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
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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
Here's a treat for MLK day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdIUJEBjJko
DUTCHMAN (1967) by Leroi Jones, directed by Anthony Harvey, music by John Barry. Surrealist drama, originally a play- only 54 minutes long!
I commented on this once before- even though it was written by a racist lunatic, I thought it transcended race and tapped into something more universal- anger at repression, maybe anger at the cruel way women treat men. Shirley Knight is stunning and Al Freeman Jr.is outstanding as her "victim."
TV GUIDE, 1966-
OPEN END (Susskind)-
"Norman Mailer and playwright-author LeRoi Jones discuss the Negro in American society today. Jones opts for a separate Negro state, contending that negro and white men cannot live together; Mailer believes that the two races not only can, but must, live together." [So who was right? You know the answer!] LeRoi Jones later morphed into "Amiri Baraka."
I was unfamiliar with the director, so I looked him up- quite interesting- (his next effort was the prestigious LION IN WINTER, which I remember as being excellent)-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Harvey
I especially enjoyed this part, regarding an actor I was just talking about recently:
" [Elliott] Gould's behavior became bizarre and unpredictable (he was rumored to be using drugs heavily) [NO! REALLY???] , co-star Kim Darby reportedly became so afraid of Gould that she hired bodyguards to protect her from him, Gould repeatedly clashed with Harvey over his direction, and Gould later claimed that large sums of money were embezzled from the production and that he was threatened by armed men. As a result of the turmoil, when Gould failed to appear on set after an ultimatum from the studio, Warner Bros. shut the production down after just four days of shooting; Gould was then blacklisted by Hollywood, and his career languished for two years until he re-emerged in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye..."
-RM
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