Reading Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Part 17

In which we take a closer look at each issue. Go here for our capsule history of the magazine.

 

Volume 2, Number 5 (August, 1982)

Cover Art: Ralph Mercer

TZ Publications, Inc.

President & Chairman: S. Edward Orenstein

Secretary/Treasurer: Sidney Z. Gellman

Executive Vice-Presidents: Leon Garry, Eric Protter

Executive Publisher: S. Edward Orenstein

Publisher: Leon Garry

Associate Publisher and Consulting Editor: Carol Serling

Editorial Director: Eric Protter

Editor: T.E.D. Klein

Managing Editor: Jane Bayer

Assistant Editor: Robert Sabat

Contributing Editors: Thomas M. Disch, Ron Goulart

Design Director: Michael Monte

Art Director: Wendy Mansfield

Art Production: Carol Sun, Susan Lindeman

Production Director: Stephen J. Fallon

Controller: Thomas Schiff

Assistant to the Publisher: Judy Borrman

Public Relations Manager: Jeffrey Nickora

Accounting Mgr.: Chris Grossman

Accounting Ass’t: Annmarie Pistilli

Office Ass’t: Katherine Lys

Circulation Director: William D. Smith

Circulation Manager: Marie Donlon

Northeastern Circ. Mgr: Jacqueline Doyle

Eastern Circ. Mgr: Hank Rosen

West Coast Circ. Mgr: Gary Judy

Advertising Manager: Rachel Britapaja

Adv. Production Manager: Marina Despotakis

Advertising Representatives: Barney O’Hara & Associates

Contents:

--In the Twilight Zone: “On the track of Poe . . .” by T.E.D. Klein

--Other Dimensions: Screen by Ron Goulart

--Other Dimensons: Books by T.E.D. Klein

--Other Dimensions: Music by Jack Sullivan

--Other Dimensions: Etc.

--TZ Interview: Douglas Heyes by Ben Herndon

--“The Lighthouse” by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch

--“MS. Found in a Bottle” by Joseph Cromarty

--“Midtown Bodies” by John Bensink

--“The Chili Connection” by Hal Hill

--Tron, E.T. and Poltergeist: For the kid in you . . . by Ed Naha

--Fun in the Dark by Deborah Wian

--“Slippage” by Michael Kube-McDowell

--“Something Evil” by Barbara Owens

--“The Dreamhouse” by Gezarija Abartis

--“Garage Sale” by Janet Fox

--The Twilight Zone: The Final Season by Marc Scott Zicree

--Show-By-Show Guide: TV’s Twilight Zone: Part Seventeen by Marc Scott Zicree

--TZ Classic Teleplay: “The Trade-Ins” by Rod Serling

--Looking Ahead: In September’s TZ

--In the Twilight Zone: “On the track of Poe . . .” by T.E.D. Klein

-Klein highlights the issue’s lead story, “The Lighthouse,” a posthumous collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch. “The Lighthouse” began as an untitled fragment left behind at Poe’s death and was completed in 1952 by Bloch (published in 1953). Klein first encountered the tale in the Sam Moskowitz-edited anthology The Man Who Called Himself Poe (1969), via the 1972 Sphere (UK) paperback reprint, A Man Called Poe: Stories in the Vein of Edgar Allan Poe. Klein highlights the issue’s other Poe-inspired tale, the humorous short-short “MS. Found in a Bottle” by Joseph Cromarty. The remainder of the editorial consists of capsule biographies of the issue’s contributors alongside thumbnail images.

 

--Other Dimensions: Screen by Ron Goulart

-Goulart steps in for regular films reviewer Gahan Wilson. Goulart begins with a nostalgic memoir about the movies he grew up with before moving on to the reviews. Goulart spends most of the column on Cat People (1982) a remake of the 1942 film from producer Val Lewton. The 1982 version was directed by Paul Schrader with Alan Ormsby providing the rewrite of DeWitt Bodeen’s original screenplay. It starred Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O’Toole, and Ed Begley, Jr. Goulart begins by questioning some of the “classic” talk which surrounds the 1942 film while also praising the film’s restraint and use of suggestion in constructing its scares. The 1982 film contains no such restraint and it is this indulgent quality which, in Goulart’s eyes, marks the film as an interesting failure. The film was updated for a 1980s audience with the injection of nudity and gruesome violence. Robert Martin provided a screen preview of Cat People for TZ Magazine in the April, 1982 issue.

-Goulart also briefly considers Deathtrap (1982), directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve, adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Ira Levin’s Broadway thriller.

-Sadly, in related news, Gahan Wilson recently passed away on Nov 21 at the age of 89. Wilson is known to readers of this series as the films reviewer of TZ Magazine but of course he was much better known for his macabre and humorous cartoons featured in such magazines as The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Wilson was also a novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, and book illustrator.

 

--Other Dimensions: Books by T.E.D. Klein

-Regular books reviewer Thomas M. Disch is out so Klein steps in to appraise a clutch of titles. Klein organizes the column under subject headings, the first of which is Reference. Here Klein considers Horror Literature, edited by Marshall B. Tymn, published by Bowker. Between its covers more than 1300 titles are considered by genre experts, including novels, collections, and magazines. The book is primarily designed for the library or the connoisseur. For the novice reader Klein recommends A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy by Baird Searles, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin (Avon) and its previously published companion title, A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction. Klein also appraises Horror and Science Fiction Films II by Donald C. Willis (Scarecrow Press), Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, edited by Neil Barron (Bowker), and On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back! by George H. Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, and John M. Ford (Owlswick Press).

-Under the subject heading Old Masters, Klein looks at works related to classic horror and fantasy writers. Among these are The Ghost of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms by Lord Dunsany, illustrated by Tim Kirk (Owlswick Press), Blackwoods Books, a bibliography of the works of Algernon Blackwood by John Robert Colombo (Hounslow Press), the anthology Friendly Aliens from the same editor and publisher, and An F. Marion Crawford Companion by John C. Moran (Greenwood Press). Several volumes related to the English writer M.P. Shiel are also appraised, including Xelucha and Others; Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk; The Works of M.P. Shiel – Volume I: Writings; Volumes II and III: The Shielography Updated; The New King; and The Rajah’s Sapphire.

-Under Puzzles Klein recommends The Tolkien Quiz Book by Nigel Robinson and Linda Wilson. Under Poems Klein appraises works from Joseph Payne Brennan, Creep to Death, illustrated by Jane F. Kendall, and L. Sprague de Camp, Heroes and Hobgoblins, illustrated by Tim Kirk. Both volumes were issued by Donald M. Grant. Finally, Klein looks at The Lowbrow Art of Robert Willams under the heading Pictures.

--Other Dimensions: Music by Jack Sullivan

-Sullivan returns with the final installment in his impressive, wide-ranging survey of macabre classical music, bringing the series up to date. The works he surveys include:

“Black Angels” by George Crumb

“Ancient Voices of Children” by George Crumb

“Night Music I” by George Crumb

“Music for a Summer Evening” by George Crumb

“Lux Aeterna” from Odyssey by George Crumb

“Tashi Plays Takemitsu” by Tashi and Toru Takemitsu

“Time Cycle” by Lukas Foss

“Mysterious Mountain” by Alan Hovhaness

“The Holy City” by Alan Hovhaness

Symphony No. 4 by Alan Hovhaness

“Akrata” and “Pithoprakta” by Xenakis

“De Natura Sonoris” by Penderecki

“Bohor I” by Xenakis

“Organ Works” and “Piano Works” by William Albright

-Sullivan recommends the best available recordings for each selection. Sullivan also offers Updates and Corrections, updating recommendations for recordings of works explored in past segments of the series. Sullivan closes out with recommendations from those who wrote in to the magazine. Musicologist Samuel Moyer recommends the French composers Arthur Honegger and Henri Dutilleaux, and rock musician Greg Yaskovich, from the space rock group Mars Everywhere, recommends Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Gage, and Morton Subotnik.    

--Other Dimenson: Etc.

-The magazine’s newest column explores The Twilight Zone in the popular culture. This installment includes the use of “Twilight Zone” in headlines from the Buffalo News, Peninsula Times Tribune, and New York Post, an installment of the comic strip Duffy, and a news item from the New London Day describing two young boys who attempted to hide in a department store by posing as mannequins (recalling the TZ episode “The After Hours”).

 

--TZ Interview: Douglas Heyes: Behind the Scenes at ‘The Twilight Zone’

Interview by Ben Herndon

Illustrated with personal photographs and artwork from Heyes

-Douglas Heyes (1919-1993) was perhaps the most celebrated director of The Twilight Zone, having helmed such classic episodes as “The After Hours,” “The Howling Man,” “The Invaders,” “Eye of the Beholder,” and five more during the show’s first two seasons. Heyes was the director brought in to tackle technically challenging episodes and often displayed innovative camera work rarely seen on television. This interview is a treasure for those interested in behind the scenes of The Twilight Zone as Heyes provides detailed accounts of the making of many favorite episodes.  

-Although a small semblance of Heyes’s full writing and directing career is given in a brief biographical section preceding the interview, and in places in the interview itself, the majority of the interview is given over to an in-depth discussion of Heyes’s years working on The Twilight Zone. After a brief exchange in which Heyes discusses his development as a director, the discussion turns to such TZ favorites as “The Howling Man,” “The Chaser,” “Eye of the Beholder,” and “The Invaders,” with attention paid to makeup, special effects, writing, and Heyes’s camera work. Heyes also discusses the creation of Rod Serling’s opening narration segments in such episodes as “Dust” and “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room.” Heyes discusses how he was brought in to steer Boris Karloff’s Thriller toward the type of Gothic horror series suited to its host (a claim disputed in some circles) by revisiting his episodes for the series, including “The Purple Room,” “The Hungry Glass,” featuring TZ favorites William Shatner, Russell Johnson, Elizabeth Allen, and Donna Douglas, and an adaptation of Poe’s “The Premature Burial.”  Heyes also discusses working with his wife, Joanna, on “Eye of the Beholder” and “The Hungry Glass.”

-Heyes’s work on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery is, unfortunately, not discussed in any detail. Heyes wrote and directed the segment “The Dead Man,” based on Fritz Leiber’s story, and wrote the segments “The Housekeeper” and “Brenda,” the latter based on the story by Margaret St. Clair. Nevertheless, this interview remains essential reading for TZ fans.

--“The Lighthouse” by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch

Illustrated by José Reyes

“Two masters of the macabre in a posthumous collaboration: a tale of isolation, horror, and the human will.”

-A lighthouse keeper narrates his struggles (as well as those of his dog Neptune) to remain sane amid isolation and the storms which batter the structure. To alleviate the strain, he becomes lost in his imagination. He imagines a rose and is astounded to find a rose floating upon the water outside the door to the lighthouse. Believing himself to have created the rose with his imagination, he resolves to create a companion for himself, the perfect woman to ease his loneliness. Although the rose soon transforms into a rotten bit of seaweed, the narrator is determined to see it through. He conjures a beautiful woman during a raging storm but her true essence soon becomes horribly apparent. She is created from the remains of something long dead from the depths of the sea. The narrator is rescued by his dog Neptune before the woman can claim him for the sea.

-“The Lighthouse” began as an untitled story left unfinished at the time of Edgar Allan Poe’s death in 1849. The manuscript pages were scattered, with a portion landing in the hands of a private collector and the remainder with the family of Poe’s literary executor, Rufus Griswold. The fragment was given the title “The Lighthouse” by Professor George E. Woodberry (1855-1930) when Woodberry included the Griswold portion in the appendix of his two-volume Life of Poe (1909) as Fragments of Poe’s Tale: The Lighthouse. The manuscript pages were eventually collated and in 1942 another Poe scholar, Professor Thomas O. Mabbott (1898-1968), published the fragment entire. It was Professor Mabbott who set in motion the posthumous collaboration between Poe and Robert Bloch.

Uncredited illustration
"The Man Who Collected Poe"
Famous Fantastic Mysteries (Oct, 1951)

-Mabbott was an avid reader of horror fiction and was already aware of Robert Bloch when he read Bloch’s story “The Man Who Collected Poe” in the October, 1951 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries. Mabbott was impressed by the story, particularly the way in which Bloch captured the Poe atmosphere and style. “The Man Who Collected Poe” concerns a book collector who chances to meet the foremost collector of the works of Poe. While examining items in the Poe collector’s home library, the visiting book collector is astounded to discover manuscript pages from several Poe stories of which he has never heard. In one of Bloch’s most memorable climactic flourishes, the house is consumed by fire as it is revealed that the Poe collector has brought the great writer back from the grave to create new works of mystery and imagination. “The Man Who Collected Poe” remains one of Bloch’s best, and best-known, tales. It is among his most oft-reprinted stories, appearing in anthologies compiled by such editors as August Derleth, Peter Haining, Helen Hoke, Marvin Kaye, Martin H. Greenberg, and Stefan Dziemianowicz. It was first collected in Bloch’s Bogey Men (1963), while also appearing in The Best of Robert Bloch (1977). The story was memorably adapted by Bloch for the 1967 Amicus horror anthology film Torture Garden, where Jack Palance portrayed the zealous book collector and Peter Cushing the man who collected Poe.

Illustration by Virgil Finlay
"The Lighthouse"
Fantastic (Jan-Feb, 1953)

-Mabbott wrote Bloch inquiring whether Bloch had ever read “The Lighthouse.” Bloch had not so Mabbott sent along a copy of the fragment with the suggestion that Bloch attempt to finish the tale. Bloch stated: “As a lifelong reader and admirer of Poe, I couldn’t resist. And thus it was, more than a century after Poe’s death, that I found myself collaborating with him. In order to do so I had to analyze his style and adapt myself to it.” Bloch completed the tale in 1952 and sold the story to Fantastic, where it appeared in the January-February, 1953 issue, with the cover proclaiming: “Scoop! Discovery! A NEW Edgar Allan Poe Masterpiece.” It was collected in Bloch’s Pleasant Dreams – Nightmares (1960).

-The challenge for the reader becomes finding where Poe left off and Bloch began. T.E.D. Klein is reticent to reveal the seam in his introduction to this issue but the line was revealed by editor Sam Moskowitz when he included the tale in his 1969 anthology The Man Who Called Himself Poe (1969). Poe’s contributions halt after the entry for Jan 3 with the words “. . . seems to me to be chalk.” Bloch begins with the Jan 4 entry of the lighthouse keeper’s fictional journal. Thus, Bloch wrote the majority of the tale, though he seamlessly binds his style to that of Poe’s. Bloch has not been the only writer tempted to finish the tale. Editor Christopher Conlon compiled a volume of noted horror, fantasy, and science fiction writers completing the fragment. Titled Poe’s Lighthouse, the anthology was published in 2006 by Cemetery Dance and includes new works from George Clayton Johnson, Earl Hamner, William F. Nolan, Conlon, and many more. Conlon has contributed significantly to the study of The Twilight Zone and the Southern California Group of Writers. We earlier interviewed Conlon about his work.

--“MS. Found in a Bottle” by Joseph Cromarty

Uncredited illustration

“As a postscript to the previous tale, and with apologies to Mr. Poe, we offer this modern variation on his . . .”

-A man walking along the shore discovers a bottle with a tiny young woman inside. He uncorks the bottle and attempts to free the woman but when she becomes insulting he replaces the cork and throws the bottle into the sea.

-This humorous short-short is a parody of Poe’s 1833 story “MS. Found in a Bottle,” itself considered a satirical take on seafaring tales. Joseph Cromarty contributed a few additional tales to TZ Magazine, including “The Screenplay” in the November, 1982 issue, and “The Neighborhood Assassin” and “Words, Words, Words,” in the January-February, 1984 issue.

--“Midtown Bodies” by John Bensink

Illustrated by E.T. Steadman

“‘Jump!’ ‘Don’t Jump!’ Did it really make any difference?”

-Office workers discover the secret of flying after following the example of a woman who attempted to commit suicide by jumping from an office building window but flew upon the air instead.

-This was a darkly humorous bit of surrealism and satire from a writer T.E.D. Klein describes as “one of the funniest writers I know.” The story was reprinted in the Winter, 1985 issue of Night Cry.

--“The Chili Connection” by Hal Hill

Illustrated by Randy Jones

“Vasco Blanco had a mighty tough palate – but was he a match for Hot Throat, the chili-eating champ of the galaxy?”

-An extraterrestrial named Hot Throat arrives in the Mexican village of Los Fuegos Pequenos to challenge the local chili-eating champion Vasco Blanco. Although Hot Throat’s chili-eating abilities are unmatched, he is unprepared for the effects of the village’s traditional alcoholic drink.

-The story builds a nice setting and collection of odd characters to play out its small struggle between worlds. Hal Hill previously appeared in the September,1981 issue of TZ with “Chameleon Junction.”

--Tron, E.T. and Poltergeist: For the kid in you . . . by Ed Naha

Illustrated with color stills from the films

“Creating cinematic fantasies involving a child’s eye-view of the world can require a lot of grown-up ingenuity – as these three movies prove. Ed Naha reports.”

-Ed Naha reports on three films thematically linked by children-in-peril storylines. Naha interviews the creators behind E.T., Poltergeist, and Tron to examine the ways in which films about children are no longer just for children. Tron, in particular, is given a detailed look, including an examination of then-cutting edge computer generated graphics which defined the look of the film. Steven Spielberg, who directed E.T. and wrote and produced (some say directed) Poltergeist, is front and center in the feature and the color stills accompanying the texts.

--Fun in the Dark by Deborah Wian

Illustrated with Wian’s photographs

“TZ’s roving photographer takes us on a horror-house tour.”

-Deborah Wian, photographer for TZ Magazine, provides a photographic tour of East Coast spook houses, those fairground staples which largely went out with the twentieth century. Wian visits Dante’s Inferno at Astroland on Coney Island, the nearby Spook-A-Rama, The Flying Witch at Playland in Rye, New York, The Haunted Mansion in Longbranch, New Jersey, and The Haunted Castle at the Great Adventure Amusement Park in New Jersey. Wian interviews the creators and operators of the attractions and takes photographs showing the entrances to the attractions, the performers, and much of the garish decorations which give the attractions their charm. With professional haunts being such a big business these days it is interesting to see this older style of spook house where creativity often had to overcome limited space and small budgets.

--“Slippage” by Michael Kube-McDowell

Illustrated by Bruce Waldman

“In which a Mr. Richard Hall discovers that everything grows old and wears away – even the past.”

-Richard Hall finds himself slipping through the cracks of his own past as all evidence that he ever existed, including the memories of his family and friends, slowly disappears.

-This story is an effective take on a well-worn theme. Kube-McDowell manages to imbue the story with an emotional context which lifts the tale above the average offering. TZ writer Charles Beaumont wrote two very effective takes on the theme, the third season episode “Person or Persons Unknown” and his 1955 story “The Vanishing American.” Kube-McDowell is a well-regarded writer of hard science fiction who appears in the pages of TZ with a dark fantasy tale. He is perhaps best known for his novels in the Star Wars universe and in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s Robot City. He is not to be confused with the horror writer Michael McDowell (1950-1999), author of The Elementals and the Blackwater series, and films such as Beetlejuice and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, who also published in the pages of TZ. “Slippage” was adapted for the first season of Tales from the Darkside by writer Mark Durand and director Michael Gornick, starring David Patrick Kelly, originally broadcast November 11, 1984. The story was selected by Karl Edward Wagner for Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XI (1983).

--“Something Evil” by Barbara Owens

Illustrated by Frances Jetter

“Her world was decaying around her – and revealing a horrible truth.”

The first of three stories under the banner title: 3 Highly Unusual Houses

 

-A woman’s poisonous personality begins to physically manifest by turning everything in and around her home into a rotting wasteland.

-Owens (1934-2008), an Edgar Award winner for her 1978 story “The Cloud Beneath the Eaves,” returns to the pages of TZ after her story “The New Man” appeared in the March, 1982 issue. Like that earlier story, “Something Evil” is a character study of something ominously supernatural intruding upon a “normal” life. Owens would place more stories in the pages of TZ, appearing with “Portrait: Edward Larabee” in the August, 1986 issue and “Sliding” in the August, 1988 issue.

--“The Dreamhouse” by Gezarija Abartis

Illustrated by D.W. Miller

“The reality they’d shared seemed just another illusion in . . .”

-An unhappy couple on a long drive stops to rest at a beautiful farmhouse which strikes them both as familiar. Once inside the house, however, their secretly longed-for separation becomes real in a form of purgatory.

-“The Dreamhouse” was originally submitted to TZ’s story contest for unpublished writers but Abartis’s entry never reached the judges due to the fact that she became a published writer soon after submitting the story. Abartis placed additional stories with the magazine, including “The Rocking Horse” in the September-October, 1984 issue, and “The Witch of the New Moon” in the April, 1988 issue.

--“Garage Sale” by Janet Fox

Illustrated by Marty Blake

“The serpentine lady sold second-hand clothes, old furniture – and something far more permanent.”

-A city worker takes a trip to the suburbs where she finds herself at a strange garage sale. There she makes the unusual purchase of a husband and is sold another life in the bargain.

-Janet Fox (1940-2009) was a prolific short story writer and poet who began her career in the mid-1960s with stories in fanzines. By the 1970s Fox began appearing in book anthologies and professional magazines. Fox was a prolific writer of horror stories and appeared in the pages of nearly all the horror publications during and after the 1980s horror boom, with stories in Weirdbook, Cemetery Dance, 2 A.M., The Horror Show, Whispers, Fantasy Book, Fantasy Macabre, and many more. “Garage Sale” has been reprinted in 100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories (1984), 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories (1995), and was collected in A Witch’s Dozen (2003).

--The Twilight Zone: The Final Season by Marc Scott Zicree

-A prefatory essay by Zicree before beginning the fifth and final season of his original series episode guide. The fifth season turned out to be the most up-and-down season in terms of quality, with some episodes becoming classics and others viewed as among the worst of the series. The series switched back to a half-hour program after the fourth season but came to rely too heavily upon past themes and recycled ideas. Zicree explains how CBS came to cancel the series and how Rod Serling turned down an idea to bring the series (sans The Twilight Zone name) to ABC under the title Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves (a title derived from a 1963 book anthology edited by Serling). Ironically, though Serling balked at the idea of doing “a series about ghouls” with ABC at the end of the fifth season, he would soon become involved in just such a series with Night Gallery, though he rather disastrously did not ensure the same type of creative control he possessed on The Twilight Zone.

--Show-By-Show Guide: TV’s Twilight Zone: Part Seventeen by Marc Scott Zicree

-Zicree continues his guide to the original series by providing the cast and crew, opening and closing narrations, and summaries for “In Praise of Pip,” “Steel,” and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”

--TZ Classic Teleplay: “The Trade-Ins” by Rod Serling

-The full shooting script for Rod Serling’s third season episode about a near future in which the elderly can exchange their old bodies for young and beautiful bodies, if they have the money. The episode was directed by Elliot Silverstein and starred Joseph Schildkraut, Alma Platt, Noah Keen, and Ted Marcuse. It originally aired on April 20, 1962. Read our review of “The Trade-Ins.”

--Looking Ahead: In September’s TZ

-Next month looks to be another great issue. Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver and director of Cat People, is interviewed, Thomas M. Disch returns to review books, Ron Goulart reviews three films, William Fulwiler compiles a quiz to test your knowledge of the first lines of famous works of SF and horror, and we have stories by Jere Cunningham, Gordon Linzner, Donald Tyson, John Skipp, and Jonathan Carroll. We also have set visits to Creepshow and Something Wicked This Way Comes, the return of Mike Ashley’s essays on The Essential Writers with a look at the works of Arthur Machen, along with “A Machen Sampler,” and a true rarity, an early radio script from Rod Serling, “A Machine to Answer the Question.” See you next time!

-JP  

TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE—THE BOOK

A LOOK AT ROBERT BLOCH’S NOVELIZATION OF THE 1983 FILM

Review by Brian Durant

In the years following the initial run of The Twilight Zone, there were numerous attempts to bring Rod Serling’s celebrated anthology series to the big screen. Serling himself attempted to get a feature-length project off the ground several times but was never successful. In 1982, Steven Spielberg, fresh off the massive success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and E.T. (1982), announced that he had secured the rights for a feature-length film adaptation of the series. Of all the names that had been associated with a possible Twilight Zone film or revival series over the years, Spielberg’s seemed the most appropriate. He appeared to have a great admiration for fantasy and science fiction and his first big break into the industry came in 1969 when he directed the “Eyes” segment of Serling’s Night Gallery pilot film. He also directed Serling’s “Make Me Laugh” for the first season of the show the following year. In 1971, he achieved another high point in his early career when he directed a feature-length version of Richard Matheson’s story Duel for NBC. The television special, which starred Twilight Zone alumni Dennis Weaver, was enormously successful and when asked about the film in interviews Matheson always said it was among his favorite film adaptations. Given his unprecedented popularity and the confidence of key figures from the original series like Serling and Matheson, Spielberg seemed the obvious choice to helm such a project.

He enlisted friend and filmmaker John Landis to co-produce the film with him. The film would be split into four half-hour segments. One of the segments would be an original story and the other three would be adaptations of episodes from the original series. Landis volunteered to write and direct the original segment and also an opening prologue. Spielberg chose George Clayton Johnson’s “Kick the Can” for his segment. “It’s a Good Life,” adapted for the show by Serling from a story by Jerome Bixby, was given to director Joe Dante. And George Miller was given the task of directing Richard Matheson’s classic psychological thriller “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” Matheson was the natural choice to pen the remainder of the screenplay, sharing screen credit for “Kick the Can” with friend and original writer George Clayton Johnson and E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison (under the pseudonym “Josh Rogan”). The score would be arranged by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose music for the original series had been an enormous influence on the show. The film would also feature a handful of actors from the original series with the great Burgess Meredith stepping in as narrator, an obvious choice. With what felt like all of the right people for the job, Twilight Zone: The Movie was sure to be a commercial and creative success.

The resulting film is considered one of the most regretful chapters in the history of Hollywood. The accidental deaths of actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) during the shooting of Landis’s segment cast an ominous shadow over the entire production and caused Warner Brothers to severely limit promotion of the film. The film performed poorly at the box office and was generally not a success among critics. The special effects were too extravagant, as was the majority of Goldsmith’s score, and the sets were ridiculously over-the-top in every way, not at all like the modest sets of the original episodes. Many fans also did not care for the drastic changes to “Kick the Can” and “It’s a Good Life.” The silver lining of the film was a handful of great performances especially from Vic Morrow and John Lithgow. While there were good things to be said of the film, it was clear that the filmmakers didn’t understand Serling’s vision for the original series.

A lesser known but more enjoyable version of the film came in July of 1983 in the form of Robert Bloch’s novelization of the movie published by Warner Books. Unlike many film novelizations, which are often assigned to unknown or unsuccessful writers for much less than it would cost to hire an established name, Bloch was a prolific and highly-regarded writer of speculative fiction and a Hugo and Edgar Allan Poe Award winner as well as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. Among his many books are the novels Night World (1972), American Gothic (1974), and The Night of the Ripper (1984). His novel Psycho (1959) was the basis for the Hitchcock film and he wrote numerous episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, Star Trek, and Night Gallery. Bloch was a close friend of Matheson and of George Clayton Johnson.

Robert Bloch

The novelization is only available as a mass market paperback and would have cost American fans $2.95 when it was first released in 1983. It's not actually a novel-as the title page says it is-but a collection of four distinctly individual stories which have no overlapping characters or settings. It’s roughly 200 pages with each segment clocking in around 50 pages. It features a middle insert containing black and white photographs from the film. Other than that the book is relatively bare bones. There is no introduction or afterword and also no celebrity quotes anywhere on the book with the exception Serling’s opening narration from the second season of the show on the back cover. The book was also released in several international markets.

Dutch edition, cover by Julie Bergen

French edition, cover artist unknown, taken from the French film poster

Italian edition, cover artist unknown

When first opening the book several changes are immediately noticeable. First, none of the stories contain opening or closing narrations, a trademark of the original series which is also featured in the movie and in both revival series. The stories are also given titles, where as in the film they are referred to only as “segments.” Each story bears the name of its main character. Readers will also notice that the order of the stories is different than it is in the films. The second and fourth segments are switched making the order:

1.) “BILL” (Segment I)

2.) “VALENTINE” (Segment IV)

3.) “HELEN” (Segment III)

4.) “BLOOM” (Segment II)

According to Bloch he was given an early draft of the screenplay and this was the order in which the segments appeared. This order actually shifts the tone of the book with each story slightly more hopeful than the one before it ending the book on a soft note with Bloch’s version of “Kick the Can.” He also said that the version he was given did not contain either the opening prologue—the driving sequence with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks—or the ending gag with Aykroyd in the ambulance.

1.) BILL

As a result of the tragic accident that occurred while filming the opening segment, Landis was forced to rewrite his screenplay. Originally written, Vic Morrow’s character redeems himself by saving the lives of two Vietnamese children from an air strike. Since they did not have all of the footage they needed Landis re-wrote the story the way it appears in the film. Bloch was also asked to re-write part of the first story to reflect how it appears onscreen. “Bill” is pretty faithful to Landis’s screenplay with some minor scenes added to flesh out the story. For instance, the story opens with Bill Conner driving to the bar, agitated and swearing, swinging in and out of five o’clock traffic. We learn a bit more about his character as well, like, for instance, that he is a salesman—no surprise—and that he has a wife—slightly more surprising. The chase montage is also a little longer with Conner briefly returning to the other time periods after the Vietnam sequence before ending up in Nazi Germany as he does in the film. Other than that the story is much the same as its big screen counterpart.

2.) VALENTINE

Out of all of the stories this one is probably the most faithful to the screen version. Bloch’s version is almost identical to Matheson’s in terms of action, although he includes a lot of Valentine’s internal monologue at the beginning of the story, something hard to explore on the screen. As I mentioned, there is no ambulance scene. The story ends with the crew noticing the mangled engine. Bloch’s version is highly enjoyable. Valentine comes across as an outlandish but believable and sympathetic character. For fans of any of the previous versions of Matheson’s 1962 story I would recommend giving this one a read. This is probably the best story in the book.

3.) HELEN

This is probably the worst story in the book. Not terrible but definitely the weak spot of the novelization although this is not so much Bloch’s fault as it is Matheson and Dante's. Bloch opens with a scene not featured in the film. Helen Foley is attending her mother’s funeral in Homewood, her home town. She has a sister, Vivian, whom she is wildly resentful of because Vivian is ignorant and weak, but also because she is pretty, a trait that has gotten her through most of her life. Helen, a teacher, is disgruntled with her job and no longer feels connected to her home town. The scene is several pages long and ends with her talking to her sister while she waits for her mother’s funeral to end so she can skip town.

The next scene features Helen on her way to her new life in Willoughby, punk rock blasting from her car radio. Her internal dialogue races wildly here as she reflects on how despondent kids have become and their obsessions with loud music and video games. This is kind of an early reference to punk rock and to video games, both of which were still relatively clandestine forms of entertainment in 1983. The scene is written well and adds a depth to Helen’s character although the social commentary feels more like Bloch’s than Helen’s.

The rest of the story follows Matheson’s script pretty faithfully. The extra material is interesting and gives Helen, who comes off a bit dull onscreen, a complex personality. Its purpose is likely to explain the ludicrous ending in which Helen promises to teach Anthony how to stop being an omnipotent psychopath and in return he makes pretty flowers bloom for her on the side of the road. Helen no longer feels joy as a teacher. She doesn’t feel as if she is impacting the lives of her students the way she had hoped. She sees Anthony as a broken child who feels unloved and disconnected from everyone, someone just as lost as she is. In agreeing to be his mentor she hopes to also fix herself in the process. The screenplay has never been commercially released, although there are bits and pieces of it floating around the internet. It would be interesting to see if this material was included in Matheson’s screenplay or if it is Bloch’s invention.

On a side note, at one point Serling intended to adapt Bixby’s story into a feature-length film and even completed a full-length screenplay for it before the project stalled.

4.) BLOOM

This is probably the story which varies the most from the film version. George Clayton Johnson felt that his original teleplay was a bit irresponsible in that it failed to portray the reality of the situation. Who was going to take care of these children now? Where would they live? Who would feed them? After being asked if he would be interested in selling the screen rights to Warner Brothers for a film adaptation of his Twilight Zone episode “Kick the Can,” Johnson submitted a short, three-page outline to Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy of Amblin Entertainment. The outline contained an additional sequence which began where the original story ended, with the kids running off into the woods. It follows the kids on their adventure through the woods, running and laughing and soaking in the joy of youth. As the excitement fades they become hungry and tired and frightened. They begin to realize the consequences of their actions. They stumble upon the rest home, unfamiliar to them now, and climb into the warm beds where they are transformed back into their older selves. Matheson kept Johnson’s idea but condensed it for time, eliminating the scenes of the children in the woods. Unbeknownst to Matheson, after he submitted his final draft Spielberg gave it to screenwriter Melissa Mathison for revision. Spielberg had just worked with Mathison on E.T. and felt that she could give the story a softer, whimsical quality. She didn’t change the plot structure much but she did place heavy emphases on Mr. Bloom’s supernatural abilities. In Bloch’s version—and presumably Matheson and Johnson’s—the magic is still a bit ambiguous although it is assumed that Bloom does have something to do with it. She also rewrote the scene with the children, saturating it with syrupy-sweet dialogue and cheap visual gimmicks. This, in combination with Jerry Goldsmith’s overly-sentimental music, Scatman Crother’s very awkward performance, the archetypal supporting characters, and Spielberg’s unusually whimsical direction, makes this the worst segment of the film. Matheson and Johnson were both unhappy with it.

Bloch’s version also features a dream montage which occurs just before Bloom wakes everyone to go play outside. In it, Bloch goes inside the minds of nearly every character to give the reader a glimpse into their dreams. Mrs. Dempsey dreams of her late husband. Mr. Agee imagines himself as Douglas Fairbanks, fighting crime in Sherwood Forrest. Mr. Mute dreams of mole rats. Mr. Weinstein wonders whether Mr. Bloom is crazy or not but figures it doesn’t matter either way. The sequence is a nice touch and helps to segue into the “magic” scene which follows.

Bloch took an almost unwatchable segment of the film and turned it into a highly enjoyable story. His version feels fresh and full of energy. He keeps the pace lively with his signature brand of tongue-in-cheek humor but manages to hold on to the warm nostalgia of Johnson’s original story. It comes recommended.

It’s not a book that is going to change lives. It has flaws and its share of negative reviews. But after having it on my shelf for several years I finally decided to give it a read and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. So if you are a fan of either the show or the movie I would definitely recommend picking up a copy. It still sells for relatively cheap on Amazon and eBay and finding a copy at a used bookstore or library sale is still fairly common. If you don’t like it you will not have wasted much money and you will own a cool piece of pop culture that any diehard Twilight Zone fan would appreciate.

If you’ve read Bloch’s novelization feel free to comment and let us know what you thought!

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following:

Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Archive of American Television:

--Interview with GeorgeClayton Johnson; conducted by Gary Rutkowski (September, 2003)

--Interview with RichardMatheson; conducted by Karen Herman (April, 2002)

Twilight Zone Museum; "Twilight Zone: The Movie—Visions Lost in the Twilight Zone" by Ross Plesset