May 22, 2021
Out of the Unknown: The Little Black Bag (3.8, BBC, 1969)
"There's a patient waiting for you."
"Cosmetic?"
"What else?"
"No, not now."
"Why?"
"Because it's an abuse."
"Listen, she's loaded!"
"We have a chance to show what we can really do."
"She's ready to part with good money to lose the bags under her eyes."
"No, I can't."
"It won't take you five minutes!"
"But don't you understand, there are people who are really suffering?"
"What makes you think she isn't? I tell you, I'd be suffering if I looked like her."
#Out of the Unknown#The little black bag#Cyril M. Kornbluth#Single play#1969#BBC#Julian Bond#Eric Hills#Missing TV#Emrys Jones#Geraldine Moffat#Elizabeth Weaver#John Woodnutt#Ian Frost#Alan Downer#John Dunbar#Katherine Kessey#Dennis Bowen#Honora Burke#James Chase#Alas alas another casualty of the BBC junking programme; this episode is rather unique in that a big chunk of it survives#About 30 minutes to be exact. The first act is lost and frustratingly so are the final 2 minutes; unlike the other reconstructions#On this set however there doesn't seem to be a surviving audio track for the whole episode. What that means is we're dropped into things at#18 minutes in without any explanation or set up (the final 2 minutes do have a little audio surviving and so have been cobbled into being#With some trick reuse of footage and clever cuts). Fortunately this is still easy enough to follow; a drunken and disgraced doctor has#Found a futuristic Dr's bag that will cure most any ailment. The first act mostly dealt with his finding and understanding the bag so we're#Not missing too much vital info. Still it can't help but impact the experience of watching and this is a frustrating view. The story is a#Classic of 50s Sci fi and one i fondly recall from my misspent youth (misspent reading old Sci fi anthologies) so to only partly enjoy this#Adaptation is a great shame. Still what there is of it seems like a decent enough episode with some nifty prop design on the bag and the#Futuristic world from whence it came. Here's to the rest of it falling out of someone's attic one day