"A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain"

Patrick O'Neal as the aged Harmon Gordon, gazing upon
a portrait of Ruta Lee as his young wife Flora

 

“A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain”

Season Five, Episode 131
Original Air Date: December 13, 1963
 
Cast:
Harmon Gordon: Patrick O’Neal
Flora Gordon: Ruta Lee
Dr. Raymond Gordon: Walter Brooke
 
Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling
Story: Lou Holz
Director: Bernard Girard
Producer: Bert Granet
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art Direction: George W. Davis & Walter Holscher
Film Editor: Thomas W. Scott
Set Decoration: Henry Grace & Robert R. Benton
Assistant Director: Charles Bonniwell, Jr.
Casting: Patricia Rose
Music: stock
Sound: Franklin Milton, Philip N. Mitchell
Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“No one likes to age, but it’s a natural process like death and taxes and the weather. But next time on Twilight Zone we tell the story about what happens when a certain man doesn’t age. As a matter of fact, he grows younger. Patrick O’Neal stars in ‘A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain.’ And if this one doesn’t pull you up by the shoulders, I don’t think anything will. I hope we see you next time.” 

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

“Picture of an aging man who leads his life as Thoreau said, in “quiet desperation.” Because Harmon Gordon is enslaved by a love affair with a wife forty years his junior. Because of this, he runs when he should walk. He surrenders when simple pride dictates a stand. He pines away for the lost morning of his life when he should be enjoying the evening. In short, Mr. Harmon Gordon seeks a fountain of youth. And who’s to say he won’t find it? This happens to be The Twilight Zone.” 

Summary: 

            Flora Gordon, an attractive young woman, dances energetically to loud, up-tempo music. She knocks a decorative object from the bar and breaks it to pieces on the floor. Flora doesn’t care and continues dancing. Her older husband, Harmon, arrives home and Flora pulls him to her, dancing, until Harmon is out of breath and must sit down. Flora is upset that Harmon is too old to keep up with her and she berates him. “If you persist in telling me about your ailments, I may just have to run out and get sick,” she tells him. Harmon tries to appease Flora but she continues to insult him until he retreats to the bedroom.

            Later, the couple returns home from a night out. Harmon is exhausted. Flora is ready with more insults about Harmon’s age. Harmon telephones his brother, Dr. Raymond Gordon, and asks to see him. Raymond arrives later that night after Flora has gone to bed. Raymond expresses his feelings about Flora. He despises her, and he can’t forgive that she’s turned his brother into a “frightened, quaking fool.”

            Harmon asks about a cellular serum Raymond has been working on, one that makes animals younger. Raymond discourages the notion in Harmon’s mind by explaining that there is danger and uncertainty regarding how the serum would react in a human. Just as many animals tested have died as have benefited from the serum. Harmon begs his brother to give him the serum. Harmon explains that he is at the point where he no longer cares whether he lives or dies. Raymond rejects the idea, saying that he wouldn’t give the serum to a bum on the street, much less his own brother. 

            Raymond lingers at the door before leaving. He watches as Harmon walks to the balcony and looks down. Fearing that Harmon means to jump to his death, Raymond tries to discourage him from doing so. Harmon says that he loves Flora, despite what Raymond thinks of her, and that his only desire in life is to be young again so Flora will love him in return. Without Flora’s love, life isn’t worth living. Raymond asks for an hour or two to consider before Harmon does something reckless.

            Raymond returns later that night and injects Harmon with the serum. He instructs Harmon on what to expect and orders him to rest, saying that he’ll check on Harmon in the morning. Raymond is uneasy about having administered the serum. He blames Flora, and vows to make her pay if the serum proves harmful.

            Raymond arrives early the next morning and is icily greeted by Flora, who is drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Raymond inquires about Harmon but Flora gives him the brush-off until Raymond slaps the newspaper page from her hand. Harmon emerges from the bedroom. His once white hair is now dark and the wrinkles that once lined his skin have disappeared. Overnight, Harmon appears to have shed forty years. 

            Raymond studies Harmon closely while Flora is astonished by the change in Harmon’s appearance. She responds affectionately when Harmon suggests they leave for a vacation that evening. Raymond tells Harmon not to go on any trips but Flora tells him to “blow it” and retreats to the bedroom to get ready.

            Raymond continues to study his brother closely while Harmon gazes in astonishment at himself in the mirror, appearing every moment to grow younger. If Harmon doesn’t stop growing younger, Raymond warns, they may be in trouble. Flora emerges from the bedroom at the word “trouble.” Harmon suddenly doubles over in pain and Raymond orders him to rest, pushing Flora away and helping his brother to the bedroom.        

            Sometime later, Raymond emerges from the bedroom. He tells Flora that from now on she will need to readjust her life. Harmon is sleeping, but when he wakes up Flora will need help. Flora insists on seeing Harmon and forces her way into the bedroom. She reemerges in shock. Raymond tells her that she will now have to put everything else in her life aside in order to take care of her husband. Raymond leads her into the bedroom and they look upon Harmon in bed. He is now a very young child.

            Flora tries to flee the responsibility of taking care of little Harmon. Raymond tells her that if she leaves she can take with her only what she has on. Raymond informs her that the de-aging process has stopped and that Harmon will begin to grow older again, like any little boy. As Harmon grows up, Flora will grow old. Flora cries out hopelessly that it isn’t fair. “Well, you see, Flora,” Raymond says, “as you get older, you see how wise you get?”

 Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“It happens to be a fact. As one gets older one does get wiser. If you don’t believe it, ask Flora. Ask her any day of the ensuing weeks of her life, as she takes notes during the coming years and realizes that the worm has turned, youth has taken over. It’s simply the way the calendar crumbles in The Twilight Zone.” 

Commentary: 

            For the relatively young writers on the series, aging and dying were themes to which they returned time and again, producing some of the show’s most celebrated episodes in the process. These themes have the advantage of being universal, while also providing room for almost endless variation. Rod Serling’s finest achievement along these lines is likely “The Trade-Ins,” in which old age longs for a second chance at youth before finding dignity at the end of life’s journey. It is a familiar story on the series.

With “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain,” based on an unpublished story by Lou Holz, Serling aimed for something different yet equally familiar. Although the elixir of life theme was previously used in such episodes as “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Kick the Can,” and used later in the fifth season for “Queen of the Nile,” “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” is closer to the type of brisk, ironic fable that Serling relied upon for story material since the early days of the series. The final season saw a number of these episodes, and the common components are easily recognized: a light element of fantasy, an enclosed setting, a small cast of often unpleasant characters, and an unusual transformation that delivers poetic justice. We saw this as recently as “Uncle Simon.” 

Serling’s approach to this type of story by the final season was to increase the venomous dialogue, often resulting in requests from CBS to tone down inflammatory language upon review of the shooting script. Flora’s initial “blow it out of your black bag,” for instance, becomes simply “blow it” in the finished episode. The episode also needed to skate around a potentially controversial element by having Raymond inject Harmon with the age serum while conveniently screened by a bead curtain. 

The episode remained conspicuous by its absence in the years following its broadcast, as it was not included in syndication packages of the series. The reasons for this were hazy. Marc Scott Zicree, in The Twilight Zone Companion (1982), wrote: “For reasons which are cloudy at this late date, this is one of four half-hour episodes which are not in syndication. Considering its wordiness and predictability, however, this is no great loss.” Joel Engel, in his 1989 biography, Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone, wrote: “In later years of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ Serling would be sued successfully three times for apparent plagiarism of stories he had written himself.” Engel lists “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” along with “The Parallel” and “Sounds and Silences.” He goes on to write: “In all three cases a judge deemed the plaintiffs’ original stories sufficiently similar to the produced scripts to warrant damages, but the final products as seen in the series seemed substantially dissimilar.”

Martin Grams, Jr., in his book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (2008), sheds further light on the situation through access to CBS documents related to the series. Some episodes were legally challenged on grounds of plagiarism and the network avoided further legal consequences by removing the episode in question from any additionally scheduled broadcasts. After a certain amount of time passed, the episodes reappeared. In the case of “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain,” that reappearance came in 1984, when, according to Grams, CBS aired the episode as part of a holiday special.

            The legal entanglement that ensnared the episode dates to 1960. In May of that year, Rod Serling’s agent, Blanche Gaines, forwarded an original story outline by television writer Jerome Ross titled “A Drink of Water,” with a fountain of youth theme. Although Serling was not interested in the story, series producer Buck Houghton showed interest and Ross was asked to rewrite the outline. Associate Producer and Story Editor Del Reisman ultimately shelved the idea when it was resubmitted in June, 1960. Two years later, in August, 1962, series producer Herbert Hirschman resurrected Ross’s story and suggested to Serling that they secure the rights for production as an hour-long episode of the fourth season. Although Serling seemed more inclined to the idea this time, Ross’s story remained unproduced on the series.

            When Serling created a fountain of youth themed episode for the fifth season, he adapted an unpublished story titled “Ah, Youth!” by Lou Holz, who was a retired major working for the Air Research and Development Command in Los Angeles as Chief of Security for the Air Ballistic Missile Division. Holz submitted more than twenty unsolicited story ideas to the series. One of these was a story titled “Snipped Thread,” concerning an airplane and time travel. This was rejected due to the fact that, at the time Holz submitted his story, Serling had recently finished the script for the similarly themed “The Odyssey of Flight 33.” When that episode aired, Holz wrote to Serling claiming that “The Odyssey of Flight 33” was a plagiarized version of “Snipped Thread.” Serling denied this in return and refused to look at any more submissions from Holz. Largely to appease Holz and discourage the writer from embroiling the series in a legal entanglement over “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” Serling arranged for the purchase of an option on Holz’s “Ah, Youth!”, which eventually provided the outline for “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain.” As irony would have it, the airing of this episode brought a claim of plagiarism filed through an attorney's office related to Jerome Ross’s fountain of youth story in the Cayuga story files. The network quietly shelved the episode after its initial broadcast. This confusing mess surrounding the episode further illustrated the monumentally bad idea that was the acceptance of unsolicited story ideas for the series. 

A close look at the old age makeup
applied to Patrick O'Neal

            An interesting element of the production is the use of special makeup on actor Patrick O’Neal in the role of Harmon Gordon. Unlike the earlier episode, “Long Live Walter Jameson,” in which a character rapidly transformed from young to old in a short sequence, Patrick O’Neal’s transformation from old to young took the easier path of transformation in three controlled stages, ending with the character as a young child. O’Neal was thirty-five years old at the time of filming and makeup was applied to make him appear thirty years older. The old age makeup was skillfully applied to O'Neal but was poorly served by the lighting in some scenes. One interesting aspect of the makeup, however, is that by using a clever combination of subtle changes in the makeup, camera angels, and editing, the crew was able to produce the illusion that Harmon is growing steadily younger on the morning after he is given the cellular serum. 

            Obtaining or creating an elixir of life, one of the two traditional goals of alchemy, is a theme that dates to the earliest works of fantasy literature. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), in an article by Brian Stableford, describes the earliest examples in literature as displaying how the quest to obtain a universal elixir is often frustrated, and how it “rarely satisfies the optimistic expectations of the seekers.” Some notable examples of the dozen or so stories listed in the essay include “The Mortal Immortal” by Mary Shelley, an 1834 story in which an assistant to the magician Cornelius Agrippa drinks from an elixir of life and gains immortality. He marries soon afterwards, but realizes that his wife will age and die while he will remain forever young. After her death, he exposes himself to the elements and dies. “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” an 1837 story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, recounts how an aged scientist gives four old and bitter people a taste from the fountain of youth, only to watch them transform into young people with no regard for ethics or morality before the effects wear off and they return to their elderly forms. Hawthorne’s story was one of many on the theme that incorporated the myth that the Spanish explorer Ponce de León was searching for the fountain of youth in Florida. The story was memorably adapted for the anthology film Twice Told Tales (1963), with Sebastian Cabot in the role of Dr. Heidegger. Cabot appeared on The Twilight Zone in “A Nice Place to Visit.” Another story of interest is “The Elixir of Youth” (1921) by A.E. Coppard, in which a man watches his friend drink an elixir of youth and grow steadily younger until he disappears entirely. 

            The highlight of the episode is the small but talented cast of performers, led by Patrick O’Neal (1927-1994). O’Neal was born and raised in Florida. He moved to New York to study acting after serving in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. O’Neal got his start on television with appearances on several dramatic anthology series. Genre television work included appearances on One Step Beyond, The Outer Limits, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Tales of the Unexpected. Later television appearances saw O’Neal guest star in several mystery and detective series, including a memorable appearance during the first season of Columbo. O’Neal returned to the series in a supporting role during the seventh season. Notable film roles included The Mad Magician (1954), with Vincent Price, In Harm’s Way (1965), The Way We Were (1973), and The Stepford Wives (1975). In the 1960s, O’Neal began investing in the restaurant industry in New York, owning and operating a number of restaurants with his wife and brother on the West Side of Manhattan. 

O'Neal in "A Fear of Spiders"

            O’Neal turned in a memorable performance on television for Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, in the segment “A Fear of Spiders,” from the fourth episode of the second season. The segment, which aired on October 6, 1971, was directed by John Astin after Steven Spielberg dropped out at the last minute. Scripted by Rod Serling from the story “The Spider” by Elizabeth Walter, it tells of a gourmand named Justus Walters, played by O’Neal, who possesses an unreasoning fear of spiders. Finding increasingly larger spiders in his kitchen sink, Justus washes the arachnids down the drain. Entering his bedroom, he is horrified to find a giant spider the size of a dog. The creature lunges at him but Justus slams closed the bedroom door and flees the apartment. After being rebuffed by the building supervisor (Tom Pedi in a comic role), Justus has no choice but to seek the aid of Elizabeth, played by Kim Stanley, a woman he has previously cruelly rejected. Elizabeth uses the opportunity to turn the tables on Justus. She leads him back to his apartment where she lures him into his bedroom before quickly retreating and locking him inside. Justus is heard screaming in panic before being attacked on the other side of the door. Elizabeth leaves the apartment, quietly talking to herself.

            Serling’s adaptation of the story by Elizabeth Walter is fairly faithful, moving the action from England to the U.S., adding the comic character of the building supervisor, and changing the names of the characters in tribute to the author. In the original story, the characters are Justus Ancorwen and Isobel Bishop. The story also contains a sexual element absent from the television adaptation, concluding with a surreal epilogue in which Isobel, and her offspring conceived with Justus, are symbolically revealed to be more spider than human. The story was published in The Second Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, edited by Christine Bernard (Fontana, 1967) and collected in The Sin-Eater and Other Scientific Impossibilities (The Harvill Press, 1967). This collection was published the following year in the U.S. by Stein and Day. 

Cover illustration by
Barbara Walton

            Elizabeth Walter (1927-2006) was an English novelist, translator, publishing editor (for William Collins & Sons), and short story writer whose uniformly excellent supernatural stories were collected in five volumes over the course of a decade. Snowfall and Other Chilling Events appeared in 1965, followed by The Sin-Eater and Other Scientific Impossibilities (1967), Davy Jones’s Tale and Other Supernatural Stories (1971), Come and Get Me and Other Uncanny Invitations (1973), and Dead Woman and Other Haunting Experiences (1975), all published by The Harvill Press (a division of Collins), with the first two collections reprinted in the U.S. by Stein and Day. Arkham House put together a collection of her best stories in 1979, In the Mist and Other Uncanny Encounters, and her collected short fiction, The Spirit of the Place and Other Strange Tales, was issued by Shadow Publishing in 2017. For over thirty years, beginning in 1961, Walter was the editor of the influential mystery publishing series the Collins Crime Club. An excellent history of the series can be found in The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of Collins Crime Club by John Curran (2019). 

Kim Stanley as Elizabeth

            “A Fear of Spiders” was the first of Walter’s stories adapted for television. It is considered one of the better segments of Night Gallery, graced by two fine performances (especially from New York stage actress Kim Stanley) and marred only by an unconvincing spider puppet that is mercifully brief in appearance. The authors of Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour called the episode a "series classic" and a "marvelous black-comic segment" that compares favorably with Serling's "A Thing About Machines," with the Night Gallery segment being "vastly superior." Four of Walter’s stories were subsequently adapted for the anthology series Ghost Stories (Circle of Fear), including an adaptation by Richard Matheson of Walter’s story “The New House” for the pilot episode. 

            Canadian-born Ruta Lee (b. 1935) portrays Flora Gordon in “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain.” Lee was a busy television actress beginning in the 1950s, including appearances on Science Fiction Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Suspicion, and numerous westerns. She was a talented performer in movie musicals, and was a familiar face on game shows during the sixties and seventies. In later years, Lee hosted a movie industry interview show. In Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone (2007), she told author Stewart T. Stanyard that Flora Gordon was "one of the best roles I've ever played." In reality, Lee is the complete opposite of Flora, making her performance the more remarkable for it. She stated that "it was kind of fun because I've always been a Miss Goody Two-Shoes. I may not have played it, but I have always been highly moral and am still to this day. And it was fun to let loose and play a girl who was there just for the money, and just for the good times, and just for what she could get out of it, and to have her get such a punch in the gut and nose in the end of it was just so wonderful, and it gave me a chance to do some very nice work." The interview also covered Lee's personal friendship with Rod Serling, the easy working environment on the series, her pleasant experience working with director Bernard Girard, and her feelings on the episode being left out of syndication for years. 

            Walter Brooke (1914-1986), whose stony performance does much to ground the absurd elements of the episode, is probably best remembered for recommending plastics to Dustin Hoffmann in The Graduate (1967). Acting since the early 1940s, Brooke appeared in episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, Inner Sanctum, and The Sixth Sense, a series that was shown with Night Gallery in syndication. Brooke appeared in the Charles Beaumont-scripted film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and previously appeared on The Twilight Zone in Beaumont’s third season episode, “The Jungle.”

    Emmy nominated director Bernard Girard (1918-1997) was a workmanlike director who began in the industry as a scriptwriter. He worked mainly in television. Even though this is his only episode of The Twilight Zone, Girard directed episodes of Playhouse 90, Suspicion, The Sixth Sense, and many others. Girard directed four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and eight episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, including Richard Matheson's "Ride the Nightmare" and Robert Bloch's "Water's Edge." 

            Despite its lack of originality, its dense exchanges of vitriolic dialogue, its questionable approach to medical ethics, and its broad characterizations, the episode is graced with three talented performers and is indicative of the typically sleek production under producer Bert Granet, a quality that diminished, sometimes significantly, in the latter half of the fifth season. Although the episode is unlikely to land on anyone's list of great episodes, it can be recommended to the curious and the completists.                     

Grade: D 

Next Time in the Vortex: Another view on aging with a look at “Ninety Years Without Slumbering.” Thanks for reading! 

Acknowledgements:

--The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)

--The Twilight Zone Companion (3^rd ed.) by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James, 2018)

--Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone by Joel Engel (Contemporary Books, 1989)

--Inside The Twilight Zone by Marc Scott Zicree (CBS DVD/Image Entertainment, 1999)

--A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964 by Don Presnell and Marty McGee (McFarland & Co., 1998)

--Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television's Groundbreaking Series by Stewart T. Stanyard (ECW Press, 2007) 

--Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour by Scott Skelton and Jim Benson (Syracuse University Press, 1999)

--The Guide to Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler (Kent State University Press, 1983)

--The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, ed. John Clute and John Grant (St. Martin’s Press, 1997)

--The Spirit of the Place and Other Strange Tales: The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Walter by Elizabeth Walter (with an introduction by Dave Brzeski) (Shadow Publishing, 2017)

--The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)

--The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)

--Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org) 

Notes: 

--Rod Serling’s teleplay for “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” was collected in volume two of As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling, edited by Tony Albarella (Gauntlet Press, 2005).

--Patrick O’Neal also appeared in “A Fear of Spiders,” from the second season of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery.

--Walter Brooke previously appeared on The Twilight Zone in “The Jungle.”

--“A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” was one of a small number of episodes removed from syndication packages of the series due to legal challenges over the content of the episode. The episode eventually re-aired as part of a holiday special in 1984.

--“A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Adam West.

 

-JP

"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

"Probe 7, Over and Out"

An offering from Eve (Antoinette Bower) to Adam (Richard Basehart)

“Probe 7, Over and Out”
Season Five, Episode 129
Original Air Date: November 29, 1963
 
Cast:
Colonel Adam Cook: Richard Basehart
Eve Norda: Antoinette Bower
General Larrabee: Harold Gould
Lieutenant Blane: Barton Heyman
 
Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Ted Post
Producer: William Froug
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Malcolm Brown
Film Editor: Thomas W. Scott
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton
Assistant Director: Charles Bonniwell, Jr.
Casting: Patricia Rose
Music: stock
Sound: Franklin Milton and Joe Edmondson
Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:
“Next on Twilight Zone, an eminent performer of stage and screen, Mr. Richard Basehart, in an oddball excursion that we call ‘Probe 7, Over and Out.’ On occasion we’ll come up with a wild and wooly denouement, but this particular opus has an unpredictable ending that we doubt if even the most seasoned TZ fans will be able to pick up before it happens on your screen. Next on Twilight Zone, ‘Probe 7, Over and Out.’”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

“One Colonel Cook, a traveler in space. He’s landed on a remote planet several million miles from his point of departure. He can make an inventory of his plight by just one 360-degree movement of head and eyes. Colonel Cook has been set adrift in an ocean of space in a metal lifeboat that has been scorched and destroyed and will never fly again. He survived the crash but his ordeal is yet to begin. Now he must give battle to loneliness. Now Colonel Cook must meet the unknown. It’s a small planet set deep in space. But for Colonel Cook, it’s The Twilight Zone.”

Summary: 

            Colonel Cook, a lone astronaut, has veered off course and crash-landed on a distant, unknown planet. His right arm is injured and his spaceship is badly damaged. Cook makes contact with home base using the dwindling power of his ship. Lieutenant Blane answers the call on the video screen and Cook informs him of his situation and tells Blane that he does not believe his ship can be repaired. General Larrabee appears and instructs Cook to remain on the channel in order to resume communication at a later time. Cook signs off to conserve the ship’s power.

            Cook exits the ship with a flashlight to explore his surroundings. He calls out to anyone who can hear him. No one answers his call. Cook returns to the ship and does not see a flurry of movement in the nearby vegetation.

            Cook contacts home base again. He requests a rescue ship be sent to help him. General Larrabee informs Cook that there are no more ships to send. Cook is on his own. Cook informs General Larrabee that the planet upon which he has crashed seems to have an atmosphere and gravitational pull comparable to their home planet. Larrabee tells Cook that war is imminent on their home world. Cook has a better chance of surviving where he is than if he were back home.

            Later, home base reestablishes contact. General Larrabee grimly informs Cook that war has broken out on their home planet and the destruction is enormous on both sides. Cook informs Larrabee that there is plenty of vegetation around him, some of it perhaps edible, although there are no signs of other lifeforms nor of daylight. Larrabee tells Cook that home base will be moving and that Larrabee will try, if possible, to make contact at a later time.

            Outside the ship, Cook finds drawings in the soil made by an intelligent hand. Excited, Cook climbs to the top of a nearby hill and calls out into the night. Suddenly, from out of the darkness, a large rock flies through the air and strikes Cook in the head. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

            A final report from home base appears on the video screen, unheard and unseen by the unconscious Cook. General Larrabee reports that the complete destruction of their home world is imminent. He sends Cook a message of hope for a more peaceful world free from fear and hatred.

            Later, Cook awakens to daylight and a headache. He makes his way back to the ship and collapses into a chair. The cabin door behind him slams closed. Cook arms himself and attempts to communicate with whomever or whatever is behind the door. He hopes the tone of his words will come through even if the language does not.

            Cook leaves the ship and waits nearby for the person inside to come out. Cook is distracted by a noise, however, and does not see the person leave the ship. Cook pursues the person through the trees and is astonished to find a woman on the ground. She is afraid and has, like himself, clearly been through a trying ordeal.  

            She is mistrustful of him, and they cannot communicate effectively, so Cook draws in the soil, attempting to explain how he arrived on the planet. Cook is half-convinced the woman is an illusion until she too draws in the soil. Cook interprets her drawing to mean that she is the last of her kind, having escaped a planetary crisis.

            In a rudimentary fashion, they manage to exchange names. Cook learns that the woman’s name is Norda. She seems willing to follow Cook back to his ship with a promise of food until Cook picks up a stick. This frightens the woman and she scratches Cook and runs away.

            Cook contemplates the notion that humans are by nature violent and fearful before wishing the woman luck and returning to his ship. Cook attempts to contact home base and receives the recording of the grim yet hopeful final message from General Larrabee. He knows now that he no longer has a home to return to. This unknown planet is his home now and for the rest of his life.

            Cook packs his belongings and leaves the ship, intent on finding a better place to make a home, a place near sources of water and food. The woman is waiting for him outside the ship. Cook attempts to communicate with her by picking up a handful of soil and asking what it is called in her language. The woman takes some of the soil in her fingers and speaks the word “earth.” Cook decides that Earth is a suitable name for this new planet.

            Cook then tells the woman his full name: Adam Cook. Likewise, she tells Cook her full name is Eve Norda. Together they walk off in search of a new home and a new life together. Eve stops to pick an apple from a tree and offer it to Adam.

 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Do you know these people? Names familiar, are they? They lived a long time ago. Perhaps they’re part fable. Perhaps they’re part fantasy. And perhaps the place they’re walking to now is not really called Eden. We offer it only as a presumption. This has been The Twilight Zone.” 

Commentary: 

            From a favorable perspective, “Probe 7, Over and Out” allowed Rod Serling to combine two themes recurrent in his scripts for the series. These themes (a character alone against an unknown environment and the effects of nuclear annihilation) date to the early part of the first season, with the pilot episode “Where Is Everybody?” and “Time Enough at Last,” Serling’s adaptation of a story by Lynn Venable. These themes continued to regularly appear in such episodes as “Third from the Sun,” Serling’s adaptation of Richard Matheson’s story, which has a twist ending similar to “Probe 7, Over and Out,” “King Nine Will Not Return,” “The Shelter,” and several others, including writer/director Montgomery Pittman’s “Two,” the third season opener with which “Probe 7, Over and Out” shares more than a passing resemblance. The theme of nuclear annihilation, an ever-present shadow over the lives of Americans at the time, continued to be revisited well into the fifth season, with “Probe 7, Over and Out” following closely behind the similarly themed “The Old Man in the Cave.”

            Unlike “Time Enough at Last” or “Two,” however, these themes were not as seamlessly blended in “Probe 7, Over and Out,” as evidenced by the overused twist ending and the significant portion of dialogue consisting of engaging yet artificial monologues ruminating on man’s tendency for self-destruction. Not to be unfair to the excellent performance of Antoinette Bower, who has very little dialogue in the episode, but it is a credit to Richard Basehart and Harold Gould, as well as director Ted Post, that these frequent asides largely enhance rather than diminish the dramatic effect of the episode. “Probe 7, Over and Out” is, after all, Robinson Crusoe in space, a story type dating to the earliest days of pulp science fiction. Perhaps the most complimentary thing one can say about Serling’s script is that he found means by which to produce engaging dialogue and character interaction without resorting to methods previously used on the series such as voice-over narration or an alter-ego.

            From a less favorable perspective, “Probe 7, Over and Out” is ultimately an unsuccessful, Frankenstein’s monster of an episode, combining several previous parts to create a whole which clearly shows the seams of its construction. As reported by Bob Stahl in the April 4, 1964 issue of TV Guide, The Twilight Zone (Cayuga Productions) purchased the impressive crashed spaceship that features in the episode from rival series The Outer Limits (Daystar Productions). The crashed shuttlecraft was built by a crew led by Jack Poplin, art director on The Outer Limits. The crashed ship was featured in the first season Outer Limits episode “Specimen: Unknown,” which aired on February 24, 1964. After production on "Specimen: Unknown" was completed, Daystar sold the crashed ship to Cayuga in order to regain some of the costs of production. The ship was repainted and used as the centerpiece of “Probe 7, Over and Out.”

The crashed ship from The Outer Limits episode "Specimen: Unknown"

The crashed ship from "Probe 7, Over and Out"

Of course, the Adam and Eve twist ending has generated the greatest comment from those who have written about the episode. In fact, it is very much all anyone has had to say about the episode, and always in a negative context. Marc Scott Zicree, writing in The Twilight Zone Companion, views the ending to the episode this way: “One of the oldest science-fiction chestnuts known to man: Colonel Cook is Adam, the woman he discovers is Eve and the planet – let’s just call that Earth. What could have been a marvelous adventure instead becomes something that, had it been written as a short story, would have been rejected by every science-fiction magazine at the time, because it had been done to death many years earlier.”

            The themes presented in the episode were perhaps too well-worn to produce a “marvelous adventure,” even with a different ending. But had the Adam and Eve theme been “done to death” many years earlier? E.F. Bleiler, in The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, which examines works to 1960, lists more than a dozen works on the theme, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The New Adam and Eve” (1843), George MacDonald’s Lilith (1895), Rudyard Kipling’s “The Enemies of Each Other” (1924), and C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra (1943). Is this done to death? Well, if we widen the field to include science fiction stories then the number of examples of the Adam and Eve theme expands considerably. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, in its entry on the subject, lists numerous examples, which writer Brian W. Aldiss labeled “shaggy God stories,” simple science fiction frameworks for biblical myths. The entry defines the most common of this story type as “the one in which survivors of a space disaster land on a virgin world and reveal (in the final line) that their names are Adam and Eve.”

By the time Rod Serling wrote “Probe 7, Over and Out,” Adam and Eve was truly one of the most overused themes in science fiction and fantasy. Serling revisited the theme in one of his more celebrated post-Twilight Zone works, Planet of the Apes (1968), a film that reflects a number of Twilight Zone episodes, including "People Are Alike All Over" and "I Shot an Arrow into the Air." In the film, the “Eve” character, Nova, played by Linda Harrison, strikes a resemblance in appearance, name, and behavior to Norda in “Probe 7, Over and Out.” 

            Was Serling aware of the overworked nature of the Adam and Eve theme? Judging from his preview narration for the episode it would appear that he was not, believing the ending would surprise “even the most seasoned TZ fans.” Serling must have known that a significant portion of the show’s viewers were also avid readers of science fiction and would have recognized the twist ending as one of the most overused in the genre.  

Nicholas Parisi wrote of the episode in his biography, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination: “When Rod Serling wrote ‘Probe 7, Over and Out,’ its twist ending was already one of science fiction’s most overdone ideas. Serling, who had read plenty of science fiction, likely knew as much. He also likely knew that what is old on the printed page is sometimes new on television. Or, with his creative well running dry, he simply decided that using such an overworked idea was worth whatever risk it entailed.”

            Parisi’s view is probably closest to the mark. Serling was creatively exhausted and had, by his own admission, lost the ability to distinguish bad writing from good. One can expect, under such conditions, that Serling also lost some of the ability to distinguish a good idea from a bad one. The series also became, somewhat to its detriment, defined by the twist ending, a viewer expectation that persists to this day. 

As far as another underlying theme of the episode, that a character is traveling to Earth rather than away from it, Parisi points out that when Richard Matheson’s “Third from the Sun” was published more than a decade before the airing of “Probe 7, Over and Out,” the theme was less common than it became in subsequent years. Another interesting aspect of Parisi’s take on the episode is that Serling “had read plenty of science fiction.” It was for this reason that when a well-known science fiction theme was presented on the series, Serling was often accused of borrowing or outright stealing old ideas from more established science fiction writers who, coincidentally, were not writing for television (or cashing the accompanying checks). Science fiction on television in 1963 was still well behind science fiction on the page, and it is unreasonable to expect a television series, even one as skillfully written as The Twilight Zone, to break new thematic ground each and every week. As critic Les Daniels put it when discussing The Twilight Zone in his genre study, Living in Fear (1975): "The themes were sometimes a trifle familiar to those already conversant with the literature in the field, but Serling's undeniable skill in dramatic construction provided considerable compensation."

            “Probe 7, Over and Out” was filmed under the show’s final producer, William Froug (1922-2013), an affable, talented producer who was, despite a good working relationship with Rod Serling, at odds with what worked well on the series. Froug was also a successful scriptwriter, authoring several books on the subject, and took an active role in story content on the series. Part of this, unfortunately, included jettisoning several scripts from the show’s best writers previously purchased by departing producer Bert Granet, as well as bringing in a new stable of writers whose contributions to the series, with one exception, were uniformly poor. Yet, in this way, Froug was the producer that Serling needed at the time. Creatively exhausted, Serling became less concerned with protecting the integrity of his scripts. Froug and director Ted Post both related to author Marc Scott Zicree that Serling handed over the script for “Probe 7, Over and Out” with permission to make whatever changes they felt were necessary to create the best possible episode from the material.

            Froug further related to Zicree that Serling’s initial script ran to over forty-five pages, with one page of script roughly equivalent to one minute of screen time, putting the episode more than twenty minutes over the allotted time. When this was pointed out to the writer, Serling simply told Froug to make whatever changes were needed. Froug cut ten pages of dialogue from Serling’s script with little change to the course of the narrative. Froug told Zicree: “There were these speeches that went on and on for pages. So I remember taking ten pages out of the script, and it didn’t affect it in the least.” Even so, the episode came in overlong when filmed and further cuts were made by Ted Post in post-production.

            One wonders how an episode like "Probe 7, Over and Out" could be made out to twice the length. Serling’s scripts by this time primarily became exercises in dialogue, likely owing to the fact that Serling increasingly dictated his scripts rather than composed them on the typewriter. One can imagine Serling walking around his home or sitting poolside and speaking into the machine, “performing” each character on the stage of his mind. The result, however, in “Uncle Simon,” “Probe 7, Over and Out,” and several additional episodes of the fifth season, was a style of drama structured upon enjoyable but stagy dialogue densely executed and often artificial in exchange. Serling crafted such engaging characters and dialogue, however, that a viewer can both enjoy these excessive exercises while also recognizing the shortcomings inherent in such an approach. 

            Richard Basehart (1914-1984), here portraying Colonel Cook, is remembered for his portrayal of Admiral Harriman Nelson in Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968). Basehart’s long career in film and television included an appearance in Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954), as well as several crime and mystery films which endeared him to generations of film noir fans. These films included Basehart’s breakout role in He Walked by Night (1948), co-written by Crane Wilbur, who later directed Basehart in Outside the Wall (1950), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), directed by Robert Wise. Basehart also memorably portrayed the man on the ledge of a hotel building in Fourteen Hours (1951). Other Basehart roles include that of Ishmael in director John Huston’s adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1956), co-scripted by Ray Bradbury, and a memorable appearance under heavy makeup as the Sayer of the Law in director Don Taylor’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). This latter film also featured Nick Cravat as M’Ling, companion to Dr. Moreau, as portrayed by Cravat’s lifelong friend Burt Lancaster. Cravat memorably portrayed the gremlin on the wing of the plane that terrorizes William Shatner in the fifth season Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”

Like Rod Serling, Richard Basehart narrated documentary films covering such subjects as the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam war, and the salvaging of sunken Spanish galleons, the latter of which, Treasure Galleons (1973), directed by Basehart, also credits Rod Serling as a performer, although I have been unable to view and verify this. Basehart provided the opening narration for the television series Knight Rider, and appeared in the pilot episode as Wilton Knight. Basehart appeared in two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “The Black Curtain,” based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich, from the first season, and “Starring the Defense,” written by Henry Slesar, from the second season. In 1983, Basehart appeared on the sixth season of Tales of the Unexpected, in an adaptation of C.S. Forester’s memorable suspense story, “The Turn of the Tide.” 

            Antoinette Bower (b. 1932), portraying Eve Norda, was born in Germany to a German father and an English mother. She was educated in schools in England, Vienna, and Monte Carlo. Bower moved to Canada in 1953 and began acting on the Canadian stage while also working as a disc jockey in Ontario. She began appearing on Canadian television later in the decade, including an appearance in an adaptation of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Bower landed a role on American television in 1961 while visiting friends, leading to further roles on the American small screen. Bower appeared in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “A Woman’s Help,” scripted by Henry Slesar, from the sixth season, and “The Silk Petticoat,” from the seventh season. Bower also appeared twice on the second season of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, in “The Return of Andrew Bentley,” scripted by Richard Matheson from the story by August Derleth and Mark Schorer, and in Robert Bloch’s “Waxworks.” Bower is perhaps best known for her appearance in the second season episode of Star Trek, “Cat’s Paw,” also scripted by Robert Bloch. Bower also performed in films, including a handful of low-budget thrillers such as Die Sister, Die (1978), Prom Night (1980), and Blood Song (1982). Bower returned to Canada to appear in the television series Neon Rider (1990-1995) before retiring from acting. 

            Harold Gould (1923-2010), portraying General Larrabee, is likely a familiar face due to his long and prolific career as a character actor. Though remembered for his work in comedies and lighter fare, or as father figures, Gould’s career occasionally ventured into stranger territory. Gould got his start on the screen in an uncredited role in Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Man from Planet X (1951). It was not until the 1960s, however, after earning a PhD in theater and a stint teaching at Cornell University, that Gould devoted himself fulltime to acting. He appeared in the second season episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “How to Get Rid of Your Wife,” while also appearing uncredited in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964). Gould later appeared in two episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater, “To the Chicago Abyss,” from the third season, which earned him an Emmy nomination, and “Colonel Stonesteel and the Desperate Empties,” from the fifth season, based on Bradbury’s 1981 story “Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy.” Gould also appeared in “Paradise,” a second season episode of The Outer Limits revival series. 

            Barton Heyman (1937-1996) appears briefly as Lieutenant Blane in the episode. The prolific Heyman also appeared in such horror and suspense films as Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Cruising (1980), and Raising Cain (1992).

            “Probe 7, Over and Out” is a well-acted, well-directed episode that is ultimately unsuccessful due to its content being overly familiar without offering any new or significant variations on the material. Although most viewers would likely rate this episode lower than the grade I have given it, I found the episode to be a breezy and engaging drama, lifted beyond its artificial ending by quality acting, directing, and production. It is simply marred by an overused twist ending and does not stand up to comparison with the best of the series. I can recommend the episode to viewers willing to look beyond the twist ending to find enjoyment in Rod Serling’s robust dialogue and two excellent performances from Richard Basehart and Antoinette Bower. 

Grade: C 

Next Time in the Vortex: A review of Rod Serling’s “The 7^th Is Made Up of Phantoms.” Thanks for reading! 

Acknowledgments:

--The Twilight Zone Companion (3^rd ed.) by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James, 2018)
--The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)
­--Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination by Nicholas Parisi (University Press of Mississippi, 2018)
--A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone by Don Presnell and Marty McGee (McFarland, 1998)
--Audio commentary by Marc Scott Zicree and Ted Post for “Probe 7, Over and Out” (The Twilight Zone: The 5^th Dimension Box Set, 2014)
--Inside The Twilight Zone by Marc Scott Zicree (CBS DVD/Image Entertainment, 1999)
--The Guide to Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler (Kent State University Press, 1983)
--The Outer Limits Companion by David J. Schow (GNP/Crescendo, 1998)

---Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media by Les Daniels (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975)
--The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4^th ed.) (sf-encyclopedia.com)
--The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)
--The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) 

Notes: 

--Rod Serling’s teleplay for “Probe 7, Over and Out” was collected in volume 9 of As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Scripts of Rod Serling, edited by Tony Albarella (Gauntlet Press, 2012).
--Ted Post directed three additional episodes of the series, “A World of Difference,” from the first season, and “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” and “The Fear,” from the fifth season. Post also directed Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), a sequel to Planet of the Apes (1968), a film co-scripted by Rod Serling.
--“Probe 7, Over and Out” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Louis Gossett, Jr.
--For years, the home video release of the episode included a summary which spoiled part of the episode’s twist ending: “The lone survivors of two annihilated planets become stranded on the same remote world. Together they must begin new lives on this new planet. A planet called Earth.”
--Like many episodes of the series, “Probe 7, Over and Out” features costumes from the film Forbidden Planet (1956), seen in those worn by General Larrabee and Lieutenant Blane.
--“Probe 7, Over and Out” was originally scheduled to follow “Night Call,” which was scheduled to air the previous week on November 22, 1963. “Night Call” was pulled from the air on the day it was scheduled due to media coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Thus, “Probe 7, Over and Out” followed “Uncle Simon” in broadcast order while “Night Call” was rescheduled and appeared later in the fifth season on February 7, 1964. 

-JP