A British anthology series about everyday people finding themselves put into unusual circumstances…many of them supernatural in nature.

Journey to the Unknown

Season 1 Ep. 06: Poor Butterfly

Steven Miller is puzzled to receive an invitation to a costume party from a man he has never met. Taking his vintage Bugatti into the countryside, he asks for directions to Meachum Hall, but the old man wanders off without answering.
Miller finds the drive full of old cars, much like his own. Changing into a ‘Jesse James’ outfit, he attempts to find out why Sir Robert Sawyer invited him. The other guests are a pretty strange bunch too; the only welcoming face belongs to Rose, a beautiful young woman dressed as a butterfly. As the evening progresses, Miller learns that she is betrothed to John, a man she does not love.
Rose sent the invitation. She begs Miller to take her away from the house. She seems genuinely frightened as though somehow sensing impending disaster…

Not to be confused with the B.B.C.’s ‘Out Of The Unknown’, this was Hammer’s first – and best – attempt at a television anthology series. The eerie title sequence featured a silhouette creeping into a deserted fairground late at night, which suddenly lit up, an effect as startling as it was memorable. The whistling theme tune was by Harry Robinson.

The series itself played like a British ‘Twilight Zone’; in ‘Eve’ Dennis Waterman plays a nerd who falls in love with a shop window dummy, ‘Paper Dolls’ concerns identical boys linked by a psychic bond, ‘Somewhere In A Crowd’ has David Hedison noticing the same five people present at major disasters, and in ‘The Madison Equation’ a computer is used in a murder plot. It was unnerving rather than scary.

Because it was funded by 20th Century Fox, each episode had to have an American guest-star, but this enhanced the show rather than detracted from it. There were some notable British performers involved too, such as Edward Fox, Allan Cuthbertson, Michael Gough, and Roddy McDowall.

Only seventeen episodes were made, yet ‘Journey’ continued to crop up irregularly on late-night British T.V. well into the ’80′s.

Cast and Crew:

Michael Callan, Joseph Cotten and Brandon De Wilde

# Writers: Michael J. Bird

# Director: Alan Gibson

Production Company: 20th Century Fox Television, Hammer Film Productions
Original Air Date: 1968
Audio & Video: Mono – Color

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Journey to the Unknown in IMDB

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