The Tempest two other silent versions, one from 1911 by Edwin Thanhouser, are known to have existed, but have been lost. The plot was adapted for the Western "Yellow Sky", directed by William A. Wellman, in 1946. The 1956 science fiction film "Forbidden Planet" set the story on a planet in space, Altair IV, instead of an island. Professor Morbius and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) are the Prospero and Miranda figures (both Prospero and Morbius having harnessed the mighty forces that inhabit their new homes). Ariel is represented by the helpful Robby the Robot, while Sycorax is replaced with the powerful
Robby the Robot original construction. It featured a highly simplified and rather old-fashioned cylindrical "oil can" robot head with stylised 'eyes' (that were illuminated and movable) and a circular 'mouth'; this was enclosed under the distinctively-shaped conical plexiglass dome, but this head's front grille also did not have the blue neon tubes and lacked the rotating external 'ear' pieces seen in "Forbidden Planet". It is not known whether this internal "oil-can'" head was original, but its rather rudimentary design and appearance is clearly not of same exacting MGM standards that are evident in all other "Forbidden Planet" props, and suggests it may have