Twilight Zone Companion (20 page)

Director Buzz Kulik was a newcomer to The Twilight Zone with King Nine but he soon proved himself one of the series ablest directors. Kuliks great strength as a director lay in his ability to work with actors, a fact borne out by his television work since The Twilight Zone, which has included Kill Me If You Can (the story of Caryl Chessman, starring Alan Alda) and Brians Song. Since King Nine was virtually a one-man show, Kuliks attention to characterization and his willingness to engage in lengthy rehearsal greatly enhanced the production. Additionally challenging was the fact that during most of the show Cummingss lines were contained in voiceover interior monologues (obviously Serlings alternative to the clumsy verbal monologues in Where Is Everybody?). In order to allow Cummingss facial expressions to match his thoughts, the voiceovers were pre-recorded at MGM and then played back on location.

The attention to detail payed off. As Hank Grant wrote in the Hollywood Reporter, This was a tour de force for Robert Cummings, an extremely difficult role that ran the gamut from relief to joy to panic to crazed hysteriaa performance that should merit serious consideration when Emmy time comes around.

NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM (10/14/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast:

Jackie Rhoades: Joe Mantell George: William D. Gordon

This is Mr. Jackie Rhoades, age thirty-four, and where some men leave a mark of their lives as a record of their fragmentary existence on earth, this man leaves a blot, a dirty, discolored blemish to document a cheap and undistinguished sojourn amongst his betters. What youre about to watch in this room is a strange and mortal combat between a man and himself, for in just a moment Mr. Jackie Rhoades, whose life has been given over to fighting adversaries, will find his most formidable opponent in a cheap hotel room that is in reality the outskirts of the Twilight Zone.

Sitting in a stuffy, dingy, unbearably hot little room, Jackie finds himself in a terrible predicament. George, a gangster for whom he has done various nickel-and-dime jobs, has ordered him to murder the owner of a bar, an uncooperative old man, at two a.m. Jackie a nervous, frightened, nail-biting mouse of a man knows that hes done for. He hasnt the backbone to refuse George, and if he commits the murder its a certainty hell be caught. Looking for a match, Jackie is terrified to see that his mirror image is already smoking a lighted cigarette. The reflection is actually a different Jackie, intelligent, strong, self-assured. It is the man Jackie could have been had he chosen a better path and it wants out, it wants to take over before its too late. Jackie tries to bolt, but he comes face to face with mirrors in the closet, the bathroom and the hallway. There is no escape. Later, George arrives to deal with Jackie, who has not done the job, but he gets a surprise: this Jackie Rhoades says hes resigning, beats him up, and throws him out. The old Jackie is now in the mirror, and Mr. John Rhoades a nervous man no longeris checking out.

Exit Mr. John Rhoades, formerly a reflection in a mirror, a fragment of someone elses conscience, a wishful thinker made out of glass, but now made out of flesh and on his way to join the company of men. Mr. John Rhoades, with one foot through the door and one foot out of the Twilight Zone.

Although King Nine Will Not Return was the first episode aired this season, it was not the first produced. That distinction belonged to another virtual one-man show scripted by Serling one man, but two characters. Once again, Serling was dealing with a type with whom he was seemingly very familiar: the anonymous, insecure, unimportant little man struggling desperately against enormous odds. Here the conflict is a basic one, the internal combat between an individuals weaknesses and fears on the one hand, and his will to rise to the occasion and take control on the other.

Taking place entirely in a tiny hotel room, Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room centers around the dialogue between the main character and his alter ego, who appears in a variety of mirrors. The standard operating procedure here would have been for the actor to play to his mirror image, using split screen. But director Douglas Heyes felt that this would limit the movements of both camera and actor and that it would eliminate the performers sense of playing to someone. Instead, Heyes decided to use rear projection. This was done by filming Mantell as the mirror-self first. All of the mirrors in the hotel room set were actually rear projection screens on which the previously-shot footage was projected. So what Mantell as the real Jackie Rhoades sees and reacts to is exactly what we see in the finished product.

Joe played all the scenes in this room just as if he was playing with another actor, says Heyes. He could walk up to the guy, walk away from him, cross him, he could do everything. And he could maintain eye contact with him, also, because he was looking right at himself in his mirror.

Joe Mantell is an actor not generally known, but he should be. You can find him if you look for him. For instance, hes Jack Nicholsons partner in Chinatown, the one who sums up the movie at the end with, Cmon, Jake. Its … Chinatown. In Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room, Mantell demonstrates a tremendous range. In reality, hes playing two parts: the real Jackie, described in the show as always looking like somebodys squeezing [him] through a door; and the mirror image, calm, self-assured, commanding, and intelligent. And, wonder of wonders, both are completely believable. (Mention must be made of Jerry Goldsmiths excellent score; his theme for the real Jackie is ideal nervous, quick, with a rhythm that sounds like scissors cutting.)

Perhaps the most amazing achievement of Mantells performance is a simple, wordless reaction shot. The hit hasnt been done. Jackie is in his room, sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. The gangster who ordered him to do the job (William D. Gordon) comes in and says, Whatta you got to say for yourself, crumb? Slowly, Jackie raises his head. In an instant, before hes said a single word, we know that a transformation has occurred, that this is the mirror image, and that Jackie has been given a second chance.

THE MAN IN THE BOTTLE (10/7/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Don Medford

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

Arthur Castle: Luther Adler Edna Castle: Vivi Janiss Genie: Joseph Ruskin Mrs. Gumley: Lisa Golm Man From the IRS: Olan Soule German Officer: Peter Coe German Officer #2: Albert Szabo

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, gentle and infinitely patient people, whose lives have been a hope chest with a rusty lock and a lost set of keys. But in just a moment that hope chest will be opened, and an improbable phantom will try to bedeck the drabness of these two peoples failure-laden lives with the gold and precious stones of fulfillment. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, standing on the outskirts and about to enter the Twilight Zone .

After taking pity on an old woman and giving her a dollar for a seemingly worthless bottle she fished from the trash, impoverished curio shop owner Arthur Castle is amazed to see emerge from it a dapper genie in modern dress, who informs him that he and his wife have been granted four wishes. Unbelieving, Castle wishes for the cracked glass in a display case to be fixed. In an instant, it is done. His next wish is considerably grander: a million dollars in cash. But after giving thousands away to the folks in the neighborhood, he and his wife have a nasty shock; income taxes take all but five dollars of whats left. For his third wish, Castle comes up with what he thinks is foolproof. He wishes to be ruler of a foreign country sometime in the twentieth century, one who cant be voted out of office. Laughing, the genie willingly complies. All is exactly as Castle specified, but it is certainly not what he desired. The country is Germany, it is the end of World War II, and he is Adolf Hitler! Frantically, he uses the final wish to return to his old life. The genie is gone, the wishes expended, and Castle is back where he started. And yet, somehow, life doesnt seem so bad.

A word to the wise now to the garbage collectors of the world, to the curio seekers, to the antique buffs, to everyone who would try to coax out a miracle from unlikely places. Check the bottle youre taking back for a two-cent deposit. The genie you save might be your own. Case in point, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Castle, fresh from the briefest of trips into the Twilight Zone.

The second episode to be produced, written by Serling, was a pretty pale affair.

There are a couple of nice special effects shotsa broken glass display case heals itself and the shards of a bottle reassemble into an unblemished wholeand Joseph Ruskin, in modern dress, makes a dapper and menacing genie, but overall the episode isnt terribly interesting.

MR. DINGLE, THE STRONG (3/3/61)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: John Brahm

Directors of Photography: George T. Clemens and William Skall

Music: stock

Cast:

Burgess Meredith Luther Dingle: Burgess Meredith Bettor: Don Rickies OToole: James Westerfield Callahan: Edward Ryder 1st Martian: Douglas Spencer 2nd Martian: Michael Fox Abernathy: James Millhollin Boy: Jay Hector 1st Venusian: Donald Losby 2nd Venusian: Greg Irvin 1st Man: Phil Arnold 2nd Man: Douglas Evans 3rd Man: Frank Richards Nurse: Jo Ann Dixon Photographer: Bob Duggan

Uniquely American institution known as the neighborhood bar. Reading left to right are Mr. Anthony OToole, proprietor; who waters his drinks like geraniums but who stands foursquare for peace and quiet and for booths for ladies. This is Mr. Joseph J. Callahan, an unregistered bookie, whose entire life is any sporting event with two sides and a set of odds. His idea of a meeting at the summit is any dialogue between a catcher and a pitcher with more than one man on base. And this animated citizen is every anonymous bettor who ever dropped rent money on a horse race, a prize fight, or a floating crap game, and who took out his frustrations and his insolvency on any vulnerable fellow barstool companion within arms and fists reach. And this is Mr. Luther Dingle, a vacuum-cleaner salesman whose volume of business is roughly that of a valet at a hobo convention. Hes a consummate failure in almost everything but is a good listener and has a prominent jaw… . And these two unseen gentlemen are visitors from outer space. They are about to alter the destiny of Luther Dingle by leaving him a legacy, the kind you cant hardly find no more. In just a moment, a sad-faced perennial punching bag who missed even the caboose of lifes gravy train will take a short constitutional into that most unpredictable region that we refer to as the Twilight Zone.

As an experiment, a couple of Martians (two heads, but one body) give Dingle the strength of three hundred men. Discovering his new power, Dingle performs various tricks lifting a statue, tearing boulders in two, and so on and gains the notice of both the newspapers and the general public. In the bar, he prepares to perform an amazing feat not only for those assembled but also for a live TV audience: he plans to lift the entire building. Just then, the Martians, appalled by his foolish behavior, remove his strength. Unable to make good his claims, Dingle is made a laughing stock. As the Martians exit, they encounter two Venusians in search of an Earthling on whom to perform an intelligence experiment. The Martians recommend Dingle. Shining a ray on him, the Venusians boost his intelligence three-hundred fold and away we go again.

Exit Mr. Luther Dingle, formerly vacuum-cleaner salesman, strongest man on Earth, and now mental giant. These latter powers will very likely be eliminated before too long, but Mr. Dingle has an appeal to extraterrestrial note-takers as well as to frustrated and insolvent bet-losers. Offhand, id say that he was in for a great deal of extremely odd periods, simply because there are so many inhabited planets who send down observers, and also because of course Mr. Dingle lives his life with one foot in his mouth and the other in the Twilight Zone

A year before, in an article about The Twilight Zone, a reporter had mistakenly referred to the main character of Mr. Denton on Doomsday as Mr. Dingle. Serling must have liked the name, for he created Mr. Dingle, the Strong.

As with Mr. Bevis, Serling once again threw all sensitivity for his characters out the window in an effort to achieve out-and-out boffo comedy. Consequently, Mr. Dingle is little more than a bland punching bag of a character, whom virtually anyone and everyone can walk over.

This isnt to say that Mr. Dingle, the Strong is without interest, though. The Martian might not be a terribly convincing alien, but with its two high-domed heads one with a turning radar dish, the other with a blinking light pointed ears, and central pedestal, its certainly peculiar enough to grab our attention. And, at the end of the episode, there are two equally bizarre Venusians, played by a couple of nine-year-olds wearing moustaches, eye stalks, and bald caps with cones of foam rubber under them.

Then there are the various strong-man tricks that Dingle performs. Engineered by special-effects man Virgil Beck, these include reaching over to turn off his alarm clock and inadvertently squashing it, lifting a woman on a park bench with one hand, tearing a statue from its base, and ripping rocks and a phone book in half.

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (11/11/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: Bernard Herrmann

Makeup: William Tuttle

Cast: Janet Tyler (under bandages):Maxine Stuart  Janet Tyler (revealed):Donna Douglas Doctor: William D. Gordon Janets Nurse: Jennifer Howard Leader: George Keymas Reception Nurse: Joanna Heyes Walter Smith: Edson Stroll