Twilight Zone Companion
Page 46
Introducing Mr. Jared Garrity, a gentleman of commerce, who in the latter half of the nineteenth century plied his trade in the wild and wooly hinterlands of the American West. And Mr. Garrity, if one can believe him, is a resurrecter of the deadwhich, on the face of it, certainly sounds like the bull is off the nickel. But to the scoffers amongst you, and you ladies and gentlemen from Missouri, don’t laugh this one off entirely, at least until youve seen a sample of Mr. Garritys wares, and an example of his services. The place is Happiness, Arizona, the time about 1890. And you and I have just entered a saloon where the bar whiskey is brewed, bottled and delivered from the Twilight Zone
After bringing back to life a dog run over by a wagon, Garrity promises to resurrect, at midnight, all 128 of the towns deadall but one of whom died by violence. As the hour draws near, the townsfolk grow apprehensive at the prospect of the deceased returning, notably the sheriff, who ambushed an unarmed gunman; the barkeep, who shot his no-good brother in the back; and the town drunk, whose 247-pound wife broke his arm six times before she died. Garrity agrees to reverse the resurrectionfor a price. The townsfolk pay him off handsomely. Much richer, Garrity leaves Happiness, but not before retrieving his dog and the man who supposedly ran it overboth Garritys accomplices in a most imaginative con game. But as they pass the cemetery, they fail to notice that the dead have risen, appreciative of Garritys abilityand extremely eager to get back into town.414
Exit Mr. Garrity, a would-be charlatan, a make-believe con man and a sad misjudger of his own talents. Respectfully submitted from an empty cemetery on a dark hillside that is one of the slopes leading to the Twilight Zone .
The best of Serlings final episodes was Mr. Garrity and the Graves. John Dehner is marvelously dry as a con man in the Old West and there is a good deal of humor as he goes about his business in the town of Happiness, Arizona, with 128 dead, all but one victims of violence (That was my dear wife Zelda, rest her soul, the town drunk explains, a fine, healthy, strapping woman of 247 poundsbut not unattractive, mind you). But even here there is a sloppiness of conception. For instance, when Garrity reveals that those with him in the saloon will have to pay him to not resurrect their less-than-dearly departed, everyone, including the town drunk, has between five hundred and twelve hundred dollars on their person. Clearly, this was intended as an expedient to keep the plot moving along as quickly as possible, but it is just not plausible.
Then there is the matter of Garritys accomplice, who impersonates the barkeeps dead brother and limps slowly down the towns foggy, moonlit dirt road. The instant that the bartender coughs up Garritys requested wwresurrecting fee, the man disappears, right in front of the astounded townsfolksand oureyes. Whats never explained, though, is just how the fellow accomplished this seemingly-supernatural trick.
NINETY YEARS WITHOUT SLUMBERING(12/20/63)
Written by Richard deRoy
Producer: William Froug
Director: Roger Kay
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Cast: Sam Forstmann: Ed Wynn Marnie Kirk: Carolyn Kearney Doug Kirk: James Callahan Dr. Mel Avery: William Sargent Carol Chase: Carol Byron Mover #1: Dick Wilson Mover #2: Chuck Hicks Policeman: John Pickard
Each man measures his time; some with hope, some with joy, some with fear. But Sam Forstmann measures his allotted time by a grandfathers clock, a unique mechanism whose pendulum swings between life and death, a very special clock that keeps a special kind of time in the Twilight Zone .
Although he is sent to a psychiatrist, Sam Forstmann remains unshakable in his conviction that when the grandfather clock he has owned all his life comes to a stop, he will die. Nevertheless, in order to appease his granddaughter Marnie and her husband Doug, he sells the clock to their neighbor Carol, with the proviso that he can make regular maintenance visits. But when Carol and her husband leave on vacation, the clock begins to wind down. On the verge of hysteria, Sam tries to break into the house in order to wind it, only to be stopped by the police. Back home in his bed, he is resigned to the fact that he will die momentarily when the clock stops. The pendulum slows, then is still. Sams spirit leaves his body, informing him its time to depart. But Sam has other ideas. He doesnt believe that nonsense about the clockhes been to a psychiatrist! The spiritno more than a figment of Sams imaginationdisappears. Sam has triumphed over himself. Or, as he tells Marnie, When that clock died, / was born again.
Clocks are made by men, God creates time. No man can prolong his allotted hours, he can only live them to the fullestin this world or in the Twilight Zone.
While Bert Granet was still producer, George Clayton Johnson submitted a story entitled The Grandfather Clock. He was given the go-ahead and enlarged it to a full teleplay with the title Tick of Time. In the sensitively written original, Johnson once again returned to the themes of old age and fear of death. An old man who lives with his pregnant granddaughter and her husband believes he will die if his grandfather clock ever stops. Pressured by the young people to get rid of the clock, the old man gives it to an antique dealer. But later, he changes his mind and tries to struggle the huge clock home in a childs wagon with the assistance of a neighborhood boy. It is an exhausting and hazardous ordeal, made doubly so by the knowledge that a grandfather clock, in order to keep ticking, must remain absolutely upright. When the old man tries to lift the clock out of the wagon, it falls on top of him. It stops ticking and he dies. Several bystanders set the clock upright. At the same moment that it begins to tick again, the mans granddaughter gives birth to her baby. The cycle begins anew.
By the time this script was turned in, William Froug had assumed the helm. He was not pleased by Tick of Time. He paid Johnson, then hired another writer, Richard deRoy, to entirely revamp the script. Sadly, in this transition little was gained and much was lost.
In the finished episode, Ninety Years Without Slumbering, both the family situation and the central obsession remain the same. Although he is sent to a psychiatrist, Sam Forstmann remains unshakable in his conviction that his mortality is inextricably intertwined with that of his clock. Back home in his bed, he is resigned to the fact that he will die momentarily when the clock stops. It is better this way, he says. It has to come sometime, and I want it to come for me here.
Then something extremely peculiar happens. Sams spirit leaves his body and begins to beckon him to depart:
spirit: … Your time has come, Sam. After all, you are seventy-six.
sam: Dont give me that spirit of seventy-six stuff.
And who says its my time to go?
spirit: Have you forgotten what your father told you and your grandfather?
sam: About what?
spirit: Didnt they always tell you that when the clock winds down youll die?
sam: Yes, and you know something? I used to believe that stuff!
spirit: Well, you should have. They told you often enough.
sam: But thats silly, dont you know that? I do. Ive been to a psychiatrist!
spirit: So what?
sam: So he told me he didnt think I needed the clockand he didnt think I was crazy! And you know something? He was right and were wrong.
Imagine, Sam Forstmann has staunchly held to his belief in the face of all logic to the contrary, trumpeted it to a psychiatrist, even attempted breaking-and-entering in order to keep the clock tickingand what does he do at the last possible moment? Blithely talk himself out of his most strongly held belief of over seventy years. As Forstmann, Ed Wynn is
about as disarming and lovable as one could hope for, but not even he can sell this bill of goods.
Not at all happy about all this is George Clayton Johnson, who rightly views it as an inept alteration of something he originated. It makes the plot trivial. If youre going to get involved in his problems youve got to believe in his problems, and if he doesnt believe in them you feel cheated.
NEWCOMERS
Including Ninety Years Without Slumbering, six episodes produced by Will
iam Frougfully one-fourth his outputwere written by newcomers to the series. As the results demonstrate, most of them just did not understand the form.
In previous seasons, virtually all the better episodes had running through them a sense of cosmic justice, of people getting their just deserts, often with a full helping of irony. The fantastic element that was the Twilight Zone was there for a reason: if the main character was a rotter, it would give him his comeuppance; if he was a decent sort it would give him a second chance, a magical opportunity to set his life right. On the rare occasion that someone inoffensive ended up badly (as in Time Enough at Last), there was a deliberate sense of tragedy. A moral code was being applied.
In the six episodes by the newcomers, such is not the case. Instead, there is a feeling of things gone tilt. Consequences are often unfairly meted out. Rather than a cosmos in which every action brings about an equal reaction, this is a universe ruled by chaos.
CAESAR AND ME (4/10/64)
Written by A. T. Strassfield
Producer: William Froug
Director: Robert Butler
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: Richard Shores
Cast: Jonathan West: Jackie Cooper Susan: Susanne Cupito Mrs. Cudahy: Sarah Selby Mr. Smiles: Olan Soule Pawnbroker: Stafford Repp Watchman: Sidney Marion Detective: Don Gazzaniga Mr. Miller: Ken Konopka
Jonathan West, ventriloquist, a master of voice manipulation. A man late of Ireland, with a talent for putting words into other peoples mouths. In this case, the other person is a dummy, aptly named Caesar, a small splinter with large ideas, a wooden tyrant with a mind and a voice of his own, who is about to talk Jonathan West into the Twilight Zone .
Unable to get bookings because his act just isnt funny, West has no money to pay for food or rent. After bombing out at an employment agency, West follows Little Caesars directions and commits several petty burglaries. During a theater robbery, West is spotted by a night watchman. His landladys niece Susan, a vicious brat, overhears him discussing the bungled job with Caesar and calls the police. West is hauled off to jail, but Little Caesarbeing viewed as merely inanimate woodgets away scot-free. Caesar tells Susan he likes her style and suggests they team up. Theyll go to New Yorkbut first theyll have to get rid of her aunt.
Little girl and a wooden doll, a lethal dummy in the shape of a man. But everybody knows dummies cant talkunless, of course, they learn their vocabulary in the Twilight Zone.
The basic theme of Caesar and Me had been done many times before, including in Serlings The Dummy. The Dummy, however, focuses on a specific dramatic issue: a battle of wills between an anthropomorphized piece of wood and a ventriloquist whose tenuous hold on reality is rapidly slipping. Caesar and Me is merely pointless. The mild-mannered ventriloquist is framed by his dummy (with the aid of the vicious little girl) and taken away by the cops. Little Caesar, certainly the villain of the piece, never pays for his deeds, and the hapless ventriloquist gets much worse than he deserves. It would be tragic were it not for the fact that the ventriloquist is such a dull-witted patsy, so utterly unable to defend himself, that he elicits little sympathy.
William Froug reveals one distinction peculiar to this episode. Credited to A. T. Strassfield, it is the only episode of the series scripted by a woman. Adele T. Strassfield was actually my secretary, he explains. She was an exceptionally bright woman, and she said to me, T can show you Im a writer. I want to write a Twilight Zone. So she came up with a notion. Shed never written a script before and has never written one since. In effect, I sort of wrote it with her. I wanted her to have the credit, and she got a great thrill out of it.
FROM AGNES WITH LOVE (2/14/64)
Written by Bernard C. Shoenfeld
Producer: William Froug
Director: Richard Donner
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: Van Cleave
Cas James Elwood: Wally Cox Millie: Sue Randall Walter Holmes: Ralph Taeger Supervisor: Raymond Bailey Fred Danziger: Don Keefer Secretary: Nan Peterson Assistant: Byron Kane
James Elwood, master programmer; in charge of Mark 502-741, commonly known as Agnes, the worlds most advanced electronic computer. Machines are made by men for mans benefit and progress, but when man ceases to control the products of his ingenuity and imagination he not only risks losing the benefit, but he takes a long and unpredictable step intothe Twilight Zone.
When Agnes breaks down, Elwood is called in to replace Fred Danziger, a programmer whose mind has cracked trying to deal with Agnes. All goes smoothly until Elwood asks Millie, a pretty secretary, for a dateand Agnes begins to make suggestions. On the machines advice, he takes Millie to his apartment, which ends in Millie storming out. Then again on Agness advice he introduces her to Walter Holmes, a dashing coworker who sweeps her off her feet. Elwood demands to know why Agnes has sabotaged his relationship with Millie. He gets a shocking answer: Agnes is in love with him! Elwood cant accept this; his mind snaps. Next morning, Walter Holmes is brought in as his replacement. Laughing insanely, Elwood tells him he doesnt stand a chance against Agnes, the computerized femme fatale.
Advice to all future male scientists: be sure you understand the opposite sex, especially if you intend being a computer expert. Otherwise, you may find yourself, like poor Elwood, defeated by a jealous machine, a most dangerous sort of female, whose victims are forever banishedto the Twilight Zone.
The problem in From Agnes With Love lies with the main character. James Elwood is enormously inept and unforgivably dense. When he takes his date back to his apartment, he reads to her from a book of Einstein. When she turns off the light he says, Millie, I cant read this chapter to you without proper lighting. Upon the advice of Agnes, he introduces her to a handsome playboy and then is amazed when he barges in on them and finds theyve become romantically involved. Elwood doesnt need a computer to ruin his life; clearly, hes capable of doing it on his own.
WHATS IN THE BOX (3/13/64)
Written by Martin M. Goldsmith
Producer: William Froug
Director: Richard L. Bare
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Joe Britt: William Demarest Phyllis Britt: Joan Blondell TV Repairman: Sterling Holloway Dr. Saltman: Herbert Lytton Woman: Sandra Gould Judge: Howard Wright Russian Duke: John L. Sullivan Panther Man: Ted Christy Car Salesman: Ron Stokes Prosecutor: Douglas Bank Announcer: Tony Miller
Portrait of a TV fan. Name: Joe Britt. Occupation: cab driver. Tonight, Mr. Britt is going to watch a really big show, something special for the cabbie whos seen everything. Joe Britt doesnt know it, but his flag is down and his meters running and hes in high gearon his way to the Twilight Zone.
After loudmouth Britt insults a TV repairman working on his set, the man abruptly closes up the television and says that its fixedfor free. Britt thinks nothing of this until he sees that the set is able to pick up channel tensomething its never done beforeand that the screen shows Joe in the company of his mistress! Joe is desperate that his shrewish wife Phyllis not see this. Things rapidly get worse, however; the TV now shows a scene in which Joe argues with Phyllis and punches her through their apartment window to her deatha scene which only Joe seems able to see and hear. Frantic to avoid this tragedy, Joe admits his past adultery and begs Phyllis to forgive him. This only serves to infuriate her; the two argue and Joe, enraged, punches Phyllis through the window. As the police lead him
away, the repairman appears. Fix your set okay, mister? he asks Joe. You will recommend my service, wont you?
The next time your TV set is on the blink, when youre in the need of a first-rate repairman, may we suggest our own specialist? Factory-trained, prompt, honest, twenty-four-hour service. You wont find him in the phone book, but his office is conveniently locatedin the Twilight Zone.
Marty Goldsmith had written a Playhouse 90 for me years before, says William Froug, so I sought him out. He had written a number of mov
ies and wasnt that anxious to workstill isnt, really. But I knew he was just a wonderful writer and I said, Please, write a Twilight Zone.’ And he came up with this notion of the guy looking at the boob tube and seeing his own extramarital activities and trying to turn it off before his wife could see it.
Martin M. Goldsmiths Whats in the Box has a marvelous cast of old-time actors (William Demarest, Joan Blondell, Sterling Holloway), but thats not enough to carry the show. The problem lies with the two main characters.
Britt and his wife are a loudmouthed, bickering couple, but neither of them deserves to die. Had Britts wife forgiven him, then the show would have had some moral to it. The fantasy element would have allowed an unhappy couple a second chance, it would have been there for a reason. As it is, one is left with a tremendous sense of purposelessness, of things happening with no object in mind.
Goldsmith himself is no fan of the episode. I didnt like it, he says. It lacked all subtlety the way it was done. I think Joan Blondell and William Demarest overplayed it. It was just too broad.
THE ENCOUNTER (5/1/64)
Written by Martin M. Goldsmith
Producer: William Froug
Director: Robert Butler
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast: Fenton: Neville Brand Neville Brand Taro: George Takei
Two men alone in an attic: a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterdays war. Its twenty-odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons souvenirs, mementoes, old uniforms and rusted medals ghosts from the dim reaches of the past that will lead us into … the Twilight Zone
Fenton, a middle-aged World War II veteran, is rummaging around in his cluttered attic when young gardener Arthur Takamuri appears, saying hed heard from a neighbor that Fenton needs his lawn trimmed. Fenton offers him a beer, then says hell pay him to help clean up the attic. Arthur, whose real name is Taro, is extremely sensitive about his Japanese-American heritage, and Fenton, a bigot, enjoys needling him with racist slurs. Alone in the attic for a moment, Taro picks up a samurai sword Fenton claims to have taken off a Japanese officer in battle, a weapon bearing the inscription The Sword Will Avenge Me and is astounded to hear himself say hes going to kill Fenton! After some strained conversation, Fenton begins to reminisce about the war, reliving it as he tells it. Taro is drawn into the fantasy and believing himself a Japanese soldier raises the sword to decapitate Fenton. Just in time, he comes to his senses. He then has a sudden realization: Fenton lied about the sword; he murdered a surrendering enemy officer, then took the sword off the body. Made uncomfortable by this knowledge, Taro tries to leave, but finds the attic door which has no lock inexplicably stuck; the two of them are trapped together. Taro then tells of his past, at first saying that his American-born father, a construction worker who built the docks at Pearl Harbor, was a hero who died trying to warn sailors during the Japanese attack. But soon the truth comes out: his father was actually a traitor who signalled the enemy planes where to drop their bombs. Fenton then makes a revelation of his own: in the last week, hes lost both his job and his wife as a result of his heavy drinking; he has nothing left in him but hatred and he wants Taro to kill him. He lunges at Taro. Theres a scuffle, and Fenton falls on the sword and dies. Overwhelmed by his tremendous guilt, Taro grabs up the sword, yells Banzai! and leaps out the attic window to his death … after which the attic door gently slides open.