At a lavish showbiz party in the late '70's, Roald Dahl approached film producer and television executive Sir John Woolf and made him an offer he could not refuse: "How would you like to make a series out of all my stories?". Sir John jumped at the chance. As well as a bestselling writer of children's books, Dahl was also known as the literary Hitchcock, the master of the suspenseful short story.
The result was 'Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected', made by Anglia Television, which ran for the best part of a decade. Some of the stories had been filmed before as part of the U.S. series 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'. Nevertheless, the show proved hugely popular, attracting the likes of Sir John Gielgud, Joan Collins, Sir Bernard Miles, Sir John Mills, Derek Jacobi, Timothy West, Susan George, Ron Moody, Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland, Brian Blessed, and American actors of the calibre of Telly Savalas, Joseph Cotton, Gloria Grahame, Janet Leigh, Julie Harris and Jack Weston.
The opening titles were an unsettling blend of James Bondian imagery ( a gun, playing cards, a dancing nude woman ) and Gothic horror, backed up by Ron Grainer's carousel-style music. Dahl himself introduced the stories in Hitchcockian fashion.
Ronald Harwood and Robin Chapman penned many of the scripts. Predictably, some stories worked better on television than others. 'Man From The South' got the series off to a fine start, casting Jose Ferrer as a madman who tricks a young American tourist into a bizarre wager which, should he lose, means he forfeits the little finger of his right hand. 'Lamb To The Slaughter' was about the only truly perfect murder ever conceived, whereas 'Neck' had a rich husband revenging himself on his adulterous wife. Easily the worst episode, however, was 'Royal Jelly', the ending of which was not so much unexpected as unspeakable.
Critics renamed the show 'Tales Of The Bleedin' Obvious', yet many episodes did contain genuine surprise endings, such as 'Genesis & Catastrophe' and 'Skin'.
When the production team ran out of Dahl stories to adapt, they turned to the works of other writers. Eventually, Dahl and his name disappeared from the show. Some of the later American-based episodes were a bit weak, often coming across as belonging to a different show entirely.
As D.V.D. releases and I.T.V.-3 reruns will attest, this show at its peak is still rattling good fun.
By the way, the 'dancing nude woman' in the titles was Karen Standley.
The result was 'Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected', made by Anglia Television, which ran for the best part of a decade. Some of the stories had been filmed before as part of the U.S. series 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'. Nevertheless, the show proved hugely popular, attracting the likes of Sir John Gielgud, Joan Collins, Sir Bernard Miles, Sir John Mills, Derek Jacobi, Timothy West, Susan George, Ron Moody, Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland, Brian Blessed, and American actors of the calibre of Telly Savalas, Joseph Cotton, Gloria Grahame, Janet Leigh, Julie Harris and Jack Weston.
The opening titles were an unsettling blend of James Bondian imagery ( a gun, playing cards, a dancing nude woman ) and Gothic horror, backed up by Ron Grainer's carousel-style music. Dahl himself introduced the stories in Hitchcockian fashion.
Ronald Harwood and Robin Chapman penned many of the scripts. Predictably, some stories worked better on television than others. 'Man From The South' got the series off to a fine start, casting Jose Ferrer as a madman who tricks a young American tourist into a bizarre wager which, should he lose, means he forfeits the little finger of his right hand. 'Lamb To The Slaughter' was about the only truly perfect murder ever conceived, whereas 'Neck' had a rich husband revenging himself on his adulterous wife. Easily the worst episode, however, was 'Royal Jelly', the ending of which was not so much unexpected as unspeakable.
Critics renamed the show 'Tales Of The Bleedin' Obvious', yet many episodes did contain genuine surprise endings, such as 'Genesis & Catastrophe' and 'Skin'.
When the production team ran out of Dahl stories to adapt, they turned to the works of other writers. Eventually, Dahl and his name disappeared from the show. Some of the later American-based episodes were a bit weak, often coming across as belonging to a different show entirely.
As D.V.D. releases and I.T.V.-3 reruns will attest, this show at its peak is still rattling good fun.
By the way, the 'dancing nude woman' in the titles was Karen Standley.