"The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms"

 

Ron Foster, Randy Boone, and Warren Oates
discover that the 7th Cavalry is made up of phantoms

“The 7^th is Made Up of Phantoms”
Season Five, Episode 130
Original Air Date: December 6, 1963
 
Cast:
Sgt. William Connors: Ron Foster
Pvt. Michael McCluskey: Randy Boone
Cpl. Richard Langsford: Warren Oates
Captain Dennet: Robert Bray
Lieutenant Woodward: Greg Morris
Scout: Wayne Mallory
Radio Operator: Jeffrey Morris
Sergeant: Lew Brown
Corporal: Jacque Shelton
 
Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.
Producer: Bert Granet
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens, a.s.c.
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Walter Holscher
Film Editor: Richard Heermance, a.c.e.
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton
Assistant Director: Charles Bonniwell, Jr.
Casting: Patricia Rose
Music: Stock
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip N. Mitchell
Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed at MGM Studios

 

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next on Twilight Zone, Three National Guardsmen on a maneuver traveling across the same ground formerly occupied by General Custer, in an outfit called the 7^th Cavalry. Time in its infinite complexity, meshes, and what evolves is a stunningly different story about soldiers and Indians suspended in limbo, between then and now. On Twilight Zone next, ‘The 7^th is Made Up of Phantoms.’”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

“June 25^th, 1964 or, if you prefer, June 25^th, 1876. The cast of characters in order of their appearance: A patrol of General Custer’s Cavalry and a patrol of National Guardsmen on a maneuver. Past and present are about to collide head on, as they are wont to do in a very special bivouac area known as, the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

June, 1876. Three scouts under orders from Major General George Armstrong Custer of the 7^th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army stumble upon a stray Sioux encampment with a fire still smoldering in front. As they are speculating its owner’s whereabouts, one of the men is struck with an arrow. The other two fire into the distance.

June, 1964. Three National Guardsmen named Connors, McCluskey, and Langsford are performing a field training maneuver in an armored tank when they hear gunshots and decide to investigate. They discover an empty tepee and an antique-style Army canteen on the ground with 7^th Cavalry written across it. McCluskey and Connors recognize that they are near where The Battle of Little Bighorn took place on June 25^th, 1876. The canteen, however, looks brand new. Puzzled, they decide to return to the command post. Before they leave, they hear a Sioux war cry in the distance. 

Once back at the command post they are greeted by an irate captain wondering why they have been gone so long. Sgt. Connors tells the captain about the rifle fire and about what they found. The captain seems unimpressed. He gives Connors their orders for the following day. Connors recognizes the coordinates as the same route taken by troops led by Major Marcus Reno leading up to the battle. He tells the captain that he thinks the tepee they found was the same one Reno’s scouts found the day before the battle. The captain questions the sergeant’s sobriety and tells him he is to follow the route as ordered.

The next day the men are following their instructed route when they spot a smoke signal behind a distant hill. Connors and McCluskey claim Major Reno’s men spotted a smoke signal on the morning of the battle and fired on a small Sioux scout party, killing one of its riders. Langsford thinks his two companions are losing their sanity until they hear the cry of Sioux riders in the distance. McCluskey fires blindly into the hills. Afterwards, they spot a lone galloping horse without a rider. They continue to follow the route, hoping for answers.

Some time later, the captain radios to find out where they are. Connors tells him they are about to cross over Rosebud Creek, where Major Reno’s men finally met the Sioux. The captain tells them to report back to the command post immediately. The line goes dead. The captain sends men out to find them.

Once over the creek, they find no Sioux warriors, only a vacant field. Langsford claims that everything they have seen so far is an illusion. Connors remembers that an advanced scout party finds a small village before the battle begins. Langsford grows frustrated and leaves, claiming that he will walk back to the command post by himself. He quickly stumbles upon an empty Sioux encampment and calls to the others. McCluskey volunteers to investigate it. He returns minutes later with an arrow in his back and collapses to the ground.

Back at the command post, Lieutenant Woodward tells the captain that his men found the tank but not the three men. He gives the captain a handwritten note left at the tank that says they have gone to find the 7^th Cavalry.

Connors and Langsford carry a wounded McCluskey on their shoulders. At long last, they finally reach the Battle of Little Bighorn. With guns ready, the three men charge into battle. 

During their search for the men, Lieutenant Woodward and Captain Dennet stop at the 7^th Cavalry Memorial. On the engraved stone listing the men killed in action on that day in June in 1876 they notice the names William Connors, Michael McCluskey, and Richard Langsford. The Captain says they sure could have used the tank.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“Sergeant William Connors, Trooper Michael McCluskey, and Trooper Richard Langsford, who, on a hot afternoon in June, made a charge over a hill and never returned. Look for this one under ‘P’ for Phantom, in a historical ledger located in a reading room known as, the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

As is abundantly evident in his work, Serling, a former Army paratrooper, was fascinated with United States military history. His Twilight Zone scripts cover numerous military conflicts including the American Civil War, the Vietnam War, World War I, and, in particular, World War II, where he served with the 11^th Airborne Division. Throughout his entire body of work Serling pays careful attention to details about military and political conflicts, often basing scripts on real events, sometimes ones that had only recently taken place. This is usually a positive attribute, one that gives his scripts a social urgency and a historical frame of reference that is relatable to the audience. However, Serling does occasionally weigh stories down by trying to reference too many details of a real-life event and this is unfortunately the case with “The 7^th is Made Up of Phantoms.” As many fans and critics have pointed out, this is the biggest reason this episode is not as effective as it could be. While the premise of this episode is interesting, it relies heavily on referencing events leading up to the Battle of Little Bighorn, events that are so trivial that they would undoubtedly be lost on a modern audience. By the end of the episode, it begins to feel more like a Rod Serling history lesson than an episode of The Twilight Zone. Still, there is a certain mysticism in this episode that is entertaining which makes it worthy of a viewing or two.

This episode was broadcast at a time when the view of westward expansion in America during the nineteenth century was changing. The cinematic portrayal of the American west up to this point had traditionally placed the United States military and law enforcement in the role of heroes upholding moral justice which, by default, painted Native Americans as the aggressors. The Battle of Little Bighorn and the legacy of George Armstrong Custer, crafted in large part by his widow, Elizabeth Bacon, played an important role in creating the myth of the American West that was seen in films for much of the twentieth century, particularly the first half of it. Films like The Searchers (1956), Flaming Star (1960), A Man Called Horse (1970), Little Big Man (1970), and the films of Sergio Leone, while certainly still guilty at times of portraying indigenous people in a negative light, did help to demystify the legacy of the western hero in American culture. This is true for General Custer and his actions in June of 1876 as well. Errol Flynn’s portrayal of George Custer in Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On (1941) is a far cry from Richard Mulligan’s parodic take on the General in Little Big Man thirty years later.

A first glance at the plot of this episode might suggest that Serling is also commenting on the changing attitude towards indigenous people in American culture. An argument could be made that the three national guardsmen are doomed to pay for the sins of the military’s past. However, Serling, never a stranger to pointed social commentary, does not seem to imply such an argument in this episode. There is no mention of anything suggestive of a negative or positive stance on the 7^th Cavalry of 1876 in any of his monologues or anywhere in the script apart from the scene in which the three men inexplicably charge into battle (with fully automatic rifles from the 1960s no less). He mostly seems to just be setting the episode up as an eerie time travel mystery.

As mentioned, this episode suffers a bit from the historical fact-dropping that continues throughout Serling’s script. While it is not a requirement to know anything at all about the Battle of Little Bighorn to enjoy the episode—the simple premise that they are reenacting the events that lead up to the battle is easy enough—the historical information does become tedious and distracting rather quickly. 

There are other, minor things about this episode that also cause it to feel a bit unsteady. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that these men travel from 1964 to 1876 with mid-twentieth century firearms to a famous and well documented battle with no historical repercussions is too big of a blunder to ignore simply for the suspension of disbelief. The fact that they are dressed in modern military uniforms and do not actually belong to the 7^th Cavalry but still end up on the memorial stone at the end of the episode is also sort of weird. One final complaint. Two of the characters jump to the conclusion of time travel much too quickly. Connors believes it almost immediately after finding the 7th Cavalry canteen which doesn’t make sense. Having said all that, this episode does have an atmospheric quality that is interesting. The hills do feel genuinely mysterious and a feeling that a threat looms somewhere just beyond the three soldiers persists throughout the episode. 

This is the third of four episodes Alan Crosland, Jr. directed for the show, having already helmed the season four episode “The Parallel” and the season five episode “The Old Man in the Cave.” He also directed the Earl Hamner-penned episode “Ring-a-Ding Girl.” Crossland, Jr. started as an editor, working on a handful of high-profile films including Marty (1955) and The Sweet Smell of Success (1957). As a director, he worked almost exclusively in television, directing many episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman and numerous other series.

His direction in this episode is good if not particularly memorable. Although to be fair, most of the episode is just three actors in a tank driving through an empty hillside which does not lend itself to inventive cinematography. The abrupt time shift and camera zoom at the beginning of the episode is an effective device, one that briefly disorients the audience. Crosland does his best to leave the time travel aspect in this episode ambiguous, as per Serling’s script, but with the very limited number of props and set pieces and the fact that it is shot entirely outside on sprawling grassy hills, a location that likely had not changed much in the eighty years that passed, it feels less like a deliberate storytelling device and mostly just confusing. It’s a device that simply works better on paper than it does on the screen.

The cast in this episode are all recognizable faces to fans of classic television. Ron Foster was a prolific presence in the early days of television, appearing most often in westerns and police dramas. He also appeared in a string of low-budget, genre films throughout the 1950s and 60s. Randy Boone is an actor and folk singer who is best known for his role as singing ranch hand Randy Benton on The Virginian, but he also made appearances on many western series. Robert Bray is best remembered as forest ranger Corey Stuart in Lassie. He also portrayed Mike Hammer in My Gun is Quick (1957), the third film to feature Mickey Spillane’s rough and tumble private detective. Greg Morris achieved fame as Barney Collier on Mission: Impossible for the show’s entire seven season run. He also appeared in the 1966 NBC film, The Doomsday Flight, which was written by Rod Serling.

Probably the most familiar face in this episode is that of Warren Oates who had already appeared on the show in a small part in the season one episode “The Purple Testament.” Oates’ rough demeanor and strong southern accent caused him to frequently be cast as loud, wise cracking southerners or cowboys. He made several films with director Sam Pechinpah including his masterpiece, The Wild Bunch (1969). He first made a name for himself in the 1960 independent film, Private Property, directed by Leslie Stevens. Other film roles include Ride the High Country (1962), Shenandoah (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1972), Badlands (1973), and Stripes (1981). He made appearances on numerous television shows, mostly westerns, but also episodes of Thriller and The Outer Limits. As the skeptic in this episode, his viewpoint is the one closest to that of the audience. 

While it contains an interestingly weird atmosphere with good performances from the entire cast, “The 7^th is Made Up of Phantoms” suffers greatly from the numerous historical references that draw out certain scenes and, ultimately, the episode tries too hard to emphasize its time travel motif. It’s worth a watch to appreciate the acting and the mysterious atmosphere but it does not lend itself well to multiple viewings.

Grade: D 

Next time in the Vortex: A look at “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain.” See you then!

Acknowledgements: 
--The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)
--American Experience, “Custer’s Last Stand” written and directed by Stephen Ives (PBS, 2012)
--The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)
 
Notes:
__Alan Crossland, Jr. also directed the season four episode “The Parallel” and the season five episodes “The Old Man in the Cave” and “Ring-a-Ding Girl.”
__Warren Oates also appeared in the season one episode “The Purple Testament.”
__”The 7^th is Made Up of Phantoms” was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama by Dennis Etchison which starred Richard Grieco (2004).

Brian