The Twonky
| The Twonky | |
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Theatrical release title lobby card
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| Directed by | Arch Oboler |
| Produced by | A.D. Nast, Jr. (executive producer) Arch Oboler (producer) Sidney Pink (associate producer) |
| Written by |
Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore (story)(as Lewis Padgett) Arch Oboler (screenplay) |
| Based on |
"The Twonky"
by
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| Starring |
Hans Conried Gloria Blondell Billy Lynn Edwin Max |
| Music by | Jack Meakin |
| Cinematography | Joseph F. Biroc |
| Edited by | Betty Steinberg |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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84 mins. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Twonky is an independently made 1953 American black-and-white science fiction film comedy produced by A.D. Nast, Jr., Arch Oboler, and Sidney Pink, written and directed by Arch Oboler, that starred Hans Conried, Gloria Blondell, Billy Lynn, and Edwin Max. The film was distributed by United Artists.
After seeing his wife (Janet Warren) off on her trip, Kerry West (Hans Conried), a philosophy teacher at a small-town college goes inside his home to contemplate his new purchase: a television set. Sitting down in his office, he places a cigarette in his mouth and is about to light it when a solid beam of light shoots from the television screen, lighting it for him. Absentmindedly unaware of what has taken place, it is only when the television subsequently lights his pipe that West realizes that his television is behaving abnormally.
West soon discovers that the television can walk and perform a variety of functions, including dishwashing, vacuuming, and card-playing. When the television deliveryman (Edwin Max) returns to settle the bill, the television materializes copies of a five-dollar bill in order to provide payment. Yet the television soon exhibits other, more controlling traits, permitting West only a single cup of coffee and breaking West’s classical music records in favor of military marches to which it dances. After West demonstrates the television to his friend Coach Trout (Billy Lynn), the coach declares the television set to be a “twonky”, the word he used as a child to label the inexplicable.
Trout concludes that the Twonky is actually a robot committed to serving West. When he tests this hypothesis by attempting to kick West, the Twonky paralyzes his leg. After tending to the coach, West attempts to write a lecture on the role of individualism in art, but the Twonky hits him with beams that alter his thoughts and censors his reading. When West attempts to give his lecture the next day, he finds himself unable to do more than ramble on about trivialities. Frustrated, West goes to the store from which his wife had ordered the television and demands that they take it back or exchange it.
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Wikipedia