Twilight Zone Companion (23 page)

A THING ABOUT MACHINES (10/28/60)

Written by Rod Serling 

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director:David Orrick McDearmon

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

Bartlett Finchley: Richard Haydn TV Repairman: Barney Phillips Edith: Barbara Stuart Intern: Jay Overholts Girl on TV: Margarita Cordova Policeman: Henry Beckman Telephone Repairman: Lew Brown

This is Mr. Bartlett Finchley, age forty-eight, a practicing sophisticate who writes very special and very precious things for gourmet magazines and the like. Hes a bachelor and a recluse with few friends, only devotees and adherents to the cause of tart sophistry. He has no interests save whatever current annoyances he can put his mind to. He has no purpose to his life except the formulation of day-to-day opportunities to vent his wrath on mechanical contrivances of an age he abhors. In short, Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, bom either too late or too early in the century, and who in just a moment will enter a realm where muscles and the will to fight back are not limited to human beings. Next stop for Mr. Bartlett Finchley the Twilight Zone.

From his behavior kicking in picture tubes, throwing radios down stairs, demolishing chiming clocks it is clear that Finchley hates machines. What Finchley doesnt realize is that the feeling is mutual. For several months, odd things have been happening. His television, radio, and clock have all awakened him in the middle of the night. But when his secretary quits, things come to a head. By itself, the typewriter types, GET OUT OF HERE, FINCHLEY. The television broadcasts the same message, as does the telephone. Snakelike, his electric razor slithers down the stairs toward him. Frightened, Finchley runs from his house, only to be pursued by his car, which chases him to the edge of his swimming pool. He falls in, plummets straight to the bottom and stays there.

Yes, it could be. It could just be that Mr. Bartlett Finchley succumbed from a heart attack and a set of delusions. It could just be that he was tormented by an imagination as sharp as his wit and as pointed as his dislikes. But as perceived by those attending, this is one explanation that has left the premises with the deceased. Look for it filed under M for machine in the Twilight Zone.

Although the concept of A Thing About Machines, is a clever one and some of the effects are fun (who couldnt help but love the image of an electric shaver slithering down a flight of stairs?), neither the writing, direction, nor performances are able to give the show any real vitality.

THE PRIME MOVER (3/24/61)

Written by Charles Beaumont

Based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson (uncredited)

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Richard L. Bare

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast: Jimbo Cobb: Buddy Ebsen Ace Larsen: Dane Clark Kitty Cavanaugh: Christine White Big Phil Nolan: Nesdon Booth Sheila: Jane Burgess Trucker: Clancy Cooper Croupier: Joe Scott Hotel Manager: Robert Riordan Desk Clerk: William Keene

Portrait of a man who thinks and thereby gets things done. Mr. Jimbo Cobb might be called a prime mover; a talent which has to be seen to be believed. In just a moment, hell show his friend and you how he keeps both feet on the ground and his head in the Twilight Zone.

When a car careens into some power lines, amiable Jimbo Cobb, co-owner of a cafe, is forced to reveal his psychokinetic power in order to save those within. Volatile Ace Larsen, his partner and a compulsive gambler, soon realizes that Jimbo is as adept at moving dice as he is at moving automobiles. With Jimbo in tow, Ace and his girlfriend Kitty set off for Las Vegas. In an evening, Ace and Jimbo win $200,000. But Ace isnt satisfied; he intends to keep on gambling. Disgusted by his behavior, Kitty angrily returns home. Spurned, Ace takes up with Sheila, a flashy cigarette girl. The next morning he contacts high roller Phil Nolan, a Chicago gangster,

and invites him to his hotel room to shoot dice. Initially, he wins every roll, thanks to Jimbo. But when Sheila enters and wraps herself around Ace, Jimbo tries to get him to stop gambling. Ace ignores this and bets everything on a final roll. He loses. Jimbo explains that he blew a fuse. Theyre poor again, but Ace, his sense of balance restored, is able to laugh it off. He returns to the cafe and proposes to Kitty, who accepts. This so surprises Jimbo that he drops a broom. Making sure no one is looking, Jimbo uses his power which he never really lostto retrieve it.

Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a curse. Jimbo Cobb knew, right from the beginning. But before Ace Larsen learned that simple truth, he had to take a short trip through the Twilight Zone.

Based on the credits, one would assume that The Prime Mover was an original piece written entirely by Charles Beaumont. Actually, this engaging script was based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson. Explains Johnson, Charles Beaumont could get an assignment, he needed a story, he didnt have a story, none of his stories seemed suitable. He therefore bought from me my story. He paid me six hundred dollars for it. My name never ended up on the screen, it was an accident of production for which Buck Houghton apologized. I felt bad that my name wasnt on it, but I thought it was a good show.

In adapting the story, Beaumont retained Johnsons basic plot but added a love interest and a Chicago gangster (named Phil Nolan, a joke on his friend William F. Nolan). In the original, the pair simply make their winnings at various local floating crap games, but Beaumont rightly conceived that placing the action in Las Vegas would add a greater dramatic tension. As for the two central characters, they remained the same, a Mutt and Jeff pair Dane Clark nervous and quick-tempered, Buddy Ebsen slow and infinitely calm.

Back There (04/14/61)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director:David Orrick McDearmon

Director of Photography:

George T. Clemens

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast: Peter Corrigan: Russell Johnson William: Bartlett Robinson Police Sergeant: Paul Hartman Policeman: James Gavin John Wilkes Booth: John Lasell Patrolman: James Lvdon Jackson: Raymond Greenleaf Millard: Ray Bailey Whittaker: John Eldredge Attendant 1865: Fred Kruger Mrs. Landers: Jean Inness Lieutenant: Lew Brown Lt.s Girl: Carol Rossen Chambermaid: Nora Marlowe Attendant 1961: Pat OMalley

Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple question: could a human being change what happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time before tonight, that is. Because this is… the Twilight Zone.

It is April 14, 1961. After discussing time travel at his mens club, Peter Corrigan suddenly feels an inexplicable dizziness. When it clears, he sees that he has moved back in time to April 14, 1865the date of Lincolns assassination. In attempting to warn those at Fords Theater, he succeeds only in getting himself arrested as either a drunk or a lunatic. A Mr. Wellington asks that Corrigan be remanded to his custody. Soon, his motives become clear: Wellington is actually John Wilkes Booth, and he wants no interference. He takes Corrigan to his room and drugs him. By the time Corrigan revives, it is too late; Lincoln has been shot. He returns to the present, intent on telling his friends that the past cant be changed. But at the mens club he gets a shock: William, formerly the attendant, is now a wealthy man. It turns out that his great-grandfather the only policeman who believed Corrigan gained a name for himself in trying to stop Lincolns assassination, rose in politics, and became a millionaire. Corrigan has changed the past, but not in the way he intended.

Mr. Peter Corrigan, lately returned from a place (back there,’ a journey into time with highly questionable results, proving on one hand that the threads of history are woven tightly and the skein of events cannot be undone, but on the other hand there are small fragments of tapestry that can be altered. Tonight’s thesis to be taken as you will, in the Twilight Zone.

In Execution, Russell Johnson played a man who invented a time machine but did not himself travel through time. In Serlings Back There, the eleventh episode produced this season, he got the chance though here the agent that propels our Mr. Corrigan through time is not a machine but rather a highly theoretical discussion.

For all the intellectual fascination of its premise, however, Back There is a dramatic failure. The reason is obvious: from the outset, the conclusion is known; Lincoln was assassinated, therefore Corrigan wont be able to intercede. Says Buck Houghton, I think that when you play ducks and drakes with the shooting of Lincoln, your suspension of disbelief goes to hell in a bucket.

One and only one aspect of Back There deserved better than it got, and that was Jerry Goldsmiths original and haunting score. Fortunately, pieces of it were used to great effect in later episodes, notably Death Ship and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.

DUST (1/6/61)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast:

Sykes: Thomas Gomez Sheriff Koch: John Larch Gallegos: Vladimir Sokoloff Luis Gallegos: John Alonso Mr. Canfield: Paul Genge Estrelita: Andrea Margolis Mrs. Canfield: Dorothy Adams Rogers: Duane Grey Man #1: John Lormer Man #2: Daniel White Farmer Boy: Douglas Heyes, Jr.

There was a village, built of crumbling clay and rotting wood, and it squatted ugly under the broiling sun like a sick and mangy animal waiting to die. This village had a virus, shared by its people. It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith. For the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time, ample time, to engage in one of the other pursuits of menthey begin to destroy themselves .”

On the day that Luis Gallegos is to be hanged for drunkenly running over and killing a little girl with his wagon, a conscienceless peddler named Sykes who has sold the hangman some brand-new five-strand hemp for the noose sells the condemned mans father a small bag of magic dust that can turn hate into love. In reality, it is no more than common dirt, but the anguished father pays Sykes one hundred pesos for it. In front of the gallows, he throws the dust on the waiting crowd, crying, You must pay heed to the magic! It seems to have no effect. The noose is fitted around Luis  neck, the trap is sprung and as if by magic, the rope breaks! The bereaved parents of the little girl, deciding that there has been enough death, pardon Luis, who leaves with his grateful father. The crowd disperses. Astounded by what he has seen, Sykes stares at the broken rope then tosses the hundred pesos to Luis  young siblings. The magic has worked on him, too.

It was a very small, misery-laden village on the day of a hanging, and of little historical consequence. And if there’s any moral to it at all, let’s say that in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human heart. For inside this deep place there’s a wizardry that costs far more than a few pieces of gold. Tonight’s case in point in the Twilight Zone.”

Although competently written, Dust lost much of its dramatic punch due to the conception of the episode by director Douglas Heyes. When it came to difficult, tricky episodes, Heyes had no equal. But Dust had no trickery, it was a simple straightforward western, with a little bit of magic. Heres how Heyes conceived of the episode: Dust was about a town that had sunk into the dust, in effect. It had no energy. The people there were listless. They were going to allow this man to be hanged simply because it was easier than not doing that.

In keeping with his conception, Heyes directed all the actors, with the exception of Vladimir Sokoloff, Thomas Gomez, and John Alonso, to play their roles with a lethargy bordering on the catatonic. A case in point was John Larch, who played the sheriff. John Larch came in and I changed him quite a bit, says Heyes, because he was written as a strong sheriff and I played him as a sheriff who had no energy at all, who represented the listlessness of that town. It was hard for John to do, because hes a man with energy.

For all its faults, Dust remains an entertaining episode, thanks to the performances of Gomez and Sokoloff. Both had long and distinguished film careers (Sokoloffs credits include The Life of Emile Zola, Juarez, and For Whom the Bell Tolls) and knew how to milk a part for all it was worth. As Sykes (in a part very different from the urbane Devil he portrayed in Escape Clause), Gomez is so rotten you can almost smell him, and Sokoloff, as the father, gives a performance of enormous anguish and dignity. 

GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

Of the core of writers that shaped and guided The Twilight Zone, only one has not been really introduced to this point. George Clayton Johnsons output on The Twilight Zone was relatively small when compared with Serling, Beaumont, and Matheson only four stories (Execution, The Four of Us Are Dying, The Prime Mover, and Ninety Years Without Slumbering) and four teleplays (A Penny For Your Thoughts, A Game of Pool, Nothing in the Dark, and Kick the Can), with the first teleplay being in the second seasonbut that output was of such quality that it must be put on a level with the work of the other three. And while the visions of Johnson meshed perfectly on an artistic and thematic levelwith the others, his approach was such that he mapped out a territory all his own.

George is very sentimental, says Buck Houghton, and he manages to bring that off pretty well without getting mawkish about it. He keeps his feet on the ground while hes being sentimental. And thats not a tap you can just turn on, not something you can say, Well hey, George, thats swell. Give us some more. If you could get a guy thatd do A Game of Pool and Nothing in the Dark five times a year, youd be in clover. But it wasnt in George to do that. Its a trick thats not that easy to work.