On 3 November 2023 I watched a b/w science fiction comedy movie from the 1950s entitled The Twonky, which was delightfully daft and is nowadays totally obscure – more's the pity, because it was quite delightful in its weirdly wonderful way.
Directed, written, and co-produced by Arch Oboler, and released by United Artists in 1953 after a 2-year delay in securing a distributor (it had been completed in 1951), The Twonky is loosely based upon an original 1942 story of the same title but much darker in tone, penned by American sci fi/fantasy writers Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, collaborating under their joint pseudonym Lewis Padgett (click here to read it online).
The central character in this movie is a somewhat stuffy college philosophy lecturer named Prof. Kerry West, played hilariously and hysterically (in every sense!) by Hans Conried in his first big-screen lead role. Conried had hitherto been best-known to me as the despotic piano teacher/dictator Dr Terwilliker in that surreal Dr Seuss-created fantasy musical The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (released the same year as The Twonky, and which I've fully reviewed here).
The movie opens with West receiving as a gift from his wife Carolyn (Janet Warren, in her final film) a television set (as opposed to a radio console in the original story) to keep his mind occupied at home while she is away tending a sick relative – which it certainly does, but not in the way that she intended, that's for sure!
For unbeknownst to either of them, the television set is actually a robot from the future masquerading as a TV, and once installed in the professor's house it begins taking over his life in an increasingly controlling, militant manner, driving the thoroughly unnerved professor to despair, and to drink!
West's friend, Coach Trout (Billy Lynn, who had passed away prior to this movie's belated release)), the college's American football coach, is sometimes quite fanciful in nature and outlook (especially after a glass or three of his potent home-brewed wine!), but even he is initially disinclined to believe West's incredible tale of televisual persecution – until he sees, and hears, the professor's mechanised foe from the future in action, plodding loudly after them of its own accord, by virtue of its four tall slender support legs, yet not even plugged into a power socket!
Thoroughly bewildered, Coach Trout calls it a twonky – the name that he gave as a child to anything that he couldn't understand – and he enthusiastically combines forces with West to try to defeat it, with hilarious and inevitably unsuccessful results.
This is due in no small way to the twonky being able to carry out a very efficient form of mind control, wiping their memories (and also those of various other unfortunates who unwisely attempt to meddle with it), so that they have no recollection of ever having attempted to nullify it, nor any desire now to do so, though thankfully these befuddling effects are only temporary.
Eventually, however, when all seems lost and when even West's returning wife is drawn into his and Trout's ongoing nightmare with the pseudo-TV set from Hell, in a swift and most unexpected manner the twonky finally meets its long-deserved come-uppance – or does it?
Very much a B-movie (with such basic SFX that nowadays they are actually a quaint joy to watch), albeit one that satirised the diabolical havoc that the film industry back then had expected TV would inflict upon it via direct competition, The Twonky only received a minimal cinema release (just three cinemas in the whole of the USA screened it). Nevertheless, it is greatly enhanced by Conried's expert comic performance, ably supplemented by Lynn's, as well as a fine and feisty turn from Gloria Blondell (sister of Joan) as an exceedingly tenacious debt chaser who humorously – and glamorously – adds to West's already sizeable collection of woes.
A potential cult classic, The Twonky definitely deserves to be recalled from the far-distant backwaters of cinematic history – which is why I am reviewing it here, in the hope that I may bring this on-screen oddity to a wider audience, especially as it can currently be viewed free of charge on YouTube.
Speaking of which: if you'd like to watch The Twonky in its original b/w format on YouTube, please click here – or here if you'd like to watch on YT a recently-produced colorized version of it.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment