"People Are Alike All Over"

Conrad (Roddy McDowall) and Marcusson (Paul Comi) contemplate the spacecraft that will take them to Mars

“People Are Alike All Over”

Season One, Episode 25

Original Air Date: March 25, 1960

                                                        

Cast:

Samuel Conrad: Roddy McDowall

Warren Marcusson: Paul Comi

Teenya: Susan Oliver

Martian #1: Byron Morrow

Martian #2: Vic Perrin

Martian #3: Vernon Gray

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (based on “Brothers Beyond the Void” by Paul W. Fairman).

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
Set Decoration: Rudy Butler and Henry Grace
Assistant Director: Edward Denault
Casting: Mildred Gusse
Editor: Fred Maguire
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell

Music: stock

And Now, Mr. Serling:
“Next week an excursion to Mars with Roddy McDowall and Paul Comi, two men trying to prove a point—a simple proposition that men are alike all over.  And on Mars they discover that this is just whistling in the dark.  People are not alike and next week on The Twilight Zone you’ll see why.  I hope you’ll be with us.  Thank you and good night.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“You’re looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animals with extremely small heads whose name is ‘man.’ Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one. They’re taking a highway into space, man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we’ll land there with them.”

Summary: 

          Samuel Conrad and Warren Marcusson stand outside the gates of a cement lot that houses the most advanced spacecraft ever assembled.  In less than three hours it will become their home. The two men have been chosen to pilot mankind’s maiden voyage to the planet Mars. Looking up at the towering space vessel, Conrad confesses his apprehensions to Marcusson. He is afraid of what they might encounter on Mars. Marcusson reassures him that even on Mars there is bound to be creatures who feel sympathy and compassion because the laws of nature suggest that creatures are alike everywhere. Marcusson’s optimistic outlook seems to cheer him up.

                Some time later. After a mechanical malfunction, Conrad and Marcusson crash-land on the surface of Mars. Conrad appears to be uninjured but Marcusson has a broken leg. Nevertheless, he suggests they open the door of their ship and take a look around.  Conrad tells Marcusson that he is hurt too badly to go exploring and that he should rest. Marcusson calls his bluff and Conrad confesses that he is too frightened to go outside. Marcusson pleads with him to open the door and let him out but before Conrad gets a chance to do so Marcusson dies of internal injuries.  With no alternative Conrad opens the door and steps outside, a pistol clutched in his hand.

                To his amazement he sees a crowd of people, human beings, gathered around the ship. What amazes him even more is that they speak his language and invite him to their city. He follows them into their city where they have constructed an exact replica of what a home on Earth would look like. Conrad decides that he likes the Martians, especially a female named Teenya who has been particularly kind to him. The Martians tell him to make himself at home and they will be back soon to check on him.

                A few hours later Conrad is mixing himself a drink when he notices that there are no windows anywhere in the house. He tries all of the doors but discovers, to his horror, that they are locked. He is trapped. He begins pounding on the walls with his fists, demanding to know why he has been locked in. Suddenly, one of the walls begins to lift slowly from the ground, revealing a row of steel bars on the other side. There is a crowd of people gathered around his house, staring at him. He notices a sign on the other side of the bars that reads:  EARTH CREATURE IN HIS NATURAL HABITAT. 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain. Comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And he will remain here in the cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat, as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

Original magazine illustration by Leo Summers

                “People Are Alike All Over” is Rod Serling’s adaptation of Paul W. Fairman’s story “Brothers Beyond the Void.”  This episode has become highly recognizable among fans of the show due mainly to its memorable twist ending. It’s an enjoyable episode but one that does not merit many additional viewings simply because it functions almost exclusively for the surprise at the end. However, Serling must have been fully aware of the dramatic shock value of this story because, according to Martin Grams in his book, The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, Serling purchased Fairman’s story for $2,500, making it the most expensive story purchased during the first season and one of the most expensive of the entire series. It’s no surprise that the cynicism of this story would have appealed to Serling. It shares a temperament with “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and many of Serling's other stories in that it paints a fairly optimistic image of society and then juxtaposes it with one that is incredibly harsh and unappealing. The basic tone and premise of the episode was already present in Fairman’s version and Serling remains relatively faithful in his adaptation. The only major difference is that Fairman’s version sees only one man (Marcuson) sent to Mars while his friend (Conrad) remains on Earth.

                This episode marks Fairman’s only contribution to The Twilight Zone. He was quite prolific during his writing career and for a brief period enjoyed some notoriety as an editor. Early in his career Fairman befriended mystery and fantasy author Howard Browne. At the time Browne was editor of Mammoth Mystery, Fantastic Adventures and Amazing Stories, all owned by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Browne published many of Fairman’s early stories including “Brothers Beyond the Void,” which first appeared in the March, 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures. That same month, Fairman was hired by James L. Quinn to be the first editor of Quinn’s science fiction magazine If, but he was fired after only four issues due to disappointing sales figures (it should be noted that while he was at If, Fairman published Charles Beaumont’s story “The Beautiful People,” which Beaumont's friend John Tomerlin later adapted into the fifth season episode “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”). After Browne left Ziff-Davis in 1956, Fairman took over his position as editor of Amazing Stories and its sister publication, Fantastic (sort of a digest version of Fantastic Adventures, which ended in 1953). While at the helm of these publications, his regular contributors included Harlon Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Robert Bloch, Henry Slesar, and many others who were or would become giants of speculative fiction. He held this dual editor position until the end of 1958 when he left Ziff-Davis to become an editor at Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. After leaving EQMM in 1963, he continued to write full time, publishing under his own name and under the pseudonym Ivar Jorgensen.  He ghost-wrote novels for Lester Del Rey and Ellery Queen and saw his stories, “Deadly City” and “The Cosmic Flame,” adapted for the cult films Target Earth (1954) and Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), respectively.  Among his many novels are Copper Town (1954), Rest in Agony (1961), Ten From Infinity (1963) and I, the Machine (1968).

                In many ways “People Are Alike All Over” holds a significant place in popular culture because it can be considered a precursor to Planet of the Apes (1968). In addition to the fact that it stars Roddy McDowall, who would play various roles throughout the Planet of the Apes series, this episode mirrors the classic sci-fi film in both theme and structure. Both stories see man, who is often thought of as the universally supreme being, in a reverse role of being a caged animal instead of its keeper. It’s quite likely that Serling had this episode, as well as the earlier season one episode “I Shot An Arrow Into the Air,” in mind when he wrote the initial screenplay for Planet of the Apes. 

         Along with Ed Wynn, Jack Klugman and Vera Miles, Roddy McDowall was one of the biggest name performers to appear during the first season, and many viewers at the time would have tuned in to this episode specifically for him. He had a knack for playing socially awkward characters and his performance here as the likeable but incredibly naive Sam Conrad is quite enjoyable. McDowall made a name for himself in the early 1940s as a child actor in John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (1941) and the family classics My Friend Flicka (1943) and Lassie Come Home (1943). Over the next decade or so he managed to make the rare transition from child star to successful adult actor, and enjoyed a prominent career in film, television and Broadway, appearing in both the stage and film versions of Orson Welles’s Macbeth (1948), opposite Boris Karloff in the Playhouse 90 adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1958), and in the acclaimed Broadway productions of No Time for Sergeants (1955) and Camelot (1960). The same year that he appeared on The Twilight Zone, McDowall won a Tony Award for his performance in The Fighting Cock and an Emmy for the Sunday Showcase drama “Not Without Honor.” In 1968 he undertook the role of Cornelius in the first Planet of the Apes film and would be associated with the franchise for the rest of his career, appearing in four of the five Apes films and also in the short lived 1974 television spinoff which aired on CBS. In addition to Planet of the Apes and The Twilight Zone, McDowell worked with Serling again in "The Cemetery," the opening segment of the pilot film for Serling's Night Gallery.  His other notable film appearances include The Longest Day (1962), Cleopatra (1963, for which he was rumored to have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor but was disqualified due to an error on the part of Twentieth Century Fox), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Richard Matheson’s The Legend of Hell House (1973), and Fright Night (1985). He died of lung cancer in 1998 at the age of seventy.

While I admit that "People Are Alike All Over" is not one of my favorite offerings from season one, I would not call it a terrible episode. It deserves at least a viewing or two if for no other reason than to appreciate its place in the lexicon of speculative fiction.

Grade: C

Notes: 



--Paul W. Fairman’s story “Brothers Beyond the Void” first appeared in the March, 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures. It was reprinted in Twilight Zone: the Original Stories (Avon, 1985; MJF, 1997).

--“People Are Alike All Over” was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Blair Underwood.

--Director Mitchell Leisen’s career in Hollywood stretches back to the era of silent films, beginning as an art director in many of Cecile B. DeMille early productions. He began directing his own films in 1933 and throughout the 1930s and 40s was a highly sought-after presence in the motion picture industry. Among his numerous credits are the films Midnight (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941) and The Mating Season (1951). He also directed the first season Twilight Zone episodes “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” and “Escape Clause.”
--Roddy McDowall also appeared in the pilot film of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. In 1993, McDowall recorded a reading of Rod Serling's prose adaptation of "The Odyssey of Flight 33" for Harper Audio.
--Susan Oliver also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Tune in Dan's Cafe."
--Byron Morrow also appeared in the pilot film for Rod Serling's Night Gallery.
--Vic Perron is well-known among science fiction fans and was the control voice which greeted viewers on The Outer Limits.

--Paul Comi also appeared in “The Odyssey of Flight Thirty-three” and “The Parallel.”

--Brian Durant

"Escape Clause"

Walter Bedeker (David Wayne) contemplating an eternity behind bars.

“Escape Clause”

Season One, Episode 6
Original Air Date: November 6, 1959

Cast:
Walter Bedeker: David Wayne
Mr. Cadwallader: Thomas Gomez
Ethel Bedeker: Virginia Christine
Doctor: Raymond Bailey
Cooper: Wendell Holmes
Jack: Dick Wilson
Steve: Joe Flynn
Guard: Nesden Booth

Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
Assistant Director: Edward Denault
Casting: Mildred Gusse
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Jean Valentino
Music: Stock

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:
                "You're about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four, afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts, and everything else. He has one interest in life and that's Walter Bedeke; one preoccupation, the life and well being of Walter Bedeker; one abiding concern about society, that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?"

Summary:
                Walter Bedeker is a hypochondriac who refuses to leave the comfort of his bed for fear of aggravating or contracting any number of imagined illnesses. His rude manner and the impossibility of satisfying Bedeker displeases his doctor and over-burdens his wife. When Bedeker muses aloud his displeasure at having to suffer sickly through such a short life as a mortal human, a man appears in his bedroom. The man is portly and dapper, introducing himself as a man of many names but suggesting that Bedeker call him Mr. Cadwallader. Bedeker quickly realizes he is dealing with the Devil. 
                Cadwallader offers Bedeker a life of immortality free of sickness. All Bedeker need do is sign the contract in Cadwallader's hand and Bedeker can live forever with nothing able to physically harm him. At first apprehensive about having to give up the usual price for such dealings with the Devil, his soul, Bedeker reasons that living forever means he beats the devil, for he must die if Cadwallder is to get his soul. Bedeker signs the contract and Cadwallder, before parting, informs him of an escape clause in the contract. Should Bedeker ever grow tired of living forever, all he need do is call upon Cadwallder and Bedeker will be freed from his contractual obligation of immortality. Contract signed, sealed, and delivered, Cadwallader departs and Bedeker begins his life immortal. 
                It is not long after, however, that Bedeker grows tired of his newfound invulnerability. He finds no thrill in life if nothing can harm him. He jumps in front of a bus and drinks poison to no ill effects. Finally, resorting to extremes, Bedeker decides to jump off the roof of his apartment building. His wife, in attempting to stop him, falls to her death. Though he didn't truly kill her, Bedeker sees this as an opportunity to try the electric chair, something that he believes might just be the thrill he's been looking for. He confesses to his wife's murder and is found guilty at his trial. The twist in the tale, however, is that Bedeker is not sentenced to death but rather to life imprisonment. For an immortal man, this means an eternity behind bars. 
                Cadwallader appears, offering Bedeker that escape clause in the contract. Bedeker reluctantly agrees and is taken away.

Rod Serling Closing Narration:
            "There is a saying, 'Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown.' Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point Walter Bedeker, lately deceased, a little man with such a yen to live. Beaten by the devil, by his own boredom, and the by the scheme of things in this, the Twilight Zone."

Commentary: 

"Walter Bedeker was forty-four years old. He was afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts and everything else. He had one interest in life, and that was Walter Bedeker; one preoccupation, the life and well being of Walter Bedeker; one abiding concern about society, if Walter Bedeker should die, how would it survive without him. In short, he was a gnome-faced little man who clutched at disease the way most people hunger for security."
             -"Escape Clause" by Rod Serling, Stories from the Twilight Zone (1960)

Thomas Gomez as Mr. Cadwallader

        By the late 1950s, a television viewer was more likely to see a deal with the Devil story as a spoof on a situational comedy than in the form of serious drama, and the first foray into this evergreen story motif on The Twilight Zone was no different. In fact, of the many Twilight Zone episodes concerning the Devil or devil-like characters, only two, Richard Matheson's "Nick of Time" and Charles Beaumont's "The Howling Man," can be said to be entirely serious in treatment. Beaumont also tried his hand at the story type in the first season with the cruelly ironic episode, "A Nice Place to Visit." As late as the fourth season both Beaumont and Serling were still trying the story on for size with "Printer's Devil" and "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville," respectively. 
        David Wayne (1914-1995), who played the Devil himself in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster” for Sunday Showcase in 1960, brings a blackly humorous coarseness to the role of the hypochondriac Walter Bedeker. Wayne began appearing in films in 1940 and moved into television in the very early days of the medium, beginning on the live anthology series Actor’s Studio in 1949. Wayne appeared in one of the better, and better-known, episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “One More Mile to Go,” directed by Hitchcock, as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “The Thirty-First of February,” scripted by Richard Matheson (as Logan Swanson) from the novel by Julian Symons. Wayne later appeared in an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “The Diary,” scripted by Serling and starring Patty Duke. 

            Thomas Gomez (1905-1971) brings a gleeful mania to the role of Mr. Cadwallader. Gomez was a unique casting choice for the role and defied the traditional image of the Devil as attractive and refined with his unusual appearance and quite creepy performance. Gomez returned to the series in the second season episode "Dust," playing the villainous Sykes in a performance far more vicious than Mr. Cadwallader. 
             Martin Grams, Jr., in his book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (OTR, 2008), notes that Serling possibly took the idea for "Escape Clause" from an episode of the horror radio show Inner Sanctum Mystery, "Elixir Number Four," which aired on February 12, 1946. Though the stories differ in treatment of the theme of immortality, it is the ending of "Elixir Number Four" which most resembles "Escape Clause." The radio episode features Richard Widmark as a man who commits murder to learn the secret of immortality only to be tried for murder and sentenced to life in prison after he has achieved immortality. 
             "Escape Clause" is a rather forgettable episode which still retains the high level of production value that characterized the series, particularly in the first season. As a half hour entertainment it's not bad but it lacks a unique concept or even a unique spin on an established concept and therefore feels a little empty and unsatisfying.
              Rod Serling chose to adapt the episode into prose for his 1960 book Stories from the Twilight Zone and it must be said that it comes off as the dullest story in that otherwise excellent volume. Typically, Serling's adaptations highlight his talent for comedy, which does not always come off well in the filmed episodes, but "Escape Clause" remains uninteresting and unfunny in prose form. 

Grade: D

Notes:
-Director Mitchell Leisen directed two additional first season episodes, "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" and "People Are Alike All Over."
-David Wayne also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Diary."
-Thomas Gomez also appeared in the second season episode "Dust."
-Joe Flynn also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Funeral." 
-Look for the signature of Mr. Cadwallader on a plague in the basement portion of the Walt Disney World ride Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
-"Escape Clause" was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Mike Starr. 
-Rod Serling adapted his teleplay into a short story for Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam Books, 1960). 
-"Escape Clause" was adapted into comic book form for the 1979 book Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam; a Skylark Illustrated Book) by Rod Serling, stories adapted by Horace J. Elias and illustrated by Carl Pfeufer.

--Jordan Prejean

"The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine"

Ida Lupino as Barbara Jean Trenton

“The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine”
Season One, Episode 4
Original Air Date: October 23, 1959

Cast:
Barbara Jean Trenton: Ida Lupino
Danny Weiss: Martin Balsam
Marty Sall: Ted de Corsia
Jerry Hearndan: Jerome Cowan
Sally: Alice Frost

Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
Set Decoration: Rudy Butler, Henry Grace
Assistant Director: Edward Denault
Casting: Mildred Gusse
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Jean Valentino 
Music: Franz Waxman

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“This motion picture projector and this film provide a background to next week’s story when a most distinguished actress takes a journey into The Twilight Zone. Miss Ida Lupino stars in “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine,” a haunting story of a haunted woman that I think you’ll find interesting and perhaps shocking. We hope you’ll join us then. Thank you and good night.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“Picture of a woman looking at a picture, movie great of another time, once brilliant star in a firmament no longer part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit and run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.”

Summary:

     Barbara Jean Trenton, an aging, reclusive actress, spends nearly all of her time in the darkened screening room of her Beverly Hills mansion, drinking heavily and attempting to recapture the glory days of her youth by endlessly screening the old movies in which she starred. She fantasizes about the leading men that shared the screen with her two decades or more ago. One actor in particular, Jerry Hearndan, has always held a special place in her heart and she watches the movies they made together over and over.
     Barbara Jean’s maid, Sally, and her agent, Danny, become increasingly concerned about her unhealthy fixation on the past and the amount of time she spends in the dark watching old movies. Danny, in an attempt to break Barbara Jean out of her unhealthy habits, arranges for an audition with a large movie studio. Barbara Jean excitedly agrees to read for the part, despite the fact that it is for a movie producer she has never liked, Marty Sall. Barbara Jean dreams of a romantic leading role, like the ones she’s had in the past, in a love story or a musical.
     When she arrives at Marty Sall’s office, she quickly realizes that the part the producer has lined up for her is a small role that makes her advanced age glaringly apparent. Barbara Jean erupts in anger and refuses to even read the script. Sall gets angry, too. The producer harshly tells the aging actress that she is living in the past and she doesn’t have the clout in the movie industry that she once had. Barbara Jean storms out of his office and Danny, the ever-loyal agent, verbally puts Sall in his place before returning with Barbara Jean to her home.
     For Barbara Jean, the horrible encounter with the producer is the breaking point. She has decided to fully live in the past, to allow her fixation to totally consume her. She believes that if she wishes for it hard enough, she can will herself to return to the past she is desperately obsessed with. She tells Danny that she wants to throw a party and invite all of her friends from years ago. Danny, knowing that this regression is not healthy, attempts to convince her to give up the past, to move on, that the other actors from years ago have since moved on or died. Barbara Jean will hear nothing of it. Danny leaves and she resigns herself to the dark screening room.
     When Danny returns the next day he is greeted by a very distraught Sally, who tells him that, when she enters the screening room, she swears that Barbara Jean isn’t in the room at all, that she is only up on the screen. Danny brushes this aside. He is excited with good news and he rushes to the screening room to tell Barbara Jean about it. Reluctant to let him in, she finally caves when he mentions that he has asked Jerry Hearndan, her leading man of years past, to visit her home that same afternoon. Excited as a young girl, Barbara Jean rushes off to prepare for his visit.
     When she emerges she is faced with a harsh truth in the physical form of Jerry Hearndan. Now aged twenty five years, Heardan is a bald, bespectacled old man that has given up acting to run a chain of supermarkets outside of Chicago. Barbara Jean, in her twisted mental state, refuses to believe this, insisting that the old man is not really Jerry Hearndan but an aged imposter. She turns her back on him and Jerry leaves. Danny, distraught at the disaster of Hearndan’s visit, leaves as well. Barbara Jean is alone and she once again retreats to her screening room where she can see Jerry Hearndan as he was when he was young and handsome. She talks to the screen, willfully wishes it to be real once again. Later, the maid enters the screening room and is greeted with a shocking sight. Screaming, she drops a serving tray with a crash on the floor and runs out.
     Danny arrives at the house and, at the behest of Sally, enters the screening room. Sally has turned off the projector and becomes anxious when Danny decides to turn it back on. They both watch the screen. There, on the screen, is a film of Barbara Jean’s home, the very home they now sit in. From the front doors enter a costumed array of young people, all actors from twenty five years ago, all actors from Barbara Jean’s movies, even those actors that have since died. Then Barbara Jean enters the film and greets all of her guest, inviting them to continue the party at the poolside. As she is walking away on the arm of the young Jerry Hearndan, Danny calls out to the screen, calling for Barbara Jean to come back. As though she hears him, Barbara Jean turns and looks. Then, with a goodbye wave, she tosses her scarf across the threshold of the stairway and retreats off screen. The film ends, the screen goes black.

     Danny walks out of the room, stunned. In the hallway, on the floor, he finds Barbara Jean’s scarf. He picks it up and holds it near, smiling, knowing that Barbara Jean has indeed wished herself back into the past, forever.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of a projection screen into a private world. It can happen, in The Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

Martin Balsam as Danny Weiss

     “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” is an underrated episode, one of the mostly forgotten episodes that are not good enough or bad enough to stick in the memory of the average viewer but which still present a high level of quality in one or more areas of production. "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" is underrated not because of its plot (derivative and predictable), or script (littered with stilted dialogue and lapsing into mood killing sentiment), or even the characters (largely stereotypical), but because of the performances, which lift the episode above the deficiencies in these other areas. It is the performances that draw the viewer back to the episode again. With capable directing, the episode builds to a pitch-perfect mood of sinister atmosphere that brings to mind all of the darkness, mystery, and bizarre culture that characterized the Golden Age of Hollywood. 
         The episode is chiefly concerned with the fatal allure of the past (a subject of fascination for Rod Serling), but it is also concerned with death, and, metaphorically, the death of old Hollywood, a time highly romanticized in the cultural mind. The films of this era (1920's-1940's) had the simplicity, and the casual brutality, of fairy tales, films of broad humor or sweeping romantic adventure or brooding Gothic horror. On the opposite side of this is the suggestion of immortality through art, in this case old films. It is the suggestion that there exist an immortality of sorts inherent in the cultural products of the past that lends the episode its power.  
          The episode is structured like a fable, the forgotten princess locked away in a castle who longs for a prince from her past to rescue her. The story is crowned with a largely illogical happy ending that represents hope and sentiment despite the dark and obsessive nature of the episode. This ending greatly destroys the carefully built mood and tension of what had come before. The strange Poe-meets-Hollywood feel of the story is swept away the moment Martin Balsam picks up the scarf by the staircase, smiles and says, “To wishes, Barbie.” It’s a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn in terms of mood and atmosphere.  
     When Danny views the final footage of Barbara Jean walking off into her fantasy netherworld along with all of the dead or long gone actors from the past, the atmosphere should reinforce the idea that she is walking off with ghosts, that Barbara has essentially chosen death over living her life to the fullest in the here and now. Of course there is an interpretation of the episode that sees Barbara Jean escape into the happiest moments of her life. But at what cost? When the projector screen goes black, it should be a disturbing moment, not a reassuring one. The obvious inspiration for this episode, Billy Wilder's 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, gets the message right. There is no going back. Where one desires to go back to is never as one remembers it being through a haze of nostalgia. 
       Serling was conflicted about a person's longing for the past and what the past ultimately signifies to the person we are at present. It was a subject he returned to again and again throughout his career, and for as many stories as he wrote about not being able to go home again ("Walking Distance," "No Time Like the Past," "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"), he wrote a number displaying that an escape into the past is possible ("A Stop at Willoughby"). 
     Ida Lupino is simply perfect as Barbara Jean Trenton. She was an astonishingly talented woman from a family of artists who became the only person to both star in an episode of the series as well as direct another. She was the only woman to direct an episode of the series, as well, the fifth season episode, "The Masks," from a Rod Serling script. That episode happens to be one of the finest the series has to offer, largely due to Lupino's moody direction, and is Rod Serling's final great masterpiece of the series. Lupino here plays the role of the obsessed film star with compassion while avoiding the temptation to emulate Gloria Swanson's manic performance in Sunset Boulevard. Lupino was an versatile actress and director who was particularly well versed in film noir in both capacities. As an actress she appeared in They Drive by Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), alongside Humphrey Bogart, Road House (1948), and On Dangerous Ground (1951). She directed the hard hitting film The Hitch-Hiker in 1953 for RKO. Lupino also directed episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a whopping 9 episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, including the classics "Trio for Terror" and "La Strega." She was something of a child prodigy, acting and writing in her own productions by age 7, and harbored dreams of being a writer. Her father, Stanley Lupino, a legend in musical comedy, encouraged her talent in acting and Ida began serious study of the art form in her early teens. By the late 1940's, Lupino was writing, producing, and directing independent films while navigating the studio system of Hollywood. She died in Los Angeles on August 3, 1995, aged 77. 
       Martin Balsam, an Academy Award winning actor that should be a familiar face to genre television and film fans everywhere, is reliable as always. Balsam is the type of character actor one comes to appreciate not only for his range but for the way in which he not only adjusts to the character but also adjusts the character to himself. He is not an actor that is going to slip completely into a role but he is going to be convincing and believable. Balsam held roles in two exceptional thrillers from the sixties (Psycho (1960) and Cape Fear (1962)), starred as the psychologist trying to help a doomed time traveler in Rod Serling's "The Time Element," for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (the unofficial Twilight Zone series pilot), and appeared again in the season four episode “The New Exhibit.” A prolific actor, Balsam is also remembered for his role in 12 Angry Men (1957) and appeared in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of which, "The Equalizer," plays on Balsam's small stature. 
        As noted earlier, "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" was unquestionably influenced by director Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a washed up and reclusive film starlet from the silent era who still lives thirty years in the past while remaining secluded in her dilapidated mansion. Norma also, like Barbara Jean Trenton, spends much of her time watching prints of her old movies, yearning to be young again. By chance, Desmond meets a handsome aspiring screenwriter named Joe Gillis, played by William Holden, and works to keep him as her "pet" writer while he produces a screenplay that will bring her back into the limelight. Of course, it all ends in tragedy with Gillis's death at the hands of Desmond in a desperate act of lover's rage. By the time Serling came to produce "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine," Sunset Boulevard already held a reputation as an exceptional film.
        A note about the exceptional music in the episode. It is provided by legendary German-American composer Franz Waxman, who, ironically, also provided the score to Sunset Boulevard (for which he won an Academy Award). Waxman's music will sound familiar to genre fans from movies such as Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Rebecca (1940), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Suspicion (1941), and Rear Window (1954). Unfortunately, this is the only episode Waxman lent his talents to. He died in 1967. It is interesting to note here that director Mitchell Leisen and composer Franz Waxman were once titans in Hollywood but were no longer in demand by the time they came to work on The Twilight Zone. It lends a poignancy to this story about a love of the past, and of past glories in the golden days of Hollywood. 

Grade: C

Notes:

-Rod Serling went on record several times as saying he held no love for this episode and considered it an all-around failure.
-Ida Lupino also directed the exceptional season five episode “The Masks,” scripted by Rod Serling. 
-Martin Balsam also appeared in the unofficial pilot for The Twilight Zone, "The Time Element," from The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, and the season four episode “The New Exhibit.”
-Alice Frost played the part of Aunt Amy in the season three episode “It’s a Good Life.”
-"The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Kathy Garver and Charles Shaughnessy. 
-"The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" was adapted into a short story (as "The 16-Millimeter Shrine") by Walter B. Gibson for Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Revisited (Grosset & Dunlap, 1964). 

--Jordan Prejean