September 7, 2024: Our Twilight Zone rewatch continues with season 3, episodes 17-20!

Season 3, Episode 17, “One More Pallbearer”

This episode was first broadcast January 12, 1962.

In the original draft, Radin accuses Colonel Hawthorne of ordering him to lead a suicidal mission because he didn’t want Radin to marry his daughter.

Also in the original draft, Radin accuses Mrs. Langsford of targeting him in school after romantically pursuing his father only to have him choose his mother over her. Furthermore, Radin reveals that the classmate he attempted to frame was actually the school bully.

Finally, the original draft had a somewhat different ending. Radin pulls out a gun and shoots all three dead before heading up to the surface and suffering his hallucination.

The original setting for this episode was the basement “of a fashionable brownstone on the east side of New York”.

The episode interiors were shot at MGM’s Stage 10 while the New York exterior was shot on Lot 2. The post-apocalyptic world was shot at Stage 27 which served as Munchkin Land in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Actor Joseph Wiseman, who played, Paul Radin, was born in my home town of Montreal. He was the first to play a James Bond villain as Dr. No (1962).

Trevor Bardette, who played Colonel Hawthorne, was born Terva Bardette but changed his name for the big screen. He published a short story titled “The Phantom Photoplay”, in the August 1927 issue of Weird Tales magazine and ended up making a list of the publication’s female writers. Bardette built a career playing villains, mostly in Westerns and serials. Between 1938 and 1940, he appeared in 33 films.

The episode offers an intriguing premise but, once the stage is set, the proceedings give way to an overly talky story that concludes in rather unimpressive fashion. I’m reminded of season 1’s “A World of Difference” that, although it didn’t make my Top 10, I thought still did a much better job of delivering the same twist in more provocative and ambiguous fashion.

Season 3, Episode 18, “Dead Man’s Shoes”

This episode was first broadcast January 19, 1962.

Although based on an original idea by Charles Beaumont, Ocee Ritch wrote the teleplay

Originally, this episode was titled “Venus in the Garage”, then “Down to Earth”, and then “The Reluctant Genius” before becoming “Dead Man’s Shoes”.

In the original story, the enchanted item was actually a cowboy hat. In retrospect, “Dead Man’s Cowboy Hat” probably wouldn’t have worked as a title.

The episode was remade as Dead Woman’s Shoes/Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium (1985) and Dead Man’s Eyes (2002). This makes it the only episode to have appeared in all three Twilight Zone incarnations.

Actor Warren Stevens, who played Nate Bledsoe, appeared as Lt. William Storm in 26 episodes of Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers (1956) and as Elliot Carson on Return to Peyton Place (1972) for 422 episodes. Reflecting back on this episode, Stevens was refreshingly candid: “Pittman said “Listen, I don’t know how you should play this. You’re on your own!” So that was it, I was on my own! I played a bum who put on the shoes of a dead gangster and then became the gangaster. I think it should be a joint effort, with suggestions from both parties kind of melding into something that comes out right. So I never forgot Pittman saying to me “I do’t know what to tell ya!”.”

On Rod Serling: “I met Rod Serling – not on that show, but I met him before. He smoked far too much, but otherwse he was a very personable guy.”

Richard Devon, who played Dagget, had a recurring role in Space Patrol (1950) up until he got into a contract dispute and his character ended up in permanent suspended animation.

Actress Joan Marshall, who played Wilma, played Sailor Duval in Bold Venture (1959). She auditioned for the part of Lily Munster (then Phoebe Munster) on The Munsters (1964), but the producers felt she was too much like Morticia Addams from the Addams Family (1964). Her ex-husband, Hal Ashby, used the personal details of her life for the movie Shampoo (1975), much to her displeasure.

Ben Wright, who played Chips, also appeared in season 1’s “Judgment Night” and was most recently seen playing the doctor in “Deaths-Head Revisited”.

Florence Marly, who played Dagget’s girlfriend, was a Czech beauty whose film career was cut short when she was blacklisted after being branded a communist. As it turned out, she had been confused with Russian club singer Anna Marly but by the time this was discovered, it was too late, forcing her to pivot to televison.

Honestly, not a bad episode although I did find Nate’s treatment of Wilma a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. I did appreciate the shift in performance between the anxious homeless man and confident gangster. I was expecting to dislike this episode but, in the end, the most egregious story element for me was that annoyingly erudite drifter. Overall, not a Top 10 finisher but entertaining nevertheless.

Season 3, Episode 19, “The Hunt”

This episode first aired January 26, 1962.

The Simpson’s cabin is the same one The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) lived in before striking it rich.

The writer of this episode, Earl Hammer Jr., would go on to create The Waltons (1972). The banter between the old married couple would form the template for the similar repartee between Grandpa and Grandma Walton. Hammer considered this episode his favorite of the eight(!) Twilight Zone episodes he scripted.

On his inspiration for this episode, Earl Hammer Jr. revealed: “I grew up during the depression. My family was what you considered backwoods folk of Virginia. My father would go hunting for pheasant and quail, and he had a hunting dog he loved. One night the dog ran away and my father spent all night searching for him. It was part of the family, you know, so when he found the dog the next morning, the animal was dead and my father grieved.”

Alas, this episode was not universally loved. The studio received a letter from an incensed Minister who wrote: “Old man was not a member of the church. Insofar as the story went, the idea presented was that as long as a man leads a good moral life, goes coon hunting with his favorite hound, and does what he can to preserve his dog’s life when the need arises, he is assured of the Promised Land. This is completely erroneous! Mighty I sugest you read Luke 18:18-24. This is a parable taught by Jesus concerning a man who kept all the commanderments. I fully realize that youir program was purely fictional, but still that does not change the damage that was done. Thousands of ministers stand Sunday after Sunday condeming exactly what the program last night condoned!” Two which Serling responded: “It was Earl Hammer Jr’s feeling and mine that good work, honesty, and a moral life are not the essence in considering the whole man – his destiny and his after-life.”

Arthur Hunnicutt, who played Hyder Simpson, was a longtime character actor and supporting player who earned a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sky (1952).

Jeanette Nolan, who played Rachel Simpson, appeared on more than 300 t.v. shows over the course of her career. She makes another appearance in season 4’s “Jess-Belle” and would guest twice on Serling’s Night Gallery (1970).

To be honest, I found it all unbearably hokey until the no-dogs-allowed-in-heaven element at which point it continued to be hokey, but in an acceptable way for this dog-lover. It aint gonna be making my Top 10, but the last five minutes redeemed it enough for me to consider it “not terrible”.

Season 3, Episode 20, “Showdown with Rance McGrew”

This episode first aired February 2, 1962.

In the scene in which Rance McGrew is having the showdown with Jesse James, we glimpse a funeral parlor with signage that indicates the funeral director is C. Nyby. Coincidentally, this episode was directed by Christian Nyby.

This episode was apparently (subconsciously) inspired by an idea pitched to Serling by writer Federic Louis Fox, a story about a long dead outlaw who rises from the grave to exact revenge on the actor portraying him onscreen. Days before this episode went to camera, Fox received the following letter from Serling: “A few days after its completion, a little persistent gnawing bug-crawled into my consciousness, and I finally remembered someone telling me a story at a Strike Meeting last Spring. I don’t know if it was your story that pushed this one out of me, or the germ of it made its writing possible, but I do know that in some fifteen years of writing I have never, knowingly, copped someone else’s material. I’ve asked Buck Houghton, our producer, to contact Jay Richards to arange a price for your outline, and a credit of some sort which will satisfy you.” Fox would later submit a second story idea to the show that would become “Hocus Pocus and Frisby”.

Episode director Christian Nyby started out as a film editor, earning an Oscar for his work on Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948). He eventually took the directing reins for his first feature, The Thing from Another World (1951), that, rumor had it, was actually directed by the film’s producer Howard Hawks given it contained many of his tell-tale directorial flourishes.

Actor Robert Cornthwaite, who played the director in this episode, relates the following story about Nyby: “Chris Nyby, who was directing, casually mentioned that it would be perrectly normal for me, playing the director, to put a hand on the shoulder of the extra girl who played the script clerk when I went over to check a line of dialouge. After three years in Hollywood, I still didn’t get his drift. “Perfectly normal, sure,” I thought, “But why make such a point of it?”. And then I learned that wnenever a principal in a scene makes physical contact with an extra in a shot, that extra gets extra. Chris, who is one of the really nice guys in the business, was ensuring this extra girl an adjustment on her daily paycheck.” This episode would mark a reunion for the two who had previously worked together on The Thing from Another World (which, in case you didn’t know, was the original version of The Thing).

Larry Blyden, who played Rance McGrew, previously appeared as Rocky Valentine in season 1’s “It’s a Nice Place to Visit”. As much as I found his performance borderline annoying in that episode, I really thought he did a terrific job in this one.

Arch Johnson, who played Jesse James, enjoyed a career on stage and screen, but his first love was the theatre.

This was the most surprising episode of The Twilight Zone to date. After reading the synopsis yesterday and seeing the relatively low imdb score, I was expecting to hate it. But I did not. In fact, I really, really liked this episode. I keep saying I’m not a fan of the TZ comedies but I though this one was really well done. The industry in-jokes were plentiful and spot-on and Rance’s character reminded me of David DeLuise’s portrayal of Colonel Danning in “Wormhole X-Treme” with a touch of actor Louis Ferreira’s off-camera antics. I actually laughed out loud several times and was left pleasantly surprised by this one. And, yes, it will be making my season 3 Top 10.

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