Twilight Zone Companion (52 page)

In its transformation from half hour to hour to half hour again, Twilight Zone had lost a great deal of its vitality. Several fine episodes still lay ahead, but the thoughtfulness and innovation of the first three seasons was, for the most part, sadly lacking. Gone too were some of the shows best directors: Douglas Heyes, Buzz Kulik, Montgomery Pittman, Lamont Johnson and Don Medford. Worst of all, the quality of writing always the shows strongest asset slipped badly. As Serling himself said, Toward the end I was writing so much that I felt I had begun to lose my perspective on what was good or bad.

Nevertheless, Bert Granet still had a show to get out. Youre at the mercy of the fates, of what is available to you, he notes. Youre always looking for something better than what is waiting on your desk, but frequently the source is not there. It might be someplace in the world, but youre not fortunate enough to get your hands on it at that moment when you need it. For all its faults, however, Twilight Zone was still vastly more interesting and entertaining than the majority of television programs. If it had faded, it had faded only in comparison with itself.

In Praise of Pip

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Bert Granet

Director: Joseph M. Newman

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: composed by Rene Garriguenc; conducted by Lud Gluskin

Cast: Max Phillips: Jack Klugman Pip: Billy Mumy Pvt. Pip: Bob Diamond Mrs. Feeny:

Connie Gilchrist Moran: John Launer Doctor: Ross Elliott Surgeon: Stuart Nisbet George Reynold: Russell Horton Lieutenant: Gerald Gordon Gunman: Kreg Martin

Submitted for your approval, one Max Phillips, a slightly -the-worse-for-wear maker of book, whose life has been as drab and undistinguished as a bundle of dirty clothes. And, though ifs very late in his day, he has an errant wish that the rest of his life might be sent out to a laundry to come back shiny and clean, this to be a gift of love to a son named Pip. Mr. Max Phillips, Homo sapiens, who is soon to discover that man is not as wise as he thinkssaid lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone

After learning that his beloved son Pip, now a soldier, has been critically wounded in South Vietnam, alcoholic bookie Max Phillips feels a tremendous remorse for not having been a better father. Out of kindness, he returns three hundred dollars to a luckless bettoran action that earns him a bullet from one of his bosss gunmen. Stumbling to an amusement park he used to visit with his sonnow closed for the nightMax is amazed to see Pip appear before him, magically transformed into a boy again. The park comes alive and the two relive past pleasures. Suddenly, Pip grows solemn and runs away. When Max catches him, Pip explains hes dying and disappears. Sobbing, Max offers God a trade: himself for the boy. He dies. But his sacrifice is not in vainPip survives.

Very little comment here, save for this small aside: that the ties of flesh are deep and strong, that the capacity to love is a vital, rich and all-consuming function of the human animal, and that you can find nobility and sacrifice and love wherever you may seek it out; down the block, in the heart, or in the Twilight Zone

Pip is dying. My kid is dying. In a place called South Vietnam. There isnt even supposed to be a war going on there, but my son is dying. Its to laugh. I swear its to laugh.

So says Max Phillips in Serlings sentimental and gripping In Praise of Pip, the premiere show of the fifth season. Very possibly, this marks the first mention of an American casualty in Vietnam in any dramatic TV show, and it seems remarkable for its perceptiveness. But curiously, Serling originally placed the action in Laos. This was changed when de Forrest Research went over the script for inaccuracies and reported:

The Geneva Treaty on the neutrality of Laos stipulated that all foreign troops be removed. At present the only U.S. military in Laos is a small mission with the Embassy. There are officially no combat or special forces in Laos. The implication that the U.S. has troops fighting in Laos (even in The Twilight Zone) could be an embarrassment and might cause repercussions. U.S. Special Forces are fighting (in an advisory capacity) in South Vietnam. Suggest South Vietnam.

Also, Serling originally had Phillips say There isnt even a war there. De Forrest Research:

In South Vietnam it is common knowledge that there is a Civil War, but U.S. troops are not supposed to be fighting there. Suggest There isnt even supposed to be a war there.

In Praise of Pip doesnt have much to do with politics, though; in reality, its simply a touching drama about a mans love for his son. Jack Klugmans absolutely dead-on portrayal of Phillips keeps the episode from sinking into bathos. Particularly moving is his death scene, in which he offers to make a trade with God: his life for his sons. Sobbing, he falls to the ground and dies. The amusement park is empty and dark. A wind comes up, scattering papers over the body. It is a moment of eerie beauty, solemn and sad.

Skillfully directed by Joseph M. Newman (whose movie credits include This Island Earth), In Praise of Pip was filmed at Pacific Ocean Park

during two consecutive nights when the park was vacant. It was real spooky, says Billy Mumy. Particularly disconcerting to him was a scene in which he had to run through a house of mirrors while being chased by Klugman. Although some of the closeups were shot in-studio, most was done in the amusement parks actual house of mirrors. They had the floor taped with markers that would lead you to the right turns, Mumy recalls, but they had to get it the way they wanted to get it, in the sense that I had to run through the house of mirrors, and I remember that was pretty scary.

UNCLE SIMON (11/15/63)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Bert Granet

Director: Don Siegel

Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack

Music: stock

Cast: Uncle Simon Polk: Cedric Hardwicke Barbara Polk: Constance Ford Schwimmer: Ian Wolfe Police Officer: John McLiam Constance Ford and Cedric Hardwicke Robot: Dion Hansen

Dramatis personae: Mr Simon Polk, a gentleman who has lived out his life in a gleeful rage; and the young lady who’s just beat the hasty retreat is Mr. Polk’s niece, Barbara. She’s lived her life as if during each ensuing hour she had a dentist appointment. There’s yet a third member of the company soon to be seen. He now resides in the laboratory and he is the kind of character to be found only in the Twilight Zone.”

Barbara and her Uncle Simon, an inventor, thoroughly detest each other, but she has cared for him for twenty-five years because he is rich and she is the only heir. When he tries to strike her with his cane, she grabs it from him and he falls down the basement stairs to his death. Barbara thinks she is free of her uncle at last, but she is mistaken. His will provides that she will inherit his estate only if she agrees to look after his latest invention: a robot. As the days go by, the robot takes on the mannerisms of Uncle Simon, including a desire for closed drapes and a craving for hot chocolate. When the robot assumes Uncle Simons voice, Barbara pushes it down the basement stairswhich only succeeds in giving it a limp identical with that of her late uncle. It is crushingly clear to Barbara now that she will never escape Uncle Simon.

Dramatis personae: a metal man, who will go by the name of Simon, whose life as well as his body has been stamped out for him; and the woman who tends to him, the lady Barbara, who’s discovered belatedly that all bad things don’t come to an end, and that once a bed is made it’s quite necessary that you sleep in it. Tonight’s uncomfortable little exercise in avarice and automatons from the Twilight Zone.”

Although directed by Don Siegel (whose movies include the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry and Escape From Alcatraz), Uncle Simon remains talky, badly acted, and badly staged. Its a sordid story about two sordid people, both of whom make it a point to say everything thats on their minds, to the point of simple-minded absurdity. Neither character is terribly likeable; consequently, the fact that Barbara never escapes the clutches of her uncle doesnt seem very important.

A KIND OF A STOPWATCH (10/18/63)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Bert Granet

Director: John Rich

Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack

Music: Van Cleave

Cast: McNulty: Richard Erdman Potts: Leon Belasco Mr. Cooper: Roy Roberts Joe the Bartender: Herbie Faye Secretary: Doris Singleton Attendant: Ray Kellogg TV Announcer: Sam Balter Charlie: Richard Wessel Man: Ken Drake

Submitted for your approval or at least your analysis: one Patrick Thomas McNulty, who at age forty-one is the biggest bore on Earth. He holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break. And it’s very likely that, as of this moment, he would have gone through life in precisely this manner, a dull, argumentative bigmouth who sets back the art of conversation a thousand years. I say he very likely would have, except for something that will soon happen to him, something that will considerably alter his existence and ours. Now you think about that now, because this is the Twilight Zone

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)