Merch Spotlight: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet diorama (Bif Bang Pow!)

I received Bif Bang Pow!’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet diorama as a birthday gift from my good buddy Bill Huelbig about six months ago. I took pictures of it for my intended spotlight… which never quite happened. I have no excuse for this item slipping through the proverbial cracks, other than the fact that writing two blogs for eight months straight has been a bit overwhelming. I’ll attempt to rectify this oversight now.

When the first “Classic Moments” diorama (a San Diego Comic Con exclusive based on “The Invaders”) was announced, one of my initial reservations concerned the size: the promotional pictures made it seem big enough to be a big unwieldy for my purposes (never mind that the damned dimensions were readily available: 6.5” deep x 5.0” wide x 3.5” tall). I also wasn’t a fan of the sculpt (I think eliminating the Agnes Moorehead character entirely and just featuring the Invader and his flying saucer would’ve been way better). Another reservation was the price: $24.99 plus shipping, which seemed somehow unreasonable (however, I had no context to justify this conclusion).  Further, I had grown a bit disenchanted with BBP’s offerings in general, especially since their action figure line had essentially screeched to a halt (see here for the sad tale). When the second diorama (based on “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”) was announced, I found myself quite underwhelmed, and decided at that point to avoid the dioramas completely.

I did experience a bit of regret when the third diorama was announced (from “Eye of the Beholder”), which looked really impressive. But by then the “Invaders” diorama had sold out, and finances prohibited me from paying aftermarket prices (also, the completist in me couldn’t bear to buy some but not all of them), so I stuck to my guns and didn’t bite.

And then--- good ol’ Bill sent me the “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” diorama for my birthday, and all bets were abruptly off.

First off, the box is approximately the same size as those that house BBP’s TZ bobble heads, but the actual item itself is much smaller (6.5” wide x 4.5” long x 2.5” tall; again, having never bothered to check the specs, I was expecting it to be quite a bit bigger). I found the compactness quite appealing, and my original (unfounded) unwieldiness argument was immediately shattered. Plus---- well, the damned thing ended up being quite cool in general, so my original underwhelmed reaction was supplanted as well.

Have a look, kids.

If I have a complaint, it’s the fact that the Gremlin is painted the same gray as the plane, which makes him (it?) really hard to see. Just a few brushstrokes of a darker gray would’ve made a big difference (I’m certainly not expecting much detail at this scale). Otherwise---- a really solid piece. After my initial blasé reaction, I’m quite happy to wholeheartedly recommend it. Thanks Bill!

If you want your own (and why wouldn't you?), it's still available from Entertainment Earth. $18.99 plus shipping and it's yours.

So now the inevitable question arises: what about those other two dioramas?  The “Eye of the Beholder” diorama (which is still available for $29.99 plus shipping; I'm not sure why the price point is so much higher) is definitely something I want to pick up at some point. It appears that perhaps the line will stop at three (it’s been over a year, and a fourth diorama still hasn’t been announced), so I suppose I can swallow the aftermarket price of the “Invaders” diorama (I’ve still got some issues with the sculpting but, given the diminutive scale, it may be much less problematic) for completion’s sake.

Episode Spotlight: "The Fear" (5/29/1964)

Season 5, Episode 155

Originally aired 5/29/1964

Cayuga Production # 2633

On March 25, 1964, a sad bit of Twilight Zone history occurred when shooting wrapped on Cayuga’s final production. It was no secret at that point that the series had been cancelled (CBS had announced its fall schedule in January), so the crew certainly knew that their work in the fifth dimension was coming to an end. I’d like to believe that Rod Serling was there with them on the set to hear that final “Cut!” uttered, and that in that moment he felt a rush of pride for his contribution to the landscape of imaginative television. However, I think it’s far more likely that he was nowhere near that set, and that he was too worn out to give much of a damn. As fatigued as the series often felt as it wound down, Serling’s own fatigue was magnified several times over.

That final production, Serling’s “The Fear,” premiered on CBS a scant two months later, exactly fifty years ago tonight.

Charlotte Scott, a big city fashion editor who is on an extended sabbatical following a nervous breakdown, is staying in a luxurious cabin near an unspecified mountain village. State trooper Franklin visits her to follow up on a report of some strange lights in the sky in the area.

The two are beset by mysterious phenomena: bright lights appear and disappear outside the house, high branches in the surrounding trees are broken, and all communication with the outside world (his police radio and her telephone) is cut off.  His squad car rolls on its own (despite the emergency brake being engaged) and flips onto its side.

Soon after, Franklin discovers that his car has been flipped back over…. and a set of oversized fingerprints have been left on it. The next morning, the pair discovers an enormous footprint in a nearby clearing and, overcome with terror, Ms. Scott runs away screaming. She quickly comes face to face with the apparent source of the strange happenings: a gigantic humanoid creature whose entire head is a single eyeball.

Franklin fires several rounds into the creature, which promptly deflates. It’s a balloon! The pair then spies a small flying saucer nearby, inside which tiny aliens are reporting to their superiors that their plan to frighten the giant Earthlings has failed. The ship takes off with its proverbial tail between its legs.

“The Fear” is written by Rod Serling, his 92nd (!) and final contribution to the legendary series that he unleashed upon the world. I’d love to plumb the depths of his teleplay and analyze meanings both surface and hidden, but the sad fact is… well, there aren’t really any such depths or meanings to speak of. “The Fear” centers on a single theme, revealed right up front in the episode’s title: fear. The episode’s about being afraid in the face of the unknown… and that’s it. Serling tackled many sociopolitical themes and their impact on the human condition throughout the series, and the fact that his final Twilight Zone makes no meaningful comment on anything is more than a bit deflating (ha! See what I did there?) He misquotes FDR’s famous “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” in his closing narration and, if that’s the point he’s trying to make, I would argue that it’s not appropriate to the story. I think it’s entirely appropriate to be afraid if there’s a giant alien coming after you, whether or not it turns out to be a hoax later.

In the director’s chair this week is Ted Post, who also helmed “Probe 7, Over and Out,” and “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” earlier this season and, way back in season one, “A World of Difference” (a favorite of mine). His work here is more or less workmanlike, but there are a few nice touches (Franklin’s flashlight-armed searches outside are effectively spooky, and hey, you’ve gotta love those huge fingerprints on his car!). I do have an issue with the enormous footprint our protagonists find, however: wouldn’t there be several of them? The fact that there seems to be only one should have been a tipoff that things might not be as they appear. And how the hell does Franklin’s car flip onto its side? Even if it struck something as it was rolling, it wasn’t moving any more than five miles per hour. Those enormous fingerprints don’t appear until after the car is returned to its upright position, so we can’t even blame the aliens for this one. And Franklin’s estimation that the giant is "500 feet high" turns out to be a hilarious miscalculation, as we see when our heroes come face to face with it.

As Franklin and Ms. Scott work through the mystery of the giant alien, the episode feels like a companion piece of sorts for “Stopover in a Quiet Town” (how awesome would it have been to end things with the giant alien girl looming over Franklin and Charlotte, the sky booming with her mischievous giggling? It wouldn’t have made much sense, but I think I would’ve preferred it to the actual denouement). I guess we could also draw parallels to season three’s “The Little People” and, for that matter, “The Invaders.”

When I reviewed "The Brain Center at Whipple's" two weeks ago, I lamented the fact that the appearance of Robby the Robot signaled the final Forbidden Planet connection we'd see in the series. I love being proven wrong when it comes to stuff like this: while the tiny aliens' flying saucer isn't our beloved United Planets C-57D Space Cruiser, the stock shot (from "Death Ship") of the ship beating a hasty retreat most certainly is. So there you go,kids: one more Forbidden Planet alert for the road. 

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” says Franklin to Ms. Scott early in the episode. If this quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet seems a bit familiar, it’s because Richard Matheson also used it in season one’s “The Last Flight.”

A couple of complaints: first, it seems contrary to Serling’s usual sympathetic humanist ethic to have Franklin start shooting at the giant alien without even attempting to communicate with it, particularly since the alien has never exhibited any overt intent to bring harm or destruction. Hey Rod, remember “The Gift”? Second, “The Fear” is probably the single most over-the-top example of Serling’s notorious “purple prose” tendencies supplanting natural, realistic dialogue. Zicree says it best in his Twilight Zone Companion: “(M)uch of the dialogue sounds like two Rod Serlings talking to each other.”

When I reviewed the Outer Limits episode “The Borderland” back in December, I described Mark Richman’s performance as a “pretty impressive Rod Serling impression.” Here’s a short clip to illustrate:

Pretty uncanny, huh? Now, Richman doesn’t act (much) like Serling in “The Fear,” but he definitely resembles him.

Bif Bang Pow! named their action figure of the big guy Cyclops, which is probably an appropriate name for it (it certainly sounds more ominous than “Alien Balloon”). I don’t have it, so I can’t comment on its merits (I stopped collecting Bif Bang Pow!’s TZ stuff about a year or so ago, which I probably should’ve mentioned before now; long story short: too many quality control problems on their end, plus the majority of their offerings just don’t interest me; I’ll try to elaborate in a separate post soon).

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THE MUSIC

“The Fear” is stock-scored, meaning that the underscore is a patchwork of pre-existing recordings from the CBS Music Library, comprised mostly of Fred Steiner cues (from “King Nine Will Not Return” and “A Hundred Yards over the Rim,” both from season two). We also hear “Maya” and “The Fun House” from Nathan Van Cleave’s score for season one’s “Perchance to Dream.” Hearing music from the show’s earlier days this close to the end is a welcome touch indeed (though I doubt that was the intent), and I’m happy to report that the various cues mesh pretty well together, despite originating from three different scores. While “The Fear” doesn’t feature an isolated music track on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the series, all three of those earlier scores have been released multiple times over the years, on both vinyl and CD, from both Varese Sarabande and Silva Screen Records. The Definitive DVD and Blu-ray releases of the first and second seasons also include isolated music tracks for all three episodes, so if one wanted to piece together a soundtrack for “The Fear,” the resources are easily obtained (except for that short little Marius Constant bit, dammit).

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Trooper Robert Franklin is played by Mark Richman in his only Twilight Zone appearance. Richman has extensive genre experience, including roles on The Outer Limits (“The Borderland” and “The Probe”), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Man with a Problem” and “The Cure”), The Invaders (“The Leeches” and “Inquisition”), The Incredible Hulk (“Triangle) and, a bit more recently, Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Neutral Zone”).

Richman with TZ alum Susan Oliver.

Charlotte Scott is played by the beautiful Hazel Court in her only Twilight Zone appearance. Genre fans can spot her in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The Crocodile Case,” “The Avon Emeralds,” “Arthur,” and “The Pearl Necklace”) and one episode of Boris Karloff’s Thriller (“The Terror in Teakwood”). On the big screen, Court can be seen in 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein from Hammer Films, not to mention a trio of Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories (1962’s The Premature Burial, 1963’s The Raven, and 1964’s The Masque of the Red Death). Did I mention that she’s beautiful? She’s definitely a TZ Babe, make no mistake. *Sigh*

  

The part of the giant Cyclops “alien” is played by a BIG GODDAMNED BALLOON which, to my knowledge, never worked in television again (though it would’ve been positively smashing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, right?).

“The Fear” was the final Twilight Zone episode to be filmed (“The Bewitchin’ Pool,” the final episode aired, was shot earlier but took longer to complete in post-production; more on this when we get to it), and it definitely feels like the show is running on fumes as it lurches toward the finish line. It’s not exactly terrible, but it’s nowhere near good: like the aliens’ giant balloon, it’s ultimately a bit flat.

Next:

There’s only one new episode left of the entire series… but you’re gonna have to wait

three weeks for it. Talk about cancelus interruptus….

Episode Spotlight: "The Masks" (3/20/1964)

Season 5, Episode 25 (145 overall)

Originally aired 3/20/1964

Cayuga Production # 2601

Jason Foster’s doctor has informed him that he could shuffle off his mortal coil at any moment; that he truly is at death’s proverbial door. But he’s not quite ready to go yet: he has a final score to settle and, fifty years ago tonight, he did just that.

Mardi Gras festivities boom and swell outside as Foster’s daughter Emily and her husband Wilfred, along with their children Paula and Wilfred Jr., hover around the mansion like vultures as they impatiently wait for the old man to kick off and leave them his riches. Foster has every intention of doing just that; however, he has one small prerequisite: they must each wear masks to celebrate Fat Tuesday. Foster has commissioned a set of special masks, crafted by a local Cajun, which are said to "possess magical properties."

Wilfred (avarice), Emily (self-pity), Jason (death), Wilfred Jr. (cruelty) and Paula (vanity).

Each mask is a caricature depicting their deepest, darkest flaws: Wilfred is a money-hungry douchebag, Emily is a fragile crybaby, Paula is a vain and self-absorbed bitch, and Wilfred Jr. is a semi-retarded bully. Foster, meanwhile, will wear a skull mask, since he is very near death. The masks must be worn until midnight; if any of them remove their mask prior to then, they’ll automatically forfeit their inheritance. 

The hours drag by, and the four vultures grow increasingly uncomfortable in the masks. Foster gives them a final dressing down before he dies as midnight strikes. The newly-wealthy heirs remove their masks… and are horrified to discover that the exaggerated features of the masks have impressed themselves permanently onto their faces.

“The Masks” is one of Rod Serling’s better fifth season efforts. It’s a bit talky, but within tolerable limits (as opposed to, say, “The Long Morrow,” in which his trademarked “purple prose” runs rampant). It feels like a classic revenge tale straight out of E.C.’s Vault of Horror comic series (in fact, there are many TZ episodes that seem uncomfortably similar to tales first published in E.C.’s various horror and sci-fi comics; at some point I’ll be posting a special report on this topic, probably this summer), in which nasty people get a nasty, unexpected comeuppance.

We’re clearly supposed to side with Foster; however, I don’t think he’s any better than the family members whom he so clearly loathes. Listen to how he addresses them! He’s snide, condescending, vicious and downright cruel. He’s no hero, particularly since he opts to disfigure them rather than, say, leave his money to charity instead of rewarding their misbehavior(s) with his fortune. I’d say he’s the real villain here.

The New Orleans Mardi Gras setting is only briefly glimpsed in a couple of stock shots at the start of act two; I would've liked to have seen a bit more. And why not show us the Cajun who made the masks, maybe just a quick scene of him delivering the masks to the butler, before Foster’s exchange with his doctor in the prologue? I guess what I was looking for is a bit more voodoo, a bit more mystery, a more pronounced and ominous shadow hanging over the proceedings. 

The real star here, of course, is the quintet of masks that the cast wears throughout the episode’s second act, all designed by William Tuttle (who gave us many of the series' greatest makeup triumphs, including "Eye of the Beholder," "The After-Hours" and "Steel"). Unfortunately, the actual makeup jobs on the actors’ faces after their unmasking are disappointingly indistinct. Their distorted features aren’t exaggerated nearly enough; their new faces should be just as sharply detailed as the masks, not sixth-generation dupes of them.

In the director’s chair for “The Masks’ is film noir siren Ida Lupino, who starred in season one’s “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine.” Lupino also co-starred in 1951’s On Dangerous Ground, the cast of which also included Frank Ferguson (whom we saw two weeks ago in “Queen of the Nile”; incidentally, frequent TZ contributor Bernard Herrmann provided the score for that film). Her many directing credits include nine episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, three episodes of The Fugitive, and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 

FANTASTIC PLASTIC

In 2010, the character of Jason Foster (wearing his skull mask) was immortalized in plastic by Bif Bang Pow! in their first wave of Twilight Zone action figures. It’s happily one of their better efforts (except for the lack of a wheelchair, which would’ve been awesome); my review can be found here. The line appears to have all but dried up; however, most of the figures can still be purchased at Entertainment Earth.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

This week’s cast only features a couple of TZ veterans; however, they’re all connected by their work for Alfred Hitchcock.

According to the IMDB, Jason Foster is Robert Keith’s last credited role (apparently he took that death mask a little too seriously). It’s his only TZ appearance, but he worked for Hitch twice (“Ten O’clock Tiger” on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and “Final Escape” on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour). You may have also seen him on The Fugitive, playing Richard Kimble’s father in “Home Is the Hunted.”

We last saw Virginia Gregg (here playing Emily Harper) as Ossie Stone, mother of the tortured Jess-Belle, in the season four episode of the same name. She worked fairly extensively for Hitchcock, including four stints on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Don’t Come Back Alive,” “Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid,” “And So Died Riabouchinska,” and “Nightmare in 4-D”), three on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“A Home Away from Home,” “Thou Still Unravished Bride,” and “Consider Her ways”: that last one features an original musical score by the aforementioned Bernard Herrmann) and, perhaps most significantly, provided the voice of Norma Bates in his 1960 horror classic Psycho (also scored by Herrmann). Gregg reprised her voice role in that film’s second and third sequels.

The obnoxiously gregarious Wilfred Harper is played by Milton Selzer, who also played the head alien in season three’s “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby.” He briefly appeared in Hitch’s 1963 Marnie (also scored by Herrmann, incidentally).

Paula Harper is played by Brooke Hayward in her only TZ appearance; she also appeared in “The Cadaver” on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, a series on which Willis Bouchey (here playing Foster’s doctor) appeared three times (“I Saw the Whole Thing,” “The Paragon,” and “One of the Family”).

“The Masks” is comprised of five unpleasant people hating on one another almost continuously for half an hour. It could’ve been fun, like Serling’s earlier “Uncle Simon,” but here all the meanness just isn’t enjoyable. It’s still a pretty well-crafted horror story, but ultimately its Tuttle’s masks that really save the day. Hey Bif Bang Pow!, if you're reading this, how about selling full-sized replicas of the masks? They'd make amazing Mardis Gras accessories... hell, they'd look stunning just hanging on a wall.

Next week:

It’s “Dust” all over again, but darker. Like, literally.