Twilight Zone Companion (6 page)

Second, there is the fact that with a half-hour show you have fewer alternatives in approach to consider. This is important. If a story can be handled in only one way, you sit down and write it. If you can develop a story in many different ways, youve got problems.

Then there was the fact that Serling dictated his scripts. At one time I used a typewriter [prior to the success of Patterns], but I found that I think faster than I can type. The typewriter held me up.

On The Twilight Zone, Serlings writing followed a rigid pattern. I dictate the first draft and have a secretary type it up. Then I will sit down and decide what has to be rewritten. The rewrite is usually to tighten up the rough draft to solve the time problem. Most of my first drafts run too long.

I usually dont have to do a second rewrite. Of course, after the director and cast have seen the script, there will be some last-minute pencilled changes. Thats only to be expected. (Not all the scripts Serling wanted to do came to fruition. Early in the year, he tried to buy three classic science-flction stories to adaptHeinleins Life-Line, Arthur C. Clarkes The Nine Billion Names of God, and Phillip K. Dicks The Imposterbut for various reasons was unable to acquire the rights.)

Serlings commitment to the series and the dazzling quality of his work fired up the enthusiasms of others on the show. We used to put in some very long hours, says Edward Denault, yet there was a lot of excitement. Each script was different, something unusual that had never been done before, and you looked forward to it in anticipation of what was coming up next. I am very happy that I was a part of it.

THE LONELY (11/13/59)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Jack Smight

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: Bernard Herrmann

Cast:

James A. Corry: Jack Warden Alicia: Jean Marsh Capt. Allenby: John Dehner Adams: Ted Knight Carstairs: James Turley

Witness if you will a dungeon, made out of mountains, salt flats and sand that stretch to infinity. The dungeon has an inmate: James A. Corry. And this is his residence: a metal shack. An old touring car that squats in the sun and goes nowherefor there is nowhere to go. For the record let it be known that James A. Corry is a convicted criminal placed in solitary confinement. Confinement in this case stretches as far as the eye can see, because this particular dungeon is on an asteroid nine million miles from the Earth. Now witness if you will a man’s mind and body shrivelling in the sun, a man dying of loneliness.

Allenby, the captain of a supply ship that travels the solar system, takes pity on Corry, whos serving a fifty-year sentence for murder, and leaves him a box containing Alicia, a robot that looks and sounds exactly like a woman. Initially, Corry is repelled by the robot, but eventually his heart melts and he falls deeply in love with her. Eleven months pass. Then one

day the supply ship lands. Allenby tells Corry hes received a full pardon, and that theyve come to get him. But theres a hitch: Corry can only take fifteen pounds of gear, and Alicia weighs more than that. Corry refuses to leave her behind, claiming that shes a woman. Reluctantly, Allenby draws his gun and shoots Alicia full in the face, revealing a mass of smoldering wires. He tells Corry, All youre leaving behind is loneliness. Stunned, Corry replies, I must remember that. I must remember to keep that in mind.

On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them; all of Mr. Corrys machinesincluding the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete … in the Twilight Zone.

The first episode ready to go before the cameras was The Lonely, which presented a unique problem for Buck Houghton: Where to find an asteroid?

The answer was Death Valley. It was supposed to be an asteroid and look as kooky as possible, says Houghton, and Death Valley is about as kooky as you can find. Its barren and deserted. That must be the way Mars looks.

So on the second week of June, 1959, Houghton, director Jack Smight (whose film credits now include Harper; The Illustrated Man, No Way to Treat a Lady, and Midway), actors Jack Warden, Jean Marsh (later to co-create and star in the Masterpiece Theatre presentation Upstairs> Downstairs), John Dehner, Ted Knight (later of The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and James Turley, set out with the production crew for the lowest, driest, hottest place in the United States. The maiden voyage proved a trial by fire.

That was unbelievable heat when we shot out there, says Jack Smight. The temperature was around 130 degrees. One day the caterer very foolishly served a very heavy meal for lunch, and about eight crew members just dropped in the afternoon. George Clemens actually fell off the camera crane right into the sand. I thought he was having a heart attack, because he was up on the crane, we were setting up a shot, and he just toppled off.

We had a nurse with us and she kept pushing lukewarm water, Buck Houghton recalls. And once in a while a guy would say, Well, dont worry about me, and put down a quart of nice, cold chocolate milk. In about a half hour, hed turn green and have to lie down in the truck.

Edward Denault recalls being called on to do double duty. As well as being the assistant director, I wound up doing script work and was the sound boom man for a couple of shots. Everybody was filling in for somebody else because people were just dropping off like flies.

Buck Houghton: One time, Jean Marsh lay down in the shot thats the tag of the picture. We put a thermometer down beside her. It was 140 degrees where she was lying.

The incredible heat also created technical problems. Theres a funny problem that nobody but someone connected with motion pictures would ever think of, explains George Clemens. When we want to show heat, to make people look like theyre sweating, we spray them with a composition of oil and water. Each makeup artist has a different thing that he puts on. Of course, you always darken under the arms and so forth to make it look like theyre sweating like hell. Well, in Death Valley, we wanted to convey this idea, but I dont care what we put on them, before wed start the camera it was gonethey were just as dry as you or me. We ended up putting about ninety percent oil and a little water on their faces, and the oil would stay in little droplets.

Finally, Death Valley proved too much. After two days of shooting, Houghton and Smight decidedto the relief of cast and crew aliketo return to MGM, reconstruct the interior of the metal shack in which the convict in the story lives, and shoot the final days scenes under comparatively cool klieg lights. Smight undoubtedly speaks for all concerned when he says, It was just too hot.

ESCAPE CLAUSE (11/6/59)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

Walter Bedeker: David Wayne Mr. Cadwallader: Thomas Gomez Ethel Bedeker: Virginia Christine Adjuster #1: Dick Wilson Adjuster #2: Joe Flynn Judge: George Baxter Doctor: Raymond Bailey Cooper: Wendell Holmes Guard: Nesdon Booth Subway Guard: Allan Lurie Janitor: Paul E. Burns

Youre about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four, afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts and everything else. He has one interest in life, and thats Walter Bedeker. One preoccupation: the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker. One abiding concern about society: that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?

Bedeker makes a deal with Mr. Cadwallader, an impeccably-dressed, jovial fat man who also happens to be the Devil. Bedeker will receive immortality and indestructibility in exchange for his soul. An escape clause is provided, however; if at any time he tires of life, all he need do is summon Cadwallader. Soon after the deal is struck, Bedeker realizes hes been taken. Nothing can harm him, truebut nothing thrills him either. He throws himself in front of subway trains and buses, drinks poison, all without the slightest ill effect. Finally he decides to jump off the top of his apartment building. In trying to stop him, his wife accidentally falls off the building to her death. Realizing that this gives him a unique opportunity to experience the electric chair, Bedeker confesses to murdering his wife. He receives a shock of a different kind, however, when the judge sentences him to life imprisonment without chance of parole. Cadwallader appears and grants him a reprieve, in the form of a fatal heart attack.

Theres a saying, Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown. Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point: Walter Bedeker, lately deceased, a little man with such a yen to live. Beaten by the Devil, by his own boredom and by the scheme of things in this, the Twilight Zone .

Of this second episode in the production schedule, Daily Variety said, Here was a little gem. Good work, Rod Serling. This little piece about a hypochondriac who gets tangled up with an obese, clerical devil ranked with the best that has ever been accomplished in half-hour filmed television. High praise for an episode that was really par for the course during the first season.

WALKING DISTANCE (10/30/59)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Robert Stevens

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: Bernard Herrmann

Cast:

Martin Sloan: Gig Young Martins Father: Frank Overton Martins Mother: Irene Tedrow Martin as a boy:

Michael Montgomery Charlie: Byron Foulger Soda Jerk: Joseph Corey Wilcox Boy: Ronnie Howard Mr. Wilson: Pat OMalley Mr. Wilcox: Bill Erwin Teenager: Buzz Martin Woman: Nan Peterson Attendant: Sheridan Comerate

Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice-president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesnt know it at the timebut its an exodus. Somewhere up the road hes looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, hell find something else.

On a drive in the country, world-weary advertising executive Martin Sloan leaves his car at a gas station and sets off on foot to his home town, Homewood, where he finds things are exactly the same as when he was a child. Soon he realizes that he has somehow gone back in time. He confronts his parents but only succeeds in convincing them hes a lunatic. And when he tries to catch up with himself as a childwanting only to tellthe young Martin to savor his youththe frightened boy falls off a merry-go-round and breaks his leg. Later, Martins father, who has gone through Martins wallet and now realizes Martin is his son, tells him he must leave, that there is only one summer to every customer. Reluctantly, Martin returns to the presentwith a limp he got from falling off a merry-go- round when he was a child.

Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things, but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives trying to go home again. And also like all men perhaps therell be an occasion maybe a summer night sometimewhen hell look up from what hes doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of his past. And perhaps across his mind therell flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And hell smile then too because hell know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a mans mindthat are a part of the Twilight Zone.

I think probably Walking Distance was as good as any we made, says Buck Houghton. It may be personal but I dont think so, because Im not beleaguered by my work.

With Walking Distance, Rod Serling took a fantasy journey to the Binghamton of his youth and invited us along for the ride. Not long ago, he told Kay Gardella of the New York Daily News in 1959, I was walking on a set at MGM when I was suddenly hit by the similarity of it to my home town. Feeling an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, it struck me that all of us have a deep longing to go backnot to our home as it is today, but as we remember it. It was from this simple incident that I wove the story Walking Distance …

Upon the recommendation of CBS management, who were much pleased by the job he had done on the pilot, director Robert Stevens was hired to direct. Gig Young was cast in the lead, with Frank Overton and Irene Tedrow as his parents. Ronnie Howard (later of the long-running Happy Days) was also cast, as a neighborhood child. Houses originally built on MGMs Lot 3 for the movie Meet Me in St. Louis were magically transformed into the homes of Homewood. From an outside firm, a gorgeously detailed carousel was rented and set up on a backlot park.

From the first, there was a feeling that Walking Distance was something special. Says Buck Houghton, There was a fortunate conspiracy of all sorts of arts and crafts that came to bear on that picture: the good fortunes of casting, the good fortunes of direction. Gig Young was just superb. The sets were absolutely magnificent for a half-hour show. There were a lot of good vibes coming out of the material as you encountered it, all the way up and down the line. Its a beauty.

Walking Distance makes no pretense at being science fiction; its clearly a fantasy. Nowhere is this delineation so clear as in Martins entrance into the past. Rather than using a time machine, Serling and Stevens employ a visual allusion to Through the Looking Glass. In the present, Martin heads down a dirt road toward his home town. The camera pans over to a mirror in which we see his reflection. This cuts to a reflection of Martin in a drugstore mirror in the past, just as he enters. A similar device was used for the return to the present. Martin jumps on a spinning merry-go-round which cuts to a record spinning in a jukebox in the present-day version of the same drug store.

Serling realized that the harsh, hard-edged style of writing hed used in Where Is Everybody? and The Lonely wouldnt do here. Instead, he used a style that was wistful, nostalgic. A longing for the past fills this episode, and that longing is communicated more through words than action. Nowhere is Serlings command of the language more in evidence. Take for example this scene near the end of the show, between Martin and his father: