Twilight Zone Companion (12 page)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: Franz Waxman

Cast:

Barbara Jean Trenton: Ida Lupino Danny Weiss: Martin Balsam Marty Sail: Ted de Corsia Sally: Alice Frost Jerry Hearndan: Jerome Cowan Hearndan in Film: John Clarke

Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.

Aging actress Barbara Jean Trenton secludes herself in a private screening room, where she watches her old films. Gently but desperately, her agent tries to coax her out into the real world by arranging a part for her in a film and by bringing a former leading man to visit her. But these acts only drive her further into the past. Bringing her a meal, the maid finds the screening room emptyand is horrified by what she sees on the screen. She summons the agent, who turns the projector back on. On the screen he sees the living room of the house, filled with stars as they appeared in the old films. Barbara Jean is the center of attention. He pleads with her to come back, but she only throws her scarf toward the camera and departs. The film runs out. In the living room, the agent finds Barbara Jeans scarf. To wishes, Barbie, he says. To the ones that come true.

To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world. It can happenin the Twilight Zone

The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine marked director Mitchell Leisens third and last Twilight Zone and his best. I thought it was very well directed, says Buck Houghton, largely because Mitch had a feeling for how people could get that way. He undoubtedly reminisced about situations that hed been in when he was on top.

Perhaps this Sunset Boulevard-cum-Twilight Zone struck Leisen even closer to home than Houghton might suspect. He still lived in the past, explains George Clemens. Drove his Rolls-Royce, had a chauffeur, insisted on a lot pass and so forth. He wasnt getting enough money to live that way! But he was a real talented man in his daywell, always talentedbut he wasnt able to adjust to television. He wanted to make television like a feature picture.

Under Leisens sure hand, Ida Lupino (star of the movies High Sierra and They Drive by Night) and Martin Balsam, as her agent, give performances of a subtlety, control, and conviction that are astounding for a half-hour television show. Jerome Cowan also appears in the episode, as a shockingly aged former leading man. Cowan too harkened back to the golden age of movies. In The Maltese Falcon, he played Miles Archer, Sam Spades murdered partner, for whom Mary Astor takes the fall.

Bitterness and nostalgia pervade the episode, but are balanced so perfectly that neither becomes overpowering. Topped off with a fine and evocative score by Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard, The Bride of Frankenstein, Rebecca), The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine stands as a moving statement on the ones who are (to quote the episode) eclipsed by the movement of Earth and timeboth in front of and behind the camera.

THE MIGHTY CASEY (6/17/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Directors: Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

Mouth McGarry: Jack Warden Casey: Robert Sorrells Dr. Stillman: Abraham Sofaer Monk: Don OKelly Doctor: Jonathan Hole Beasley: Alan Dexter Commissioner: Rusty Lane

What

youre looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major-league ballclub known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. Were back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make-believe, it has to start this way: Once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though hes not yet on the field, youre about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey.

In order to test the skills of Casey, a human-looking robot he has invented, Dr. Stillman arranges with Mouth McGarry, manager of the broken-down Hoboken Zephyrs, to have him signed up as the teams star pitcher. The Zephyrs zoom to fourth place, thanks to Caseys ability to pitch shut-outs. But when hes beaned by a ball, a doctor discovers the pitcher has no heart. The rules of baseball clearly state that nine men make up a team, and without a heart Casey is not a man. The baseball commissioner rules that unless Casey is given a heart, he will not be allowed to play. Dr. Stillman happily complies, but the now-compassionate Casey has too much heart literallyto strike out the other teams players. The Zephyrs lose the pennant and Casey is washed up as far as baseball is concerned. As a memento, Stillman gives McGarry Caseys blueprints. Looking at them, McGarry gets a sudden inspiration. Shouting Stillmans name, he chases after him.

Once upon a time there was a major league baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thereafter wound up in oblivion. Theres a rumor, unsubstantiated of course, that a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of worlds championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. Of course, none of them smiled very much, but it happens to be a fact that they pitched like nothing human. And if youre interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under B for baseball in the Twilight Zone.

The Fates were not kind to The Mighty Casey, a comedy by Serling involving a losing baseball team that acquires a robot player. Cast in the lead as the manager of the team was Paul Douglas, a burly actor who had distinguished himself in a number of films, including The Solid Gold Cadillac.

I loved Paul Douglas, said Serling. There was something gutsy and ballsy about this guy and you could always count on him.

Nevertheless, Serling had his reservations about Douglas. He had had a reputation for being heavy on the bottle, but it had been somewhat dispelled over the last two or three years … and his agent guaranteed us that he would not drink or was not drinking during that time.

Anyway, we look at the first days rushes and Paul Douglas looks, even in black and white, mottled … high color, semi-diffuse, a breath so short that he couldnt continue one short staccato sentence without [gasping for breath]. So right away I make the assumption that hes drunk, hes drinking, and I blew my top and I called his agent and I said, This is very unethical of you. You assured me he wasnt drinking.

His agent said, To the best of my knowledge, hes not drinking. Well, we finished the show and it was a disaster. We finished shooting, I think, on a Thursday and Saturday morning Douglas was dead. What he had been suffering, of course, was an incipient coronary and we were watching him literally die in front of us.

Well … we did a rough cut of the film, and I took it over to CBS and said to them, Well, gentlemen, this is the one substantial piece of celluloid youre going to have to eat, because theres nothing funny about this show … And they looked at it and they allowed that it wasnt the funniest thing, but they didnt feel that they could afford additional money to get another actor and shoot around and put in new stuff.

Out of pocket, Serling spent $27,000 to recast, reshoot, and re-edit the show. Jack Warden was brought in to replace Douglas. Alvin Ganzer had directed the earlier sequences; Robert Parrish directed the latter. Cast and crew returned to the Hollywood Baseball Park and duplicated actions they had originally made eight months before. In reshooting, as little was filmed as possible. Footage was taken off the cutting-room floor and reinserted into the episode.

The Mighty Casey was broadcast June 17, 1960, as the next-to-last episode of the first season. As with most of Serlings Twilight Zone comedies, the show emerged as rather heavy-handed and only mildly amusing. But, thanks to Serling, the episode was not a disaster. Had he not been willing to put himselfand his moneyon the line, it would have been another story entirely.

THE FOUR OF US ARE DYING (1/1/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: John Brahm

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast:

Arch Hammer: Harry Townes Hammer as Foster: Ross Martin Hammer as Sterig: Phillip Pine Hammer as Marshak: Don Gordon Maggie: Beverly Garland Pop Marshak: Peter Brocco Penell: Bernard Fein Detective: Milton Frome Trumpet Player: Harry Jackson Man in Bar: Bob Hopkins Man Two: Pat Comiskey Busboy: Sam Rawlins

His name is Arch Hammer. Hes thirty-six years old. Hes been a salesman, a dispatcher; a truck driver; a con man, a bookie, and a part-time bartender. This is a cheap man, a nickel-and-dime man, with a cheapness that goes past the suit and the shirt; a cheapness of mind, a cheapness of taste, a tawdry little shine on the seat of his conscience, and a dark-room squint at a world whose sunlight has never gotten through to him. But Mr. Hammer has a talent, discovered at a very early age. This much he does have. He can make his face change. He can twitch a muscle, move a jaw, concentrate on the cast of his eyes, and he can change his face. He can change it into anything he wants. Mr. Archie Hammer, jack of all trades, has just checked in at three-eighty a night, with two bags, some newspaper clippings, a most odd talentand a master plan to destroy some lives.

Relying on newspaper photographs, Hammer impersonates trumpet player Johnny Foster in order to get Fosters girlfriend Maggie, a sultry torch singer, to agree to run away with him. He later impersonates Virgil Sterig, a murdered gangster, in order to squeeze some money out of Mr. Penell, the thug who had Sterig killed. His plan backfires when Penell sees through the deception and sends a couple of strong-arm men after him. In order to escape from them, Hammer assumes the face of boxer Andy Marshak, which he takes from a weathered fight poster. But then he runs into Marshaks father, who mistakes him for the son who broke his

mothers heart and did dirt to a sweet little girl. Hammer pushes the man aside and returns to his hotel room. Later, however, when he resumes Marshaks face in order to evade a police detective, he runs into Marshak Senior againonly this time the-old man has a gun. Frantically Hammer tries to convince him that hes making a mistake, that he can prove hes not the boxer if he just has a moment to concentrate … but the old man fires. As Hammer lies dying, his features shift from one face to another, until he diesagain wearing his own face.

He was Arch Hammer; a cheap little man who just checked in. He was Johnny Foster; who played a trumpet and was loved beyond words. He was Virgil Sterig, with money in his pocket. He was Andy Marshak, who got some of his agony back on a sidewalk in front of a cheap hotel. Hammer, Foster, Sterig, Marshakand all four of them were dying

Early in 1959, George Clayton Johnson, a young writer and friend of Charles Beaumont, wrote a story entitled All of Us Are Dying, about a young man who capitalizes on the fact that people see him as whomever they most want to see in the world (his downfall occurs when he pulls into a gas station and the attendant recognizes him as a man hes wanted to kill for ten years). Johnson submitted the story to a certain agent.

After the agent read it, Johnson recalls, he scrubbed out the title with a ballpoint pen and wrote in Rubberface! He then sent it to Rod Serling.

Serling liked Johnsons original title and the idea of a man who could change his face. He bought the story, entitling his teleplay adaptation The Four of Us Are Dying. What he then did was to write a totally different story of his own.

Having a character with four similar but different-looking faces was no easy job to cast. In December, 1959, casting director Millie Gusse told Peg Stevens of the Syracuse Post-Standard, First I thought we could use one actor and have him change his appearance. But this was ruled out when we timed it. The actor would be in the makeup room longer than he would be before the cameras.

Buck Houghton remembers the casting as one big headache. Its bad enough when youve got two look-alikes to work with, but when you get four its a nightmare. I think we wound up with three blonds at one time and couldnt find a fourth that was anywhere in the ballpark, so three guys were out of a job.

As an alternative, men with dark hair and brown eyes were called in. Millie Gusse explained, They were all told to dress alikedark suits and ties, white shirts. Im sure they all thought they were going to a wedding.

When they arrived, we immediately eliminated two of them because of their light eyes. And then we changed the interviewing procedure we usually follow. Its our custom to interview each individually.

This time, we lined them up in chairs against one wall and allowed them to ask us questions, like Whats this story all about? or Why will four of us be needed for one role? After the questioning period ended we knew the four who were similar enough in drive and ability to play the roles.

Cast in the lead were Harry Townes as Arch Hammer (the central figure), Ross Martin, Phillip Pine, and Don Gordon. Two other actors were used in a scene early in the show in which Hammers face changes twice while hes shaving. This is a beautiful sequence, done in one continuous shot. Hammer (Townes) is shaving. The camera pans over to the mirror, which reveals a different face (the mirror being nothing more than an empty frame behind which a second actor stands). Hammer goes to flick ash from his cigarette into an ashtray. The camera follows his hand. When it rises back to the glass, the face is once again different.