The Twilight Zone excelled in telling tales of terror, exploring the darkest aspects of human existence in myriad ways. To celebrate the Halloween season, we’re counting down the 31 most frightening and unsettling moments from The Twilight Zone, one for each day of October. We’ll be revisiting some of the episodes we’ve already covered and looking ahead to episodes from the final three seasons of the series. -JP
#2 - Talky Tina Kills, from “Living Doll,” season five, episode 126
Written
by Jerry Sohl (credited to Charles Beaumont), directed by Richard C. Sarafian,
starring Telly Savalas, Mary LaRoche, Tracy Stratford, June Foray (voice of
Talky Tina)
“Living Doll” is the pinnacle of the type of grim fantasy story the series frequently turned to during its final season. Though tales of terrible dolls were prominent by the time
“Living Doll” was broadcast, Jerry Sohl’s
story of an abusive, insecure man’s feelings of inferiority mirrored by a malevolent
doll set the standard for many subsequent efforts. The devastating and effective measure used by Sohl is that each seemingly rational action taken by Erich Streator (Telly Savalas) to rid himself
of the terrible toy appears to his wife as an irrational act of deliberate hate toward his
stepdaughter. The series was always interested in using fantasy to examine marriage ("Nick of Time," “A Piano in the House," “Young Man’s Fancy,” etc.) but here Sohl takes it a step further
by placing a child at the center of the conflict. The child seems not malicious in the least, leading the viewer to assume that the malevolent doll responds from some unconscious element of the child’s will or psyche. Even
though the toy masquerades as a protector, it is clear that it is either a
purely malign influence which happens by chance to have landed in the
lives of this divided family or it is a supernatural reflection of the marital and
familial strife within the household.
Such conjecture is largely left unexplored in the twenty-six minute play, which only succeeds in making the episode stronger. It presents itself as a simple story and yet can be interpreted and explored in many ways. Perhaps the episode functions best as the simple story of supernatural persecution it presents itself to be, although many elements of the episode remain disturbingly ambiguous, such as the fact that Erich Streator, though certainly an awful husband and stepfather, is surely undeserving of such a horrible fate. Streator's most appalling actions all center around the doll, leading to a bit of a paradox in that Streator is punished by the doll for the escalating behavior caused by the doll. Sohl seems to hint that it was never simply about punishing Streator when the doll threatens the mother at the close of the episode. The addition of Bernard Herrmann’s exceptional score ensures “Living Doll” a very high place among the most memorable episodes of the series.
Such conjecture is largely left unexplored in the twenty-six minute play, which only succeeds in making the episode stronger. It presents itself as a simple story and yet can be interpreted and explored in many ways. Perhaps the episode functions best as the simple story of supernatural persecution it presents itself to be, although many elements of the episode remain disturbingly ambiguous, such as the fact that Erich Streator, though certainly an awful husband and stepfather, is surely undeserving of such a horrible fate. Streator's most appalling actions all center around the doll, leading to a bit of a paradox in that Streator is punished by the doll for the escalating behavior caused by the doll. Sohl seems to hint that it was never simply about punishing Streator when the doll threatens the mother at the close of the episode. The addition of Bernard Herrmann’s exceptional score ensures “Living Doll” a very high place among the most memorable episodes of the series.
Trivia:
-This is one of three episodes ghost-written
by Jerry Sohl and credited to Charles Beaumont. Sohl wrote the scripts to help
Beaumont honor his writing commitments to the series while Beaumont was suffering debilitating health problems.
-Talky Tina was a modified version of the
Vogue Doll Company’s Brikette line of dolls. It was modeled on Mattel’s Chatty
Cathy line of dolls which could speak a set of phrases when a string on the
doll’s back was pulled. June Foray, who voiced Talky Tina, was
also the original voice of the Chatty Cathy dolls.
They seem to show this one every time they run a marathon. Some of the doll's lines have become catch phrases in my family.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether it was insight on Rod Serling's or the writers' parts, or just good ole creative imagination at work; but "Living Doll" captures the essence of domestic abuse to perfection. This is all the more impressive an achievement since we never see Eric (Savalas) strike either Christie or Annabelle. Anyone who has lived through the particular hell that is a loveless family knows that its hallmark is just as often a deadly, pervasive silence as it is screaming and fighting. (If you don't think that it's possible to be smothered by silence, think again). You don't even need the supernatural to be in play for the "Living Doll" scenario to come true. As a divorce attorney, I handled several cases where abusive men (and it was always men) either destroyed or threw out a child's favorite toy(s), either out of pure sadism, or because they couldn't tolerate anything that took the attention of anyone living in the house off of them, even momentarily. (This pathological narcissism sometimes extended to the children themselves, and to their mothers; one rich bastard insisted that his wife go on a six-month "vacation" with him right after their son was born, leaving the baby with his mother, so that his wife could prove to him "that I still come first".) Annabelle even calls this out near the end of the episode, realizing that Eric's hatred of Tina is really directed against her and Christie. "Living Doll", like all great fantasy, has its feet securely grounded in reality: in this case, all-too-ugly reality. (And, with the same irony that I noted in my comment about "Four O'Clock", Telly Savalas in real life was widely known as a kind, extremely generous man, particularly to his fellow Greek-Americans.)
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to know how much of "Living Doll" is from the mind of Charles Beaumont and how much is purely Jerry Sohl's work but as far as insight goes Beaumont grew up in a very abusive household in which his mother routinely forced him to dress as a girl and also cut off the heads of his pets in front of him as punishment for small transgressions. Fortunately, he was taken away from the woman and sent to live with two great aunts in Washington state or he otherwise may not have survived childhood, or survived it in any condition to become the writer whose works we enjoy.
DeleteSohl's entire script is fantastic but the character of Eric Streator is the perfect victim for Talky Tina because he is both a bully and a man with enormous anxiety and a monster persecution complex. When he begins to experience the terror of Talky Tina he simply comes off as crazy and increasingly unreasonable and abusive. It really is an excellent piece of writing. Sohl's other two scripts for the show are fine but "Living Doll" is truly masterful. The performance from Savalas puts it over the top and it's why the episode endures.