Twilight Zone Companion

by Marc Scott Zicree

After being fired from his job, McNulty goes to a bar where he makes the acquaintance of a slightly potted foreigner named Potts, whom he treats to a beer. In gratitude, Potts gives McNulty a most extraordinary stopwatch: when its button is pressed, the watch stops everything in the world except McNulty! Eager to show off his new acquisition, McNulty tries to demonstrate it to his ex-boss and to the people in the bar. Unfortunately, when he uses it the people are also frozen, and thus are unaware of anything having occurred. McNulty is stymied only briefly, and then gets a brainstorm; he stops time and strolls into a bank vault, intending to make a sizeable withdrawal. But when he wheels a cart filled with cash outside, he drops the stopwatch and it breaks. McNulty is trapped permanently in a timeless world with no one to talk to.

  Mr. Patrick Thomas McNulty, who had a gift of time. He used it and he misused it, now hes just been handed the bill. Tonights tale of motion and McNultyin the Twilight Zone.

  As with Uncle Simon, a feeling of watching uninteresting characters go through the motions predominates in A Kind of a Stopwatch. The writing here is slapdash, uncaring. Who, for instance, is Potts, and why does he give McNulty the incredible stopwatch? The dialogue doesnt give us many clues; its supposed to make Potts seem the kind of eccentric character who might give a total stranger a mysterious and magical device, but it plays very flat. Potts is no more than a plot device, the intention being to get the watch into McNultys hands as quickly as possible.

  The one bright spot in A Kind of Stopwatch comes when McNulty, a man who loves to talk, realizes the one major drawback in a watch that freezes people dead in their tracks. How about that? he says (to himself). The greatest conversation piece in the world … and what does it do? It stops conversation!

  THE 7th IS MADE UP OF PHANTOMS (12/6/63)

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.

  Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast: Sgt. Conners: Ron Foster Pfc. McCluskey: Randy Boone Cpl. Langsford: Warren Oates Captain: Robert Bray Lieutenant: Greg Morris Scout: Wayne Mallory Sergeant: Lew Brown Corporal: Jacque Shelton Radio Operator: Jeffrey Morris

  June twenty-fifth, 1964or; if you prefer, June twenty-fifth, 1876. The cast of characters in order of their appearance: a patrol of General Custer’s cavalry and a patrol of National Guardsmen on a maneuver. Past and present are about to collide head-on, as they are wont to do in a very special bivouac area known as… the Twilight Zone.”

  During National Guard wargames near the Little Big Horn, a three-man tank crew hears gunfire, then discovers a teepee and a canteen marked 7th Cavalry the outfit led to their deaths by General Custer in 1876. Next morning, driving along Rosebud Creek, the men see smoke signals and hear Indian war cries. Private McCluskey fires blind into a dust cloud and a riderless Indian pony runs by. Both McCluskey and Sergeant Conners believe they somehow are pursuing the past and that soon they will find themselves in the middle of a massacre. Corporal Langsford thinks they are crazy, but then he stumbles upon a deserted Indian villageand McCluskey gets an arrow in the back! Discarding their tank, the three struggle across Rosebud Creek to the scene of the battle and charge into the fray. Later, their superiors find the tank but no sign of the men … until they check the names of the dead listed at the Custer Battlefield National Memorial.

  Sergeant William Conners, Trooper Michael McCluskey and Trooper Richard Langsford, who on a hot afternoon in June made a charge over a hilland never returned. Look for this one under P for phantom, in a historical ledger located in a reading room known as the Twilight Zone

  The premise of The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms is an intriguing one, as the three-man tank crew encounter physical evidence that they are in the past (empty wigwams, a riderless horse, and so on) but see no human beings until the very end. There is the feeling that they are pursuing an elusive historical event one they eventually catch up with.

  Some things in the episode arent so easy to swallow, though, such as the fact that two of the three men are conversant in the most minute details leading up to the battle. McCluskey, the sergeant asks, do you remember what it was that Reno found before the battle? Sure, the other answers, as though it were the most obvious thing on earth, the village. More disturbing is the fact that the episode takes it for granted that Custers men are on the side of Good, and that giving them a modern tank to even up the odds would be a swell idea. It is a cavalry versus Injuns mentality, and it seriously damages an interesting idea.

  THE OLD MAN IN THE CAVE (11/8/63)

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.

  Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack

  Music: stock

  Cast: Mr. Goldsmith: John Anderson Major French: James Coburn Jason: John Marley Evelyn: Josie Lloyd Harber: Frank Watkins Douglas: Lenny Geer Man: John Craven Woman: Natalie Masters Furman: Don Wilbanks

  What youre looking at is a legacy that man left to himself A decade previous he pushed his buttons and, a nightmarish moment later; woke up to find that he had set the clock back a thousand years. His engines, his medicines, his science were buried in a mass tomb, covered over by the biggest gravedigger of them all: a Bomb. And this is the Earth ten years later; a fragment of what was once a whole, a remnant of what was once a race. The year is 1974, and this is the Twilight Zone.

  A tiny community has survived for ten years by following the instructions of the mysterious Old Man in the Cave, as relayed to them by Mr. Goldsmith, their leader. But then a small band of armed soldiers commanded by the violent Major French drives into town and takes over. Against Goldsmiths vehement objections, they distribute food and liquor branded contaminated by the Old Man. Resentful over their past privations, the townspeople force Goldsmith to open the cave. The Old Man stands revealed as a computer! Enraged, the townsfolk destroy the machine. Later, though, they pay the price for their faithlessness: the food was contaminated, and all but Goldsmith die.

  Mr. Goldsmith, survivor; an eye witness to mans imperfection, an observer of the very human trait of greed and a chronicler of the last chapter the one reading suicide. Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be. This has been the Twilight Zone.

  Two episodes in the fifth season were based on short stories by Henry Slesar, a leading mystery writer and for many years a staff writer on The Edge of Night.

  Based on Slesars The Old Man and scripted by Serling, The Old Man in the Cave dwells on a small group of Atomic Holocaust survivors whose status quo is maintained by an unseen computer. James Coburn, John Anderson and John Marley all perform their roles well, but there are several issues raised by the episode that are hard to ignore. For instance, Goldsmith views the computer as a deity-like authority, and when the people demand to know the identity of the Old Man and disregard his instructions, this is considered the ultimate act of faithlessness the punishment being death. But, in actuality, a computer is not a god, it is a man-made tool, and the towns folks insistence to know the true nature of their leader seems less an act of faithlessness than a natural human curiosity for vital information, a desire for democracy, for self-determination.

  On a more prosaic level, there is yet another question: what has been powering the computer during the ten years since all-out nuclear warand how did it get in that cave in the first place?

  THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT OF SALVADORE ROSS (1/17/64)

  Written by Jerry McNeely

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Don Siegel

  Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast: Salvadore Ross: Don Gordon Leah Maitland: Gail Kobe Mr. Maitland: Vaughn Taylor Old Man: J. Pat OMalley Albert: Doug Lambert Mr. Halpert: Douglass Dumbrille Jerry: Seymour Cassel Bartender: Ted Jacques Nurse: Kathleen OMalley

  Confidential personnel file on Salvadore Ross. Personality: a volatile mixture of fur
y and frustration. Distinguishing physical characteristic: a badly-broken hand which will require emergency treatment at the nearest hospital. Ambition: shows great determination toward self-improvement. Estimate of potential success: a sure bet for a listing in Whos Who in the Twilight Zone

  When Leah Maitland, his former social worker, rejects his romantic overtures, Ross angrily punches a door and breaks his hand. Admitted to a hospital, he makes the acquaintance of an elderly patient suffering from severe bronchial congestion. Facetiously, Ross suggests they trade ailments; the old man agrees. Later that night, Ross finds to his amazement that it has workedh e now has a cold but no broken arm! Utilizing his bizarre talent, Ross trades forty-six years of his life to an aged millionaire in exchange for a million dollars and a posh apartment. He then buys back his youth from a variety of young men, a few years at a time. His vitality restored, he sets about courting Leah in style. But its no use; Leah wants a man with compassion, a trait her crippled father has in abundance. Although Mr. Maitland objects strongly to him, Ross convinces him to sell him his compassion for $100,000. The next day, Ross now filled with compassion easily wins Leahs love. But when he tells her father of his plans to marry her and asks his blessing, the compassionless Mr. Maitland pulls a gun and kills him.

  The Salvadore Ross program for self-improvement. The all-in-one, sure-fire success course that lets you lick the bully, learn the language, dance the tango and anything else you want to door think you want to do. Money-back guarantee. Offer limited to… the Twilight Zone

  Scripted by Jerry McNeeley (,Something for Joey, Streets of San Francisco, Marcus Welby, McMillan and Wife, and others) from The Self-improvement of Salvadore Ross (appearing in the May, 1961, issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,) the episode bears both the same title and plotline.

  In the lead is Don Gordon, in his first Twilight Zone appearance since The Four of Us Are Dying. The character here is similarcocky, slightly cruel, short-temperedand, for the most part, Gordon does a good, credible job of it. Fine too is Gail Kobe as Leah Maitland, the gentle social worker who wont give Salvadore Ross a tumbleuntil he mysteriously acquires a kindly disposition.

  Although competently directed by Don Siegel, the episode suffers from a sloppiness of production, a lack of attention to detail.

  One problem is the improbability of the idea that Leah could go from a rigid conviction not to have anything more to do with Sal to a state of complete infatuation in a single day. No matter how overwhelming his change in personality, this just isnt plausible. It would take time for him to convince her of his sincerity and to heal the wounds caused by his previous behavior.

  Worst of all is the scene in which Sal, having traded his youth for a million dollars and an elegant bachelor pad, is supposed to look and act like a man of seventy-two. The age makeup on Gordon looks like something out of a high-school play.

  STOPOVER IN A QUIET TOWN (4/24/64)

  Written by Earl Hamner, Jr.

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Ron Winston

  Director of Photography:

  Robert W. Pittack

  Music: stock

  Cast: Bob Frazier: Barry Nelson Millie Frazier: Nancy Malone Mother: Karen Norris Little Girl: Denise Lynn

  Bob and Millie Frazier; average young New Yorkers who attended a party in the country last night and on the way home took a detour. Most of us on waking in the morning know exactly where we are; the rooster or the alarm clock brings up out of sleep into the familiar sights, sounds, aromas of home and the comfort of a routine day ahead. Not so with our young friends. This will be a day like none they’ve ever spent and they’ll spend it in the Twilight Zone.”

  After getting drunk at the party, Bob and Millie wake up the next morning, fully dressed, in bed in a strange house, with no idea where they are nor memory of how they got there. Finding themselves alone, Bob tries to use the kitchen phone it comes off the wall in his hand. Odder still, the foods in the refrigerator are inedible props; the drawers nailed-down facades. Suddenly, they hear the giggling of an unseen little girl. Investigating outside, they find a town completely devoid of people. The mystery grows: a squirrel on a branch is stuffed; a tree falls over when leaned on; grass is made of papier-mache; a car has a dummy at the wheel and no engine. Hearing a train whistle, Bob and Millie rush to find the station. But before they can, a huge hand reaches down and grabs them. The town is merely a toy. Bob and Millie have been abducted by a giant alien and taken to its home world where they are now the playthings of its daughter.

  The moral of what you’ve just seen is clear. If you drink, don’t drive. And if your wife has had a couple, she shouldn’t drive either. You might both just wake up with a whale of a headache in a deserted village in the Twilight Zone.”

  Earl Hamner, Jr.s, Stopover in a Quiet Town bears a number of similarities to Serlings Where Is Everybody? The genesis of the story was similar, too. I got that idea walking around the backlot at MGM once, Hamner recalls. Everything was made of papier-mache and was a false front. It suddenly came to me, what if someone woke in this surrounding and there was nothing but false labels on everything, and if you dropped a lighted match on the grass it would catch fire, and if you got on a train it would come all the way around to where you started from?

  The greatest weakness in Stopover in a Quiet Town, beside the fact that its fairly predictable, lies in its two main characters. The lead in Where Is Everybody? although seemingly none too bright, is at least likeable. But Bob and Millie Frazier have almost no redeeming qualities. Theyre short-tempered, quarrelsome, and blame each other for their predicament. The wife tends toward hysteria and the man is brutishly insensitive. Clearly, neither has much regard for the other. A marvelous exchange occurs when Bob sarcastically remarks, Youre the one who drove us into this nuthouse in the first place! When Millie takes exception to this, Bob replies, Im sorry I said that. Its all my fault for being too tight to drive. Some apology; the implication is clear: had he been driving, they wouldnt be in this mess.

  A SHORT DRINK FROM A CERTAIN FOUNTAIN(12/13/63)

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Bernard Girard

  Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast: Harmon Gordon: Patrick ONeal Flora Gordon: Ruta Lee Dr. Raymond Gordon: Walter Brooke

  Picture of an aging man who leads his life, as Thoreau said, in quiet desperation. Because Harmon Gordon is enslaved by a love affair with a wife forty years his junior. Because of this, he runs when he should walk. He surrenders when simple pride dictates a stand. He pines away for the lost morning of his life when he should be enjoying the evening. In short, Mr. Harmon Gordon seeks a fountain of youth, and whos to say he wont find it? This happens to be the Twilight Zone.

  Desperate to keep up with his gold-digger wife, wealthy Harmon Gordon begs his doctor-brother to inject him with a highly experimental youth serum. Initially, the doctor refuses, but when Harmon threatens suicide he reluctantly agrees. At first, the serums effects seem miraculous; Harmon is restored to vigorous young manhood. But the formula continues to work and Harmon regresses into an infant. As his wife starts to walk out, Harmons brother makes a threat that compels her to stay: raise Harmon to adulthood, staying with him every minute or be cut off without a penny.

  It happens to be a fact: as one gets older, one does get wiser. If you dont believe it, ask Flora. Ask her any day of the ensuing weeks of her life, as she takes note during the coming years and realizes that the worm has turned youth has taken over. Its simply the way the calendar crumbles … in the Twilight Zone

  Poetic justice of a sort is served at the end of A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain but it would be more satisfying were it not for the uncomfortable realization that a helpless child is being left entirely at the mercy of someone who was an unfit wife and will almost certainly be an unfit mother. For reasons which are cloudy at this late date, this is one of
four half-hour episodes which are not in syndication. Considering its wordiness and predictability, however, this is no great loss.

  The way the calendar crumbles in the Twilight Zone

  The Masks

  Written by Rod Serling

  Producer: Bert Granet

  Director: Ida Lupino

  Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

  Music: stock

  Cast: Jason Foster: Robert Keith Emily Harper: Virginia Gregg Wilfred Harper: Milton Selzer Wilfred, Jr.: Alan Sues Paula Harper: Brooke Hayward Doctor: Willis Bouchey Butler: Bill Walker

  Mr Jason Foster; a tired ancient who on this particular Mardi Gras evening will leave the earth. But before departing he has some things to do, some services to perform, some debts to pay and some justice to mete out. This is New Orleans, Mardi Gras time. It is also the Twilight Zone.

  Knowing he is about to die, Foster summons his heirs with whom he shares no affection to his mansion for a bizarre Mardi Gras ritual. A Cajun has fashioned grotesque masks for him that reflect the true inner natures of his family: the whining self-pity of his daughter Emily; the avariciousness of his son-in-law Wilfred; the vanity of his granddaughter Emily; and the dull cruelty of his grandson Wilfred, Jr. Foster demands that they wear the masks until midnight; as for him, he will wear a deaths-head. They refuseuntil he informs them that theyll be disinherited unless they comply. Their greed overcomes their disgust; they all don the masks. As the hours slowly tick by, Fosters kin beg to be allowed to discard the masks, but Foster is steadfast in his determination. As midnight tolls, Foster dies. Overjoyed to be rid of him and to have gained his wealth, his family throw off their disguises and are horrified to see that their faces have taken on the hideous physical characteristics of the masks.