 |
| Robert Lansing as Commander Douglas Stansfield, encased in a hibernation chamber |
“The Long Morrow”
Season Five, Episode 135
Original
Air Date: January 10, 1964
Cast:
Commander
Douglas Stansfield: Robert Lansing
Crew:
Writer:
Rod Serling
And Now, Mr. Serling:
“Next on The Twilight Zone, a rather probing study of ice, irony, and the ionosphere, a show titled ‘The Long Morrow.’ It stars Robert Lansing and Mariette Hartley, and it tells the story of an incredible trip into space with the sole occupant of the craft living in suspended animation. This one is for space addicts and the romantically inclined. On The Twilight Zone, ‘The Long Morrow.’”
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears. Case-in-point the scene you’re watching. This is not a hospital, not a morgue, not a mausoleum, not an undertaker’s parlor in the future. What it is, is the belly of a spaceship. It is on route to another planetary system, an incredible distance from Earth. This is the crux of our story, a flight into space. It is also the story of the things that might happen to human beings who take a step beyond, unable to anticipate everything that might await them out there.”
NARRATIVE BREAK –
“Commander
Douglas Stansfield, astronaut. A man about to embark on one of history’s
longest journeys. Forty years out into endless space and hopefully back again.
This is the beginning, the first step toward man’s longest leap into the
unknown. Science has solved the mechanical details and now it’s up to one human
being to breathe life into blueprints and computers. To prove once and for all
that man can live half a lifetime in the total void of outer space. Forty years
alone in the unknown. This is Earth. Ahead lies a planetary system. The vast
region in-between is The Twilight
Zone.”
Summary:
Our
story begins with a man encased in an ice-like chamber. His eyes are closed and he appears to
be asleep. This is Commander Douglas Stansfield, an astronaut on a journey from
Earth to a distant planetary system. We hear his thoughts and impressions in a
voiceover narration. He brings us back to the beginning of his journey.
Stansfield is called to the office of Dr. Bixler at the Space Research
facility. Stansfield, thirty-one years old and an astronaut for eleven years,
has been under observation by Dr. Bixler as a candidate for a mission. Dr.
Bixler explains that the mission is to venture far beyond our solar system to
find other habitable planets. Dr. Bixler has identified a solar system similar
to our own, but very far away. In six months’ time, Stansfield will embark on a
solo mission to reach this distant system. The ship that will take him there is
currently being constructed. It will travel seventy times faster than the speed
of light. The journey there and back will take forty years.
Stansfield encounters Sandra Horn in a corridor of the facility. She is a beautiful young researcher. Stansfield asks her to dinner and Sandra accepts. Later, Stansfield contemplates living out forty years in the void of space. Dr. Bixler informs Stansfield of a new process of placing an astronaut in a state of suspended animation, waking only occasionally to perform routine maintenance on the spaceship. Stansfield will hardly age at all on his journey due to this process.
Stansfield
and Sandra spark a fast-moving romance later that evening while dancing. Sandra
contemplates her natural aging here on Earth while Stansfield remains young out
in space. We move forward in time to again find Stansfield encased in ice. A
voiceover describes the solace he finds in the memory of Sandra’s voice and
image. Stansfield declares his love for her.
Back
to the time of pre-launch for Stansfield’s flight. Stansfield finds Sandra
before boarding the spaceship. They passionately embrace and declare their love
for one another. Sandra tells him to look for the old lady in the lace shawl
with the “welcome home” sign when he returns.
Stansfield’s
spaceship launches toward space. Forty years later, Stansfield’s ship returns
to Earth, the remnant of a nearly forgotten mission. General Walters, the
current Commander of Operations, accesses the notes on Stansfield’s mission. He
finds a directive from Dr. Bixler to notify Sandra Horn of Stansfield’s return.
Sandra is in a hibernation room, designed to keep her at age twenty-six until
awakened.
Sandra is revived and met by General Walters in the corridor to await the return of Stansfield. Sandra is as young and beautiful as she was on the day she first met Stansfield. Walters explains to Sandra that they long ago discovered that the planetary system Stansfield was sent to was uninhabitable. Worse still, for some unknown reason, Stansfield completely removed himself from hibernation six months after takeoff. A breakdown in communications meant that this was discovered only after Stansfield’s return. Sandra knows why Stansfield removed himself from hibernation. He wanted to age in space as she aged on Earth.
Stansfield appears and slowly walks down the corridor. He is a wizened old man, slow of speech and movement. Sandra is shocked by his appearance. Stansfield tells Sandra that the thought of her kept him sane through the loneliness of forty years in space. Now, however, they cannot be together. Forty years is too much time to bridge. Stansfield asks her to go away. Sandra reaches out and touches his face one final time before leaving. General Walters tells Stansfield that it is an incredible man who could put such a price on love. Stansfield turns and slowly walks away.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
"Commander Douglas Stansfield, one of the forgotten pioneers of the Space Age. He's been pushed aside by the flow of progress and the passage of years and the ferocious travesty of fate. Tonight's tale of the ionosphere and irony from The Twilight Zone."
Commentary:
Rod
Serling’s Space Age reimagining of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” is, at its
best, an affecting rumination on the dehumanizing effects of manned space
travel. At its worst, the episode is rushed, derivative, weighed down by
overwritten dialogue, and crippled by naïve romanticism and scientific inaccuracies.
The episode ultimately falls somewhere in the middle, but unfortunately ends up
closer to the latter.
Several
previous commentators have noted the episode’s debt to O. Henry’s 1905 short
story, “The Gift of the Magi.” This story tells of an impoverished couple, Jim
and Della, who sacrifice their most prized possessions to buy Christmas gifts
for one another, unaware that the gifts are reliant upon the possessions each
has given away. Della sells her beautiful hair to purchase a platinum chain for
Jim’s watch. Jim sells his watch to buy a set of tortoiseshell combs for Della’s
hair. In Serling’s version, Stansfield removes himself from hibernation so that
he will be as old as Sandra when he returns to Earth in forty years. Sandra
sacrifices forty years in a hibernation chamber so that she will remain as
young as Stansfield upon his return. Each is unaware of the intentions of the
other, leading to an ironic and tragic ending.
This
theme held a long-standing fascination for Rod Serling. Author and old-time
radio historian Martin Grams, Jr. notes that around 1948 Serling wrote and
starred in a radio play adaptation of O. Henry’s story for local broadcast on
station WMRN in Marion, Ohio. Serling was at this time a student at Antioch
College in nearby Yellow Springs, Ohio. His return to this material nearly
twenty years later for The Twilight Zone indicates
Serling’s enduring interest in exploring the profound personal costs of love
and devotion, here magnified by the unique challenges of interstellar travel.
Love
and devotion are integral elements of the story. The episode’s romantic
foundation, crucial for its emotional impact, feels notably rushed. The romance
between Stansfield and Sandra sparks and deepens with surprising rapidity,
demanding a significant leap of faith from the viewer. A more effective
approach might have been to introduce the characters already in a relationship,
allowing viewers to immediately connect with the profound sacrifice they face,
rather than building their relationship from scratch within the episode’s
limited runtime. “The Long Morrow” is a half-hour episode that may have
benefited from the expanded runtime of the fourth season.
Many
previous commentators, including actress Mariette Hartley, have also noted the
weight of the dialogue in the episode, using such terms as “talky,”
“overwritten,” and “purple.” Serling presents one of his longest opening
narrations of the series while also utilizing a voiceover narration from actor
Robert Lansing. The narrative moves from scene to scene solely by means of dialogue.
This overreliance on dialogue becomes increasingly apparent as the fifth season
moves along toward the end of the series. It may stem from the fact that
Serling primarily composed his scripts via dictation machine during this time,
suggesting a natural inclination to compose through dialogue. The heavy reliance
on dialogue is reflected in the stark production design and simple staging of
the narrative. Director Robert Florey was able to significantly display his Expressionistic
directing style in his previous episodes on the series, “Perchance to Dream”
and “The Fever,” but the director is virtually invisible in “The Long Morrow.”
The
scientific underpinnings of the episode are very loose. The concept of a
spacecraft traveling at “seventy times faster than the speed of light” is pure
science fantasy, devoid of any genuine scientific grounding. The episode also
posits that the time until the year 1988 will be one of enormous technological
progress, including fantastic elements we have yet to see a quarter of the way
into the twenty-first century. Stansfield is said to be thirty-one years old in
the episode, having been an astronaut for eleven years. This would mean that
Stansfield began his career as an astronaut at the age of twenty, making him a
prodigiously young astronaut. According to NASA, the average age of an
astronaut beginning their career is
thirty-four, with ages ranging from late twenties to early forties. Robert Lansing
was thirty-five at the time of filming the episode.
For The Twilight Zone, however, strict
scientific accuracy was rarely a primary concern. The fantastical elements
served as allegorical tools to explore human nature and societal dilemmas. In
the case of “The Long Morrow,” the extreme velocity of Stansfield’s spacecraft
is merely a narrative device to facilitate the monumental time gap central to
the characters’ tragic predicament, rather than a serious attempt at scientific
speculation.
The episode culminates in an ironic twist ending, but its impact is double-edged. While emotionally resonant, the abrupt reveal of Stansfield’s self-imposed aging leaves a gap in the narrative. To be effective, the ironic ending requires information to be withheld from the viewer. Interestingly, the first draft of Serling’s script contained a scene in which Stansfield is shown to awaken from hibernation in order to perform routine maintenance on the spaceship. Stansfield then decides not to go back into hibernation and smashes the ice chamber. This would have spoiled one aspect of the twist ending, of course, but would have explained why Stansfield returns as an old man, rather than relying on dialogue from General Walters to relay the information.
Unfortunately,
the visual effect intended to convey this dramatic change also falls short,
with the aging makeup placed on Robert Lansing being described by The Twilight Zone Companion as “embarrassingly
bad.” Despite this visual shortcoming, Lansing’s performance as Stansfield is
excellently understated. He performed the scenes in which he is encased in ice
clad only in a pair of mini-trunks. Lansing was apprehensive about this, but
understood the striking visual impact of the scene. It is the most impressive
visual effect in an episode whose shortcomings also include the use of grainy
stock footage.
Despite its narrative and technical limitations, “The Long Morrow” remains an effective exploration of the show’s enduring themes. The episode is thematically related to earlier scripts from Rod Serling. “The Rip Van Winkle Caper,” from the second season, also utilized the concept of suspended animation, illustrating Serling’s fascination with the manipulation of time and its effects on the human condition. Serling’s third season episode, “The Trade-Ins,” also grappled with the human desire to defy aging, and the unforeseen consequences of such aspirations. “The Long Morrow” is yet another example of the show’s recurring interest in the qualities of aging, one of the most prominent themes on the series.
Robert
Lansing (1928-1994) was born Robert Howell Brown in San Diego. While working in
an acting company in Michigan, he took the name of the Michigan city of Lansing
to avoid a conflict in the Actors’ Equity Association with another actor named
Robert Brown. Lansing began acting while attending University High School in
Los Angeles. He served in the U.S. Army, working for the Armed Forces Radio Service
while stationed in Japan. After military service, he worked as a radio
announcer and local performer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He moved to New York to
refine his craft on stage. Although he found roles in prestige plays, he made
little money and gained little notoriety from the experience. Lansing moved his
family to his home state of California with a view to working in films. His
first significant film role was in the science fiction film 4D Man (1959). “The Long Morrow” was not
the first time Lansing appeared in a strange, science fiction aging story. In 4D Man, Lansing portrays a scientist who
develops a method to pass through solid matter. The downside is that the
process causes him to rapidly age as he loses his life force. He resorts to
killing others to absorb their life energies and replenish his youth. Lansing
later appeared in the insect attack films Empire
of the Ants (1977) and The Nest (1987).
Lansing
found steady work in television beginning in the 1960s. He is perhaps best
known for portraying Gary Seven in the Star
Trek episode “Assignment: Earth.” The episode was intended as a spinoff
series which followed Lansing’s character in a time-traveling war against an
alien race. Lansing appeared in several anthology series, including One Step Beyond, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, the Alfred Hitchcock Presents revival series, and Monsters. Lansing appeared on Journey
to the Unknown in an adaptation of Oliver Onion’s classic ghost story, “The
Beckoning Fair One.”
Other television roles included the military drama 12 O’clock High, the espionage series The Man Who Never Was, the short-lived detective series 87th Precinct, the role of “Control” in The Equalizer, and Rod Serling’s western series The Loner. His final television role was in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. A heavy smoker, Lansing died of lung cancer at the age of sixty-six.
Mariette
Hartley (b. 1940) first met Rod Serling when she was a teenager and a student at
Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut. Hartley viewed Serling’s Emmy-winning
“Requiem for a Heavyweight” (1956) on Playhouse
90 and was so moved by the experience that she worked up the courage to write
to the famous television writer and ask him to speak to her drama class. To her
surprise, Serling said that he would and was as good as his word, showing up
and speaking to Hartley’s class about the life of a working television writer.
Several years later, Hartley was a young actress on contract at MGM having
recently appeared in her first major film role for director Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country (1962). Hartley
ran into Serling on the MGM lot and, to her surprise, Serling remembered her
and his visit to her high school. Hartley told Serling that she was looking for
work and Serling was able to help her land the role of Sandra Horn in “The Long
Morrow.”
Hartley subsequently landed a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964), but television was where Hartley found her greatest success. She displayed enormous range in her career. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for such diverse programs as the television film The Last Hurrah, an episode of The Rockford Files, the children’s program The Halloween that Almost Wasn’t, the dramatic television film M.A.D.D.: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the comedy series Goodnight, Beantown. Hartley won an Emmy for an episode of The Incredible Hulk. Hartley appeared in the Star Trek episode “All Our Yesterdays,” as well as in Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s unsold pilot Genesis II. Hartley was equally comfortable on soap operas such as Peyton Place and One Life to Live as she was hosting the long-running documentary series Wild About Animals. Hartley’s other anthology appearance was in an episode of Circle of Fear, “Cry of the Cat.”
Edward Binns (1916-1990) enjoyed a long career as a reliable character actor who often played roles of authority. He appeared in such acclaimed films as 12 Angry Men (1957), North by Northwest (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Fail Safe (1964). Binns was equally busy on television. He appeared in such anthology series as Suspense, Inner Sanctum, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, and Boris Karloff’s Thriller. Binns previously appeared on The Twilight Zone in Rod Serling’s “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” and appeared with Robert Lansing on 12 O’clock High and again in “The Trial in Paradise,” an episode of Rod Serling’s The Loner.
The gravelly-voiced character actor George Macready (1899-1973) made a career of playing villains and “heavies.” He began his career on the New York stage, eventually acting in several productions on Broadway. He was a prolific film and television actor who was a fixture in crime films in the 1940s. Macready appeared in such memorable crime films as Gilda (1946), The Big Clock (1948), and A Kiss Before Dying (1956), among many others. On television, Macready first crossed paths with Rod Serling when Macready appeared in Serling’s “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” (1960), the final episode of Playhouse 90. Macready later appeared in the 1964 film Seven Days in May, co-written by Serling, as well as in Serling’s “The Cemetery,” the opening segment of the Night Gallery pilot film. Macready appeared in one of the best episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, “The Weird Tailor,” from the story by Robert Bloch, and appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Outer Limits. Macready’s final film appearances came in the two Count Yorga vampire films.
 |
| via IMDB |
Paris-born
director Robert Florey (1900-1979) became enamored with Hollywood as a
teenager. He moved to Hollywood in 1921 as a journalist for a French film
magazine. Florey worked his way into the industry as an assistant director,
learning his craft under the guidance of such accomplished directors as King
Vidor and Josef von Sternberg. He began his directing career producing foreign
publicity films for Hollywood studios and avant-garde short films inspired by
German Expressionism. Florey was a hugely prolific director, working in
virtually every genre. He co-directed the Marx Brothers feature The Cocoanuts (1929), although the Marx
Brothers did not recall working with Florey with any fondness. Due to the
influence of German cinema, horror was Florey’s forte. He contributed to the
script for Universal’s Frankenstein (1931),
a film Florey was slated to direct before being removed by the studio in favor
of director James Whale. Florey’s consolation film from the studio was the
gruesome The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932),
loosely based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe and starring Bela Lugosi, another
refugee from Frankenstein. Florey
also directed Peter Lorre in The Beast
with Five Fingers (1946) for Warner Bros., loosely based on the memorable
story by W.F. Harvey.
Florey moved seamlessly into television in the fifties, directing several programs for Walt Disney. Florey directed an excellent episode of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, “The Incredible Doktor Markesan,” as well as several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Outer Limits episode “Moonstone.” Florey’s expressionistic style was best displayed during the first season of The Twilight Zone when he directed Charles Beaumont’s “Perchance to Dream.” Florey also directed Rod Serling’s nightmarish first season episode “The Fever.”
Although “The Long Morrow” features fine acting from Robert Lansing and Mariette Hartley, the episode is strained by the weight of its dialogue, rushed romance, poor visual effects, and hackneyed twist ending. This, unfortunately, places it well below the high standards established by the finest episodes of the series.
Grade: D
Next Time in the Vortex: Our episode guide continues with a look at the adaptation of a story by Henry Slesar, “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross.”
Acknowledgements:
--The
Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Jr. (OTR, 2008)
--Inside
The Twilight Zone by Marc Scott
Zicree (Image Entertainment/CBS DVD, 2001)
--The
Twilight Zone Companion (3rd
ed.) by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James, 2018)
--A
Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone: 1959-1964 by Don Presnell and Marty McGee (MacFarland &
Co., 1998)
--Commentary by Mariette Hartley for
“The Long Morrow” (The Twilight Zone: The
5th Dimension Box Set, 2014)
--“Getting to Know Rod Serling” by Nick
Thomas (The Spectrum, September 30,
2015)
--The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)
--Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org)
Notes:
--Robert
Florey also directed the first season episodes “Perchance to Dream” and “The
Fever.”
--Edward
Binns previously appeared on the series in “I Shot an Arrow into the Air.”
--George
Macready appeared in the Night
Gallery pilot film segment “The
Cemetery.”
-JP
I haven't seen this one in ages but a "D" grade seems pretty harsh!
ReplyDeleteI can understand that perspective, but I thought this was a below-average episode. There's still a lot of points of interest. Such was the strength of the series. Thanks for reading!
Delete