"A Penny for Your Thoughts"

Dick York as Hector B. Poole, a human coin in The Twilight Zone

"A Penny for Your Thoughts"

Season Two, Episode 52

Original Air Date: February 3, 1961

Cast:

Hector B. Poole: Dick York

Miss Turner: June Dayton

Mr. E.M. Bagby: Dan Tobin

Mr. Smithers: Cyril Delevanti

Mr. Sykes: Hayden Rorke

Mr. Brand: James Nolan

Driver: Frank London

Newsboy: Anthony Ray
Brand: Patrick Waltz

Crew:

Writer: George Clayton Johnson (original teleplay)

Director: James Sheldon

Producer: Buck Houghton
Associate Producer: Del Reisman
Production Manager: Darrell Hallenbeck

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Philip Barber
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and H. Web Arrowsmith
Assistant Director: Lindsley Parsons, Jr. 
Casting: Ethel Winant
Editor: Leon Barsha
Sound: Franklin Milton and Charles Scheid

Music: Stock

And Now, Mr. Serling:

"Next week on this very spot there commences a very kooky chain of occurrences. The story has to do with a young bank clerk who, for some unexplained and most uncanny reason, finds himself able to read other people's minds. And then finds that the power can get him into a peck of trouble and a bushel of travail. Our show is called 'A Penny for Your Thoughts' and it'll be here waiting for you next week on the Twilight Zone."

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:

"Mr. Hector B. Poole, resident of the Twilight Zone. Flip a coin and keep flipping it. What are the odds? Half the time it will come up heads, half the time tails. But in one freakish chance in a million it'll land on its edge. Mr. Hector B. Poole, a bright human coin, on his way to the bank."

Summary:

            While buying a morning newspaper from a street vendor, Hector B. Poole tosses his coin into the vendor's pay box only to watch the coin land perfectly on its thin edge. A moment later, after almost being hit by a car while crossing the street, Poole realizes that he can hear people talking without seeing their mouths move. He quickly learns that he is reading people's thoughts.

            At the bank at which he is employed, Poole attempts to explain to the bank manager, Mr. Bagby, why he, Poole, was late arriving only to find Bagby irritated and excited about something. Overhearing Bagby's thoughts, Poole learns that his boss is having an extramarital affair. He stumbles awkwardly out of the office with his newfound knowledge.

            Poole spends the remainder of the day using his new power to discover an assortment of interesting and alarming things about his coworkers and customers of the bank. He learns that his coworker Miss Turner has a crush on him and that another coworker is a blatant misogynist. More alarming still is one of the bank's customers, a man in for a loan named Sykes. Poole reads Sykes's mind and discovers that he is planning to use the bank loan to gamble in an attempt to repay losses that occurred when Sykes embezzled from his own company. When Poole inadvertently confronts Sykes about it, Sykes goes haywire and the deal for the loan is lost, to the irritation of Mr. Bagby.

            The final straw is when Poole overhears Mr. Smithers, the bank's oldest and most trusted employee, thinking about his method of robbing the bank. After alerting Mr. Bagby to this possibility, Bagby and the bank guard confront Smithers as the old man exits the bank vault. They search him to no avail. There is no money being stolen. Mr. Bagby has had enough of Poole and fires him. As Poole apologizes to Mr. Smithers, the old man, astonished that Poole even had an inkling of his intentions, explains that his thoughts of robbing the bank are nothing more than a daydream.

            As Hector is cleaning out his desk, Bagby learns that Mr. Sykes was arrested for gambling with company funds and that Hector had saved the bank such embarrassment had the loan gone through. Bagby offers Poole his old job back but, with Miss Turner's encouragement, Poole demands a promotion and uses the leverage he has on Bagby, about Bagby's affair, to get it, along with a round trip ticket to Bermuda for Mr. Smithers at the bank's expense. Bagby has no choice but to agree with Poole's terms.

            Satisfied, Poole walks Miss Turner home and stops to buy an afternoon paper. As he throws his coin in the vendor's box he knocks down his earlier coin which the vendor had managed to keep standing on edge all day. His mind reading powers disappear but Poole walks on contentedly with Miss Turner.

Rod Serling's Closing Narration:

"One time in a million, a coin will land on its edge. But all it takes to knock it over is a vagrant breeze, a vibration, or a slight blow. Hector B. Poole, a human coin on edge for a brief time, in the Twilight Zone."

Commentary:

            By late 1960, writer George Clayton Johnson had sold two stories to The Twilight Zone, "All of Us Are Dying" (filmed as "The Four of Us Are Dying") and "Execution." Rod Serling wrote the adaptations and both stories aired during the first season. By the time production was rolling on the second season, George Clayton Johnson harbored aspirations for producing his own teleplays. Johnson was good friends with Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, the show's two leading writers besides Serling, and was heavily encouraged by Beaumont in particular to start producing his own teleplays if he wanted to start building a serious body of work. Johnson would use his story "A Penny for Your Thoughts" as an opportunity to break in.
            The story actually begins with another story. Johnson sold a short story titled "Sea Change" to producer Buck Houghton. "Sea Change" concerned a sailor who loses his hand in a boating accident only to have his hand miraculously grow back. Even more miraculous is that the hand he lost has grown a new body, a deadly doppelganger intent on destroying him. When passed in front of corporate sponsors, a food company, they deemed the story too grisly, fearing their target audience losing their appetite. Johnson's story would not see print until the October, 1981 issue of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine. Buck Houghton approached Johnson to ask the writer to buy back his story. Johnson agreed to buy the story back but only under the condition that he be allowed to submit a new story which he could adapt into a teleplay for the show. Johnson's story, "A Penny for Your Thoughts," was read by Houghton and approved for production.

            When Johnson breached the idea of writing the first draft teleplay himself, Houghton was initially against the idea due mainly to fact that their previous arrangement operated very smoothly and successfully. Houghton was apprehensive to deviate from this proven method. Not to mention the fact that Johnson was, in a way, holding Houghton hostage because if Johnson was not allowed to write the first draft teleplay he would not allow the show to use his story. Houghton would have to scrap the entire episode and search for new material. Houghton left Johnson waiting for an answer for two weeks before the show's lawyer called Johnson down to a Los Angeles office and gave him a check. It was payment for a teleplay, in an amount much more than Johnson had received for his stories, and it came with the condition that a teleplay would be in producer Houghton's hands in two weeks.

            Johnson was elated and had to quickly learn the routine of regular writing work. With assistance from story editor and associate producer Del Reisman, who came on board during the show’s second season, Johnson got the teleplay written and the show was produced. Though Johnson would never be as prolific as Beaumont or Matheson (he would produce only three additional teleplays ("Kick the Can," "Nothing in the Dark," "A Game of Pool") and provide two additional stories ("The Prime Mover" and "Ninety Years Without Slumbering")), the high quality of his contributions put him in the front ranks of the show’s writers. Johnson's innovative ideas were a refreshing addition to a show which had found its unique, if off-beat, identity among a very small core of principle creators.

            Rod Serling and Buck Houghton never regretted the idea of allowing Johnson into that core group. Johnson visited the set during the filming of "A Penny for Your Thoughts" and was greeted warmly by the production team and by Serling in particular. Johnson relates the story of how he and his wife, Lola, were standing off to the side and watching it all happen on the set when Rod Serling came by with a group of studio people he was touring around the production. When this group arrived in front of Johnson and his wife, Serling proudly informed the people that Johnson was the writer whose idea and teleplay was making it all happen. Being treated as an important element in the production did wonders for Johnson's confidence going forward.

            Since principle production on the show was achieved at MGM and the writers for the show all lived around the Los Angeles area, it allowed the show to become somewhat inclusive and lend a feeling of cohesion to the show. Despite the show's wide range, in both subject and style, there is no mistaking an episode of The Twilight Zone for something else. This was achieved principally because writers were treated not only with respect but as the core creative foundation upon which all else rested. Writers visited the sets, discussed the story with actors and directors and photographers and make-up artists, and were generally a part of production in a manner which was unusual in television. It made the show very strong on story and is the main reason certain episodes are fondly remembered fifty plus years later.

            As originally written, Hector B. Poole's mind reading power was to have originated from being hit by a car. Though the episode still featured Poole being hit by a car shortly after his coin landing on its edge, the production team felt that staging a realistic car accident would be too difficult and decided on the coin effect instead when a special effects technician demonstrated to Serling how the effect could be achieved with a coin on a string. This seemed to be the better choice since the car accident that is featured in the episode is not very convincing and required an obvious quick cut and edit to achieve the effect.

            While visiting the set, George Clayton Johnson spoke with actor Dan Tobin, who played the role of Mr. Bagby. Tobin felt that the idea for the episode was very clever and suggested to Johnson that it would make a good ongoing series in which different people encountered the coin and were possessed of its uncanny power for a short time each. Johnson took Tobin seriously enough to write up a series treatment which featured as one potential character a poker player that used his mind reading ability to destroy the competition until he is paired with a high stakes player that just happens to be Japanese and whose thoughts aren't in English. The series never panned out as it would be hard to sustain a series on such a simple premise for any length of time, though it would have been interesting to see Johnson's idea for a sequel dramatized.

            Since the episode required light comedy, the casting was very important. Dick York (Sept. 4, 1928-Feb. 20, 1992) was so perfectly cast in the role of Hector B. Poole that it is difficult to imagine another actor in the role at this point. In this pre-Bewitched role, York is honing his light comedy skills and doing it well. The show had earlier used in him in a much more serious role in the downbeat war episode "The Purple Testament," where York played a rugged infantry leader. This prior role didn't seem suited for someone with York's skill set. The show got it right the second time around. Though best known as the first Darrin Stephens opposite Elizabeth Montgomery's Samantha on Bewitched (1964-69), York had been featured on film and television since the late 1940's and worked up until the mid 1980's when he was permanently laid up with a degenerative spine injury which he first sustained while filming They Came to Cordura in 1959. A longtime smoker, York developed emphysema and died from the disease in 1992 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His additional genre credits include an episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller, a whopping six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

            Actor Dan Tobin (Mr. Bagby) had a long career, first films and later on television as a comic relief type who always played the roughly the same character he portrays in this episode of Twilight Zone. Tobin crossed paths again with York on Bewitched. He died in Santa Monica in 1982.

            English actor Cyril Delevanti was the son of an Anglo-Italian music professor and in his long acting career, stretching from the early 1930's to the early 1970's, he managed to amass over 150 credits. He was also a highly regarded drama coach. Delevanti always appeared older than his years and frequently played characters older than his actual age. He was a specialist in cockney- accented English characters. His substantial genre roles, often uncredited, include: Night Monster, Son of Dracula, Phantom of the Opera (1943), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Lodger (1944), The Invisible Man's Revenge, Phantom Lady, Ministry of Fear, The House of Fear, 4 episodes of Science Fiction Theatre, and episode of The Adventures of Superman, I Bury the Living, 3 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, an episode of Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. He died in Hollywood on Dec. 1, 1975.

            A final thought about this episode: it seems strange that the world which is presented to the viewer in "A Penny for Your Thoughts" seems very innocent and meek. In other words, it's not a world the viewer feels like something really bad would happen in and yet there is certainly an unacknowledged darkness underlying everything in the episode. Here you have a character reading people's thoughts to discover infidelity, embezzlement, misogyny, and daydreams of grand larceny. It is a interesting contrast to play the light comedy over the dark impulses running through the minds of the principle characters. Though this broad sort of writing was done to illustrate the main idea behind the episode, that people often say things they don't believe and think things they have no intention of doing, it still strikes the viewer as odd, especially how coolly Poole reacts to his boss's infidelity and how easily he slips into the role of blackmailer. Just another example of how the show was always working on more than one level. In all, it's a good start to George Clayton Johnson's contributions as a writer of original teleplays and a fondly remembered episode with fine performances.

Grade: B

Grateful acknowledgement to:

Twilight Zone Scripts and Stories by George Clayton Johnson (Streamline, 1996)

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

Notes:

-Dick York also appeared in the first season episode, "The Purple Testament."

-Cyril Delevanti appeared in three additional episodes of the show, "The Silence" (season two), "A Piano in the House" (season three), and "Passage on the Lady Anne" (season four). He also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Sins of the Father."
-"A Penny for Your Thoughts" was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama by Dennis Etchison, starring David Eigenberg. 

--Jordan Prejean

"The Invaders"

Agnes Moorehead meets the Invaders

“The Invaders”

Season Two, Episode 51

Original Air Date: January 27, 1961

Cast:

Woman: Agnes Moorehead

Astronaut Voice: Douglas Heyes (uncredited)

Crew:

Writer: Richard Matheson (original teleplay)

Director: Douglas Heyes

Producer: Buck Houghton

Associate Producer: Del Reisman

Production Manager: E. Darrell Hallenbeck

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Art Direction: George W. Davis and Philip Barber

Set Decoration: Henry Grace and H. Web Arrowsmith

Assistant Director: Lindsey Parsons, Jr.

Casting: Ethel Winant

Editor: Leon Barsha

Sound: Franklin Milton and Charles Scheid

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“Next week we bring you a show called ‘The Invaders’ written by Mr. Richard Matheson and in this room you’ll watch Ms. Agnes Moorehead in a tension-riddled attempt at escape…from a pair of very improbable housebreakers. This one we recommend to science fiction buffs, fantasy lovers, or to anyone to grip the edge of his seat and take a twenty-four minute trip into the realm of terror.”

                                

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“This is one of the out-of-the-way places. The unvisited places. Bleak. Wasted.  Dying. This is a farmhouse, handmade, crude. A house without electricity or gas. A house untouched by progress. This is the woman who lives in the house, a woman who’s been alone for many years. A strong, simple woman whose only problem up until this moment has been that of acquiring enough food to eat. A woman about to face terror which is even now coming at her from the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

An old woman lives alone in a ramshackle house on a barren stretch of land few would willingly choose to call home. While washing the dishes one evening, she hears a loud, piercing noise followed immediately by a crash. After a few moments she climbs up to the attic to investigate. Upon entering the attic she discovers that a small air vessel of some kind has crashed through her roof. The vessel is round and thin with a diameter of about three feet. The woman approaches the vessel with caution. As she does so a small drop-door begins to descend from underneath the ship and a tiny figure emerges. The figure is fully clothed and his face cannot be seen. Frightened, she kicks the figure through the attic opening down into the bottom interior of the house and swiftly shuts the door. She notices a second figure standing on the opposite end of the room. The figure aims his arm at the woman and fires something at her. She is too big for the tiny weapon to do any significant harm but its effects are still painful and she fleas back to the kitchen.

After she dresses her wounds she begins to look for figure number one.  She notices that one of her kitchen knives is missing. She searches the house in extreme caution. One of the figures emerges from under a floorboard and plunges the knife into her foot. She screams in pain. She runs to the kitchen and grabs a hatchet. After having her hand sliced open while grabbing the makeshift door handle on her bedroom door she enters into her bedroom and finds one of the tiny figures hiding under a blanket. She approaches the blanket slowly and grabs the moving mass underneath. She is then confronted by the second figure shooting at her from the ledge of a nearby window. She shoves the figure through the window sending it to the ground below. She wraps the other figure up in the blanket and slams it down on a table repeatedly as if she were trying to bust the table open with a sledgehammer. She stops once the figure goes limp.

She hears noise above her. She climbs up to the attic and approaches the ship, her fingers gripped around the handle of the hatchet.

She hears a voice.

“Gresham is dead,” the voice says.  “Incredible race of giants here.  No counter attack, too powerful!  Stay away!  Gresham and I are…finished.”

The woman begins to smash the ship in a violent frenzy until she collapses from exhaustion. Afterwards, we see the only part of the ship left intake. Printed in English in large block letters are the words: U.S. Air Force: Space Probe No. 1.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration

“These are the invaders: the tiny beings from the tiny place called Earth, who would take the giant step across the sky to the question marks that sparkle and beckon from the vastness of the universe only to be imagined.  The invaders, who found out that a one-way ticket to the stars beyond has the ultimate price tag.  And we have just seen it entered into a ledger that covers all the transactions of the universe, a bill stamped ‘paid in full,’ and to be found on file…in the Twilight Zone.”
                                                                                                                 

Commentary:

Never a program to shy away from a challenge, the second season of The Twilight Zone had already given audiences Rod Serling’s “Eye of the Beholder,” an episode in which none of the characters’ faces can be seen until the end of the story. Now the show offered viewers a story with only one performer who doesn’t utter a single line of dialogue for the entire twenty-three minutes that she is on screen. Her thoughts and emotions are conveyed through facial expressions and the use of pantomime, making it one of the most memorable episodes in the entire Twilight Zone canon.

For an episode that has scant dialogue and is shot in real time, “The Invaders” feels surprisingly fast-paced, with tension instilling itself during the first moments of the episode and not letting up until its denouement. This is one of only a handful of episodes that breaks the formula of the opening sequence which usually consisted of a teaser followed by Serling’s appearance on screen. Here, the audience is given no information before Serling’s introductory monologue.  Instead, Matheson and Serling grab the viewer’s attention as soon as the title sequence is over with Serling launching into what may be the single most effective opening line in any episode of the show:

“This is one of the out-of-the-way places.  The unvisited places.  Bleak.  Wasted.  Dying.”

The rest of the monologue continues in a similar manner with Serling describing both the woman and the house in an unflattering fashion. When Matheson first began writing for the show he didn’t attach an introductory or closing monologue to any of his scripts believing that Serling preferred to write the monologues himself. But he found out later that this was not the case and began to write them himself. It can be assumed that by this point Matheson had begun scripting his own monologues, for this example in particular resembles Matheson's prose style even though it was written specifically to be spoken by Rod Serling. Its effectiveness lies in not only what is being described but the way in which the words are strung together. Its terse delivery and harsh language immediately grab the viewer’s attention and gives them a glimpse into the world of this character.

            Matheson had explored the theme of role reversal between human beings and extraterrestrial life a decade earlier in his short story “Third from the Sun,” which was adapted by Rod Serling during season one. In this story the audience is led to believe they are watching a family escape from an Earth on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse only to find out by the end of the story that it is an alien family traveling to Earth. He would also recycle the premise and basic plot structure of "The Invaders" for his short story “Prey,” which was published in the April, 1969 issue of Playboy. “Prey” tells the story of a young woman alone in her apartment with a Zuni fetish doll that she has purchased for her boyfriend. After only a few paragraphs, the Zuni doll comes to life after the woman accidentally removes a restricting charm from around the doll's neck. The doll proceeds to stalk the woman around her tiny apartment for the remainder of the story trying to kill her. When interviewed, Matheson said that his original pitch for “The Invaders,” a script titled "Devil Doll," was much closer to the plot of "Prey" but that producer Buck Houghton and series creator Rod Serling thought it was too grim a tale and suggested that he set it on another planet and try to tone down the violence. “Prey” was later made into a segment of the made-for-television horror anthology film Trilogy of Terror (ABC, 1975). This film was intended as the pilot episode for a possible anthology series but was never picked up by a network. Trilogy of Terror was directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis based on three of Matheson's short stories, "The Likeness of Julie," "Needle in the Heart," (or "Therese") and "Prey."  All three segments feature Karen Black in the lead role.  The first two segments were adapted by writer William F. Nolan, a close friend of Matheson's and frequent collaborator with Dan Curtis, but the “Prey” segment, titled “Amelia” in the film, was adapted by Matheson, the writer perhaps sensing something special about the segment as it is undoubtedly the most fondly remembered portion of the film. Curtis directed a sequel to the film, Trilogy of Terror II, in 1996 which includes a sequel to the “Amelia” segment from the first film, picking up right where the original segment ended. William F. Nolan wrote the screenplay for this segment.

            Calling the shots on “The Invaders” was director Douglas Heyes who had become the show’s good luck charm when it came to technically challenging episodes such as this one. Unfortunately, this would be the last episode directed by Heyes. The Twilight Zone never staffed regular directors, writers, or actors. Everything was freelance, with the producers purchasing the stories they felt were right for the show and hiring the people they felt were right for that particular story. Heyes made nine episodes during the first and second seasons of the show, although his influence can be felt throughout the entire run of the series. He had an eclectic style that lent itself to the show remarkably well. If Houghton knew that an episode was going to be challenging Heyes was usually his first choice.

             Something of a renaissance artist, Heyes explored many avenues of the creative process during his career. In addition to directing he was also a skilled musician, painter, actor, screenwriter, and novelist. He began his career at the age of seventeen as a cartoonist for Walt Disney Studios where he first learned the process of storyboarding. After he left Disney Heyes worked as a cartoonist on the syndicated comic strip Strange as It Seems from 1946 – 1948. With the advent of television Heyes turned his talents to writing. Heyes sold his first script to Arthur Ripley at General Electric Theatre who saw in the young man an extraordinary talent. He offered Heyes the chance to direct his own material. With no formal training, Heyes began his career as a director and was soon writing and directing for shows like Cheyenne, Maverick, Naked City, and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin—for which he wrote forty-four episodes. During this time he also began a career as a novelist publishing his first book The Kiss-Off (Simon and Schuster, 1951) to favorable reviews. Considering his prolific output as a writer, it seems odd that Heyes never penned any scripts for The Twilight Zone. It is possible that he intended to eventually return to the show but was never able to.

Heyes’s second major contribution to the horror/fantasy genre is his work on Boris Karloff’s Thriller. Around the same time that he made “The Invaders” Heyes had already begun working on episodes of Thriller at NBC. Although several different versions of the show’s history have been presented over the years it is generally agreed upon that Heyes played a significant role in helping it evolve from a bland imitation of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to a program of rich gothic horror more in line with the image of Boris Karloff. Heyes wrote and directed the first genuine horror episode of the show, “The Purple Room,” for its first season. Later in the season he directed the episode “The Hungry Glass” which he adapted from the Robert Bloch story “The Hungry House.” Heyes’s third and final episode was “The Premature Burial” which he directed and co-adapted with William D. Gordon from the story by Edgar Allan Poe. Although he was only directly involved in three episodes Heyes, along with many others most notably producer William Frye, helped save the show from obscurity and made it a program that is still enjoyed and discussed today.

After his work on Thriller and The Twilight Zone, Heyes wrote three segments of Night Gallery including both segments of the debut episode “The Dead Man,” which he also directed, and “The Housekeeper.” He also wrote the segment “Brenda” for the second season of the show. He continued to publish novels. The 12^th of Never was published by Random House in 1963 and The Kill was published by Ballantine Books in 1985 and was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback. Today he is probably best remembered for helming the sprawling historical miniseries Captains and Kings (NBC, 1976)—which features an appearance by Richard Matheson as President James Garfield—and North and South (ABC, 1985). Much of his writing appeared under the pseudonym Matthew Howard. He died in 1993 at the age of 73.

In an interview with Marc Scott Zicree, Heyes said that once he read the script for “The Invaders” he knew that the set design had to be as simple as possible to make the audience believe that they were watching a story set on Earth. Nothing specific to Earth, nor anything overtly foreign, could be used as a set piece. This is why the woman’s house looks so primitive. All of the set pieces seen inside the house are the basic tools one would need for survival. Heyes also revealed that the “invaders” were simply puppets that were manually operated by various crew members. Heyes and the crew members wore black, long sleeve t-shirts and were able to maneuver the puppets by placing their hand through an opening on the back side of the puppet and moving the legs with their fingers. This is why the spacemen move with such slow, wooden gestures. Over the years the tiny invaders have been the subject of criticism and ridicule from fans because of their primitive appearance. However, the story is so good and Moorehead’s performance so captivating that this is quickly forgotten. Heyes said he based the spacemen on the Michelin Tire Man. He also revealed that the voice of the astronaut at the end of the episode was actually his voice.

Jerry Goldsmith forgoes his usual soft dream-like style to deliver some of the most memorable music from any episode of the show. No doubt taking a cue from Bernard Hermann’s famous score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which was released the year before, Goldsmith uses mostly harsh strings and occasional piano arrangements which greatly add to the unsettling atmosphere in this episode.

            And finally, although Matheson delivers a solid script and both Heyes and Goldsmith help breathe life into it, this episode more or less belongs to Agnes Moorehead. A veteran character actress of stage and screen, Moorehead was a well-known name by the time this episode aired. In the 1930’s she became friends with Orson Welles and eventually joined his Mercury Theatre Company.  In 1938 she took part in Welles’s famous radio adaptation of H. G. Welles’s War of the Worlds. After Welles moved to Hollywood she appeared in several of his films including Citizen Cane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). She went on to have a wildly successful film career appearing alongside the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, and Vincent Price. But it was her role as Endora on Bewitched that would immortalize her forever (much to her reported irritation).

Heyes recruited Moorehead for this episode specifically based on her performance in a one-woman radio adaptation of Lucille Fletcher’s “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948) for the show Suspense. He was impressed by her ability to sustain terror for the entire half hour episode and figured that she would be a good fit for “The Invaders.” The challenge here of course is that she had no dialogue to help her move the plot along or develop her character. As there is little dialogue in this episode most of the story is told through the actions, mannerisms, and facial expressions of Moorehead’s character. Years earlier she studied under renowned pantomime artist Marcel Marceau and her performance here is one of the best the show ever offered. It is crude and even embarrassing at times but she still manages to be completely compelling. Her mannerisms are almost primitive and there is one scene where the woman, exhausted, is seen drooling uncontrollably. It is as authentic as any performance that one is likely to see on television from this or any other era.

Although “The Invaders” has come to be a fan favorite and one of the more recognizable episodes of the show it should be noted that Richard Matheson was not a fan of it, although he did praise Moorehead’s performance. He was irritated by the stilted movements and absurd mannerisms of the tiny invaders. He also thought the episode moved much slower than his original script. Even so the idea was unique enough to cement this story in the cosmos of popular culture and make his miniature space invaders immortal.

Grade: A

Grateful acknowledgement to:

“Douglas Heyes: Behind the Scenes at The Twilight Zone” interview with Heyes conducted by Ben Herndon. Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine (August, 1982) edited by T.E.D. Klein

This is a Thriller by Alan Warren (McFarland and Company, 1996)

The Twilight Zone Companion, second edition by Marc Scott Zicree (Silman-James Press, 1992)

Original design sketch by director Douglas Heyes
featured in an interview with Heyes in the
Aug, 1982 issue of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine

Notes:

--Agnes Moorehead also appeared in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, "Certain Shadows on the Wall," scripted by Serling from a story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and "Witches' Feast."

--Douglas Heyes directed nine episodes of The Twilight Zone and was considered by producer Buck Houghton to be the go-to director for technically challenging episodes. “The Chaser,” “The After Hours,” “The Howling Man” and "Eye of the Beholder" are among his contributions to the show. Heyes wrote both segments of the first episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, "The Dead Man" (based on the story by Fritz Leiber) which he also directed and "The Housekeeper" which he wrote under the pseudonym Matthew Howard. He also wrote the season two segment "Brenda" (based on the story by Margaret St. Clair) under this pseudonym.

--"The Invaders" was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Kathy Garver.

--Brian

"The Whole Truth"

Loring Smith as "Honest" Luther Grimbley & Jack Carson as Harvey Hunnicut

"The Whole Truth"

Season Two, Episode 51

Original Air Date: January 20, 1961

Cast:

Harvey Hunnicut: Jack Carson

Luther Grimbley: Loring Smith

Irv: Arte Johnson

Old Man: George Chandler

Young Man: Jack Ging

Young Woman: Nan Peterson

Nikita Khrushchev: Lee Sabinson

Khrushchev's Aide: Patrick Westwood

Crew:

Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)

Director: James Sheldon

Producer: Buck Houghton
Associate Producer: Del Reisman
Art Direction: Robert Tyler Lee
Set Decoration: Buck Henshaw
Technical Director: Jim Brady
Assoc. Director: James Clark
Casting: Ethel Winant

Music: Stock

And Now, Mr. Serling:

"This, in the parlance of the Twentieth Century, is a used car lot. A graveyard of active ghosts who by dint and virtue of some exceptional salesmanship and an Indian rubber stretching of the truth remain as commodities in a world that by rights they should have left generations ago. Mr. Jack Carson plays the role of a larceny-loaded con-man suddenly prevented from telling a falsehood. Next week on the Twilight Zone a most bizarre tale that we call, 'The Whole Truth.'"

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:

"This, as the banner already has proclaimed, is Mr. Harvey Hunnicut, an expert on commerce and con jobs, a brash, bright, and larceny-loaded wheeler and dealer who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, must have gone for a beer and missed out. And these are a couple of other characters in our story, a little old man and a Model A car, but not just any old man and not just any Model A. There's something very special about the both of them. As a matter of fact, in just a few moments they'll give Harvey Hunnicut something that he's never experienced before. Through the good offices of a little magic they will unload on Mr. Hunnicut the absolute necessity to tell the truth. Exactly where they come from is conjecture but as to where they're heading for, this we know, because all of them, and you, are on the threshold of the Twilight Zone."

Summary:

            Harvey Hunnicut is a fast-talking used car salesman who owns a lot full of lemons and junk heaps but manages to sweet talk his unfortunate customers into buying his product at egregious prices. When an old man pulls into the lot driving an old Model A car, Hunnicut fast talks the old man into selling the car cheaply. The old man, barely able to get a word in, agrees to the deal. After the paperwork is signed and ownership of the car transferred to Hunnicut, the old man offers up the information that the car is haunted.

            Hunnicut scoffs at the idea of a haunted car but soon discovers the car's power when he tries to con a young couple into buying a junk roadster but instead tells them the truth about the condition of the car and recommends they go to a reputable lot and buy a reliable car. Later, when Hunnicut calls his girlfriend to tell her he will be running late because of monthly inventory, he inexplicably also tells her that this is a lie and he will actually be late because he is playing poker that night. That's when Hunnicut realizes the power of the car. As long as he is the owner of the Model A, he cannot tell a lie, rendering him useless in his line of business.

            An opportunity arises to sell the car to a local politician named "Honest" Luther Grimbley who is, of course, a habitual liar. Though Grimbley is close to buying the car, Hunnicut is forced to tell the truth about it and puts Grimbley off the sale. The two joke, while looking a newspaper headline, that a car like this would be interesting if it were in the hands of "that guy."

            That guy ends up being Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who just happens to be in the United States and makes a stop by Hunnicut's car lot. Amazingly, Hunnicut manages to sell the Model A to Khrushchev through the Premier's Aide, who tells Hunnicut that they intend to use it as a demonstration of the average American's automobile. Hunnicut knows that Khrushchev will be in for a nasty surprise they next time he steps up to offer lies and propaganda to the populace. 

Commentary:

"You could say this of Harvey Hennicutt - he was an exceptional liar. When Harvey peddled one of his used cars, his lying was colorful, imaginative, and had a charm all of its own. 
       -"The Whole Truth" by Rod Serling, New Stories from the Twilight Zone (1962)

            For The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling often wrote a very specific type of teleplay, a drama centered around a broad character type who is put into a perilous or unusual situation. These episodes were often thin on plot and strong on coincidence and would sink or swim depending, almost entirely, on the resonance of its theme and the appeal of its central performance. Consequently, there was very little middle ground of success for this type of episode. Serling was most successful with this type of episode when he treated his subject matter, or character, in a serious manner, as in "One For the Angels," "The Lonely," or "Mr. Denton on Doomsday." When Serling found it necessary to inject broad humor or whimsy into the formula, the results were usually, but not always, unsatisfactory, as in "Mr. Dingle, the Strong," "The Mind and the Matter," or "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby." To be fair, the reverse was true in a few circumstances. "Time Enough at Last" would fall into the whimsical-type episode, at least until its heartbreaking denouement, but remains an engaging and fondly remembered episode. Likewise, "A Thing about Machines" is a serious-minded fantasy which ultimately fails as an effective episode.

            "The Whole Truth" is another whimsical-type episode and is, unfortunately, one of the worst episodes of the second season, and certainly the worst of the videotaped episodes. As a result of the videotape format, Hunnicut's used car lot is easily exposed as a sound stage and this lends an appropriate air of cheapness to an episode about a cheapskate. "The Whole Truth" goes against every element which comprised the hub that turned the show's thematic wheel. A fantasy element is usually introduced into a Twilight Zone episode to allow a character to acquire self perspective or for others to gather perspective about a character. This is not the case in "The Whole Truth.” The viewer is left with no reason to believe Hunnicut will do otherwise than revert back to the way he was at the beginning of the show once he’s managed to sell off the haunted car. It is not an episode about an immoral man learning his own nature and being ashamed of it; it is an episode about a man learning of his own nature and mourning the loss of it. Even when wrapped in a humorous construct, it greatly lessens any dramatic impact the episode might have had. The episode is intended, one assumes, as simply an extended joke with a ludicrous punchline. 

            "The Whole Truth" ultimately fails by its ending. Though Twilight Zone has earned its reputation, somewhat unfairly, as a show which lived and died by the twist ending, there is a not-so-fine difference between the ironic and the ridiculous. "The Whole Truth" wallows in the latter. Even at twenty six minutes the episode feels padded because of the simplicity of the conflict and the absurd nature of the ending, which no length of bridging material between conflict and resolution could have properly resolved.

          Martin Grams, Jr., in his book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (OTR, 2008), reveals some interesting production background about the episode. Serling's unproduced "Mr. Bevis" television series (intended as a continuation of the first season Twilight Zone episode) included an episode synopsis about Mr. Bevis being “blessed” by an angel with the ability to tell only the truth, and another episode in which Bevis is a used car salesman. More interesting is a scene cut from an earlier draft of Serling's teleplay in which Nikita Khrushchev, after buying the Model A from Hunnicut, faces reporters at a press conference in which Khrushchev involuntarily champions the American standard of living in comparison to that of the Soviet Union because he cannot tell a lie. 

            Jack Carson, who portrayed Harvey Hunnicut in "The Whole Truth," was a versatile character actor who toiled in small parts upon his arrival at RKO in 1937. He found better roles and did most of his remembered work at Warner Brothers in the 1940s, including work alongside Joan Crawford in Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945). That decade also saw Carson team up with Dennis Morgan for a series of successful comedy films and find his voice as a comedian on radio. Carson was at the forefront of television’s early years, hosting All Star Revue and Colgate Comedy Hour in the 1950s. Carson finished his career appearing in high profile movies such as A Star is Born (1954), alongside Judy Garland, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. Carson died of stomach cancer at the age of 52 on January 2, 1963.

Grade: F

Notes: 

Illustration for "The Whole Truth" from a 1966
Dutch edition of Rod Serling's
"Stories from the Twilight Zone"

-The lack of quality in "The Whole Truth" is not indicative of director James Sheldon as he directed some very fine episodes in the series, including "Long Distance Call" and "A Penny For Your Thoughts" from the second season, and "It's a Good Life" from the third season. Sheldon also directed two additional third season episodes, "Still Valley" and Ray Bradbury's sole teleplay for the series, "I Sing the Body Electric."
-Arte Johnson also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Flip Side of Satan."
-"The Whole Truth" was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama, starring Henry Rollins. 
-Rod Serling adapted his teleplay into a short story for New Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam, 1962), where he changed the character's name from Hunnicut to Hennicutt. 

-JP

            

"Back There"

Time Traveler Pete Corrigan (Russell Johnson) has drinks
with John Wilkes Booth (John Lasell)

“Back There”
Season Two, Episode Forty-nine
Original airdate: January 13, 1961

Cast:
Pete Corrigan: Russell Johnson
John Wellington/John Wilkes Booth: John Lasell
Policeman (William’s Grandfather): James Lydon
Police Sergeant: Paul Hartman
William: Bartlett Robinson
Patrolman: James Gavin
Mrs. Landers: Jean Inness
Lieutenant: Lew Brown
Lieutenant’s Girl: Carol Rossen
Chambermaid: Nora Marlowe
Butler: Pat O’Malley
Jackson: Raymond Greenleaf
Millard: Ray Bailey
Whittaker: John Eldredge

Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)
Director: David Orrick McDearmon
Producer: Buck Houghton
Associate Producer: Del Reisman
Production Manager: Sidney Van Keuran
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and Philip Barber
Set Decoration: Henry Grace and H. Web Arrowsmith
Assistant Director: Darrell Hallenbeck
Casting: Ethel Winant
Editor: Leon Barsha
Sound: Franklin Milton and Charles Scheid
Music: Jerry Goldsmith

And Now, Mr. Serling:
“In this rather posh club, you’ll see a group of men argue a somewhat metaphysical subject like time travel.  One of them maintains it’s possible to go back in time, make a few changes in history, and as a result do quite a job on the present, in this case the assignation of one Abraham Lincoln.  Next week, a story called ‘Back There.’  I’d like you all to come with us, I think you’ll find it a most exciting journey.  Thank you and good night.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present.  Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time.  A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before?  Interesting and theoretical because whoever heard of a man going back in time, before tonight that is.  Because this is…The Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

Corrigan and William the Butler

April 14, 1961, Washington, D.C.  Four intellectuals are seated around a card table at the prestigious Potomac Club.  Two of the four men find themselves hung up on the subject of time travel.  One of the men argues that it is possible to change the events of the past if given the opportunity to travel back in time.  The other man, Pete Corrigan, says that history simply cannot be altered.  The argument continues late into the night when finally Corrigan says that he is tired and politely excuses himself from the table.  On his way out he accidentally runs into the house butler, William, who spills coffee all over him.  William apologizes but Corrigan brushes the incident off and assures William that no harm has been done.
                Upon stepping outside Corrigan experiences a dizzy spell.  Cut to a shot of a streetlight.  The light changes from an incandescent light bulb to flickering candlelight.  After recovering from his dizzy spell, Corrigan immediately notices that something is wrong.  He pounds on the door to the Potomac Club but no one answers.  He decides to go to his apartment.  When he knocks on his boardinghouse a woman answers.  She is immediately suspicious.  Corrigan enters and for a moment doesn’t recognize the place.  He asks the woman if she has a room and, after he tells her that he is a war veteran, she says that she does.  A young woman and a soldier dressed in uniform walk down the stairs.  They mention something to the woman about attending a play and shaking hands with the president.  Corrigan then realizes that this is April 14, 1865, the day that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and that these two are headed to the performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre where the president was gunned down by John Wilkes Booth.  Corrigan races to Ford’s Theatre and bangs on the stage entrance door, hoping he can somehow present the president’s assassination. 
               

Some time later, Corrigan is brought in before the local Police Sergeant.  The patrolman claims that Corrigan was making trouble at Ford’s Theatre so the theatre manager clubbed him over the head and called the police.  Corrigan pleads with the sergeant to have extra security placed around the president.  The sergeant throws Corrigan in the drunk tank to sleep it off.  Just then a man waltzes into the courtroom and makes his way over to the sergeant.  He claims his name is John Wellington and that he is here to look after the man who was just placed into custody.  He says that the man may possibly be a mentally unsound war veteran and may need someone to care for him.  The sergeant agrees and releases Corrigan into the custody of Wellington.  After they leave the courtroom the security guard asks the sergeant if maybe Corrigan wasn’t on to something when he claimed that Lincoln would be shot.  The sergeant dismisses this as drunken gibberish and tells the rookie policeman to stay in line.
                Back in Wellington’s room, Wellington pours Corrigan a drink.  He inquires as to why Corrigan thought the president would be murdered.  They discuss the subject for several minutes before Corrigan begins to feel lightheaded and realizes that he has been drugged.  He tries to stand but topples to the ground.  He awakes to knocking at the door.  Moments later the door opens and the housekeeper and rookie police officer rush in and pick Corrigan up off the ground.  The officer tells Corrigan that he has been all over town trying to convince officials to place more security around Lincoln, to no avail.  Corrigan tells the officer to go by himself.  Corrigan then discovers a handkerchief given to him by Wellington with the letters JWB.  He then realizes that the man who freed him from prison and drugged him was actually John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Lincoln.  Then he hears the news.  The president has been shot.  He is too late.  After the housekeeper and the policeman leave, Corrigan has an emotional breakdown and begins beating on the wall.  Moments later he realizes that he is no longer beating on the walls of Booth's apartment but on the front door of the Potomac Club.  The butler answers the door but Corrigan immediately notices that is isn’t William but a man he has never seen before.  He asks the man about William but the man says that there is no William on staff.
               

William, the Intellectual

Corrigan walks into the study and over to the card table.  The men have switched the subject from time travel to money.  That’s when Corrigan sees William.  But he is no longer dressed in a Butler suit.  Instead he is dressed as a sophisticate in a suit and tie.  He goes on to say that he inherited his fortune from his grandfather he was once a rookie police officer in the city.  On the night of Lincoln’s assassination his grandfather went around the city trying to warn officials that the president would be shot.  Though he didn’t succeed he was awarded and eventually became Chief of Police and, through real estate, managed to make a fortune and retire.  Corrigan is dumbfounded.  He asks William if he remembers spilling coffee on him earlier that evening.  William is insulted and brushes Corrigan off as a nuisance.   The other men also ridicule him to themselves.  Corrigan reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the handkerchief with Booth’s initials on it.  He then realizes that he has changed history but he alone bears the burden and can never share it with anyone.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Mr. Peter Corrigan, lately returned from a place ‘back there,’ a journey into time with highly questionable results, proving on one hand that the treads of history are woven tightly and the skein of events cannot be undone, but on the other hand, there are small fragments of tapestry that can be altered.  Tonight’s thesis to be taken as you will, in the Twilight Zone.”

Commentary:
In “Back There” Russell Johnson makes his second appearance on The Twilight Zone.  In Season One’s “Execution” (also directed by McDearmon) Johnson plays a scientist who builds a time machine which pulls a man out of the nineteenth century American West into a twentieth century inner city.  Only later does Johnson find out that the man is a soulless murderer.  In “Back There” Johnson is the one who travels through time, only this time he travels from present day 1961 back to 1865 to stop a murderer, as if to make amends for his tragic mistake in the previous episode. 
                As is the case with most time travel stories on The Twilight Zone, “Back There” does not rely on machinery to get its protagonist from one age to another.  Corrigan simply steps out of the Potomac Club and, after a faint dizzy spell, finds himself in another century.  This follows in the footsteps of episodes like “Walking Distance,” “The Last Flight” and “The Trouble with Templeton” in which characters just sort of wander into another time.  Serling and producer Buck Houghton were wise to realize the show’s limited budget and chose not saturate episodes, especially ones with traditional science fiction themes such as time travel, with ornate special effects.  The only visual evidence of the time travel process that the audiences witnesses here is that of a single streetlamp dissolving slowly from a modern electric light bulb into a burning candle, thus transporting the audience and our protagonist from then present-day 1961 back to 1865.

Unfortunately, unlike the three aforementioned episodes, which use time travel as a device to explore the various psychological states of each of the main characters (nostalgia, cowardice, loneliness) “Back There” lacks the emotional wisdom found in these stories.  Its focus, instead, is on the time travel paradox, a theme that was already exhausted even in 1961.  It really isn’t much more than a thin story stretched around the idea stated at the beginning of the episode: can a person change history if they were able to travel back in time, intentionally or unintentionally.  And so Corrigan spends much of the episode running around Washington D.C. trying to stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, with the audience thinking that perhaps he will indeed prevent it and thus return to an alternate 1961, one that has no concept of Lincoln’s assassination because it never happened.  The twist is that he does not succeed in preventing the president’s assassination and he returns to a 1961 almost identical to the one he left.  The only difference is that William, the former houseman at the Potomac club, is now a prominent member of the club (and kind of a snooty one).  This isn’t a bad twist but not one that really stays with the viewer after the episode is over and, unfortunately, it is all the episode has to offer.
                This episode holds a resemblance to the Season Four episode “No Time like the Past.”  In this later episode the main character, played by Dana Andrews, uses a time machine to travel through the recent past attempting to prevent certain atrocities.  He first ventures to Hiroshima to warn people of the encroaching nuclear attack that will demolish their city but he fails to persuade them to leave.  He then travels to Germany circa 1939 and tries to assassinate Hitler but he is informed upon by a Nazi devotee.  Next he travels to 1915 and tries to prevent the bombing of the Lusitania.  Again he fails.  He finally decides to travel to a small town in Indiana at the end of the nineteenth century to seek out a simple existence.  He eventually learns from a history book he brought with him from the twentieth century that the local schoolhouse will burn down because of a kerosene spill.  He tries to prevent the catastrophe only to end up being the cause of it.  He then decides not to meddle with history any longer.  Overall, this episode isn’t much better than “Back There” but the hero comes off as far more compelling than Pete Corrigan, something Serling might have taken into consideration when he reused this same theme for this Season Four episode.
                While “Back There” fails to be a memorable episode it isn’t without its high points.  Of the performances most seem to be uninspired but Bartlett Robinson gives two brief but solid performances as William the butler at the beginning of the episode and as William the elitist once Corrigan has returned from 1865.  But ultimately, the only thing that really stands out in this episode is a haunting original score from Jerry Goldsmith.  This same score was later recycled for some of the show’s most memorable episodes. 

Grade: C

Notes: 

Illustration by Earl E. Mayan for "Back There,"
from Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone
by Walter B. Gibson
(Grosset & Dunlap, 1963)

--As mentioned, Russell Johnson also appears in the Season One episode “Execution.”
--Bartlett Robinson also appears in the Season Three episode “To Serve Man.”
--David Orrick McDearmon also directed Season One’s “Execution" and Season Two’s “A Thing About Machines.”
--John Lasell also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "Little Girl Lost" (no relation to the third season Zone episode). 
--Lew Brown also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan." 
--“Back There” was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Jim Caviezel (Falcon Picture Group, 2002).  
-- "Back There" was adapted into a short story by Walter B. Gibson for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (Grosset and Dunlap, 1963).

--Brian Durant