Mother, if you can hear me, listen. You said you loved Billy. At his birthday you picked him up and you hugged himand you said he gave you life again. If you really love Billy, give him back. Hes only five. He hasnt even started. He doesnt know anything about going to school.
Or girlfriends. Or wearing long pants. Even pitching a baseball. Hes hardly been out of this room, out of this house. Theres a whole world he hasnt even touched.
Mother, you said Billy gave you life againnow you can give him life. If you really love him, let him live. Give him back. Give him back, Ma!
When the show went on the air, says Idelson, they all came over to my houseChuck, Dick Matheson, Bill Nolanand they were all very complimentary. It was a tremendous thrill for me.
TAKING STOCK
Long Distance Call was the last episode of The Twilight Zone to be videotaped. In all, Cayuga had saved five thousand dollars per episode, but for a series that required the entire universe as a stage, the limitations of tape far outweighed the advantages. In 1972, Serling finally made public his feelings on the subject. In an interview with Douglas Brode in Show magazine, he said, I never liked tape because its neither fish nor fowl. Youre bound to the same kind of natural laws as in live TV, but they try to mix it with certain qualities of film. … on Twilight Zone we tried six shows on tape, and they were disastrous.
Although Serling and company were done with the six tape episodes, others were not. Both Static and Long Distance Call resulted in lawsuits against Cayuga by writers who had submitted stories to The Twilight Zone, one of which utilized a magical toy telephone, the other a magical radio. Unfortunately, because The Twilight Zone was essentially a show that relied on various supernatural or scientific gimmicks, it left itself wide open to such charges.
There were accusations floating around all the time that Rod was stealing every story that was ever written, and Rod was very self-conscious about it, says Buck Houghton. [Science fiction] is a limited field, and you cant write in it without stepping on somebodys former idea. Its like saying that every love story is a steal of Romeo and Juliet. You know, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl is not copyrightable. But there was this feeling. Ultimately, settlements were made in both cases.
Following the tape shows, Cayuga broke for the remainder of the winter. For most of the production crew, this meant a well-deserved vacation, but not for Serling. If anything, his work load increased, preparing six of the remaining seven scripts of the season. Shooting of film episodes resumed at the beginning of March, 1961, with two very different stories of time travel, both by Serling.
A HUNDRED YARDS OVER THE RIM (4/7/61)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Buzz Kulik
Director of Photography:George T. Clemens
Music: Fred Steiner
Cast: Christian Horn: Cliff Robertson Joe: John Crawford Mary Lou: Evans Evans Doctor: Ed Platt Martha Horn: Miranda Jones Sheriff: Robert L. McCord III Miranda Jones and Cliff Robertson Charlie: John Astin
The year is 1847, the place is the territory of New Mexico, the people are a tiny handful of men and women with a dream. Eleven months ago, they started out from Ohio and headed west. Someone told them about a place called California, about a warm sun and a blue sky, about rich land and fresh air, and at this moment almost a year later theyve seen nothing but cold, heat, exhaustion, hunger, and sickness. This mans name is Christian Horn. He has a dying eight-year-old son and a heartsick wife, and hes the only one remaining who has even a fragment of the dream left. Mr. Chris Horn, whos going over the top of a rim to look for water and sustenance and in a moment will move into the Twilight Zone.
Scouting a hundred yards over the rim, Horn is shocked to see a paved highway lined with telephone poles and the wagons he left behind only minutes before completely gone! A huge truck which Horn takes for a monster thunders by. He throws himself to the ground and his rifle discharges into his arm. Stumbling along the road, he comes to a diner run by Joe and Mary Lou (a former nurses aide). Mary Lou treats Horns arm and gives him a bottle of penicillin pills. The couple find the stranger
extremely odd, and Horn finds both them and the restaurant totally inexplicable until he spies a calendar dated September, 1961. The couple summon a doctor who questions Horn and finds that his delusions have their own peculiar rationality, lent credence by his clothes, his gun, and the old-fashioned fillings in his teeth. Joe, realizing this is all beyond him, calls the sheriff to take Horn away. Horn emerges from the other room. He has looked in an encyclopedia and found that his son grew up to be a renowned physician. He realizes that his journey through time has been for a purpose. As the sheriff arrives, Horn runs from the diner. Joe and the sheriff give chase, but Horn tops the rim and returns to 1847 armed with penicillin for his boy and the knowledge of nearby water and game. All that is left in 1961 is his rifle, which suddenly looks as though it has been rotting in the desert for a hundred years.
Mr Christian Horn, one of the hardy breed of men who headed west during a time when there were no concrete highways or the solace of civilization. Mr. Christian Horn, family and party, heading west, after a brief detour through the Twilight Zone
In order to save money, whenever possible Buck Houghton liked to schedule two shows utilizing similar locations back to back, so that the crew would only have to make one trip outside the studio. Both A Hundred Yards Over the Rim and The Rip Van Winkle Caper were shot in the desert near Lone Pine, California.
First to be filmed was A Hundred Yards Over the Rim. The episode boasts many good performances, but it is the powerful central performance of Cliff Robertson that holds the show together. As Chris Horn, he plays his role with intelligence and conviction, seeming in movement, expression, and even accent every bit the nineteenth-century man.
Director Buzz Kulik recalls being impressed with Robertsons methods. He came to me while we were rehearsing with an eight-or nine-page analysis of his character that he had written, and he said, Will you read this and see if you agree or disagree or if theres anything you can add. Well, we used to do that when we were all kids just out of acting school, but very few people take the time to do that.
In his striving for authenticity, Robertson sometimes went to lengths that people on the set found curious. Both Kulik and Robertson wanted the main character to look not like a cowboy, but rather to wear what actually might have been worn by an Easterner on his way west. Says director of photography George Clemens, Do you remember he wore a big stovepipe hat? It was Cliffs idea and I was so scared that wed be laughed off the screen on the first scene. In fact, Rod was back in Interlaken [town in upstate New York bordering Cayuga Lake] and I even insisted that Buck call him and talk to him. Comedy and drama are so close that if you step over one side you get a laugh and you ruin the whole effect of the drama. But I was wrong, and I was the first guy that admitted it. Cliff was a great guy, and I thought he did a hell of a job.
THE RIP VAN WINKLE CAPER (4/21/61)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Justus Addiss
Director of Photography:
George T. Clemens Music: stock
Cast: Farwell: Oscar Beregi DeCruz: Simon Oakland Brooks: Lew Gallo Erbie: John Mitchum Man on Road: Wallace Rooney Woman on Road: Shirley OHara Brookss Stunt Double:Robert L. McCord III Oscar Beregi, John Mitchum, DeCruzs Stunt Double: Lew Gallo and Simon Oakland Dave Armstrong
The time is now and the place is a mountain cave in Death Valley, U.S.A. In just a moment, these four men ivill utilize the services of a truck placed in cosmoline, loaded with a hot heist cooled off by a century of sleep, and then take a drive into the Twilight Zone.
After robbing a bullion train bound from Fort Knox to California, four thieves stow their million dollars worth of gold bricks in a cave and, utilizing a gas invented by Farwell, the ringleader, enter glass cases and go into suspended animation. While asleep, one is killed by a
falling rock. But the others awake a hundred years later, hale and hearty and free from all possible pursuit. They soon find, though, that they have not escaped their own greed. Hot-tempered DeCruz, eager to lessen the number of partners, uses the truck to run over and kill Brooks. But then the truck goes out of control and is wrecked. DeCruz and Farwell must walk through the desert to the nearest town, carrying as much gold as they can. Farwell, the older of the two, quickly becomes parched and exhausted. After losing his canteen, he is forced to pay DeCruz one gold bar for each sip of water. When the price goes up to two gold bars, Farwell lashes out, striking DeCruz with one of the gold bricks and killing him. Weak and dehydrated, Farwell trudges along the highway weighted down by the golden burden he is unwilling to abandon. Finally, he collapses. A futuristic car drives up. Farwell offers his gold to the couple inside in exchange for a drink of water and a drive into town, but he is already too far gone. He dies never knowing that years earlier a way of manufacturing gold was found … making his precious loot utterly worthless.
The last of four Rip Van Winkles who all died precisely the way they lived, chasing an idol across the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot sun as so much desert flotsam, worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine to. Tonights lesson … in the Twilight Zone .
Two performances raised The Rip Van Winkle Caper above the mundane: Simon Oakland, as a sadistic and greedy thug, and Oscar Beregi, as the brains of the operation. Together, the two generate a lot of electricity. This episode also adds another fine ironic ending to the catalogue of The Twilight Zone.
SHADOW PLAY (5/5/61)
Written by Charles Beaumont
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: John Brahm
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Adam Grant: Dennis Weaver Henry Ritchie: Harry Townes Paul Carson: Wright King Jiggs: William Edmondson Carol Ritchie: Anne Barton Coley: Bernie Hamilton Phillips: Tommy Nello Priest: Mack Williams Judge: Gene Roth Attorney: Jack Hyde Jury Foreman: Howard Culver Guard: John Close
Adam Grant; a nondescript kind of man found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice hes scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isnt prison that scares him, the long, nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or death itself Its something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear; something worse than any punishment this world has to offer,; something found only in the Twilight Zone .
What has Grant so scared is his certainty that all of this is a dream hes having, a recurring nightmare that has him waking up screaming every single night. District Attorney Ritchie rejects this as preposterous, but his friend Paul Carson, a newspaper editor, isnt so sure and hes terrified that when Grant is electrocuted all of them will cease to exist. Carson convinces Ritchie to visit Grant in his cell, but Ritchie is not swayed by the fact that Grant is expecting him, nor by Grants ability to lip-sync his every word. Grant offers to prove the world is all his invention; when Ritchie goes home he finds that the steak his wife put in the oven has inexplicably changed into a roast yet he still refuses to accept Grants claim. As midnight draws near, Carson pleads with him to call the governor for a stay of execution, arguing that Grant is clearly a mental incompetent. Reluctantly, Ritchie picks up the phone. But it is too late. As the switch is pulled on Grant, Ritchie and Carson disappear as does everything else in their world. For a moment, all is blackness, then suddenly Grant is back in the courtroom being sentenced. Some of the characters are different, but the scenario is the same and the nightmare is starting over.
We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and- blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someones feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live instead … in the Twilight Zone.
As in Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont once again explored the shadow realm of the nightmare in Shadow Play.
Although somewhat stereotypical, the episode is suspenseful. Will Adam Grant be able to convince the D. A. that this is all a dream, or will he go to the chair? Its a race to the wire. Dennis Weaver, then known principally as Matt Dillons limping right-hand man Chester, gives an intense if broad performance. Directing this was John Brahm, and he was a good choice, having directed many segments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One sequence seems particularly Hitchcockian: Grant is describing to a fellow prisoner the long walk to the electric chair. He concludes his monologue with, Then they drop the mask. Its musty, it smells like an old sofa. Then you wait, every muscle tense, straining. Any second, any second. Then you can almost hear it. They pull the switch … Quick cut to a closeup of a stove as the D.A.s wife pulls a sizzling steak from the broiler. Effective black humor.
Perhaps best of all, Shadow Play, like Mirror Image and a number of others, was an episode that could easily set a viewers mind to thinking, to questioning the nature of reality. Or perhaps it should be put like this: Are you really reading this page, or is someone dreaming you reading this page?
THE SILENCE (4/28/61)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Buzz Kulik
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast:
Col. Archie Taylor: Franchot Tone Jamie Tennyson: Liam Sullivan George Alfred: Jonathan Harris Franklin: Cyril Delevanti 1st Man: Everett Glass 2nd Man: Felix Locher 3rd Man: John Holland
The note that this man is carrying across a club room is in the form of a proposed wager; but its the kind of wager that comes without precedent. It stands alone in the annals of bet-making as the strangest game of chance ever offered by one man to another. In just a moment, well see the terms of the wager and what young Mr. Tennyson does about it. And in the process, well witness all parties spin a wheel of chance in a very bizarre casino called the Twilight Zone.
Aristocratic Archie Taylor wants nothing more than to enjoy a little peace and quiet at his mens club, but this is made impossible by the incessant chatter of fellow member Jamie Tennyson. Filled with contempt, he offers Tennyson a wager: if Tennyson can remain silent for a year, he will pay him half a million dollars. In order to insure his unbroken silence, he will be housed in the clubs basement. Hopelessly in debt, in love with a wife with expensive tastes, Tennyson reluctantly agrees. As the weeks roll by, it becomes clear that Tennyson is determined to win. Taylor offers him a thousand dollars to call off the bet. When this fails, he uses every dirty trick he can think of to get Tennyson to speak, including making insinuations that his wife is being unfaithful to him. Finally, the year is over. Tennyson emerges from the basement and puts out a hand for his winnings. A broken man, Taylor reveals that he lost his fortune years before, that he never had any intention of paying off the bet. Tennyson is clearly devastated by this news, but he enigmatically remains silent. The truth becomes horribly clear when he writes a note and hands it to Taylor. It reads: I knew I would not be able to keep my part of the bargain, so one year ago I had the nerves to my vocal chords severed!
Mr. Jamie Tennyson, who almost won a bet, but who discovered somewhat belatedly that gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit, even with loaded dice, marked cards, or in his case some severed vocal chords. For somewhere beyond him a wheel was turned and his number came up black thirteen. If you dont believe it, ask the croupier, the very special one who handles roulettein the Twilight Zone.
The Silence is a curiously atypical episode. It has no supernatural nor science-fictional elements, nor is there even the suggestion of any, as in Where Is Everybody? In every aspect, the story seems more suited to Alfred Hitchcock Presents than to The Twilight Zone.
Although it isnt credited, The Silence is almost certainly based on The Bet, a short story by Anton Chekh
ov, in which a banker bets a young lawyer a huge sum of money that he will not be able to stay in solitary confinement for a period of fifteen years. Fifteen years pass during which the banker suffers numerous setbacks. If he pays the bet he will be ruined, so he determines to murder the lawyer in his sleep. Fortunately, over the years the lawyer has come to the conclusion that material goods are without value. To prove this, he decides to disappear just before the fifteenth year expires, thus forfeiting the bet and saving the bankerand himself, though he doesnt know it.
Appropriate or not, the story did present its share of challenges. The first headache went to George Clemens. The set where Sullivan was to be imprisoned was made up entirely of panes of glass! When I saw the set, I pretty near lost my lunch, Clemens recalls. How in the world am I going to get a light in there, and show light, without getting reflections? But Buck Houghton had hired the right man, and Clemens persevered. Once I started on the thing, he says, I think I only had to take two panes of glass out in the whole picture.
The first days shooting went just fine. The opening and closing scenes of the episode, both of which take place in the main room of the mens club, were completed. The company broke for the weekend. But the biggest problem was yet to come.
On the second day of shooting, Franchot Tone didnt show up, Serling recalled years later. And we waited and we waited. The call is six in the morning. When it got to be ten a.m. and everybody had been sitting
there in their own smoke waiting and no Franchot Tone, we get his agent who tracks him down. Hes in a clinic.
Stories differ. According to Liam Sullivan, Tone told him that hed been at a party and, in attempting to pick a flower for his date off a bush on the terrace, had fallen down a hillside and landed on the driveway of the house next door. According to Serling, Tone had approached a girl in the parking lot of a restaurant and her boyfriend had taken offense and beaten him up. Whatever the truth, the result was still the same: half of Tones face was scraped raw.
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