The Twilight Zone and Film Noir

Illustration by Gregory Cannone for
George Clayton Johnson's "All of Us Are Dying"
Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, May, 1982

In recognition of Noirvember, a celebration of classic Film Noir held annually in the month of November, here are a baker's dozen of The Twilight Zone episodes that display the show’s rich Noir heritage.

Film Noir emerged from postwar Hollywood with a series of films that established the genre’s overriding themes and style: dark, melodramatic, urban crime dramas filmed with a shadowy palate and populated by drunken private eyes, small-time crooks, femme fatales, dirty cops, deadly doctors, thieves, psychopaths, con men, and hustlers. The film titles tell the story: Night and the City, The Asphalt Jungle, In a Lonely Place, Kiss Me Deadly, Nightmare Alley. It was a stylistic genre which saw interpretation from an impressive array of talent on both sides of the camera.

Sources generally agree that John Huston’s 1941 film The Maltese Falcon, the third cinematic adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel, was the first major Film Noir. Sources differ on the end of Film Noir’s classic era. A frequently cited end date is 1960 and the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel. Hitchcock borrowed elements from Film Noir (black-and-white cinematography, a murder mystery, a woman on the run, the grizzled private eye), as he had for such previous films as Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Wrong Man (1956), and delivered a shocking psycho-sexual nightmare which heralded the arrival of a more daring and ferocious type of film thriller. One of the most transitional works in the history of cinema, Psycho was an enormous influence on subsequent crime and suspense films, not to mention literature and illustrative arts. A year before Psycho was released to theaters, The Twilight Zone premiered on American television.

The Twilight Zone, too often narrowly categorized as a science fiction program, approached a wide array of styles in fantasy storytelling. Prime among these were the supernatural crime drama and the psychological thriller. With George T. Clemens’s Emmy Award-winning black-and-white cinematography (the zenith of the form on television) and a creative freedom rarely matched on other programs, The Twilight Zone attracted the finest writers, directors, and actors to the series, many of whom were significant contributors to the classic era of Film Noir. 

Actors on The Twilight Zone with Film Noir appearances include Dana Andrews, Richard Basehart, William Bendix, Neville Brand, Charles Bronson, Dane Clark, Steve Cochran, Richard Conte, Robert Cummings, Howard Duff, Dan Duryea, Jack Elam, Thomas Gomez, Earl Holliman, Phyllis Kirk, Cloris Leachman, Ida Lupino, Lee Marvin, Burgess Meredith, Vera Miles, Cliff Robertson, Mickey Rooney, and Franchot Tone. Some performers, such as Duryea and Lupino, are primarily remembered for their Noir work. The Twilight Zone was also fortunate to have directors such as John Brahm, Robert Florey, Ida Lupino (the only person to star in one episode, “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine,” and direct another, "The Masks"), Mitchell Leisen, and Jacques Tourneur behind the camera.  

 Perhaps the most important element on The Twilight Zone was the writers. Series creator Rod Serling, always creatively concerned with the losers, the dreamers, and the doomed, was naturally at the forefront of the Noir influence on the series, but he also recruited writers who were sensitive to the literary style from which the cinematic genre was born. Richard Matheson began his career as a novelist with the James M. Cain-inspired effort Someone Is Bleeding (1953) while Charles Beaumont and John Tomerlin collaborated (as Keith Grantland) on a novel, Run From the Hunter (1957), which bore the influence of David Goodis’s 1946 novel Dark Passage, which likely inspired the man-on-the-run television series The Fugitive (1963-1967). Meanwhile, a young writer named George Clayton Johnson arrived in Hollywood fresh off the sale of a film treatment which became the popular, Noir-influenced heist film Ocean’s 11 (1960). These writers were responsible for the show’s most overtly Noir-influenced output. 

Although dozens of episodes contain the Film Noir style in terms of photography and lighting effects, I have chosen to focus on episodes which explore the principal themes of the cinematic genre. This has naturally led to the omission of several episodes, such as “Eye of the Beholder,” “The Trade-Ins,” or “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” which will be of interest to those who wish to further explore the show’s connection with Film Noir. 

Episodes are listed in order of original broadcast date. 

       “Perchance to Dream” Season one, Episode 9 

Written by Charles Beaumont, Directed by Robert Florey, Starring Richard Conte, Suzanne Lloyd, and John Larch (November 27, 1959)

For his series debut writer Charles Beaumont adapted his story from the October, 1958 issue of Playboy into a tense thriller concerning Edward Hall (Richard Conte), a man with a heart condition whose overactive imagination has turned his dreaming state deadly. Hall’s recurring nightmare centers on a carnival roller coaster and the beautiful but dangerous Maya the Cat Girl. Conte, who built a career playing gangsters in films such as Under the Gun (1951) and The Big Combo (1955) is given the unenviable task of acting manic for half an hour yet pulls it off brilliantly. Throw in a psychiatrist (John Larch), a seedy carnival, and a femme fatale in the form of Canadian actress Suzanne Lloyd (in an unforgettable performance as the alluring yet psychopathic Maya the Cat Girl) and “Perchance to Dream” wears its Noir influence on its sleeve. The knockout punch is the weird musical score from Nathan Van Cleave and director Robert Florey’s twisted camera work, which combine to perfectly illuminate Edward Hall’s deteriorating mental state. “Perchance to Dream” is an underrated episode overall but for those interested in the influence of Film Noir on the series it is essential viewing.

Read our full review of “Perchance to Dream” here. 

“What You Need” Season one, Episode 12 
Written by Rod Serling, from a story by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore, Directed by Alvin Ganzer, Starring Ernest Truex and Steve Cochran (December 25, 1959)

Rod Serling stripped Kuttner’s and Moore’s 1945 short story of its science fiction trappings in favor of a Noir-flavored urban fantasy highlighting Serling’s skill at characterization. Steve Cochran, who made his name playing gangsters and heavies in Film Noir (Private Hell 36, The Chase) is tailor-made for the role of an embittered bully who intimidates a meek old man possessed of second sight (Ernest Truex). Kuttner’s and Moore’s story was previously adapted on Tales of Tomorrow, a significant precursor of The Twilight Zone, but it lacked the dark urban atmosphere of Serling’s adaptation.

Read our full review of “What You Need” here.  

“The Four of Us Are Dying” Season one, Episode 13 

Written by Rod Serling from a story by George Clayton Johnson, Directed by John Brahm, Starring Harry Townes, Ross Martin, Phillip Pine, Don Gordon, and Beverly Garland (January 1, 1960)

This most overtly Film Noir-influenced episode is a Rod Serling adaptation of an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson about a criminal named Arch Hammer who can change his appearance at will. The tough dialogue is straight out of a paperback novel and the players are Film Noir standbys: the conman, the gangster, the jazz musician, the washed up boxer, the lonely nightclub singer. The episode’s strength is in the production design and photography, including a dazzling floating neon sequence. It remains a memorable debut for George Clayton Johnson on the series, whose jazzy writing was perfectly filtered through Rod Serling’s remarkable gifts for characterization and dialogue. Johnson’s story was later published in the October, 1961 issue of Rogue.

See our full review of "The Four of Us Are Dying" here.

“Mirror Image” Season one, Episode 21 

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by John Brahm, Starring Vera Miles and Martin Milner (February 26, 1960)

The tale of the pursued and antagonized young woman was a favorite subject of film thrillers of the forties and also of series creator Rod Serling, who approached the material several times throughout the course of the series. These included such episodes as “The Hitch-Hiker,” “The After Hours,” and “Twenty Two,” all of which show the influence of Film Noir, but “Mirror Image” particularly captures the oppressive atmosphere essential to the genre. Vera Miles, who gave a memorable performance in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956), is mesmeric as the doomed young woman battling an evil double in an out-of-the-way bus station in the middle of the night. Martin Milner plays the rational man who gets the shock of his life after having Miles committed to the men in the white coats in one of the show’s more grotesque twist endings. This one is a sleeper and comes highly recommended.

See our full review here.

“The Big Tall Wish” Season one, Episode 27 

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by Ron Winston, Starring Ivan Dixon (April 8, 1960)

Professional boxing is unquestionably the sport of choice in Film Noir. In films such as Body and Soul (1947), The Set-Up (1949), and Champion (1949), boxing is viewed through the lens of loyalty, honor, criminality, and consequence. Rod Serling’s writing career was launched into the stratosphere with his Playhouse 90 effort “Requiem for a Heavyweight” (1956), about a washed up boxer trying for a second chance in life, and he returns here to tackle the sport through a lens of fantasy. The result is a heartbreaking meditation on faith and forgiveness performed by a groundbreaking group of African American performers who broke through the color lines of American television. It remains one of Serling’s most underrated efforts on the series and comes highly recommended.

See our full review here.  

“Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room” Season two, Episode 39 

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by Douglas Heyes, Starring Joe Mantell and William D. Gordon (October 14, 1960)

Director Douglas Heyes was up to the challenge for this technically challenging two-man play showcasing Rod Serling’s concerns with the doomed and the redeemed. It is another example of Serling’s ability to combine the crime drama with fantasy as Joe Mantell plays a cowardly small-time crook who comes face-to-face with the hidden self beneath the surface. William D. Gordon, later to play the lead doctor in Serling’s masterpiece, “Eye of the Beholder,” is suitably slimy as an antagonistic thug. Though clearly influenced by Film Noir, Serling’s redemptive ending is unique in a typically nihilistic genre.

See our full review here.  

“Shadow Play” Season two, Episode 62 

Written by Charles Beaumont, Directed by John Brahm, Starring Dennis Weaver (May 5, 1961)

“Shadow Play” is the second in Charles Beaumont’s informally termed Dream Trilogy, comprised also of “Perchance to Dream” and “Person or Persons Unknown.” All of these stories contain that essential Noir element: the man on the run. Beaumont’s preoccupation with dreams and nightmares led him to create several tales which placed an everyman into the spiraling depths of an altered reality. “Shadow Play” takes this a step further as the viewer is never shown reality but only the recurring nightmare which sends Adam Grant (Dennis Weaver) to the electric chair night after night. It becomes even more powerful in the hands of director John Brahm, the man behind such moody psychological thrillers as The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945). “Shadow Play” was remade for the first revival Twilight Zone series in 1986.

See our full review here. 

“A Game of Pool” Season three, Episode 62 

Written by George Clayton Johnson, Directed by Buzz Kulik, Starring Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters (October 13, 1961)

This masterfully performed episode takes that Noir standard, the pool hall hustler, and creates from it an epic game of life and death which tackles such heavy topics as legends, dreams, cowardice, and redemption. Jack Klugman, perhaps the performer most associated with the series, is at his absolute best here and is matched by comedian Jonathan Winters as pool hall legend Fats Brown. Winters delivers Clayton Johnson’s jazzy dialogue with a confident attitude that belied his nervous disposition while filming. In the process he created one of the truly enduring characters from the series. Despite an ending with too much levity (tacked on without Clayton Johnson’s approval) the episode still manages to mesmerize and impart the hard knocks of Noir wisdom. It remains essential viewing. “A Game of Pool” was remade, with Clayton Johnson’s original ending, for the first revival Twilight Zone series in 1985.

To read our full review go here. 

“Dead Man’s Shoes” Season three, Episode 83 

Written by Charles Beaumont and OCee Ritch, Directed by Montgomery Pittman, Starring Warren Stevens (January 19, 1962)

Functioning almost as a darkly humorous remake of George Clayton Johnson’s “The Four of Us Are Dying,” “Dead Man’s Shoes” finds bum Nate Bledsoe (Warren Stevens) steal a pair of shoes off a murdered gangster who’s been dumped in an alley. A game of switched identities ensues as Bledsoe becomes the murdered man as long as he wears the shoes. Warren Stevens’s deadpan acting style perfectly complements Montgomery Pittman’s direction as does the jazz-inflected cues from the stock music. The supporting cast is rounded out by Richard Devon as a long-faced mobster and the statuesque Joan Marshall as the dead gangster’s girl. “Dead Man’s Shoes” was remade, as the entertaining “Dead Woman’s Shoes,” for the first revival Twilight Zone series in 1985.

Read our full review here. 

“In Praise of Pip” Season five, Episode 121

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by Joseph M. Newman, Starring Jack Klugman and Bill Mumy (September 27, 1963) 

This affecting drama concerns an alcoholic bookmaker, Max Phillips, who receives a telegram informing him that his son the soldier, Pip, is wounded and dying in South Vietnam. Max is shot during a confrontation with a crime boss and wanders wounded into an amusement park after hours. Amazingly, Max meets his son in the deserted park, but Pip is somehow ten years old again. They spend a wonderful hour together before Pip has to leave and return to his adult body to die. Max is filled with regret for a lifetime of poor parenting and makes a deal with God, his life for Pip’s. Max dies and Pip survives. Rod Serling’s powerful meditation on parental love is anchored by a potent performance from Jack Klugman and juxtaposed against the seedy underworld of two-bit bookies and conmen. The moody atmosphere of the deserted amusement park and the mournful, jazz-inflected score by Rene Garriguenc (conducted by Lud Gluskin) add a haunting, noir-ish quality to the drama. Workmanlike director Joseph M. Newman was no stranger to Film Noir, having directed 711 Ocean Drive (1950), Lucky Nick Cain (1951), Dangerous Crossing (1953), and The Human Jungle (1954), as well as several episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. 

“The Last Night of a Jockey” Season five, Episode 125 

Written by Rod Serling, directed by Joseph M. Newman, starring Mickey Rooney (October 25, 1963)

Thematically related to "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room," and taking place in one of the most noir-ish of settings, a flea-bitten one-room apartment, Rod Serling’s morality tale is that of Grady, a diminutive jockey who loses his livelihood when caught doping horses. Now he wallows in his own grief and anger, until he is visited by his alter ego, an impish double who appears to first taunt Grady and then to grant Grady’s wish to be big. Grady becomes a giant, steadily growing from first eight feet tall then ten feet tall. When the head of the racing commission telephones to inform Grady that he’s been cleared to ride again, Grady realizes with horror that he’s now too big to ride. His most fervent wish has sealed his doom. It doesn’t get more noir than that. 

“Night Call” Season five, Episode 139 

Written by Richard Matheson, Directed by Jacques Tourneur, Starring Gladys Cooper (February 7, 1964)

Richard Matheson lobbied to get Jacques Tourneur, with whom he had recently worked on The Comedy of Terrors, behind the camera for an episode of The Twilight Zone. The result was this tense, moody, and heartbreaking meditation on guilt and fear. Tourneur directed one of the classics of Film Noir, Out of the Past (1947), as well as a series of Noir-infused Gothic Horrors for producer Val Lewton: Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Leopard Man (1943). “Night Call” remains a genuinely suspenseful supernatural thriller which careens into an effective, emotional melodrama in its final act. 

“The Masks” Season five, Episode 145 

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by Ida Lupino, Starring Robert Keith, Milton Selzer, Virginia Gregg, Brooke Hayward, and Alan Sues (March 20, 1964)

“The Masks” is one of the most atmospheric episodes of the series largely thanks to director Ida Lupino, a performer and artist intimately associated with Film Noir. Lupino appeared in a handful of essential films in the genre and directed the gritty and effective low-budget thriller The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Lupino skillfully utilized her talented cast of character actors and the suffocating atmosphere of an old New Orleans mansion (with excellent sound design in the form of a Mardi Gras parade outside its walls) to tell Rod Serling’s story of the otherworldly comeuppance on a group of narcissistic, gold-digging relatives who descend on a dying man. Makeup effects artist William Tuttle and sculptor Charles Schram tie the tale together beautifully with their unforgettable designs for a set of ghoulish carnival masks. "The Masks" remains chillingly effective and stands as Rod Serling’s final great script for the series.

“The Jeopardy Room” Season five, Episode 149 

Written by Rod Serling, Directed by Richard Donner, Starring Martin Landau and John Van Dreelen (April 17, 1964)

As Film Noir moved into the fifties so did the genre’s preoccupation with the Cold War. “The Jeopardy Room” combines Rod Serling’s talent for social commentary and characterization while also remaining an entertaining espionage thriller. Serling cuts the fat off the typical spy tale and gets right to a game of cat and mouse staged between two motel rooms. If the narrative jumps logic in a few spots it is suited to the type of pulp novel on screen Serling and company were trying to achieve. Although this episode is sometimes dismissed as a tale better suited to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, it is unmistakably the work of Rod Serling and displays the range of the series. Director Richard Donner was the last great director to arrive on the series and here shows his skill in staging a violent and paranoid thriller. Donner embraces the staged quality of the script with some innovative camera work which keeps the dialogue-heavy action moving forward. The episode also benefits from the presence of Martin Landau, one of the finest actors of his generation, and John Van Dreelen in a pleasingly over-the-top performance as the villainous Commissar Vassiloff.

So ends our journey down the dark alleys and side streets of The Twilight Zone. We hope you enjoyed the trip and made it through with your sanity intact. For more Film Noir I recommend Eddie Muller’s Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998), as well as the Muller-hosted TCM series Noir Alley. 

-JP

Appendix: Selected Noir Filmography:

This filmography is intended as a generous selection of Film Noir which featured performers, writers, or directors who later worked on The Twilight Zone. Appearances on The Twilight Zone are noted.

They Drive by Night (Warner Bros., 1940)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”).

High Sierra (Warner Bros., 1941)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”).

Street of Chance (Paramount, 1942)

-Features Burgess Meredith (“Time Enough at Last,” “Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” “The Obsolete Man,” “Printer’s Devil”).

The Leopard Man (RKO, 1943)

-Directed by Jacques Tourneur, director of “Night Call.”

The Woman in the Window (MGM, 1944)

-Features Dan Duryea (“Mr. Denton on Doomsday”).

Ministry of Fear (Paramount, 1944)

-Features Dan Duryea (Mr. Denton on Doomsday”), Alan Napier (“Passage on the Lady Anne”), and Cyril Delevanti (“A Penny for Your Thoughts,” “The Silence,” “A Piano in the House,” “Passage on the Lady Anne”).

Phantom Lady (Universal, 1944)

-Features Franchot Tone (“The Silence”), and Thomas Gomez (“Escape Clause,” “Dust”).

Laura (20^th Century Fox, 1944)

-Features Dana Andrews (“No Time Like the Past”), as well as Vincent Price, who appeared on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery in “Class of ‘99” and “The Return of the Sorcerer.”

Fallen Angel (20^th Century Fox, 1945)

-Features Dana Andrews (“No Time Like the Past”), and John Carradine (“The Howling Man”).

Scarlet Street (Universal, 1945)

-Features Dan Duryea (“Mr. Denton on Doomsday”), and Vladimir Sokoloff (“Dust,” “The Mirror,” “The Gift”).

Detour (PRC, 1945)

-Written by and based on the novel by Martin Goldsmith, writer of the fifth season episodes “What’s in the Box” and “The Encounter.”

The Blue Dahlia (Paramount, 1946)

-Features William Bendix (“The Time Element”).

The Chase (United Artists, 1946)

-Features Robert Cummings (“King Nine Will Not Return”), and Steve Cochran (“What You Need”).

Out of the Past (RKO, 1947)

-Directed by Jacques Tourneur, director of “Night Call.”

Brute Force (Universal, 1947)

-Features John Hoyt (“The Lateness of the Hour,” “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”) and Howard Duff (“A World of Difference”).

Sorry, Wrong Number (Paramount, 1948)

-Written by and based on the radio play by Lucille Fletcher, author of the radio play “The Hitch-Hiker,” adapted by Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone.

Road House (20^th Century Fox, 1948)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”).

Moonrise (Republic, 1948)

-Features Dane Clark (“The Prime Mover”), and Clem Bevans (“Hocus-Pocus and Frisby).

He Walked by Night (Eagle-Lion, 1948)

-Features Richard Basehart (“Probe 7, Over and Out”), and John Dehner (“The Lonely,” “The Jungle,” “Mr. Garrity and the Graves”) in an uncredited role.

Force of Evil (MGM, 1948)

-Features Thomas Gomez (“Escape Clause,” “Dust”).

Thieves’ Highway (20^th Century Fox, 1949)

-Features Richard Conte (“Perchance to Dream”).

The Crooked Way (United Artists, 1949)

-Directed by Robert Florey (“Perchance to Dream,” “The Fever,” “The Long Morrow”).

Criss Cross (Universal, 1949)

-Features Dan Duryea (“Mr. Denton on Doomsday”), Alan Napier (“Passage on the Lady Anne”), and Richard Long (“Person or Persons Unknown,” “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”).

The Accused (Paramount, 1949)

-Features Robert Cummings (“King Nine Will Not Return”), and Sam Jaffe (Night Gallery pilot film segment “The Escape Route”).

D.O.A. (United Artists, 1949)

-Features Beverly Garland (“The Four of Us Are Dying”), and Neville Brand (“The Encounter”).

Too Late for Tears (United Artists, 1949)

-Features Dan Duryea (“Mr. Denton on Doomsday”).

Woman in Hiding (Universal, 1950)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”), and Howard Duff (“A World of Difference”). Lupino and Duff were married the following year. They divorced in 1984.

The Damned Don’t Cry (Warner Bros., 1950)

-Features Steve Cochran (“What You Need”), and Hugh Sanders (“Judgment Night,” “The Jungle,” “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”).

Where the Sidewalk Ends (20^th Century Fox, 1950)

-Features Dana Andrews (“No Time Like the Past”), Gary Merrill (“The Valley was Still”), and Neville Brand (“The Encounter”) in an uncredited role.

No Man of Her Own (Paramount, 1950)

-Directed by Michell Leisen (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” “Escape Clause,” “People Are Alike All Over”), features Phyllis Thaxter (“Young Man’s Fancy”).

Quicksand (United Artists, 1950)

-Features Mickey Rooney (“The Last Night of a Jockey”), and Jack Elam (“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”) in an uncredited role.

The Strip (MGM, 1951)

-Features Mickey Rooney (“The Last Night of a Jockey”).

On Dangerous Ground (RKO, 1951)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”).

Fourteen Hours (20^th Century Fox, 1951)

-Features Richard Basehart (“Probe 7, Over and Out”), Agnes Moorehead (“The Invaders”), Joyce Van Patten (“Passage on the Lady Anne”) in an uncredited role, and Paul Douglas, who originally appeared in “The Mighty Casey” before his death resulted in reshoots which eliminated him from the play.

Under the Gun (Universal, 1951)

-Richard Conte (“Perchance to Dream”), Sam Jaffe (Night Gallery pilot film segment “The Escape Route”), and Phillip Pine (“The Four of Us Are Dying”).

Beware, My Lovely (RKO, 1952)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”).

Kansas City Confidential (United Artists, 1952)

-Features Neville Brand (“The Encounter”), and Jack Elam (“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”).

The Hitch-Hiker (RKO, 1953)

-Directed and co-written by Ida Lupino, star of “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” and director of “The Masks.”

The Big Heat (Columbia, 1953)

-Features Lee Marvin (“The Grave,” “Steel”), Jeanette Nolan (“The Hunt,” “Jess-Belle”), and Adam Williams (“The Hitch-Hiker,” “A Most Unusual Camera”).

Crime Wave (Warner Bros., 1954)

-Features Phyllis Kirk (“A World of His Own”), and Charles Bronson (“Two”).

Private Hell 36 (Filmmakers Releasing Organization, 1954)

-Features Ida Lupino (“The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” director of “The Masks”), who also co-wrote the film, Steve Cochran (“What You Need”), Howard Duff (“A World of Difference”), and Dean Jagger (“Static”).

The Big Combo (Allied Artists, 1955)

-Features Richard Conte (“Perchance to Dream”), Lee Van Cleef (“The Grave”), Earl Holliman (“Where Is Everybody?”), and John Hoyt (“The Lateness of the Hour,” “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”).

Kiss Me Deadly (United Artists, 1955)

-Features Strother Martin (“The Grave”), Jack Elam (“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”), and Cloris Leachman (“It’s a Good Life”).

The Wrong Man (Warner Bros., 1956)

-Features Vera Miles (“Mirror Image”), Nehemiah Persoff (“Judgment Night”), and Charles Aidman (“And When the Sky Was Opened,” “Little Girl Lost”) in an uncredited role. Aidman also narrated the first two seasons of The Twilight Zone revival series.

Touch of Evil (Universal, 1958)

-Features Dennis Weaver (“Shadow Play”), and Kennan Wynn (“A World of His Own”) in an uncredited role.

"Mute"

Ann Jillian as the telepathic girl Ilse and Irene Dailey as the stern Miss Frank

“Mute”

Season Four, Episode 107

Original Air Date: January 31, 1963

Cast:

Cora Wheeler: Barbara Baxley

Harry Wheeler: Frank Overton

Miss Frank: Irene Dailey

Ilse: Ann Jillian

Frau Werner: Eva Soreny (Éva Szörényi)

Holger Nielsen: Robert Boon

Fran Nielsen: Claudia Bryar

Tom Poulter: Percy Helton

Karl Werner: Oscar Beregi (Jr.)

Crew:

Writer: Richard Matheson (based on his story)

Director: Stuart Rosenberg

Producer: Herbert Hirschman

Director of Photography: Robert Pittack

Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson

Associate Producer: Murray Golden

Assistant to the Producer: John Conwell

Music: Fred Steiner

Art Direction: George W. Davis & Edward Cartagno

Film Editor: Eda Warren, A.C.E.

Set Decoration: Henry Grace & Don Greenwood, Jr.

Assistant Director: Ray de Camp

Sound: Franklin Milton & Joe Edmondson

Rod Serling’s Wardrobe: Eagle Clothes

Filmed at MGM Studios

And Now, Mr. Serling:

“The talented author Richard Matheson pays a return visit to Twilight Zone with a story called ‘Mute.’ It provides an exceptional challenge to the acting talents of Barbara Baxley, Frank Overton, and an unusual twelve-year-old by the name of Ann Jillian.”

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

“What you’re witnessing is the curtain-raiser to a most extraordinary play; to wit, the signing of a pact, the commencement of a project. The play itself will be performed almost entirely offstage. The final scenes are to be enacted a decade hence and with a different cast. The main character of these final scenes is Ilse, the daughter of Professor and Mrs. Nielsen, age two. At the moment she lies sleeping in her crib, unaware of the singular drama in which she is to be involved. Ten years from this moment, Ilse Nielsen is to know the desolating terror of living simultaneously in the world – and in the Twilight Zone.”

Summary:

            The story begins in 1953 in Düsseldorf, Germany where four couples (all parents of small children) form a pact to begin a psychological experiment. Believing human beings to have natural telepathic abilities, which have been dulled through centuries of verbal language usage, the families formulate a plan to isolate their children and train them to develop their inborn telepathic skills. One family, the Nielsons, including a daughter named Ilse, are leaving Germany to return to the United States. This causes some anxiety for the Werners, a closely allied family who are to stay in Germany.

            The story moves forward a decade to a point in which the isolated lives of the Nielsons in German Corners, Pennsylvania are tragically disrupted by a deadly house fire in which both Mr. and Mrs. Nielson perish. Ilse, now twelve years old, is miraculously found unharmed outside the house by Tom Poulter, a local volunteer firefighter. The local sheriff, Harry Wheeler, attempts to communicate with the girl but she refuses to speak. The sheriff takes the young girl home where his wife, Cora, instantly forms an intense protective bond with the child, fueled by the lingering grief over the drowning death of her own daughter some time before.

            The Wheelers cannot understand why Ilse, a powerful telepath, refuses to speak. They begin to darkly speculate on what may have happened to the girl whilst in the care of her eccentric parents, who refused to assimilate into the local community. Harry Wheeler does his duty and attempts to find relatives with which he can place the girl. He uses the return addresses on the Nielsons’s mail to send out letters apprising the recipients of the situation. Unbeknownst to Wheeler, Cora destroys the letters.

            Meanwhile, Ilse is struggling in this new world of spoken language. Her isolated upbringing and telepathic development have made spoken language both a dulling sensation upon the brain and an assault upon the senses. She fights against Cora’s attempts to make her speak. After weeks of not hearing anything in response to his letters, Harry Wheeler makes the fateful decision to enroll Ilse at the local school, the commencement of a “normal” life for the girl. This results in the appearance of Miss Frank, the local schoolteacher. Miss Frank, a stern woman whose father attempted to develop her into a medium as a child, believes in the power of personal will to overcome the overriding influence of a negative environment. With the aid of her class, Miss Frank berates and antagonizes Ilse in an attempt to break her will and force her to speak and behave as a normal child.

            Arriving in German Corners at this time is Mr. and Mrs. Werner, who, having not heard from the Nielsens in an unusually long time, have traveled to the United States to investigate. They connect with Harry Wheeler who takes them to his home to await Ilse’s return from school. The Werners realize that they are too late in arriving and that the Wheelers have unknowingly corrupted Ilse’s telepathic abilities by the girl’s forced assimilation into the local community.

            The suspicions of the Werners are confirmed when Ilse arrives home from school completely broken of her remarkable abilities. An unconvincing happy ending ensues in which it is suggested that Ilse will be happier now that she is free from the influence of her parents and ensconced in the loving home of the Wheelers.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

“It has been noted in a book of proven wisdom that perfect love casteth out fear. While it’s unlikely that this observation was meant to include that specific fear which follows the loss of extrasensory perception, the principle remains, as always, beautifully intact. Case in point, that of Ilse Nielsen, former resident of the Twilight Zone.” 

Commentary:

“It was the sound.

            Like endless club strokes across his vivid mind, it pulsed and throbbed into him in an endless, garbled din. He sensed it was communication of a sort but it hurt his ears and chained awareness and locked incoming thoughts behind dense, impassable walls.

            Sometimes, in an infrequent moment of silence he would sense a fissure in the walls and, for that fleeting moment, catch hold of fragments – like and animal snatching scraps of food before the trap jaws clash together.”

                        -“Mute” by Richard Matheson 

Barbara Baxley and Irene Dailey

            The immediate and lingering effects of “Mute” are those of its conflicted resolution. Most viewers are unlikely to be attuned to writer Richard Matheson’s proclamation, spoken by Frau Werner (Éva Szörényi) and reiterated by the author in an interview with editor Stanley Wiater, for Richard Matheson’s The Twilight Zone Scripts, Volume Two, that Ilse, the young telepathic girl who has been rudely stripped of her extraordinary abilities through forced assimilation by well-meaning caretakers, is in a better place at the end of her ordeal now that she is a “normal” child in the home of loving, if obtuse, adoptive parents. Prime among the reasons this resolution rings hollow is that the viewer is told, not shown, that Ilse’s birth parents were unloving. As such, the characterization of her parents as single-minded scientists who provide everything for their daughter except affection and warmth is not convincingly argued. There is also the notion of telepathy itself. Whether one views such an ability as a gift or a curse, and it has been convincingly portrayed as both in speculative fiction, the viewer likely sees such an ability as something which should not be destroyed for the cause of a subjective view of normality.

However large this flawed resolution appears to the viewer, “Mute” possesses moments of engaging drama which compel less from the strength of the narrative than from the convictions of the observations, particularly in what the events display about Americanism, assimilation, outsider syndrome, and the nature of grief. 

Original illustration for
"Lover, When You're Near Me"
by Ed Emshwiller
Galaxy Science Fiction, May, 1952

          The extraordinary abilities which author Charles Fort, in his 1932 book on the subject, labeled “wild talents”* has long formed rich grain for the SF mill. Telepathy, and related abilities such as telekinesis (moving objects by mental concentration), pyrokinesis (igniting fire by mental concentration), and precognition (foretelling the future), have fascinated SF writers and readers alike since at least the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Early examples include American writer Edward Bellamy’s 1889 story, “To Whom This May Come,” about an adventurer who discovers an island of telepathic natives who have long discarded spoken language. The English occultist and writer Aleister Crowley used the concept of telepathy to nightmarish effect in his 1913 tale “The Testament of Magdalen Blair,” in which a telepathic woman experiences the moment-by-moment terror and agony of her husband’s slow death and descent into an afterlife far different from the heavenly promises of religious faith. Some critics consider the tale the most disturbing in the English language.

            Richard Matheson first explored the subject of telepathy with “Lover, When You’re Near Me,” a 1952 story in which an alien planet serves as a harrowing trap for the Earth men sent there when they are preyed upon by a native female servant with strong telepathic abilities and even stronger desires. Later works by Matheson in a similar vein include the 1963 story, “Girl of My Dreams,” in which a petty crook exploits his girlfriend’s precognitive abilities, A Stir of Echoes, Matheson’s 1958 novel in which a suburbanite is hypnotized at a house party, thereby unlocking his ability to sense the presence haunting his home, and Hell House, Matheson’s 1971 modern classic in which a small group of psychics and sensitives investigate the Belasco House, the “Mount Everest of haunted houses.”

            By the middle of the 1970s, Matheson embarked on a serious exploration of metaphysical topics, resulting in a pair of novels, Bid Time Return (aka Somewhere in Time) (1975), a World Fantasy Award-winning novel about a terminally ill man who mentally wills his way backwards in time to connect with a beautiful actress from a century earlier, and What Dreams May Come (1978), which explores the afterlife through the perspective of a family tragedy and a love which transcends death. Similar thematic explorations flavor many of Matheson’s subsequent novels and culminate in his manifesto on the metaphysical, The Path: A New Look at Reality (1993).

            Telepathy and related abilities were occasionally explored on The Twilight Zone though seldom in so clinical a way as in “Mute,” which in many ways resembles the frequently used narrative theme of the “wild child,” in which a feral, or aboriginal, child is introduced into “civilized” society. The most notable example of this is Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Typically, themes of extrasensory perception were used on the series for morality plays (“What You Need”), humor (“The Prime Mover”), or ghostly thrills (“Twenty-Two”).

As speculative fiction moved from the external to the internal, with the emergence of writers who desired to explore the varieties of interpersonal relationships and the variegated perspectives of the self, writers found telepathy and related abilities to be useful lenses through which these topics could be explored, resulting in some of the finest SF literature of the 20^th century. Examples include John Wyndham’s 1955 novel The Chrysalids, about an intolerant fundamentalist society which arises from post-apocalyptic wreckage to practice a form of eugenics which discriminates against those with telepathic “mutations,” Philip K. Dick’s Ubik (1969), in which psychics are utilized in corporate espionage, Daphne du Maurier’s 1970 novella “Don’t Look Now,” in which a pair of elderly psychics unwittingly set in motion a tragedy which befalls a bereaved couple who have recently lost their young daughter, Robert Silverberg’s influential 1972 novel Dying Inside, about a telepath who slowly loses his inborn ability while also losing a semblance of personal identity, and John Farris’s bestseller The Fury (1976), which combines a startling tale of psychic twins with the exploits of the espionage thriller. These wild talents also prominently feature in the works of Stephen King, who counts both Matheson and Farris as influences. Themes of telepathy and other outré abilities have further permeated speculative fiction to a saturation point, resulting in scores of related novels, stories, comic books, and films too numerous to list.

Cover art by Richard Powers

The original short story “Mute” was published in the 1962 paperback anthology The Fiend in You from Ballantine Books, edited by Matheson’s close friend and fellow Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont. The Fiend in You, an anthology of exceptionally high quality which has unfortunately never been reprinted, served as much as a showcase for the Southern California Group as for its thematic goal as stated in Beaumont’s introduction: to shrug off the Gothic archetypes of horror fiction, which are no longer frightening, and push the genre toward psychological horror, as exemplified by the works of Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, and the writers of The Twilight Zone. Matheson held the distinction of having two stories in the anthology, one at each end of the book. Other authors to appear in the anthology include George Clayton Johnson, Henry Slesar, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Ellin, Charles E. Fritch, William F. Nolan, and several more. The importance of this little-known anthology has been unremarked upon through the years but it remains a key turning point away from the external horrors of the Gothic toward the inward horrors seen through the perspective of psychological disorder.

            Matheson, typically faithful to himself when adapting his works, changed several elements when adapting his original short story into a teleplay for The Twilight Zone. Some of these changes, such as the gender of the telepathic child, changed from the boy Paal in the story to the girl Ilse in the episode, came at the behest of the production, who perhaps believed that a female child would elicit more sympathy from the audience. This change necessitated another in that the Wheelers lost their son David in the story but their daughter Sally in the episode. Another gender change occurred in the case of Miss Frank’s tale of her troubled upbringing. In the original story, Miss Frank’s father died and her mother became obsessed with communicating with him in the great beyond to the point of forcing mediumship upon her young daughter. In the episode, it is changed so that Miss Frank’s father is the parent who forces mediumship upon her. Other changes came as necessary to the change from print to film. Matheson’s original story is told mostly in flashback while the episode favors a more traditional linear approach. Unfortunately, the saccharine and unconvincing happy ending is not a product of the episode but is lifted nearly whole from the original short story.

            It is worth noting that Matheson was sincere with the ending to “Mute,” while also acknowledging its overall ineffectiveness. This lack of effectiveness is largely due to the unsympathetic characters in the drama. Harry Wheeler comes across as cold and aloof, simply wishing to be unburdened of the child. Cora Wheeler is largely a pathetic figure, imperceptive and unable to provide the sort of care Ilse truly needs. Miss Frank is purely a villain, placed into the story simply to antagonize. The only sympathetic character is the telepathic child. In the original short story, Matheson gives ample space to displaying the child’s perspective during assaults by the well-meaning Wheelers. Speech to the child is described as like “knife strokes across the weave of consciousness,” and Cora’s attempts to verbally communicate are related thus from the child’s perspective: “He knew there was only love in her but the sound would destroy him. It would chain his thoughts – like putting shackles on the wind.” From the reader’s/viewer’s perspective, the end of the drama feels more as though the child has been defeated rather than freed from a mental affliction. It is this tonally depressive quality which mars the smooth transition of the sunny resolution. 

            The adaptation does allow Matheson to expand and better explain some aspects of the short story. The episode gives a clear explanation of how the Nielsens came to settle in German Corners (an inheritance). It also allows Matheson to expand the abilities of the telepathic child, as Ilse is able to perform feats such as sensing when a phone is going to ring moments before it does so, and entering the minds of those several rooms away, which were not known to be abilities of the boy Paal from the original story. Oddly enough, a scene near the final act of the drama seems lifted directly from Ray Bradbury’s third season episode “I Sing the Body Electric,” going so far as to use the same town square set and to replicate the narrative action of an upset young girl running from a house toward the town square only to be pursued by a mother figure who saves the girl from being run down in traffic. 

        Both the original story and the episode approach timely themes of isolation, alienation, and assimilation which remain divisive topics in American society today. Chief among these themes is the effects of outsider syndrome (the feeling of not belonging experienced by those who differ from the common characteristics of a population) and the pressure to assimilate, particularly in relation to those seen as different or foreign in their thoughts, actions, or heredity. The German Professor Werner is mocked by the first townsperson he comes into contact with, and the self-isolating nature of the Nielsens is repeatedly spoken of in condescending terms by the characters in the story. This intolerant attitude is focused in the character of Miss Frank, the spinster schoolteacher whose troubled upbringing has colored all her subsequent thoughts about teaching, discipline, and assimilation. The tragedy of the play is that Miss Frank and the Wheelers truly believe their destructive actions are in the best interest of the child, and remain at the end of the story completely unaware of the beauty they have destroyed for the sake of plainness. 

        Barbara Baxley (1923-1990) is top-billed as Cora Wheeler, the grieving mother who clings to the orphaned child Ilse as a second chance for motherhood. Baxley appeared in Rod Serling’s early teleplay for Kraft Theatre, “The Twilight Rounds” (1953), a progenitor of his celebrated teleplay, “Requiem for a Heavyweight.” Baxley also appeared in such genre television programs as Inner Sanctum, Climax!, One Step Beyond, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (in Ray Bradbury's fourth season episode, "Design for Loving," based on his 1949 story, "Marionettes, Inc."), and ‘Way Out, which briefly ran before The Twilight Zone’s broadcast time during the second season. In the very Twilight Zone-esque ‘Way Out episode “The Overnight Case,” written by Nicholas Pryor, Baxley plays a woman who cannot awaken from a recurrent nightmare, supported in the play by fellow Twilight Zone performers Martin Balsam and Kevin McCarthy. Baxley was a staple of the Broadway stage during the 1960s and 1970s, during which time she began to receive notable roles in such films as Nashville (1975) and Norma Rae (1979). Baxley returned to The Twilight Zone in 1986 when she appeared in the revival series segment, “Profile in Silver.” Her final film role was for the 1990 horror film sequel The Exorcist III. 

        Versatile character actor Frank Overton (1918-1967) plays Sheriff Harry Wheeler, a rather unfeeling character who is far removed from Overton's performance as Martin Sloan's (Gig Young) father in Rod Serling's moving first season episode "Walking Distance." Overton perfected his craft on the New York stages before moving into film and television in the early 1950s. Overton played another memorable sheriff in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and appeared on such genre television programs as Boris Karloff's Thriller, One Step Beyond, 'Way Out, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Invaders, and in his final television role, the Star Trek episode "This Side of Paradise," from a story by Twilight Zone writer Jerry Sohl. 

          The “unusual twelve-year-old” of Rod Serling’s preview narration is actress Ann Jillian (b. 1950), whose name is misspelled (as “Ann Jilliann”) in the closing credits. Born Ann Nauseda, Jillian began her career in television on such series as Leave it to Beaver before appearing in Walt Disney’s Babes in Toyland (1961). Numerous television roles followed. Jillian found a spark of career renewal with the 1980s sitcom It’s a Living, playing Cassie Cranston, which resulted in Jillian gaining notoriety as a sex symbol. Jillian briefly had her own sitcom for the 13-episode series Ann Jillian later in the decade. Jillian retired from acting at the turn of the century with her last credit in 2000 for an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. 

            The cast is rounded out by three talented performers. Irene Dailey (1920-2008) portrays Miss Frank. Dailey manages to imbue a rather one-note villain with a semblance of complexity and subtle shading. Dailey, a native New Yorker and the sister of actor Dan Dailey, is another product of the New York stages, appearing in several Broadway productions throughout her career. Dailey found her niche playing immoral or villainous characters in soap operas such as The Edge of Night and Another World, the latter for which she won an Emmy Award. The Hungarian actor Oscar Beregi, Jr. (1918-1976) (billed simply as Oscar Beregi), portrayed Professor Werner. Beregi is likely a familiar face to regular Twilight Zone viewers, having previously played a criminal mastermind who suffers an ironic fate in the second season episode, “The Rip Van Winkle Caper,” and a Nazi fugitive who receives a dose of supernatural justice in the third season episode, “Deaths-Head Revisited.” Those interested in information about Beregi’s long career are directed to our commentaries on those episodes. Portraying Frau Werner is Hungarian actress Éva Szörényi (1917-2009), born Lersch Elvira and billed as Eva Soreny. An award-winning performer of the Hungarian National Theatre, Szörényi was a prolific performer in Hungarian films in the late 1930s and 1940s. She began appearing on American television in 1957, garnering roles on such programs as Perry Mason, Kraft Suspense Theatre, and The Wild, Wild West, among others. Her last role was for the 2001 film An American Rhapsody. 

            The final notable component of “Mute” is the varied and sensitive score from composer Fred Steiner (1923-2011). Steiner scored several Twilight Zone episodes, including excellent scores for “King Nine Will Not Return” and “The Passersby,” but his contributions to the series are largely overshadowed by the contributions of other composers on the series. Steiner provided music, often uncredited, for dozens of films and television series, including Star Trek, Perry Mason, and such low-budget genre offerings as Teenagers from Outer Space (1959), Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). Steiner began his professional career scoring radio programs such as Suspense. Steiner’s father, also a musician, performed in Nathan Van Cleave’s orchestra. Van Cleave, whose music is familiar to Twilight Zone fans from such episodes as “The Midnight Sun,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Jess-Belle,” and others, was a prominent influence on the young musician. Steiner provided uncredited music for such memorable films as Return of the Jedi, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Airplane!

            “Mute,” like much of the fourth season’s offerings, is an engaging though flawed episode which sacrifices sympathetic characterizations and narrative consistency to explore timely themes of social alienation as well as broader themes of metaphysics and the ways in which these themes may logically be thought to intrude upon everyday life. It can definitely be recommended for all viewers though said viewers will likely be divided about returning to “Mute” for additional viewings.

Grade: C

*In Matheson’s original short story he gives a small indication of Fort’s influence when Harry Wheeler and Tom Poulter find the mock-Fortean book The Unknown Mind amid the ruins of the Nielson’s burned house.

Grateful Acknowledgement is made for information found in the following:

-Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts, Volume Two, edited by Stanley Wiater (Gauntlet Press, 2002)
-The Guide to Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler (Kent State University Press, 1983)
-The Internet Movie Database (imdb.org)

Notes:

--“Mute,” the original short story, was initially published in the 1962 anthology The Fiend in You, edited by Charles Beaumont (Ballantine Books). It has been reprinted in Matheson’s collections Shock II (1964), Collected Stories (1989), Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008), and The Best of Richard Matheson (2017). Matheson’s teleplay for “Mute” was published in Richard Matheson’s The Twilight Zone Scripts, Volume Two, edited by Stanley Wiater (2002).

--Stuart Rosenberg also directed the first season episode “I Shot an Arrow into the Air.”

--Barbara Baxley also appeared in the first Twilight Zone revival series segment, “Profile in Silver.”

--Frank Overton also appeared in the first season episode “Walking Distance.”

--Robert Boon also appeared in the third season episode, “Deaths-Head Revisited.”

--Claudia Bryar also appeared in the first Twilight Zone revival series segment “Welcome to Winfield.”

--Percy Helton also appeared in the fifth season episode, “Mr. Garrity and the Graves.”

--Oscar Beregi (Jr.) also appeared in the second season episode “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” and the third season episode “Deaths-Head Revisited.”

--The episode also features Bill Erwin in an uncredited role. Erwin appeared in such additional episodes as “Mr. Denton on Doomsday,” “Walking Distance,” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” as well as the Twilight Zone Radio Drama production of “Ninety Years Without Slumbering.”

--Fred Seiner also composed and/or conducted music for the episodes “King Nine Will Not Return,” “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim,” “The Passersby,” “Miniature,” “I Dream of Genie,” and “The Bard.”

--“Mute” was adapted as a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Wade Williams.

-JP