The Forms of Things Unknown

At least there were no hokey monsters or silly-looking aliens stumbling around in this episode.

But the poor acting of Scott Marlowe and David McCallum, the overacting of a hysterical Barbara Rush, and a confusing script make this episode frustrating to watch.

The story is told in a sort of backwards chronology, as you find out important details later in the episode. But the opening scenes are a jumbled mess and the actions and reactions of Scott Marlowe's character make absolutely no sense.

The gothic, noir feel of the episode coupled with Sir Cedric Hardwicke's grave performance are almost enough to redeem it. Almost.

Two women stumble into the house of a quirky inventor, who claims to have a time machine, added complication is that they have a dead body in the boot of their car.

I purposely watched this episode twice, as after the first viewing, I couldn't really form much if an opinion, the second viewing definitely helped. I e now come to the opinion that it's a great episode.

I'd go so far as to say this is perhaps one of the best five episodes from the first series, it's very imaginative, it's well realised, and it features some of the most beautiful and creative cinematography that I've seen in any show from the 1960's.

I really liked the story, it's clever, it's pretty dark at its core, but it's delivered with true authenticity, the cast do a fine job.

Wonderful to see Vera Miles, she's very good here, and adds some real star quality to proceedings, they clearly went for a star to end the series on a high.

David McCallum steals the show for me, his previous episode is perhaps my favourite of the lot, he gets to appear in another classic.

Series one ended on a high note, on to series two.

9/10.

A bleak atmospheric episode on noirish style nestled in a rainy night on the dark woodland, it summed up about two women, the scary maiden Barbara Bush and a cold blood lady Vera Miles in dire straits after poisoned a menacing guy Scott Marlowe, when the body simply disappears from the car's trunk, they find out a mansion nearest, there were received by a blind old man Cedric Hardwicke and a young weird guy David McCallum who had built a time-device whereby transport the dead body of Marlowe back to life.

Actually McCallum had designed the device aiming for bring back the beloved ones that had gone afterlife, such device should be relief the hard mourning, instead now he brings back suffering on threatening mad guy Scott Marlowe over two afraid girls, on regret McCallum ought fix up his mistake trying be back the dangerous guy towards his time-device in order transport him to death again, nonetheless it proves useless, moreover the women are in upmost jeopardy again.

A sort of Shakespearian offering mainly by stronger presence of the legendary British actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the owner of the mansion, the highlight is up by a unusual moving camera and stunning photography, for those human eager of sexy, worthwhile a look on wet dressing Vera Miles's sculptural sexy body perfectly outlined, what breathtaking vision of the paradise (forgive me Gordon Scott by nasty comment, I can't resist), without forget the score music is the same that will appears as main song of THE INVADERS series later.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.

Vera Miles and Barbara Rush star as Kasha Paine and Leonora Edmond, two women at the mercy of a sadistic blackmailer named Andre(played by Scott Marlowe) who decide one day at a lake to poison him, which does kill him, and they put his body in the car trunk. Unfortunately, they later seek shelter at the home of an eccentric inventor named Tone Hobart(played by David McCallum) who has invented a means to tilt time, which has the effect of reversing Andre's death, bringing him back to life to torment them all. Will Hobart be able to put things right again? Cedric Hardwicke costars. Bizarre episode is a dud, with a preposterous and excessively contrived plot wallowing in mind-numbing tedium. Good cast can't save it.

And so, once again, I reach the end of the 1st season. I first saw this story when it was first-run --or perhaps on a rerun, if it was... either way, it was almost definitely during that 1st season when the show was on early Monday nights, just as the Tara King AVENGERS were years later. (Funny thing, my favorite "Tara" episode was THEY KEEP KILLING STEED, which blatantly swiped from THE HUNDRED DAYS OF THE DRAGON, which had aired in the same time slot on the same network years earlier.)

I never saw this again until I rented it in the early 90's. I've played the entire 1st season back twice now, so I've seen it 4 times now. I was completely shocked, surprised and blown away when I saw it the 2nd time, after so many years. WHAT THE F***??? Looking at the credits, I see this was the work of Joe Stefano and Gerd Oswald. But they'd done so many episode of OL, and none of them were quite like this!!

The story seems almost relatively simple... but not the way it's told. You feel like you're watching some kind of avant-garde European "art" film. All the weird camera-angles, the bizarre edits, the strange language, the intense expressions of people's faces. It's like some twisted, otherworldly version of Shakespeare... perhaps that's what they were after?

Barbara Rush is so beautiful, yet so tragic. Who'd believe she would later wind up in my vote for the absolute WORST episode of the Adam West BATMAN a few years later?? I found out she was a regular on PEYTON PLACE (as was Tippy Walker, who I fell for watching her early film). Made me wonder how things would have been if she'd been on DARK SHADOWS instead. Vera Miles, meanwhile, is reunited with Stefano (after PSYCHO, heh).

David McCallum is genuinely other-worldly in this. Perhaps, like Lugosi in Dracula, he really is "undead". His facial expressions make him seem something not quite human.

The house and its corridors reminds me of the 2 other "haunted house" stories OL had that year-- Stefano's own DON'T OPEN UNTIL DOOMSDAY and the very similar THE GUESTS (which, in the long run, I came to like much more). But this time out may be Stefano's unsung masterpiece.

Crime melodrama? Science-fiction? Art film? Poetry? All of the above? What a hell of a way for Stefano to depart the show. One can only wonder what might have been if he had stayed... if he hadn't pulled his own vanishing act, just as "Tone" did in the last scene.