Twilight Zone Companion

by Marc Scott Zicree

  It was decided that the most effective voice would be one that sounded like tinkling coinsthe sound a machine makes when it pays off. The first step in the process was to tape the sound of metal coins. Says Buck Houghton, We made it as metallic as we could. We put hundreds of dimes and quartersnot nickels, because they were lead and didnt make the same sounddown a metal chute. So we just had yards and yards and yards of coins running down metal.

  Next, a human subject was chosen. Two small speakers were strapped to either side of his esophagus. The sound of tinkling coins was played out through the speakers, to the effect that when the man opened his mouth, the sound came from his throat. This sound could then be shaped into words by using the tongue and lips just as with sounds from the larynx. But he himself made no use of his own voice whatsoever; the tape provided all the sound. And voilaone talking slot machine.

  ELEGY (2/19/60)

  Written by Charles Beaumont

  Based on the short story Elegy by Charles Beaumont

  Producer: Buck Houghton

  Director: Douglas Heyes

  Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

  Music: Van Cleave

  Cast:

  Jeremy Wickwire: Cecil Kellaway Capt. James Webber: Kevin Hagen Kurt Meyers: Jeff Morrow Peter Kirby: Don Dubbins

  The time is the day after tomorrow. The place: a far comer of the universe. The cast of characters: three men lost amongst the stars, three men sharing the common urgency of all men lostthey’re looking for home. And in a moment theyll find home, not a home that is a place to be seen but a strange, unexplainable experience to be felt.

  Their ship almost out of fuel, astronauts Webber, Meyers, and Kirby set down on a remote asteroid and run smack into a mystery. The place is quite Earthlike, down to the buildings and the people, but no one moves. The men witness a number of inanimate tableaux: a full marching band, a man being elected mayor, a card table at which one of the players holds four aces, a romantic liaison in a hotel suite, complete with violinists, and a homely woman winning a beauty contest. The three are startled when they find someone who does moveJeremy Wickwire, caretaker of the place. He explains that the entire asteroid is an exclusive cemetery where the dear departed can realize their greatest wish in life, after they die. He serves the men wine and asks what their greatest wish would be. All three reply that they would like to be on their ship, heading for home. Too late, they realize that Wickwire, who is a robot, has poisoned their drinks. Having thus insured the continuing tranquility of Happy Glades, Wickwire installs the inanimate, embalmed figures of the three men back in their ship.

  Kirby, Webber; and Meyers, three men lost. They shared a common wish, a simple one, reallythey wanted to be aboard their ship, headed for home. And fate, a laughing fate, a practical jokester with a smile that stretched across the stars, saw to it that they got their wish, with just one reservation: the wish came true, but only in the Twilight Zone.

  While The Fever presented the problem of bringing an inanimate object to life, Elegy, Charles Beaumonts third Twilight Zone, presented exactly the opposite problem. A large percentage of the show was devoted to the exhibiting of various tableaux, including a full marching band, all utterly frozen. We did not use dummies once, says director Douglas Heyes. We used real people.

  Using real people brought its own share of problems. No matter how still a person tries to be, there are always small movements. To minimize audience awareness of these, Heyes utilized a little technical sleight-of- hand. If youll notice on Elegy, when you see those characters, the camera is almost always in movement, moving backwards and forwards, panning, and so forth. Despite this, the motions of the actors are still noticeable and this works against the episodes credibility. Later, when Heyes was brought back to do The After Hours, another episode demanding inanimate human figures, he would remember this experience and take an entirely different approach Heyes had no objections to most of the tableaux in Beaumonts script, but there was one that he felt was totally unworkable: an automobile race. Auto racing was one of Beaumonts hobbies and very probably to him it was the most personally appealing of all the tableaux. But whatever its appeal, Heyes knew it would not translate effectively to film. To me, he says, stationary cars dont seem to be frozen in movement; they just seem to be parked cars. In its place, he substituted the beauty contest, which remains perhaps the single most memorable image of the entire episode.

  As for Beaumont, he wasnt happy with the change. Charles never liked anything I did with any story he ever wrote, says Heyes, but continued to be friends with me, assuming apparently that we had the right to be different. Rod would endorse what I had done in terms of changes on his stories enthusiastically, while Charles would say, T dont think you did my story any good at all.

  Unquestionably, what saves Elegy from becoming unbearably morbid is Cecil Kellaways performance as Wickwire, the robot caretaker. Short and cute and likeable, his many fine performances in films such as / Married a Witch, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Harvey (plus two Oscar nominations, for The Luck of the Irish and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) had proved him inimitable. Says Buck Houghton, You couldnt really feel too depressed about these fellows in the care of such a fine old fellow, I dont think.

  In Elegy, The Twilight Zone was once again on shaky ground scientifically. According to the script, the asteroid circles twin stars 655 million miles from Earth. Quite a trick, considering the fact that the nearest star to our solar system is approximately twenty-six trillion miles away. In fact, if these stars were actually where claimed, they would be closer to our sun than is the planet Saturn.

  MIRROR IMAGE (2/26/60)

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Buck Houghton

  Director: John Brahm

  Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast:

  Millicent Barnes: Vera Miles Paul Grinstead: Martin Milner Ticket Agent: Joe Hamilton Woman Attendant: Noami Stevens Husband: Ferris Taylor Old Woman: Terese Lyon Bus Driver: Edwin Rand

  Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes, not given to undue anxiety or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fancy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because in just a moment the head on Miss Barnes’s shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who in one minute will wonder if she’s going mad.”

  Millicent suspects the bus station is run by lunatics: snappishly, the ticket taker tells her that shes repeatedly asked when the bus will arrive, adding that her suitcase has already been checked. In the washroom, the attendant claims she was there only a moment before. Yet shes done none of these things. She realizes that it is not their sanity which is in question when, in the washroom mirror, she spies a duplicate of herself sitting in the waiting room. Rushing out, she finds the room empty. A short time later, Millicent elicits the sympathy of Paul Grinstead, an amiable businessman also waiting for the bus. When it arrives, the two of them start to get on, but Millicent flees back into the station when she sees that the other her has already boarded. Concerned, Paul misses the bus to remain with the distraught Millicent, who says she now knows what is occurringa mirror image of her from a parallel world has somehow slipped into this world, and must take her place to survive. Certain shes mentally ill, Paul summons the police, who take Millicent away. But a few minutes later, he has reason to regret his decision: chasing an elusive figure he believes has stolen his case, he sees that the mans mockingly grinning face ishis own!

  Obscure metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon, reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it parallel planes or just insanity. Whatever it is, you find it in the Twilight Zone.�
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  With Mirror Image, Serling took the loss-of-identity theme and raised it to even greater heights of paranoia. I was in an airport in London, he once recalled. I was sitting there very quietly, with my topcoat in hand and a briefcase at my feet. And I looked up and across the room there stood a man five foot six, my identical height, wearing the identical topcoat, with a briefcase of identical cowhide. And I kept staring and staring, with this funny ice-cold feeling that if he turns around and its me, what will I do?

  Well, in point of fact, he did turn around and he was ten years younger and far more attractive. But this did leave its imprint sufficiently to write a story about it.

  Mirror Image represents The Twilight Zone at its most malevolent, presenting a world where threatening, destructive forces hold the upper hand and where the best intentions of people bring only disaster. The moral, stated previously in other episodes, is clear: without trust or belief, there can be no survival.

  FIRST SEASON HIATUS

  With the beginning of November, 1959, production of The Twilight Zone came to a halt. Twenty-six episodes had been produced. Now the network was going to see whether the show could attract a sizeable enough audience to warrant renewing it for the remainder of the season.

  Serling continued his campaign to publicize the unique qualities of the show. I make no bones about taking every opportunity to blatantly plug my show, he said. Clever turns of phrase came as readily to him in conversation as they did when he was alone with his Dictaphone. Reporters quoted him in hundreds of newspapers across the country.

  Nervously, Serling watched the ratings. It was touch and go all the way. I dont believe them. I dont think theyre statistically accurate. But, boy, am I on the phone waiting to hear them … Doom-criers predicted an early cancellation. In the L.A. Mirror-News, Hal Humphrey reported one sooth-sayer as dismissing the show with, Its a think show, and viewers dont want to think.

  One person who almost certainly must have agreed with that statement was one of the shows sponsors, called the Old Man by the crew. He used to call up the agency on Monday morning and demand to know what Fridays script had been all about, Serling told TV Guide. Then hed demand an explanation of the explanation. I guess he figured if he couldnt understand it, neither could the people who bought his products. The funny part was that although every renewal was right at the wireone day I got eight phone calls, four telling me we were off the air and four more telling me we were back onthe Old Man stuck for a whole season before he decided he couldnt stand it any longer.

  Within two months, the Nielsen ratings showed The Twilight Zone ahead of its competition. The series was attracting a weekly audience of close to twenty million, and while it was never a runaway hit, its audience did prove loyaland vociferous. Serling: We got almost six thousand pieces of mail in eighteen days. A lot of teenagers wrote, which surprised us, and a lot of doctors and professional people, people who ordinarily would never write a letter to a show. The letters ranged all the way from scholarly analyses of various episodes to out-and-out hero worship, the

  purest example of the latter being one that began, Dear Mr. Serling; I think of you like most people think of God, but this is not intended as a fan letter . . Another letter, this one to a newspaper, praised Serling for his fictitious imagination.

  On February 10, 1960, the suspense was broken. CBS announced in a press release that the series would continue for the rest of the season, with both General Foods and Kimberly-Clark staying on as sponsors. Heaving a collective sigh of relief, Cayuga Productions got back down to business.

  EXECUTION (4/1/60)

  Written by Rod Serling

  Based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson

  Producer: Buck Houghton

  Director: David Orrick McDearmon

  Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast:

  Joe Caswell: Albert Salmi George Manion: Russell Johnson Johnson: Than Wyenn Reverend: Jon Lormer Judge: Fay Roope Elderly Man: George Mitchell Bartender: Richard Karlan Cowboy: Joe Haworth

  Commonplace-if-somewhat-grim unsocial event known as a necktie party, the guest of dishonor a cowboy named Joe Caswell, just a moment away from a rope, a short dance several feet off the ground, and then the dark eternity of all evil men. Mr. Joe Caswell, who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, a heart, a feeling for fellow men, must have been out for a beer and missed out. Mr. Joe Caswell, in the last quiet moment of a violent life”

  In 1880, Joe Caswell is about to be hanged for shooting a man in the back. But as the noose tightens around his neck, Caswell disappearsand reappears in the modern laboratory of Professor Manion, inventor of the time machine that has saved his neck by plucking him at random out of the past. Seeing the rope burns and surmising that Caswell is one of lifes more dangerous people, Manion attempts to send him back. The two men struggle. Caswell hits Manion over the head with a heavy lamp and runs

  out onto a busy city street. Overwhelmed by the lights and the noise, Caswell soon returns to the laboratory to seek Manions aid, but his blow has killed the scientist. Then Paul Johnson, a petty thief, enters the lab. Caswell grapples with him for his gun. Johnson strangles Caswell with the drawcord of a curtain. But in looking for a hidden safe, Johnson unwittingly activates the time machine. He is sent back to 1880, appearing in the noose meant for Caswell and meeting the fate intended for the other man.

  This is November; 1880, the aftermath of a necktie party. The victim’s name Paul Johnson, a minor-league criminal and the taker of another human life. No comment on his death save this: justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar. Tonighfs case in point in the Twilight Zone

  The first episode produced in February (number twenty-seven in order of production), Execution, proved one of Serlings lesser efforts. In George Clayton Johnsons original unpublished story, two modern scientists use a time machine to yank a nineteenth-century killer out of a hangmans noose and into the present. Soon, the scientists realize that theyve made a mistake and have unwittingly let loose a violent primitive. Ultimately, the man is shot to death by a policeman and reappears back in the noose, the cycle complete. In adapting the story into a teleplay, Serling added verbiage and contrivance, eliminating one of the scientists (in the show, the remaining scientist is played by Russell Johnson, later the Professor on Gilligans Island) and adding a modern-day criminal, who strangles the man from the past with ludicrous ease. In particular, Serlings addition of the burglar, obviously intended as Caswells modern counterpart, makes the piece seem cluttered and unbalanced.

  Playing nineteenth-century killer Joe Caswell was Albert Salmi, a fine character actor who deserves better roles than he usually gets. Here, he gives Caswell an air of authenticity, speaking with an archaic accent and moving with the menacing body language of a man long used to violence. His is a faultless performance, but it is not enough to overcome a poorly adapted script.

  The Big Tall Wish

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Buck Houghton

  Director: Ron Winston

  Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

  Music: Jerry Goldsmith

  Cast:

  Bolie Jackson: Ivan Dixon Henry: Steven Perry Frances: Kim Hamilton Mizell: Walter Burke Thomas: Henry Scott Other Fighter: Charles Horvath Announcer: Carl Mclntire Referee: Frankie Van

  In this comer of the universe, a prizefighter named Bolie Jackson, one hundred eighty-three pounds and an hour and a half from a comeback at St. Nick’s arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who by the standards of his profession is an aging, over-the-hill relic of what was, and who now sees a reflection of a man who has left too many pieces of his youth in too many stadiums for too many years before too many screaming people. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who might do well to look for some gentle magic in the hard-surfaced glass that stares back at him.”

  Although Jackson breaks his hand prior to the fight, he wins it because Henry a little boy who ador
es the fighter and who believes utterly in magic has made the big, tall wish. Unfortunately, after the fight the boxer refuses to believe in the magic, insisting it was his own ability that won the match. In anguish, the child tells him, If you dont believe, it wont be true! But the fighter has been battered and beaten for so long that he can’t believe. Suddenly, Jackson finds himself back in the ring, flat on his back and counted out. When he returns to Henry, the child tells him that he wont be making any more wishes. Im too old for wishes, he says, and there aint no such thing as magic, is there? Maybe there is magic, says Bolie. Maybe theres wishes, too. I guess the trouble is, theres not enough people around to believe.

  Mr. Bolie Jackson, one hundred eighty-three pounds, who left a second chance lying in a heap on a rosin-spattered canvas at St. Nick’s arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who shares the most common ailment of all men, the strange and perverse disinclination to believe in a miracle, the kind of miracle to come from a little boy, perhaps only to be found in the Twilight Zone.”

  The theme of The Big Tall Wish was nothing new, being simply a reiteration of the old saw about the washed-up fighter and the adorable little boy the lugs just gotta win the big fight for, but Serling had a couple of twists in mind. For one, the central drama of the piece revolved around a belief in magic. For another, both the fighter and the little boy, along with the boys mother and all the people in the neighborhood, were played by black actors. In 1960, casting blacks in a dramatic show not dealing with racial issues was something practically unheard of, but this was a deliberate move on Serlings part. Television, like its big sister, the motion picture, has been guilty of a sin of omission, he said at the time. Hungry for talent, desperate for the so-called new face, constantly searching for a transfusion of new blood, it has overlooked a source of wondrous talent that resides under its nose. This is the Negro actor.