(thanks, Professor Craigles!) 

I find it absolutely and awesomely hilarious that the word “Twonky” has been swiped by a few people who probably thought it sounded cool but never, ever saw this oddball 1953 flick that now pops up on Turner Classic Movies from time to time. I’m also sure that some of these hipsters with no sense of film history would be shocked (SHOCKED, I say!) to find out that the titular Twonky of this little film is a nasty alien machine that tries and nearly succeeds to take over the life of the poor sap of a professor who inadvertently ends up with a VERY self-aware robot instead of the TV his wife bought to keep him company.

Writer/director Arch Oboler tries a wee bit too hard to generate laughs and despite some interesting special effects (well, for 1953), the film’s seemingly anti-technology/anti-freedom message overwhelms any chance of it being anything more than a curious artifact of a more paranoid age. Then again, that age seems to have circled back around with a much bigger influence on the more information-rotted minds in today’s heads, so perhaps it’s worth a second (or first) look, hmmm?…

Granted, Hans Conried (who’d also star in the much better 1953 film The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.) gives a pretty exuberant performance as Professor Tweedy, the aforementioned poor sap who gets zapped a few times by that sentient TV, which starts out as a helpful assistant before revealing its true intentions. It’s pretty funny to see that Twonky lighting Tweedy’s cigarettes, walking around, cleaning his home and tackling other chores like the dream Roomba that has yet to be manufactured… before going all HAL 9000 on the teacher and even committing a few not so petty crimes along the way.

The film does make “owning” that Twonky mighty tempting, though. You just KNOW you’d absolutely LOVE a TV that can print out money (but you’ll not want to spend it all in the same place because it’s a perfect copy of the same bill), make people forget stuff with a quick electric shock, control all sorts of devices and even make you limit your caffeine consumption (or else). Amusingly enough, the preachier elements make the movie seem like one of Rod Serling’s lesser Twilight Zone episodes. Maybe Oboler’s own Twonky that forced him to write and direct this sent him into the future where he swiped a script off Rod’s desk that happened to be a bad one or something? I won’t tell if you won’t…

Where the film does work (albeit clumsily) is in the connections you can link to today’s collision of too much tech and too many too human flaws. The TV has the power to mass control gullible minds, it edits some text the professor is writing to fit what it wants him to really say and even blasts the clothing off a curvy gal in probably the funniest scene in the picture. I thought she was killed by the evil TV (you see her clothes on the floor in a smoking pile and her bra floating down on a wire!), but Tweedy’s wife pops in to say she saw a naked woman running down the street. In another scene, distracted driving gets a nice nod as Tweedy tries to escape the clutches of the telly that’s taken his life over.

Granted, if you were to knock out a single device or app that could do all that stuff and more, you’d be a multimillionaire in under a week. But the predictable trade off in this oldie (and with today’s “tap through that EULA before you’ve really read it” tech) seems to be that alien device knowing all about what it thinks you need and only gaining more power over your life as it enforces the new rules over your objections. Then again, today’s hottest gadgets are knowingly pushing automatic loss of privacy, freedom and the general pleasures of getting off one’s ass and doing things for oneself as actual features, so perhaps Obler’s adaptation of a story by Henry Kuttner can be seen as a cautionary tale of sorts to some viewers.

Or maybe not… That, of course is for you to judge for yourself, dear reader. But don’t be surprised after you see this if you give that fancy phone, tablet or other device you’ve put too much of your life and personality into a gentle little nudge off the table… but conveniently onto a soft pillow or carpet as you don’t want that newer Twonky anything resembled pissed off at you when it decides to automatically delete or share something you don’t want anyone to see. On the other hand, I could be 100 percent wrong and some of today’s tech creators using the name HAVE seen this old forgotten sci-fi creaker and have simply decided to rework their Twonkys into devices or services that feature the more positive aspects that too helpful for its (and your) own good tech can (and will) continue to provide…