Part 2: “You’ve just crossed over into…”
In “60 Years of Shadow and Substance” Part 1,” I covered seasons 1 through 3 of Rod Serling’s classic TV series, “The Twilight Zone” (1959-1962):
The Twilight Zone; 60 Years of Shadow and Substance Part 1
For Part 2, I’m going to discuss “The Twilight Zone” seasons 4 and 5 (1963-4), and and a little about how the series was repackaged for American syndication in the 1970s and 1980s. I will also delve a bit into author/screenwriter/producer Marc Scott Zicree’s indispensable book, “The Twilight Zone Companion” (1982). Now in its 5th edition (or fifth dimension…?), it is the definitive book on Rod Serling’s classic series, unparalleled in analysis (and refreshingly frank critique) of the series. Can’t recommend it enough. For now? I offer my own humble observations on this amazing series.
As stated in Part 1, I won’t discuss each and every episode (people do have lives). I’m going to analyze a few from each season that really spark my memory and emotions. Yes, I’ll no doubt omit many fan favorites (and quite a few of my own, as well), but this is a personal cross-sectional view of The Twilight Zone. Once again apologizing for my subjectivity, and I hope you’ll enjoy reliving these classics with me.
Season Four (1963).
Season four started a bit late; debuting in January of 1963 with a mid-season start (instead of the fall of the previous year). The shorter season was also also came back with another surprise; the show was lengthened to fit in a full hour slot, instead of the usual half-hour previously (and subsequently) allotted. As someone who grew up watching Twilight Zone in syndication, I didn’t see the longer 4th season episodes until sometime in the early 1980s, and that was usually just one or two slipped into the all-day holiday marathons (the predecessors to modern ‘binge-watching’). Season four’s 18 episodes (as opposed to the 36 or so of other years) were a decidedly mixed bag, with a few truly outstanding episodes and a few mediocre entries. But part of the greater issue (for me) was the new length. The longer 4th season episodes convinced me of one fact; The Twilight Zone works best in a half-hour format. The twist-endings of the shorter shows had greater punch; the morals and commentaries were more easily digestible, and there was very little excess fat in the writing. The fifth and final year returned to the half-hour format and the show went out on a high note in its leaner, meaner, original form. That said? Even with its experimental (and arguably less successful) hour-length, there are still a few real gems in the fourth season.
A common issue with the 4th season is exemplified here, as a decent sci-fi story with a fine cast (particularly Martin and Klugman, who are both terrific) is sabotaged by over-length. At 50 minutes, it feels a bit meandering in its middle act. This would’ve been a far more effective segment at 25 minutes instead of 50. Effective reuse of props and costumes from 1956’s “Forbidden Planet” (including new special effects with the C-57D space cruiser miniature) give the story nice production value.
A disturbing but tender romance that will either come across as deeply creepy or touching depending on where viewer sympathies lie. Robert Duvall’s performance of a lonely introvert is the best of its kind since Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” (though Charles Parkes, unlike Norman Bates, has real no violent intentions whatsoever). Either you will buy the escapist romance of the obviously troubled protagonist or you won’t. It’s either pathetically sad or whimsically beautiful (or some mix of both). This is an episode that doesn’t judge; it leaves that entirely to its audience. Arguably one of the best (if not the best) of the hour-long episodes, much of that fueled by Robert Duvall’s sad but riveting performance. Lots of future Oscar winners cut their teeth on this series (Duvall, Robert Redford, Martin Balsam, Cloris Leachman, Lee Marvin Jack Albertson, Gig Young and Art Carney).
In the late 1980s, when colorizing black & white productions was the current fad, this episode got a colorized facelift. Even if you’re curious, avoid this version at all costs. The characters are all tinted in the same tone of sepia, and the scenery looks flat and murky. There was a reason the colorizing fad ended shortly after it began. Stick with the black & white.
Martin Balsam (“Psycho” “12 Angry Men”) stars as socially awkward wax museum worker Martin Senescu. Senescu is the caretaker of the museum’s “Murderer’s Row” exhibit, which features wax figures of Jack the Ripper (David Bond), Henri Desire Landru (Milton Parsons), and Albert Hicks (Bob Mitchell), among others. The curator of the museum, Mr. Ferguson (Will Kuluva) is a friend of Martin’s, but has to break some bad news; low turnout is forcing him to shut down. Martin’s immediate concern is for the wax murderers, whom he cares for with an unhealthy level of obsession. He offers to take the wax figures of his murderers into his basement until Ferguson can find a buyer for them. This, of course, is nearly intolerable to Martin’s long-suffering wife Emma (Maggie Mahoney), who doesn’t exactly relish sharing her cramped basement with a slew of frozen-in-place, unblinking serial killers. With the onset of summer, Martin fears his wax ‘friends’ will melt, so he spends a sizable sum of the couple’s finances buying (and continuously running) an air conditioning unit for the basement.
The actors playing the wax statues do a nice job of keeping their frozen positions, and are often lit from beneath to appear more menacing. Like Robert Duvall in “Miniature”, Martin Balsam owns this episode as the awkward, stammering Senescu, who is a radical departure from the more confident, worldly characters that Balsam usually plays. The twist-ending is also a kicker, with the wax-figure’s killings being revealed as a construct of Martin’s own murderous dementia. Wow! It’s an ending almost as powerful as the big reveal in “Psycho” (1960), which also costarred Balsam (though he didn’t play the killer). As you can see from Serling’s pose with the spooky ‘mannequins’ above, this one’s all about the horror. “The New Exhibit” would be equally at-home as an episode of Boris Karloff’s anthology show “Thriller” (1960-1962), or even Rod Serling’s later “Night Gallery” (1969-1973), both of which tended less towards morality plays and more towards pants-wetting scares.
Timely as ever, especially in the US where cult-of-personality has become a dangerous default in our politics, “On Thursday We Leave For Home” offers strong lessons about the dangers of ignoring critical thinking and facts in favor of disinformation and the personal sway of leaders, too often at the expense of the greater good.
Once again, Twilight Zone speaks across the decades and addresses right now with the clarity of a bell.
Season Five (1963-1964).
Season five is a return to the shorter, tighter formula of the first three years of the show, and it’s like a breath of fresh air. A few iconic episodes that have come to represent the series came from its final year, including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” “Masks” and “Living Doll.” There were also some interesting experiments like “Occurrence at Owl Creek Ridge” (a French short film bought & reedited as an episode), as well as a few choice clunkers like “The Fear” “Come Wander With Me” and “The Bewitching Pool” (the final episode of the show). Here are a few of my personal favorites from the final year of The Twilight Zone:
The gremlin today appears more laughable than scary, with its shag carpet romper-suit and suction cup-lips, but it still does the job. Despite its goofiness, the creature and William Shatner are both very effective in the scene when Wilson throws open a closed blind, only to be staring directly into the face of the creature through the window.
While I won’t delve into its cursed history (the deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children during a helicopter crash on set in 1982), I’d like to mention the movie’s fourth segment, which is a remake of Matheson’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” Directed by George Miller (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), the remake features John Lithgow as an unmarried “John Valentine” (nee: Robert Wilson), a man with the same pronounced fear of flying who is stuck on a plane in that familiar storm. While any past nervous breakdowns of the character are not alluded to in this remake, Lithgow plays his fear of flying with an even greater intensity than Shatner (a fear he riffed on in 1984’s “2010: The Year We Make Contact”, playing an astronaut with a fear of heights). Beyond the ‘bigger’ performance by Lithgow and the far greater production value afforded a feature film, the gremlin in the 1983 movie is also a lot closer to the description of the gremlin in Richard Matheson’s original short story; a small, fanged creature more like a malicious, wispy-haired spider monkey than the shag-carpeted Yeti of the original. Even the parody done on “The Simpsons” (the Halloween episode “Nightmare at 5 and 1/2 Feet”, wherein a gremlin attacked Bart’s school bus) retained this smaller, more animalistic version of Matheson’s original story and the 1983 film.
Jordan Peele’s 2019 version of “Twilight Zone” also did a somewhat more disjointed, barely-related reboot called “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet”. I reviewed it (along with another episode) earlier on this site, so if anyone’s curious? Here’s the link: https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2019/04/02/jordan-peeles-first-two-entries-into-the-twilight-zone/
This often imitated and parodied concept opened the floodgates for many other spooky, haunted doll films and TV shows (the “Annabelle” movie series, most recently; Annabelle curiously being the name of Mary LaRoche’s character as well). Savalas makes for a particularly menacing stepfather in this story, but there are small flashes of vulnerability in his performance as well; he’s not a one-note bad guy. One gets the feeling Eric and Annabelle have much bigger issues than Christie or her chatty doll, and that Eric might even have a history of abuse in his own history somewhere (abusers often become abusers). “Living Doll” is a chilling tale that speaks to the equal horrors of diabolical dolls and abusive parents. Strong performances all around, with special kudos to June Foray (“Rocky & Bullwinkle”) as the voice of Talking Tina. Foray’s memorable voice gives much life to a plastic prop.
Oliver Pope (Edward Andrews, yet another TZ returnee from “Third From The Sun”) is a middle-aged office rat who, in a bit of distracted driving (long before cell phones), hits a newspaper boy on his bicycle. In a fit of panic, Oliver flees the scene Returning home to his wife Lillian (Helen Westcott), Oliver’s guilt begins to manifest as psychosomatic illness. News begins to spread of the local boy hit on his bicycle. Sick with guilt, the cowardly Edward later discovers that the boy was killed. Later that night, Oliver is awakened as his car’s horn begins to honk repeatedly (much like a modern call alarm, in fact), and its headlights blink accusingly. His wife is worried that it might be a prowler in their garage, but Oliver begins to suspect his car is pulling a Poe on him (the Earl Hamner-scripted story is basically a four-wheeled version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”). Taking time off of work to avoid getting back behind the wheel, Pope receives a visit from concerned coworker Pete (Kevin Hagen) whom Pope accuses of trying to steal his job while he’s out. Pete assures him he’s mistaken, and Lillian is aghast at her husband’s nastiness. Feeling an urge to get back to work, Oliver chooses to walk rather than take his accusatory automobile. On the way to work, his car starts by itself and drives up alongside him. Oliver tries to elude his driverless car, but can’t. Eventually his damning car catches up, and nearly runs Oliver down on the exact same corner where he killed the paper boy. Realizing he can’t outrun his guilt, Pope gets into the car and it takes him to the local police station.
This story of all-consuming guilt and responsibility for one’s actions is the kind of morality play that Twilight Zone does best; a guilty person is brought to justice via supernatural means. Yes, it’s the kind of story that Twilight Zone has done (many times) before, but in a situation that is much more relatable to average audience members. Many of us have been impacted by distracted drivers, or perhaps have even been distracted drivers ourselves. I myself was nearly killed by a drunk driver over 25 years ago. The difference being that Oliver Pope deliberately avoids responsibility for his act. Lives are often changed forever on mundane suburban street corners just like we see in “You Drive.”
If only Oliver stayed with the boy and tried to help, he might’ve avoided the Zone altogether.
For a show born in the deeply conformist 1950s, Twilight Zone often spoke of the dangers of groupthink, as well as the dangers of rejecting or shunning our own uniqueness. This is an ongoing lesson for our current age; an age where some people gauge their self-worth by how many ‘followers’ they have on social media. The need to be accepted is a very human one, but it can also be taken to an extreme at the cost of our true selves.
“To thine own self be true” indeed…
Like “Long-Distance Call”, the telephone is once again used as a supernatural conveyance. Elderly Elva Keene (Gladys Cooper, from TZ’s “Nothing in the Dark”) is disabled due to a car accident that also killed her fiancé Brian many years ago. That night many years ago, a young Elva insisted on driving, and drove the car into a tree, crippling herself and killing Brian. Elva’s been alone ever since, tended to by her loyal caregiver Margaret (Nora Marlowe). Now the old frightened woman has been receiving calls late at night from a mysterious voice through a weak connection. The male-voiced caller repeats “Hello…hello…” Elva is terrified when the caller then asks to see her in person, and she begs him to leave her alone! The next day Elva calls the phone company and asks them to trace the call. The phone company representative (Martine Bartlett) tells her that the call has been traced to a phone line that, due to a recent storm, has fallen onto a grave at the local cemetery (!). Margaret drives Elva out to the cemetery, where the old woman realizes the line has fallen onto the grave of her beloved Brian. He’s her mystery caller. Vowing to reach out to him, she realizes that she no longer has to be alone. That night, she picks up her phone and attempts an electronic seance, asking for Brian by name. Brian answers, telling her he will leave her alone now, because, as he says, “I always did what you wanted.” The connection is forever lost. Elva is alone yet again.
The ending seems a bit overkill, since the caller didn’t even identify himself, thus frightening the old woman. However, the moral of this story is regret. When faced with the opportunity to make amends, Elva is too cocooned in her own fears to recognize the opportunity as such. A harshly-delivered lesson, yes, but occasionally Twilight Zone’s lessons were muddled in the service of giving the audience a good fright.
“The Masks” is noteworthy for two significant reasons; the terrific makeup jobs by William Tuttle (“The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”), and the direction of Ida Lupino; the only guest star, as well as the only woman, to have directed a Twilight Zone episode. Tuttle did many of the makeups on the series, and this was one of his more challenging jobs. Like “Eye of the Beholder”, the makeup is the linchpin on which the entire ending rests, and it doesn’t disappoint. That the Fosters’ faces now have an unnatural puddy-like appearance is just right, since their skin has been supernaturally molded like sculptor’s clay beneath their cursed masks.
Once again, The Twilight Zone took on racism at a time when network television wasn’t uniformly so brave. Serling’s script is passionate, if a mite preachy. All the same, it should be celebrated as a landmark in helping to break down television taboos in dealing with uncomfortable subjects.
While I have some issues with the 2019 CBS-All Access reboot, I strongly contest those fans of Twilight Zone who insist that Rod Serling’s original was never about “social justice warrior” stuff. I strongly beg to differ. Serling’s stories dealt with racism, politics, the Vietnam war, the Holocaust, the morality of capital punishment, child abuse, and a slew of other subjects that weren’t considered ‘family viewing’ in those days. Yes, Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone incarnation is flawed in key respects, but its persistent tackling of current racial and social injustice (however clumsily executed at times) is in very much keeping with Rod Serling’s original vision for the show.
As night falls, Jensen sees what appears to be his twin brother, in a shuffling stride at the end of the misty street. Not terribly keen on the prospect of his cheating brother’s return, Jensen wonders how much much it would cost Garrity to send his ‘dear’ brother back to his rest. The other townspeople, including a nervous sheriff who shot a dead bandit in the back, and a weakling husband who was the victim of spousal abuse by his strong-arm wife, suddenly begin offering Garrity all of their money to return the dear departed to the hereafter. Garrity takes all of their eagerly offered money, of course, and the figure of Jensen’s brother down the street seem to disappear in the fog. Making a tactful exit, Garrity prepares to move on, and cheat new prospects elsewhere. He welcomes his dog, whom he’s trained to play dead for his earlier ‘resurrection trick.’ Chatting with his wagon driver Ace (John Mitchum), whom he used to play Jensen’s brother, as almost remorseful Garrity tells him that he wished he had the power to truly raise the dead. As Garrity’s wagon rides out, we see bodies exiting the cemetery, including Jensen’s brother, the dead bandit, and the abusive wife; all of whom have scores to settle with the living in Happiness. Garrity’s talent for resurrection would appear to be genuine, however unwitting…
“Mr Garrity and the Graves” is one of many examples of Twilight Zone’s occasional comedies, which don’t usually get as much mention as the more profound or frightening entries, but are worth a mention all the same. “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”, which I mentioned in Part 1, is possibly the most well-known of the humorous Twilight Zones, but other memorable examples include “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” (starring multiple TZ returnee Burgess Meredith), “A Kind of Stopwatch”, “Penny For Your Thoughts”, “A Most Unusual Camera” and “Cavender Is Coming” (starring future comedy legend Carol Burnett) to name a few. Some still work, others are hopelessly quaint, but I admire Serling’s attempt to break up the sturm und drang with occasional laughs. This mix was done somewhat less successfully in Serling’s later series, “The Night Gallery” (1971-1973), whose more leaden ‘comedy’ segments lacked the bounce of those done in the Zone.
“Between light and shadow…“
Between first run of The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and its later syndication (which is where I discovered the series as a child), there were some significant changes made. The most obvious being the trimming of a few minutes from each episode to make room for more adverts. Yes, the scourge of American TV… commercial breaks. This trimming of content for more ads was common practice then, and is still done widely today. Back in the 1970s, actual film-based kinescopes of the episodes were physically cut and edited for rebroadcast, so you’d also have jarring cuts, pops and splices in the film where scenes or moments had been omitted for time (a five-year old child with an iPhone could make better edits today…). This sort of physical film manhandling by local stations simply doesn’t exist anymore in the age of digital television. Cuts for time are far smoother, with some prints are digitally compressed (sped-up) in order to fit better in their time slots.
Another big change in syndication was the general omission of the hour-long fourth season episodes, which were ‘too big’ for syndicated Twilight Zone’s half-hour slots (at least for my then-local station in Los Angeles). I knew of the hour-long season by rumor, and later would see a few of them during the famous “Twilight Zone Marathons”, which were a syndication staple in the 1980s, running on local broadcast stations on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Sometimes the marathons would slip in a few of the hour-long episodes here and there, and over time, I eventually saw all of them. These marathons were the forerunner of today’s very common practice of binge-watching (which is far easier today with commercial-free streaming or DVD/Blu Rays). SyFy cable network continues the tradition of the Twilight Zone marathons on certain holidays, after local stations more or less abandoned the practice. Even though I own the entire series, I still enjoy chilling to a Twilight Zone episode on a lazy, uneventful holiday every now and then. Just feels right.
Several episodes were omitted from the syndication packages in those days for various reasons. The first was the 5th season episode “The Encounter”, featuring a very young, pre-“Star Trek” George Takei. Takei plays Arthur Takamori, a young Japanese-American man looking for odd jobs around the neighborhood. He agrees to do some work for a neighbor named Fenton (Neville Brand). Fenton is a veteran of World War 2 who bears a simmering, passive-aggressive resentment of the Japanese despite a veneer of false hospitality. Arthur (whose pre-Anglicized name is Taro) notices a samurai sword in Fenton’s attic, and is curiously drawn to it. Fenton boasts that he stole it from a Japanese soldier he killed during the war, all the while continuing to bait and goad the young man with increasingly aggressive taunts. With the sword’s unspoken coercion, Arthur breaks down and admits that his father was a traitor during Pearl Harbor, signaling the Japanese planes to their shipyard targets. Feeling the dead Japanese soldier’s spirit of vengeance emanating from the weapon, Arthur takes it, slays his tormenter, and leaps out of the attic window crying “Banzai!” This episode was kept from syndication for many year due to its racially-charged content (yet “All in the Family”, a brilliant CBS comedy which often dealt with racism head-on, had no such censorship). Its controversy notwithstanding, “The Encounter” is poorly written, with broad characterizations (a Japanese-American man with a sword yelling ‘banzai’), and an overall lack of subtlety. It is not one of Twilight Zone’s better offerings on the topic of racism. Finally seeing “The Encounter” sometime in the 1990s, I realized I’d missed nothing, save for an energetic performance from George Takei.
The second episode omitted from the earlier syndication package was the 1962 French short film “The Owl River”, which was sold to the series and presented as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Ridge” during its 5th season in 1964. The short film sees Peyton Farquhar (Roger Jacquet), a Confederate soldier awaiting execution by Union officers during the American Civil War (the setting alone makes it perfect for TZ, which had multiple episodes set in that time). As the rope drops, it also breaks, and Peyton miraculously survives, falling into the river below. Swimming away and avoiding tracking parties, he is joyously reunited with his wife. Then the entire episode is then revealed to be a vision that occurred within the seconds of his execution, which he didn’t survive. A similar plot device was used to terrific effect in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Inner Light” (1992), in which Capt. Picard seemed to live an entire virtual lifetime during the span of mere minutes. Purchase rights of this episode only allowed for two airings, and it wasn’t included in the syndication package. I first saw the episode only about ten years ago on DVD, and I only knew of its existence from Marc Scott Zicree’s book, “The Twilight Zone Companion”, which each member of my family read cover-to-cover when we were teenagers.
Summit of his Knowledge.
Marc Scott Zicree is the man who literally wrote the book on the Twilight Zone with his “The Twilight Zone Companion”, which he began writing at the age of 22 in the late 1970s, was given full access to Rod Serling’s estate by Serling’s widow, Carol. Zicree’s book was first published in 1982, and is now in its fifth edition, with updated information and links to all incarnations of The Twilight Zone series, including the newer versions from 1985, 2002 and 2019. My sisters and I read this book cover-to-cover when we were teens. It is indispensable for any serious Twilight Zone fan.
I had the chance to do a two-part interview the amiable Zicree in August of 2018. We discussed topics such as “The Twilight Zone Companion”, his work on “Star Trek” (TNG’s 1991 episode “First Contact” and DS9’s “Far Beyond the Stars” from 1998), his long career, and his recent crowdsourced epic series “Space Command” https://spacecommandmovie.com (donations for the series can be made on Kickstarter.com). Zicree also does multiple commentary tracks for The Twilight Zone series blu rays.
Parts one and two of my interview with Zicree are in the links below:
Still in the Zone.
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone is a childhood favorite of mine that remains comfortably iconic decades later. Rod Serling poured his heart and soul into the show, writing 92 of the 156 total episodes, as well as doing on-camera narration and hosting duties, too. That Serling passed away in 1975 at age 50 only served to cement his status as a legend gone too soon, like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe.
The Twilight Zone is a landmark of pure television excellence, unequaled in the anthology genre, even by its own remakes. Despite anachronisms in technology, terminology, fashions, etc. the stories of the series remain timeless, just waiting to be discovered by new generations of fans. Here’s hoping Serling’s original creation lives forever.
2 Comments Add yours