******SPECTRAL SPOILERS!******

As I’ve written in this column previously, the late-great Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone was my first true TV addiction; yes, even before “Star Trek.” Twilight Zone also whetted my then 7-year old appetite for horror TV shows such as “The Night Gallery” (another Rod Serling series) and “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” Watching reruns of Twilight Zone endlessly in syndication, I used to think of “The Grave,” an episode written and directed by Montgomery Pittman, as somewhat average; good, but not really a standout. However, as I got a little older, and my tastes matured beyond monsters, zombies and aliens, “The Grave” eventually became one of my favorites.

I’d mentioned this episode previously in the first of my two-part overview of “The Twilight Zone” from five years ago (Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone”: 60 years of “shadow and substance”, Part 1 and Part 2). However, after recently rewatching “The Grave” (as I often do around Halloween), I decided to give it a deeper look, as most episodes of Twilight Zone warrant, if my own remaining lifespan were no object.

“The Grave” (1961)

Written and directed by Montgomery Pittman, “The Grave” opens in a dusty Old Western town, where an all-black clad bandit named Pinto Sykes (Dick Geary) appears in the middle of the street.  We see eight townsfolk crouched in sniper positions all around him. As Pinto is called out, he spins around with his gun drawn, and all eight townies fire on him.  As the mortally wounded Pinto crawls in the dirt for his gun, it’s picked up by one of his eight possible assassins. Realizing the outlaw has only minutes to live, they haul him off to the local jail while another man goes off to ‘fetch’ his pa and sister, Ione (Elen Willard). The camera then focuses on a grinning old townie named Jason (William Challee), who exclaims in triumph, “that’s the end of it.”

Following the gunplay, Twilight Zone creator/narrator/producer/writer Rod Serling breaks the fourth wall to tell us: 

“Normally, the old man would be correct. This would be the end of the story. We’ve had the traditional shoot-out on the street and the badman will soon be dead. But some men of legend and folk tale have been known to continue having their way even after death. The outlaw and killer Pinto Sykes was such a person, and shortly we’ll see how he introduces the town and a man named Conny Miller, in particular, to the Twilight Zone.”

Note: We never learn exactly what ‘badman’ Pinto Sykes had done to earn a public execution by the locals, other than he’s wanted in several states (on unspecified charges) and that he, in the words of townie Mothershed, “uses the town like it was his own personal property, just ‘cause he was born and raised here.”  This is one missing piece of important information missing from this otherwise airtight story.

Later that night, amidst howling winds and billowing dust, local bounty hunter Conny Miller (Lee Marvin) rides into town, and notices a small section of street cordoned off. Old Jason greets Conny, and tells him that section of the street contains the blood of the late Pinto Sykes.  Entering the local saloon, Miller sees the usual crowd; bartender Ira (Stafford Repp), nervous Mothershed (Strother Martin), professional gambler Steinhart (Lee Van Cleef), and guitar-strumming buffoon, Johnny Rob (James Best). Bounty hunter Miller was contracted by the town to bring Pinto to justice, but without success. 

Note: The episode is populated by a high-octane cast, which is a plus for an episode where the middle act takes place entirely in a quiet saloon. Actor Lee Marvin (“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “The Dirty Dozen” “Cat Ballou” ), who would return for the Twilight Episode “Steel.” “The Grave” also features a virtual who’s-who of present & future western stars, including Lee Van Cleef (“How the West Was Won,” “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) and Strother Martin (“Shenandoah,” “The Wild Bunch”). Stafford Repp, who plays the bartender Ira, would gain his greatest fame as the comically Irish police chief O’Hara in TV’s “Batman.”

The nervous townies are at the bar ‘celebrating’ their defeat of outlaw Pinto Sykes with all the cheer of a funeral. The visibly nervous Mothershed asks Conny if he saw their little memorial out in the street, and Miller expresses his disappointment that he didn’t do the deed himself.  Conny reports he’d searched all over Albuquerque for Pinto Sykes, without any luck. The lack of results from Conny prompted Mothershed and the others to meet with the town’s new district attorney regarding their Pinto problem. The new DA told them to man up and take matters into their own hands, which they did.  Johnny Rob, the town simpleton, interjects that of the eight men who fired at Pinto, only one bullet actually hit and killed the outlaw; a bit of marksmanship no one is taking credit for…

Note: Comic actor Jim Best, as Johnny Rob, mindlessly and randomly plucks his guitar in a passive-aggressive manner—as if to punctuate a particular word or statement with his own personal soundtrack. The characters in the saloon function almost as a Greek chorus; offering much exposition and even comic relief in this otherwise grim and spooky story. They’re so entertaining that you barely notice how much of the story takes place in a single setting.

Sensing his fellow townsfolk are withholding something, Conny presses. Mothershed tells him that Pinto lived just long enough for a deathbed confession, where he asked to be buried near his mother, but not too close, as she’s “too true a woman to be buried near the likes of him.”  Mothershed then tells Conny that Pinto got ‘real riled’ after his name was mentioned.  The dying Pinto said he even left clues in Albuquerque for Conny to follow—which were ignored.  Pinto’s final warning for Conny was that if he ever approached his grave, he would reach up and grab him! 

Johnny Rob then accuses Conny of cowardice in his own indirect, passive-aggressive way. Conny hauls off and strikes Johnny Rob before grabbing his collar. The anxious onlookers and the cowardly young man’s cries of “I ain’t armed!” cause him to back off. As everyone settles down, Johnny Rob clarifies that they wouldn’t have the courage to call on Pinto’s grave, and he wouldn’t blame Conny for feeling likewise. Mothershed says that Conny’s expert gunplay wouldn’t be worth anything against a wrathful spirit, but Conny retorts, “I don’t get my courage from a gun, Mothershed. I had it long before I could pick one of them up.”

Note: James Best would make another appearance on The Twilight Zone in the Montgomery Pittman-written/directed “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank,” where he plays a presumed dead young man who rises like Lazarus during his funeral, eliciting fear in his once-grieving loved ones. Always a welcome presence on TV, Best would arguably achieve his greatest fame on TV’s “The Dukes of Hazzard,” as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Sadly, Oklahoma-born writer/director Montgomery Pittman would pass away shortly afterward in 1962, after succumbing to cancer.

After the heated exchange, a hooded young woman enters the bar from the howling winds outside; it’s Ione Skyes (Elen Willard), the sister of the slain outlaw. She plops down some coinage for a bottle of Red Eye whiskey from concerned bartender Ira, who says that her pa should go easy on the booze. She tells Ira that it’s for her, not her father.  Conny shows respect for the young woman and her loss, despite his unsettled score with her brother.  The besotted Ione then taunts Conny, saying he should have no trouble finding her brother now, since he’s buried nearby at the local cemetery.  She also reiterates her late brother’s deathbed warning to Conny, reminding him that her dead brother would reach up and “grab him from the grave.” 

Note: Elen Willard (still alive at the time of this writing) gives a thoroughly haunting performance as Ione Sykes; alternating between drunk, amused, pathetic and a bit scary, as if she were in tune with her late brother, and somehow coordinating his post-alive revenge against Conny Miller. Willard had various roles in TV throughout the 1960s on shows such as “One Step Beyond” and “Gunsmoke,” before her promising career seems to have abruptly ended around 1966 or so. Having also sang in some of her roles (including a bit in this episode), it’s a shame she didn’t have a career in feature films as well.

Johnny Rob then nervously offers up a $20 piece to make a wager with Conny that he won’t visit Pinto’s grave that night.  An angered Conny threatens Johnny Rob once again, until professional gambler Steinhart offers to bet against Conny, as well.  Even Mothershed timidly admits he’d bet against Conny, if gambler Steinhart hadn’t cleaned him out earlier that evening. Realizing the flaw in their bet involves proving that Conny actually visits the grave, Steinhart proposes that Conny punch a borrowed knife into the gravesite as evidence. Infuriated that the townsfolk are suddenly questioning his courage, an indignant Conny takes the bet, telling Ira to keep his bottle on the bar; he’ll be right back.

Note: Famous last words… 

We then see Conny approaching the hilly graveyard around midnight.  The wind is still howling, and despite his attempts at maintaining a cool facade, Conny is clearly terrified.  Every sound makes him jump. Struggling to compose himself, he sees a dark hooded figure descend from atop the sloping graveyard, and he draws his gun. It’s Ione.  Holstering his pistol, Conny approaches the drunken woman, who’s still cradling her bottle from the bar. Ione tells Conny he’s braver than she thought, and that her brother is waiting for him.  She chuckles wickedly, and walks off…

Note: The indoor-for-outdoor graveyard was a massive semicircular set with its own raised hilltop, and a large, dark cyclorama of clouds surrounding it. The indoor wind machines were clearly operating loudly during this scene, as Ione’s dialogue sounds as if it were added later in ADR (automated dialogue replacement, aka looping).

We then see Conny with his coat unbuttoned, as he nervously approaches the grave. From a low angle we see him gingerly sliding the blade into the ground; as if to check for a reaction. He slowly pulls the knife out before punching it once again into the earth; he tries to get up, but is suddenly jerked hard to the ground, out of frame…

Note: Some clever cinematography by Emmy Award-winning George T. Clemens, who slowly moves his camera from face-on with Conny kneeling at the grave to an angle just above Lee Marvin’s waist; this avoids showing exactly where Conny’s knife blade hit. Lee Marvin also keeps his face turned away from us after the tugging on his coat, so that we can’t see his facial expression. This keeps the question of whether Conny was frightened or merely surprised a mystery until the reveal later on.

The next morning, the townies notice that Conny’s horse is still attached to the hitching post outside the bar.  He never returned.  A surprisingly cheerful Ione Sykes meets Johnny Rob, Mothershed and Steinhart in the street; she is carrying a ceramic dish she plans to leave at her late brother’s grave. Out of morbid curiosity, Johnny Rob, Mothershed and Steinhart decide to follow her, and see what happened.  At the grave, they find Conny’s lifeless body sprawled over the site, the knife plunged into his own coat.  Johnny Rob begins shouting hysterically, “I knowed it! I knowed it! I got a man killed!”  

However, the more sober Steinhart points out the whole story of what happened is right before them. The gambler surmises that Conny stabbed his own coat in the dark, got up to leave, felt the tug, and thought it was Pinto reaching up from the grave. In Conny’s terrified state of mind, his heart simply gave out, and he died. However, Ione points out that Conny’s coat is pulled over the grave in the opposite direction of the south-blowing winds.  Standing like the Grim Reaper, Ione’s cloak blows away from the grave as well, as she chuckles with morbid glee…

We then hear Rod Serling’s narration closing out the episode: 

“Final comment: you take this with a grain of salt or a shovelful of earth, as shadow or substance, we leave it up to you. And for any further research, check under ‘G,’ for ‘ghosts’…in the Twilight Zone.”

The End.

Summing It Up

While I used to find “The Grave” a bit too talky as a little kid, it began to grow on me as a teenager.  In adulthood, it became a favorite of mine in a series full of standouts. The Old West sets are moody and atmospheric; particularly the graveyard set, which is framed by a dark, cloudy cyclorama that almost looks borrowed from a Universal “Frankenstein” film. The wail of the ever-howling wind adds considerably to the episode’s ghostly vibe, while the cloud of fear hovering over the characters makes this one of the more performance-driven installments of the series.

“The Grave” is buoyed largely by its finely-tuned cast. Despite reports from those involved in the production that actor Lee Marvin’s excessive drinking made for a difficult shoot, the actors (including Marvin) create a thick, palpable tension you could chop with an axe (almost on a par with “It’s a Good Life”).  We see Marvin’s Conny Miller struggling to maintain his cool facade, but the actor gives just enough flecks of doubt for us to see behind the mask. Actors James Best, Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef make for a nervous, passive-aggressive Greek chorus, while Elen Willard is a scene-stealer as the blotto but spooky Ione Sykes, who is the episode’s Ophelia.

Smartly written and exceptionally well-directed by Montgomery Pittman (1918-1962), Twilight Zone’s “The Grave” is a deceptively simple Old West ghost story with just enough ambiguity to fit either a supernatural or agnostic perspective. Believers will see the late Pinto Sykes grabbing Conny Miller’s coat from the grave, while agnostics will see a random gust of wind and a terrified man’s heart giving out. Pittman’s story elegantly works, either way.

Like all episodes of the series, this one has a moral woven into the story. “The Grave” reminds us that our own fears and self-doubts can do all the dirty work, if we let them. A common theme in The Twilight Zone. 

Required Reading

Author/screenwriter/producer/director 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 with Zicree in August of 2018. We discussed topics such as “The Twilight Zone Companion”, his work on “Star Trek” (The Next Generation’s 1991 episode “First Contact” and Deep Space Nine’s “Far Beyond The Stars” from 1998), and his recent crowdsourced epic series “Space Command” https://spacecommandmovie.com. Zicree has also done multiple commentary tracks for The Twilight Zone blu rays, as well.

My 2-part interview with Zicree can be found HERE:

Marc Scott Zicree, “Mr. Sci-Fi” part 1: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier…

and HERE:

Marc Scott Zicree, “Mr. Sci-Fi” part 2: More from the Final Frontier, the new adventures of “Space Command” and beyond…

Where to Watch

“The Twilight Zone” is currently streaming on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video (36 episodes).  The entire series is also available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray through Amazon, as well as for digital purchase on YouTube Premium, iTunes and other platforms.