The Forms of Things Unknown (4 May 1964)

Two female friends poison a sadistic blackmailer, then while fleeing happen upon an isolated house containing a time machine. Kasha his lover, & Leonora the daughter of the blackmail target... See full summary »

Director:

Gerd Oswald

Writer:

Joseph Stefano

Stars:

Vera Miles, Cedric Hardwicke, Scott Marlowe

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Vera Miles	...	Kasha Paine
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Colus (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Scott Marlowe	...	Andre
David McCallum	...	Tone Hobart
Barbara Rush	...	Leonora Edmond

Storyline

Two female friends poison a sadistic blackmailer, then while fleeing happen upon an isolated house containing a time machine. Kasha his lover, & Leonora the daughter of the blackmail target, fight to bury him before the idealistic inventor Tone is able to re-animate the murdered man, by tilting him back into the past.

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 May 1964 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Daystar Productions, Villa Di Stefano, United Artists Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

51 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The title comes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act V, Scene i, "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, /Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; /And, as imagination bodies forth /The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen /Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing /A local habitation and a name."

User Reviews

Film Noir Masterpiece

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.