DR. HEIDEGGER’S EXPERIMENT (1954)
Article 3618 by Dave Sindelar

Viewing Date: 6-26-2011

Posting Date: 7-11-2011

Directed by Nathan Zucker

Featuring Monty Woolley, Anne Burr, Leon Janney

Country: USA

What it is: TV adaptation of Hawthorne story

A doctor invites three elderly friends to take part in an experiment involving an elixir of youth.

Here’s another episode from “On Stage with Monty Woolley”. I’ve not read the original Hawthorne story, and am only familiar with it through the adaptation of it in TWICE-TOLD TALES. This version and that one depart radically from each other, so I suspect that this one, a simple lesson on the illusion of youth, is probably much closer to the original work. There’s some simple special effects involving the regeneration of the rose, and I couldn’t help but notice that when the three subjects regain their youth, we only see them in that state as reflections in a mirror; this is a very nice touch. Once again, it’s a bare-bones treatment, but it has a certain elegance to it.