"Passage on the Lady Anne"

L to R: Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Lee Philips, Joyce Van Patten

“Passage on the Lady Anne”

Season Four, Episode 119

Original Air Date: May 9, 1963

Cast:

(In alphabetical order)

Millie McKenzie: Gladys Cooper

Toby McKenzie: Wilfrid Hyde-White

Ian Burgess: Cecil Kellaway

Alan Ransome: Lee Philips

Eileen Ransome: Joyce Van Patten

(With)

Captain Protheroe: Alan Napier

Officers: Cyril Delevanti, Jack Raine

Addicott: Colin Campbell

Spierto: Don Keefer

Crew:

Writer: Charles Beaumont (based on his story “Song for a Lady”)

Director: Lamont Johnson

Producer: Bert Granet

Director of Photography: Robert Pittack

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Art Direction: George W. Davis, Paul Groesse

Film Editor: Everett Dodd

Set Decoration: Henry Grace, Frank R. McKelvy

Assistant to the Producer: John Conwell

Assistant Director: Ray De Camp

Music (composer): René Garriguenc

Music (conductor): Lud Gluskin

Sound: Franklin Milton, Joe Edmondson

Mr. Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes

Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next on Twilight Zone: an exercise from the typewriter of Charles Beaumont, a sea voyage into the darker regions of the Zone. Our stars in alphabetical order: Gladys Cooper, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Cecil Kellaway, Lee Philips, and Joyce Van Patten.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Portrait of a honeymoon couple getting ready for a journey, with a difference. These newlyweds have been married for six years and they’re not taking this honeymoon to start their life but rather to save it, or so Eileen Ransome thinks. She doesn’t know why she insisted on a ship for this voyage except that it would give them some time and she’d never been on one before, certainly never one like the Lady Anne. The tickets read ‘New York to Southampton,’ but this old liner is going somewhere else. Its destination: The Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

            Eileen Ransome convinces her workaholic husband Alan to allow her to accompany him on a business trip to London. Furthermore, Eileen is to decide their mode of transportation. She decides on travel by sea. She figures this will allow them to spend more time together. They have been married for six years and the overbearing strain on their marriage brought about by Alan’s dedication to business has reached a breaking point.

Mr. Spierto, the travel agent, regrettably informs the Ransomes that, as it is the off-season, most of the ships are not running their regular schedules. Upon viewing a list of available ships, Eileen selects the Lady Anne, an aging vessel embarking, unbeknownst to them, upon its final voyage. Against the strong protestations of Alan and Mr. Spierto, Eileen books two tickets for the Lady Anne.

The Lady Anne is a beautiful old ship and Eileen is excited to travel. Alan is gloomy and seems only grudgingly going along because he made a promise to Eileen. Shortly before boarding, the Ransomes encounter an elderly English gentleman named McKenzie who seems incredulous that the Ransomes have secured passage on the Lady Anne and insists that a mistake has been made. Alan shows their tickets and considers the matter settled. The Ransomes are confronted again, however, shortly before departure by McKenzie and his friend Burgess, who go so far as to offer the couple ten thousand dollars to leave the ship. The elderly men refer to the journey as a private cruise and insist they want to help the Ransomes by discouraging them from travelling along. The Ransomes remain adamant about their intention to stay on the ship.

Alan and Eileen make a startling discovery once the ship has departed. Everyone on board besides themselves is very old. Being the only young people draws attention to the Ransomes. This particularly works against them when they have a very public argument centered on Alan’s displeasure at being stuck on an old, slow ship filled with elderly people, as well as the damage his obsession with business is doing to their marriage. It appears as though the Ransomes have finally crossed the breaking point in their troubled relationship.

Eileen and Alan agree to a chilly truce to save face and endure the remaining journey to London. Although Alan does not desire to do so, Eileen accepts an invitation to tea for both of them from McKenzie and his wife. McKenzie invited the couple to tea in order to apologize for his earlier behavior and to ensure the couple that they will not have to leave the ship. Mrs. McKenzie informs the Ransomes that they won’t have to die after all. Alan and Eileen are understandably confused by this statement but McKenzie ensures them that it is only a figure of speech.

McKenzie further explains that the Lady Anne has not had any new passengers in several years and this journey is a gathering of all the people who have spent time on the Lady Anne in the past. The people on board consider their prior time on the Lady Anne to be among the happiest, most important times in their lives. Mrs. McKenzie speaks of the ship as an enchanted vessel and reveals that the Lady Anne is being retired. Those on board decided to take this final two-way journey with her, from London to New York and back again.  

Eileen becomes upset over the conversation and Alan takes her outside to get some fresh air. Alan notices that the ship is headed north rather than in the eastward direction they should be travelling. Alan looks out to sea and when he turns again he finds that Eileen has vanished. He frantically searches the ship but cannot find his wife anywhere. No one else seems concerned over Eileen’s disappearance. Hours pass and Alan is in a panic, fearful that Eileen may have fallen overboard.

McKenzie takes Alan to the bar for a drink in order to ease Alan’s mind, ensuring the younger man that Eileen has not really gone but that Alan has only missed her. Burgess, slightly drunk, joins the men to deliver a rant on the demise of the Lady Anne, blaming the modern condition of hurry and impatience for wanting to scrap the old ship, a symbol of the past.

Alan returns to their room and, incredibly, finds Eileen in bed waiting for him. Eileen has no memory of having disappeared. In that moment Alan realizes how much he loves his wife and vows never to forget the torment of losing her for even so brief a time.

The Ransomes are enjoying their newfound happiness the following night at a party with the rest of the passengers when Alan notices that the ship’s engines have stopped. A nasty surprise arrives with Captain Protheroe a short time later. The crew has gathered the Ransomes’ things and the couple are being put off the ship. Alan refuses, believing it to be a joke, prompting the First Officer to produce a gun to ensure the Ransomes that this is a serious affair.

Alan and Eileen are placed in a lifeboat along with their belongings, supplies, and the assurance that the authorities have been contacted and the Ransomes will be retrieved shortly. Alan and Eileen begin to understand why they were removed from the Lady Anne as they watch the old ship sail away and slowly disappear into the fog.

           

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“The Lady Anne never reached port. After they were picked up by a cutter a few hours later, as Captain Protheroe had promised, the Ransomes searched the newspapers for news, but there wasn’t any news. The Lady Anne, with all her crew and all her passengers, vanished without a trace. But the Ransomes knew what had happened. They knew that the ship had sailed off to a better port, a placed called The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

            Charles Beaumont, to my mind, was the finest writer on the series during the fourth season. This is not to say the show’s other writers did not produce quality material for the much-derided hour-long format. Richard Matheson’s “Death Ship,” Earl Hamner’s “Jess-Belle,” and Rod Serling’s “On Thursday We Leave for Home” are episodes I feel stand with the best of the series. Charles Beaumont’s work on the fourth season, however, was consistently good from beginning to end, from the season premiere, “In His Image,” through to his midseason masterpiece, “Miniature,” and the moving and affecting penultimate episode, “Passage on the Lady Anne.” This trilogy of episodes represents a notable shift in Beaumont’s output from the potently effective introspective nightmares of the half-hour episodes to richer, more optimistic fare which still retained many of Beaumont’s familiar thematic traits. Beaumont also produced a fine satirical episode, “Printer’s Devil,” and provided the story for “The New Exhibit,” an episode ghost-written by Jerry Sohl and one which many viewers consider a highlight of the season. Beaumont’s single misstep was the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful “Valley of the Shadow.”

            The six episodes (including “The New Exhibit”) Beaumont contributed during the fourth season constitute a greater output from the writer than on any other season. This feels significant when one considers that Beaumont, due to sudden and debilitating health issues previously discussed on this blog, wrote no additional episodes after “Passage on the Lady Anne.” Another Beaumont teleplay, “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” an adaptation of Beaumont’s 1960 story about a near future society in which laughter has been eliminated and a clandestine group of office workers who nightly celebrate politically incorrect humor, was completed and scheduled for the fifth season but was ultimately left unproduced by series end. The episodes credited to Beaumont during this final season were written by Jerry Sohl or John Tomerlin based on Beaumont’s ideas and stories.

The bitter irony which should not be lost on the viewer is that “Passage on the Lady Anne,” the final episode in this late outburst from Beaumont, figuratively mirrors the very real struggle which descended on him at this time. Generally speaking, “Passage on the Lady Anne” is about taking that final journey on one’s own terms, to see the journey through to the end by returning to a place of happiness and success. For Charles Beaumont, The Twilight Zone is the Lady Anne, and although his final passing was far less romantic than that portrayed in the episode, posterity has shown The Twilight Zone to be that which has done the most to keep Beaumont’s flame burning. His work on the series has come to be considered career defining. Fortunately, the world is not yet ready to scrap the old-fashioned television show the way in which the world is ready to scrap the old ship in “Passage on the Lady Anne.”

             

            “Passage on the Lady Anne” is Beaumont’s adaptation of his story “Song for a Lady,” a title indicating the final journey at the center of the story. It first appeared in Beaumont’s 1960 collection from Bantam Books, Night Ride and Other Journeys, which also contained The Twilight Zone stories “Perchance to Dream” and “The Howling Man.” Although the story structure remained essentially the same in its adaptation to television, Beaumont changed a number of internal story elements in addition to the more prosaic story title. The first differing element which jumps out at the reader is the situation of the two central characters, Alan and Eileen Ransome, who, in “Song for a Lady,” are truly newlyweds rather than the struggling married couple in “Passage on the Lady Anne.” In the story, the Ransomes book passage on the Lady Anne before they are married. Due to this essential change in the characters, there is no troubled marriage at the center of the story, which became an important element in the television episode. The story is narrated in the first person by Alan and the focus is less on the Ransomes than on the elderly passengers and their relationships to the Lady Anne. Alan and Eileen function primarily as a lens through which the reader views these relationships between the old people and the old ship taking them to their final rest.

            Another noticeable change from story to screen is in the condition of the Lady Anne. In the television episode, the Ransomes dread that the Lady Anne will be an old wreck, hardly capable of staying on the water, when in fact it reveals itself to be an old but beautiful pearl of a vessel, ornate and elegant in an old-fashioned style. In the original story the ship truly is a wreck, or close to it. Although the Ransomes believe the ship to be beautiful from afar, contrary to “descriptions of the ship had led us to expect something between a kayak and The Flying Dutchman,”* it is soon seen this way from Alan’s viewpoint: “Then we got a little closer. And the Lady Anne turned into one of those well-dressed women who look so fine a block away and then disintegrate as you approach them. The orange on the hull was bright, but it wasn’t paint. It was rust. Rust, like fungus, infecting every inch, trailing down from every port hole. Eating through the iron.”

            Other changes are largely superficial and generally concern minor incidents of character and dialogue. Jack McKenzie in the story becomes Toby McKenzie in the episode. Eileen, rather than Alan, speaks many of the confrontational lines to McKenzie and Burgess in the story. Burgess is also given a wife in the tale, Cynthia, whereas the element of his being a widower is given particular focus in the episode. Beaumont retains large amounts of dialogue from his story, much of it Alan’s internal dialogue, though the speaker often changes in the adaptation. Burgess’s memorable, drunken rant on the wretched state of modern society is, in the story, delivered by a character named Van Vlyman. This scene is powerful in both the story and the episode due largely to Beaumont’s spirited writing. The message behind the rant was likely close to Beaumont’s own thoughts on the issue as he, in collaboration with friends, wrote a number of nostalgic essays, collected in Remember? Remember? (1963), many of which lament the same sort of problems modern society creates for the lover of old things and the older ways of doing things.
          Beaumont seems to have much to say about the way in which modern society treats the elderly. The Lady Anne, and its passengers, are referred to as "relics" and "antiques." As Serling informs us in the closing monologue, the disappearance of the ship and its elderly passengers is not reported in any newspaper, suggesting that the old go largely unnoticed in the culture as they have outlived their usefulness. 

The ending of the story is also quite different from the episode. In the story, Alan and Eileen are placed in the lifeboat and observe as, in the distance, the Lady Anne first catches fire and then sinks into the water. This fiery ending was wisely changed to the more atmospheric ending seen in the episode, with the informative coda of Rod Serling’s closing narration to alleviate any ambiguity.

            Overall, the reader comes away from the story with a sense of speed and compression, especially compared to the measured pacing of the episode. The story moves very quickly with little of the nuances in character and incident which make the episode memorable and enjoyable. Beaumont likely selected this story from among his published tales for adaptation because he felt as though he could improve on the tale if given another run at it. He had a good idea in the original story but had not given the tale the attention to character and conflict which it warranted. Beaumont was given a wider canvas than normal and expertly utilized the hour-long format to deliver an episode which vastly improves upon the original story by retaining the essential hook but imbuing the tale with greater elements of conflict, wit, heartbreak, and redemption.

            Though it is easy to be charmed by displays of more demonstrative elements of fantasy, such as grotesque monsters, time travel, aliens, killer dolls, and the like, The Twilight Zone is somewhat underappreciated as a remarkably effective platform for powerful drama. This is largely due to its creator’s journeyman years in the dramatic anthology programs of the previous decade but also owes something to the writers Rod Serling surrounded himself with, writers such as Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Henry Slesar, Damon Knight, and Jerome Bixby who, alongside others, spearheaded a change in American science fiction and fantasy literature which injected the form with real people facing relatable problems in real situations. “Passage on the Lady Anne” is a very quiet fantasy but a very potent drama which contains further meditations on the recurring themes of Beaumont’s fiction (death and dying, memory and dreams, the fantastic intruding upon a normal course of events) and a powerful strain of conflict and resolve in relationships.

            A number of the scenes and incidents which remain in one’s memory after viewing the episode were created for the adaptation. Primary among these is the relationship between Alan and Eileen Ransome. The perspective lens is shifted from the passengers on the Lady Anne in the story to the troubled couple who find their way on board a death ship in the episode. Lee Philips as the quietly angry and stubbornly unhappy Alan Ransome and Joyce Van Patten as the vulnerable yet defiant Eileen Ransome are excellent in their sole appearances on The Twilight Zone. Alan is easy to dislike through most of the episode though not to the degree that the viewer does not empathize with his immense relief at finding Eileen after the vulnerability of her character manifests itself in a literal disappearance. This incident could have been the hook for a separate and very different Twilight Zone episode, but Beaumont uses it here for a brief sequence to bring together two characters we have previously watched growing apart.
          Depending on how one views Eileen's disappearance, "Passage on the Lady Anne" contains hardly any fantasy element at all. There is the vague notion that the Lady Anne possesses some supernatural aspect given the mythical status assigned to the ship by its aging crew and passengers. While several times Beaumont hints at the supernatural, particularly with the disappearance of the Lady Anne at the end of the episode, the writer never directly shows us anything supernatural. There are no aliens, no ghosts, no talking dolls, nor anything else fantastical. The hint of fantasy becomes, in Beaumont's hands, a way to give the audience a metaphor for Alan's relationship with Eileen. This aspect is particularly apparent when McKenzie tells Alan: "She hasn't gone anywhere. You've just missed her," and in the scene in which Alan recovers his vanished wife in their suite. He says to her: "Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you," to which she replies: "I've been here, Alan," the implication being that their relationship has always been there, waiting for him to discover it. 

The chemistry of Lee Philip’s and Joyce Van Patten’s performances, both during the period in which they are waging a silent war and in their later, redemptive moments, is the finest on the series since that of William Shatner and Patricia Breslin in Richard Matheson’s “Nick of Time.” Their argument in the Imperial Lounge is one of the most expertly written, authentically performed scenes in the entire series. It is genuinely uncomfortable for the viewer and Beaumont gives the scene a number of effective touches, such as Alan speaking less and in a lower voice the more Eileen speaks in an animated voice. He also writes Eileen destroying the cigarette package to end the sequence, as Eileen asking Alan for a cigarette had been shown as a petty annoyance to Alan in prior scenes. The episode liberally uses juxtaposition to define its conflicts and resolutions, from the young couple and the elderly passengers to specific scenes, such as the party in the Imperial Lounge and the sudden intrusion of the Captain with a demand for the Ransomes to be put off the ship.

            The episode is filled with small touches which are not in the original story and would likely have been left out or edited from a twenty-four minute episode. A scene not focused on Alan and Eileen, such as the brief sequence in which Millie McKenzie throws Toby’s old letters overboard, would surely not have made the cut of a half-hour episode. Viewers may see such scenes as needless padding but some stories benefit from a richer tapestry of character and incident.

            The supporting cast is a highlight of the episode. The episode gathers a charming collection of talented and familiar English performers to populate the Lady Anne, many of whom are making repeat performances on the series. The newcomers include genial Wilfrid Hyde-White as Toby McKenzie, who takes the Ransomes under his wing to educate them on the history and significance of the Lady Anne and its final voyage, and Alan Napier, best known as Alfred on television’s Batman, who makes a brief but effective appearance as the stony Captain Protheroe. The remainder of the supporting cast will likely be familiar to regular viewers of the series. Gladys Cooper, as Millie McKenzie, makes the second of three appearances on the series, sandwiched between outstanding performances in “Nothing in the Dark” and “Night Call.” Though Cooper did not work with Rod Serling’s material on the series, she elevated three very good scripts from the show’s other principal writers, George Clayton Johnson, Charles Beaumont, and Richard Matheson. Cecil Kellaway returns to the series as Burgess after his unforgettable appearance as the wily and dangerous Jeremy Wickwire in Charles Beaumont’s first season episode, “Elegy.” Cyril Delevanti gets to hold the gun in “Passage on the Lady Anne,” his fourth and final appearance on the series. Delevanti memorably portrayed the old man Smithers who dreams of robbing a bank in “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” and, unforgettable, as the stone-faced servant who hides a manic inner life in “A Piano in the House.” Finally, Don Keefer makes the second of his three appearances on the series as the smug travel agent Mr. Spierto. Keefer memorably portrayed Dan Hollis, whose bad thoughts get him transformed into a jack-in-the-box by little Anthony in “It’s a Good Life.”

            The episode also marks the return of director Lamont Johnson to the series. Johnson last sat behind the camera for the third season episode “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby,” and previously directed some of the finest episodes of the series, including “The Shelter,” “Five Characters In Search of an Exit,” and “Kick the Can.” Johnson’s presence on “Passage on the Lady Anne” may have been a draw for Gladys Cooper to appear in the episode as the two previously collaborated on the excellent third season episode, “Nothing in the Dark.” The atmospheric cinematography of Robert W. Pittack deserves mention, as well. Pittack arrived on The Twilight Zone late in the third season to photograph Charles Beaumont’s “Person or Persons Unknown.” He remained on the series through the fourth season to alternate with regular cinematographer George T. Clemens, due to the increased shooting time per episode for the hour-long format. Pittack’s talent was readily apparent and he was retained for the fifth season, photographing such memorable episodes as “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” “Living Doll,” and “Night Call.”

            Although “Passage on the Lady Anne” lacks that truly memorable element (a fantastic display, a clever ending, etc.) which might lift it among the company of the best episodes, it remains a powerful drama graced by outstanding lead performances, a charming collection of supporting players, the return of one of the finest directors on the series, and an eerie atmosphere complemented by excellent photography and a memorable musical score. It is a fine final episode from the typewriter of Charles Beaumont and comes recommended.

*“Passage on the Lady Anne” was one of several Twilight Zone episodes which directly or indirectly referenced or took inspiration from the legend of The Flying Dutchman, a ghostly vessel often portrayed as a portent of doom, aligning the episode with others such as “Judgment Night,” “King Nine Will Not Return,” “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” “The Arrival,” and “The Thirty-Fathom Grave.”

Grade: B

Grateful acknowledgement to:

-Night Ride and Other Journeys by Charles Beaumont (Bantam, 1960)

-The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)

-The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)

Notes:

--Charles Beaumont’s story, “Song for a Lady,” was first published in Night Ride and Other Journeys (Bantam, 1960). Beaumont’s final, unproduced episode for The Twilight Zone, “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” was published in the limited edition volume The Twilight Zone Scripts of Charles Beaumont, Volume One, ed. Roger Anker (Gauntlet Press, 2004). Volume two never appeared. Beaumont’s original story, “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” was first published in the April, 1960 issue of Rogue and collected in Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories, ed. Roger Anker (Dark Harvest, 1988).

--Lamont Johnson directed seven additional episodes of the series, including “The Shelter,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” “Nothing in the Dark,” “One More Pallbearer,” “Kick the Can,” “Four O’Clock,” and “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby.”

--Composer René Garriguenc also provided the scores for “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” “In Praise of Pip,” and “Spur of the Moment,” as well as stock music pieces for several additional episodes. Garriguenc worked closely with the head of the CBS music department, Lud Gluskin, who conducted all of Garriguenc’s scores for the series.  

--Gladys Cooper also appeared in “Nothing in the Dark” and “Night Call.”

--Cecil Kellaway also appeared in “Elegy.”

--Lee Philips also appeared in “Queen of the Nile.”

--Alan Napier was a regular performer on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, appearing in the episode segments “House – with Ghost,” “The Sins of the Fathers,” and “Fright Night.”

--Cyril Delevanti also appeared in “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” “The Silence,” and “A Piano in the House.”

--Jack Raine appeared in an uncredited role in “Spur of the Moment.”

--Don Keefer also appeared in “It’s a Good Life” and “From Agnes – with Love.”

--Joyce Van Patten was divorced from fellow Twilight Zone performer Martin Balsam shortly before she appeared in this episode, which may have given the relationship at the center of “Passage on the Lady Anne” extra resonance for the actress.

--“Passage on the Lady Anne” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres.

-JP & BD 

"Hocus-Pocus and Frisby"

Somerset Frisby (Andy Devine) on his biggest adventure yet,
a journey into the Twilight Zone

“Hocus-Pocus and Frisby”

Season Three, Episode 95

Original Air Date: April 13, 1962

Cast:

Somerset Frisby: Andy Devine
Mitchell: Howard McNear
Scanlan: Dabbs Greer
Old Man: Clem Bevans

Alien #1: Milton Selzer

Alien #2: Larry Breitman

Alien #3: Peter Brocco
Alien #4: Robert McCord

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (based on an unpublished story by Frederic Louis Fox)

Director: Lamont Johnson

Producer: Buck Houghton

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens and Jack Swain

Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye

Set Direction: Keogh Gleason

Makeup: William Tuttle

Assistant Director: E. Darrell Hallenbeck

Editor: Bill Mosher

Sound: Franklin Milton and Bill Edmondson

Casting: Robert Walker

Music: Tom Morgan

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“As it happens to all men, a newcomer takes his first step into the Twilight Zone next week when Mr. Andy Devine joins us for a show called ‘Hocus-Pocus and Frisby.’ He plays the role of a storekeeper of the cracker barrel variety who stretches the truth like most people pull on taffy. This one is for laughs and for the congenital liars amongst you. Next week, Mr. Devine, ‘Hocus-Pocus and Frisby.’”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“The reluctant gentleman with the sizable mouth is Mr. Frisby. He has all the drive of a broken cam shaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you’ve no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn’t know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture. The place is Pitchville Flats. The time is the present. But Mr. Frisby is on the first leg of a rather fanciful journey into the place we call…the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

            Somerset Frisby is an aging small-town yokel who spends his days lazily manning his quiet general store, playing his harmonica, and entertaining the locals with extravagant tales of a life well lived. Taken at his word, Frisby has been a war hero, an accomplished government engineer, and a meteorologist—Old Cumulus Frisby, they called him—to list just a few of his former occupations. His friends don’t believe a word of his fantastical claims but listening to them passes the time just the same.

            While closing up his shop one evening, two men in suits drive up to buy gas. Frisby walks out to greet them. They seem inquisitive and slightly peculiar but Frisby brushes it off as the curiosity of out-of-towners just passing through.

            After the shop is closed and everyone has gone home Frisby hears a voice. Believing it is a prank, he plays along. The voice tells him to walk outside and travel a mile or so down the highway where he will find a great surprise. Before he can make the journey, however, he is whisked away to a barren field where he discovers a spaceship waiting quietly for him. Curious, he climbs inside and finds the two men in suits from earlier.

They believe Frisby to be the most accomplished human being to ever live and they want to take him back to their planet to be studied and marveled. Frisby tells them that his stories are mostly lies, tale tales made up to entertain and pass the time. He demands that the aliens release him at once. They refuse his request so Frisby punches one of them. To his horror the man’s face breaks into several pieces before falling off completely revealing a bizarre figure beneath.

Later, Frisby begins to play his harmonica out of boredom. The creatures immediately clamp their hands over their ears and begin to scream. Frisby plays as loud as he can and the aliens are forced to release him.

Frisby races back to his store and is surprised to find his friends waiting for him. Today is Frisby’s 63^rd birthday. He tries to tell them about the spaceship and the aliens but his story is met with good-natured laughs and jeers. They simply wish him a happy birthday and thrust a box into his hands. He opens it to find a trophy inside with the inscription: World’s Greatest Liar.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“Mr. Somerset Frisby, who might have profited by reading an Aesop fable about a boy who cried wolf. Tonight's tall tale from the timberlands of the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

            “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” is Rod Serling’s whimsical adaptation of an unpublished story treatment by Frederic Louis Fox which itself is a twentieth century take on “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” fable as Serling mentions in his closing monologue. This was actually the second Fox story that Serling adapted for the show, the first being “Showdown with Rance McGrew” which aired in February of the same year. Like its earlier counterpart, “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” has an interesting premise and begins promisingly enough, with an all-star cast and a well-crafted opening sequence, but quickly loses its momentum after the first act. It manages to redeem itself with a light-hearted final scene where Frisby is reunited with his friends who obviously care a great deal about him but by this point the episode has become more or less forgettable. This is unfortunate for several reasons but mostly because it proves a missed opportunity for veteran director Lamont Johnson and a highly talented ensemble cast.

            Frederic Louis Fox (1902 – 1981) enjoyed a fairly successful career as a television writer during the medium’s golden age, contributing primarily to western series such as Lawman, Zane Grey Theatre, Branded, Rebel, and Bonanza among others. His film career was a bit more sporadic but it did produce a handful of feature-length titles including the 1956 crime drama When Gangland Strikes, the 1969 Elvis Presley vehicle Charro! and director Gerd Oswald’s 80 Steps to Jonah (1969), featuring Twilight Zone alumni Keenan Wynn and Mickey Rooney. One of his earliest screen credits was a 1954 Joe McDoakes short film called So, You Want to Be a Banker? which was directed by frequent Twilight Zone director, Richard L. Bare.

In The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (OTR Publishing, 2008) author Martin Grams, Jr. writes that after completing the script for “Showdown with Rance McGrew” Serling sent a copy to Frederic Louis Fox as a gesture of good will. Fox wrote back complementing Serling on a fine script and attached to his letter a paragraph-long story treatment titled “Mister Tibbs and the Flying Saucer.” In Fox’s story an aging service station owner named Henry Tibbs dreams of traveling the world but is trapped in his small town. Instead, he constructs elaborate imaginary adventures and tells them to his regular customers. Unbeknownst to Tibbs, his fantastical tales are being broadcast on Martian radio. One day he is contacted by a Martian who wants to pay him for his worldly adventures. He asks instead for a trip around the world in a space ship. Upon his return home he learns that he has been awarded first place in the town Liar’s Contest. Dismayed, he decides not to tell people about his trip because he knows they would not believe him. Instead, he keeps a souvenir from his adventure in his home as a secret reminder to himself.

Serling liked the story and promptly wrote back saying that he would be interested in adapting the short treatment into an episode of The Twilight Zone. Overall he remained relatively faithful to Fox’s story. His decision to nix the idea of the main character’s rants being broadcast on Martian radio was a smart one as it makes the plot tighter and easier to follow. It was also smart to have Frisby’s friends bestow upon him the title of World’s Greatest Liar instead of the local paper as it establishes that he has a healthy social life and makes him a likable character despite his tall tales. Most of the other changes—the title and character names—are mainly for stylistic preference.

            This episode has traditionally not received high marks from fans or reviewers. While it has its share of sore spots it is not without its own personal charm. Serling begins his script with a fantastic opening act, full of witty tongue-in-cheek banter from an interesting set of characters played by a remarkable cast. Frisby is an immensely likable character from the moment he appears on screen and the close community of tough-talking friends he surrounds himself with seems natural and welcoming.

It’s the second act that I think loses a lot of people. The audience is abruptly transported from a warm, familiar environment to one that is cold and totally alien to them—no pun intended. The juxtaposition between the sleepy Midwestern town with its charmingly cantankerous peanut gallery and the confines of the alien vessel is obviously intentional on Serling’s part but it simply does not transition well on the screen. It almost feels like two different episodes, not vastly so but to the extent that it loses the audience’s attention and never fully earns it back. The other weak spot of the second act is the rather cartoonish faces of William Tuttle’s alien masks. Tuttle of course was an enormously talented makeup artist and industry legend who provided the show with a number of memorable designs but unfortunately these simplistic masks are not among them.

The cast is really what makes this episode memorable. The opening and closing scenes feature a handful of talented character actors which many will recognize from various television and film roles. Dabbs Greer, who plays Scanlan, the loudest of Frisby’s skeptics, was an immensely prolific actor. His profile on the Internet Movie Database lists over three hundred acting credits on both the small and big screens in every genre imaginable. Among his more well-known television credits are appearences on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Perry Mason, and Gunsmoke and roles in genre classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), House of Wax (1953), and the Jerome Bixby-penned It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). He capped his film career off with a moving performance in The Green Mile in 1999.

Howard McNear is probably the most familiar face in the supporting cast thanks to his role as Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show. His other television credits include episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller. His film career includes appearance in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1960).

            Milton Selzer is probably best known to Twilight Zone fans for his fantastic performance as the greedy son-in-law in season five’s “The Masks.” Selzner was often cast in similar roles playing unlikable characters with overtly pathetic qualities. He seems a bit out-of-place in this episode though. His performance here seems wooden and doesn’t really do the second act of the episode any favors. Selzer later appeared in Buzz Kulik’s 1963 screen adaptation of Whit Masterson’s novel The Yellow Canary which was written by Rod Serling.

           The most memorable thing about the episode of course is veteran character actor Andy Devine as the lovable but highly flawed protagonist Somerset Frisby. Devine’s career goes back to the era of silent films and at the time that this episode originally aired he was one of the biggest names to appear on the show. Commonly recognized by his signature raspy voice and heavy figure he was told repeatedly as a young actor that he would never have a career as a performer. Similar to Frisby, Devine is remembered by those close to him as a loud, lovable prankster who liked to be the center of attention. He was even known for bending the truth to get a reaction from people. For instance, he often told interviewers that he earned his scratchy drawl from a childhood accident in which a curtain rod became lodged in his throat. Several biographers have dismissed this as barely more than a fabrication and Devine’s son said it was one of several stories he used to explain his raspy voice.

Devine was often cast in westerns, usually as the quirky comedic relief but he did occasionally play more serious characters. Over the course of his six decade career he worked with some of most highly acclaimed directors in cinema history. His first major role was as Danny McGuire in the 1937 version of A Star is Born directed by William A. Wellman. Devine would work with Wellman numerous times throughout his career. He also appeared in films made by John Huston, George Stevens, James Whale, Michael Curtiz, Jacques Tourneur, and Victor Flemming. He appeared in five films made by John Ford including Stagecoach (1939) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He also appeared in ten films with Roy Rogers as his sidekick, Cookie. His unique voice also landed him a career as a voice artist. He worked extensively in radio, most notably for NBC’s The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which would eventually make the transition to television delivering 112 episodes from 1951 to 1958. He also voiced Friar Tuck in Disney’s Robin Hood (1973) and provided the voice for the rooster in the famous Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercials during the 1970’s. Frederic Louis Fox originally suggested Ed Wynn for the role of Somerset Frisby and Wynn would have undoubtedly delivered a fine performance. Devine, however, was perfect for the part and is easily the best thing about the episode.

Lending this episode an appropriately nonchalant personality is renowned harmonica player Tommy Morgan. Morgan's career spans over six decades and he is considered one of the most important harmonica players of all time, contributing to a countless number of projects in virtually every medium. As a session musician he has worked with Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, Randy Newman, Ray Charles, and dozens of others. He has composed music for dozens of television series including Gunsmoke, The Waltons, Green Acres, The Rockford Files, and Family Guy. His filmography includes Blazing Saddles, Cool Hand Luke, and How the West was Won. He has also recorded solo albums and written books and instructional guides to playing the harmonica. Morgan also composed the music for "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" and "Mr. Garrity and the Grave" and can also be heard on the soundtracks for the episodes "Dust" and "The Big Tall Wish" which were written by close friend Jerry Goldsmith. Morgan chose the western standard "Red River Valley" as Frisby's recurring theme.

            While we will likely never see “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” crack any top ten lists it certainly isn’t a terrible episode. Fox’s story is charming and Serling’s script is full of witty dialogue far better than most of the banter found in the lighter episodes. This one deserves at least one viewing for those who have never seen it and for the naysayers perhaps even a second viewing if only to discover the quaint and pleasant charm that they may have missed.

Grade: C

Grateful acknowledge is made to:

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

The Joe Franklin Show, interview with Andy Devine conducted by Joe Franklin (1976)

www.mohavemuseum.org/andy.html

www.tmorganharmonica.com

www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2008/121108.htm

The Twilight Zone Museum (twilightzonemuseum.com)

Notes:

--Milton Selzer also appeared in the season five episode “The Masks.”

--Howard McNear also appeared in the season four episode “The Bard.”

--Dabbs Greer also appeared in the season four episode “The Valley of the Shadow.”

--Peter Brocco also appeared in the season one episode “The Four of Us Are Dying.” He later appeared in a segment of Night Gallery written by Rod Serling called “Deliveries in the Rear” during the show’s second season. He also played “Mr. Mute” in “Segment II” of Twilight Zone: the Movie (1983) directed by Steven Spielberg and based on George Clayton Johnson’s season three episode “Kick the Can.”

--This episode is one of many to feature the spaceship from MGM’s Forbidden Planet (1956).

--This episode also features a camera shot very similar to the famous opening shot of the earlier season three episode "To Serve Man."

--Check out the Twilight Zone Radio Drama featuring the late comedy legend and “The Mind and the Matter” star Shelly Berman.

--Brian

"Four O'Clock"

Theodore Bikel as Oliver Crangle, counting down to four o'clock

“Four O’Clock”

Season Three, Episode 94

Original Air Date: April 6, 1962

Cast:

Oliver Crangle: Theodore Bikel

Mrs. Lucas: Phyllis Love

Agent Hall: Linden Chiles

Mrs. Chloe Williams: Moyna MacGill

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (based on the story by Price Day)

Director: Lamont Johnson

Producer: Buck Houghton

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye

Set Decoration: Keogh Gleason

Assistant Director: E. Darrell Hallenbeck

Casting: Robert Walker

Editor: Jason H. Bernie

Sound: Franklin Milton and Bill Edmondson

Music: stock

Optical Effects: Pacific Title

Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes

Filmed at M.G.M. Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next week an exceptionally fine actor named Theodore Bikel portrays a misguided kook who fancies himself some kind of guardian of law and order. He decides that it’s his mission in life to eradicate evil the world over. Now, this one is told very far-out but considering the nature of the times it happens to be very close-in. Next week an exercise in insanity. It’s called ‘Four O’Clock.’ Set your watches and come on in.

“This cigarette, Chesterfield King, gives all the advantages of extra length and much more. The great taste of twenty-one vintage tobaccos grown mild, aged mild, and blended mild. No wonder they satisfy so completely.” 

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“That’s Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He’s rather arbitrarily chosen four o’clock as his personal Götterdämmerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of an avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it’s four o’clock, and wherever you are, it happens to be The Twilight Zone.” 

Summary:

            Oliver Crangle has one mission in life: to expose all the evil people of the world. His view of evil, however, is fluid and morally ambiguous. His personal judgment of his fellow man is corrupted by deep-seeded prejudices and a profound lack of empathy. From within his cramped apartment, Crangle compiles documents on his fellow citizens and spends his days making phone calls to employers and law enforcement offices to cry warnings about those citizens he deems subversive.

            Crangle is visited by Mrs. Lucas, the wife of a doctor whom Crangle has vigorously attempted to ruin. The doctor in question failed to save the life of a grievously injured woman and Crangle therefore considers him an evil person. Mrs. Lucas offers a prophetic warning, that Crangle is truly evil, that his judgments are unfair and his attempts to ruin lives are cruel. Crangle arrogantly dismisses the woman.

            Crangle fastens upon an idea. At four o’clock, this very day, he will mark all the evil people of the world in a way that will uniquely identify their terrible inner natures. After abandoning a number of unfeasible ideas, Crangle decides that he will make every evil person in the world one third their size, or roughly two feet in height. He calls an F.B.I. agent to his apartment to tell him that at four o’clock law enforcement had better be prepared to arrest all the diminutive people. Hall, the F.B.I. agent, questions Crangle’s sanity before dismissing his crank idea and leaving.

            Undeterred, Crangle gazes out of the window, counting down the minutes until four o’clock. When the moment arrives he rejoices the in exaltation of his efforts. He turns again to the window and the terrible realization that he is only two feet tall.     

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“At four o’clock an evil man made his bed and lay in it, a pot called a kettle black, a stone-thrower broke the windows of his glass house. You look for this one under ‘F’ for Fanatic and ‘J’ for Justice in The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

            “Four O’Clock,” the short story by Price Day, originally appeared in the April, 1958 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. It appeared in book form the following year as part of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Favorites in Suspense, a Random House book ghost-edited by Robert Arthur, a prolific short story writer, creator of The Three Investigators series of children’s mysteries (to which Hitchcock lent his name for a time), and the co-creator of The Mysterious Traveler radio program. Arthur compiled several Hitchcock anthologies for both adults and young readers in the late 1950s and 1960s before his untimely death in 1969. He is underrated as an editor and his anthologies come recommended. “Four O’Clock” appeared in paperback in 1960 in Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 14 of My Favorites in Suspense from Dell. It is included in The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories, edited by Richard Matheson, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh for Avon Books in 1985.

            A brief aside. An additional connection exists between Alfred Hitchcock and “Four O’Clock,” at least as far as the title goes. Hitchcock filmed a now well-regarded segment titled “Four O’Clock” for the anthology program Suspicion in 1957. It concerns a man (E.G. Marshall) who, believing his wife is unfaithful, plants a bomb in his home to kill his wife and her lover. The bomb is set to detonate at exactly four o’clock. Not only is the man mistaken about his wife’s infidelity, he is attacked by burglars in his home and tied up in the basement, forced to sweat out the minutes counting down to four o’clock and the detonation of the bomb. This segment was remade in 1986 for the revival Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. The basis of both segments is Cornell Woolrich’s 1938 story, “Three O’Clock.” The title change appears to have been a perfunctory move on the part of the production.

            Price Day, author of the short story, is best-known as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He tried his hand at poetry and fiction early in his career before turning to journalism. He placed poetry with The New Yorker in 1931 and, though “Four O’Clock” is by far Day’s most famous work of fiction, he wrote several short stories for Collier’s Weekly in the late 1930s and early 1940s, many in collaboration with Charles Bradshaw, though none approach the subject or tone of “Four O’Clock.”

Day was born in Plainview, Texas in 1907 and attended Princeton University. He began his journalistic career as a cartoonist and occasional freelance contributor to newspapers in New York and Florida. Day was a reporter for the Fort Lauderdale Times in 1942 and moved to the Baltimore Evening Sun that same year before becoming a reporter for the Baltimore Sun in 1943. Day was a war correspondent for the Sun and as such was one of the first civilians to witness and report upon the conditions of the liberated Nazi death camps. Day was the only reporter from an individual newspaper to witness the German surrender at Reims. In 1949, Day received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his feature in the Sun, “Experiment in Freedom – India and Its First Year of Independence.” He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Sun from 1960-1975. Some of his Sun columns were collected as The Spillway: Columns from the Baltimore Sun, 1956-1960 (Baltimore Sun Press, 1997). Day’s sole film credit is for one of his stories with Charles Bradshaw, which was adapted by other writers into the 1939 film The Lady and the Mob, a film which featured a young Ida Lupino, star of “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” and director of “The Masks.” Price Day died in 1978.

Though Rod Serling remained remarkably faithful to Day’s story, the brevity of the original story require Serling to pad out the tale in order to bring it up to running time. As such, the episode comes across as dialogue heavy, particularly since the setting is so constrictive. It doesn’t help that “Four O’Clock” is a story which exists only to serve a twist ending. It is a memorable twist ending (it just cracked our Top 20 best of the series) but episodes which live and die by the twist ending often have little besides which to recommended them.  

Serling’s attraction to the material should appear obvious as the story confronts the idiocy and intolerance of modern American society, a fight against which Serling built his entire creative career. Although The Twilight Zone is frequently portrayed as the series Serling had to create so he could say the confrontational things being muffled on the more prestigious anthology programs, the series never really attempted to convincingly camouflage these type of confrontational efforts. Any viewer of “The Shelter,” "The Mirror," or “The Obsolete Man” who does not see beyond the trappings of the thriller or the science fiction story is an unsophisticated viewer indeed. In a rare instance of calling direct attention to the show’s attempt to confront these issues, Serling speaks of “considering the nature of the times” in his preview narration.

The internal time of the short story consists of thirteen minutes, as it begins at 3:47. Price Day provides the bulk of exposition in flashback. Serling could not utilize this method and instead pushed the time back to the morning in order to develop the narrative over the course of the day. As such, Serling needed to create characters for Oliver Crangle to interact with. The short story contains only the single character, Crangle, unless one considers Pet, the parrot. Serling’s creative mastery was in character development and he effectively creates three foils to Crangle’s madness, the simple-minded and long-suffering landlady, the desperate spouse of one whom Crangle has attempted to ruin, and, perhaps most important, the F.B.I. agent, who represents a rational enforcer of the law and the only character to directly question Crangle’s sanity.

Some additional interesting symbolic representations are present in the episode, particularly in the construction of Crangle’s apartment, which manages to be both obsessively organized and chaotically cramped at the same time, a useful symbol for the mental workings of Crangle himself. The series excelled in the story told in a single or highly constrained environment. This was likely due to budgetary limitations but the production crew, particularly the art directors and set decorators, rose to the challenge again and again to create interesting and engaging set design which often mirrored the theme of the tale. There is also the use of the parrot as a pet for Crangle, which is obvious in its symbolic representation as a communicative animal that can only repeat back what is spoken to it. The short story uses the parrot in a more interesting way than the episode, as well. Throughout the story, Crangle is repeatedly feeding the bird nuts and only realizes he has shrunk down to two feet when he tries to feed the bird a nut and his hand comes up short. In the episode, a shot is utilized to show Crangle unable to reach the bowl of nuts. Serling, in an unusual touch, presents a moment in which Crangle consults Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for moral support. It is an expert illustration of the dangerous way in which the morally reprehensible can favorably twist the meanings of dogmatic writings to suit their purposes.

The logical problems of the story are presented to the viewer in the form of complete ambiguity. The result is that some natural questions arise in the mind of the viewer. From whence does Crangle derive his information? His power? His income? Where does this story take place? Leaving such questions unanswered is undoubtedly an attempt to give the story the feeling of a moral allegory but it can be frustrating for one who requires a base line of logic even in tales of fantasy. The short story offers a marginal bit of explanation about Crangle’s power and seems to suggest it is a divine gift. Day writes: “. . . since that morning three weeks ago when, as he sat on a bench in a park, looking at the pictures in the clouds across the lake, it came to him that he had the power to do this thing, that upon him at that moment had been bestowed the gift of putting a mark on all the bad people on earth, so that they should be known.”

            There is also the issue of the mental state of Crangle as portrayed by actor Theodore Bikel. Near the end of the episode the true severity of Crangle’s delusion is revealed in language making reference to gallows and electric chairs. Crangle strikes the viewer as suffering from both a psychotic disorder as well as a severe social anxiety disorder, one characterized by obsessive and repetitive behavior, unusual mannerisms and use of language, and an inability to engage in normal social behavior. Bikel’s performance is frequently dismissed as over-the-top and manic but it is a far more nuanced performance than it is given credit for.

            Theodore Bikel was born in Vienna in 1924 and studied acting with both an Israeli company and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before moving to the United States in 1954. He is likely best-known for his stage role as Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof. Bikel is also known for his role in the film My Fair Lady (1964), his long career as a folk music singer, and for his political activism. Despite the fact that Bikel was frequently cast as a shady or outright villainous German or Russian character, he was capable of great versatility, illustrated in one instance with his role as a Southern sheriff who pursues Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in the 1958 film The Defiant Ones. That film was made at the height of the Blacklist era, co-written by a blacklisted writer (Ned Young) whose script won the Academy Award, and whose story and theme perfectly shadowed in film what Rod Serling was continuously doing in television. There is little doubt that a politically active humanitarian like Bikel relished the opportunity to play the bigot Crangle in “Four O’Clock.” Bikel did little additional genre work but was memorable in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents adaptation of Thomas Burke’s Jack-the-Ripper inspired story, “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole,” from the second season of that series. In an interesting, and not altogether successful, choice, Bikel was selected to narrate Serling’s short story “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” for Harper Audio Books in 1993 as part of a series featuring actors/actresses from the original series reading Serling’s short story adaptations for the audio book market. I highly recommend Tom Elliot's podcast episode on those audio books, which can be found here.  Bikel died in Los Angeles in 2015.

            As the above commentary indicates, “Four O’Clock” is a fascinating episode layered with symbol and interpretive meaning. The story cannot, however, sustain itself under the weight of the immense amount of circular dialogue leading to a rather predictable twist ending. Bikel’s performance is a rewarding one but it is the only element of the story which repays repeat viewings. Perhaps the story feels too familiar. After all, the series traded in “bully gets comeuppance” quite often and would continue to do so well into the fifth and final season. One need only look to “The Last Night of a Jockey” to see this point illustrated in a particularly relative way. All in all, “Four O’Clock” is par for the course.

            One final note. “Four O’Clock” was selected to be read on the NPR program Selected Shorts when that program featured a Twilight Zone special in October, 2016. “Four O’Clock” was read by actor Zachary Quinto in a crowd pleasing performance. You can read our review of it here.      

Grade: C

Grateful acknowledgement to:

-The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org)

-The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)

-Unz.org publication database

-Who’s Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners by Elizabeth A. Brennan and Elizabeth C. Clarage (Greenwood Publishing, 1998)

Notes:

-“Four O’Clock” by Price Day originally appeared in the April, 1958 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

-Theodore Bikel narrated Rod Serling’s short story adaptation of “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” for Harper Audio Books in 1993.

-Director Lamont Johnson was at the helm for some of the most memorable episodes of the series, including “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” “Nothing in the Dark,” “Kick the Can,” and “Passage on the Lady Anne.”

-“Four O’Clock” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Stan Freberg.

-JP