Tales of the Unexpected (TV Series) Skin (1980) User Reviews

Tattoo problems are nothing new....

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 9 February 2016]

Paris, 1946, the weather is atrocious, cold and snowy. Drioli, A man on the streets down on his luck spots a painting by his friend, the famous artist Souttine, who thirty years previously had tattooed a painting on Drioli's body. The Tattoo is now priceless, and suddenly somehow ends up in the display of the Art Gallery.

I love the performance of Sir Derek Jacobi, he is wonderfully sincere, so soft and trusting. It's a visually very appealing episode, filmed in a very slick manner, it looks decidedly grey and gloomy seems to fit the story somehow.

It's a good story, imaginative, and well delivered, my only real annoyance with it, would have to be the dismissive, abrupt twist right at the end, I can see what they tried to do, but I think it could have perhaps been delivered a little differently.

That apart, Skin is a goody, the basic story could easily be made into a film. 7/10

Skin

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 7 September 2022]

Set in a drab post war Paris.

Derek Jacobi plays a down and vagrant called Drioli. He is searching for food from the bins of nearby restaurants in a cold freezing winter.

Drioli's memories are stirred when he sees a valuable painting from Soutine, now a renowned artist.

He knew Soutine when he was a struggling artist and had the hots for Drioli's wife.

Drioli was a tattooist and on one drunken evening, he got Soutine to tattoo a portrait of his wife.

It's now worth millions of francs as he shows off the work at an art gallery.

This a beautifully looking story shot on 16mm film giving it an appropriate vintage look. It works well as a short play. The tacked on twist is abrupt but works well.

OK tale of the unexpected.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 28 July 2007]

Tales of the Unexpected: Skin is set in Paris during April, 1946 where 61 year old Russian tattooist Drioli (Derek Jacobi) is a penniless tramp walking the streets & searching trash cans for food, then he notices a painting by his Russian friend Soutine (Boris Isarov) which is being sold for 1000's of Francs. Drioli has an idea because in 1913 he managed to convince his friend Soutine to tattoo a painting on his back of his wife Josie (Lucy Gutteridge), the tattooed painting is worth a fortune but what use it is when it's on his back? Unusual situations call for unusual solutions...

Episode 2 from season 2 this Tales of the Unexpected story originally aired here in the UK during March 1980, the third of nine episodes from the series to be directed by Herbert Wise I didn't think Skin was anything special & was rather disappointed with it. The story by Roald Dahl was dramatised by Robin Chapman & has a decent central premise but nothing is made of it, the twist at the end is very abrupt & not that satisfying & the build up is rather laboured & dull as it seems to take an age to get where it's going & at only 25 minutes in length this should not drag or feel dull. I didn't like any of the character's, the dialogue is sometimes hard to make out since everyone is trying to speak with a French accent & Skin is one of the more disappointing Tales of the Unexpeced stories based on a work by Dahl.

I usually criticise Tales of the Unexpected for being so blandly made but I have to hold my hands up here & say Skin is easily the best looking Tales of the Unexpected episode I've so far, it was shot entirely on film (probably 16mm) so it looks good, it was obviously shot on location in France so that helps & the 40's period detail like costumes & cars are well realised so this actually has a cinematic quality to it which is something I never thought I'd say about a Tales of the Unexpected episode! Unusually for a Tales of the Unexpected episode Skin has some skin in it, to be more specific Josie gets her breasts out & Soutine has a fondle as you would... The cast is good as usual with Derek Jacobi the obvious stand out.

Skin is probably the best looking Tales of the Unexpected episode I've seen but the story is lacking with a very rushed twist ending which Dahl actually narrates just to speed things up even more, the story had potential but it's not realised here I'm afraid. This could have been really good.

"I think it's good enough for me to sign."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 20 August 2021]

This episode has a grim and creepy aspect to it; it's quite the original story too. I'm puzzled a little by the few other comments on it at the time of this posting that didn't quite appreciate the irony of Drioli's (Derek Jacobi) fate. The point, well made, is that his friend Soutine's (Boris Isarov) tattooed portrait on Drioli's back is recognized as a work of a prominent artist, made even more valuable and authentic by the artist's signature. How it got there was revealed to have occurred under somewhat questionable circumstances, and that back story, surprising in a couple of aspects, virtually enters soft porn territory. For 1980, I can't recall if this was very daring for network television, but it passes muster for present day viewing as almost tame by comparison. Though the final frame does seem to arrive rushed, as one viewer notes, it perfectly fits with the definition of 'unexpected', and contributes to the fatal decision made by Drioli, believing he was offered a life of luxury by a prominent gentleman.

A slow burner of an episode

[nqure · 7/10 · 8 March 2024]

I opted to catch this particular episode online as it hasn't featured on Sky Arts (UK) series of repeats, and for the obvious reason. As mentioned by another reviewer, there are risque elements (nudity).

The episode fleets between the past (1913) & the present day (Paris after the Liberation) with Sir Derek Jacobi playing an elderly vagrant forced to scavenge food from hotel dustbins. Hungry & desperate, his attention is drawn to a poster for an exhibition of the work of Chaim Soutine. It transpires that the destitute man knew 'little Soutine' when they were young.

The viewer then finds themselves transported to the world of pre-WWI artistic Paris with Jacobi now playing the vagrant as a younger man. He is friends with Soutine who is painting a portrait of the man's wife.

We learn that Jacobi's character is a tattooist. The sensuality hinted in the episode is made explicit when we discover that the husband, too, is an artist of sorts.

After a drunken binge, the husband makes Soutine a rather bizarre offer. He asks him to draw a portrait of his wife on his back, and, in exchange, will show Soutine how to tattoo it so that he will be left with a permanent work of art on his body. The artist produces a portrait so sublime that even he considers it worthy of his signature.

The story returns to the present day of Paris after the Liberation. The unworldly tramp finds himself drawn to the exhibition advertised on the poster. The gallery owner there is about to throw him out of the plush surroundings when he tells him about the intriguing painting on his back. He makes the vagrant an offer, but it is a bargain fraught with risk. It is at this point that another well-to-do older gentleman, the owner of a hotel in Cannes, steps forward.

The ending appears abrupt - switching to a completely different location - but one which makes macabre sense. The chilling nature of the information given to us by Dahl's voice-over reminds us of the rather unsentimental anecdote which begins the episode.

It's also an episode that satirizes the art world & commerce through the gallery owner, who views the vagrant as a walking canvas that he can profit from rather than as a human being.

Interestingly, Herbert Wise plays the hotel owner under an anagram of his real name (final credits). It's a cameo which suggests that he was as a good an actor as he was a director.

A too abrupt ending

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8/10 · 18 November 2020]

The only problem with that episode is the ending. Of course it is a bizarre and disturbing ending, some what exquisite, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the story, from its built-up, for instance the friendship that existed between the two former friends. The usual twist ending of this kind of anthology series episode is always related to the characters initial links, some kind of ironical...Here, nothing of this, just in a improbable continuity. not the "circle" loop that locks down. See what I mean ?