Twilight Zone Companion (22 page)

Richard Mathesons Nick of Time is one of The Twilight Zone’s subtlest episodes.

The idea came from a simple source. Says Matheson, My wife and I were in San Fernando, going to a movie, and there was a little fortune-telling machine like that in the booth in the cafe. As with his previous scripts, this too had a title with a double meaning. Theyre rescued in the nick of time and theres also time the nick how it cuts into your life.

In Nick of Time, nothing is overt, all is suggestion. Maybe the machine is predicting the future, maybe not which, of course, is the uncertainty underlying all superstitious belief. The point that Matheson succeeds in making is that whether or not there is magic at work, the effect is the same: a loss of free will and independence of action.

The fact that all is inferred places a tremendous burden on the actors. There are no special effects to carry the show, nothing mysterious or majestic. This is a story of character, of things said and unsaid, of nuance. Luckily, the actors are up to this demand. I thought the two performances were marvelous, says Matheson. They played together so well. And the direction was nice. I thought it worked beautifully.

Matheson let Nick of Time end happily for his main characters, but he felt obliged to put a final little twist on the story. Thanks largely to the courage and determination of his wife, Don Carter has broken free of the machines influence. He says (more to the machine than to his wife) Well drive out of this town and go where we want to goanytime we please. The two exit, their will power restored. At the same moment, another couple enters. Nervously, they sit themselves down at the same booth and feverishly begin feeding pennies into the machine. Yin and yang, even in The Twilight Zone.

THE HOWLING MAN (11/4/60)

Written by Charles Beaumont

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

David Ellington: H. M. Wynant Brother Jerome: John Carradine The Howling Man: Robin Hughes Brother Christophorus: Frederic Ledebur Housekeeper: Ezelle Poule

The prostrate form of Mr. David Ellington, scholar; seeker of truth and, regrettably, finder of truth. A man who will shortly arise from his exhaustion to confront a problem that has tormented mankind since the beginning of time. A man who knocked on a door seeking sanctuary and found instead the outer edges of the Twilight Zone

During a walking trip of central Europe following World War I, Ellington gets caught in a storm and loses his way. Exhausted and on the edge of delirium, he comes to a remote hermitage. At first, he is turned away, but when he passes out the monks are forced to take him in. Upon reviving, he hears a bizarre howling one which the brothers feign not to hear. Drawn by the sound, he comes upon a gentle-seeming bearded man locked in a cell. He has been imprisoned by Brother Jerome, the head of the order, whom the bearded man claims is insane. The prisoner begs to be released. Ellington confronts Jerome, who makes a startling revelation: the creature howling in the cell is no man, but the Devil himself! He has been kept there for five years, held in place by the staff of truth that bars the cell door. Ellington tells Jerome that he accepts this explanation and pledges not to reveal this secret to the outside world, but as soon as he has a chance he sneaks away to the cell and releases the prisoner who immediately transforms into the Devil and disappears in a flash of light and a puff of smoke. Soon after, World War II erupts. Realizing what he has done, Ellington devotes his life to recapturing the Devil. Finally, he succeeds. Ashe leaves to make preparations to ship his captive back to the hermitage, he cautions his housekeeper to pay no heed to the howling which will issue from behind the door secured with a tiny staff. As soon as he leaves, however, she lifts the small piece of wood away. Ominously, the door swings open.

Ancient folk saying: You can catch the Devil, but you can’t hold him long. Ask Brother Jerome. Ask David Ellington. They know, and theyll go on knowing to the end of their days and beyond in the Twilight Zone.

For his first script of the season, Charles Beaumont decided to pull out all the stops. In Nick of Time, there was a devils head atop the fortune-telling machine, but in The Howling Man we got the real thing.

The show is an improvement over the original short story of the same name, which appeared in Night Ride and Other Journeys. In the original, a young American tourist falls ill while bicycling through post-World War I Germany and is tended in a remote abbey. There, he hears continual, crazed shrieking. Investigating, he finds a naked, filthy man being kept prisoner. When he confronts the abbot, he is told that the prisoner is Satan himself. The young man rejects this as the delusion of a religious fanatic and releases the prisoner. Shortly thereafter, World War II breaks out. Finally, after the war, the man receives a postcard from Germany which reads, Rest now, my son. We have him back with us again. But whether the prisoner really was the Devil is left to the judgment of the reader.

For his Twilight Zone script, Beaumont kept the basic story, except for the fact that the young man becomes obsessed with the idea of recapturing the escapee and sending him back to the abbey. However, he decided to leave no ambiguity as to the identity of the Howling Man. In the scene where the Devil escapes, Beaumont wrote in one visual elemental cloven hoof that left no doubt. As things went, however, this was never used.

Director Douglas Heyes explains, In my literal kind of visual sense, I wanted to see him turn into the Devil, I felt the audience would feel cheated unless they saw that. And Beaumont didnt want them to see it, he just wanted the expression on Wynants face as he chased after him and reached up as the man went over a wall. All he wanted was to see the hand touching a cloven hoof just as it went over the wall.

When I did the literal translation of showing him visually turn into the Devil, Beaumont didnt like that. He liked better the way he had written it and that was what he wanted to see. But I have a funny feeling as a director. I started as an artist and I like to see things. If I promise the audience something, if I say there are three thousand Indians on the other side of that hill, I dont want to see one feather poke up behind a rockI want to see three thousand Indians!

Hayes literal transformation of Robin Hughes into the Devil involved two different approaches. The first occurs as the prisoner steps from his cell. The lighting shifts, and suddenly his face is subtly but dramatically changed. Before, his face had looked benevolent; now it looks evil. What has occurred, all in one shot with no cuts, is a complete makeup change. This was done with George Clemenss red-green filter trick, which he had used before on Long Live Walter Jameson.

The second approach was much more complicated. Heyes explains, I had seen many transitions Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Wolf Man or something in which they would suddenly become immobile and the makeup would change and then they would start moving. I dont want to do that, I said. T want to see him moving all the time the makeup is changing.

So what we did is that we had a long corridor, and from the time that he started the makeup change I had him walk, very fast, down the corridor. At the end of the corridor, he turns and he is now transformed completely into the Devil, and he dissolves in a puff of smoke.

I had the camera on a dolly, and we timed it so that we ran it exactly the same speed every time. Now, between us and him were a series of pillars. He would make the entire walk at full speed, and we would go with him at full speed all the way in every makeup. But when it was cut together, we cut from makeup to makeup as we were passing the pillars, so that in the blur of the foreground pillar, which was only a matter of the most split of seconds, he would be in the next makeup, and the illusion was that he never stopped moving and the camera never stopped moving. It was just Zooooom he flashed down that corridor, and as he was moving very fast, the makeup was changing.

Sad to say, the final makeup achieved is too literal. With his absurdly long nose, pointed ears, and horns, the Devil looks more foolish than frightening. The only makeup that strikes a truly satanic mood is the first and most subtle change.

Despite this, The Howling Man succeeds as a gloriously melodramatic piece in the mold of all those simply awful but wonderful horror films of the thirties and forties. The prologue sets the tone, as David Ellington (Wynant, in very convincing age makeup) says to the camera, I know its an incredible story I, of all people, know this and you wont believe me, no, not at first, but Im going to tell you the whole thing. Then youll believe, because you must. You must believe! Dissolve to a flashback, as a much younger Ellington arrives at the hermitage.

Ellington may be the main character, but the real star of the show is Brother Jerome (John Carradine), head of the order, a man who dresses, sounds, and acts like Moses. Casting Carradine, with his basso voice and commanding presence, was an inspiration. Says Heyes, That was one case where John Carradine was able to do his stuff, full out, because it called for it. In this, I said, Go, because this guy is weird, wild.

As with The Eye of the Beholder, Heyes decided that The Howling Man required elaborate camera movement. Throughout much of the piece, Ellington is in a state bordering on delirium. Heyes decided that the camera should reflect his inner lack of equilibrium. As a result, whenever Ellington feels dizzy, which is quite often, the camera tilts severely. If hes walking and the camera is tilting one way, when he turns a corner the camera tilts in the opposite direction. Although this effect was difficult to orchestrate, requiring two operators on the camera, it proved well worth it. The mood produced is a disquieting one, queasy and disorienting.

An aspect of the show which caused some concern was the howling, which in the end sounded more like a dog than a man. The howling aspects of the thing were hard to sell, Heyes recalls. Now, when you mention howling in a story you hear this crazy howling off in the distance all the time, this man in the cell is howling thats all right in a story. Very hard to translate to the screen. Its hard to believe that that man who is in that cell would make those howling noises. I dont think we ever actually saw him howling, we only heard him, because to see him howling would have been very, very hard to buy.

A visitor to the set at the time was Beaumonts friend, William F. Nolan. I remember how concerned they were about the kind of cries and howlings, how demonic to make them, says Nolan. So they played endless tape recordings of howls to see which howl they liked the best, and theyd all sit around and say, Well, that howl is not satanic enough, and That howl is too high, its almost like a woman, and Maybe if we took that howl and this howl … We had a big howl session.

One aspect of Beaumonts script that Douglas Heyes was sure wouldnt work was the prop that all the brothers in the hermitage were supposed to carry a large wooden cross. I said, Chuck, Im worried about them having the crosses, because the minute you do that you make them some sort of Christian sect, and the minute you do that youre in danger from all kinds of religious groups who resent the fact that youre using a Christian symbol. So I said, Lets find something else, and I substituted the staff for the cross, which he didnt like, either.

A MOST UNUSUAL CAMERA (12/16/60)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Buck Houghton

Director: John Rich

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast:

Chester Diedrich: Fred Clark Paula Diedrich: Jean Carson Woodward: Adam Williams Waiter: Marcel Hillaire Racetrack Tout: Artie Lewis

A hotel suite that in this instance serves as a den of crime, the aftermath of a rather minor event to be noted on a police blotter; an insurance claim, perhaps a three-inch box on page twelve of the evening paper. Small addenda to be added to the list of the loot: a camera, a most unimposing addition to the flotsam and jetsam that it came with, hardly worth mentioning really, because cameras are

cameras, some expensive, some purchasable at five-and-dime stores. But this camera, this ones unusual, because in just a moment well watch it inject itself into the destinies of three people. It happens to be a fact that the pictures that it takes can only be developed in the Twilight Zone.

After burglarizing a curio shop, Chester Diedrich and his wife Paula discover that one of the items theyve stolen is a camera that takes instant pictures of events five minutes in the future. When Paulas brother Woodward, an escaped convict, arrives as predicted by the camera Chester gets the idea of taking the camera to the races and using it to bet on the winning horses. The trio makes a killing, but then a waiter in their hotel informs them that a French inscription on the camera says, Ten to an owner. The three argue over how best to use the remaining pictures. Chester and Woodward get into a fight and fall out the window to their deaths. From the window Paula takes a picture of the bodies below, to keep as a souvenir. She begins to gather up the loot. Just then, the waiter enters. He has discovered that the three guests are crooks, and wants to take the loot for himself. He looks at the photograph Paula has just takenand notes that it shows more than two bodies. Paula rushes to the window, trips on a cord, and falls out. Now, however, the waiter realizes that the picture shows not three but four bodies. With a shout, he falls out the window, too.

Object known as a camera, vintage uncertain, origin unknown. But for the greedy, the avaricious, the fleet of foot who can run a four-minute mile so long as theyre chasing a fast buck, it makes believe that its an ally, but it isnt at all. Its a beckoning come-on for a quick walk around the block-in the Twilight Zone.

Directed limply by John Rich, who would later direct and produce All in the Family, A Most Unusual Camera, never really goes anywhere. Whats oddest about the episode is its finale, when the waiter realizes, to his horror, that there are four bodies in the photoat which point the camera delicately moves in on the most unusual camera, and we hear him shout and tumble out the window. Now how did he fall out?