Long after Armageddon, a man of the 20th century emerges from hibernation in a future where humans live with androids.
In the year 1970, apocalypse is imminent. An engineer named Denis Lange meets Nathanaël de Geoffroy, a professor of philosophy who gets drunk to face the end of the world. Later, Lange checks an anti-atomic shelter when an explosion shakes the place and knocks him unconscious. After more than a century in suspended animation, Denis Lange is awakened in 2145 by some android doctors. Paul Cassius, the human in charge of welcoming Denis, explains him that he's in Sial IV. It's one of the six subterranean cities built on Earth after the nuclear war. Men live now a life of leisure, happiness and serenity, while androids perform complex tasks. Machiavel, their master, wants to use Lange as a pawn against "Les Inadaptés", a group of humans which resists the Sial IV way of life.
The rebels are lead by Nathanaël de Geoffroy, great-grandson of the philosopher. Denis Lange is given a "personal" female android called Diana. Sial IV is a 4 x 55-minute (1) science-fiction drama in black and white, made in Switzerland for Television suisse romande and French pubcaster ORTF (Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française) by Telvetia SA. Officially founded in 1968, Telvetia was a joint venture between SSR (Société suisse de radiodiffusion et de télévision) and French company Telfrance (Thierry la Fronde, Desert Crusader). Sial IV, one of the very first prime time Swiss dramas, was shown weekly on TSR from May 30, 1969 to June 20, 1969. Before that, the channel aired two sci-fi TV movies: La dame d'Outre-nulle part (1966) and Temps mort (1968) (2). In 1966, its youth programme Le 5 à 6 des jeunes presented SOS Terre, a science-fiction drama (3).
French of Greek origin film critic, director and writer Adonis "Ado" Kyrou helmed all the episodes of Sial IV. Ado Kyrou was a friend of the Surrealism movement and he won the Honorary Award at the Week of Greek Cinema festival for his film Bloko (1965). Kyrou directed four episodes of the ORTF series Allô Police (1966-1970) produced by Telfrance. Geneva-born Claude Delarue wrote the scenario of Sial IV, based on the novel Deadly Image (AKA The Uncertain Midnight, 1958) by English author Edmund Cooper. Previous to working for six months on the script, Delarue was a sound illustrator and journalist for TSR. He benefited from a special scheme set up by SSR to encourage young scriptwriters to write for Swiss TV. Ado Kyrou and him revised the scenario in Paris during the events of May 1968. Henri Gilabert, a French theatre actor seen on TV in Rue barrée (1967) and The Aeronauts (Les Chevaliers du ciel, 1967-1970), stars as Denis Lange.
Known in France and Hollywood, Marcel Dalio is Machiavel. His resume includes Pépé le Moko (1937), La Grande Illusion (1937), The Shanghai Gesture (1941), Casablanca (1942), Sabrina (1954) and many other movies like the comedy Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (1973). Claude Cerval, the evil Comte de Nansac of the ORTF drama Jacquou le Croquant (1967), plays the 20th century Nathanaël de Geoffroy and his descendant. Swiss actress Lise Lachenal was one of the presenters of Le 5 à 6 des jeunes and a radio host. TV critics noticed her performance in Gillian, a 1967 episode of the anthology Spectacle d'un soir (1964-1979). In Sial IV she appears as "the young woman" in Episode 1 and then plays Diana. Her fellow countryman Jacques Verlier (Cassius) made a name for himself on the Parisian stage and in cinema in the 1950s-1960s.
Swiss television director Roger Gillioz plays Barnon. With Simone Bach (Mélanie), François Chodat (Tibère), Jacqueline Damien (Olga), Guy Fox (Johan), Violaine Lachenal (Karen), Marcel Vidal (President Bar), Jean Vigny (Kingston) Georges Wod (Siegfried), etc... According to Ado Kyrou, the cast comprised eighty-two actors. The filming of Sial IV took place from September 9, 1968 to November 3, 1968 in Geneva (Telvetia Studio at Palais des Expositions, the airport, Cinéma "Paris", Musée d'art et d'histoire), the countryside (Jussy and Bernex in September 1968), a gravel quarry and the dam in Verbois, and at the Montreux Palace Hotel (4). Telfrance and Telvetia used the Transflex process to insert characters in set elements projected frontally on a screen. The music of Sial IV is one of the numerous collaborations of French composer François de Roubaix (Le Samuraï) with Telfrance.
Produced by Gérard Dethiollaz. Cinematography by Jacques Manson. Editing by Pierre Houdain and Michel Hirtz for Telfrance. Special sound effects by Pierre Angles. Sets designed by Philippe Ancellin. Make-up by Jocelyne Blankenstijn. Igaal Niddam was the cameraman. Claude Delarue didn't rule out the possibility of a sequel. Most critics praised Sial IV but viewers weren't hooked. The repeat of May 1971 precised for the first time in the opening credits that Sial IV was adapted from the novel of Edmund Cooper. Reader of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Isaac Assimov, Claude Delarue didn't mention that Cooper was the source of his inspiration. Sial IV was saved from both oblivion and the ravages of time by Didier Bufflier, head of ArchiLab at RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse), in 2023 when he restored and digitized the four episodes. That year, the attendees of the Festival du film fantastique de Neuchâtel (NIFFF) had the opportunity to discover two of them.
Sial IV has undeniable ambitions despite its budget limitations. The story has modern resonances and the ambience is quite reminiscent of The Prisoner (1967). The casting is excellent, particularly Henri Gilabert, Marcel Dalio, Lise Lachenal and Claude Cerval. Claude Delarue had a drama project that would have been shot entirely
on a terrace but it never materialized. Anyway, he became a
successful novelist and playwright.
Henri Gilabert pursued his career on stage and played in movies such as L'attentat (1972) or Le Juge Fayard dit Le Sheriff (1977). In 1974, he appeared in a famous advert (« En France on a pas de pétrole, mais on a des idées »). Lise Lachenal remained popular amongst young viewers as the voice of Blanche in Blanche et Gaspard (1969-1976). From 1973 to 2000, she was a collaboratrice à la fiction for TSR and was the first in Francophonie to buy The Bold and the Beautiful.
Ado Kyrou worked again with Telfrance on the ORTF drama Face aux Lancaster (1971) and directed The Monk (Le Moine, 1972), a film starring Franco Nero. In the 1980s, actor Jacques Verlier invented a non-reusable syringe and a cable cutter for Pen Duick boats. Verlier was also a painter. Sial IV is available on Play RTS. The INA
catalog indicates that it was aired in France in 1973.
(1) 10 half-hour episodes, then 5 x 60-minute episodes were considered.
(2) Both directed by Jean-Jacques Lagrange, pioneer of the science-fiction genre at TSR, and adapted from novels by George Langelaan (author of The Fly).
(3) Made at the Théâtre-club de Genève.
(4) October 8 and 9, 1968.
See also:
https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2025/08/le-chirurgien-de-saint-chad-tsrantenne.html (Le chirurgien de Saint-Chad, another drama from Telvetia)
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