“A World of Difference”:
A World of Meaning

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

During its initial season (1959-60), The Twilight Zone introduced the public to its fantastical world by way of a series of superb, paradigmatic episodes. Writer Arlen Schumer has called them “Ur-Twilight Zones”—Ur being the German prefix denoting “primitive” or “original.” Episodes such as “Walking Distance,” “Perchance to Dream,” “Mirror Image,” “A Stop at Willoughby” and “The After Hours” are Twilight Zones par excellence, setting a pattern and a standard for subsequent installments. In them, such quintessential TZ themes as alienation, nostalgia for the past, the fragility of personal identity, and the thin veil between the real and the unreal are explored in ways which would resonate throughout the rest of the series’ run—and in our popular culture ever since.

“A World of Difference” (first aired on March 11, 1960) also undoubtedly qualifies as an Ur-Twilight Zoneepisode. Richard Matheson’s tale tells of an ordinary businessman who goes to his office one day only to discover that his life is a movie in which he is starring. This simple premise leads to a half hour fraught with high-voltage anxiety and disorientation. Like many Twilight Zones, “A World of Difference” is receptive to any number of interpretations, and unraveling the possible meanings adds to the pleasure of this archetypal episode.

“You’re looking at a tableau of reality, things of substance, of physical material: a desk, a window, a light. These things exist and have dimension. Now this is Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six, who also is real. He has flesh and blood, muscle and mind. But in just a moment we will see how thin a line separates that which we assume to be real with that manufactured inside of a mind.”

Our protagonist is (or so it would seem at first) Arthur Curtis, a successful business executive who is looking forward to going on vacation to San Francisco with his wife this weekend. Upon entering his workplace and greeting his secretary, Arthur repairs to his office to make a phone call, only to discover that the phone doesn’t work. Suddenly he hears a voice exclaiming “Cut!” and, turning around, realizes that his office is actually the set and sound stage of a movie studio and that he is surrounded by a director and his crew.

Everybody tells him that the person he thought he was—Arthur Curtis—is simply a character in the movie he is making (The Private World of Arthur Curtis), and that he is in reality Gerry Raigan, an alcoholic actor with a shrewish wife whose career is on the wane. Arthur/Gerry fights to re-establish his former identity. At his peak moment of despair—as the “stage set” of his office is being dismantled by the movie crew—his former world is suddenly restored as an answer to his prayer. Filled with relief and gratitude, Arthur/Gerry picks up his plane tickets from his secretary and departs on vacation with his wife. Meanwhile, on the abandoned set of The Private World of Arthur Curtis, Gerry’s agent Brinkley wonders what happened to the star.

Rod Serling’s opening narration informs us that one of the sides to this story is “manufactured inside of a mind.” But which one? Who is our protagonist, really—Arthur Curtis or Gerry Raigan? According to the first interpretation—assumed by the opening narration and scene—our protagonist is Arthur Curtis, the happily married and self-possessed executive. The sudden invasion of the new reality of Gerry Raigan, then, represents the collision of two parallel worlds. By doggedly holding fast to what he believes to be the truth, Arthur finally breaks through the stranglehold of Gerry’s world and returns to his rightful world.

According to the second interpretation, our protagonist is harried Hollywood actor Gerry Raigan, who has sought escape from his miserable life by schizophrenically inhabiting the world of his movie character, Arthur Curtis. On this view, the ending consists of Gerry eloping with his co-star—in a sense, willing the fictional life of Arthur Curtis into existence. Serling’s closing narration strongly implies that Gerry has died, or left the earthly realm—jetting off to heaven, perhaps. Alternately, “exit from life” could be taken to mean “escape from the stresses and turmoil of life in the modern world.”

Duality is the operative theme of the episode, present in its very opening shot: as our protagonist emerges through the glass-paned door of his office, we briefly see a superimposed double image: the real Arthur Curtis and his reflection. The duality is subsequently played out as a clash of two different lifestyles—the placid bourgeois life of the suburban family man (Arthur Curtis) and the chaotic “Hollywood” life of the star actor (Gerry Raigan). The Hollywood star undone by marital difficulties, alcohol or drugs was a real-life character type familiar to postwar audiences—the antithesis of the era’s ideal of domestic tranquility.

“A World of Difference” critiques the artificiality of modern life, in which fiction, escapist entertainment, and role-playing of all kinds are so pervasive. Arthur realizes something is amiss the moment he picks up his phone and realizes it is only a prop. A moment later, he stares flabbergasted as a couple of stagehands walk outside his office ledge casting shadows on the cityscape, thus revealing it to be a backdrop. In this surreal moment, even the verisimilitude of TZ is cast into doubt! Arthur’s fourth wall has been removed, and as stage crew encircle him suspiciously, we are led with Arthur into a vortex of confusion and menace.

The duality of the two worlds (Arthur’s versus Gerry’s) is also covert social commentary. During the Cold War the U.S. and the communist world were often thought of as “parallel worlds.” And indeed, compared with the tranquil domestic world of Arthur Curtis—equivalent, perhaps, to the “American way”—the world of Gerry Raigan seems totalitarian, devoid of freedom, constantly monitored. The episode reflects the anxiety of many during that era that the security of the American way of life could be snatched away at a moment’s notice. “I don’t know where I am, and yet I must! I live here!” exclaims Arthur/Gerry as he drives bewildered through his suburban neighborhood unable to find his home.

As Arthur/Gerry stares at a pair of blank photo frames on his desk—his wife’s and daughter’s identities having been canceled out along with his own—he prays desperately: “Don’t leave me here!” Immediately a quasi-divine illumination lights up his face, and his wife appears in the doorway. Marion Curtis is a plain, gentle woman—a stark contrast to the pitiless “harpy,” Nora Raigan. Arthur, hearing ominous echoes of the movie studio crew, insists they leave right away on their vacation—”I just don’t want to lose you.” Thus the episode delivers a message about appreciating and guarding one’s blessings (freedom, peace) which are in danger of disappearing when one least expects it.

The episode’s title bears consideration. Among the dictionary definitions of “difference” we find: “dispute or quarrel” and “disagreement in opinion.” Thus, in addition to the title’s obvious meaning—there is a “world of difference” between the lives of Arthur and Gerry—we have also the implication that our world is a world of difference—i.e., of conflict and strife. As Brinkley declares, “sometimes I’d like to escape myself. Away from this turmoil, to some simpler existence.” The significance of the character of Brinkley (the name suggests that Arthur/Gerry is on the “brink” of disaster) is to show that even in this harsh world there is some goodness.

Acting, directing, cinematography and music combine to make “A World of Difference” one of The Twilight Zone‘s most compelling episodes. Howard Duff, with his perpetually haunted look, renders the numbed bewilderment of Arthur/Gerry palpable in every frame. Eileen Ryan’s delightfully strident performance as Nora Raigan, David White’s consolingly sympathetic one as Brinkley, and Gail Kobe’s perky turn as Arthur’s secretary fill out the cast. Costumed in an incongruous and menacing pair of black gloves, Ryan throws herself wholeheartedly into her vicious role.

The music score was composed by Nathan Van Cleave and features the theramin, an electronic instrument whose emotive, wailing tones adorned many a sci-fi film in the 1950s. The theramin’s music is ramped up to fever pitch during the sequence when Arthur/Gerry speeds down the highway to the movie studio to reclaim his identity.

The very best Twilight Zones invite the viewer to choose his or her own interpretation, and “A World of Difference” is one of these. The questions multiply after viewing. Was Arthur Curtis’ experience nothing but the daydream of a bland office denizen who likes to imagine alternate scenarios to his life? Are we all, in our lives, playing stereotypical roles that were scripted for us by custom or society? And what of the redemptive power of art—can it help us escape from the harsh realities of earthly existence? All these questions are only a taste of the world of meaning to be discovered in this popular episode. As with Arthur Curtis, the sky is the limit.

“The modus operandi for the departure from life is usually a pine box of such and such dimensions, and this is the ultimate in reality. But there are other ways for a man to exit from life. Take the case of Arthur Curtis, age thirty-six. His departure was along a highway with an exit sign that reads, ‘This Way To Escape.’ Arthur Curtis, en route to the Twilight Zone.”

“Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”:
A Brief Return

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

In its fourth season (1962-63), The Twilight Zone expanded its format from half-hour to hour-long episodes. The change yielded mixed results, with a good deal of material that seemed stretched out and padded to fit the longer format. Nevertheless, a handful of the hour-length episodes were gems. Rod Serling’s “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville,” first aired on April 12, 1963, is often overlooked— remembered, if at all, only for Julie Newmar’s wonderful turn as a female devil, one of Serling’s most brilliant inventions. Yet despite some flaws, “Cliffordville” is a substantive and sophisticated piece: a blend of Faust, Citizen Kane, and choice pieces of The Twilight Zone‘s past, filmed in high cinematic style. As trenchant a moral parable as Serling ever created, “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” is overdue for a reappraisal.

Several of Serling’s TZ episodes have been likened to famous movies: “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” to Sunset Boulevard, for example, and “A Passage for Trumpet” to It’s a Wonderful Life. Similarly, “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” could be considered Serling’s take on Citizen Kane. Both movie and episode deal with an aging business tycoon reflecting back on his life; both revisit the tycoon’s turn-of-the-century youth, and in so doing tap into the pervasive nostalgia for the post-Victorian era while commenting on the mid-twentieth century. Serling pays tribute to Citizen Kane in having his tycoon, William Feathersmith, court a young woman of questionable singing talents, as also happens with Charles Foster Kane. Both films are about the human thirst for power and success, and what is of true value in life.

“Cliffordville” is also a Faustian tale. A satanic pact had already been featured in the fourth-season TZ episode “Printer’s Devil,” and devil-like figures appear in several other TZ episodes. “Cliffordville” is heir to a rich heritage of folklore and literature dealing with satanic interventions, from Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” to Stravinsky’s opera “The Rake’s Progress.” Serling introduces a new twist in that what the devil demands here is not Mr. Feathersmith’s soul (he forfeited this long ago), but money—the object being to ruin him financially.

* * * *

“Witness a murder. The killer is Mr. William Feathersmith, a robber baron whose body composition is made up of a refrigeration plant covered by thick skin. In a moment, Mr. Feathersmith will proceed on his daily course of conquest and calumny with yet another business dealing. But this one will be one of those bizarre transactions that take place in an odd marketplace known as the Twilight Zone.”

William J. Feathersmith, the septegenarian president of a large corporation, is known for his cruel and ruthless business dealings; in the opening scene, we see him financially ruin his business rival, Mr. Deidrich, by buying out his company. Bored with success, Feathersmith wishes he could go back to his hometown of Cliffordville, Indiana, and start his career anew. Feathersmith talks to Mr. Hecate, the janitor of the building, who is also from Cliffordville and approximately his age (“Both from Cliffordville; we both put on our pants one leg at a time. And there the similarity ends”). After getting drunk, Feathersmith meets “Miss Devlin,” who runs a travel agency on the 13th floor of his building. It soon becomes apparent that Miss Devlin is in league with the devil. Feathersmith makes a deal with Miss Devlin to return to the Cliffordville of his youth in order to re-experience the thrills of building a business career (“acquire, build, consolidate”).

Feathersmith’s experiences in 1910 Cliffordville are disillusioning. His attempt to cash in on an oil- filled plot of land backfires because the high-power drills needed to extract the oil have not been invented yet. His endeavors to enlist inventors to make a self-starter for automobiles are met with incomprehension and derision. He is unhappy in love, too: the banker’s daughter whom he had remembered as a great beauty turns out to have actually been quite homely.

Feathersmith realizes to his dismay that Miss Devlin has changed only his outward appearance; inwardly he is still 75 years old and will thus not have the energy or the time to carry out his money- making plans. Miss Devlin gives him one more chance to return to the future; but in order to pay the “surcharge,” he must sell the deed to his land. The person to whom he sells the deed is none other than Mr. Hecate. Transported back to 1963, Hecate is now the president of the corporation and Feathersmith is his janitor.

* * * *

The fictional Cliffordville, Indiana is the setting for this tale about a self-made man and the mythical American small town at the turn of the century. It is, as Feathersmith says, a place where “a man could go up to the moon if he had a mind to, and the legs to carry him, and fingers to stretch out and grasp.” Commonly conceived as an era of innocence and genteel manners, the pre-World I era in America was also a time in which capitalism, big business and industry grew—a time of ruthless businessmen and “robber barons” (a term applied to Feathersmith in Serling’s opening narration). Thus Serling plays on the turn-of-the-century as “the old times,” but also as the beginning of modernity.

The phrase “Of Late” in the episode’s title suggests that this is the story of a man in late-life crisis. As Feathersmith tells Miss Devlin: “I’m rootless now. I have no purpose, no plans. I have no drive. Because there’s no place to go.” All his life Feathersmith has been animated by a single-minded compulsion toward worldly success: “I didn’t have time to enjoy anything. I worked! I dug, I scratched, I pushed, I drove. I went up—up!” Later, he declares: “I never let pleasure interfere with business.” For Feathersmith, even love and courtship are no more than a commodity to be pursued: “I know what I like and I ask for it, and I generally get it.”

Yet Feathersmith is filled with unsatiated desire: “I’ve got everything there is to get. And I’m still hungry”; “The pleasure’s not in the possessing, it’s in the desperate struggle to possess”; “Getting it—that was the kick. Getting it—not having it.” Alongside these timeless themes, we have the universal longing for second chances and renewal. The second chance is facilitated by Miss Devlin—a devil who is also a travel agent (time travel, to be exact).

Once arrived in Cliffordville, Feathersmith sets about applying his knowledge of the future to win new conquests in the business world. Thorns appear in his paradise immediately. The roads are unpaved, causing him to be splashed with mud by a passing carriage; and the town has an outbreak of typhoid, for which inoculation doesn’t yet exist. Feathersmith sees these both as opportunities to be seized in order to make a profit.

Feathersmith strikes a deal with the banker Mr. Gibbons to buy a seemingly worthless plot of land, knowing that there is oil buried deep underground. When Gibbons attempts to “talk up” the land—”It’s a Garden of Eden for a man with vision. And the potential is unlimited!”—Feathersmith retorts, “It’s a swamp for mosquitoes, and the potential is malaria.” Both Gibbons and Feathersmith are unscrupulous salesmen, selling inferior “products” (the plot of land, Gibbons’ daughter Joanna) to unwary buyers. Yet Feathersmith is conspicuous in this florid world for his blunt candor—a man who always speaks his mind, who is at least honest in his dishonesty.

Feathersmith has two tragic flaws. One is thinking that he can control his own life, calculate all the coordinates and get a certain outcome. Happenstance and the intractability of the human will get in the way; as Miss Devlin tells him later, “Your trouble is that you leaped before you looked.” His other flaw is a lack of the ability to create; his success in life is due only to shrewdness and double-dealing, not talent.

* * * *

Critics have duly noted the flaws of “Cliffordville.” The chronology doesn’t quite work: Feathersmith should be 22 years of age in 1910, not 30. Script-padding—the bane of the hour-long episodes—is evident in the long-winded expository scene between Feathersmith and Deidrich (Serling might have trimmed this scene and added to the Cliffordville portions for better balance). The character of Joanna Gibbons is treated as a caricature, and the parlor scene lacks a certain taste and subtlety. In the final confrontation between Feathersmith and Miss Devlin by the railroad tracks, the latter inexplicably steps out of character to become Serling’s moral mouthpiece: “[Y]ou, Mr. Feathersmith, are a wheeler and a dealer…[Y]ou are a taker instead of a builder, a conniver instead of a designer, a user instead of a bringer.”

Despite all this, the episode succeeds on the strength of its ambitious themes, imaginative visual presentation, and well-rounded structure—giving coherent form to what might easily have become a sprawling narrative.

As in many an allegory, the character names are symbolic. “Devlin” speaks for itself. Given that a smith is someone who creates weighty iron objects, it would follow that a “Feathersmith” creates things of negligible value—or indeed, doesn’t create at all. As for Feathermisth’s rival, Mr. Deidrich (“died rich”), we are left with no doubt of his fate. “Hecate,” significantly, was the Greek goddess associated with witchcraft, prosperity, and crossroads. It’s noteworthy that Mr. Hecate is described not as a “janitor” but as a “custodian” (“custodian of the top three floors”), as if to imply that his occupation has great dignity. This blue-collar man shows himself surprisingly perceptive and erudite in applying a quotation about Alexander the Great to Feathersmith: “He cried because he had no more worlds to conquer.”

Julie Newmar’s slinky, seductive Miss Devlin is the centerpiece of the episode. In the short story upon which Serling based the episode (Malcolm Jameson’s “Blind Alley”), there were two diabolical characters: a male business executive Satan and his female receptionist; Serling cleverly conflated the two characters into one she-devil.

When we first see Miss Devlin, she is checking herself in a hand-held mirror; her horns, which will be shockingly revealed a moment later, are hidden by her cloche hat (yet note how the horns are echoed and anticipated by the ornamental “horns” on the hat). Late in the episode, Miss Devlin reappears before Feathersmith in the guise of a coquettish turn-of-the-century lady, teasingly using the lingo of the period: “Why Mr. Feathersmith, dear boy! You look out of sorts. Flagging, peaked, drooping, and not at all well!” It could well be said that Newmar saves the episode from flagging and drooping, and that every moment she is onscreen is a delight.

Albert Salmi’s turn as Feathersmith has elicited strong reactions from many TZ fans, for his vocal timbre is grating, his line delivery is at times odd, and he indulges in some over-the-top cackling and emoting. But in light of his subtle and textured work in two previous TZ episodes (“Execution” and “A Quality of Mercy”), there can be little doubt that there is method—as well as the Method—in Salmi’s madness here. This is an eccentric but well-considered portrayal perfectly modulated between nastiness, comedy, pathos, and tragedy.

An oft-criticized feature of “Cliffordville” is the makeup on the male leads. In order to be most effective, the episode required the same youthful actors to play both the young and elderly versions of their characters. This was achieved by using heavy age makeup, and the results are not altogether convincing, to say the least. Wright King as Hecate fares best; but as Deidrich, John Anderson unfortunately decided to augment the illusion of age by delivering his lines in the manner of a talking mummy.

The episode has a number of striking visual sequences. After Feathersmith leaves Miss Devlin’s office, he turns back only to discover that the office has disappeared—a nifty trick accomplished by using a sliding wall. Another visual standout is the time travel to 1910 Cliffordville. One minute, Feathersmith is sitting on a jet airliner in his ’60s suit and homburg hat. When the camera cuts back to him a split second later, he is a young man in turn-of-the-century dress; his wristwatch has become a pocket watch, and the plane has become an old-fashioned train. (This breathtaking sequence evokes shades of “A Stop at Willoughby” and “Back There.”) The atmosphere of the 1910 town is aptly recreated, not only through the sets and costumes but also through looks, manners, and speech cadences.

Best of all is the montage sequence as Feathersmith tries unsuccessfully to find financial backers for his self-starter. We hear a voice-over of Feathersmith’s frustrated plea to two incredulous engineers from the previous scene, accompanied by Marius Constant’s abrasive music cue. Tilted camera angles convey Feathersmith’s descent into bewilderment and despair as he is met by indifference from the investors. The voice-over blends seamlessly with Feathersmith’s fragmented internal monologue (“She didn’t change me inside! That’s why I’ve been so tired, why I can’t function, why I can’t operate!”). He stops to rest at the window of a ladies’ shop, and the laughing and elaborately hatted head of Miss Devlin suddenly appears in the window. Feathersmith then runs terrified across the street, throwing away his constricting celluloid collar as it it were a shackle.

The final shot of the episode is of janitor Feathersmith dusting a map of the United States—the very map which had previously served as the backdrop to his arrogant speech to Deidrich about his vast business empire.

* * * *

At episode’s end, the social hierarchy has been overturned: Hecate is now an arrogant tycoon, Feathersmith a submissive janitor (“Here we wind up in the same building…each with his own particular function, eh?”) Although similar to the plot of “Back There” in that altering the past has in turn altered the future, here there is even greater impact since an actual exchange of roles has taken place. Serling doesn’t give us the ending we would like: a kindly Hecate showing Feathersmith the right and virtuous way to be a powerful businessman. Instead, Hecate is just as cruel as Feathersmith was, if not worse.

Hecate’s transformation into an evil man is hard to take, but it conveys the message that nobody is immune from moral corruption; we could all be Feathersmith. The gold watch which Feathersmith was awarded for forty years of service as a janitor underlines the importance of time and the value of true, honest work. Hecate’s response is even crueler than Feathersmith’s had been in the earlier scene, and ends the episode on the note of turn-of-the century nostalgia: “Well, now, maybe for the next forty years, if you really apply yourself, Mr. Feathersmith, I’ll buy you a fob.”

We recall that Miss Devlin first appears on the scene after Feathersmith gets drunk. This suggests an alternate interpretation of the episode: namely, that everything after the drinking binge is merely a cautionary dream that Feathersmith is having. This possibility is hinted at when Miss Devlin talks of a file in her office detailing Feathersmith’s “Subconscious Thoughts and Dreams.”

Yet whatever interpretation we choose, “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” remains an allegory of fortune, of the rise and fall of men—Serling’s version of the biblical adage, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”

“Mr. William J. Feathersmith, tycoon, who tried the track one more time and found it muddier than he remembered, proving with at least a degree of conclusiveness that nice guys don’t always finish last, and some people should quit while they’re ahead. Tonight’s tale of iron men and irony, delivered F.O.B. From the Twilight Zone.”

“The Last Flight”:
An Excursion

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

“Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time – and time in this case can be measured in eternities.”

“Flight” was Richard Matheson’s original, telegraphic title for this engrossing time travel episode of The Twilight Zone, his first contribution to the series; the title was later expanded to “The Last Flight.” The word “flight” has a double meaning here, referring both to aviation and to a “flight” from duty. The plot is, roughly, as follows: In 1917, a British World War I fighter pilot passes through a mysterious cloud and lands in a modern U.S. air base in 1959. Seized by fear and panic, he had abandoned a comrade to German aircraft. Now propelled into the future, he learns that the comrade survived and went on to become a hero in World War II, saving hundreds of lives. The pilot, thanks to the machinations of the Twilight Zone, is given a chance to go back to 1917 and save the comrade, sacrificing his own life in the process. Thus the flight in question is literally the last flight of his life as well as his last “flight” from responsibility—the point at which he overcomes his fear and cowardice.

“The Last Flight” is a chamber piece with just four principal characters: the Royal Flying Corps pilot, Lt. William Terrance “Terry” Decker; the two military officials who detain Decker on the air base, Major General George Harper and Major Wilson; and Decker’s comrade, Air Vice Marshal Alexander Mackaye (who plays a brief but pivotal role at the end). All four roles are well filled, and the acting is of a high caliber, particularly from British actor Kenneth Haigh in the role of Decker. The episode makes effective use of just three settings: the exterior of the Lafayette Air Base in Reims, France (filmed at the Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California); Harper’s office, and a detention cell. “The Last Flight”was first broadcast on February 5, 1960 at the exact midpoint of the first season, the eighteenth of 36 episodes. While generally well respected, the episode is rarely discussed – a pity, since it is one of the Zone’s most remarkable time travel entries.

A compelling script

Matheson’s script is tightly structured and dramatically compelling, although its appeal is closer to that of a cerebral closed-room drama like 12 Angry Men than to a more action-oriented piece. Scenes of intense argument between the three principals are balanced against reflective monologues for Decker in which he reveals his feelings and his failings. The episode’s first act consists of Decker’s landing on the air base and being detained by Wilson and Harper. Led progressively further into a vortex of bewilderment, Decker discovers that he has somehow ended up forty-two years in the future: it is no longer March 5, 1917 but March 5, 1959 (in choosing this date, Matheson may have been counting on the proximity to the Ides of March, with its fateful associations). The plot thickens as we learn that Decker knew Alexander MacKaye, the veteran military official who is coming to the base that very day to conduct an inspection. The first act concludes with a cliff-hanger: Decker declaring that Mackaye can’t possibly be coming that day…because he’s dead.

The second act features a pressure-cooker scene between Decker and Wilson in a detention cell, in which the two men try to unravel the inexplicable. Where did Decker come from? Why does he believe Mackaye to be dead? Once it has been explained to him that Mackaye is alive, why is he afraid to meet him? The confined space mirrors their mental confinement; repeatedly they come up against a wall, both literally and psychologically. The window functions as a symbol of freedom and release – a freedom and release which Decker will find only by flying back into the clouds to his ennobling death.

In a moving monologue, Decker confesses that he fled the Germans’ attack and left Mackaye (or “old Leadbottom” as he was known to the comrades) to die. Wilson, however, explains that Mackaye survived and became a hero in the Blitz (“That was the second war we told you about.”) Wilson says this line with slight embarrassment, as if concerned that Decker will think his own war efforts in vain in light of the dismaying future course of history. An anxious closeup of Decker shows that everything is finally sinking in. There will be more war, and more lives at stake. It dawns on him that perhaps he was “put here for a reason” and that if Mackaye was indeed helped by someone on that fateful day, it must have been him. He must therefore return back to 1917 and save Mackaye. Decker overcomes Wilson and the guard (“decks” them, in fact), breaks out of the room, and runs to his plane. He is already in the cockpit when Wilson orders him at gunpoint to stop. Decker refuses to back down: “Well, fire! I’d rather die.” Wilson, disarmed by this show of courage, lets Decker go. As Decker’s plane takes off, the wind blows Wilson’s cap off, a perfect metaphor for his bewilderment and professional embarrassment.

The concluding scene opens with Harper rebuking Wilson for letting Decker get away. Mackaye arrives; “I trust you had a comfortable flight” is Harper’s telling greeting. Harper and Wilson ask him about Decker in an attempt to get to the bottom of what happened in 1917. Mackaye tells of how Decker at first disappeared into a cloud as if fleeing, but then suddenly dove back and fired at the German planes, saving MacKaye but getting himself killed. As Mackaye corroborates Decker’s story we sense Wilson’s increasing professional vindication and Harper’s corresponding befuddlement. Harper produces Decker’s identification card, to Mackaye’s amazement. (“Where in heaven’s name did you get these?” he asks, then, “What the devil is this all about?!”) Wilson replies gravely that “you’d better sit down, old Leadbottom.” Mackaye is aghast; Harper turns towards the window, his uneasy expression a mixture of mortification at his subordinate’s faux pas and suspicion that something supernatural has indeed taken place. The camera moves out of the office window towards the heavens where Decker disappeared forever. Rod Serling’s closing narration, evoking a familiar line from Hamlet, drives home the point that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in the mind of a strict rationalist like Harper.

Decker’s two antagonists are well contrasted. Harper is a cynical skeptic, unable to believe in the supernatural; he is convinced Decker is a hoaxter or lunatic with plans to assassinate Mackaye. Wilson is a more sympathetic character who tries to understand Decker and listens to his confessions with an open mind. In his heart he wants to believe Decker’s story, as fantastic as it may be. During the detention room scene he reassures Decker, “It’s not a crime to be afraid.”

Indeed, the nature of courage is the major moral theme of “The Last Flight.” In his great monologue, the heart of the episode, Decker exclaims, “I’m a coward. Always been a coward. All my life I’ve been running away pretending to be something I never was, never could be.” Decker unmasks the macho pose adopted by him and his fellow fighters as “self delusion” and “the brand we all put on.” Decker comes to realize, however, that courage does not consist simply in being an “ice cold killer in the sky” and that moral deliberation and reflection can lead one to greater insight and hence to heroic action. Existentialist themes abound in The Twilight Zone, and Decker could be described as an existentialist hero: someone who confronts the meaninglessness of his situation and rises above it, conferring his own meaning upon it by acting in accord with an internal morality.

Terry Decker, everyman

Matheson exploits Decker’s culture shock in an entertaining manner. One of the episode’s memorable images is of Decker’s little biplane landing next to an enormous American jet craft; emerging from his plane, Decker exclaims to Wilson,”But all this! We had no idea you were so advanced!” The incongruity of the image of the two planes suggests Decker’s underdog status in this tale. (Later, during his escape scene, we watch as he performs the laborious task of manually starting the motor by spinning the propellers, adding greatly to the suspense.) As he is led by Wilson into the military compound for questioning, Decker does a double take at the sight of a female officer (women in the military being unheard of in Decker’s day). Only one other woman appears in the episode, a brunette officer whom Decker passes during his escape from the compound. This time, the tables are turned and it is the woman who stares behind her at the sight of this intriguing young man in the antiquated costume. In the interrogation scene, Decker’s puzzlement at Harper’s use of the words “air show”, “film” lends some humor to the proceedings: Decker’s quaint old-fashioned uniform led Harper to believe that he was making a movie.

As embodied by the 28-year-old British actor Kenneth Haigh, Decker is an everyman with whom we can easily identify, his doughy-faced, ordinary outward appearance masking a dashing Byronic hero. Haigh was a stage actor closely associated with the “angry young man” school of British drama in the 1950s, a movement aimed at anti-establishment social criticism. Haigh’s performance as Decker belongs on any reasonably complete list of great TZ male lead performances. His speech and manners feel just right for an Edwardian Englishman, and his stiff-upper-lip attitude and touches of dry humor lend the character color. The roles of Harper, Wilson and Mackaye are ably filled by character actors Alexander Scourby (a frequent movie heavy and voice actor best known for his resonant recordings of the Bible), Simon Scott (who would go on to do another production about flight in the 1975 film “The Hindenburg,” where he also played a government officer), and the 81-year-old Robert Warwick (a veteran supporting player who was prolific in the 1930s and ’40s).

Time travel

“The Last Flight” offers a most original and inventive treatment of time travel. In the TZ episode “Back There”, the protagonist goes back in time to alter a historical event (Lincoln’s assassination) so that the present is in turn altered. By contrast, in “The Last Flight”, Decker travels forward in time, then goes back to the past so that the future can remain as it should be. While Decker undergoes his journey of discovery in 1959, the moment he left in 1917 is, as it were, halted or suspended. (This scenario is very similar to that of “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim.”)

We might wonder, what would have happened if Decker hadn’t gone back to 1917? Would Mackaye have failed to show up at the air base? And what about all the people he saved in the Blitz? There is a paradox here that ultimately defies logical analysis. Perhaps the point of the time travel is the moral significance it has for Decker, rather than actually changing the outcome of history.

The model for Terry Decker

“The same sort of thing happened to Guynemer,” declares Decker as he gazes out of the window of Harper’s office; “At his memorial service the Cardinal said, “He belonged to the sky, and the sky has taken him.” Georges Guynemer (1894-1917) was a French fighter pilot who went missing in action on September 11, 1917 while on a combat mission with a comrade. His flying prowess combined with his mysterious death caused him to become a national hero in France. It is likely that “The Last Flight” was directly inspired by Guynemer’s story. (We might note in passing that Guynemer died after the date the episode takes place, one of a number of historical liberties taken in the episode.) With his sensitivity and his skepticism about war Decker also recalls Wilfred Owen, the famous British poet of World War I who perished in the war at the age of twenty-five. Decker, indeed, stands as a symbol of the “Lost Generation” that fought the Great War, perhaps the most traumatic event of the twentieth century.

Poetry and history

The “white cloud” which envelops Decker functions as the time travel mechanism, his portal into the Twilight Zone. In the Bible, clouds are a symbol of the presence of God and frequently accompany theophanies and the miraculous. We may even choose to see a Christ allegory in the story of Decker: a man who “came down from heaven,” was disbelieved except for one man who staked his faith in him, and finally sacrificed his life after being “put on trial” for who he claimed to be. The sky is of course a symbol of heaven and glorification. Apart from its inherent poetry, the aviation theme also brings us back to the origins of The Twilight Zone: we recall that Rod Serling was a paratrooper in World War II and that the phrase “Twilight Zone” was taken from aviation jargon, referring to the moment at which a pilot can no longer see the horizon.

The music in “The Last Flight” was recycled from Bernard Herrmann’s score for another episode about an Air Force pilot, “Where is Everybody”, and it functions equally well in both episodes. At times we hear propulsive music suggestive of airplane motors, at others grave sonorities suggestive of the weight of civil authority, while the more eerie moments (Decker’s monologue about Guynemer, for example) are underscored by vaporous string harmonies which enhance the feeling of mystery.

“The Last Flight” captures the flavor of a particular moment in history. When the episode was first broadcast World War II was still fresh in the minds of many viewers, World War I remained within living memory, and the Cold War raged on. The tale of Lt. Decker brings these three conflicts together, causing them to overlap in an imaginative and very adult fantasy. Thus like The Twilight Zone as a whole, “The Last Flight” is about the twentieth century. One could almost imagine it being shown in history class. Intelligent thought-provoking entertainment, it continues to tease the mind and uplift the heart.

“Dialog from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Dialog from a play written long before men took to the sky: There are more things in heaven and earth and in the sky than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, and the earth, lies The Twilight Zone.”

Reconsidering “Back There”

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

“Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time? Before tonight, that is, because this is – “The Twilight Zone.””

Time travel was one of The Twilight Zone’s most engrossing themes. Whether characters were suddenly jolted into the past, or were catapulted from the past to the present and dealt with the consequences of modern life, the fish-out-of-water results were fascinating and entertaining. The second season of The Twilight Zone featured two very different stories by Rod Serling involving time travel between the nineteenth century and the twentieth. Of the two episodes, “Back There” is considerably less well regarded than “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim”, which in writing, acting and cinematography approaches Twilight Zone perfection. Nevertheless, “Back There” is a handsomely made and thought-provoking episode, one that invites us to ponder how our lives are effected by the “little” events in history.

The episode opens in an exclusive men’s club, the Potomac Club, in Washington D.C.; the date is April 14, 1961. Peter Corrigan, a young engineer, is engaging his colleagues in a speculative discussion about the possibility of time travel. (As ever in the Twilight Zone, the characters’ names give us a clue to their nature: “Corrigan” sounds like “correction”, the correction of the past which Corrigan will attempt to make.) On his way out of the club, Corrigan bumps into a butler named William and notices a bust of Abraham Lincoln on a table. While standing on the landing outside the club, a haze comes over him; suddenly he realizes he is wearing archaic dress. The street, too, has been transformed: electric street lamps have been replaced by gas lamps, and automobiles have given way to horse-drawn carriages. As Corrigan soon discovers, he is in the same Washington, D.C. street–but on April 14, 1865, the day President Lincoln was shot. (“Back There” takes on added irony and poignancy when we consider that less than three years after its original airing, another president–John F. Kennedy–would be assassinated.)

There seems at first glance to be no inner necessity for Corrigan’s spontaneous voyage back in time. Yet on closer examination, Corrigan’s time travel seems directly to result from his conversation with his fellow club members. It’s as if the Twilight Zone responded to Corrigan’s need for an answer to the question of time travel; combining, in the manner of a dream, the time travel conversation with the Lincoln bust, it thrusts Corrigan back in time immediately to Lincoln’s Washington. The powers-that-be in The Twilight Zone want Corrigan to learn a lesson about time and human nature–and a sober lesson at that.

As Corrigan discovers, the main events of history–such as Lincoln’s assassination–cannot be changed. Corrigan’s warnings about the assassination are taken as the ravings of a lunatic, and he is taken into police custody. John Wilkes Booth himself comes round to muzzle Corrigan’s efforts, drugging him and locking him in a room. Lincoln is shot on schedule; Corrigan’s aspirations to change history have apparently been thwarted. But when Corrigan is returned to 1961 and his club, he comes to a startling realization: William, the butler whom he bumped into in the first scene, reappears as one of the rich club members at the head of the table. As it turns out, the one person in 1865 who believed Corrigan’s story–a patrolman at the police station–became famous as a result of his clairvoyance, got very rich, and left his wealth to his descendents. His great-grandson is none other than William. So by altering a small, local and personal detail of the past, Corrigan has altered a small, local and personal detail in the present. Events in the past are like a stone falling in a lake, causing many ripples. Or as Serling, using another metaphor, tells us in his closing narration, “the skein of history cannot be undone, yet small fragments of tapestry can be altered.”

If “Back There” were meant only as an entertaining speculation about Lincoln, then it would have to be counted a dramatic failure. After all, it’s a foregone conclusion that the Lincoln assassination can’t be undone; and anyway, this supposedly central event happens off screen. But Lincoln’s assassination is only the backdrop to “Back There.” The episode is really a social commentary on the eternal clash between individual and society. Peter Corrigan is one of a long line of Serling outsiders. Like Millicent Barnes in “Mirror Image”, Nan Adams in “The Hitch-Hiker”, Arthur Curtis in “A World of Difference” and countless others, Peter Corrigan sees something–knows something–that he cannot seem to convey to those around them. (Corrigan’s outsider status is emphasized by the fact that his fellow club members all appear to be decades older than him.) One man alone (the patrolman) gives Corrigan the vote of confidence. He believes Corrigan’s story–and is subsequently rewarded with glory he never would have had otherwise.

Meanwhile, William’s change of fortune illustrates how present-day wealth and glory are often the result of mere accidents of history, and how chance occurrences can affect future generations. Not only William’s station but his personality has changed: at the beginning a meek and diffident butler, he transforms at the end into a snobbish, smug millionaire. This can be read as a metaphor for social climbers of all eras: with elevation in social standing often comes a degradation of character. Indeed, something of the entire moral atmosphere has changed upon Corrigan’s return. Now the club members are not having a stimulating philosophical discussion about time travel; instead they sit discussing “money, and the best ways to acquire it”, the “palaver of self-made swindlers.” Corrigan comes to the realization that:

“In the matter of time travel, gentlemen, some things can be changed, others can’t.”

In other words, human nature is ever the same. In both 1865 and 1961, Corrigan is ignored and scoffed at; in both 1865 and 1961, complacent and corrupt men rule the world. Corrigan is deeply shaken by his experience; he is still clutching the handkerchief bearing the initials JWB which John Wilkes Booth gave him–proof that his time-traveling experience really happened. The club members whisper jadedly among themselves: “Looks piqued, doesn’t he?”; “Acting so strangely!”; “What’s the matter with him?” They will never know what Corrigan has gone through, nor understand the changes he effected.

“Back There” delivers a bitter message about the immutability of human nature. Jerry Goldsmith’s tense, expressionistic musical accompaniment (the score features an obbligato harpsichord to suggest the past) contributes in no small part to the episode’s acerbic mood. Russell Johnson’s performance as Peter Corrigan has been accused of being hammy; yet this theatricality fits the Victorian setting and lends his character a futile mock-heroic quality which is appropriate. In the mise-en-scene, the transformation from 1961 to 1865 is handled with elegance and grace: a mere shot of an electric street light changing into a gas lamp tells us all we need to know. Serling’s script plays on the historical clash in clever ways: for example, when a landlady asks Corrigan whether he is an army veteran (meaning of the Civil War), Corrigan (who is likely a World War II veteran) answers, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” Later, Booth tells Corrigan that he dabbled in medicine of the mind, and professes never to have heard of the modern term “psychiatrist.” Details like this show the care and historical awareness with which Serling approached his assignment.

On a personal note, I remember reading aloud the script of “Back There” in a grade school English class, long before I had ever heard of Rod Serling or The Twilight Zone. Moreover, as a lifelong resident of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I always enjoy the scenes in the Potomac Club, which really does resemble historic Washington row houses. What if, when walking one of the historic streets of an old American city, we were suddenly transported to its original time period and given the chance to take part in a crucial historical event? “Back There” allows us to indulge in this most stimulating fantasy.

“Mr. Peter Corrigan, lately returned from a place ‘back there,’ a journey into time with highly questionable results, proving on one hand that the threads of history are woven tightly, and the skein of events cannot be undone, but on the other hand, there are small fragments of tapestry that can be altered. Tonight’s thesis to be taken, as you will – in “The Twilight Zone.””

“Ninety Years Without Slumbering”: A Case for the Defense

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

This essay is dedicated to my grandmother, Elizabeth Rienzo Colella.

“My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp’d short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
His life’s seconds numbering,
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
It stopp’d short — never to go again —
When the old man died.”

“My Grandfather’s Clock” by Henry Clay Work (1832-1884)

As time wore on, The Twilight Zone‘s clock gradually wound down, so say many fans of the show. By the fifth and last season (1963-64), many themes covered in earlier seasons were retreaded and outstanding episodes were fewer. One episode from this season that has been unfairly overlooked is “Ninety Years Without Slumbering”, written by Richard De Roy from a teleplay by George Clayton Johnson. “Ninety Years” tells the story of an old man, Sam Forstmann, who believes that he will die if his grandfather clock stops ticking; Sam grapples with this superstition and eventually overcomes it. While acknowledging Ed Wynn’s endearing and artless performance as Sam, many fans find the plot illogical and the ending disappointing. They cite the fact that De Roy changed Johnson’s original ending for the story (in which Sam dies), to Johnson’s disapproval; in fact, Johnson demanded that his name not be associated with the televised version. It is my conviction that many of the common objections to “Ninety Years” are based on false expectations and that the changed ending is satisfying in its own way. If we set our preconceptions aside and enjoy the episode on its own terms, we will discover in it a touching meditation on time, tradition and mortality. “Ninety Years Without Slumbering” is among The Twilight Zone‘s most attractive episodes.

The episode was inspired by the children’s song “My Grandfather’s Clock,” written in 1876 by the American abolitionist and songwriter Henry Clay Work. The song uses a clock as the symbol of the life of a human being: “it was bought on the morn of the day he was born” and accompanies him through childhood, marriage, maturity, and death. “My Grandfather’s Clock” is woven like a leitmotif into “Ninety Year’s Without Slumbering”: Sam sings it to himself as he works on his clock; its melody serves as the basis for Bernard Herrmann’s musical score; and, of course, the episode’s title is derived from it.

Sam Forstmann is an old man with an eccentric hobby: a constant preoccupation with his grandfather clock. The name Forstmann suggests the obvious: the forest, where wood is culled; Sam–a retired clockmaker himself–probably comes from a family of German craftsmen. The idea of tradition and craftsmanship, as well as family bonds, is an important component of “Ninety Years Without Slumbering”. When we first see Sam, he is cheerfully tinkering with the clock in his bedroom; downstairs in the living room, his granddaughter, Marnie, and her husband, Doug, discuss Sam’s condition. Marnie is expecting her first child, and this fact combined with her grandfather’s obsession is creating tension in the household. Marnie, hesitant to confront Sam, is lovingly but firmly urged by Doug to face facts and discuss the situation. One of the strengths of “Ninety Years” is its human element, and Marnie’s conversation with Sam shows the tender relationship between the two; even the way they are costumed (in a similar plaid pattern) underlines the bond between them. Sam assures Marnie that “the clock is ticking along nicely now” and promises to resume eating (the obsession has taken away his appetite).

Clocks are used as a visual element throughout the episode; several scenes end with a dissolve into a closeup shot of a grandfather clock pendulum, and at the episode’s climax there is an imaginative double-exposure sequence in which a swinging pendulum is superimposed on the action. A telling cinematographic moment occurs in the next scene as Sam lies sleeplessly on his bed at night. When the camera cuts from Sam to the grandfather clock, we see Sam’s reflection in the clock’s glass plate. This single shot sums up the unspoken truth about Sam’s obsession with the clock: it is actually about Sam himself. As he remarked earlier to Marnie:

“Of course, with a clock as old as that, well…you’re bound to run into problems, you know. Just like old people….”

The clock was given to Sam the day of his birth; his father and grandfather told him that when the clock ran down, he would die. Whether a superstition or merely a whimsical encouragement to hard work, this belief has taken over Sam’s life. His cheerfulness and cocky self-assurance mask his deep anxiety about his own mortality; by fussing over his clock, he is struggling to forestall death. Sam is caught in a vicious cycle: plagued with insomnia (like his father before him), he seeks therapeutic relief through working on the clock, which in turn feeds the obsession. He is reduced to pleading with the clock as with a human being: “Please! Please don’t stop. I’ll never forget to wind you again. I promise!” In short, “My Grandfather’s Clock,” for Sam, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“In watching its pendulum swing to and fro,
Many hours had he spent while a boy;
And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know
And to share both his grief and his joy.
For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door,
With a blooming and beautiful bride;
But it stopped short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
His life’s seconds numbering,
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
It stopp’d short — never to go again —
When the old man died.”

Eager to help Sam, Doug arranges for him to visit a psychiatrist friend of his, Dr. Mel Avery. Sam scoffs at the idea of letting someone “tinker with his head” (a telling metaphor), but agrees to go in order to show “who the crazy one really is.” The scene with Dr. Avery shows a clash of generations, with the older clearly holding its own with the younger. Dr. Avery represents the modern world of psychoanalysis; Sam, the older values of familial love and craftsmanship. Remaining firmly in control, Sam eludes any attempt by Dr. Avery to find out what makes him tick. As the scene opens, he is telling the doctor about his childhood. He speaks of his parents’ “unfashionable” love for each other, a love which resulted both in his life and in the creation of the clock. The bond between Sam and the clock deepens: we realize that Sam, just like the clock, is a “family heirloom”, worthy of being preserved. Anticipating Dr. Avery, Sam denies that he sees the clock as a living person, but is unshakable in his conviction that he’ll die when it stops ticking. Dr. Avery advises Sam to get rid of the clock; somewhat bitterly, Sam interprets this as an ultimatum: “Either the clock goes, or I go.” After Sam leaves (explaining that “your time’s expensive; mine’s free”), the young doctor, clearly flummoxed, pounds his fist with mild frustration on his table clock. It is a small, generic art deco model, the antithesis of Sam’s grand, handcrafted Victorian timepiece.

Yet Dr. Avery’s advice has not fallen on deaf ears. In the next scene we see Sam overseeing the transferal of the clock downstairs by some professional handymen. Marnie and Doug come home from an evening on the town to find the clock parked in front of an abstract painting in the front hallway. The juxtaposition of the Victorian clock with the modernistic painting suggests, again, the generational clash. Doug is not happy: “it sticks out like a sore thumb.” The compromise having failed, Sam decides to take a more drastic step, which will be his point of no return. He sells the clock to the next-door neighbors, securing permission to come around and wind the clock every other day. But two weeks later–as would inevitably happen–the neighbors go on vacation and Sam is no longer able to visit his “friend.” Now Sam knows it’s all over; as soon as the clock winds down, he will die. Ruefully, he admits that he has only been forestalling the inevitable: “Two weeks of borrowed time. I should be grateful.”

“It rang an alarm in the dead of the night —
An alarm that for years had been dumb;
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight —
That his hour of departure had come.
Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime,
As we silently stood by his side;
But it stopp’d short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
His life’s seconds numbering,
(tick, tock, tick, tock),
It stopp’d short — never to go again —
When the old man died.”

Sam’s final battle is about to begin. Unable to stop thinking about his “dying” grandfather clock, he sneaks out of the house at night with his toolkit. After breaking the neighbors’ window in a desperate attempt to reach the clock, he is escorted back to his house by a passing patrol officer. Next we see Sam lying in bed, utterly resigned to his fate: “It’s better this way. It has to come sometime and I want it to come for me here.” The grandfather clock breathes its last. At this point the ending that we have been expecting is thwarted, and Sam enters the Twilight Zone. Sam’s spirit separates from his body and stands at the foot of his bed, summoning him to death: “Sam, old friend, it’s been a good life. But now it’s time to go.” Sam, so cheeky and quick-witted with Dr. Avery, now puts his wits to work with a new adversary: himself. What Dr. Avery was not able to achieve through psychoanalysis–exorcise Sam’s inner demon–Sam will now achieve by his own willpower. Ed Wynn’s other “Twilight Zone” role, in Rod Serling’s episode “One for the Angels”, had him facing off with a figure of Death; here, he is facing his own weaker side, the side that portends spiritual death. In the following exchange, the hollowness of superstition is laid bare:

“Have you forgotten what your father told you? And your grandfather? […] Didn’t they always tell you that when the clock winds down, you’ll die?”
“Yes. And you know something? I used to believe that stuff”.
“You should have! They told you often enough.”

Superstition, in other words, offers no justification for itself other than bald repetition. Sam, thanks to his contact with Dr. Avery (“I’ve been to a psychiatrist,” he exclaims gleefully), is able to reclaim reason: “You’re just a figment of my imagination! Why, I can see right through you; I repeat: I don’t believe in you. Therefore you don’t exist. Right?”

At these words, the “spirit” vanishes into thin air; Sam has vanquished his demon. He puts his glasses aside, lies down with a self-satisfied smile and–presumably for the first time in a long while–drifts into a peaceful slumber. When Marnie returns later in the night to check on him, he is a new man: jumping up from bed, he deflects attention from himself, exclaiming that “the thing to worry about is that great-grandchild of mine” and taking Marnie downstairs “for a good cup of hot chocolate.” (Perhaps Sam will always be a bit of an insomniac, but this action shows that he will now spend his time serving his family–not in self-absorbed clock-tinkering.) Sam declares openly that the clock had been on life-support for the past forty years and that it stopped ticking for the last time just a few moments ago. He explains that it had taken “everything I ever learned in clock making just to keep it going,” which suggests that he had been hanging on tenuously to his delusion all that time.

“And a strange thing happened, Marnie. When that clock died, I was born again.”

An almost Easter-like sense of renewal and rebirth accompanies Sam’s awakening. He has been given extra time, a new lease on life.

George Clayton Johnson’s original story ended quite differently: Sam died, fulfilling the superstition and making way for the birth of his great-grandchild. This almost tragic ending expresses the elemental, pagan worldview: man as subject to time and nature. Richard DeRoy’s new ending introduces the Christian element of the miraculous and redemptive. Since we know how My Grandfather’s Clock ends, and since this is The Twilight Zone, we expect Sam to die. When he doesn’t die, we are genuinely, and joyfully, surprised. By wrenching Johnson’s tragic conclusion to a comic one, de Roy paradoxically created a true Twilight Zone twist.

The prominence of clocks in “Ninety Years” points to the pervasive theme of time. Marnie’s pregnancy and Sam’s life both hinge on time. Too, the story points to the chain of time that binds human beings together in history. A total of six generations are involved in the story: Sam, who has memories of his grandfather, will live to play with his own great-grandchild. The episode seems to say that each of us is the sum total of the people, old and young, that we come in contact with during our life. Finally, “Ninety Years” suggests the reconciliation of the generations. During his verbal sparring with his spirit, Sam identifies with the new rather than the old: “You’re from another generation! See, I live in the present. Live, I say!” We hope that Sam will, like his own father, live to ninety and reap the benefits of his long life.

“Ninety Years Without Slumbering” is one of the more human episodes in the Twilight Zone canon, and a far richer piece than it is given credit for. It is an affirmation of personal choice against determinism; it speaks to second chances, the continuance of life, and the chain that connects past, present and future; it celebrates the human spirit, family bonds, and the dignity and vitality of old people. And finally, it inspires us to become conservationists of that most precious natural resource–the gift of time.

“Clocks are made by men, God creates time. No man can prolong his allotted hours, he can only live them to the fullest – in this world or in the Twilight Zone.”

Rod Serling’s Damsels in Distress – Part 1

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

“Next week, I try and settle an argument to the effect that I’m not at my best when writing for women. Miss Vera Miles takes my side, in a most unusual and unique story we call ‘Mirror Image’.”

These words were spoken by Rod Serling after the original airing of the Twilight Zone episode “Elegy” on February 19, 1960 as the preview for the following week’s episode. That Serling was a “masculine” writer, most of his fans would agree. Yet while it’s true that Serling’s stories are mostly dominated by men, this only serves to put in sharp relief his scripts with female protagonists. The first season alone featured five woman-led episodes by Serling, and (contrary to Serling’s self-deprecating comment) each is outstanding: “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine,” “The Hitch-Hiker,” “Mirror Image,” “Nightmare as a Child,” and “The After Hours.” In this essay we will take a brief look at the first three. Serling brought his trademark human sympathy to bear in delineating the single, independent women that are at the center of these episodes. He used them to examine his favorite themes of identity, alienation, and facing fear; gave them all male “knights in shining armor” —of varying chivalric quality — to play off of; and in Barbara Jean Trenton, the heroine of “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” even created a female version of one of his favorite stock characters—the middle-aged man at the end of his rope.

“Picture of a woman looking at a picture…movie great of another time”: this is how Serling, in his opening narration, describes Barbara Jean Trenton. Now past her prime in an industry that prizes youth and good looks, Barbie spends her days in the darkened “tomb” of a projection room watching her old films. She disparages the present-day (1959) world and longs for the 1930s, the decade of her youth, when she made her glamorous and romantic pictures; for her, those times were “carefree,” full of “charm and romance.” Barbie’s “knight in shining armor” is her agent Danny Weiss, with whom Barbie in a moment of candor confesses to being “very much in love.” Eager to bring Barbie back to reality, Danny gets Barbie an appointment with movie producer Marty Sall, but the headstrong Barbie refuses to take the “mother part” which Sall offers her. A subsequent attempt by Danny to have Barbie meet her beloved former leading man Jerry Hearndan only makes matters worse, for Jerry is now a graying, bespectacled creature of the modern world, a supermarket-chain owner. The blow to Barbie must be a hard one: in the ironic film-within-a-film which opened the episode, Jerry looked like a Clark Gable knockoff in a plumed hat and exchanged delirious romantic lines with Barbie in the guise of a nurse. One has the impression that Barbie’s nostalgia for her past is less about the artistic qualities of her pictures than about a never-to-be romance with her leading man.

Barbie is a complex character. Fifty years on, we are apt to applaud Serling’s portrayal of a strong-willed woman; yet the episode vividly portrays the downside of Barbie’s personality. Her determination not to play the part of a mother—in the movies or in life—is telling, and shows that she is part and parcel of the very Hollywood culture that (she feels) discarded her. Barbie is a victim of her own image, of the “picture” of Barbara Jean Trenton created by the movie studios. Wrapped in a celluloid blanket, she is an elitist, out of touch with real life, as her comments about the 1930’s suggest. Her uncompromising nature and lack of human sympathy harm herself more than anyone, cutting her off from a world in which there are people who genuinely care for her. Meanwhile, Barbie’s housekeeper, Sally, is a more significant character than she may appear at first glance; a gracefully aged woman, she symbolizes what Barbie could become if she only graciously accepted her changed role in life.

Yet despite all of Barbie’s failings, we sympathize with her. Her mourning for a crumbled past is a familiar sentiment, and her desire to flee the inadequate present-day world into a rarefied “shrine” of her own fashioning (“If I wish hard enough I can wish it all away!”) is a fantasy we have all entertained at one time or another. Like many of us, Barbie romanticizes the past, conflating reality with the fictive world of art—for after all, her reality was a fiction. To her, the present era is crude, banal, lacking in romance—a time of “movies without sentiment, actors in undershirts, rock-n’-roll, juke boxes.” (It is astonishing when we reflect that the 1950’s have in turn become a focal point for nostalgia in our own day!) The machinations of the Twilight Zone provide Barbie with her escape, and allow her to reach—in a visually stunning apotheosis—her own kind of heaven.

Ida Lupino’s portrayal of Barbie enhances the meta-theatrical feeling of the episode, the sense of being a film about film; for Lupino was successful in Hollywood not only as an actress but as a pioneering female director. She had a double Twilight Zone distinction as well: the only woman ever to direct an episode (Season 5’s “The Masks”) and the only person to serve both as a director and an on-screen performer. Her dominating presence helps make “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” the distinguished episode that it is.

“The Hitch-Hiker” and “Mirror Image” make a pair since both episodes deal with young, single women traveling alone—an unusual situation in 1960, when these episodes were originally aired—who struggle to make sense of a horrific vision which only they can see. The heroine of “The Hitch-Hiker” is Nan Adams, aged twenty-seven. (Serling likely named her after his daughter Anne, nicknamed “Nan.”) She is a buyer for a department store in New York and is driving across country to Los Angeles, apparently for pleasure. This is all we know about her; she has no back story, no past. At the beginning of the episode, Nan has apparently just emerged unscathed from a dangerous blowout (“Lady, you’re on the side of the angels,” says the mechanic who is changing her tire, a seeming assurance that Nan’s final destination will be a blessed one.) Suddenly, the Hitch-Hiker—a dark, physically unprepossessing man in a shabby suit—appears, thumbing for a ride. The Hitch-Hiker will dog Nan for the rest of her journey, appearing wherever she goes. At the end of the episode, we (along with Nan) will learn the Hitch-Hiker’s identity: he is a personification of Death beckoning Nan to come with him. Thus Nan, without knowing it, is in a limbo state between life and death; her journey across America is a journey towards self-understanding and peace, through the crucible of fear and panic prescribed by the Twilight Zone.

The object of Nan’s fear could hardly be less menacing—just a “shabby, silly-looking scarecrow man”; yet it’s his very “vagueness” that makes him so alarming. That vagueness soon dissipates: the episode’s point of no return is the terrifying scene in which Nan’s car stalls at a railroad crossing just as a train is about to pass. Nan narrowly escapes death as the Hitch-Hiker stands nearby. Now fully aware that the Hitch-Hiker desires her death, Nan feels “unspeakably, nightmarishly alone,” and her journey is “not even a trip” but “a flight.” It is a flight with biblical resonance: “three days and three nights” is how long Nan (in her running soliloquy, unique in the Twilight Zone canon) tells us she has been traveling after the railroad incident, while her frantic eleven-o’clock (literally) attempt to get a gas station proprietor out of bed recalls the Parable of the Friend at Night from St. Luke’s Gospel. The whole of “The Hitch-Hiker,” in fact, is a kind of parable of the lone individual on the road of life; it is a human, pathos-laden tale as well as an effective thriller. In one of the most moving moments, we see the loss of identity and the depths of dehumanization that Nan’s secret fear has caused: when a character addresses her nonchalantly as “lady,” Nan responds with aching vulnerability, “That’s what I am—I’m a lady!”

The playful banter which Nan engages in with the mechanic at the start of the episode suggests that she is well-liked by the men in her life; yet she remains painfully alone, and the further encounters with men which dot her journey—the proprietor of a diner, a crossing guard, and the gas station owner, and finally a sailor on leave who agrees to ride with Nan—only augment her loneliness. The sailor embodies ambiguity almost as much as the Hitch-Hiker: is he Nan’s “knight in shining armor,” or a predator? We watch as he progresses from smarmy satisfaction at meeting a “lady who looks like a movie star” to terror at Nan’s erratic behavior in the car. Pathetically, Nan is reduced to using feminine charm to get the sailor to stay; but, thoroughly spooked, the sailor abandons her. The Hitch-Hiker himself—a sort of modern-day grim reaper—completes the circle of men; but he is the man Nan should have embraced all along.

Nan realizes the truth about herself—and hence the identity of the Hitch-Hiker—by way of a phone call to her mother at a roadside phone booth; neon lights flash eerily, reminding us of the scene of an accident. A strange woman answers the phone—the only other female voice in the entire episode; in flat, emotionless tones she bears the news that Nan’s mother had a nervous breakdown after the death of her daughter in a car accident in Pennsylvania. “The fear has left me now. I’m numb,” Nan tells us; ‘everything—emotion, feeling, fear—has drained out.” Being freed from her fear allows Nan to experience the world around her more fully—”the vast night of Arizona,” “the stars that look down from the darkness.” Without any trepidation, Nan goes off to meet the Hitch-Hiker. The ending of the episode gives off a strangely comforting chill. In this account Death doesn’t carry a scythe, doesn’t threaten or impose himself; instead, he gently hitches a ride (“I believe you’re going…my way?”). As the final shot of Nan dissolves into the Twilight Zone star-scape, a funereal chime in Bernard Herrmann’s musical accompaniment puts the seal on the episode.

Serling adapted “The Hitch-Hiker” from a 1942 radio play by Lucille Fletcher on the series Suspense; in the radio version, the protagonist was male and was played by Orson Welles. It is difficult to overstate the effectiveness of switching “Ronald Adams” to “Nan Adams.” While surely the Hitch-Hiker would alarm anyone, male or female, the menace latent in a young woman traveling alone at night generates a special tension. As Nan, Inger Stevens, who died under mysterious circumstances just like her character, garners instant sympathy, gracing the role with a tragic sadness.

Like Nan Adams, twenty-five-year-old Millicent Barnes in “Mirror Image” is a young woman traveling alone. Uniquely among the three characters under consideration in this essay, Millicent is explicitly presented by Serling as a modern independent career woman: a “girl with a head on her shoulders.” Indeed, Millicent exhibits from the start a forthright, take-charge attitude; an utterly feminine woman, she nonetheless shows herself no shrinking violet in her quest to unravel the strange goings-on around her. Like Nan’s, Millicent’s past is a mystery; all we know is that she is a private secretary who quit her job recently and is traveling to Buffalo to start a new one. Waiting at 2:00 AM (the “witching hour”) in a quiet, almost deserted bus depot presided over by a grouchy ticket agent, Millicent has several experiences which assault her sense of reality and “put her sanity on a block”—experiences which suggest that there is a copy of herself in the depot imitating her actions. Eventually Millicent momentarily glimpses this exact double, first in a restroom mirror, and then sitting on the bus.

The doppelganger is a symbol of Millicent’s identity; much like “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” “Mirror Image” is about a woman confronting a “picture of herself.” In literature and folklore, doppelgangers often mock and torment their victims; Millicent’s doppelganger, with its creepily cool Mona Lisa half-smile, seems to mock Millicent’s image of herself as a dignified and self-possessed career woman. Then there is the symbolism of Millicent’s suitcase, with its “broken handle,” suggestive of emotional instability. Many tantalizing questions suggest themselves. Is Millicent experiencing a sense of revulsion at “seeing herself”? Is she actually fleeing something? Did she quit her job under scandalous circumstances? Could the double even be the sign of a “split personality” due to her sudden life change? These questions remain unanswered, adding to the atmosphere of mystery and ambiguity which is the essence of the episode.

In the midst of her nightmare, the lonely Millicent finds her “knight in shining armor” in the form of fellow traveler Paul Grinstead. Paul at first lends a willing ear to her troubles, and a genuine bond seems to develop between the pair; but after Millicent grows increasingly obsessive about the doppelganger (and makes Paul miss his bus), he calls the police to have her taken away for observation. Paul’s call to the police is ambiguous: is he a betrayer (like the sailor in “The Hitch-Hiker”), or was he simply doing the right thing under the circumstances? In any case, Paul receives a Twilight Zone comeuppance: he is horrified to see his own double running outside in the street. And just as Millicent’s double seemed to deride her self-image, so Paul’s double is a parody of his own grinning, simple nature.

As a doppelganger episode, “Mirror Image” had a notable precursor: the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “The Case of Mr. Pelham,” aired on December 4, 1955. This centered on a mild-mannered accountant who comes to believe that he is being stalked by his double. As fine as the episode is, it doesn’t match the sheer surreal power of “Mirror Image.” To a great extent this is because the protagonist/victim of “Mirror Image” is a woman, and because of the particular woman who plays her. For in Vera Miles, no less than in Inger Stevens, The Twilight Zone found a blonde, “Hitchcockian” actress with a gift for delineating fear, paranoia, and tragedy. The portrayal reaches fever pitch late in the episode, when Millicent lies stretched out on a bench in the darkened depot: with her face photographed upside down in close-up (for her entire world has been upended), she talks about her theory of a double from a parallel world who is trying to “replace” her. Up until now the episode was from Millicent’s perspective, so that we experienced her mounting confusion and anxiety along with her; now the perspective shifts to Paul: we watch with him as an erstwhile rational, businesslike woman drifts into madness. Whereas Nan Adams in “The Hitch-Hiker” reaches inner peace and, in a sense, her final destination, Millicent’s journey is derailed, her plans thrown into chaos. The open ending invites us to write a sequel in our heads. Does Paul track Millicent down and vindicate her sanity, or does he end up in the madhouse too? Do the doppelgangers wreak further havoc, perhaps taking over the whole world? The richness of suggestion in “Mirror Image” is part of its timeless appeal.

Which brings us back to that February evening in 1960, the week before “Mirror Image” was aired to an audience already bewitched by several months of magic on the first season of The Twilight Zone. The words Rod Serling spoke on that evening suggest that he took his female leading roles seriously, much as he may have doubted his ability to write them. With the hindsight of half a century, we can confidently give him a grade “A” for his efforts. The leading characters in “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” “The Hitch-Hiker,” and “Mirror Image” are fascinating, varied and three-dimensional, and there would be more such female roles to come.

The New Exhibit

by Michael DeSapio

Michael DeSapio is a writer and classical musician from the Washington, D.C. area. Raised on vintage television, he developed a love for The Twilight Zone during his college years and enjoys deepening his appreciation for this timeless series through analyzing its themes and symbolism. He has written compelling essays on the episodes, with a special emphasis on those that are lesser known or underappreciated. Please read them for a fascinating new spin on the episodes.

To contact Michael, send email to: michaelmartind@gmail.com

When Twilight Zone fans discuss the hour-long episodes of the series’ fourth season (1962-63), “The New Exhibit” is one of the few episodes often mentioned. Written by Jerry Sohl (though credited to Charles Beaumont) and directed by John Brahm, “The New Exhibit” takes the genre of the wax-museum horror story and raises it to the level of a profound psychological study. By tracing the tragic downfall of an ordinary man who falls prey to an unhealthy obsession, the episode delivers a pungent warning about evil and our attitude toward it. And it does so with a good deal of style, thanks to Gothic director Brahm and aided by the superlative acting talent of Martin Balsam in the lead role of Martin Senescu.

Despite being an hour-long episode, “The New Exhibit” has a simple plot. Martin Lombard Senescu (the Romanian surname reminds us of vampires and the macabre as well as “senescence” and “senile”) is curator of the Murderers Row exhibit in Ferguson’s Wax Museum. After Mr. Ferguson announces that he is abandoning the museum, Martin persuades him to let him keep the figures for a while. When Martin’s wife, Emma, tries to destroy the figures, a murderous rampage is unleashed that ends in the deaths of Emma, Emma’s brother Dave, Mr. Ferguson, and finally Martin himself. In the final moments of the episode, we see that Martin has himself become memorialized as a wax statue.

The episode opens on an ordinary working day at Ferguson’s Wax Museum. After telling a group of visitors about Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Mr. Ferguson hands the reins to Martin, who begins his tour, a tour he has given countless times. Martin introduces the figures of Albert W. Hicks (a sailor who axed his crew mates to death), Burke and Hare (a murdering team who suffocated their victims), Henri Desire Landru (strangler of widows and spinsters), and the notorious Jack the Ripper. In his speech Martin reveals the reasonable-sounding relativism which colors his attitude toward these murderers:

“Surely it is horrible to be murdered, as our poor victim here would tell you (if she could talk). But to murder, to take a life with your hands again and again and not be able to stop oneself–can you begin to imagine the horror of that?”

During the tour sequence, we hear soft organ music–Bach’s chorale prelude “Ich Ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ”. There are two layers of irony in the use of this music. First, and most obviously, the churchy ambiance underlines the fact that for Martin talking about these historic murderers has become like a sacred ritual. Secondly, the title of the piece is a call for help–“I Call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ”: the call of the murder victims, perhaps, but also an unconscious call from the troubled Martin himself. To wrap up his spiel, he says a quiet ‘thank you” to the guests and, without pretense, steps on a button on the floor, causing the arm of Jack the Ripper to lunge forward with his knife; the gimmick is a presage of more frightening things to come.

“Martin Lombard Senescu, a gentle man, the dedicated curator of murderers’ row in Ferguson’s Wax Museum. He ponders the reasons why ordinary men are driven to commit mass murder. What Mr. Senescu does not know is that the groundwork has already been laid for his own special kind of madness and torment – found only in the Twilight Zone.”

After the tour, Martin and Mr. Ferguson have a long scene together in Mr. Ferguson’s office. The hour-long Twilight Zone scripts have been faulted for excessive “padding”, but the padding works well here: the relationship of these two men is fleshed out, and one gets a real sense of their long history together (Mr. Ferguson calls Martin “the best employee a man could ever have”). The focal point of the scene is Mr. Ferguson’s bombshell announcement that he has decided to close the museum to make room for a supermarket:

“We are passe, Martin. People aren’t interested in wax museums anymore….The outside world offers them fears we could never match. The ovens of Belsen and Dachau have ruined our chamber of horrors. People are blase, sophisticated. They think they’ve outgrown the need to be frightened. They live in fear day in, day out. It’s the world, Martin”.

Ferguson’s Wax Museum dates back thirty years, to the 1930s. Since that time, World War II and the Holocaust have darkened the annals of history; and in 1963, the possibility of nuclear holocaust was still a vivid fear. Thus, Mr. Ferguson and Martin are victims of “progress” in a painfully ironic sense. The Murderers Row exhibit thrives on turning evil into entertainment; but twentieth-century man’s experience of real evil has been so profound that a wax museum–a quaint relic of the Victorian era–no longer has the power to shock.

Martin, for his part, is shocked by Mr. Ferguson’s announcement and tries to resist it. Up until now, the wax figures have been Martin’s life, and working in the museum possibly the only job he ever had. Mr. Ferguson is at an age where he can comfortably put the museum out of his life and concentrate on other pursuits; for Martin, this is not an option. And so, horrified at the thought of the figures being destroyed, Martin persuades Mr. Ferguson to let him keep them in his basement. This decision seals Martin’s fate; hereafter Martin’s obsession, once neatly and safely segregated in the museum, will spill out into the rest of his life with fatal consequences.

Watching Martin’s scenes with his wife, Emma, one sees a couple whose relationship has deteriorated because of Martin’s chronic neuroses. Martin and Emma are without children, and this is significant in light of the fact that Martin cares for the figures as one would care for a child. “You’ve been paying more attention to these murderers than you ever did to me”, Emma complains to her husband; too, Martin’s hobby is putting a severe strain on their finances, to the point where she has to borrow money from her brother Dave just to buy groceries. Martin, in his turn, finds many ways to rationalize his obsession, to mask the reality of what the figures represent and to cover for a strange madness that perhaps even he doesn’t fully understand. One way is to treat his actions as those of an ordinary workaholic: “I’m not the only husband in the world who brings his work home”, he tells Emma. Another strategy is to treat the figures as valuable aesthetic objects: time and again he reminds people that they are the “masterpieces” of Henri Guillemant, “the only ones he created outside of Europe”. And he constantly humanizes them, fussing over their clothes and accessories and referring to them as “friends” which require his undying loyalty (“They need me!” he exclaims to Emma, “They’d be lost without me!” and “Leave me to my friends, please!”; to which Emma replies, “They’re not alive, Martin! They don’t need anybody!”). For Martin, the figures have become absolutely real, equivalent to the historical persons they represent.

Deep down, Martin admires and sympathizes with the murderers, for his moral relativism has blinded him to the horror of their deeds. “Landru was an eloquent man, he was full of tenderness,” he declares to Mr. Ferguson. “Look at his eyes. Can’t you see the shy, frightened little choir boy that he once was? Can’t you see the bookkeeper who so longed for freedom?” From here it is a short step to remaking the murderers into victims, “souls in torment” who suffered “agonies” because of their need to kill; and thence into heroes who were destined to be “immortalized in wax, remembered as you and I will never be”.

Emma finally cracks under the strain of playing host to the figures. On the advice of her brother Dave, she sneaks into the basement at night and shuts off the air conditioner, which the figures need to survive. We see Jack the Ripper raise his knife at her; Martin finds her dead body the next morning. The other people in Martin’s world follow her with grim inevitability. Dave, after trying to investigate the goings on in the Senescu basement, dies after we see Hicks raising his ax at him. When Mr. Ferguson returns with an offer from the Marchand Museum to buy the figures, it looks briefly as if order and sanity might be restored; but he is strangled by Landru. Finally Martin, seeing “the only man who was my friend” dead, realizes too late that the figures are “monsters” and turns on them to destroy them with a crow bar. However, the figures get up off their pedestals and, closing in on him, tell him that it was he who killed his wife, brother-in-law, and friend; Martin screams as the figures fall upon him. In the final scene, we are left with the image of Martin-as-a-wax-statue, the new exhibit at the Marchand Museum.

The nature of the murders has provoked much discussion among Twilight Zone fans. Does Martin commit the murders and then kill himself, as the tour guide at Marchand’s would have us believe? Yet we see the figures committing the murders. Is “The New Exhibit”, then, a story about wax figures that come to life? I believe that looking at the episode symbolically is a more interesting path. “The New Exhibit” is about the power of evil, a power that is trans-historical and self-perpetuating; the figures of Hicks, Burke and Hare, Landru, and Jack the Ripper represent the evil impulses in all of us. While Martin certainly did the murders, these historical figures were in a sense acting through him; it was under their inspiration that he did what he did. It’s significant that Martin, Emma and Mr. Ferguson all at various times speak of the figures as if they are real people. “I hate those murderers!” exclaims Emma; and Mr. Ferguson says to Hicks while taking his measurements, “I didn’t think you were that wide”. Martin’s remark to Emma, “The figures themselves are as big as we are” is the symbolic expression of their larger-than-life reality. Reading the episode along these lines, we might see the figures’ closing in on Martin at the denouement as the accusatory voice of his conscience.

Sadly, none of the people in Martin’s circle were equipped to diagnose his affliction and thus halt his path to destruction. Mr. Ferguson, a man of continental elegance and culture, is too healthily detached from his job at the museum to notice the madness brewing in his employee or to foresee the damage that his termination of Martin’s employment will cause. Emma, for all her sweet nature, is weak-willed; her defiance of Martin is too little, too late. Dave, who we sense was never chummy with his brother-in-law to begin with, is clueless about the true power of the figures–as his repeatedly calling them “dummies” attests.

And Martin? As Rod Serling tells us in his opening narration, he is a “gentle man” with good impulses–the desire to care for persons, to cultivate beauty and to teach people about history and its lessons. But his impulses were misdirected toward the nurturing of brutal killers. A disordered love grew to the point where it destroyed all true love in order to preserve itself. Martin is thus a tragically flawed character; his eleventh hour realization of the truth brings him some redemption, albeit at the price of his life. Martin Senescu has learned the hard way the price of coddling evil.

The wax statues in “The New Exhibit” have a double meaning: in negative terms, they are a trivializing form of entertainment; in positive terms, they are a useful warning. “They must live forever”, Martin tells Mr. Ferguson; like the concentration camp in “Death’s Head Revisited”, we need to keep such monuments to evil alive. As the fashionable visitors to the Marchand Museum gather around the New Exhibit, we might think about obsessions in our own lives. Is there something we cultivate that consumes us? Without knowing it, are we allowing evil to take up residence in our heart, like the wax figures in the dingy Senescu basement?

“The new exhibit became very popular at Marchand’s, but of all the figures, none was ever regarded with more dread than that of Martin Lombard Senescu. It was something about the eyes, people said. It’s the look that one often gets after taking a quick walk through the Twilight Zone.”