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| 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
Collin Wilcox:Marilyn
Cuberle / Lana (photo album picture)
Richard Long:Uncle
Rick / Dr. Rex / Sigmund Friend / Tom / Tad / Jack / Attendant
Suzy Parker:
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.
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 (2nd 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 (3rd 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
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| 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
