By RM
sunday, january 18, 2026 at 12:27:00 a.m. est
Now there's a "classic" movie [Diabolique] I just don't like-saw it long ago, and again more recently, and had the same reaction. It was certainly influential, though, imitated a lot- and Joe Stefano did a takeoff on it for The Outer Limits, "The Forms of Things Unknown," originally shot as a pilot for a new series called "The Unknown"- psychological horror instead of sci-fi.
The restored version, which I assume TCM is showing, features an oddity-the subtitles include adolescent boys using the "f" word, which I doubt was in the original- even though European films were more lenient than American films regarding language and nudity, I'm pretty sure that would NOT have been allowed in the 50s! That happens from time to time with new editions of older foreign films, and it's really annoying and jarring-I saw a samurai epic once where one character says to another, "You effin' retard!" NOT authentic 17th-century patois!
-RM
"The Forms of Things Unknown"
https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/series/6076588ef96a44001a1d47db/season/1/episode/609317e5c14fe70013bab023?utm_medium=textsearch&utm_source=google
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The original pilot film has a different ending, in which David McCallum's "time-tilting" device exists only in his imagination, hence the "science fiction" angle is removed. I like the broadcast version better! The pilot is available on blu-ray, but I have yet to find it posted anywhere online.
Conrad Hall's cinematography, Dom Frontiere's music, and the performances in this episode (including one of the last by Sir Cedric Hardwicke) are really amazing.
-RM
Post a Comment