Review: THE TWILIGHT ZONE, 1.8 – 1.15

I reviewed the first seven episodes of classic anthology series The Twilight Zone a short while ago, so here's the next eight episodes of that iconic show's first season, appraised in bite-sized format...

The show's first bonafide classic arrives with "TIME ENOUGH AT LAST", adapted from a 1953 short story by Lyn Venable. It concerns erudite Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith); a mustachioed bank clerk with bottle-top glasses who's in trouble because he's preoccupied with reading throughout his working day, and henpecked at home by a wife (Jacqueline deWit) who refuses to let him read in the house. In some ways she's the most frightening element of the story, given her irrational behaviour towards Bemis (she cruelly defaces his cherished poetry book). The halfway point of the episode signals the shift into The Twilight Zone, as Bemis survives a H-bomb while reading in a bank vault during his lunch-break, and realizes he's the lone survivor of a global nuclear war...

This is one of Zone's most famous episodes—certainly in terms of its ending (which has become a classic moment spoofed in shows like The Simpsons and Futurama)—so I have no problems dropping a spoiler. Having realized the positive of surviving doomsday is having all the time in the world to devour the contents of a library (tomes neatly stacked to last him his lifetime), poor Bemis is dealt a crushing blow when he breaks his glasses and the simple act of reading becomes impossible. It's a brilliant, tragic, simple, clever twist—working especially well because the first act's comparatively lighthearted, as you'd never guess the second half would get so bleak. It's just a shame act one's a slight piffle. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by Lyn Venable) / directed by John Brahm / 20 November 1959

Rod Serling wrote the majority of Zone episodes, but his lieutenant was undoubtedly Charles Beaumont¹, who adapted a 1958 story he wrote for Playboy in his debut "PERCHANCE TO DREAM". You can immediately tell this episode wasn't one of Serling's, as it has a very different fingerprints to what we've become accustomed to—and that's no bad thing. The premise is great, as insomniac Edward Hall (Richard Conte) goes to see psychiatrist Dr Rathman (John Larch), convinced that if he falls asleep he'll die. In extensive flashback, Hall reveals why he's reached this bizarre conclusion, which concerns his overactive imagination and serialized dreams that involve an alluring dancer at a carnival called Maya (Suzanne Lloyd) who intends to scare him to death...

This episode's a clear precursor of Nightmare On Elm Street (someone stalking you in a dream, eventually killing you) and even the more recent Inception (Serling's narration posits the idea that a half-hour dream can be conjured in a split-second of sleep), if nowhere as good as those later works. The idea is smart and the execution's good (love the eeriness of the carnival and its terrifying rollercoaster ride), but it's the twist-ending that really works. Beaumont's script is also more complex and modern than Serling's work can often feel, which was a nice surprise. / written by Charles Beaumont / directed by Robert Florey / 27 November 1959

¹ As an addendum, it was rather tragic that Beaumont's life took a twist into Twilight Zone-esque territory, after he contracted a brain disease that accelerated his physical age. He sadly died at the age of 38, apparently resembling a man in his nineties.

Episode 10's "JUDGMENT NIGHT" was directed by John Brahm, who brought the same sense of cinematic quality to this episode as he did in "Time Enough At Last". It's a WWII tale set in 1942, aboard the S.S Queen of Glasgow, bound for the United States, where we meet a withdrawn passenger called Carl Lanser (Nehemiah Persoff), whom it becomes clear is suffering from amnesia. Clues to his identity point to the troubling possibility he's a German U-boat captain, but how did he come to be aboard the Glasgow? And how is he able to predict the tragic fate that awaits the ship at 1:15 a.m.?

This is one of those episodes where I appreciated the style more than almost everything else, even when the twist is revealed that Lanser's cursed to relive the fate of a ship he destroyed without fair warning. It looks pretty great (beyond a few incongruous archival shots of submariners), and there's a cold and foggy atmosphere that bleeds off the screen. I just didn't find it a particularly compelling story, although the action scenes towards the end were nicely handled for '50s TV, and the "time-loop" nature of the story ensures it ends in a manner that may inspire some later contemplation about the living hell of purgatory. / written by Rod Serling / directed by John Brahm / 4 December 1959

Much better is "AND WHEN THE SKY WAS OPENED", heralding the first partnership of showrunner Serling and renowned author Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), with the former adapting the latter's short story "Disappearing Act", published in a 1953 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Here, three all-American astronauts—Harrington (Charles Aidman), Forbes (Rod Taylor) and Gart (Jim Hutton)—return to Earth after piloting an experimental spaceship that vanished from radar during a test flight, only for Harrington to apparently lose his mind when he begins to believe he's being forgotten by his family...

The great thing about this episode is how it's structured, with Forbes as the only person aware Harrington's been erased from existence and trying to convince a hospitalized GartFinal Destination movies, too. A good episode, performed with conviction by Taylor (did you know he played Churchill in Inglourious Basterds?), with exactly the right amount of discomforting atmosphere drizzled over it. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by Richard Matheson) / directed by Douglas Heyes / 11 December 1959

"WHAT YOU NEED" returns to the magical salesman well Serling seems to enjoy, in a tale adapted from Lewis Padgett's 1954 short story in Astounding Science-Fiction. This is an enjoyable installment about a petty thug called Renard (Steve Cochran) who notices the extraordinary ability of a street peddler called Pedott (Ernest Truex) to intuit what someone "needs" to benefit their life. For example: the old vendor gives a bus ticket to Pennsylvania to a crocked baseball player, seconds before the man's offered a coaching job in that very state, etc. Like many Zone episodes, the mechanics of the story feel naïve and, owing to the fact audiences are so sophisticated now, you can't help feeling disappointed by most of Pedott's preemptive sales. Can't that baseball player have bought his own bloody ticket? The only predicted moment that works dramatically is when Pedott gives Renard a pair of scissors, that prove life-saving when his scarf gets trapped in the world's slowest-moving elevator.

What rescues this episode is Serling's decision to shake things up by having the ostensible lead be a villain. Usually, it's innocent and everyday folk who encounter Zone's "fifth dimension", mainly so the audience can empathize with them, but this episode benefits from having a scheming criminal at its heart (for an episode originally transmitted on Christmas Day, no less). The resolution to the story is also satisfying (ignoring a lame, jokey denouement with a comb) and overall "What You Need" ranks as a good episode spoiled by generally weak demonstrations of Pedott's power. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by Lewis Padgett) / directed by Alvin Ganzer / 25 December 1959

The idea of basing a story around a disreputable man continues with "THE FOUR OF US ARE DYING", based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson that was sent to Rod Serling for inclusion on the show. In this episode we meet Arch Hammer (Harry Townes), a conman with the exceptional ability to alter his appearance, which obviously comes in hand as a hustler. Hammer's able to impersonate a dead trumpeter called Johnny Foster, in order to woo his grieving girlfriend, before taking things to the next level by pretending to be murdered gangster Virgil Sterig and extorting money from the mobster who ordered his death. Naturally, things don't end well for Hammer, as his skill gets him into deep trouble while trying to escape from Sterig's men, particularly when he meets the aggrieved father of a notorious boxer he's forced to mimic while trying to evade capture...

It was refreshing to have an episode where an extraordinary event doesn't happen to an unassuming everyman. Hammer just has this supernatural ability from the start, and the story is about seeing the problems a shape-shifter may encounter if they used their ability unwisely. There are some fun in-camera tricks to sell the premise (actors in windows posing as mirrors, or literally replacing each other just out of shot), but I can't help thinking this was an episode that promised a more exciting and intelligent story than the one presented. And for the series as whole, it's notable how many stories have had unhappy endings recently. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by George Clayton Johnson) / directed by John Brahm / 1 January 1960

Another adaptation of a Richard Matheson story arrives with the paranoia drama "THIRD FROM THE SUN", which focuses on scientist Will Sturka (Fritz Weaver), a man working on a military base building H-bombs for the government. Sturka comes to believe nuclear Armageddon is impending, so plots to evacuate his family and that of his friend/colleague Jerry Riden (Joe Maross) before the bombs fall. Unfortunately, his superior Mr Carling (Edward Andrews) is suspicious of Sturka's scheme to steal a spaceship to flee catastrophe, and the episode plays out in an atmosphere of mistrust as Sturka and Riden's departure date gets closer. This was a slightly tedious episode, although the edgy mood was established and maintained very well, and director Richard L. Bare's camerawork was inventive (there's a great under the table shot and great use of low angles), but everything's rescued by a twist-ending that's amusingly outrageous. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by Richard Matheson) / directed Richard L. Bare / 8 January 1960

"I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR" is an episode spoiled by the fact modern audience are too sophisticated to swallow the premise that props up the twist-ending. A manned space flight crash lands, stranding four astronauts—Corey (Dewey Martin), Donlin (Edward Binns), Pierson (Ted Otis) and Langford (Harry Bartell)—on an unknown asteroid. As the men wait for rescue in the sweltering heat, Corey's pragmatism and selfishness gets out of hand, and he begins killing his comrades so their limited water supply will last longer. Quite why Corey thinks a few extra flagons of water's going to be of any help (after they even mention a rescue ship is four years away from even being built) is just one of this episode's many plot-holes. The basic idea of has some merit, but the details of the story are grossly naïve when viewed today. And the fun twist-ending (practically recycled for Serling's Planet Of The Apes script), has you wondering just what kind of nincompoops NASA were training if these men can't tell the difference between an asteroid and... well, I'm sure you've guessed. / written by Rod Serling (based on a story by Madelion Champion) / directed by Stuart Rosenberg / 15 January 1960

moreless

Review: THE TWILIGHT ZONE, 1.1 - 1.7

As announced recently, here's the first batch of my planned reviews of THE TWILIGHT ZONE's first season (1959-60) to celebrate Rod Serling's classic anthology making its debut on high-definition Blu-ray. I hope these reviews will entertain existing fans, but also draw some newcomers to this acclaimed, pioneering television drama. I'm at the mercy of my LoveFilm rental queue, so I'm not sure how frequent these batch-reviews will be, but I'll be posting reviews covering each disc's episodes as and when...

Pilot episode "WHERE IS EVERYBODY?" gently eases its '50s audience into Rod Serling's peculiar Twilight Zone, with a story that's relatively humdrum by today's standards, but nevertheless a confident and economical piece of genre writing. In it, a man (Forbidden Planet's Earl Holliman) suffering amnesia wanders into a small, apparently deserted town, his paranoia increasing as he notices signs of recent presence (a jukebox playing to an empty diner, coffee boiling on an unwatched stove, a cigar smoldering on the lip of an ashtray), leading him to doubt his own sanity as he wanders around the eerie ghost town trying to find signs of life.

In many ways this opener encapsulates the embryonic series (strong Americana, a baffled everyman, pervasive atmosphere, a twist-ending), but it's still slightly anemic. The man's dialogue is more for the benefit of viewers than realistic self-comforting talk, and while the twist in the tail's unpredictable it's also quite weak by the show's standards. Still, Holliman performs the material well, there's a terrific camera trick involving a smashed mirror, it's bizarre seeing the "Courthouse Square" set (used as Back To The Future's Hill Valley) in a genuine 1950s context, and its theme of isolation and loneliness obviously haven't dated as badly as talk about microfilms being used to store books on. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Robert Stevens / 2 October 1959

"ONE FOR THE ANGELS" is a largely forgettable tale, where kindly 69-year-old salesman Lou Bookman (Mary Poppins' Ed Wynn) is visited by Mr Death (Jaws' Murray Hamilton) after a day selling toys out of a suitcase--including a Robbie the Robot (the second Forbidden Planet nod in as many episodes.) The debonair Angel of Death's arrived for a midnight appointment to take Bookman to the hereafter, but makes the foolish mistake of agreeing to let Bookman delay his "departure" until he makes a momentous sales pitch that'll make his name in memoriam. Understandably, Bookman double-crosses Death by announcing his forthwith retirement after the deal's struck--not realizing his deceit means the bureaucratic Death's forced to look elsewhere to keep his "appointment", as a sweet child is hit by a car...

There's a nice idea simmering throughout this episode, but it's unfortunate Wynn isn't terribly convincing as a salesman, which kills an already unconvincing climax where Bookman's super-pitch is supposed to mesmerize Death into missing his rearranged appointment. And for modern audiences, too much feels illogical or daft: could Death really be fooled so easily by Bookman? Why is Death's attention taken with material concerns like neck-ties? Why does Bookman continue to see Death after avoiding his fate? An appealing story in some respects, but a minor chapter in the show's history. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Robert Parrish / 9 October 1959

The embodiment of Death gives way to the personification of Fate for the oddly-titled "MR DENTON ON DOOMSDAY", a Wild West fable where town drunk Al Denton (Dan Duryea), teased and humiliated by leering cowboy Dan Hotaling (Martin Landau) and his cronies, magically regains the gun-slinging prowess from his long-forgotten sobriety after finding an enchanted revolver in the dirt. That would ordinarily be enough to fuel a story, but Serling throws in a peddler called Henry J. Fate (Malcolm Atterbury) who offers Denton a potion that guaranteed 10-seconds of exceptional aim to help Denton defeat rival gunman Pete Grant (Doug McClure) who's ridden into town for a duel.

To be honest, the addition of Fate as a actual character confused me. Why would Denton care about a potion if his aim was seemingly super-accurate without it--as far as he was concerned, unaware Fate was lending a hand from the very start? My guess is that Serling just likes the idea of ordinary people encountering embodiments of existential things, and it's a handy way to impart knowledge with dialogue. There's a lovely twist to the tale regarding Denton's challenger, and the overall moral of the story has a neatness that lingers for awhile. Twilight Zone sometimes feels like adult Aesop Fables, and this episode's strong evidence of that. Factor in a good performance from Western veteran Duryea, who makes for a sympathetic and a plausible drunk, and a fun early appearance by the now-legendary Landau, and you have a good episode with questionable superfluities. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Allen Reisner / 16 October 1959

Fourth episode "THE SIXTEEN-MILLIMETER SHRINE" is unusual, in so much as there's nothing fantastical about it until the last five minutes. Instead, it's the show's most accessible episode yet, and one that deals with an issue most people can relate to: aging. In it, we meet Barbara Jean Trenton (Ida Lupino), an erstwhile Hollywood movie starlet of the 1930s, who now spends her middle-age in seclusion, watching 16mm films of her old movies--psychologically imprisoned by a desire to relive her glory days. Her kindly agent Danny Weiss (Psycho's Martin Balsam), concerned about her mental state, devises a plan to get Barbara to accept her current circumstances and advancing years: an audition for a new movie with a big studio, and getting Barbara reacquainted with her aged screen lover Jerry (Jerome Cowan).

This is a Sunset Boulevard-inspired episode of mixed success. The performances are good from Lupino as the delusional prima donna and Balsam as her patient agent, but it's essentially an episode that spends the majority of its time reiterating the same points about Barbara's state of mind. And by the time the twist comes, with Barbara's wish to return to the good ol' days, we've had too much time to predict it. Still, the theme's a strong one that's even more relevant today, as nostalgia and "living in the past" has become more commonplace, and the characters are well-drawn. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Mitchell Leisen / 23 October 1959

From one actress's yearning to revisit her past, to a businessman achieving the same in "WALKING DISTANCE", Twilight Zone's first proper foray into time-travel. Middle-aged ad man Martin Sloan (Gig Young) stops at a remote gas station while on a cross-country trip and use the free time to walk to his nearby hometown. Arriving in Homewood, where he grew up as a boy, Martin's amazed at how little the place has changed in 25 years, soon realizing that's because he's somehow wandered into the past when he catches sight of his younger self in the local park...

Time magazine heralded "Walking Distance" the eighth best Twilight Zone episode ever made, and it's certainly a very strong one. Some of its ideas are no longer particularly clever (although I love the moment when Martin suffers leg pain when he accidentally caused his 11-year-old self to fall off a carousel), and there are some noticeable flaws (why doesn't the man in the diner react strangely when Martin's talking about a long-dead janitor who's very much alive?), but there's a beautiful sweetness to this story that takes advantage of nostalgia for childhood innocence. Plus, there's a great score from Psycho composer Bernard Hermann. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Robert Stevens / 30 October 1959

A sense of repetition creeps into the show with "ESCAPE CLAUSE" as it reworks "One For The Angels" badly, wasting a decent idea. One issue with The Twilight Zone, in hindsight, is that modern audiences have become sophisticated enough to see through its often naive developments and plotting. That's unfortunately what unravels this episode, where hateful hypochondriac Walter Bedeker (David Wayne) makes a deal with "Mr Cadwallader" (Thomas Gomez), Satan in disguise: immortality, for the price of his eternal soul, although Bedeker can choose when he wants to die as an "escape clause." Bedeker agrees, but then decides to spend his immortality chasing various death-defying thrills as an insurance scam (jumping in front of trains, drinking ammonia). Following the accidental death of his long-suffering wife (Virginia Christine), Bedeker confesses to her murder in the hope he'll be given the electric chair...

I didn't like this episode, as nothing about it felt logical enough to me. Bedeker's reaction to the arrival of The Devil didn't feel realistic (at least Bookman in "One For The Angels" demanded proof of Mr Death), and it just struck me as ridiculous a reclusive man would spend eternity trying to kill himself as a scam. Added to that, Bedeker wasn't enough of a sympathetic character (he barely batted an eyelid when his poor wife fell to her death!), and the outcome was painfully obvious in a "be careful what you wish for..." sense. Even accepting this must have felt fresh and clever to its original audience, I didn't warm to "Escape Clause" because it now feels built on a shaky, specious structure. / written by Rod Serling / directed by Mitchell Leisen / 6 November 1959

The season began with a treatise on loneliness in the pilot, and "THE LONELY" returns to that well in a generally less satisfying way, although the story dealt with the theme in a better way. James Corry (12 Angry Men's Jack Warden) is a prisoner on a distant asteroid (looking uncannily like Death Valley...), where he's serving 50 years in complete isolation for murder. Understandably, Corry's going stir crazy after 4 years spent on this barren rock with no company, only visited four times a year by a supply ship captained by a suave astronaut called Allenby (John Dehner), who very often only has minutes to exchange pleasantries. During one such visit, Allenby shows a kindness by gifting Corry a mysterious box which he's told to open after they leave--whereupon Corry discovers a robot woman inside called Alicia (Upstairs, Downstairs' Jean Marsh), who eventually becomes his beloved companion...

It's silly how Allenby's crew have negligible time to chat with Corry, or that their employers would think it makes sense to keep individual prisoners 9,000,000 miles away on separate asteroids, but it's becoming obvious Zone's finer details can appear strange, naive or occasionally stupid from a 21st-century perspective with modern demands. That said, I rather enjoyed this episode's core idea, although it only really amounted to anything once Corry's asked to give up his artificial companion for his freedom (the rocket can't carry Alicia's weigh, or make a return trip for her.) It's just a pity the ending didn't feel like the best creative option available to Serling. Alicia winds up "killed" by Allenby so Corry can leave the asteroid, which takes the issue completely out of the lead character's hands. It's a sad ending, sure, but it also washes its hands of something stickier. I'd have preferred Alicia being left alone for eternity in Corry's place, effectively inheriting her human friend's punishment. But what do I know, right? / written by Rod Serling / directed by Jack Smight / 13 November 1959

moreless