 |
| William Shakespeare (John Williams) is conjured by Julius Moomer (Jack Weston) |
“The Bard”
Season Four, Episode 120
Original
Air Date: May 23, 1963
Cast:
Julius
Moomer: Jack Weston
Mr.
Shannon: John McGiver
Sadie:
Doro Merande
William
Shakespeare: John Williams
Mr.
Hugo: Henry Lascoe
Dolan:
William Lanteau
Bramhoff:
Howard McNear
Secretary:
Marge Redmond
Bus
Driver: Clegg Hoyt
Cora:
Judy Strangis
Rocky
Rhodes: Burt Reynolds
Crew:
Writer:
Rod Serling (original teleplay)
Director:
David Butler
Producer:
Herbert Hirschman
Director
of Photography: George T. Clemens
Production
Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Art
Direction: George W. Davis &
Edward Carfagno
Film
Editor: Edward Curtiss
Set
Decoration: Henry Grace & Edward
M. Parker
Assistant
to the Producer: John Conwell
Assistant
Director: John Bloss
Music:
Fred Steiner
Sound:
Joe Edmondson & Franklin Milton
Mr.
Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes
Filmed
at MGM Studios
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“You’ve
just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on
a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer who, if talent came
twenty-five cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment,
Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a
brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on The Twilight Zone, he’s
to become an integral character in it.”
Summary:
Julius
Moomer is an enthusiastic yet untalented aspiring television writer and the
bane of his agent Mr. Hugo. When Mr. Hugo gets wind of a new television series
Julius begs for a chance to write a pilot episode. Mr. Hugo agrees under the
condition that Julius completes the script by Monday morning. The subject of
the new series is black magic. Since Julius knows nothing about black magic he
stops in at a used bookstore hoping to find a volume on the subject. The
eccentric shop owner informs Julius that they haven’t any books on black magic
when a moment later an old book floats off the shelf and drops to the floor.
Julius picks it up and discovers it to be exactly the book he needs.
Back
home, Julius consults the book and sets about casting a spell for help in
writing a television script. Julius makes convenient substitutes for several of
the spell’s ingredients and predictably does not achieve the desired effects. However,
when Julius speaks the name William Shakespeare the great writer appears in a
cloud of smoke in Julius’ apartment.
Once
he gets over the shock of the dead man’s presence, Julius sets Shakespeare to
work on the new television script. At a meeting on Monday, television
executives sense the potential of the script, despite its archaic language, and
greenlight the pilot. Julius, who submitted the script under his name, is
turned into an overnight star, making appearances on television shows and
meeting with sponsors and high-ranking executives. Shakespeare, meanwhile, is
prepared to return to the great unknown having completed his task. Julius is
reluctant to let Shakespeare leave, wishing to keep a good thing going and have
Shakespeare write more scripts. Shakespeare agrees to remain on the condition
that when he attends rehearsal the following day he will witness his play being
performed with accuracy and respect.
To
Shakespeare’s horror, his script has been butchered by rewrites and sponsor demands.
To make matters worse, the lead in the play has been cast with Rocky Rhodes, an
arrogant and contentious method actor. Shakespeare is appalled to the point of
punching out Rhodes and storming out of the rehearsal and out of Julius’ life.
Julius
has a backup plan, however. When Mr. Hugo gets wind of a new television series
on American history, Julius shows up to the agent’s office with an entourage of
famous figures from American history, having conjured them with his spell book.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Mr.
Julius Moomer, a streetcar conductor with delusions of authorship. And if the
tale just told seems a little tall, remember a thing called poetic license, and
another thing called The Twilight
Zone.”
Commentary:
 |
| John Williams (L) with Burt Reynolds (R) |
It is clear at this point in the series that, for reasons which remain
unclear, Rod Serling and company were intent on regularly featuring broad
comedy on The Twilight Zone. For a
series which remains notable for its introspective, often dark, fantasies
concerning topical subjects, these comedic episodes strike the viewer as a
jarring juxtaposition to the show’s average fare.
Perhaps comedy was
simply a way to create variety in the show’s approach to its chosen subject
matter. The series tried a variety of
different strategies in bringing lighter fare to The Twilight Zone, from reworking old scripts (“The Mighty Casey”)
to gimmicks such as silent film (“Once Upon a Time”) to featuring notable
comedic performers (“The Mind and the Matter,” “Cavender Is Coming”). Incredibly,
the episodes “Mr. Bevis” and “Cavender Is Coming,” some of the most ineffective
material produced on the series, were initially written to launch television
series.
These broadly comedic
episodes, which also include such offerings as “Mr. Bevis,” “Mr. Dingle, the
Strong,” “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby,” and “From Agnes – With Love,” are typically
viewed as among the least successful episodes of the series by all except those
reluctant to criticize any of Rod Serling’s scripts. It could be worth a
writer’s time to explore why comedy
did not work on the series, especially in light of the talent in front of the
camera, with the likes of Shelly Berman, Buster Keaton, Andy Devine, and Carol
Burnett appearing on the series.
In
some respects, comedy was effectively
featured on the series. Several episodes, such as “The Chaser,” “A World of His
Own,” “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” “The Prime Mover,” “Dead Man’s Shoes,” and
“A Kind of Stopwatch,” featured a lightness of touch which, if not outright
comedy, was about as close to farcical as the series could comfortably operate.
Other episodes, such as “The Fever,” “A Most Unusual Camera,” and “A Piano in
the House,” offered dark, and perhaps unintentional, humor. It is apparent that
anything broader in comedic scope than, for example, Dick York struggling to
adjust to his newfound mindreading abilities in “A Penny for Your Thoughts” was
an overabundance.
“The
Bard” has much in common with earlier comedic episodes, particularly “Mr.
Bevis,” “Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” and “Cavender Is Coming.” Like these earlier
episodes, it features a luckless character who, by chance or magic, is gifted
extraordinary abilities or an entity to perform extraordinary feats on their
behalf. William Shakespeare performs much the same role as the guardian angels
in “Mr. Bevis” and “Cavender Is Coming,” or the aliens in “Mr. Dingle, the
Strong.” He arrives to assist a person whose primary quality is their failure
to successfully launch along the course of life.
“The Bard” subtly
recreates, or recalls, scenes from earlier comedic episodes, as well. The
eccentric bookshop proprietor and her crowded, dusty shop recalls A. Daemon’s
apothecary shop from “The Chaser,” while her baseball obsession recalls “The
Mighty Casey.” “The Bard” includes a scene of mischief on a city bus
reminiscent of a similar scene in “Cavender Is Coming,” complete with finger
writing in the air. “The Bard” also features an element which recurred with regularity
on the series and which perhaps strikes the modern viewer as unusual, this
being the featured relationship between an adult man and a female child. In
“The Bard” it is used for comedic effect as Julius Moomer trades barbs with
Cora, his landlady’s smart-mouthed young daughter. Producer Herbert Hirschman
was particularly wary of the language used in these scenes. In other episodes,
such relationships were used to elicit empathy (“On for the Angels,” “The
Fugitive”) or menace (“Caesar and Me”).
An appealing aspect of
“The Bard” is the biting satire in Rod Serling’s script, a quality not seen in
this quantity since the dismal second season episode “The Whole Truth.” “The
Bard” was hardly the first time Serling approached the dehumanizing aspect of
trying to create art or quality in an essentially commercial endeavor, but
chose to approach the subject this time not with the blunt force of a drama but
with the sharp edge of satirical comedy. This theme pervades much of Serling’s
work, dating back to his first great success as a professional writer, the Kraft Theatre production of “Patterns”
(1955), in which a new executive is forced to confront his personal morality in
a cutthroat business environment. On The
Twilight Zone, Serling examined the theme in “Walking Distance” and, most memorably,
“A Stop at Willoughby.” In “The Bard” this quality is played for laughs (Serling
is, after all, using the most revered figure in English literature to
illustrate the plight of the television writer) but it should not be lost on
the viewer that “The Bard” is, in some ways, a culmination of Serling’s
career-long battles with networks and sponsors. If the viewer is versed in
their Twilight Zone history, they
know that the prevailing narrative concerning the creation of The Twilight Zone is that Rod Serling
wished to create a series over which he had greater control after repeatedly
seeing his scripts censored at the hands of network executives and sponsors. Serling
also felt that he could approach topical issues with less interference if he
cloaked his stories in the trappings of fantasy and science fiction. This oversimplified
genesis story still contains an essential truth of Serling’s career. As one of
the “angry young men” of television drama, Serling consistently battled for
control over his scripts and their content.
The Twilight Zone, however, was still a place where the network and the sponsors exercised a certain amount of censorship and control. One situation on the
series which mirrors the butchering of Shakespeare’s script in “The Bard” is
the aborted production on George Clayton Johnson’s second season episode “Sea
Change.” Johnson’s story, about a man who loses his hand in a boating accident
only to discover that the hand has grown into a full bodied doppelganger intent
on his destruction, was nixed by the show’s sponsor, a food manufacturer, because
it was thought that the grisly subject matter would put the audience off their
appetites. Buck Houghton, then producer on the series, was forced to ask George Clayton Johnson to buy back his story, allowing the writer to move himself
into a bargaining position to write scripts for the series (to that point he had only sold stories to the series).
Ironically,
the satire in “The Bard,” which was aimed squarely at network executives and
sponsors, was enjoyed by the executives at CBS. It was series producer Herbert
Hirschman who battled Serling over the script. Hirshman issued Serling numerous
requests to change content in the script, pushing production on the episode
dangerously close to deadline and forcing Serling to, unsuccessfully, demand a
stop to the requests for changes. It became clear that “The Bard,” though
perhaps not as funny or effective as Hirschman would have liked, was a script
which was important to Serling and a story he was intent on telling. Readers
interested in the particulars of the requested changes are advised to see the
entry on “The Bard” in Martin Grams, Jr.’s The
Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (2008), an
excellent production history compiled chiefly from scripts, letters, interoffice memorandums, financial documents, contemporary reviews, and interviews.
Outside of certain inherent qualities in Rod Serling’s script, and despite an overuse of "hip" jargon and Shakespearean quotes, “The Bard” is elevated by
its excellent cast and their commitment to the material.
Jack Weston’s (1924-1996) energetic turn as Julius Moomer largely
prefigures Richard Erdman’s performance as McNulty in the fondly remembered
fifth season episode “A Kind of Stopwatch.” For his part, Weston is remembered as
one of the great villains on The Twilight
Zone, the antagonistic Charlie Farnsworth in Rod Serling’s “The Monsters
Are Due on Maple Street.” Weston’s two appearances on the series provide a good
view of the parameters of the actor’s versatility. His many film and television
roles ranged from slimy villains to lovable buffoons, typified by appearances
as George Stickle, friend to Don Knott’s The
Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964), and
the conman Carlino in Wait Until Dark (1967).
In our sphere of
interest, Weston got his television start on the short-lived, pioneering
science fiction anthology series Out
There (1951-1952), appearing in
an adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s “Susceptibility.” Weston appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the fifth
season episode “Forty Detectives Later,” written by Henry Slesar, the prolific
mystery and science fiction writer behind Twilight
Zone’s “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” and “The Old Man in the
Cave.” Weston twice appeared on Boris Karloff’s Thriller, in Robert Bloch’s “The Cheaters,” from the first season,
and the less-successful second season episode “Flowers of Evil,” directed by
John Brahm from a story by Hugh Walpole.
Weston later appeared
in two episodes of the Roald Dahl-hosted anthology series Tales of the Unexpected: “A Dip in the Pool,” from the first
season, and “Mr. Botibol’s First Love” from the second season. These episodes
have a curious connection as in both Weston portrays a character named Botibol.
The characters are not the same, however, and possess no connection other than
their unusual surname and their kinship as products of Roald Dahl’s imagination.
“Mr. Botibol’s First Love” was adapted from a 1948 story by Dahl while “A Dip
in the Pool” was based on Dahl’s 1952 story from The New Yorker (collected in Someone
Like You (1953)). Keenan Wynn,
son of Ed Wynn (Twilight Zone’s “One
for the Angels”) and star of Twilight Zone’s
“A World of His Own,” previously portrayed Botibol in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents adaptation of
“A Dip in the Pool.”
 |
| John McGiver (R) with Howard McNear |
Second-billed is
inimitable character actor John McGiver (1913-1975) as the bored, insensitive television
sponsor Mr. Shannon. McGiver later assumed the lead role in the fifth season
episode “Sounds and Silences,” a lesser-known episode partly due to its many
years of being held out of syndication packages of the series. McGiver got a
relatively late start in professional acting but made up for lost time with a
hugely prolific output. He is remembered today for character roles in such
films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961),
The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and Midnight Cowboy (1969).
McGiver twice appeared
on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in the
third season episode “Fatal Figures” and the fourth season episode “Six People,
No Music.” McGiver appeared in a television adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife on the short-lived
anthology series Moment of Fear, appearing alongside fellow Twilight Zone performers Larry Blyden (“A Nice Place to Visit,”
“Showdown with Rance McGrew”) and Janice Rule (“Nightmare as a Child”). McGiver
also memorably featured in “The Croaker,” perhaps the most bizarre episode of
the off-beat anthology series ‘Way Out, a
David Susskind-produced, Roald Dahl-hosted series which briefly aired on CBS as
a companion of sorts to The Twilight Zone
in the spring and summer of 1961. In “The Croaker,” McGiver portrays Mr.
Rand, an eccentric who discovers a way to transform his neighbors into frogs.
John Williams
(1903-1983), a dryly sarcastic William Shakespeare in a ludicrous bald cap, was best-known for his
appearances in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, especially his portrayal of Chief
Inspector Hubbard, recreated from Broadway, in Dial M for Murder (1954). Williams recreated the role for a 1958
television adaptation of Frederick Knott’s play. Williams also secured roles in
Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947)
and To Catch a Thief (1955). Williams
appeared in an impressive ten episodes of Alfred
Hitchcock Presents, including the John Collier (Twilight Zone’s “The Chaser”) episodes “Back for Christmas” and
“Wet Saturday,” both directed by Hitchcock, and the three-part episode “I Killed
the Count,” directed by Robert Stevens, director of Twilight Zone’s “Where Is Everybody?” and “Walking Distance.” Williams
appeared on Boris Karloff’s Thriller in
an adaptation of Robert Bloch’s “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” based on
Bloch’s most famous tale before the publication of Psycho (1959). Williams later appeared in two of the finest
segments of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, the
first season episode “The Doll,” based on the story by Algernon Blackwood, and
the second season episode “The Caterpillar,” from the story “Boomerang” by
Oscar Cook. 
The most memorable
performance in “The Bard” is the relatively brief appearance of Burt Reynolds (1936-2018)
as Rocky Rhodes, a highly amusing and spot-on spoof of Marlon Brando and method
acting. His exchanges with the television director, an uncredited Jason
Wingreen (Twilight Zone’s “A Stop at Willoughby,”
“The Midnight Sun”), and John Williams’ Shakespeare are perhaps the most
effective comedic exchanges on the entire series. It would be interesting to know
what Serling thought of the works of Tennessee Williams as Serling’s script
leans hard into lampooning not only method acting but also the works of
Williams, with particular mention made of A
Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof. This was likely just a playful jest on Serling’s part as Williams’
work would seem to appeal to Serling’s sensibilities. Burt Reynolds appeared in
the Playhouse 90 production of
Serling’s “The Velvet Alley” (1959), which also covered much of the thematic
material behind “The Bard.” Reynolds also appeared in the fifth season Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode
“Escape to Sonoita.” A string of appearances in critically and commercially
successful films, beginning with director John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), catapulted the actor to international film
stardom.
Director David Butler (1894-1979)
steps behind the camera for his first and only time on The Twilight Zone for “The Bard.” A native of San Francisco, Butler
began his career as a stage manager in his native city for theater producer
Oliver Morosco. Butler moved into acting in 1910, appearing in films for such
directors as John Ford, D.W. Griffith, and Thomas Ince. Butler enjoyed a
prolific acting career throughout the silent era before turning his attention
to directing in 1927. Over the course of his career, Butler directed some of
the biggest stars at 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers, including
Shirley Temple, Will Rogers, Bob Hope, and Doris Day. Butler did very little
genre work but is notable for having directed (as well as produced and
co-wrote) You’ll Find Out (1940), a
comedic mystery film from RKO featuring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter
Lorre. Butler specialized in family films, light comedy, and musicals which
made him a sensible choice to helm a lighter episode like “The Bard.” Butler moved
almost exclusively into directing television in 1955 with an episode of Studio 57. After “The Bard” Butler spent
an extended time on Leave It to Beaver. He
retired from directing in 1967.
If responses on social media are broadly indicative, “The Bard”
is a fiercely disliked episode. However, “The Bard” is, in my view, the most
enjoyable of the broadly humorous episodes, due to Jack Weston’s energetic
performance, its juxtaposition to John Williams’ sedately sarcastic
Shakespeare, a marvelous cameo from Burt Reynolds, and the satire at the center
of Rod Serling’s script. Despite the (ironic) difficulties Serling faced in
bringing “The Bard” to the series, he clearly relished taking aim at the
television industry and that energy feels infectious among the excellent cast.
“The Bard” is also very well-paced, especially in relation to less successful
fourth season episodes, due not only to Serling’s script but also to the
veteran hand of director David Butler. Nearly all regular viewers of The Twilight Zone have one or more
episodes which, objectively, they know is not among the show’s best offerings
but which they still enjoy. “The Bard” is one such episode for me.
“The
Bard” also marks the conclusion of the penultimate season of The Twilight Zone, a season where the show
emerged from a challenging situation in which it was cancelled, brought back as
a mid-season replacement in a new time slot and with a new time format, with its
longtime producer gone, and its creator geographically separated from the
production. In many ways, the series was irreparably damaged by the chaos of
this rapid death and rebirth. The creative collective which anchored the first
three seasons was eroding, and the final two seasons of the series are
characterized by an inconsistence in quality.
Despite facing enormous
odds, the fourth season provided a number of pleasures. Bittersweet among these
was the work of writer Charles Beaumont. Beaumont produced perhaps his best
season of work, and the best work of any writer during the season, shortly
before the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s robbed him of the ability to
write. Bert Granet and Herbert Hirschman were excellent producers on the
series, capable not only of occupying the vacancy left by the departure of Buck
Houghton but also of managing a production in which Rod Serling was largely
absent. The fourth season also showcased the excellent cinematography of Robert
Pittack, who photographed the late third season episode “Person or Persons
Unknown” before alternating duties on the fourth season with Emmy Award-winning
cinematographer George T. Clemens. Pittack remained on the series into the
fifth season, photographing such memorable episodes as “Nightmare at 20,000
Feet,” “Living Doll,” “Night Call,” and “Stopover in a Quiet Town.”
The fourth season
featured memorable performances from notable newcomers to the series, such as Dennis
Hopper, Robert Duvall, Dana Andrews, Pat Hingle, James Whitmore, and Burt
Reynolds, as well as a score of familiar faces from the series, highlighted by
George Grizzard in “In His Image,” Jack Klugman and Ross Martin in “Death
Ship,” Anne Francis and James Best in “Jess-Belle,” Burgess Meredith in
“Printer’s Devil,” Martin Balsam in “The New Exhibit,” and the wonderful
collective of “Passage on the Lady Anne.”
For some viewers, the
fourth season will always remain an anomaly which produced little if any
quality material. For these viewers I suspect the hour-long format is simply
too large a hurdle to clear. A half hour and a twist ending are paramount to
some viewers’ enjoyment of the series. The
Twilight Zone, however, was far more than a stock formula and its writers
too talented to collapse beneath a change in format. Aided by the steadying
presence of a veteran crew and a bevy of quality performers, the fourth season
remains an underrated gem which showcased the versatility of the series and the
talents of its creators.
Grade:
C
Grateful acknowledgement to:
-The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com)
-The Internet Speculative Fiction
Database (isfdb.org)
-Grams, Martin Jr., The Twilight Zone: Unlocking a Door to a Television Classic (OTR,
2008)
Notes:
--Jack
Weston also appeared in the first season episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple
Street.” He appears in "The Bard" alongside Marge Redmond, his wife at the time.
--John
McGiver also appeared in the fifth season episode “Sounds and Silences.”
--John
Williams also appeared in two of the most memorable segments of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: “The Doll” and “The Caterpillar.”
--Howard
McNear also appeared in the third season episode “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby.”
--Clegg
Hoyt also appeared in the second season episode “Static.”
--“The
Bard” was adapted as a Twilight Zone
Radio Drama starring John Ratzenberger
and Stacy Keach, the latter of whom also hosted the series.
--The
final sequence in the episode in which Julius arrives at Mr. Hugo’s office with
an entourage of historical figures will perhaps remind some viewers of the 1989
film Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Adventure, in which two high school
losers, who are worshipped like gods in the far future, use a time machine to
gather historical figures in order to pass a history class which will determine
their futures. Several viewers have pointed out that it is odd that Julius
selected historical figures rather than writers from earlier in history to
assist him. As Marc Scott Zicree points out, in The Twilight Zone
Companion, it is not research but writing
that is Julius’ problem.
-JP
