The 20 Greatest Performances from The Twilight Zone, #15-#11

Although The Twilight Zone is celebrated for the talented group of writers who created such memorable stories for the series, the show excelled in every aspect of production, from direction and Emmy Award-winning cinematography, to unforgettable music, set design, and makeup. The series was also a showcase for some of the finest acting presented on television at the time. This list was created to celebrate what we think are the 20 finest performances from the series. Choosing only 20 performances from 156 episodes was extremely difficult. There were many standout performances which missed the list, especially from ensemble casts, such as in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” “The Shelter,” and “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” as well as excellent turns from child actors in episodes such as “The Big Tall Wish,” “It’s a Good Life,” and “Mute.”  If I’ve missed your favorite performance I apologize. Let me know in the comments which are your favorite performances from the series.

Grateful acknowledgement to The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) for the use of images.

-JP

Continuing our countdown:

#15 – Joseph Schildkraut, “The Trade-Ins” (Season 3)

Schildkraut was a classically trained actor from a proud acting family who turned in two great performances for the series, first for the third season’s “Deaths-head Revisited” as the ghost of a concentration camp victim, and again later that season for “The Trade-Ins” as a man nearing death who is given the chance to be young again. It is in this second episode that Schildkraut presents his stand-out performance on the series. The empathy his performance elicits is due in part to a real life tragedy the actor was undergoing at the time of filming. His wife died after the first day of filming and Schildkraut proudly kept filming with the pain of the ordeal evident in his performance. It remains a powerful piece of acting captured forever in one of Rod Serling’s most moving scripts. 

#14 – Jack Warden, “The Lonely” (Season 1)

The versatile Warden was one of the bright spots in the otherwise disastrous first season episode, “The Mighty Casey,” but earlier that season presented one of the more moving performances of the series as a prisoner on an isolated planet who becomes emotionally attached to a beautiful female robot. It is a wonderful illustration of the human need for companionship and Warden brings Rod Serling’s story to life wonderfully. Read our full episode review here.

#13 – Earl Holliman, “Where is Everybody?” (Season 1)

Holliman’s performance in the pilot episode of the series set an acting standard for the entire show. It is easy to underestimate the enormous task set for Holliman, not only in terms of his episode-carrying performance as an amnesiac who finds himself alone in the world, but also in terms of selling the series to the network and potential sponsors. It is Holliman’s convincing and sympathetic performance which by-and-large sold the series and established the tone and content which was to follow. Find our episode review here.  

#12 – Inger Stevens, “The Hitch-Hiker” (Season 1)

Like Holliman, Stevens is largely given the task of carrying an entire episode alone, and one which features an adaptation of a famous and beloved radio play at that. Stevens carries it off brilliantly, as a sunny young woman drawn into the darkest depths of despair and realization. The final scene in which Stevens phones home and learns of her fate remains one of the most affecting and melancholy scenes form any episode. Stevens later appeared in the second season episode, “The Lateness of the Hour.” Read our full review of “The Hitch-Hiker” here.

#11 – Rod Taylor, “And When the Sky Was Opened” (Season 1)

The strongest aspect of Taylor’s excellent performance in this episode is his restraint. He could easily have taken the performance over-the-top but instead chose to play it as a man desperately trying to hold onto his sanity against all odds and the performance is all the better for it. Taylor was a criminally underrated actor in general and his sole contribution to the series was a gem. Read our review here.

Check back tomorrow for our picks for #s 10-6. 

The 20 Best Twilight Zone Twist Endings (#11-#15)

The Twilight Zone is a series known for its twist endings and it's safe to say that many of the show’s most well-known episodes are at least partially recalled due to a twist in the tale. Within the show’s output are several truly memorable and effective twist endings. We’ve narrowed these down to 20 and ranked them in order of effectiveness. We will unveil them in groups of 5 over the next four days. Let us know your favorite twist ending on the series. Please note that we have not considered episode 142, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in this list as it was not an original production of the series.  

-JP

Here’s a look at #s 15-11.

15. “Escape Clause,” season one, episode 6

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: Hypochondriac Walter Bedeker makes a deal with the Devil that he will live forever and be impervious to harm in exchange for his soul.

The twist: After the accidental death of his wife, Bedeker pleads guilty to murder in the hope of experiencing the thrill of the electric chair. His attorney gets him “off” with life in prison.

Note: “Escape Clause” is truly an episode which functions solely for its snap ending, which is a good one. The episode has little to recommend it beyond the twist ending, as it is highly derivative and staged in the most pedestrian manner.

          Read our full review here. 

14.  “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” season one, episode 22

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: Neighbors on a quiet street turn upon one another in an ugly display of paranoid persecution when the electricity fails and their machines inexplicably break down.

The twist: Alien invaders have found that a unique way to conquer mankind is to take away their machines and cast them into darkness.

Note: Although the twist ending is a memorable one, it is not technically a twist ending at all, when one considers that the boy was correct in telling the adults that aliens had landed and were interfering with their homes. One wonders whether the episode had been even more effective if no cause for the interference were revealed. As it is, the science fictional ending placed on Serling’s devastating comment on the hidden ugliness of mankind seems forced and unnecessary.

Read our full review here.

13. “The Hitch-Hiker,” season one, episode 16

         Written by Rod Serling, based on the radio play by              Lucille Fletcher

The story: A young woman is pursued by a hitchhiker after getting into an accident on the highway.

The twist: The young woman did not survive the accident and the hitchhiker is there to shepherd her into the afterlife.

Note: Serling changed little in adapting Lucille Fletcher’s famous radio play to the series besides the gender of the main character. Fletcher’s radio play was originally written for Orson Welles. Though Fletcher’s story was not the first to utilize the trope that the main character is in actuality dead, it is a twist which has been utilized endlessly since. Notable examples include the 1962 film Carnival of Souls, William F. Nolan’s 1967 story “The Party,” and the 1999 film The Sixth Sense.

Read our full review here.

12. “Where is Everybody?” season one, episode 1

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: A young man with amnesia finds himself in a seemingly deserted town but cannot escape the feeling of being watched.

The twist: The man’s experience of the town is an hallucination brought about by isolation within a solitary chamber designed to emulate a trip through space.

Note: The story that sold the series remains an engaging and exceptionally staged psychological horror story. Earl Holliman turns in a great performance as the young man and the twist ending, however unbelievable, grounds the happenings in a realistic setting, something thought necessary to sell the series to the network executives and the corporate sponsors.

Read our full review here. 

11. “People Are Alike All Over,” season one, episode 25

Written by Rod Serling, story by Paul W. Fairman

The story: An astronaut named Conrad, the survivor of a crash landing on Mars, is treated kindly by the seemingly civilized inhabitants of the red planet.

The twist: Conrad is housed in a disguised prison, to be displayed as an animal in a zoo.

Note: Another episode which functions solely for its twist ending, “People Are Alike All Over” has some other interesting aspects, most notably the unabashedly science fictional production design. Roddy McDowall is also enjoyable in his only appearance on the series. The episode is based on Paul W. Fairman’s short story, “Brothers Beyond the Void,” originally published in the March, 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

Read our full review here. 

"Where Is Everybody?"

Earl Holliman, first resident of
The Twilight Zone

“Where Is Everybody”

Season One, Episode 1
Original Air Date: October 2, 1959

Cast:
Mike Ferris: Earl Holliman 
Air Force General: James Gregory 
Doctor: Paul Langton 
Reporter #1: James McCallion
Air Force Colonel: John Conwell
Reporter #2: Jay Overholt
Air Force Captain: Carter Mullaly
Reporter #3: Gary Walberg
Air Force Staff Sergeant: Jim Johnson

Crew: 
Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay) 
Director: Robert Stevens 
Producer: William Self
Director of Photography: Joseph LaShelle 
Art Direction: Robert Clatworthy and Alex Golitzen
Set Decoration: Russell A. Gausman and Ruby Levitt
Assistant Director: Joseph E. Kenny
Editor: Roland Gross
Makeup: Bud Westmore
Sound: Leslie I. Carey and Vernon W. Kramer
Music: Bernard Hermann

And Now, Mr. Serling (recorded in 1961 for a re-run of the episode): 
“I’m about to show you a picture of something that isn’t what it looks like. Pleasant little town? It isn’t this at all. It’s a nightmare. It’s a chilling, frightening, journey of one man into a mystifying unknown. You’re invited to join that man in a most unique experience. Next week, Earl Holliman asks, and you’ll ask with him, Where is Everybody?" 

 "Here’s an item we forgot. A moment for the people who pay the tab. It’s often said that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’  Case in point. Before we meet again try Oasis. You’ll know what I mean.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“The place is here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch could be our journey.”

Summary:

             Mike Ferris is traveling on foot down a rural highway when he wanders into a quaint little town that looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, a quiet, idyllic place, complete with town square, drugstore, diner, and movie theater. It will become the setting of his nightmare. He has no memory of who he is and no known destination. The town shows all the normal signs of a functioning community except for one essential element: there are no people. Ferris wanders into a café where a jukebox plays to an empty room. A smoking cigar lies unattended in an ashtray in the local police station. A phone rings inside a phone booth but no one is on the other end of the call. As he wanders from place to place Ferris grows suspicious. He feels like he is being watched. As night falls on the town, his paranoia and loneliness finally eat away at what is left of his rationality. He collapses against a stoplight, frantically pushing the ‘walk’ button and pleading for someone to help him.

            Cut to a different place entirely. Mike Ferris is being observed on a monitor by a group of military officials. The ‘walk’ button he believes himself to be pressing is actually the panic button inside the isolation chamber that he has been strapped into for the past 400 hours. Ferris is an Air Force astronaut aboard a simulated flight to the moon. Upon witnessing his fragile condition, the General in charge of the project decides to have Ferris removed from the chamber.  After a few moments Ferris regains his grasp on reality and inquires of the staff doctor as to why he believed he was in an imaginary town with no people in it. The doctor explains to Ferris that man has an instinctive need for companionship and without it the mind will begin to make up scenarios in order to fight the loneliness. As he is being taken away by medical personnel he realizes that when the time comes for him to go on a real flight to the moon there will be no panic button to push and no one to come and rescue him from his own mind. 

Rod Serling’s closing narration: 
“Up there, up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation. It sits there in the stars waiting, waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting…in The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

"The sensation was unrelated to anything he'd ever felt before. He awoke, but had no recollection of ever having gone to sleep. And, to mystify him further, he was not in a bed. He was walking down a road, a two-lane black macadam with a vivid white stripe running down the center. He stopped, stared up at a blue sky, a hot, mid-morning sun. Then he looked around at the rural landscape, high, full-leafed trees flanking the road. Beyond the trees were fields of wheat, golden and rippling."
                    -"Where Is Everybody?" by Rod Serling (Stories from the Twilight Zone (1960))
             
       As the premiere episode of The Twilight Zone, “Where Is Everybody?” perfectly sets the tone for the series.  The episode begins as Mike Ferris discovers a mysterious town with signs of life in every direction but no visible inhabitants. In the second act, the conflict escalates to a suspenseful climax as Ferris’s paranoia mounts and his reasoning begins to deteriorate. In the final scene, we see that he is not in a town at all, but in an experimental isolation chamber. Thus, all the pieces of the puzzle come together. This would become the formula used throughout the series and the show’s success is due largely to the simple format of an ordinary person thrust into an extraordinary situation. This format grabbed the audience’s attention within the first few minutes and held it to the finale where there would usually be some sort of twist or a logical explanation of events. Many of the hour-long episodes in the fourth season suffer because they cannot successfully fit this format. 

                An interesting aspect of "Where Is Everybody?" is the number of symbols and motifs in the episode which would be repeated throughout the course of the series. There is the symbol of the broken clock, seen again in "Time Enough at Last" and "A Kind of Stopwatch." There is the otherworldly call in a phone booth, seen again in "The Hitch-Hiker" and "The Jungle." There is also the recurring symbol of a mirror, one of the show's most oft-repeated images, seen in episodes such as "Mirror Image," "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room," "The Mirror," and "The Masks." Mike Ferris also enjoys a drugstore sundae, seen again in "Walking Distance." 

             In terms of the approach to fantasy, however, “Where Is Everybody?” is atypical in that by episode's end it is revealed to be almost entirely devoid of any fantasy elements. For the pilot episode, Serling understood that his job was not to write a science fiction masterpiece; he needed to sell the show to CBS and creating something commercially viable was essential. CBS had twice shot down his previous attempts at a fantasy program when he submitted "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air," about an alien encounter, and a time travel fantasy, "The Time Element." 
           
           Once the series was ordered, Serling turned in a script titled "The Happy Place," about a near future in which citizens over the age of sixty are sent to idyllic rest homes in order to be euthanized. The script was passed on by pilot producer William Self, causing a brief rift between the two men, who had only recently met on the occasion of coming together to create The Twilight Zone. Self imparted to Serling that the type of dark and powerful drama he was accustomed to writing on Playhouse 90 was not going to sell the series to the network. Serling came to understand what the network executives did not want to see. They did not want a far-out concept or a bleak story. Thus, he deliberately toned down the fantasy aspect with "Where Is Everybody?" 

             Producer William Self held experience in virtually every form of film and television production by the time he came to an executive role in program development at CBS. The Twilight Zone was Self's maiden project in his new executive role. Self began acting in the 1940s in feature films and worked in that capacity until 1952, when he stopped acting and moved to the production side of the young medium of television. One of Self's early jobs was to oversee production on China Smith, a low-budget adventure series featuring future The Twilight Zone performer Dan Duryea. China Smith was also co-written by Jack Laird, future producer of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Self later oversaw production on the Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars where he hired a young production assistant from RKO named Buck Houghton as story editor on the series. During his time on that series, Self created Meridian Productions, several members of whom, including cinematographer George T. Clemens and Production Manager Ralph W. Nelson, would later become valued production members on The Twilight Zone. When Self exited his producer role on the series after the pilot episode, he recommended to Serling that Buck Houghton be considered as regular producer on the series. Houghton's subsequent three-season run as producer was the apex of the series and he fit both molds required of him on the show, that of a producer who could be counted upon by the network as well as one intuitively in-touch with the creative side of production.

             Serling initially got the idea for "Where Is Everybody?" while walking around an empty studio backlot, which resembled a real town but was devoid of people. A similar experience inspired Earl Hamner Jr. to craft his thematically related fifth season episode, "Stopover in a Quiet Town." This subtle approach to fantasy compliments the first half of the episode rather nicely in that there is only a suggestion that anything supernatural is occurring. However, once the curtain is drawn and it is revealed that all of the events we are witnessing are taking place in Ferris’s mind, the lack of the supernatural seems to take the audience in an unanticipated direction. It takes the viewer into an entirely new story with new characters, a new setting, and a new perspective of the protagonist. 

                 Serling would use this device in several other episodes. “King Nine Will Not Return,” the premier episode of the second season, shares much in common with "Where Is Everybody?" and concerns the pilot of a World War II bomber who awakens after a crash to find that his crew has mysteriously vanished. At the end of the story it’s revealed that the entire event has taken place in his mind (or has it?). “King Nine” is a more complex episode given that the main character is struggling not only with the burden of loneliness but with the guilt of abandoning his crew, which makes the ending slightly more believable. The two episodes are also related in another manner. One of the regrets Serling had about "Where Is Everybody?" is that it is devoid of any fantasy. When Serling adapted the story for his 1960 volume, Stories from the Twilight Zone, a book released just as the first season was finishing its initial broadcast, he added a moment at the end of the story in which a ticket stub from the imaginary movie theater is found in the pocket of Ferris's uniform. In the story, Ferris reached into the box office and took a ticket, tearing it himself at the usher stand as he entered the theater. The scenes give the eerie suggestion that Ferris had actually been in some other world, whether one of his imagining or not is left to the reader's own imagination. When Serling came to write "King Nine Will Not Return" to open the second season of the series, he added a similar scene to the end of the tale in which sand is found in the pilot's shoes, giving the impression that it was not a hallucination at all but that he may have actually gone back in time. 

Loneliness is the primary theme at work in "Where Is Everybody?" The show would return to this theme many times throughout its five season run in episodes like “The Lonely,” “A Stop at Willoughby,” “Nothing in the Dark,” “Two,” “Miniature,” “Probe 7 – Over and Out,” and many more.  The main element which fails to lend it verisimilitude is the fact that, on some level, Ferris knows he is in an isolation chamber. He is aware that he is being monitored by people who are there with him in the same room, and he also knows that the panic button is his get-out-of-jail-card which he can press at any time to end his claustrophobic nightmare.  It seems doubtful that under such fail-safe circumstances his mind would construct such an elaborate hallucination.  It is also amazing how fast he recovers from what is presumed to be a complete mental collapse. He is able to regain his senses enough to rationally answer the doctor’s questions, although this can be excused due to the limitation of time.

“Where Is Everybody?” is an episode which depends, almost entirely, on the performance of its lead actor. Earl Holliman is completely believable as the frantically lost Mike Ferris. His role is not an easy one, considering that his character is alone for the majority of the episode and speaks aloud to himself as a way of providing exposition to the audience. Holliman later recalled what he thought of as "dreadful" read-throughs with Serling, director Robert Stevens, and producer William Self, in which Holliman was essentially forced to deliver a protracted monologue, unable to engage in the accustomed practice of reading with another performer. It is an incredibly effective performance in that there is never a moment when Holliman loses the audience’s attention. Holliman initially did not want to take the role. Despite appearing in the famous 1953 film Forbidden Planet, Holliman was not fond of science fiction and fantasy. But the opportunity to work with Rod Serling and the quality of the script ultimately decided him in favor of doing the pilot. Serling later wrote Holliman a letter of praise citing his performance as essential not only to the success of "Where Is Everybody?" but also to the future success of the series. For Holliman, this sort of praise was the most satisfying form of compensation and he kept Serling's letter famed upon a wall in his home for many years afterwards. 

Rod Serling and Earl Holliman

      Holliman was born in Delhi, Louisiana in 1928 and studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and UCLA. In 1956 he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his role as Jim Curry in the film The Rainmaker, starring Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn.  His other notable film appearances include Forbidden Planet (1956), Giant (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), the latter with John Wayne and Dean Martin. In the 1960’s he began a long and versatile television career. On the same night that “Where is Everybody?” was first broadcast (October 2, 1959) Holliman also appeared in the starring role of the first episode of the short-lived CBS western series Hotel de Paree, which also featured Strother Martin and Jeanette Nolan, both of whom would later feature on The Twilight Zone. From 1974 to 1978 he starred as Lieutenant Bill Cowley in the CBS series Police Woman with Angie Dickinson. In 1983 he was featured in the critically acclaimed mini-series The Thorn Birds. 

        Holliman later recalled to interviewer Douglas Snauffer that the entire first day of shooting on "Where Is Everybody?" was lost due to a camera malfunction. To make matters worse, Holliman discovered he had the flu and was running a high fever. The effects of the illness can be heard in Holliman's hoarse voice at moments in the episode.

The episode also owes a great deal to director Robert Stevens, whose fluid camera work brings Serling’s script to life. In one of the more memorable shots from the series, Stevens frames Earl Holliman as he races down the stairs in the movie theater and runs straight into, and shatters, a full length mirror; it is only here that the audience realizes Stevens was not actually filming Holliman but rather Holliman’s reflection in the mirror. In the early 1950’s Stevens made a name for himself as director, writer and producer on the live CBS series Suspense. Today he is best remembered for his prolific work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, where he directed nearly fifty episodes between the two shows.

       The final aspect of "Where Is Everybody?" which bears mention is the excellent musical composition by Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann possessed an almost unique talent for capturing the otherworldly in his melancholy scores. Herrmann was a prolific composer for film, television, and radio, renowned for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, Psycho, etc.). The Twilight Zone was very fortunate to acquire Herrmann's talents throughout the course of the series, as he would lend his distinctive music to some of the most enduring episodes, including "Walking Distance," "The Hitch-Hiker," "Eye of the Beholder," and "Living Doll." Herrmann's original title theme music, featured during the first season, is the preferred theme music by many fans of the series, ourselves included. 

Despite its relatively minor flaws, “Where is Everybody?” remains an immensely enjoyable episode, one which holds a distinctive place in the lexicon of popular culture as the beginning of one of the most celebrated series in the history of American television.

Grade: B

Grateful acknowledgement to:
-"Self Appraisal," interview of William Self by Tom Weaver, Starlog #299 (June, 2002)
-"Enter the Zone," interview of Earl Holliman by Douglas Snauffer, Starlog #252 (June, 1998)

Notes:

--The original opening sequence to the pilot episode was different in several ways. The biggest difference was that Serling was not the narrator. Serling and producer William Self cast veteran voice-over actor Westbrook Von Voorhis to be the voice of the show. After CBS bought the pilot, however, everyone agreed that a new narrator was needed to avoid sounding like every clichéd science fiction movie of that era. Also, the original opening features images of galaxies and stars with Von Voorhis stating that "there is a sixth dimension." This was later replaced with the animated sequence that was used for most of the episodes in the first season. Serling also rewrote the opening narration to say “There is a fifth dimension…” after he was informed that there were, in fact, only four dimensions.

--This episode was shot in the famous courthouse square on the Universal Studios (then Universal International) backlot where To Kill a Mockingbird and Back to the Future would later be filmed. Universal provided its backlot to CBS as a favor and did not, at the time, provide studio access to television productions. CBS acquired backlot and studio services at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, which gave the show much of its quality appearance.

--Serling later wrote that he got this idea from walking around a movie backlot one day and was struck with how frightening it would be to walk into a city with no inhabitants. Also, the scene where Holliman gets stuck in the phone booth supposedly comes from a real incident where Serling believed he had locked himself in a London phone booth.

--"Where is Everybody?" was adapted into a short story by Rod Serling in Stories From the Twilight Zone (Bantam, 1960). It was also made into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring John Schneider (Falcon Picture Group, 2002).

--James Gregory also stars in the season three episode, “The Passerby,” and in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "Stop Killing Me."

--Paul Langton also stars in the season four episode, “On Thursday We Leave for Home.”

--James McCallion appears in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Diary."

--"Where is Everybody?" was adapted into comic book form for the 1979 book Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam; Skylark Illustrated Book) by Rod Serling, stories adapted by Horace J. Elias and illustrated by Carl Pfeufer. 

--Brian Durant and Jordan Prejean