"The Chaser"

John McIntire and George Grizzard

"The Chaser"

Season One, Episode 31

Original Air Date: May 13, 1960

Cast:

Roger Shackleforth: George Grizzard

Leila: Patricia Barry

Professor A. Daemon: John McIntire

Homburg: J. Pat O'Malley
Old Woman: Marjorie Bennett
Tall Man: Rusty Wescoatt
Blonde Woman: Barbara Perry

Crew:

Writer: Robert Presnell, Jr. (Based on the story by John Collier)

Director: Douglas Heyes

Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye

Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason
Assistant Director: Don Klune
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell

Music: Stock

And Now, Mr. Serling:

"In this library, a certain professor sells things. Ointments, salves, powders, sovereign remedies, nectars, concoctions, decoctions, and potions, all guaranteed. Next week he'll sell one to a lover boy so that he can slip an affectionate mickey into the champagne of his lady love. It sets up a most bizarre and very unexpected chain of events. On The Twilight Zone next week, 'The Chaser.'

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:

"Mr. Roger Shackleforth. Age: youthful twenties. Occupation: being in love. Not just in love but madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love, with a young woman named Leila who has a vague recollection of his face and even less than a passing interest. In a moment you'll see a switch, because Mr. Roger Shackleforth, the young gentleman so much in love, will take a short but meaningful journey into The Twilight Zone."

Summary:

            Roger Shackleforth is madly in love with a beautiful woman named Leila, a woman who wants nothing to do with him. Roger spends most of his time swooning and attempting to see Leila. When he holds up a line at a public telephone attempting over and over again to successfully get Leila to pick up the phone on the other end, a man waiting to use the phone for an emergency forces Roger out of the booth. The man says that he understands Roger's dilemma perfectly and then gives Roger a business card. The man tells Roger that the namesake belonging to the business card can solve Roger's problem. Though not believing his problem can be solved so easily, Roger heads over to the address on the business card.

            What Roger finds is a house with a front door that opens itself to visitors and reveals a large entryway leading to an even larger room crammed floor to ceiling with endlessly high shelves crammed to the brim with books and other assorted items. Here Roger finds a grumpy, older man named Professor A. Daemon. The professor's abode is an apothecary where he offers all sorts of potions and elixirs designed for different purposes. He initially attempts to sell Roger glove cleaner, for $1,000, a liquid with no odor, no taste, and no trace, guaranteed to work. Roger, who still doesn't know why he even bothered to come here and doesn't yet understand how the professor can help him, turns down the sale of the glove cleaner and turns to leave. The professor manages to get Roger to admit his own dilemma and, to the professor's great disappointment, it is a simple need for a love potion, what the professor calls "the simple parlor trick" of his profession. The love potion will only cost Roger $1. Though he doesn't believe for an instant that it'll work, Roger is willing to try anything for Leila's love and buys the potion.

            Roger shows up unannounced at Leila's apartment with two glasses and a bottle of champagne. He begs his way into her apartment with the promise to leave her alone if she will just have one drink with him. Leila reluctantly agrees. While Leila is in the other room getting dressed, Roger pulls from his pocket the small bottle of love potion and empties it into Leila's glass of champagne. Leila returns and quickly empties her glass of champagne in order to get Roger out of her place and Roger watches eagerly to see if the potion will work. At first, it appears that it won't work at all as Leila's feelings toward Roger show no transformation. Then, after she reluctantly agrees to give him one last, small kiss to remember her by, she stops Roger at the front door, obviously feeling a change come over her. Then the change comes on full blast and she leaps into Roger's arms.

            Flash forward through six months of marriage and Roger is miserable. The love potion worked only too well and Leila's affections are suffocating Roger. She dotes upon him every waking second, an annoyance which becomes insufferable. Roger reaches the breaking point and manages to pry himself away from Leila's clutching hands to return to Professor Daemon's apothecary. The professor tells Roger that he's been expecting the young man to return and again offers him the "glove cleaner," reiterating that there's no odor, no taste, and no trace, guaranteed to work. Only one thousand dollars. Roger at first plays like the love potion has worked perfectly and his marriage to Leila is a dream come true. But it's obviously a sham and the professor has seen it a thousand times or more. They always come back some time later and want a solution to the problem caused by the love potion. Roger finally breaks down and admits the problem. The solution only cost a thousand dollars and it so happens that Roger already has a check made out in his coat pocket. The professor gives Roger the glove cleaner, snatches the check from his hand, and sends the young man away on his grim errand with only this advice: give Leila the glove cleaner immediately because if he doesn't do it right away, Roger will never have the courage to do it later.

            Roger returns to Leila with two glasses and a bottle of champagne, a mirror situation to when he first applied the love potion. This time, however, he will give Leila a dose of death in the form of a tasteless, odorless, traceless liquid. Roger manages to get Leila out of the room for long enough to dump the deadly liquid into her champagne. When Leila returns, however, she tells Roger that she has great news for him. She then holds up a tiny knitted sock, signifying the coming of a child and Roger, holding both glasses of champagne, drops the glasses, spoiling the chance to administer the "glove cleaner." Roger, in a state of shock, mumbles that he couldn't have done it anyway. Outside, the professor lounges in a patio chair, smoking a cigar. When he blows a puff of smoke, it is in the shape of a heart.

Rod Serling's Closing Narration:

"Mr. Roger Shackleforth, who has discovered at this late date that love can be as sticky as a vat of molasses, as unpalatable as a hunk of spoiled yeast, and as all-consuming as a six-alarm fire in a bamboo and canvas tent. Case history of a lover boy who should never have entered The Twilight Zone."

Commentary:

Patricia Barry with George Grizzard

                Though simple in concept and execution, "The Chaser" works well as a comedic fantasy, where many other comedic attempts from the series do not, because of the excellent performances of the three principal actors, the direction from one of The Twilight Zone's greatest craftsman, Douglas Heyes, the wonderful set design, and the source material, John Collier's unforgettable vignette.

                The episode is fable-like in its simplicity and can seem, when viewed today, to be rehashed from a dozen other fictions dealing with the good intention gone bad. The Twilight Zone would delve again into this fictional pool with lighter attempts such as season four's "I Dream of Genie," and darker material such as "The Man in the Bottle," from season two. It does well to remember that although the story might seem as old as fable, Collier's treatment of the theme, like many of the author's other works, were later borrowed from and added upon for years to come.

"The Chaser" succeeds because the episode doesn't stray too far one way or the other, too dark or too light, and comes off as a perfectly executed dark comedy. The ending is really the only weak part of the episode, as it seems anticlimactic compared to the preceding action, yet still works as a macabre and humorous closing to the play. It is interesting to note that "The Chaser" is the only episode from the first season not scripted by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, or Richard Matheson, three writers who contributed heavily to the overall output of scripts for the show. It was filmed from a script by Robert Presnell, Jr. (1914-1986), a notable writer of television dramas and B features who for many years was married to actress Marsha Hunt, later to appear in the fifth season episode "Spur of the Moment." Presnell's script dates to nearly a decade before its production on The Twilight Zone. The script first aired as "Duet for Two Actors" on February 20, 1951 for The Billy Rose Show (aka Billy Rose's Playbill Theater). For its production on The Twilight Zone, the story rights were secured from John Collier by series producer Buck Houghton. Houghton also wanted to purchase the rights to Presnell's script for Rod Serling to adapt for the series. Ultimately, however, after communications with Presnell's representatives, Houghton struck a deal with the writer to revise and expand his script for its adaptation on The Twilight Zone. The result is an excellent, darkly comedic script that both perfectly captures the macabre atmosphere of Collier's story and stands equally aside the best episodes of the first season. 

                London-born John Collier (May 3, 1901-April 6, 1980) began his career as a poet and occasional novelist. His 1930 satirical novel, His Monkey Wife, or Married to a Chimp caused a sensation when published and has seen several reprintings since. He soon relocated to America in hopes of a writing career in film and television. Also at this time, he began publishing sardonic tales of crime and fantasy, a collection of highly influential short fiction upon which his reputation rests. Collier's tales are generally domestic fantasies with a healthy dose of crime, fantasy, and dark humor. Though he disdained the comparison, Collier is most readily compared to Saki (H.H. Munro), both stylistically and tonally, as the two writers separated themselves from other British fantasists through the vein of irreverent humor and biting misanthropy coursing through all of their fictions. Collier, like Roald Dahl after him, published most of his off-beat and macabre short fiction in the pages of The New Yorker. "The Chaser" was first published in the December, 1940 issue of that magazine and was later collected in Collier’s early collection, Presenting Moonshine (Viking Press, 1941), a book which also contains many of Collier's greatest stories, such as "Green Thoughts," "Evening Primrose," "Thus I Refute Beelzy," "Another American Tragedy," and "Bottle Party." 
                 It is difficult to overestimate the scope of Collier's influence on subsequent writers of fantasy and weird fiction, and to the formation of shows such as The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Collier worked to bring the macabre and the weird into the realm of the everyday, signifying a thematic trend which would bring his work in line with the writings of Americans Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown, and Henry Kuttner, and English writers L.P. Hartley, Roald Dahl, and Gerald Kersh. In his introduction to the New York Review Books reprint of Collier's seminal collection Fancies and Goodnights (2003), Ray Bradbury states that when Rod Serling visited Bradbury's home with the idea to begin a fantasy television program, Bradbury heaped upon Serling books by excellent writers of short fantasy fiction. Upon the top of the pile Bradbury placed the works of John Collier. Bradbury also states that he initially sought work on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television program because of the producers' taste for the stories of John Collier. Though "The Chaser" was, unfortunately, the only Collier story adapted for The Twilight Zone, it should be noted that some of the adaptations of Collier's work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents are today considered classics, including "Wet Saturday," "De Mortuis," and "Back for Christmas." Among Collier's other noted creations is his uncredited work on the screenplay for John Huston's The African Queen (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, and an unproduced screenplay adaptation of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Collier's famous 1940 short story "Evening Primrose" has been adapted numerous times for radio and television, perhaps most memorably as a filmed stage musical starring Anthony Perkins with lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. This adaptation was written by James Goldman, directed by Paul Bogart, and originally broadcast on ABC on November 16, 1966.

                Director Douglas Heyes, who had only one previous credit on The Twilight Zone to this point, Charles Beaumont's "Elegy," would go on to direct some of the most memorable episodes of the show, including "The After Hours," "The Howling Man," "Eye of the Beholder," and "The Invaders." Hayes and the production crew, especially photographer George T. Clemens and set designers Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason, do an exceptional job with "The Chaser." Working with only three main sets, their designs nonetheless dictate the brisk pacing of the episode and in the process create an unforgettable and instantly recognizable set in Professor A. Daemon's apothecary. The narrow yet expansively tall set is awe-inspiring and was impressive enough for Serling to use it as the setting for his trailer on the previous episode.

                Other than his subsequent appearance for The Twilight Zone, the excellent season four episode "In His Image," George Grizzard (April 1, 1928-October 2, 2007) also starred in the pilot episode Boris Karloff's Thriller, the similarly titled "The Twisted Image." Grizzard was a theater trained actor from age 7 who made his initial mark on the Broadway stage in plays such as "The Disenchanted" (1958), "Big Fish, Little Fish" (1961), and Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1962), nabbing a Tony Award nomination and an Outer Circle Critics Award in the process. Grizzard further made his mark on anthology television with roles in episodes of Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, Playhouse 90, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, besides finding roles in traditional television fare such as Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Hawaii Five-O, The Cosby Show, and Murder, She Wrote. Later in life, Grizzard found roles in films such as Wonder Boys (2000), Small Time Crooks (2000), and in his last credited role, Flags of Our Fathers (2006).

                Actor John McIntire (June 27, 1907-Jan 30, 1991) has over 140 credits to his name, usually portraying tough, authoritarian figures such as policemen and judges, in films ranging from The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Far Country (1954), Psycho (1960), and Rooster Cogburn (1975) to family fare such as Lassie: A New Beginning (1978) and voice-over work in Disney's The Rescuers (1977) and The Fox and the Hound (1981). McIntire also made his mark on television throughout his career, most noticeably with his long tenures on Naked City and Wagon Train. McIntire also starred in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

                Actress Patricia Barry (November 16, 1921-October 11, 2016) should be a recognizable face to fans of The Twilight Zone as she also starred in season four's "I Dream of Genie" and in the Joe Dante directed segment of Twilight Zone: the Movie, a remake of the original series episode based on Jerome Bixby short story "It's a Good Life," co-starring fellow Twilight Zone alum Kevin McCarthy. With over 135 credits to her name, Barry made her mark with appearances on the soap operas Days of Our Lives, All My Children, Guiding Light, Knot's Landing, and Dallas. She made her initial breaks as a pretty face in films in the 1940's before becoming a regular presence on the live anthology programs of the late 1940's and early 1950's. With intermittent work in film, Barry was mostly a mainstay on the small screen throughout the rest of her career, with some of her credits including Boris Karloff's Thriller, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Columbo, and Charlie's Angels.

                "The Chaser" is a quaint episode with little complexity but with a great deal of charm, some humorous innuendo, and some great dialogue. It is also the only offering on the show from the works of writer John Collier, a writer whose style seems to have, in many ways, permeated the majority of the show's output (much like the work of Ray Bradbury, another writer responsible for only a single episode). This, in itself, marks it a rare and valuable episode. It also sports an excellent cast and shows director Douglas Heyes beginning to find the creative magic that would lead him to create many of the most memorable episodes of the show. In all, it's a darkly humorous pleasure and almost certainly the show's finest comedic episode of the first season.

Grade: B

Acknowledgments:

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

--Forgotten Gems from The Twilight Zone, Volume 1, edited by Andrew Ramage (BearManor Media, 2005)

Notes:

--Director Douglas Heyes directed several additional episodes of the series, including the classic episodes, "The After Hours," "The Howling Man," "Eye of the Beholder," and "The Invaders." Heyes wrote three episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, "The Dead Man" (based on the story by Fritz Leiber and which Heyes also directed), "The Housekeeper," and "Brenda" (based on the story by Margaret St. Clair), the latter two being written under the pseudonym Matthew Howard. Heyes re-teamed with actress Patricia Barry for an episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller titled "The Purple Room," the first of three episodes written and directed by Heyes. That episode is considered one of the finest of the series and marked a distinct shift in the series from stories of mystery/suspense to stories of supernatural horror. Through Heyes's fine work on Twilight Zone, he was brought by producer William Frye to NBC/Universal to help steer Thriller toward material more becoming of Boris Karloff. 
--As stated above, George Grizzard also appears in the fourth season episode "In His Image," scripted by Charles Beaumont and directed by Perry Lafferty.

--Patricia Barry also appears in the fourth season episode "I Dream of Genie" scripted by John Furia, Jr. and directed by Robert Gist.
--Marjorie Bennett also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "Deliveries in the Rear."

--A very similar story to "The Chaser" appeared three years after the story's original publication in the famous comic book Tales from the Crypt. In issue #25, cover dated Aug-Sept 1951, the third story offering was titled "Loved to Death!!" Hosted by the Cryptkeeper, plotted by publisher WIlliam M. Gaines and editor Al Feldstein, and scripted by Al Feldstein with art by Jack Kamen, the story follows the narrative course of the "The Chaser" very directly until culminating in a much grislier end. Not wanting her lover to drink from a dirty glass, the woman, affected by a love potion, accidentally gives the man the glass with the poison that was meant for her, thus killing him. When the man awakens in the afterlife, he is overjoyed at finally being free from her suffocating affections. Until, that is, the woman kills herself and finds him in the afterlife. To the man's increasing horror, she is now a horrifyingly mangled corpse and still very much obsessively in love with him. This story was later adapted for the Tales from the Crypt television program and originally broadcast on HBO on June 15, 1991.
--"The Chaser" was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama by Dennis Etchison, starring Stephen Tobolowsky. 

-JP

               

"A Stop at Willoughby"

Gart Williams (James Daly) longs for escape to Willoughby

"A Stop at Willoughby"

Season One, Episode 30

Original Air Date: May 6, 1960

Cast:

Gart Williams: James Daly

Jane Williams: Patricia Donahue

Mr. Misrell: Howard Smith

Young Conductor: Jason Wingreen

Old Conductor: James Maloney

Helen: Mavis Neal

Man on Wagon: Max Slaten

Boy One: Billy Booth

Boy Two: Butch Hengen

Trainman: Ryan Hayes

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)

Director: Robert Parrish

Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason
Assistant Director: Don Klune
Editor: Joseph Gluck
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell

Music: Nathan Scott

And Now, Mr. Serling:

"This old-fashioned railroad car is about as extinct as the dinosaur but next week it takes us to a little village that is not only a place but a state of mind. It's the transportation to what we think is one of the most unique stories we've ever presented. Next week, Mr. James Daly stars in 'A Stop at Willoughby.' We hope you stop with him. Thank you and good night."

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:

"This is Gart Williams, age thirty-eight, a man protected by a suit of armor all held together by one bolt. Just a moment ago, someone removed the bolt and Mr. Williams' protection fell away from him and left him a naked target. He's been cannonaded this afternoon by all the enemies of his life. His insecurity has shelled him, his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation, his deep-rooted disquiet about his own worth has zeroed in on him, landed on target, and blown him apart. Mr. Gart Williams, ad agency exec, who in just a moment will move into The Twilight Zone in a desperate search for survival."

Summary:

            Advertising executive Gart Williams sits at a table in the conference room of a high rise office suite surrounded by other middle-aged men. Gart is nervous, his hands moving in dreaded anticipation. At the opposite end of the table from Gart is an older, rotund gentleman, the owner of the agency, Mr. Misrell, who sits smoking a large cigar and looking perturbed. The men sit for a moment in silence until Mr. Misrell breaks it. He demands to know where another advertising man is, a young protégé of Gart's named Jake Ross that Gart has put in charge of a very important account. Ross is already over half an hour late to the meeting. Gart attempts to make a phone call to find out where Ross is but to no avail.  Moments later, a letter arrives. It is a communication from Jake Ross tendering his resignation with Mr. Misrell's agency and taking the important and lucrative account with him.

            Mr. Misrell nearly explodes at this bad news. He berates Gart for his lack of sound judgment and lectures him on the nature of the advertising business until Misrell's voice grows in power and force. Gart, at a breaking point, tells Misrell to shut up and storms from the room. Gart grabs at his chest and, ignoring the curious and concerned looks of those around him, closes himself off in his darkened office.

            While taking the train out of the city, Gart briefly speaks with the usual conductor and then falls asleep. He soon finds himself awakened by the conductor, a different, older, and curiously dressed conductor, announcing the train stop at a town called Willoughby. Gart is confused by this because everything has changed but it doesn't feel like a dream. Where it was winter it is now summer. Where it was 1960, it is now 1888. The friendly conductor tells Gart these things as Gart gazes out the window at Willoughby, a town which by appearance epitomizes a simpler, slower, more innocent and less stressful time. Gart looks again for the conductor and sees that the man has moved down to the farther cars on the train. Gart gets up and chases after the man. As he is about to step off the train, he finds himself jerked back to reality. He asks the conductor, his normal conductor, about a town called Willougby and the conductor tells Gart that he's never heard of such a town. Gart writes the experience off as a particularly vivid dream.

            At home, it is apparent that Gart is not only the victim of an unhappy career but also an unhappy marriage. His wife Jane is a mocking and unhappy woman with a large appetite for the best that money can buy. Her initial fear upon hearing that Gart had a breakdown at work was whether or not it would cost him his job. Gart tells her about his "dream" of Willoughby and his wishes to return to a simpler, slower time. But Jane isn't listening. When her fears about Gart's job security are alleviated, she berates Gart for being a child that has never grown up and walks out of the room.

            The next evening, on his way home, Gart again falls asleep on the train and gets a glimpse of Willoughby. He again runs after the conductor, yelling. He is instead awakened by the regular conductor when the man hears Gart calling out in his sleep. Unperturbed, Gart makes a promise to himself that he is going to get off the train at Willougby next time.

            After another harrowing day at the office Gart heads for home. On the train he becomes aware that this is his only chance to escape from the horrors of his life. He lowers the blind on the window, closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

            When Gart again opens his eyes he sees that the train has stopped at Willoughby. At the encouragement of the conductor, Gart steps off the train. Gart is greeted by the townspeople as though they've known him all his life. Smiling happily, Gart walks off toward the center of town.

            Meanwhile, back in 1960, Gart's dead body lies in the snow below the train tracks. According to the conductor, Gart said something about a town called Willoughby and then stepped off the moving train, falling to his death. As a final twist, Gart's body is taken away by a funeral home with a car marked Willoughby & Son.

            We close on the image of Gart having fully escaped into his fantasy world, walking toward the bandstand that sits at the center of Willoughby.

Rod Serling's Closing Narration:

"Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things, or perhaps, for a man like Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of The Twilight Zone."

Commentary:

"And then Williams realized that once again he stood in the middle of an old-fashioned train car and, approaching him from the opposite end, was the old conductor with the brass buttons and the old-fashioned cap.
            "'Willoughby,' the conductor smiled at him. 'All out for Willoughby.'"
             -"A Stop at Willoughby" by Rod Serling, More Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam, 1961)

James Maloney as the Conductor for the Willoughby train

            "A Stop at Willoughby" is generally considered one of the finest offerings of the show's first season (and perhaps of the entire series). Producer Buck Houghton went so far as to identify this episode as Rod Serling's finest teleplay of the first season. The episode has certainly endured among viewers and, in a narrower sense, remains essential among episodes that play on the theme of an escape from an undesirable reality into a past or imagined paradise, a theme that nearly every writer for the show tackled at one time or another. None of the show's writers, however, took on the subject more frequently than series creator Rod Serling. In point of fact, Serling had already written a similar first season episode, "Walking Distance," and another drama, "The Time Element," which aired on Desilu Playhouse before the premier of The Twilight Zone. Though "The Time Element" squarely focused on the terrors of time travel, "Walking Distance" presents a theme and subject very similar to "A Stop at Willoughby." You can read our review of "Walking Distance" here.

            Serling initially felt, incredibly, that "Walking Distance" was an all-around failure of an episode, though he would later come to recognize the episode's qualities. He had the general plot of "A Stop at Willoughby" in mind at the very beginning of The Twilight Zone’s creation and likely pushed the script into production so soon after the airing of "Walking Distance" because he felt the first episode had inadequately conveyed the theme he was attempting to bring across. "A Stop at Willoughby," however, lacks the impact and emotional resonance of "Walking Distance" due mainly to inflated characterizations and a baffling twist-in-the-tale ending. 

            The major problem with "A Stop at Willoughby" is that it is characteristically over-the-top. Whereas "Walking Distance" perfectly struck a nostalgic, melancholy tone, "A Stop at Willoughby" is instead depressing, filled with unlikable and unbelievable characters. Though James Daly is excellent as Gart Williams, both his high-pressure boss and his gold-digging wife are gross caricatures. The entire episode is the equivalent of watching Gart Williams bounce from one stress inducing obstacle to another with intermittent scenes of his gradual passage into a fantasy land which feels artificial and bizarre. Serling perhaps should have portrayed a fantasy which had no such immediately recognizable place within American history. Show the simple nature of an idealized time in the past but there is no need to define it as the summer of 1888 (Serling repeated this tendency in the fourth season episode, "No Time Like the Past," which contains elements of "A Stop at Willoughby"). 
                 It also seems a strange choice of escape for the main character, who seems to have no reason for his chosen fantasy other than it is a time that moved slower and in which a man could presumably live his life to the fullest. "Walking Distance" worked much better in this regard as the fantasy is firmly grounded in the character's personal past. The only difference is that, in "Walking Distance" (as well as in "No Time Like the Past"), the main character discovers that you can't go back again to what once was, whether real or imagined. The character of Gart Williams, in “A Stop at Willoughby,” has not even a tenuous relationship to his fantasy. He couldn’t possibly have lived within the time frame of the fantasy and the viewer is given no reason for such a fixation upon this specific time in the past. We also know that life in 1888 was in fact very difficult. It is doubtful that many of us would enjoy living in a time of deeply systemic racism, before women were allowed to vote, before the essentials of modern medicine, dependable sanitation systems, electricity, the automobile, and on and on.     
            “Walking Distance” is also a more uplifting episode with its fundamental message that only those who look to the past for happiness fail to see the happiness which lies before them. Martin Sloan, in "Walking Distance," realizes that the solution to his problems do not lie in a simple escape into fantasy. The lesson learned is that he controls his own existence and if he needs to slow down to take control of his own life then he can do so. Serling's views on the matter by the time he brought "A Stop at Willoughby" into production seem to have changed as the main character is now the victim of such a powerful onslaught that he has lost all control and is left with no choice but to cling to his fantasy and escape into it even though it may (and in fact does) cost him his real existence. Gart Williams's death becomes a sort of grotesquely symbolic suicide. 

            "A Stop at Willoughby" is informed by Serling's personal interactions with advertising executives as he had been in television long enough by this point to run into the constant roadblocks characteristic of advertiser-supported television. What is interesting is that even though Serling turns the general industry of advertising into a villainous leach feeding upon the lifeblood of the working man, he is still able to identify with the alienated individual and use that to examine his own set of moral and ethical ideals.

            The episode does have some great dialogue from Serling and fits the half-hour time slot accorded it quite perfectly, with excellent pacing from director Robert Parrish. It's interesting to note here that Serling originally conceived the script as a one-hour play for possible sale to one of the popular anthology programs of the second half of the 1950s. It seems as though had he actually produced the play as a one-hour program, the fantasy construct and the patience of the viewer would both have been stretched to the breaking point.

            A quick note on the only aspect of the production side of the episode which was lacking and this concerns the music from composer Nathan Scott. Scott's score seems to flourish whimsically during moments of grave seriousness and then quietly pulse during moments of pure fantasy where the whimsical flourish would be most appropriate. Scott's music was used one other time for the show, in season three's "Young Man's Fancy," a disturbing dark fantasy also concerning the past. It is interesting to think what a composer such as Bernard Herrmann, Nathan Van Cleave, or Jerry Goldsmith would have done with such a fantasy-rich episode.

            The ending of the episode is where most of the fault in the script lies. Many times The Twilight Zone was guilty of tacking on a twist ending that had little or no logical reason being there. Unfortunately, "A Stop at Willoughby" is one of these times. It must be assumed that viewers enjoy twist endings for no other reason than the memorable nature of the sudden and ironic change. According to dialogue in "A Stop at Willoughby," Gart Williams got up and stepped off the actual moving train when he decided to get up and step off at the fantasy stop of Willoughby. This doesn't work for two reasons. First, earlier in the episode Gart did get up and walk to the end of the car and onto the deck looking out over Willoughby yet in his real existence he never moved from his seat. From this basis, would it not stand to reason that what Gart did in the fantasy world, what he said, how he moved, would inform what he did in the real world? We were also shown scenes of Gart speaking the same words in both realities. It would have made more sense for Gart to have simply disappeared into the fantasy world, for the conductor to have walked down the aisle and found Gart's seat empty. Additionally, placing the name Willoughby and Son on the back of the hearse makes no sense other than to so serve as a sly, albeit confusing, wink to the viewer. Yes, we know that Gart has gone to Willoughby, but the attempt to have that literal translation in the world of his previous existence is nonsensical. The twist in the episode should always flow logically from the events preceding it. 

            Prolific actor James Daly began his career on television, appearing frequently on anthology programs, including genre turns on The Clock, Suspense, The Web, Danger, Climax!, and Suspicion before his appearance on The Twilight Zone. Moving into the 1960's and beyond, Daly had roles in some of the most fondly remembered television programs and in some cult fare as well, including Combat!, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Star Trek, Ironside, Mission: Impossible, and The Invaders. He co-starred in the classic 1968 science-fiction film Planet of the Apes (co-written by Rod Serling), playing the role of Honorious. He died on July 3, 1978 in Nyack, New York. Roots: the Next Generation (1979) was his last credited work.

            Director Robert Parrish began his career as an actor while still a child, appearing uncredited in such films as the Academy Award winning All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and the Charlie Chaplin film City Lights (1931). He worked on All the King’s Men (1949) and won an Academy Award for editing the 1947 film Body and Soul before moving into the director’s chair with 1951's Cry Danger. He went on to direct several more mid-budget thrillers including the cult-classic A Town Called Hell (1971) starring Telly Slavalas and Robert Shaw. He died on December 4, 1995 on Long Island, New York.

            Veteran actor Howard Smith, portraying the villainous Mr. Misrell, made a career playing supporting roles, usually as a police officer or some other authority figure. His film credits include Kiss of Death (1947), Call Northside 777 (1948), The Street with No Name (1948), and A Face in the Crowd (1957). He was a fixture on television from the late 1950's onward with appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Perry Mason, Green Acres, and Bewitched. He died on January 10, 1968 in Hollywood.

            Actress Patricia Donahue appeared on a number of mystery and western television programs during the 1950's and 1960's, including The Thin Man, Richard Diamond: Private Detective, Peter Gunn, Philip Marlowe, Bat Masterson, Michael Shanye, Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Perry Mason, The Saint, Rod Serling's Night Gallery, The Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones, and an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

            "A Stop at Willoughby" remains an enjoyable episode which embodies much of the enduring themes of The Twilight Zone in general and of Rod Serling's writing in particular. Serling and producer Buck Houghton certainly felt that it was one of if not the strongest script produced during the high-quality first season and, like nearly every episode from that inaugural season, "A Stop at Willoughby" is graced by good acting, directing, and a general high quality of production.

Grade: C

Notes:

--Patricia Donahue also appeared in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, "The Dear Departed" and "The Hand of Borgus Weems."
--Jason Wingreen also appeared in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" and "The Nature of the Enemy." 
--Mavis Neal also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Ghost of Sorworth Place." 
--Robert Parrish directed two additional episodes of The Twilight Zone, "One for the Angels" and, sharing credit with Alvin Ganzer, "The Mighty Casey," both from season one.

--Producer Buck Houghton noted in an interview with Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed., Silman-James, 1989) that the Willoughby sets for the episode were on the MGM back lot and were originally constructed for the Judy Garland musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

--As reported by Martin Grams in his book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (OTR Publishing, 2008), the made for TV movie For All Time (2000) reuses and revises Serling's script to present a modern retelling of "A Stop at Willoughby."
--"A Stop at Willoughby" was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Chelcie Ross. 
--Rod Serling adapted his teleplay into a short story for More Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam, 1961). 

--"A Stop at Willoughy" bears resemblance, almost certainly of a coincidental nature, to a tale from notable ghost story writer A.M. Burrage titled "The Wrong Station," first published in 1916 and later collected in Burrage's 1927 volume Some Ghost Stories. In the tale, a traveler by train is persuaded to exit at the wrong station, upon which he finds himself in an idyllic setting among happy children and adults. He finds a woman to whom he is attracted. The traveled is abruptly pulled away from this situation but returns at story's end after he dies from a heart attack. 

--"Willoughby" was the name of the family in the first published ghost story of Henry James, "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes." When James revised the tale for inclusion in his 1885 collection Stories Revived, he changed the family name to Wingrave. 

-JP

"Nightmare as a Child"

Image from a nightmare: Janice Rule as Helen Foley and Terry Burnham as Markie

“Nightmare as a Child”

Season One, Episode 29

Original airdate: April 29, 1960

Cast:

Helen Foley: Janice Rule

Markie: Terry Burnham

Peter Selden: Shepperd Strudwick

The Doctor: Michael Fox

Police Lieutenant: Joe Perry

Little Girl on Stairs: Suzanne Cupito

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling 

Director: Alvin Ganzer

Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Director of Photography: George T Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason
Assistant Director: Don Klune
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell 

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next week, you’ll spend a few rather unforgettable hours in this living room watching Miss Janice Rule and Mr. Shepperd Strudwick partake of a dramatic delicacy that is one part nursery rhyme, one part terror.  This is designed for those of you who are getting too much sleep.  Next week on the Twilight Zone, ‘Nightmare as a Child.’  I hope we’ll see you then.  Thank you and good night.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Month of November…hot chocolate…and a small cameo of a child’s face—imperfect only in its solemnity.  And these are the improbable ingredients to a human emotion...an emotion, say, like fear.  But in a moment, this woman, Helen Foley, will realize fear.  She will understand what are the properties of terror.  A little girl will lead her by the hand and walk with her into a nightmare.”

Summary:

Helen Foley is a young school teacher who lives a quiet existence alone in her small apartment.  Upon entering her apartment building one day, she encounters a little girl sitting in the stairwell in front on her apartment door humming a nursery rhyme.  She strikes up a conversation with the girl and invites her in for some hot chocolate.  Once inside, Foley immediately begins to feel uncomfortable her.  The girl says her name is Markie and that she lives in the building.  She begins to interrogate Foley by asking her about her childhood.  She seems to know a great deal about her like, for instance, how she got the scar on her arm.  Foley admits to Markie that she does not remember much about her childhood due to a highly traumatic incident she witnessed as a little girl.  Markie asks Foley about the man she saw in town today even though Foley has not mentioned him.

                During their conversation the man in question arrives at Foley’s door.  Before she is able to let him in Markie runs out the back door.  Foley opens the door and the man invites himself in.  His name is Peter Seldon and he was a friend of Foley’s late mother, who was murdered right in front of Foley when she was only a child.  He asks her if she remembers him at all and Foley tells him she doesn’t.  After her mother’s death she moved away to live with relatives and has only recently moved back.  Foley then hears the faint sounds of a child singing somewhere in the building and she recognizes it as Markie’s voice.  She asks Selden if he hears it but he says he doesn’t.  She tells him about the conversation she had with Markie just prior to him arriving at the apartment.  He tells her that “Markie” was her nickname as a child and he shows her a picture of herself when she was young.  The girl in the photograph is unmistakably Markie.  Seldon tells Foley goodbye and takes his leave.

                Some time later, Markie returns.  Again, she begins her rigid interrogation of Foley.  Irritated, Foley suggests that perhaps it’s time Markie went home to her mother.  Markie tells her that she has no mother, at least not anymore.  After pressing Foley even harder to come to a realization, Markie raises the curtain on the mystery and tells Foley that they are, in fact, the same person.  Not emotionally able to cope with the realization that Markie is not a real child but only a frightening manifestation of herself as a child, Foley collapses on the floor, weeping.  When she finally looks up she sees Seldon standing over her.   He informs Foley that she has been living in ignorance for far too long.  He confesses that he was the one who killed her mother.  After discovering that Sheldon was pocketing money from the place where they both worked, Foley’s mother told him that she was going to notify the police.  Enraged, he strangled her to death right in front of eight-year-old Foley causing to child to scream with terror.  Neighbors rushed over before he was able to kill the child.  Afterwards, Seldon learned that Foley did not remember anything about the incident.  So he waited.  One day the pieces would come together for her.

                Realizing that her life is in danger, Foley rushes out of the apartment and into the hallway.  Seldon runs after her and they struggle intensely before he loses his balance and tumbles down the stairs, snapping his neck before landing face down on the floor below.

                Afterwards, after the police and other emergency officials leave, Foley hears the sounds of a child singing just outside her door.  Hesitantly, she opens a door sees a little girl seated on the stairs.  To her relief, it’s not Markie.  She tells the girl that she has a beautiful smile, and that she hopes it’s with her always.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“Miss Helen Foley, who has lived in night and who will wake up morning.  Miss Helen Foley, who took a dark spot from the tapestry of her life and rubbed it clean-then stepped back and got a good look at the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:

Episode 29 of The Twilight Zone offers a bizarre story of psychological confrontation.  “Nightmare as a Child” is quite similar to several other Serling episodes that examine the realm of suppressed emotional turmoil, most notably Season Three’s “The Arrival” and Season Two’s “King Nine Will Not Return.”  As with these episodes, “Nightmare” is almost entirely devoid of any supernatural elements because much of the action takes place in Foley’s mind.  Serling may have been inspired by Truman Capote’s 1946 O. Henry Award-winning story “Miriam” when he wrote this episode.  While the two stories are different in many ways there are also quite a few similarities between them, and chances are that Capote’s psychoanalytical story of identity crisis would have appealed to Serling for it is a theme that can be found throughout his work on The Twilight Zone—“The After Hours,” “Judgment Night,” “The Lateness of the Hour” and “Where Is Everybody?” are only a few of the episodes written by Serling that explore the world of mistaken identity.  Capote’s story centers around a sheepish, soft-spoken woman named Mrs. Miller who meets a young girl named Miriam one day at a movie theatre.  Coincidentally, Mrs. Miller’s first name is also Miriam.  The next day the girl shows up at Mrs. Miller’s apartment; Mrs. Miller is a widow and lives alone.  She invites Miriam into her apartment and for the rest of the story the young girl verbally berates and antagonizes her host to the point of tears.  Terrified of her, Mrs. Miller runs downstairs to the apartment of a young couple whom she does not know and tells them about the horrible child who refuses to leave her alone.  The man goes over to her apartment to check on Miriam but when he returns he claims not to have seen her anywhere.  Reluctantly, Mrs. Miller returns to her apartment, realizing that there is no Miriam and that she might possibly be losing her mind.  She sits down on the couch and closes her eyes and after deliberating on her sanity for some time she suddenly hears the sound of a bureau drawer opening and closing and silk being ruffled.  Then she opens her eyes.  The last line of the story, “’Hello,’ said Miriam.” is ambiguous because Capote does not specify whether it is spoken the young girl or Mrs. Miller.  While Serling’s story is different in terms of plot, being a fully realized story versus “Miriam” which is more of a character sketch, thematically these stories are very similar.  Both of them concern women who have experienced the loss of someone close, in Mrs. Miller’s case it’s her husband and for Helen Foley, her mother.  Foley’s fear of confronting her mother’s murder has manifested itself into the image of Markie while Mrs. Miller’s overbearing loneliness and uninspired lifestyle may be the cause for her mental hallucination.  But Serling’s story is far less ambiguous and it places a solid link between the character of Peter Seldon and the reason for Helen Foley’s mental breakdown.  And while this episode may or may not have been based on Capote’s story, the similarities between the two stories are interesting just the same. 

                While this episode does achieve a chilling atmosphere, for the most part it seems to fall flat.  It’s a story that most likely worked well in Serling’s original script but when transferred to film it loses much of its desired effect.  For one thing, it is quite apparent almost from the moment she first appears on screen that Markie is a younger incarnation of Helen Foley.  Likewise, from the moment we first see Peter Seldon and listen to his story we are absolutely certain that he is in some way responsible for the murder of Foley’s mother.  This appears to be done intentionally by Serling in order to heighten suspense and make Foley a vulnerable protagonist.  Not a terribly bad plot structure at all but, once again, it seems to lose much of its effectiveness on the screen and instead of looking vulnerable Foley comes off as painfully naïve and unsympathetic.  There are also several times during this episode where Serling unnecessarily explains the plot to the audience which, in many ways, shatters the subtlety of the story.

                But even if this episode does fall short in many places it’s saved by the delicate, dreamlike atmosphere created by director Alvin Ganzer and composer Jerry Goldsmith.  Ganzer already had two episodes of The Zone on his resume, “The Hitch Hiker” and “What You Need,” both of which have the same ethereal quality found in “Nightmare as a Child.”  As this episode has a great deal of dialogue, Ganzer chose to minimalize Goldsmith’s score and keep most of the scenes very quiet which cloaks this episode in a dreamlike haze and makes the scenes with music that much more effective.

Shepperd Strudwick as the horrible Peter Seldon

                Of the three leading roles in this episode the one that obviously stands out to most viewers is that of Markie played by Terry Burnham.  She never shows any restraint in her interrogative discourse with Foley and her character is the most frightening thing about this episode.  Burnham enjoyed mild success as a child actress in the 1960’s but seems to have abandoned acting upon entering adulthood in the early 1970’s.  Janice Rule turns in an adequate performance here as Helen Foley.  Rule enjoyed a fairly versatile career in television, film and on Broadway.  Because she was known for rebelling against the sexism of the Hollywood studio system in 1950’s, she was often given roles portraying strong, independent women.  She bounced easily from comedy to drama and her notable films include Bell, Book and Candle (1958) with James Stewart and Kim Novak, The Chase (1966) with Marlon Brando, The Swimmer (1968) with Burt Lancaster and 3 Women (1977) with Shelley Duval and Sissy Spacek.  She died in 2003 at the age of 72.  Character actor Sheppard Strudwick, sometimes appearing under the name John Sheppard, garnered his reputation on Broadway before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930’s.  Given his dark, chiseled facial features and chilling voice he often played villains or other visceral-type characters and despite a very successful theatre career he never achieved leading-man status in Hollywood.   He appeared as Edgar Allan Poe in The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942) and in the Hollywood classics Joan of Arc (1948), All the King’s Men (1949) and A Place in the Sun (1951).  He died in 1983 at the age of 75.

                While it is not generally considered a memorable first season episode, “Nightmare as a Child” does have moments of heightened suspense that are as chilling as some of the more well-known episodes.  It is an interesting take on what would be a prevailing theme of the series.

Grade: C

Notes:

--Rod Serling named the main character, Helen Foley, after his favorite high school English teacher.  Richard Matheson would later borrow this name for Kathleen Quinlan’s character when writing the script for Twilight Zone: the Movie (1983).
--Joe Perry also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "Midnight Never Ends."

--Alvin Ganzer also directed the Season One episodes “What You Need,” “The Hitch-Hiker,” and “The Mighty Casey.”

--"Nightmare as a Child" was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Bonnie Sommerville.

--Brian Durant