the audience applauded

Perfect cast and a good story

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

"A twonky is something that you don't know what it is."So says college football coach Trout (Billy Lynn) to his colleague, Professor Kerry West (Hans Conried), whose wife is away and bought a TV set to keep her husband company. There's just one problem: the set is ambulatory, has a mind of its own, and is hellbent on micromanaging every aspect of Kerry's life. It lights his cigarettes, empties the dishwasher, answers the phone, removes the cap from his Coke bottle, does the vacuuming, and prevents any harm from coming to Kerry—even if it means emptying the minds of police officers, U.S. Treasury agents, a TV repairman, and Coach Trout himself.There's also a female bill collector who refuses to leave Kerry's house until he pays her. The Twonky zaps the woman with a laser that burns her clothes off, causing her to run screaming into the streets naked. It also has a powerful self-preservation impulse, as a college football team learns when they try to destroy the set with axes, hammers and crowbars.Some three decades before "Poltergeist," this film attempted to make a TV set look intimidating. Given the limited special-effects technology available at the time, it failed to accomplish that goal. Instead, it looks quite silly when this 1951 Admiral walks across Kerry's living room, climbs the stairs, and gets into the front seat of Kerry's car.For the most part, "The Twonky" is a comedy—though the humor is dated and corny. There is, however, a ten-minute segment near the end when the film takes a dark turn. Alas, it quickly abandons the darkness and reverts to cornball humor. That said, Hans Conried rises above the dippy screeenplay. Already a seasoned professional, he delivers a credible portrait of a man whose electronic slavemaster takes a toll on his mental state.From the beginning, some people worried that TV would isolate us all and lower our collective IQ. Despite its frivolity, "The Twonky" is an intriguing time capsule of that period.

This film is a pleasant waste of time, with a reasonably clever script and good performances by Hans Conried and the slightly drunken guy who played the coach. There are a few surprising double-entendres that I did not expect, which contribute to an understated subversive message to this film.For those that watch scifi movies expecting rocketships, monsters, FX, and explosions, this film will be a disappointment. As far as spectacle goes, this could easily be a radio or television play. As far as scifi-satire, this is pretty decent stuff and certainly one of the first cinematic examples of it. It's interesting to note that this film premiered in 1953, the same year as Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451,' which also satirized TV.There is a walking TV set in this film, which is named 'the Twonky,' by the drunken coach, and this special effect is achieved by a primitive puppet of some sort...surprisingly, this effect works well from both a story-telling and mood point of view.The basic concept here is that a piece of entertainment technology, in the name of being helpful, comes to take over and tyrannize the life of Hans Conried. My reaction, seeing this film for the first time in the year 2012, is that the writer essentially prophesied the Iphone and 'Android', and every similar 'personal electronic device' which now seems indispensable to us.

Hans Conreid is one of my favorite character actors of all time, and here he is put to the test as a man whose wife has bought him a television to entertain him while she is away So many people don't get the point of this movie, and it really is quite simple considering the history of the time. This is in the infancy of television and the motion picture industry was suffering at the time because people found it was cheaper to stay at home for their entertainment. So what does the industry do? They hire Arch Oboler of radio fame to write a screenplay about an almost despotic TV set. It's pretty basic, and makes for a surreal and entertaining time. Think of "The Twilight Zone" with a sense of humor and you get "The Twonky Zone" basically. Just sit back and enjoy, and if smoke 'em if you got 'em. The Twonky will light it for you.

This may be the first in the long line of interesting films that have as their theme some electronic parlor device (radio, TV or computer) through which an alien or other outside influence emerges. Later examples include Zontar the Thing from Venus, Corman's original Not of This Earth, 1984, Farenheit 451, Poltergeist, etc. Others that come to mind are the TV episode of Star Trek whereby Terri Garr unwittingly stands watch over the alien computer and several Outer Limits episodes whereby radio communication is achieved with other planets.Its one thing to be spied upon by electronic ease-dropping (a much more common theme) but to have influence peddlers brainwashing us from within our homes is particularly horrifying.