Mr. Julius Moomer, a streetcar conductor with delusions of authorship. And if the tale just told seems a little tall, remember a thing called poetic licenseand another thing called the Twilight Zone
With The Bard, Serling pokes fun at the medium of televisionthe writers, the actors, the agents, the executives and sponsors. Serling is on his home turf here, and one feels he took a delicious pleasure in writing this delightful episode.
Would-be writer Julius Moomer (Jack Weston) dreams of someday winning the Wurlitzer prize (Pulitzera little girl corrects him). He is bursting with ideas, but none of them are selling, and with good reason. Among them: a zombie story (about this dame who marries a guy who walks around on his heels all the time. She thinks hes punchy but it turns out hes deadall the time theyre married, she dont know hes dead!), a love story (where the lady scientist falls in love with a robot), a western (where the president of the Western Pacific Railroad turns out to be Belle Starr), a weekly series (Boy Meets Girl! Every week we have a different boy and a different girl!), and the idea of changing The Millionaire into The Multi-Millionaire and making an hour show of it. Moomer is short on originality, but long on enthusiasm, as when hes talking to a Hollywood agent:
julius: If this one aint sure fire, Ill cut off both my hands, Ill absolutely cut off both my hands!
You ready? Are you ready? Champion of the World. Kirk Douglas, maybe. Burt Lancaster. You want to make him younger? Tony Curtis, I give you Tony Curtis … So now hes champion of the world, but hes made a promise to this girl never to fight again. You know, like a vow. A vow, Mr. Hugo, thats like a promise, I mean like solemn. And now,
Mr. Hugo, comes the meat, this is what grabs you right here. Now, hes gotta fight but he promised his girl, and when he tells her hes gonna fight, shes aghast, I mean this broad is palpitating! She calls the cham-peen a filthy, rotten, dirty
mr. hugo: Shes adamant, is that what you mean?
julius: Oh ho ho ho ho, is this girl adamant! Shes adamant like nobody ever was adamant! …
You see, the beauty of the story is you can couch it in so many terms. So maybe he aint a prizefighter, maybe hes a cowboy, a top gun, and maybe he promised his girl never to carry a gun again, and maybe its the girls kid brother who has this incurable disease … Say, how about if it was a science-fiction piece? This rocket man makes a promise to his girl never to go up in a spaceship again
mr. hugo: Julius, youve been here all morning. Now,
Ill give you this: Ive been an agent twenty-three years, never, never heard of so many variations of the same story!
Moomers luck changes radically when, while researching a script dealing with black magic, he reads aloud from a book of incantations and inadvertently summons up William Shakespeare (John Williams). Realizing his opportunity, he decides to utilize Shakespeares abilities as a ghost writer (literally!). Moomer quickly gains a reputation as a top-flight TV writer. Ah, but what happens to Shakespeares writing!
Nicely directing all of this is David Butler, an old-time director whose films include some of Shirley Temples best (Bright Eyes, The Little Colonel, The Littlest Rebel, Captain January), plus the rarely-seen 1930 science-fiction musical Just Imagine. Jack Weston, who was such a slimy character in The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, is loads of fun as the bungling Moomer. John Williams, perhaps best remembered as the Inspector in Hitchcocks Dial M for Murder; makes a fineand veddy BritishShakespeare. A humorous running gag is one in which Shakespeare repeatedly quotes lines from his plays, including title, act and scene. At one point, he turns to Julius, says, To be or not to be, Mr. Moomer, that pauses, looks confused, cant recall the rest, and exits.
Definitely the greatest surprise in The Bard lies in the character of the leading man chosen to star in Shakespeares firstand lastTV show. This dialogue between an executive on the show and the sponsor should give some clue as to who this leading man is supposed to be:
bramhoff: Mr. Shannon, we feel ourselves extremely fortunate to secure the services of Rocky Rhodes.
shannon: Rhodes, shmodes, I sell soup! I dont know nothin about actors. Which one is Rhodes?
bramhoff: Hes the attractive one in the sweatshirt.
shannon: Thats an actor?
bramhoff: Well, he was brilliant in Streetcar Named Desire.
shannon: Streetcar Named Desire? What was hea conductor?
Then theres this conversation, between Rhodes and the director of the show:
Rhodes: What is my tertiary motivation here? I mean, like I walk through the door and I see her. Why?
director (Very confused): Why what, Rocky? Whats the question?
Rhodes: Exactly. What is the question? I mean, like any slob can walk through a door, I mean like I do it every day. But well now, maybe I shouldnt walk through the door at that moment. So I gotta ask myself, Would I walk through that door? Its on the basis of
that answer that I find my motivation. So the question is, whats my motivation?
director (.Humoring him): Well, Rocky baby, why dont we just run through it and see how it plays?
Burt Reynolds had a small part that was supposed to be like Marlon Brando, assistant to the producer John Conwell explains. He was an old friend of mine, and I asked him if he would do it, because he looked very much like Brando at that time and did a marvelous imitation of him. Despite Reynoldss preciseand very funnyimpersonation, and Serlings deliberate satirical intent, some people missed the point entirely. One reporter referred to Rhodes as a beatnik leading man who did an imitation of the stories one used to hear about Rod Steiger …
Serling was trying for a real grabber to close the episode, so he pulled out all the stops, but one feels that it would have been more logical for Julius to call upon Mark Twain, Bret Harte, James Fenimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, and Ambrose Bierce, since his problem wasnt an inability to research but rather an inability to write. Nevertheless, The Bard remains an episode that is both entertaining and accurate.
MID-SEASON CHANGES
On January 1, 1963, Herbert Hirschmans contract with CBS expired. At the same time, Hirschman received an offer from Herbert Brodkin, with whom hed worked on Playhouse 90. Brodkins company, in cooperation with Sir (now Lord) Lew Grade, was about to begin production in London on Espionage, a series to be aired both on NBC in America and on British television. Brodkin wanted Hirschman as producer of the show. Hirschman accepted. The opportunity of going to EuropeId never lived or worked there beforesuperceded my interest in doing another three or four Twilight Zones
Twilight Zone needed a new producer, and fast. Various names were suggested, including Perry Lafferty, who had directed In His Image, The Thirty-Fathom Grave, and Valley of the Shadow. The man chosen was one who had, in a way, already produced a Twilight Zone episode: Bert Granet, producer of The Time Element. Granet accepted, and production continued.
PASSAGE ON THE LADY ANNE (5/9/63)
Written by Charles Beaumont
Producer: Bert Granet
Director: Lamont Johnson
Music: composed by Rene Garriguenc, conducted by Lud Gluskin
Cast: Allan Ransome: Lee Philips Eileen Ransome: Joyce Van Patten McKenzie: Wilfrid Hyde-White Burgess: Cecil Kellaway Millie McKenzie: Gladys Cooper Capt. Protheroe: Alan Napier Mr. Spiereto: Don Keefer Joyce Van Patten and Lee Philips Officer: Cyril Delevanti
Portrait of a honeymoon couple getting ready for a journey with a difference. These newlyweds have been married for six years, and theyre not taking this honeymoon to start their life but rather to save it, or so Eileen Ransome thinks. She doesnt know why she insisted on a ship for this voyage, except that it would
give them some time and she’d never been on one before certainly never one like the Lady Anne. The tickets read New York to Southampton but this old liner is going somewhere else. Its destination … the Twilight Zone.”
Driven by his ambition, Allan Ransome now seems to care only about business. When he has to travel to England, his wife Eileen seizing this as a last-ditch opp
ortunity to save her marriage demands she be taken along and be allowed to choose the mode of transportation. Mr. Spiereto, a travel agent, reluctantly tells her of the Lady Anne, supposedly the slowest boat in the water. Much to Allans dismay, Eileen books two passages on the Lady Anne. But when they arrive at the ship, they encounter McKenzie and Burgess, two elderly passengers who attempt to dissuade them from sailing and then offer them ten thousand dollars in exchange for their tickets. Angrily, the Ransomes refuse. Initially, however, the cruise turns out not to be the salvation Eileen hoped for. Although the ships decor is both opulent and beautiful, Allan remains cold and short-tempered. This only intensifies when they discover that everyone else on the ship both passengers and crewis over seventy-five years of age! The Ransomes get into an argument which culminates in their agreeing to get a divorce as soon as they reach England a decision that causes Eileen considerable heartache. To while away the time, they become friendly with McKenzie and Burgess, as well as McKenzies wife Millie. From them, they learn that long ago the Lady Anne wras a boat reserved specifically for lovers. This is her last voyage, and those who fell under her spell years before have reunited for this final trip. McKenzie and Burgess explain that initially they viewed the Ransomes as interlopers, but now they see them as a symbol of young lovethe perfect symbol for the Lady Anne. When Eileen begins to cry, however, the old people begin to suspect all is not well with her marriage. Burgess suggests the Ransomes step outside for a breath of fresh air. Leaning on the railing, Allan notices that the sun is behind them: theyre heading north rather than east! Suddenly, Eileen is gone. Fearing that shes fallen overboard, Allan begins a frantic search; Eileen appears to be nowhere on the ship. Burgess and the McKenzies arent terribly concerned; they seem to know something Allan doesnt. At his wits end, Allan goes to his room and finds Eileen there, dressed in a lovely nightgown that Mrs. McKenzie wore on her honeymoon. Eileen claims to have been in the room all the time, even though Allan searched the room earlier and found it empty. But that doesnt matter; the experience has rekindled Allans love for her and he wont forget the lesson. The next evening, the Ransomes are enjoying a shipboard party when the captain of the Lady Anne appears and demands that they leave the ship! At gunpoint, he forces the couple into a lifeboat stocked with provisions as the rest of the passengers look on … with great affection. The captain tells them that their position has been radioed, and then they are set adrift. The Lady Anne sails off into the fog.
The Lady Anne never reached port. After they were picked up by a cutter a few hours later,; as Captain Protheroe had promised, the Ransomes searched the newspapers for news but there wasnt any news. The Lady Anne with all her crew and all her passengers vanished without a trace. But the Ransomes knew what had happened, they knew that the ship had sailed off to a better porta place called the Twilight Zone.
Passage on the Lady Anne was based on Charles Beaumonts short story, Song For a Lady (originally included in his collection Night Ride and Other Journeys).
In its heyday, the Lady Anne was a ship for young lovers, an enchanted gondola, as one of the passengers put it.
The family went to Europe in 1957 and we went across on the Queen Elizabeth Charles Beaumonts son Chris remembers. There were a lot of old people aboard. My father got the idea aboard ship.
The major pleasure in Passage on the Lady Anne stems from a marvelous supporting cast of elderly British Empire actors, including Wilfrid Hyde-White, Cecil Kellaway, Gladys Cooper, Alan Napier and Cyril Delevanti. Old school all, full of charm and polish, they lend the episode dignity and grace. There is the feeling that these characters have a long historywhich, in fact, they did.
It was a joy to reunite with these great old characters and character actors, says director Lamont Johnson. That was the chief attraction to do it. I loved hearing their anecdotes. Wilfrid Hyde-White and Gladys Cooper would sit around and gossip maliciously with enormous relish about people alive and dead, and some particularly scandalous thing that was happening currently in England or in the British colonies would send them into absolute flushes of youth. Their eyes would glow and their skin would take on a ruddy tone. They would just come alive with gossip.
OF LATE I THINK OF CLIFFORDVILLE (4/11/63)
Written by Rod Serling
Producer: Bert Granet
Director: David Lowell Rich
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Music: stock
Cast: Bill Feathersmith: Albert Salmi Miss Devlin: Julie Newmar Deidrich: John Anderson Hecate: Wright King Gibbons: Guy Raymond Joanna: Christine Burke Clark: John Harmon Cronk: Hugh Sanders
Witness a murder. The killer is Mr. William Feathersmith, a robber baron whose body composition is made up of a refrigeration plant covered by thick skin. In a moment Mr. Feathersmith will proceed on his daily course of conquest and calumny with yet another business dealing. But this one will be one of those bizarre transactions that take place in an odd marketplace known as the Twilight Zone
The killing is a financial one: Mr. Diedrich, who has known and disliked Feathersmith since they were both young men in Cliffordville, Indiana, has taken out a three-million-dollar loan to aid his tool and die company; Feathersmith has bought up the loan and calls the note dueDeidrich is forced to sell him the company in order to avoid bankruptcy. Late that night, Feathersmith is drinking alone in his office when Mr. Hecate, a custodian for forty years who is also from Cliffordville, enters. Feathersmith tells him that, having reached the top, hes now bored. Hed like to be able to go back to the Cliffordville of his past and start all over again, reexperience the thrill of acquisition. A few minutes later, Feathersmith is surprised when the elevator deposits him not in the lobby, but on the floor of the Devlin Travel Agency. Miss Devlin, an attractive young lady with two horns sprouting from her head, offers him a unique service: shell return him to the Cliffordville of 1910. Hell look young and his memory of the present will be unimpaired. The price is not his soul they already have that but his enormous fortune, all but fourteen hundred dollars. Feathersmith agrees, and shortly finds himself in Cliffordville. He expects nothing but success, but he is done in by his own faulty memory. He goes courting the daughter of Gibbons the banker and finds that she is not lovely, as he had remembered, but unspeakably homely. He uses his entire fourteen hundred to buy oil-rich land from Gibbons and Deidrich, not realizing that it is inaccessible to the drills of 1910. Finally, he tries to convince machinists to build a variety of modern-day inventions, but is unable to recall their workings specifically enough to draw blueprints. All this serves only to exhaust him utterly, With a shock, he realizes hes been tricked: he looks thirty, but internally hes still seventy-five! Miss Devlin appears. Feathersmith begs her to return him to 1963. She tells him that a special train is leaving immediately for the present and that Feathersmith is welcome to board for forty dollars. Just then, Mr. Hecate happens by; Feathersmith sells him the deed to the oil-rich land for forty dollars. Then he returns to the present, but it is a present substantially altered by Feathersmiths dealings in the past. Feathersmith is now the janitor of forty years and Hecate the wealthy financier!
Mr William J. Feathersmith, tycoon, who tried the track one more time and found it muddier than he remembered proving with at least a degree of conclusiveness that nice guys dont always finish last, and some people should quit when theyre ahead. Tonights tale of iron men and irony, delivered fo.b. from the Twilight Zone.
In 1963, Serling purchased Blind Alley, a short story written in 1943 by Malcolm Jameson, for his anthology Rod Serlings Triple W: Witches, Warlocks, and Werewolves (Bantam, 1963). The story concerned an elderly, unscrupulous millionaire industrialist who, on his last legs, makes a deal with the Devil to go back in time forty years to Cliffordville, the town of his boyhood, with the intention of starting over. Only trouble is that he forgot to mention that he wanted to be young again (foolishly assuming it was part of the deal), so that he arrives in town old and sick and dies soon after. It was an adequate gim
mick story, but no classic. Serling adapted this story into Of Late I Think of Cliffordville, making numerous changes, but keeping some of the basics.
Directed by David Lowell Rich, (A Family Upside-Down, and The Defection of Simas Kudirka) Of Late I Think of Cliffordville remains static and uninvolving. The age makeup on several actors is mediocre, and Salmi never makes a convincing seventy-five-year-old man. Likewise, the final revelation of Feathersmith being an old man in a young mans skin is a bit contrived. At no point prior to this has Feathersmith shown any sign of infirmity; he seems vigorous and self-assured. More than that, the revelation is unnecessary. Feathersmith doesnt fail because of his chronological age; it is Feathersmiths mind that defeats him, not his body.
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