The Twonky (1953)
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A professor's wife buys him a television set to keep him company while she is away. It stands up, walks across the floor, and lights his cigarette.
The set does favors. It shaves him, washes the dishes, cures a hangover. It also blanks his mind when he tries to prepare a lecture on free will, swaps his music for what it prefers, and knocks out anyone who tries to remove it.
A friend names the thing a "twonky," a word for something you cannot explain, and floats a theory: it is a machine sent back from a totalitarian future to manage the professor's every thought.
THE TWONKY (1953), written and directed by radio veteran Arch Oboler, may be the strangest science fiction film of the decade. Oboler adapted the screenplay from a 1942 short story by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. In the original text, the "twonky" was a console radio.
It is a clumsy film. But the idea underneath is uncannily prescient: a screen that arrives as a gift, makes life easier, and slowly does your thinking for you.
In the early 1950s, the television was a brand-new presence in American living rooms. This long-forgotten film played as farce at the time. Now it feels like prophecy.
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Arch Oboler secured funding outside of the studio system, convincing a wealthy manufacturer named Buddy Nast to invest the bulk of the film's $300,000 budget. It was distributed by United Artists.
About the Film
Out of Your Own Tomorrow... Out of Time and Space a Fearsome Power!
- Directed By
- Arch Oboler
- Runtime
- 72 minutes
- Released
- June 10, 1953
- Certification
- NR
- Country
- United States of America
- Starring
- Hans Conried, William H. Lynn, Gloria Blondell, Janet Warren, Edwin Max (Ed
More Credits
- Genres
- Comedy, Science Fiction
- Language
- English
- Origin
- US
- Studios
- Arch Oboler Productions
- Written By
- Arch Oboler
- Produced By
- Arch Oboler, A. D. Nast Jr.
- Cinematography
- Joseph F. Biroc
- Music
- Jack Meakin
- Also Starring
- TV Repairman), Al Jarvis, Evelyn Beresford, Norman Fields, Bob Jellison, Stephen Roberts
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https://youtu.be/CYepKw5jwzQ?si=l6nWcaBq-GEoXVQU
Prophecy? lol. I’m pretty sure no tv can keep you from turning it off or can do any of the things mentioned. Cell phones and computers can do more than a tv, but still can’t do all that, and you can still turn them off. Now, AI and artificial lifeforms could become more of a concern like that.
perhaps a little hyperbolic 😉
anyway I was more referring to the insidious screen helper stealthily taking control of your thoughts
Paul, cell phones and computers are controlled directly. Televisions are turned on and off by a remote control device. You do control your cell phone and computer, you do not control your tv. Whoever controls the remote, controls the tv. Think about it.
Also Polybius the video game on that Nine Inch Nails video.
Weird plot
I’ve never even heard of this, and I’ve watched fuckin’ MANOS.
I’m truly shocked, I thought I knew my ’50s B-movies.
This is a bit better.
I’ve been wondering when someone would rediscover this film it started the great Hand Conried of the 5000 Fingers of Dr T fame.
Yes! I don’t know why it’s been stuck in limbo for so long. I’d love to see a good restoration.
This is a good article about one of the lost gems of 50s science fiction film. I read the story in a anthology of stories about robots and saw the film at the 1981 world science fiction convention where it was on the film program. I also got to meet C.L. Moore who was one of the pro guests of honor.
Incredibly underrated by pretty much everybody. I think Michael J Weldon and I are the only people I’ve known who champion this gem, and we’ll defend it to our graves.
Look for the story as well. Same name.