Written by Richard Matheson
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Norman Z. McLeod (one sequence by Les Goodwins; uncredited)
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: composed by William Lava; played by Ray Turner
Cast: Woodrow Mulligan: Buster Keaton Rollo: Stanley Adams Repair Man: Jesse White Prof. Gilbert: Milton Parsons Clothing Store Manager: Warren Parker Policeman 1890: Gil Lamb Policeman 1962: James Flavin 2nd Policeman 1962: Harry Fleer Fenwick: George E. Stone
Mr Mulligan, a rather dour critic of his times, is shortly to discover the import of that old phrase, Out of the frying pan, into the firesaid fire burning brightly at all times in the Twilight Zone .
Disgruntled over the clamor and high prices of 1890, janitor Woodrow Mulligan uses a time helmet invented by his employer, Professor Gilbert, to travel to 1962, which he assumes will be a utopia. Once there, he realizes the error of his assumptions and is eager to get back to 1890, but the helmet has been damaged and in only fifteen minutes he will be unable to return. He meets Rollo, an electronics scientist, who takes the helmet to a repair shop. Once fixed, Rollos motives become clear: he intends to use the helmet himself! Mulligan grabs hold of him and the two materialize in 1890. Mulligan is overjoyed, but Rollo soon becomes dissatisfied; to him, 1890 is hopelessly backward. Mulligan plops the helmet onto Rollos head and ships him back to 1962.
(To each his ownso goes another old phrase to which Mr. Woodrow Mulligan would heartily subscribe, for he has learned definitely the hard way that there is much wisdom in a third old phrase which goes as follows: Stay in your own back yard. To which it might be added, and if possible, assist others to stay in theirs via, of course, the Twilight Zone.
Richard Mathesons Once Upon a Time is a slapstick comedy starring Buster Keaton. I met Buster Keaton through Bill Cox, a writer friend of mine, relates Richard Matheson, and I thought, Gee, that would be wonderful if we could get Keaton into a Twilight Zone
To oversee this episode, Buck Houghton turned to Norman Z. McLeod, an old-time director who was in semi-retirement. McLeods credits read like a history of film comedy: Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Ifs a Gift, Topper; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and The Paleface (McLeod also directed the disastrous 1933 Alice in Wonderland). He wasnt working a lot, he didnt want to, says Buck Houghton. But he thought, My God, work with Buster Keaton? Lead me to it.
The experience with Keaton was absolutely wonderful, says Houghton. Heres a legend in his own time, for goodness sake, and he was exactly as reported. He was very sober about comedy. Hed take me out on the street and say, Buck, you cant do it that way. If I start here, then the gag works, but if I start there you can never make it work. Such things as walking behind a policeman in step and disappearing down a manhole just before the bird comes, you know, those Rube Goldberg devices that the picture was full of. He knew right down to the jot what made it work. It was fascinating, too, to be walking around the backlot and have the art director say, You know, this section of street was built for a Buster Keaton comedy in 1921.
Sad to relate, the humor in Once Upon a Time is not very funny. The sequences in 1890 at the beginning and end are silent, with cards replacing dialogue. A typical gag shows Keaton walking past chickens and pigs on the street. A card appears which reads Oink, oink … cluck, cluck. Robert Benchley, it aint.
Some of the shows problems were apparent from the first. This thing sat in the cutting room for weeks and weeks while [editor] Jason Bernie and I wondered how to get the goddamn thing to work better, says Buck Houghton, because it seemed to go kind of slowly, as if theres one apple … and two apples … and three applesand by then youre bored to hear me talk about the fourth apple. So it needed a goose.
The solution that Houghton and Bernie arrived at was to print only two out of every three frames in the silent sequences. This sped everything up and gave a jerky look to every movement, similar to early, hand-cranked silent films.
Having done that and found that it was a good notion, says Houghton, the episode needed an added sequence, and that sequence in the repair shop was directed by somebody else [Les Goodwins] months later.
Richard Matheson was not pleased with the results. I had so much more going on, it was so much funnier, what I had written. Obviously
because of cost reasons, the second act became this interminable scene in this repair shop, but I had it a chase from beginning to end, with him going through a car wash and a supermarket on a bike. It never stopped for a moment. After he meets Stanley Adams, though, it just stagnates. When all is said and done, Keatons presence alone makes Once Upon a Time worth watching. For all its faults, it is a warm reunion with a man who, long ago, made us laugh long and hard and well.
KICK THE CAN (2/9/62)
Written by George Clayton Johnson
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Lamont Johnson
Director of Photography:
George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Charles Whitley: Ernest Truex Ben Conroy: Russell Collins Mr. Cox: John Mar ley David Whitley: Barry Truex Carlson: Burt Mustin Mrs. Summers: Marjorie Bennett Frietag: Hank Patterson Mrs. Wister: Anne ONeal Agee: Earle Hodgins Mrs. Densley: Lenore Shanewise Nurse: Eve McVeagh Boy #1: Gregory McCabe Boy #2: Marc Stevens
Sunnyvale Rest, a home for the aged a dying place and a common childrens game called kick-the-can that will shortly become a refuge for a man who knows he will die in this world if he doesnt escape into … the Twilight Zone.
After his son refuses to take him in, Charles Whitley a resident of Sunnyvale Rest Home begins to brood, ultimately concluding that the secret of eternal youth lies in acting young. He tries to convince the other residents of this much to the dismay of his lifelong friend, Ben Conroy, now a sour old man. Late one night, Whitley awakens the others and pleads with them to join him in a game of kick-the-can. Touched by his sincerity, all agree but Ben, who runs off to rouse Mr. Cox, the homes superintendent, in order to stop the game. But when the two rush outside,all they find is children; the magic has worked. Ben pleads with Whitley now a boy to take him along … but it is too late. The children run off into the bushes, leaving Ben behind.
Sunnyvale Rest, a dying place for ancient people who have forgotten the fragile magic of youth. A dying place for those who have forgotten that childhood, maturity and old age are curiously intertwined and not separate. A dying place for those who have grown too stiff in their thinking to visit the Twilight Zone.
George Clayton Johnsons final script for The Twilight Zone was Kick the Can, an enormously moving piece about youth, old age, death, and friendship.
As Charles, Ernest Truex is passionate and persuasive. In What You Need, he had been rather forgettable, but here his performance is superb. This is an extremely sentimental show, and without the right balance it could have been cloying. But Truex throws himself into the part wholeheartedly.
The others in the cast are very fine as well, notably Russell Collins as Charless sour and unbelieving friend Ben, John Marley as the superintendent of the home and Burt Mustin as one of the residents. Snatches of Bernard Herrmanns lovely score for Walking Distance are heard throughout and contribute much to the feelings of nostalgia and longing.
Johnsons writing in Kick the Can is marvelous for its brevity and accuracy. In one effective scene, Whitley had awakened the other residents, all but Ben. He pleads with them to come out on the lawn with him to play kick-the-can. At first, theyre extremely resistant. He says to them, Look! Think! Feel! He presses an old tin can into their hands. Here, hold it. Doesnt that wake some sleeping part of you? Listen, cant you hear it? Summer, grass, run, jump youth! Wake up! Wake up! Oh, this is your last chance! Finally, in desperation, he cries out, I cant play kick-the-can alone! This does the trick; the others rise out of their seats to play.
Lamont Johnson remembers the experience of working with these actors. I find old people, if theyre turned on, to have
a curious kind of wonderful daring and madness and commitment, because they say, Why the hell not? What have I got to lose? Middle-aged and younger actors are far more uptight. They really had such fun. It was such joy to them to be released into a kind of fanciful thing.
As the others ready themselves to play, Whitley goes to wake Ben to plead with him to join in the game. Ben is adamant in his refusal. Whitley says, Ben, youre afraid. Youre afraid of a new idea. Youre afraid to look silly. Youre afraid to make a mistake. You decided that you were an old man, and that has made you old. Reluctantly, Whitley goes off to play kick-the-can without him.
Kick-the-Can is not an escapist fantasy, instead it makes a point that has tremendous validity: that the key to youth lies in taking risks, in commitment, in extending oneself; and that old age is the price of being judgmental and opinionated, of playing it safe, of living a sedentary life. When George Clayton Johnson wrote this he was only thirty-two, but he had a wisdom beyond his years. Whitley recaptures his youth, but only because the others regard him highly enough to risk looking foolish. The magic lies in the caring.
ONE MORE PALLBEARER (1/12/62)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Lamont Johnson
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast:
Paul Radin: Joseph Wiseman Mr. Hughes: Gage Clark Mrs. Langford: Katherine Squire Col. Hawthorne: Trevor Bardette Policeman: Ray Galvin Electrician #1: Joseph Elic Electrician #2: Robert Snyder
What you have just looked at takes place three hundred feet underground, beneath the basement of a New York City skyscraper. Its owned and lived in by one Paul Radin. Mr. Radin is rich, eccentric and single-minded. How rich we can already perceive; how eccentric and single-minded we shall see in a moment, because all of you have just entered the Twilight Zone.
Radin invites three people to the elaborate bomb shelter hes constructed: high school teacher Mrs. Langford, who flunked him; Colonel Hawthorne, who court-martialed him; and the Reverend Mr. Hughes, who made public a scandal involving a girl who committed suicide over him. Using bogus sound effects and radio announcements, he convinces them that all-out nuclear war is moments away; they can remain in the shelter if only they apologize to him for their past actions. The three refuse, valuing honor higher than life itself, and then depart. Suddenly, the sound of a tremendous explosion shakes the shelter. Radin takes the elevator to the surface and is devastated to see that nuclear war has occurred the world is in ruins. In reality, however, there has been no war; Radin, shattered by the failure of his hoax, has lost his mind.
Mr. Paul Radin, a dealer in fantasy, who sits in the rubble of his own making and imagines that hes the last man on Earth, doomed to a perdition of unutterable loneliness because a practical joke has turned into a nightmare. Mr. Paul Radin, pallbearer at a funeral that he manufactured himself… in the Twilight Zone
In One More Pallbearer, the audience is clearly supposed to sympathize with the authority figures of the preacher, the colonel, and the schoolteacher; however, it just doesnt come off. Joseph Wiseman plays his role as the neurotic millionaire with such vulnerability and the others their roles with such unfeeling coldness that we cannot help but feel pity for him and contempt for the others. The dialogue doesnt help dissuade us from these feelings:
colonel: Are we to understand, Mr. Radin, that you will permit us this luxury, you will allow us to stay?
radin: Of course, colonel. As a matter of fact, its precisely why Ive asked you to come. Each of you in his own way has tried to destroy me, but Ill not repay the compliment. That is to say, I will not require an eye for an eye, nothing as primitive or as naked as that.
colonel: What is your price, Mr. Radin? Id be interested.
radin: The colonel would be interested. I presume the reverend and the schoolmarm would be interested. I submit, dear friends, youre not just interested. Its probably the only thing in Gods Earth that has any meaning left at all! But the price, colonel. You will beg my pardon, you will ask for my forgiveness, and if need be you will get down on your hands and knees to perform the function.
teacher: Pretty please with sugar on it.
radin:
Whats that, teacher?
teacher: Pretty please with sugar on it. Its what children say to exact a favor. I dont want your favor, Mr. Radin, let me out of here! If Im to spend my last half hour on Earth, Id rather spend it with a stray cat, or alone in Central Park, or in a city full of strangers whose names Ill never know.
reverend: The door, Radin, will you open the door now?
colonel: Open up, Radin!
radin: Youre too blind or youre too stupid, because none of you seem to understand. All you have to do, literally all you have to do, is to say a sentence. Just a string of silly, stupid words, like a command, colonel, or like a lesson, teacher, or like a prayer, reverendall you have to do is say youre sorry!
Needless to say, they dont apologize. In the end, Radin goes mad, and the three escape untouched, either physically or emotionally, safe in their sanctimonious hypocrisy, to destroy yet more peoples lives. Unintentionally an unhappy ending … in the Twilight Zone.
DEAD MANS SHOES (1/19/62)
Written by Charles Beaumont
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Montgomery Pittman
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Nate Bledsoe: Warren Stevens Chips: Ben Wright Wilma: Joan Marshall Sam: Harry Swoger Maitre D: Eugene Borden Dagget: Richard Devon Daggets Woman: Florence Marly Ben: Ron Hagerthy Jimmy: Joe Mell
Nathan Edward Bledsoe, of the Bowery Bledsoes, a man once, a specter now. One of those myriad modern-day ghosts that haunt the reeking nights of the city in search of a flop, a handout, a glass of forgetfulness. Nate doesnt know it but his search is about to end, because those shiny new shoes are going to carry him right into the capital of the Twilight Zone.
After slipping on a pair of expensive shoes hes removed from the body of a murdered gangster, Bledsoe is taken over by the spirit of the dead mana spirit intent on revenge. He locates the killer Dagget, the deceased former business partner and tries to shoot him, but is instead gunned down himself. Before he dies, the ghost inside Bledsoe makes a pledge: to keep coming back until he succeeds in killing Dagget. Bledsoes body is dumped in an alley. Assuming Bledsoe is asleep, a fellow vagrant steals the fancy shoesand the cycle begins anew.
Theres an old saying that goes, (If the shoe fits, wear it. But be careful. If you happen to find a pair of size nine black-and-gray loafers, made to order in the old country, be very carefulyou might walk right into the Twilight Zone.
Originally, the idea of this episode was to have the haunted item be a cowboy hat, but this was soon altered. I think it was a good change, says Buck Houghton, because it seems to me that shoes would take you places you werent intending to go, whereas a hat wouldnt.
Although the show is credited to Charles Beaumont, at the time Beaumont was too loaded down with other assignments to do the script, so he farmed the job out to OCee Ritch, who had originated the idea for Static. At the very least, Ritch ghostwrote the entire first draft of the script, a fact of which Buck Houghton was totally unaware at the time. Perhaps as a result of all these subterranean dealings, the writing is very muddy, the characterizations extremely sketchy. The idea is a good one, but the story lacks a feeling of authenticity. The characters all feel like old carbon copies of various B-movie types, rather than being based on real people, and this is death for Dead Mans Shoes.
A PIANO IN THE HOUSE (2/16/62)
Written by Earl Hamner, Jr.
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: David Greene
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Fitzgerald Fortune: Barry Morse Esther Fortune: Joan Hackett Marge Moore: Muriel Landers Marvin the Butler: Cyril Delevanti Gregory Wa
lker: Don Durant Throckmorton: Phil Coolidge
Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, theater critic and cynic at large, on his way to a birthday party. If he knew what is in store for him he probably wouldnt go, because before this evening is over that cranky old piano is going to play Those Piano Roll Blues with some effects that could happen only in the Twilight Zone.
Fortune buys his wife a player piano for her birthday, then discovers it has magical propertiesi ts music reveals peoples hidden faces. A hardhearted curio-shop owner gushes with sentimentality; a solemn butler bursts out with gales of laughter. Using it on his wife, Fortune discovers that she actually detests him. Fortune decides that the piano is the ideal tool to humiliate his wifes party guests. Under the musics spell, a seemingly jaded playwright admits to being passionately in love with Fortunes wife. A boisterous fat woman reveals fantasies of being a delicate, graceful little girl and a beloved, beautiful snowflake. Delighted with his cruel game, Fortune hands his wife another roll to put in the piano, but she substitutes a different piece, one that bewitches Fortune and strips him of his facade. In truth, he is no more than a frightened, sadistic child. Disgusted and embarrassed, the guests depart along with Fortunes wife.
Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, a man who went searching for concealed persons and found himselfin the Twilight Zone.
Earl Hamner, Jr.s A Piano in the House unfortunately suffers from superficial characterization. The main character is a sadistic theater critic (Barry Morse) with the unlikely name of Fitzgerald Fortune. He buys a magic player piano that has the ability to reveal peoples inner selves and
uses it to humiliate his wife (Joan Hackett) and various of her friends. In the end, of course, the piano is turned against Fortune himself and we see that he is nothing more than an ill-tempered child. The episode boasts competent performances by Joan Hackett as Fortunes wife and Cyril Delevanti as his butler, plus an exceptional performance by Muriel Landers as a fat woman with a fragile and secret soul.
Twilight Zone Companion Page 29
