"Number 12 Looks Just Like You"

Marilyn Cuberle (Collin Wilcox),
moments before she becomes beautiful.

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You”
Season Five, Episode 137
Original Air Date: January 24, 1964

 

Cast:

Collin Wilcox:

Marilyn Cuberle / Lana (photo album picture)

Richard Long:

Uncle Rick / Dr. Rex / Sigmund Friend / Tom / Tad / Jack / Attendant

Suzy Parker:

Lana Cuberle / Grace / Eva / Jane / Doe / Patient / Number 12

Pam Austin:
Valerie / Marilyn (post-transformation) / Number 8

 

Crew:
Writers: Charles Beaumont and John Tomerlin (based on Beaumont’s story “The Beautiful People”)
Director: Abner Biberman
Producer: William Froug
Director of Photography: Charles Wheeler
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:

“On our next outing, Charles Beaumont comes through with another delightful flight of futuristic fancy, about a society of another time in which you literally can’t tell the players without a score card. They all appear in an identical mold. Collin Wilcox, Richard Long, and special guest star Suzy Parker appear in a program called ‘Number 12 Looks Just Like You.’ I hope you’re around to catch the similarity.”

 

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Given the chance, what young girl wouldn’t happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let’s call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future when science has developed a means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now…in the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

In the year 2000, all citizens must select one of a few dozen physical avatars upon turning 19, thus forcing the entire population to conform to an established standard of beauty and making many citizens basically identical.

Marilyn has arrived at the age of transformation but has doubts about its validity and purpose. Her mother, Lana, her Uncle Rick, and her best friend, Val, have all gone through the transformation and they all assure her that her precaution is unnecessary, even silly. Attempting to alleviate her anxiety, they offer her cups of Instant Smile. Fearing that she may be unwell, Lana and Rick suggest she see a doctor.

 At the state-run office of Dr. Rex, a man that, because of the transformation, looks physically identical to Marilyn’s uncle and her late father, Lana explains why she is worried. The doctor is baffled and concerned to hear that Marilyn does not want the transformation. She says she doesn’t want to look like everyone else. The doctor says the transformation doesn’t just change a person’s physical appearance. It also helps them adjust emotionally to adulthood. Dr. Rex attempts to examine the cause of Marilyn’s apprehension. Marilyn is hooked up to a machine that eventually prints out results of some kind. Dr. Rex takes the results and studies them. Lana tells him that Marilyn’s father died five years prior in the Ganymede incident. After some questioning, the doctor learns that Marilyn’s father, who underwent transformation like everyone else, held nonconformist views of society and was highly critical of transformation. Dr. Rex suggests that Marilyn stay at the facility for further examination. Marilyn asks him if it’s possible to refuse the transformation. He assures her that no one has ever been forced to undergo the transformation against their wishes.

Marilyn is brought to the office of Professor Sigmund Friend for questioning. Professor Sig tells her that transformation is an important and necessary step not just in the life of a single individual but in society at large as a tool to help eliminate inequality and prejudice. If no one is ugly then everyone is on an equal playing field. Marilyn tells him that she isn’t ugly. The professor assures her that she is. He also explains that the transformation can eliminate illness and prolong life. Marilyn tells Professor Sig that her father introduced her to banned literature like Shakespeare and Shelley and Keats and Dostoevsky and Greek philosophers and that she sees value in their work. Seeing Marilyn as a potential risk, he orders her to stay at the facility overnight.

In her room, Marilyn is visited by Val and her mother. She tells them that Dr. Rex lied about being able to refuse the transformation. They are going to force her to go through with it. Dr. Rex appears and informs Lana and Val that it is time for them to leave. Lana leaves but Val stays a moment longer. She tells Marilyn that she does not understand why she is so preoccupied with her deceased father, especially since she has had several stepfathers since then. Marilyn tells her that her father was a kind, caring person who valued individuality and human connection. Then she confesses that her father did not die in the Ganymede incident but that he committed suicide as a result of his transformation. Seeing the look of confusion on her friend’s face, Marilyn realizes that Val cannot comprehend why she is upset. Feeling completely alone in the world, Marilyn explodes into sobs. Baffled by Marilyn’s emotional outburst, Val leaves.

Once she is alone, Marilyn sneaks out of her room and flees down a hallway. Trying to evade capture, she races into a random room and straight into the arms of Dr. Rex and a hospital attendant, both dressed in full surgical fatigues. This is the transformation room. They spot a tag around Marilyn’s neck with #8 written on it and assume this is her chosen avatar. They tell her it is an excellent choice.

Several days later, Lana and Val wait with Dr. Rex at the hospital. He tells them that the procedure was a success. Marilyn emerges with a glowing smile on her face, looking unrecognizable from the person she was days before. She is pure, unfiltered happiness. She adores herself in the mirror. Everyone tells her she is beautiful. She turns to Val and tells her that the nicest part of all is that she looks just like her.

 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“Portrait of a lady in love…with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, body building, and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These and other strange blessings may be waiting in the future, which, after all, is the Twilight Zone.

 

Commentary:

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” is one of the show’s bleakest episodes and one of its harshest. A sharply pointed satire of modern culture that takes aim at many things including the very genre of popular fiction it is emulating. And while it may have felt completely foreign to an audience when it was first broadcast in January of 1964 in between episodes of Route 66 (“Kiss the Monster – Make Him Sleep”) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“Beyond the Sea of Death”), it feels alarmingly relevant and familiar in 2025. Many of the issues touched upon in the half hour episode, from the rise of plastic surgery to synthetic mood stabilizers to the disintegration of family norms are all more prevalent now—and were even in the year 2000 when the episode takes place—than when the show first aired. Some of the bigger issues, like government deception and the elimination of individuality, are, unfortunately, commonplace in most periods throughout history. It’s an episode that saw into the future with great accuracy and, along with a handful of other socially charged episodes, is part of the reason for the show’s continued relevance.

By this point, frequent contributor Charles Beaumont was not doing well and his health had declined to the point where he was no longer able to write scripts. Of the three episodes in the show’s final season that bear his name, none were written by Beaumont himself. He would farm out writing assignments to a stable of close friends and then split the money with them. The other two scripts were written by author Jerry Sohl. “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” was given to another close friend, John Tomerlin, who was renting an apartment in New York City at the time while working on a novel, and who gladly accepted a quick assignment to help pay the bills. Tomerlin and Beaumont had gone to New York together a few months earlier to each work on solo projects, Tomerlin on his novel Prisoner of the Iroquois, published in 1965, and Beaumont on what would be one of his last projects, the unfinished novel Where No Man Walks. Not able to concentrate, Beaumont left early and returned to Los Angeles.

“Living Doll” was an idea that originated with Beaumont, was plotted by both Beaumont and Sohl, with Sohl writing the actual script. “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” was taken from Beaumont’s 1952 story, “The Beautiful People,” with Tomerlin doing all the screenwriting. The final episode that would see Beaumont credited as a writer was “Queen of the Nile,” which, according to Sohl, was his idea, his script, and involved little input from Beaumont. So “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” a title created by neither Beaumont nor Tomerlin, is really the last time Beaumont’s actual ideas and voice were seen on the show.

Like Beaumont, Tomerlin was somewhat of a Renaissance man, dabbling in many different professions and hobbies throughout his life. Screenwriter, novelist, pilot, race car enthusiast, journalist, disc jockey, and avid outdoorsman. Tomerlin lived a full life. He was a regular figure in the circle of writers in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s that eventually became known as the Southern California Group of Writers, or the Group. Given their many shared interests, Tomerlin and Beaumont became close friends starting in the early 50s. The two co-wrote a novel together, the first for both writers, under the name Keith Grantland for Fawcett Gold Medal in 1957 called Run from the Hunter. They went on to collaborate frequently, as was common in the Group. Tomerlin contributed pieces to two anthologies of stories and essays on motor racing edited by Beaumont and William F. Nolan, Omnibus of Speed (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1958) and When Engines Roar (Bantam Pathfinder, 1964). He went on to write several novels about racing including Challenging the Wind (Dutton, 1966) and The Magnificent Jalopy (Dutton, 1967). He also co-wrote an episode of Route 66 with Beaumont and Jerry Sohl called “The Quick and the Dead” and an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective with Beaumont called “East of Danger.” Tomerlin’s other screen credits include Wanted: Dead or Alive, Lawman, Thriller and a Dan Curtis-produced ABC Movie of the Week adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973). 

 

"The Beautiful People” was the second story Beaumont published and it originally appeared in the September, 1952 issue of the magazine If. The story varies significantly from the final version that appeared on the screen in 1964. It skips the first two scenes at the Cuberles house and begins with Mary and her mother, Zena, in the doctor’s office. The scene in the episode is almost exactly as Beaumont wrote it in his story with the exception that Mary is not made to stay overnight in a facility and instead the doctor dismisses the Cuberles upon learning that Mary does not want the transformation and refuses any further involvement. Afterwards, Zena, after getting into an argument with Mary, marches about their home attempting to gather up all of her deceased husband’s leftover books to throw them away. We next see Mary at work. She works at an office drawing blueprints for manufacturing equipment and is apparently quite an artist. She is called into her well-meaning supervisor’s office and asked to resign due to her refusal to go through with transformation. Later, at home, Zena receives a letter from the authorities informing her that she and Mary are to appear in court. On the day of the trial, Mary is ordered by law, with the apparent support of society at large, to undergo transformation. The story ends with her on the operating table as needles begin to pierce her skin.

As mentioned, Tomerlin keeps the initial meeting with the doctor very similar to Beaumont’s story but after this his version goes in a very different direction which shapes the message of the story a great deal. Instead of being publicly put on trial for refusing transformation, with the result being that Mary is forced to comply even though the court cannot give her an actual reason why she should, Tomerlin’s authoritarian society is more subtle. The transformation, a tool to keep everyone physically and emotionally derivative, is allowed to keep happening because it is implied that one’s personality is altered in a way that makes them happy with the change (“we just have to find out why you don’t want it and make the necessary adjustments”) therefore never having to make public that there are people who do not want it. Although it should be pointed out, and this is perhaps the only unexplained misstep in the entire episode, if people who are opposed to the transformation are suddenly made to be happy with it, then why did this not occur after Marilyn’s father’s transformation? Beaumont’s story ends before the operation takes place so the reader is unsure of whether Mary will be emotionally altered afterwards. It is implied that her father and grandfather were both still opposed to the transformation even after receiving it.

John Tomerlin wrote two different drafts of this script, both under the title “The Beautiful People.” Both drafts appear in Forgotten Gems of the Twilight Zone, Vol. 2 (2015) edited and with an introduction by Andrew Ramage. The are a lot of differences but most of them are minor. The two most noticeable changes are the addition of Marilyn’s uncle in the second draft, and the change in gender for Val, a character that did not appear in Beaumont’s story. In the first draft Val is male and is implied to be a possible love interest for Marilyn. He is also the only other character that appears even remotely sympathetic to Marilyn’s fears and even helps her escape from the overnight room although this scene is vague and not written particularly well and Marilyn somehow still ends up in the operating room. The switch to a platonic female friend was a better choice as it further isolates Marilyn in this world. Both drafts feature Serling making a rare onscreen appearance at the end of the episode, delivering his closing monologue in the mirror behind Pam Austin after she turns away from it. This was dropped in favor of Austin starring straight into the camera and smiling which makes for a better and far more chilling ending.

As author Marc Scott Zicree touches upon in his commentary for “Number 12” on The Twilight Zone Blu-ray edition, this episode unmistakably recalls the theory of eugenics and the Nazi's pursuit of a so-called Aryan race. While it may just be symptomatic of 1960s television, it should be noted, given the premise of the story, that this episode features only white actors and no mention is made of multiple races coexisting in a world where everyone looks the same. Class is still an issue, however, as Lana and her housemaid, Grace, are physically identical but Lana still feels a social entitlement over Grace and speaks condescendingly to her.

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” is often thought of as a companion episode to Serling’s “Eye of the Beholder” from the show’s second season. Both episodes feature authoritarian worlds where ugliness is prohibited. They also both feature hospital scenes that take place in dark, shadowy nightmare realms presumably set outside the scrutinizing eye of the public. Serling also commented on prolonging human life in the much gentler season three episode, “The Trade-Ins,” where an ill, aging man is given the opportunity to make he and his wife immortal by trading in their old, brittle bodies for much younger ones.

This episode refers several times to something called the Ganymede incident. Lana claims this is where Marilyn's father lost his life although it is later revealed that he took his own life after his transformation. Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon, which is likely the reason for Lana's reference to his involvement with the "rocket service." But the moon is named after the Greek mythological character Ganymede who first appears in Homer's The Iliad. He is the youngest son of Tros, founder of the kingdom of Troy, and is said to be the most handsome of all mortals. He is abducted by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus where Zeus grants him eternal youth as the cupbearer of the Gods.

Actor turned director Abner Biberman began his career on Broadway in the early 1930s before moving to Hollywood a few years later. He made a living as a prolific and reliable character actor, appearing in bit roles, often as ethnically ambiguous characters or criminals. Among his more well-known credits are roles in the films Gunga Din (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Leopard Man (1943), and Winchester 73 (1950). In the early 1950s he worked as an acting coach for Universal where Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis were among his pupils. By the middle of the decade he was directing low-budget films for Universal and other studios and soon moved on to episodic television where he enjoyed a highly prolific career. He worked in a variety of genres but was known as a director of western series including twenty-five episodes of The Virginian. His credits also include The Outer Limits, Ironside, and Hawaii Five-O.

Biberman directed a total of four episodes of The Twilight Zone, two of which, “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” and the season two episode “The Dummy,” are fan favorites and are among the most recognizable episodes of the show, both regarded for their visual aesthetic and camerawork. The look of “Number 12” is one of the episode’s greatest attributes. Biberman and the show’s art and set departments create a world that is hyper simplistic, to the point of parody, which adds significantly to the overt satire on display. The simplistic set design, with bare backgrounds and sharp angles, also make the split screen shots of both Suzy Parker and Pam Austin, appearing as two characters at once, look basically seamless, an effect that was not always convincing in this era of filmmaking. It is also to Biberman’s credit, and to the credit of the cast, that despite the fact that the audience is being constantly reminded that there are only four actors in the episode, it still feels like a fully populated world.

A quick mention should be made of director of photography Charles Wheeler. Wheeler was a combat photographer in the United States Navy during World War II and later enjoyed a forty-year career as a cinematographer in Hollywood. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Tora! Tora! Tora! in 1970. His work in this episode is truly remarkable. He is also the director of photography for the episode “Queen of the Nile.” 

Collin Wilcox is best remembered for her role as Mayella Ewell in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Her other credits include appearances on a number of television series in the 1960s including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ‘Way Out, and Circle of Fear and the films Catch 22 (1970), The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974) and Jaws 2 (1978). She enjoyed a lengthy stage career as well. Wilcox is an excellent choice for Marilyn Cuberle. Her performance has a rawness to it that plays incredibly well against the rest of the cast.

Richard Long had already appeared in another Charles Beaumont episode, season three’s “Person or Person’s Unknown.” Long signed with Universal when he was still a teenager. His first film role was playing Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles' son in Tomorrow is Forever (1946). Welles was so impressed with the young actor that he cast him in The Stranger that same year. Other notable film roles include Criss Cross (1949), House on Haunted Hill (1959), and the Ma and Pa Kettle films. He is most recognizable as Jarrod Barkley in The Big Valley and Professor Everett in Nanny and the Professor. Long is simply incredible in this episode. A handsome actor, known for playing overly confident characters, he portrays every male character in the episode, each more absurd than the last, but each undeniably interesting. 

When this episode first aired in 1964, Suzy Parker was the most recognizable fashion model in the world. Since that time, she has come to be considered the first globally famous supermodel. At various points in her career, she was the face of both Coco Chanel and Revlon and was the highest paid fashion model ever at that point, earning over $100,000 a year. She made the crossover into acting in 1957 appearing in the Stanley Donen film Kiss Them for Me and continued to act periodically over the next decade. Her final screen credit was the first episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery in the segment “The Housekeeper” in 1970. She was significant enough, in fact, to merit a multiple-page photo spread in TV Guide to promote this episode. She was also listed in the credits as “special guest star.” Her shallow and detached portrayal of Marilyn’s mother adds a great deal to the bleak reality of the episode.

Pam Austin’s first screen appearance was in the Elvis Presley film, Blue Hawaii, in 1961 where she became a long-time friend of the singer. She appeared in a second Presley film, Kissin’ Cousins, in 1964. In 1967 she appeared in her own sketch comedy anthology film, The Perils of Pauline, which was intended as a television pilot for a variety show that never materialized. Around the time that this episode aired Austin gained fame as the “Dodge Rebellion Girl” in a series of commercials for Dodge automobiles which ran until 1967. Her aesthetic is well suited for the world in which these characters live and the final shot of her facing directly towards the camera, a beautiful, smiling woman, is perhaps the most chilling moment of the entire episode.

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” is a superb episode of The Twilight Zone and a stunning half hour of television. It's unfortunate that John Tomerlin did not write anything else for the show. His sole entry is remarkable and seems right at home in the show's catalog. It remains one of the best examples to Rod Serling's commitment to journalistic honesty and is a great example of why the the show is still relevant.

Grade: A 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following:

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” by John Tomerlin; Forgotten Gems from the Twilight Zone, Vol.2 edited and with an introduction by Andrew Ramage (BearManor Media, 2015)

The Work of Charles Beaumont: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide edited by William F. Nolan (2^nd ed., Borgo Press, 1990)

“An Interview with Twilight Zoner John Tomerlin” by Christopher Conlon, Filmfax #97 (June/July, 2003)

“Number 12 Looks Just Like You” episode commentary by Marc Scott Zicree, The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series Blu-ray (Image Entertainment, 2016)

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

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

Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Internet Movie Database 

Wikipedia

           

Original artwork for "The Beautiful People"
by Bob Martin 
If, September, 1952

Notes:

__ Charles Beaumont’s short story “The Beautiful People” was first published in the September 1952 issue of If. It appeared in his second story collection, Yonder (Bantam Books) in 1958.
__Richard Long also appeared in the season three episode “Person or Persons Unknown.”
__Suzy Parker appeared in the premiere episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery in the segment “The Housekeeper.”
__Abner Biberman also directed the season three episode “The Dummy,” the season four episode “The Incredible World of Horace Ford,” and the season five episode “I Am the Night—Color Me Black.”
__Popular American metal band The Number Twelve Looks Like You take their name from this episode.
__ “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” was adapted into an episode of the Twilight Zone Radio Dramas (Falcon Picture Group, 2009) starring Bonnie Somerville and Charles Shaughessy. It was written by Dennis Etchison and directed by Carl Amari and Roger Wolski.

Brian

"The Incredible World of Horace Ford"

Pat Hingle as Horace Ford

“The Incredible World of Horace Ford”

Season Four, Episode 117

Original Air Date: April 18, 1963

Cast:

Horace Maxwell Ford: Pat Hingle

Laura Ford: Nan Martin

Mrs. Ford: Ruth White

Leonard O’Brien: Phillip Pine

Mr. Judson: Vaughn Taylor

Betty O’Brien: Mary Carver

Hermy Brandt: Jerry Davis

Horace as Child: Jim E. Titus

Crew:

Writer: Reginald Rose

Director: Abner Biberman

Producer: Herbert Hirschman

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Associate Producer: Murray Golden

Assistant to the Producer: John Conwell

Art Direction: George W. Davis & Edward Carfagno

Film Editor: Eda Warren

Set Decoration: Henry Grace & Edward M. Parker

Assistant Director: John Bloss

Sound: Franklin Milton & Joe Edmondson

Music: stock

Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes

Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“On our next excursion into The Twilight Zone we borrow an imposing array of talent and call on the services of a distinguished author named Reginald Rose, and some exceptionally fine acting talent in the persons of Mr. Pat Hingle, Miss Nan Martin, and Miss Ruth White. They appear in a story called ‘The Incredible World of Horace Ford,’ and it’s an incredible world indeed.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Mr. Horace Ford, who has a preoccupation with another time, a time of childhood, a time of growing up, a time of street games, stickball, and hide-and-go-seek. He has a reluctance to check out a mirror and see the nature of his image, proof-positive that the time he dwells in has already passed him by. But in a moment or two he’ll discover that mechanical toys and memories and daydreaming and wishful thinking and all manner of odd and special events can lead one into a special province, uncharted and unmapped, a country of both shadow and substance known as The Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

            Horace Ford is a middle-aged toy designer who clings to the happy memories of his childhood to such a degree that he behaves and speaks like a boy of ten. Horace’s childish behavior is a burden on his co-workers as well as his wife, Laura, and mother at home. On impulse one evening Horace decides to return to Randolph Street, where he grew up, for the first time in many years in order to rekindle happy memories.

            Horace discovers something amazing and terrifying on Randolph Street. It is just as it was when he was ten years old! He even sees some of his childhood friends, Hermy Brandt, Harvey Bender, George Langbert, and Cy Wright, as they were twenty-eight years ago. Horace drops his pocket watch when he accidentally runs into a man. He returns to his apartment shaken up by his experience. He tells Laura what he saw but she tries to explain to him that it couldn’t be the way he thought he saw it. Horace retreats to the bedroom to lie down. The doorbell rings. Laura answers the door. Ten-year-old Hermy Brant is at the door to return Horace’s pocket watch.

            Horace returns to Randolph Street on a following night where events are the same as when he visited before, even down to dropping his pocket watch again. Horace follows his childhood friends into an alley where he overhears the boys angrily talking about not being invited to a birthday party. Later, after Horace has returned to the apartment, Laura answers the doorbell to again receive Horace’s dropped pocket watch from Hermy Brandt.

Horace becomes obsessed with discovering his place in this memory frozen in time. His work starts to suffer to the point that his boss, Mr. Judson, suggests Horace take a leave of absence. When Horace refuses, Mr. Judson is forced to terminate Horace’s employment with the company.

            Laura is preparing for Horace’s surprise birthday party when he returns home late to deliver the news that he has been fired. Horace’s mother panics because she is worried there will be no money to secure their living conditions. Laura tries to be sympathetic but when Horace again starts talking about Randolph Street she loses her patience. Horace storms out of the apartment.

            He returns to Randolph Street. It is as it was before. Horace drops his pocket watch. He follows the boys into an alley to hear them speak of not being invited to a birthday party. Understanding his role in the memory now, Horace tries to speak to the boys, to explain to them why he didn’t invite them to his birthday party. Horace is a ten-year-old boy again. He pleads with his friends to understand. Instead, they mock him and beat him up.

            The partygoers have gathered back at Horace’s and Laura’s apartment. The doorbell rings. Everybody takes their positions in expectation that it is Horace at the door. Instead, it is Hermy Brandt again, there to return Horace’s watch. This time it is a Mickey Mouse watch like a child would wear.

            Laura goes to Randolph Street in search of Horace. She finds ten-year-old Horace in the alley, beaten and lying face down on the pavement. Laura turns away from the sight. When she turns back Horace is a grown man again. She helps him to his feet. He tells Laura of his experience and she explains that we remember the good times and black out the bad experiences in our lives, or else we could hardly go on living.

            Horace allows Laura to lead him away from Randolph Street. Neither of them notice Hermy Brandt sitting atop a streetlamp, looking down on them.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“Exit Mr. and Mrs. Horace Ford, who have lived through a bizarre moment not to be calibrated on normal clocks and watches. Time has passed, to be sure, but it’s the special time in the special place known as The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

           

Jim E. Titus as the young Horace Ford

“Seated at the desk, daydreaming, is Horace. He is approaching thirty-five and growing paunchy. Horace is a bulky man with an elusive, almost boyish quality. His clothes never seem to fit. His shirt blouses out of his trousers. His socks are always down around his ankles. And his thinning hair cannot stay combed at all. He is a mild man, an apologetic man, except when he is discussing his beloved childhood memories. Then he seems to find a strange vitality, which somehow doesn’t fit him. Horace is the kind of man who would naturally become the butt of endless jokes, would the jokers not feel instinctively sorry for him without quite knowing why. Were they wise enough, they would understand that the tragic quality of Horace Ford is based in the fact that he is not an inadequate man but really an inadequate grown-up boy.”

            -“The Incredible World of Horace Ford” by Reginald Rose (1955)

“The Incredible World of Horace Ford” was first performed on June 13, 1955 for the CBS television anthology series Studio One in Hollywood. It was directed by Franklin Schaffner, who directed over one hundred episodes of the anthology series including Reginald Rose’s “Twelve Angry Men.” Schaffner is likely best remembered for the feature films he directed later in his career, including Planet of the Apes (1968), Patton (1970), Papillon (1973), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Schaffner also directed episodes of Playhouse 90, including a quartet of Rod Serling offerings, “Panic Button,” “Nightmare at Ground Zero,” “The Velvet Alley,” and “The Rank and File,” as well as Reginald Rose’s “The Cruel Day.” Schaffner later worked on Reginald Rose’s The Defenders.

            “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” was also performed on the Toronto-based anthology series General Motors Presents (aka Encounter) for March 27, 1960 with Alan Young as Horace Ford and Jill Foster as Laura.

When “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” appeared on Studio One, the play’s author, Reginald Rose, was four years into a television writing career whose output positioned him as one of the key foundational architects of the television drama, alongside Rod Serling, Gore Vidal, and Paddy Chayefsky. A few years later, Rose’s short story, the ironic and macabre “Parlor Game,” was prefaced (by an unsigned contributor) with this statement in the premier issue of the short-lived Shock magazine (1960):

            Just seven years ago, the infant industry of TV began to find its own artists – men who knew how to create memorable works of fiction in the form of a TV scenario. There was Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote “Marty” and “The Bachelor Party” and went on to screen and stage triumphs. There was – and is – Rod Serling who, despite several successful movies to his credit, has remained loyal to TV and is currently producing and writing the eerie “Twilight Zone” series. And then there is the most controversial of all the TV titans – Reginald Rose. From the moment his stirring “Remarkable Incident at Carsons [sic] Corners” exploded onto millions of home screens, Reginald Rose was acclaimed as TV’s freshest, most challenging writing talent. But he is better known for having authored the best motion picture written in America in the past five years. We refer, of course, to “Twelve Angry Men,” the unforgettable motion picture about a jury, starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. Many other fine movies and rousing TV dramas have come from Reginald Rose’s facile pen.

Reginald Rose

Rose was born on December 10, 1920 in Manhattan and lived for much of his life in New York. He attended New York City College from 1937-1938 but left without taking a degree. The city was an enormous influence on Rose’s writing, an aspect beautifully captured in the production design for “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” and evidenced by the inclusion of such New York-centric elements as the child’s game Ringolevio. After a stint in the Air Force Quartermaster Corps (Rose enlisted after Pearl Harbor and rose to First Lieutenant), Rose, who had been actively writing since high school, and working a variety of jobs from copywriter for an ad agency to a publicist for Warner Brothers, sold his first television play, “The Bus to Nowhere,” in 1951 to the short-lived science fiction anthology series Out There. Although adept at fantasy, evidenced by Rose's adaptation of John Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio” for The Revlon Mirror Theater in 1953, and suspense, including episodes for the anthology series Danger, Rose established himself with a confrontational style of realistic drama which, much like the plays of Rod Serling, frequently examined societal problems of the day. Rose’s style of drama quickly found a home at Studio One. Rose produced seventeen teleplays for the series from 1952-1957, beginning with “The Kill” and including his most notable work as a dramatist, the Emmy Award-winning “Twelve Angry Men,” and a two-part drama, “The Defender,” which Rose later reworked as the Emmy-winning courtroom drama series The Defenders (1961-1965). “Twelve Angry Men,” which has become a standard text in American schools and a staple of regional stage productions, was based on Rose’s real-life experience as a first-time juror. It was adapted for film in 1957, as 12 Angry Men, from Rose’s script, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Henry Fonda (who also served as Producer), E.G. Marshall (later star of Rose’s The Defenders), Lee J. Cobb, and Twilight Zone performers Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam, and Jack Warden. The film netted Rose two Academy Award nominations and won the author an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. 12 Angry Men was adapted for the stage in 1964 with revised versions appearing in 1996 and 2004. Showtime network filmed the play in 1997. It remains Rose’s best-known work and a classic of American drama. Reginald Rose died on April 19, 2002 in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Art Carney as Horace Ford

            For the Studio One version of “The Incredible World of Horace Ford,” Art Carney (star of Twilight Zone’s “The Night of the Meek”) appeared as Horace Maxwell Ford in a performance Rose later characterized as “fine as any I’ve seen on television; the shadings and insights he brought to the childlike, tormented character he played were nothing short of incredible.” Appearing as Laura Ford was Leora Dana with Jason Robards in the role of Horace’s friend and coworker Leonard O’Brien. The play generated an enormous response from viewers, with the CBS offices flooded with written responses ranging from consternation to anger to extreme praise. As Rose later stated: “No one, it seems, was neutral about this play.” The variety of experience caused by the play was due not only to the fantasy element (a novel quality in the early days of television, especially on a mainstream anthology program) but also the unorthodox and ambiguous ending of Rose’s play. As originally written, the play ends when Hermy Brandt returns Horace’s Micky Mouse watch to Laura, indicating that Horace became trapped in the past, never to return.

The doorbell rings. Everyone turns. Laura stands, Betty tiptoes over to the light switch and turns out the light. She puts her fingers to her lips. Everyone tiptoes over to one corner of the room, everyone but Laura and Mrs. Ford. They wait expectantly, hushed. The bell rings again. Betty waves Laura to the door. But Mrs. Ford walks to the door instead and opens it. Hermy Brandt stands there, an odd smile on his face. He holds up a nickel-plated pocket watch to Mrs. Ford.

HERMY: He dropped this.

Mrs. Ford takes the watch and Laura, rushing to her, takes it from her with trembling fingers. Hermy pads silently away. Laura looks at the watch and then she raises a hand to her face and begins to sob. Cut to close-up of watch. It is a Mickey Mouse watch.

Fade out.

            Viewers either did not understand this ending or simply refused to accept it, instead requiring a clear and satisfactory resolution to the events. Rose, working from the assumption that many viewers thought the fantasy element was only in Horace’s mind, attempted to set the record straight when he included “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” in Six Television Plays (1956):

“The entire story was a fantasy about real people and I felt that this was clearly proven when Hermy Brandt, Horace’s little childhood friend, broke out of what many thought to be Horace’s private fantasy, appeared at Horace’s home, and was seen and spoken to by Horace’s wife and mother.

            “What I meant to do with The Incredible World of Horace Ford was to tell a simple horror story about an everyday man with a somewhat exaggerated but everyday kind of problem and, in so doing, point out that the funny, tender childhood memories we cling to are often distorted and unreal.”

            The Twilight Zone later made this type of story its stock-in-trade in such episodes as “Walking Distance,” “A Stop at Willoughby,” “The Trouble with Templeton,” “Young Man’s Fancy,” and related episodes. In fact, in August, 1959, two months before the premier of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling received a suggestion to produced Rose’s play for The Twilight Zone but passed on the opportunity because of the obvious similarities between “Horace Ford” and Serling’s “Walking Distance.” “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” perhaps does not receive enough credit as a pioneering work of television fantasy as it prefigured many of the themes and stylistic tropes of series such as One Step Beyond, The Twilight Zone, and ‘Way Out. As such, there really was no time in which to produce “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” on The Twilight Zone and have the play not resemble a recently aired episode. The episode which immediately preceded “Horace Ford,” although different in tone, was a time travel fantasy, “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville,” in which a man longs to return to his youth only to find it not nearly as rosy as he remembered.

Reginald Rose and Rod Serling (from TV Guide)

The element of time travel (and similar fantasy concepts) seems to have confounded audiences and networks in the pre-Twilight Zone days, with CBS bearing the brunt of fantasy’s growing pains in the medium of television. CBS was to recall the flood of angry and confused letters its offices received after the airing of “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” on Studio One when it came time to restage the play for Twilight Zone. Producer Herbert Hirschman remembered Rose’s play from its appearance on Studio One and approached Rose about staging the play on The Twilight Zone. Rose held little affinity for fantasy but had enormous respect for Rod Serling and agreed to terms to bring “Horace Ford” to The Twilight Zone. Rose may also have felt a need to further reconcile with Rod Serling after a brief row between the writers the previous year over the article “Can a TV Writer Keep His Integrity?” by Edith Efron (TV Guide, April 21, 1962). In it, Rose and Serling were pitted against one another in a debate concerning writer integrity in television, with Rose holding out for the standards of disappearing dramatic anthology series such as Playhouse 90 and Studio One while Serling expressed the desire to compromise in order to adjust to changing tastes and demands of the audience. The article’s writer framed Serling’s position as one of abandoning the integrity of “serious” drama in order to produce science fiction and fantasy material which was beneath him and not worthy of his talents. Although Rose’s written response to the article was laudatory, Serling’s was blunt in its displeasure, prompting Rose to write Serling in order to ensure the two writers maintained their amiable personal and professional relationship.

Herbert Hirschman assigned “Horace Ford” to Abner Biberman (1909-1977), an actor since the thirties who began directing film and television in the fifties. Biberman was a stylish director whose talents behind the camera are also evidenced by his work on “The Dummy” and, later, on the fifth season episodes “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” and “I Am the Night – Color Me Black.” Biberman chiefly directed western and crime series but was versatile enough to handle straight drama, comedy, and science fiction. He directed the first season The Outer Limits episode “The Human Factor.”

As far as Rose’s original ending went, it would not be allowed to air that way again and perhaps cause another wave of outraged viewers. The play was filmed for The Twilight Zone as Rose had originally written it but both the network and producer Herbert Hirschman, viewing the episode prior to broadcast, strongly suggested a revised ending. Rose obliged and wrote the additional material which sees Laura recovering Horace from his nightmare in the past. Rose, likely not happy changing the ending but also not wanting to field any more queries about the meaning of the play, has Laura clearly state the theme of the play in dialogue.

The reader will remember the problems which Rod Serling’s time-travel fantasy “The Time Element” experienced at the network, where it was first shelved before fighting off resistance from the network and sponsor prior to its appearance on The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. By the time of the episode’s airing in 1958, however, audiences were much more in-tune with the type of grounded fantasy represented by “Horace Ford” and “The Time Element.” The audience response to Serling’s play was so overwhelmingly positive that it forced CBS to take another look at Serling’s proposal for a continuing series of fantasy plays, paving the way for the creation of The Twilight Zone.

           

            Pat Hingle’s performance as Horace Ford is likely the most divisive element in the play. Questions naturally arise about the character: How was Horace able to court and marry a woman like Laura? How was Horace able to secure a job, even for a toy manufacturer which would naturally require some semblance of professionalism in the hiring process? The best way of viewing the character, and appreciating Hingle’s excellent performance, is to accept that by the time the viewer is brought into Horace’s world, his behavior has progressed to an extreme degree. Where Horace may have always been a bit on the dreamy and immature side, he has now given himself over completely to his nostalgic fantasy. The episode is best viewed as a devastating portrait of a nervous breakdown, albeit aided by genuine fantasy, which nicely aligns the play with thematically related episodes such as “Walking Distance,” “A Stop at Willoughby,” and “The Trouble with Templeton.” There is a palpable tension to all the performances in the play and many scenes, particularly Mrs. Ford’s breakdown at the news of Horace’s firing, play out with the pleasantly unnerving quality of the older, more melodramatic television drama, belying the play’s provenance in a program from nearly a decade earlier.

            Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle on July 19, 1924 in Miami, Florida. Raised by a single mother, they moved around and eventually landed in Texas where Hingle became involved with the Drama Department at the University of Texas in Austin. A move to New York followed university where Hingle found steady work on stage and in the emerging medium of television. Hingle began his television career on Suspense, including an appearance in the Rod Serling-scripted episode “Nightmare at Ground Zero” (1953). Hingle later appeared in Serling’s television film Carol for Another Christmas (1964) and in an episode of Serling’s introspective western The Loner, “The Mourners for Johnny Sharp, Part 1” (1966). Appearances on a variety of anthology series included a role in Henry Slesar’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Night of the Execution” (1957), and the lead in a Play of the Week production of Reginald Rose’s “Black Monday” in 1961. Hingle reconnected with Rose with two appearances on The Defenders.

Hingle held connections with nearly all of his co-performers in “Horace Ford.” He performed alongside Vaughn Taylor in live television dramas, knew Phillip Pine personally, and previously performed with Ruth White and Nan Martin, the latter appearing alongside Hingle on Broadway in Archibald MacLeish’s J.B. and again playing Hingle’s wife on The Fugitive in “Search in a Windy City” (1964).

            Hingle is likely best-known for his four stints as Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films (1989-1997) and for appearances in Clint Eastwood films such as Hang ‘Em High, The Gauntlet, and Sudden Impact. Hingle also had a memorable appearance in Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive (1986). He died on January 3, 2009 in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.

           

Nan Martin was born on July 15, 1927 in Decatur, Illinois. She began a career in television in 1952 in an episode of Schlitz Playhouse. Martin reconnected with Reginald Rose for an episode of The Defenders, “Climate of Evil,” and appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone revival series, the first season episode “If She Dies” and the second season adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon’s “A Saucer of Loneliness.” Horror film fans likely remember Martin as the nun who relates Freddy Krueger’s disturbing origin in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Martin died in Malibu on March 4, 2010.

Ruth White (1914-1969) memorably portrays Horace Ford’s frightened mother who is more concerned with the disturbance in her own living conditions than in the greater consequences of her son’s apparent mental breakdown. White is perhaps best known for playing Mrs. Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). A versatile character actress in both film and television, White did not begin appearing on screen until her mid-30s due to having to care for an ailing parent. She began on television in mystery/suspense series such as The Clock, Lights Out, Hands of Mystery, Danger, and Suspense. White appeared in dramatic anthology series as well, including an appearance on Studio One in Reginald Rose’s “The Remarkable Incident at Carson Corners.” White appeared alongside Twilight Zone performer Milton Selzer in the episode “20/20” of the short-lived, Roald Dahl-hosted anthology series ‘Way Out. White appeared in two episodes of Rose’s The Defenders and reconnected with Pat Hingle alongside Clint Eastwood for Hang ‘Em High (1968), directed by TZ’s Ted Post. White won an Emmy for Supporting Actress for the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of “Little Moon of Alban” (1964).

            Phillip Pine (1920-2006) found a niche on television playing villains and mobsters, much like his previous role on The Twilight Zone in the first season episode “The Four of Us Are Dying.” Pine began acting in films in the late forties but it was on the small screen where he made his name, appearing in a variety of series which included much genre work. Pine appeared on Tales of Tomorrow, Science Fiction Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The Safe Place”), One Step Beyond (“Where Are They?”), The Outer Limits (“The Hundred Days of the Dragon”), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, Star Trek (“The Savage Curtain”), and an episode of the Richard Matheson-developed series Circle of Fear (“The Ghost of Potter’s Field”).

            Vaughn Taylor (1911-1983) is certainly a familiar face to The Twilight Zone viewers as Taylor logged five appearances on the series, previously appearing in a very similar role as boss to a troubled employee in the first season episode “Time Enough at Last” (Taylor also made a memorable appearance as Janet Leigh’s boss in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)). Taylor was nearly unrecognizable as the southern sorcerer Teague in “Still Valley.” He portrayed the eccentric salesman in Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric” and turned in a moody and ominous final performance on the series in the fifth season episode “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross.” Taylor was a hugely prolific television performer and a staple of anthology series. Early genre work included appearances on The Clock, Tales of Tomorrow, Lights Out, and Inner Sanctum. He later appeared in two episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, “Choose a Victim” and “Cousin Tundifer,” as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “The Long Silence,” co-scripted by Charles Beaumont from Hilda Lawrence’s story “Composition for Four Hands,” and two episodes of The Outer Limits, “The Guests” and “Expanding Human.”

            Viewers will likely be divided on the effectiveness of “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” due to the character of Horace, the exaggerated aspect of Pat Hingle’s performance, and (perhaps) the overly familiar nature of the play’s theme and fantasy elements. For this viewer, the play remains a fascinating character study and an emotionally resonant exploration of certain truths of the human experience, anchored by fine performances, a strong, psychologically probing script, and an engaging balance of the whimsical and the grim. Although the theme of the episode, that youth is often harsher than we remember, may not resonate with all viewers, everyone can relate to the power that memory exerts over us, and the way that our experiences shape us, not only in how it was but also how we remember it to have been. The episode rewards repeat viewings and the sensitive viewer comes away enriched by the play’s timeless themes. “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” is a wonderful time capsule from the days of early television drama when the medium was raised to an art form by writers like Reginald Rose and Rod Serling.         

Grade: B

Grateful acknowledgment to:

-Six Television Plays by Reginald Rose (Simon and Schuster, 1956)

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

-Forgotten Gems from The Twilight Zone, Volume 2, ed. Andrew Ramage (BearManor Media, 2015)

-The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation (rodserling.com)

Notes:

Jerry Davis as Hermy Brandt

-Abner Biberman also directed the third season episode “The Dummy” and the fifth season episodes “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” and “I Am the Night – Color Me Black.”

-Nan Martin appeared in two segments from the first revival Twilight Zone series: “If She Dies” and “A Saucer of Loneliness.”

-Phillip Pine also appeared in the first season episode “The Four of Us Are Dying.”

-Vaughn Taylor appeared in four additional episodes of the series: “Time Enough at Last,” “Still Valley,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” and “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross.”

-“The Incredible World of Horace Ford” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Mike Starr.

-JP