the robotrix, he apparently did have a violent streak. 

According to the November 5, 1934 issue of Time:

Last week Alpha, the robot, made its first public appearance in the U. S. One of the most ingenious automatons ever contrived by man, a grim and gleaming monster 6 ft. 4 in. tall, the robot was brought to Manhattan by its owner-inventor-impresario, Professor Harry May of London, and installed on the fifth floor of R. H. Macy & Co.'s department store. Encased from head to foot in chromium-plated steel armor, Alpha sat on a specially constructed dais with its cumbrous feet securely bolted to the floor, stared impassively over the knot of newshawks and store officials waiting for the first demonstration. The creature had a great sullen slit of a mouth, vast protuberant eyes, shaggy curls of rolled metal. In one mailed fist Alpha clutched a revolver.