"The Unknown" (1964)

A Villa di Stefano Production
In Association With Daystar Productions
United Artists Television
For ABC TV Network
 
Production Credits:
Series Creator: Joseph Stefano
Producer: Joseph Stefano
Writer: Joseph Stefano
Director: Gerd Oswald
Executive Producer: Leslie Stevens
Associate Producer and Story Consultant: Louis Morheim
Optical Effects Unit: M. B. Paul
Composer: Dominic Frontiere (Production Executive)
Production Coordinator: Elaine Michea
Production Manager: Robert H. Justman
Casting Consultant: Meryl Abeles
Assistant to the Producer: Tom Selden
Director of Photography: Conrad Hall
Title Designer: Wayne Fitzgerald (uncredited)
Art Director: Jack Poplin
Supervising Film Editor: Richard K. Brockway
Film Editor: Tony Di Marco
Music Associate: Edward B. Powell
Camera Operator: William Fraker
Sound Effects Editor: Arthur J. Cornall
Special Effects: Harry Redmond, Jr.
Makeup Supervision: Fred B. Phillips
Set Decorations: Chester Bayhi
Properties: Richard M. Rubin
Sound Mixer: Jay Ashworth
Assistant Director: Claude Binyon, Jr.
Music Supervisor: John Elizalde
Music Coordinator: Roger Farris
Costumers: Forrest T. Butler and Sabine Manela
Script Supervisor: Hope McLachlin
Chief Set Electrician: Lloyd L. Garnell
Key Grip: Henry Maak
Transportation Chief: David Lesser
 
Cast of Characters:
Vera Miles as Kassia Paine
Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Colas
Scott Marlowe as André Pavan
David McCallum as Tone Hobart
Barbara Rush as Leonora Edmond
 
Opening Narration:
 
"There is a fear that is unlike all other fears. It has a special, clammy chill, a deadly gift for inspiring deeper, darker dread. It is the fear of unentered rooms, of bends in lonely roads. It is the fear of the phone call in the middle of the night, of the stranger you recognize, perhaps from a nightmare. It is the fear of the unexpected, the unfamiliar. It is the fear of... THE UNKNOWN."
 
Plotline:
 
rance, Aix-les-Bains, two women, Kassia and Leonora, are driven by a fanatical blackmailer, named André, in a white Rolls Royce at full speed. Suddenly, they stop near a lake, in the middle of the woods, where the man decides to have a swim. He asks the two women for a drink. The women plan to assassinate him by introducing a deadly leaf from a Thanatos tree in the cocktail. The man dies by poisoning and drowning and the women stare at him without moving. They put the dead body in the trunk of the fancy car. Later, They lose their way in the countryside and, finally, find a mansion where an old blind man, Colas, opens the door. Upstairs, a strange inventor, Tone Hobart, built a time machine which could resurrect the dead. Unfortunately, André is now alive and ready for a revenge.
 
Closing Narration:
 
"Murder, madness, and other lurking horrors are the raw certainties that await you in the depths of the Unknown. And no switch of time, no twist of plan can cancel your meeting with it. For some night, in some blind panic, you will venture into the world of dark reality. And on that night, you will keep your rendez-vous with... THE UNKNOWN."
 
Quote:
 
"Do you know what a madman you are? I detest the blitheness of madmen! Why are they so fortunate? (...)"
—André Pavan (Scott Marlowe)
 
Comments:
 
fascinating tale about Love and Death (see the "Thanatos" tree for reference) masters with high style by Joseph Stefano. The sequence of the scheme/murder is exquisite for its art of sado-masochistic and surreal leaning. The film tackles the question of Man defying the fire of the gods (see the myth of "Prometheus") via the torn-inside character of Tone Hobart. This unsold pilot for a macabre anthology is also a tribute to Val Lewton's productions, Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques", Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". This is Joseph Stefano's most personal concept of the fantastic element for "The Outer Limits"; pay attention to the editing transition with the freeze frame which articulates the car and the lake scenes. You can witness the sophisticated cameraworks of cinematographers Conrad Hall and William Fraker during the murder scene by watching the subtle method of transforming Nature (the coated filters effects). A typical William Fraker's shot is in the opening of the door by Sir Cedric Hardwicke or David McCallum seen in a low angle shot; Fraker does the same trick in Peter Yates' "Bullitt". A couple of shots of both women, in the same framing, remind the spirit of Ingmar Bergman's "Persona". The design of the Baroque time machine is incredible because of the collection of antique clocks link together with white wires, thanks to Chester Bayhi's work. The rips title design due to Wayne Fitzgerald will oddly inspire Saul Bass' last art work for Otto Preminger's "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (1965) and anticipate the opening for Quinn Martin's "The Invaders" series as Dominic Frontiere's music. The credits for the narrator remains "unknown". You can notice a stairway shot taken from "The Guests" during the opening title. This feature film version is far away from "The Outer Limits" one in many ways: the music editing is slightly different as many dialogues and intercourses ("It's Spring in England, Kassia", said André); the murder in the lake scene is more intense and morbid (André's body suddenly surfaces and there's a watery shot of André's face whose body is dragged by Leonora); Leonora's hypnotical reverie is modified; André's insane laughs and speech about Tone Hobbart's madness is new ("Shall I do you this one, small, favor?"); the extreme close-up of the small gun held by Kassia Paine who shoots Tone down during the end. Moreover, in the very first draft of the film (approx. 80 minutes), there's an extra character by the name of Timothy R. Edmond (Clive Halliday), Leonora's father which briefly appears in a deleted scene: Tone Hobart questions Leonora about André's murder and she has a nightmare and we can witness an alternate peasant funeral scene where she and Kassia have the parts of the French people. Stefano will remain in the same production and storyline with his next project, the unsold supernatural pilot "The Ghost of Sierra de Cobra" (series title: "The Haunted"). The TV title ("The Forms of Things Unknown") makes reference to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and we can hear David McCallum reciting five lines from this play.
 
  Theseus:
More strange than true.
I never may believe
These antic fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
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.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
   
William Shakespeare, culled from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act V., Sc. I.
 
For more informations about the making of "The Unknown", read from page 225 to 237 of David J. Schow's "The Outer Limits Companion" (Los Angeles, GNP Crescendo Book, 1998).
La-La Land Records released a double header limited edition soundtrack CD of "A Name for Evil/The Unknown" (La-La Land Records LLLCD 1051, 2006). Click "here" to get the details!