At the age of nineteen, while working as a railroad clerk in Mobile, Alabama, Beaumont met Helen Broun, an intelligent, sensitive, and attractive twenty-year-old. A year later, they were married and moved to California. Little more than a year after that, Christopher was born, the first of four children. Beaumont now had a family to support. Toward that end, he worked as a piano player (with an immensely talented right hand and a nowhere left), an animator at MGM, a disc jockey, an usher, a dishwasher, an editor at a comic book company (helping to guide the destinies of such influential literary figures as Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Andy Panda), and a mimeograph operator.
During this entire time, Beaumont was writing feverishly, but meeting with little success. His agent at the time, Forrest J. Ackerman (later editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine), was unable to sell any of his first seventy-two short stories. Says Ackerman, I consider it more a criticism of short-sighted editors that they passed by most of those seventy-two stories, because eventually I think he sold about every word he ever wrote. But in the beginning I couldnt give them away.
Finally, in 1950, Beaumont sold his first short story, The Devil, You Say? (appearing in the January, 1951, issue of Amazing Stories, and adapted in 1962 into the Twilight Zone episode Printers Devil.)
In September, 1954, Beaumonts short story, Black Country, appeared in Playboy. A tour de force about a terminally ill jazz musician, it was a turning point in his career. His stories began to appear regularly in the most widely read and best-paying magazines in the nation. Playboy put him on a five-hundred-dollar monthly retainer for first refusal rights to his manuscripts, and listed him as a contributing editor. In April, 1958, G. P. Putnams Sons published his first collection, The Hunger and Other Stories, to good reviews. Beaumont had arrived.
By 1958, Beaumont had also managed to gain a considerable foothold in film and television. Over the previous four years, he had sold a number of scripts to such shows as Suspense, Have Gun Will Travel, Wanted, Dead or Alive, and One Step Beyond, among others, and had had one film script produced, The Queen of Outer Space, an atrocious movie about which he said, I wrote the thing as a big spoof. Only trouble was the director and some of the cast didnt realize it.
Rod Serling first met Beaumont at a party around this time. This was right after Velvet Alley, he recalled in 1963, and Chuck Beaumont, whom I didnt even know, in a very tasteful waynothing offensive in the way he did ithe said, Quite honestly, I must tell you to your face, its the worst piece of writing Ive ever seen. I didnt rebel at this at all, but to this day I lay claim that Chuck is absolutely wrong … Anyway, it put Chuck and me on a very good basis, because I feel now not only the right but the obligation to speak to Chuck honestly.
Buck Houghton found Beaumont thoroughly impressive, too. He was very sure of himself, he says. He talked a story as though he had it licked and maybe he did in his mind, maybe he didnt at that pointI dont know. But Ill tell you this: if there hadnt been a writing profession hed have been busy at something else. He was really a goer and a doer and a shaker and a mover.
PERCHANCE TO DREAM (11/27/59)
Written by Charles Beaumont
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Robert Florey
Director of Photography:George T. Clemens
Music: Van Cleave
Cast:
Edward Hall: Richard Conte Dr. Rathmann: John Larch Maya/Miss Thomas: Suzanne Lloyd Girlie Barker: Eddie Marr Rifle Range Barker: Russell Trent Stranger: Ted Stanhope
Twelve o’clock noon. An ordinary scene, an ordinary city. Lunchtime for thousands of ordinary people. To most of them, this hour will be a rest, a pleasant break in the days routine. To most, but not all. To Edward Hall, time is an enemy, and the hour to come is a matter of life and death.
Hall, a man with a cardiac condition, has sought out the aid of Dr. Rathmann, a psychiatrist. He explains that hes been dreaming in chapters, as if in a movie serial. In his dream Maya, a carnival dancer, lures him into a funhouse and onto a roller coaster with the express intention of scaring him to death. If he goes to sleep, he knows hell return to the dream and will have a fatal heart attack. On the other hand, if he stays awake much longer, the strain will be too much for his heart. Realizing that Rathmann cant help him, he starts to go, but stops when he realizes that the doctors receptionist is a dead ringer for the girl in his dream. Terrified, he runs back into Rathmanns office and jumps out the window to his death. The doctor calls his receptionist into his officewhere Hall lies on the couch, his eyes closed. Rathmann tells the receptionist that Hall came in, lay down, immediately fell asleepand then a few moments later, let out a scream and died.
They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and whos to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth … in the Twilight Zone.
With Perchance to Dream, Beaumont entered The Twilight Zone at full throttle. The show is adapted from his short story of the same name, which originally appeared in the November, 1958, issue of Playboy, and can be found in two of his collections (both, unfortunately, out of print): Night Ride and Other Journeys (Bantam, 1960), and The Magic Man (Fawcett, 1965).
Directed by Robert Florey (director of the movie The Beast With Five Fingers and the first Marx Brothers film, The Cocoanuts, co-director of Monsieur Verdoux, and co-scripter of Frankenstein) and starring Richard Conte (The Godfather, Call Northside 777), the episode hurls forward with incredible velocity. The feeling of inevitable and inexorable momentum is built layer by layer, beginning with Beaumonts tightly-conceived script, intensified by Floreys taut direction and Contes intense performance, framed by George Clemenss claustrophobic and disorienting camera work, and capped off by Van Cleaves shrill, twitchy, deliberate and disturbing score. Contes appearance in Perchance to Dream represents a perfect job of casting. His breathless, staccato delivery was one ideally suited to the role, giving the character an agitated, urgent quality that lends credence to the story.
In Perchance to Dream, the dominant image is that of the seductive and frightening nightmare world of the amusement park, an image that was more than an expedient construct to its creator. For Charles Beaumont, both dreams and amusement parks had potent personal meaning. He shared with the lead character of Perchance the trait of dreaming in chapters. He was always frightened of dreams, William F. Nolan observes. He always felt that dreams and reality impinged on each other, and this is just another version of his own fear. He was also terrified of roller coasters. He would ride a roller coaster but he would be terrified while he was doing it and he would always say afterwards that it was the last time hed ever ride one.
Nolan recalls an incident that occurred several years prior to the writing of Perchance to Dream that well illustrates the mixture of attraction and horror that amusement parks held for Beaumont.
We went down to Pacific Ocean Park to go through the funhouse, he explains. We both loved amusement parks as kids so we thought, look, we were in our twenties, we havent gone through a fun house for years, lets just go through the old fun house. Well, the guy at the fun house gate was a young punk kid wearing a leather jacket and cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade knife, and he kind of gave us a look.
About ten minutes later, we were in the middle of the fun house, groping our way along one of these corridors, and Chuck said, T think that kids in here with us. I said, What are you talking about? What kid, Chuck? The kid with the knife, he said, I just think hes in here with us. Ive got a feeling that that leather-jacketed son-of-a-bitch with the knife is in here with us. I said, Oh, come on, Chuck. Hes out there. Hes got to take the tickets. He said, Who knows the fun house better than that kid? Hes been here by day and by night, hes been here when the lights were on. He could kill us so quick in the dark. How many bodies have been washed under the pier?We were on the pier and we could hear the water lappingHow many trapdoors have opened and
how many people have gone in one end of this fun house and never come out the other? I said, I guess that kid could be in here all right. Did you see the look he gave me? He didnt like me, he said. Hed put me away like thatV And he had me convinced that that kid was in there with the knife, and by the time he had finished talking we were running through the fun house to try to get out before the kid could get us. And I said, Here, this way, Chuck, this way! And hed say, Over here! Over here! And when we got out, we ran out and the kid was still there at the ticket stand and he was still picking his nails. And I looked at him, and Chuck looked at me and he said, Well, I could be wrong.
THE SIXTEEN-MILLIMETER SHRINE (10/23/59)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Director of Photography:George T. Clemens
Music: Franz Waxman
Cast:
Barbara Jean Trenton: Ida Lupino Danny Weiss: Martin Balsam Marty Sail: Ted de Corsia Sally: Alice Frost Jerry Hearndan: Jerome Cowan Hearndan in Film: John Clarke
Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.
Aging actress Barbara Jean Trenton secludes herself in a private screening room, where she watches her old films. Gently but desperately, her agent tries to coax her out into the real world by arranging a part for her in a film and by bringing a former leading man to visit her. But these acts only drive her further into the past. Bringing her a meal, the maid finds the screening room emptyand is horrified by what she sees on the screen. She summons the agent, who turns the projector back on. On the screen he sees the living room of the house, filled with stars as they appeared in the old films. Barbara Jean is the center of attention. He pleads with her to come back, but she only throws her scarf toward the camera and departs. The film runs out. In the living room, the agent finds Barbara Jeans scarf. To wishes, Barbie, he says. To the ones that come true.
To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world. It can happenin the Twilight Zone
The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine marked director Mitchell Leisens third and last Twilight Zone and his best. I thought it was very well directed, says Buck Houghton, largely because Mitch had a feeling for how people could get that way. He undoubtedly reminisced about situations that hed been in when he was on top.
Perhaps this Sunset Boulevard-cum-Twilight Zone struck Leisen even closer to home than Houghton might suspect. He still lived in the past, explains George Clemens. Drove his Rolls-Royce, had a chauffeur, insisted on a lot pass and so forth. He wasnt getting enough money to live that way! But he was a real talented man in his daywell, always talentedbut he wasnt able to adjust to television. He wanted to make television like a feature picture.
Under Leisens sure hand, Ida Lupino (star of the movies High Sierra and They Drive by Night) and Martin Balsam, as her agent, give performances of a subtlety, control, and conviction that are astounding for a half-hour television show. Jerome Cowan also appears in the episode, as a shockingly aged former leading man. Cowan too harkened back to the golden age of movies. In The Maltese Falcon, he played Miles Archer, Sam Spades murdered partner, for whom Mary Astor takes the fall.
Bitterness and nostalgia pervade the episode, but are balanced so perfectly that neither becomes overpowering. Topped off with a fine and evocative score by Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard, The Bride of Frankenstein, Rebecca), The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine stands as a moving statement on the ones who are (to quote the episode) eclipsed by the movement of Earth and timeboth in front of and behind the camera.
THE MIGHTY CASEY (6/17/60)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Buck Houghton
Directors: Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer
Director of Photography:George T. Clemens
Music: stock
Cast:
Mouth McGarry: Jack Warden Casey: Robert Sorrells Dr. Stillman: Abraham Sofaer Monk: Don OKelly Doctor: Jonathan Hole Beasley: Alan Dexter Commissioner: Rusty Lane
What
youre looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major-league ballclub known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. Were back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make-believe, it has to start this way: Once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though hes not yet on the field, youre about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey.
In order to test the skills of Casey, a human-looking robot he has invented, Dr. Stillman arranges with Mouth McGarry, manager of the broken-down Hoboken Zephyrs, to have him signed up as the teams star pitcher. The Zephyrs zoom to fourth place, thanks to Caseys ability to pitch shut-outs. But when hes beaned by a ball, a doctor discovers the pitcher has no heart. The rules of baseball clearly state that nine men make up a team, and without a heart Casey is not a man. The baseball commissioner rules that unless Casey is given a heart, he will not be allowed to play. Dr. Stillman happily complies, but the now-compassionate Casey has too much heart literallyto strike out the other teams players. The Zephyrs lose the pennant and Casey is washed up as far as baseball is concerned. As a memento, Stillman gives McGarry Caseys blueprints. Looking at them, McGarry gets a sudden inspiration. Shouting Stillmans name, he chases after him.
Once upon a time there was a major league baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thereafter wound up in oblivion. Theres a rumor, unsubstantiated of course, that a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of worlds championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. Of course, none of them smiled very much, but it happens to be a fact that they pitched like nothing human. And if youre interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under B for baseball in the Twilight Zone.
The Fates were not kind to The Mighty Casey, a comedy by Serling involving a losing baseball team that acquires a robot player. Cast in the lead as the manager of the team was Paul Douglas, a burly actor who had distinguished himself in a number of films, including The Solid Gold Cadillac.
I loved Paul Douglas, said Serling. There was something gutsy and ballsy about this guy and you could always count on him.
Nevertheless, Serling had his reservations about Douglas. He had had a reputation for being heavy on the bottle, but it had been somewhat dispelled over the last two or three years … and his agent guaranteed us that he would not drink or was not drinking during that time.
Anyway, we look at the first days rushes and Paul Douglas looks, even in black and white, mottled … high color, semi-diffuse, a breath so short that he couldnt continue one short staccato sentence without [gasping for breath]. So right away I make the assumption that hes drunk, hes drinking, and I blew my top and I called his agent and I said, This is very unethical of you. You assured me he wasnt drinking.
His agent said, To the best of my knowledge, hes not drinking. Well, we finished the show and it was a disaster. We finished shooting, I think, on a Thursday and Saturday morning Douglas was dead. What he had been suffering, of course, was an incipient coronary an
d we were watching him literally die in front of us.
Well … we did a rough cut of the film, and I took it over to CBS and said to them, Well, gentlemen, this is the one substantial piece of celluloid youre going to have to eat, because theres nothing funny about this show … And they looked at it and they allowed that it wasnt the funniest thing, but they didnt feel that they could afford additional money to get another actor and shoot around and put in new stuff.
Out of pocket, Serling spent $27,000 to recast, reshoot, and re-edit the show. Jack Warden was brought in to replace Douglas. Alvin Ganzer had directed the earlier sequences; Robert Parrish directed the latter. Cast and crew returned to the Hollywood Baseball Park and duplicated actions they had originally made eight months before. In reshooting, as little was filmed as possible. Footage was taken off the cutting-room floor and reinserted into the episode.
The Mighty Casey was broadcast June 17, 1960, as the next-to-last episode of the first season. As with most of Serlings Twilight Zone comedies, the show emerged as rather heavy-handed and only mildly amusing. But, thanks to Serling, the episode was not a disaster. Had he not been willing to put himselfand his moneyon the line, it would have been another story entirely.
THE FOUR OF US ARE DYING (1/1/60)
Written by Rod Serling
Based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director: John Brahm
Director of Photography:George T. Clemens
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
Arch Hammer: Harry Townes Hammer as Foster: Ross Martin Hammer as Sterig: Phillip Pine Hammer as Marshak: Don Gordon Maggie: Beverly Garland Pop Marshak: Peter Brocco Penell: Bernard Fein Detective: Milton Frome Trumpet Player: Harry Jackson Man in Bar: Bob Hopkins Man Two: Pat Comiskey Busboy: Sam Rawlins
Twilight Zone Companion Page 9