Episode Spotlight: "The Old Man In the Cave" (11/08/1963)

Season 5, Episode 7 (127 overall)

Originally aired 11/08/1963

Cayuga Production # 2603

Throughout The Twilight Zone’s run, Rod Serling has regaled us with many a cautionary tale of the dangers of the atom bomb. He’s depicted the threat of nuclear warfare (“The Shelter”), the imminence of nuclear warfare (“Third from the Sun”) and the actuality of nuclear warfare and its immediate aftermath (“Time Enough at Last”).  50 years ago tonight, however, Serling gave us a glimpse of yet another facet of this rich mine of story possibilities: the state of (what’s left of) mankind ten years later. Sound like a potent topic for exploration? Sure it does… but don’t get your hopes up.

The Earth of 1974 (well, the US anyway) is an irradiated patchwork of isolated tribes of survivors. “The Old Man in the Cave” introduces us one of these groups, led by the enigmatic Mr. Goldsmith, who takes his orders from the titular Old Man, whom no one (save Goldsmith) has ever seen. The group is disheartened to learn that the Old Man has deemed their stash of pre-war canned food to be contaminated. A quartet of quasi-military types, led by the arrogant Major French, rolls up in a jeep with a grand plan to consolidate the disparate colonies and reestablish order under martial rule. Goldsmith calmly indicates that his group doesn’t recognize French’s authority; that they've done just fine under the guidance of their Old Man. After establishing his dominance with a judo chop to Goldsmith’s face and a boot atop his prostrate chest, French mounts an expedition to “visit” the Old Man.

Up ‘til this point, things are looking pretty promising. The friction between Goldsmith and French is immediate and potent (think Benteen and Colonel Sloane in last season’s “On Thursday We Leave for Home”), and it’s certainly fun imagining the different directions that the story might take. Perhaps we’ll discover that Goldsmith and the Old Man are one and the same (think about it; you don’t have to proclaim yourself leader if you can successfully float the illusion of some wise old sage administering from a distance; another name for this is the “Man Behind the Curtain” method). Or perhaps “Old Man” is a code name for a consortium of surviving government officials, and the cave is actually a bunker inside of a mountain. Or hey, maybe the Old Man is some of super-intelligent mutant, á la Kuato from 1990’s Total Recall.

It’s none of the above, unfortunately. Turns out the Old Man is a super-computer (well, “super” as far as 1963 TV was concerned; that thing could probably fit in a USB thumb drive today), apparently still operating a decade after electricity disappeared (and since it’s housed in a cave, solar power is out too).  So what the hell is keeping this thing going? Why isn’t it being used for something more productive than weather prediction and food analysis? How did Goldsmith come to be its sole conduit for communication with the outside world? Did he build it? Where did it come from? Are there others like it, shepherding other small groups of survivors across the country?

WTF?

We don’t know. Serling doesn’t tell us. The whole thing remains an enigma, and not the good kind that The Twilight Zone drops on us from time to time. This, dear readers, is just lackadaisical bullshit. The real story is what ultimately becomes of French, his men and the survivors after the Old Man is revealed, but even this raises questions that Serling doesn’t feel like answering. The survivors’ attack on the Old Man could have been presented as man rising up against the technology that destroyed the world, signifying a post-apocalyptic rebirth of the species but, as you’ll see, a very different direction is taken. The ultimate moral seems to imply that man should follow blindly or suffer terrible consequences, which is far removed from the series’ typical cosmic justice ethic.

Maybe I’m being too hard on ol’ Rod, since his teleplay is merely an adaptation of an existing short story by Henry Slesar (the first of two Slesar stories Serling will adapt this season; the other is “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” which suffer similar plot contrivances). But hey, Serling chose the story despite its flaws and didn't really fix them, so I’m still holding him accountable.

Aside from the clever opening shot, in which an otherwise-inert convertible is being pulled by a horse, the episode doesn’t do nearly enough to depict life in this post-nuclear world. All we see is a shabby group of adults moping about in the middle of the street. Everything is quickly and clumsily sketched; there’s no real detail or nuance to speak of (think of the elaborate and intricate production design for season three’s “Two,” which very effectively depicted a post-war town). I would've liked to have seen a bit more of the survivors’ day-to-day lives. We’re told that they've cultivated crops, but we never see a single indication that they've done so. Where do they sleep? Do they have individual dwellings, or do they sleep in a huddle like a pack of wild dogs? And if contamination is such a big issue, where the hell is their water coming from?

FAMILIAR FACES

Mr. Goldsmith is played by TZ regular John Anderson (“A Passage for Trumpet,” “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”). Genre fans will also recall his marvelous turn as the Ebonite Interrogator in the “Nightmare” episode of The Outer Limits (which turns 50 next month on 12/02, on which date I’ll be spotlighting it over at my Outer Limits blog…. How’s that for cross-promotion?).

James Coburn is excellent as Major French (and really, he’s the only excellent thing about this episode). We've seen Coburn previously in season three’s “The Grave” and, more recently, “Steel” (Ha! Not really! I’m just using Coburn’s appearance as an excuse to trot out the Lee Marvin/James Coburn lookalike bit again).

This is actually Coburn’s only TZ appearance, but he does have another less obvious connection to the show: he played a Union Sergeant in an adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1959.  We’ll see a very different adaptation of that same story right here later this season (more when we get to it in February).

John Marley is sufficiently brooding as Jason, one of the survivors under Goldsmith (we last saw him in season three’s “Kick the Can”). He too appeared on The Outer Limits (in “The Man with the Power,” which starred TZ alum Donald Pleasance). Marley is probably best remembered for finding a severed horse’s head in his bed in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

Eh. I guess “The Old Man in the Cave” isn’t exactly terrible, but it’s nothing particularly special. It feels rushed and indistinct, and it reeks of squandered potential, which means it’s right at home in the series’ fifth and final season.

Next week:

After four years of Forbidden Planet prop sightings, Robby the Robot himself finally stops by

The Twilight Zone. Turns out he’s... well, kind of a dick.

TZ Promo: "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" (4/11/1963)

Season 4, Episode 14 (#116 overall)

Cayuga Production # 4867

Originally aired April 11, 1963

Fifty years ago tonight, The Twilight Zone brought forth yet another discontented man with a longing for the days of his youth.  However, this isn't a Martin Sloan or a Booth Templeton, with whom we might identify or at least sympathize.  This guy’s a rampaging asshole through and through.

“Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” introduces us to billionaire industrialist William J. Feathersmith, who is described by business associate Sebastian Deidrich as being “a predatory, grasping, conniving, acquisitive animal of a man, without heart, without conscience, without compassion, and without even a subtle hint of the common decencies.”  This dialogue (yes, that’s dialogue, not narration) immediately tells us that Rod Serling wrote the script before we ever see the writing credit. As the series progressively winds down, Serling’s dialogue gets more bloated and unrealistic.

Feathersmith and Deidrich both got their start in the titular town of Cliffordville, Indiana, in the 1910s.  In the present, we witness Feathersmith essentially destroy Deidrich in a hostile takeover bid, after which he drunkenly laments his long, lost youth to Hecate, the building janitor who, coincidentally enough, is also from Cliffordville (wait, did I say coincidentally? I meant painfully implausibly). Feathersmith also finds time to cruelly insult Hecate, who has no choice but to lower his eyes and take it.

On his way out for the night, Feathersmith's elevator inexplicably stops on the 13th floor, where he finds a new tenant. Feathersmith bursts in and demands to know how the place opened without his knowledge (this is, after all, his building).  The occupant, the sparkling and charming Miss Devlin, eases him into a conversation about his dissatisfaction with his life now that he’s at the top and has nowhere else to go.  He tells her of his younger days in Cliffordville, and his desire to go back and start over.  Miss Devlin can help him with that because, as fate would have it, she’s the devil.  She removes her hat to reveal two horns jutting out of her perfectly-coiffed hair (check out the similar horns rimming her hat; nice touch).

Miss Devlin offers to return him to 1910 Cliffordville as a young man while retaining his memory of the events of the fifty years hence.  She doesn't ask for his soul, as he evidently relinquished it by default over his years of ruthless business dealings; instead, she demands his vast fortune (save for $1,400.00, which will be more than adequate seed money when he relives his climb to tycoondom. Feathersmith, practically drooling, hastily signs the contract (echoes of “Escape Clause” here or, more recently, “Printer’s Devil”).  The dotted line, as they say, has been signed upon.

There’s a nice bit when Feathersmith leaves Miss Devlin’s office.  In one continuous shot, we see him walk away from the door (which is initially visible in the frame), take a few steps, then stop and turn back around.  The travel agency is gone.  I’m assuming this is another example of the rolling-wall approach used to great effect in season one’s “A World of Difference,” but I have no information confirming this.  Unfortunately, this clever sequence is marred by a continuity error:  after disappearing, Devlin’s Travel Agency is still listed on the floor directory!

Immediately after, Feathersmith steps into the elevator, vanishes, materializes on board an empty commercial jet in mid-flight, which then transforms around him into a train car.  He looks at his watch, which has transformed into a vintage pocket watch, and we see that he is now a young man again. In a very Willoughby-esque moment, the train arrives in Cliffordville, much to Feathersmith’s delight.

"Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" is marred by inefficient pacing: Feathersmith doesn't reach Cliffordville until the 25:05 mark, which means the entire first half of the episode is spent on setting up the second (which seems more than a bit rushed by comparison).  Further, the effectiveness of the first two acts are undercut by the terrible age makeup foisted upon Salmi (which is particularly painful to behold in high definition; check out that bald cap seam!), but it’s Salmi’s performance that ultimately dooms the proceedings, particularly in reference to his deliberate, obnoxious voice (maybe this was his intent to speak in an utterly repellent fashion so we would detest the character; however, it comes off amateurish and hammy, particularly his halting, braying laugh).  Once Feathersmith is his new (old) younger self in Cliffordville, Salmi’s performance brightens up considerably.  Oh sure, he’s still a rampaging asshole, but he becomes more human with each obstacle that the past (or Miss Devlin) throws in his path (look at his priceless expression when he first sets eyes on the homely and annoying Joanna Gibbons, whom he remembered as being beautiful and demure).

William Feathersmith is essayed by TZ veteran Albert Salmi (he impressed us in season one’s “Execution” and season three’s “A Quality of Mercy”). As outlined above, it’s a problematic performance with some definite overacting, but I do suspect that this was intentional on his part.  Salmi would meet up with Serling again a few years later, in the Night Gallery segment “The Waiting Room.” Salmi’s life ended tragically in 1990 when he murdered his wife and subsequently committed suicide. 

John Anderson (Deidrich) makes his third of four Twilight Zone appearances (we previously saw him in season one’s “A Passage for Trumpet,” season two’s “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” and we’ll see him again in season five’s “The Old Man in the Cave”).  Anderson also memorably portrayed the Ebonite Interrogator in the “Nightmare” episode of The Outer Limits.  For me personally, I’ll always remember him as the lunatic General Stocker on TV’s The Greatest American Hero (“Operation: Spoilsport,” which is probably the single best episode of that series).

More TZ alumni on display here:  Wright King (the janitor, Hecate) last visited us in season two’s “Shadow Play” as the troubled reporter Paul Carson, who tries desperately to convince the DA to pardon Dennis Weaver.  Hugh Sanders (Cronk) stops by for his third TZ stint (we saw him previously in season one’s “Judgment Night” and season three’s “The Jungle”).  John Harmon (Clark), meanwhile, popped up in season three’s “The Dummy.”

And, last but most certainly not least… TZ MEGA BABE ALERT! Feast your eyes on the stunningly gorgeous Julie Newmar, here salvaging this whole train wreck all by herself as the devilish Miss Devlin. Newmar is one of an elite subsection of TZ Babes, which also includes Suzanne Lloyd’s Maya the Cat Girl (“Perchance to Dream”) and Anne Francis (in two roles: Marsha the Mannequin in “The After Hours” and the title character in “Jess-Belle”). Good God, just look at her.  *Sigh* Newmar is best remembered for her indelible interpretation of Catwoman on TV’s Batman (1966-1967).

Sad to say, there’s nothing new or noteworthy here.  We get echoes of “Walking Distance” and “The Trouble with Templeton,” set in the backyard of “A Stop at Willoughby” with a healthy dash of “Escape Clause” thrown in.  However, despite the copious amounts of redundancy on display, the episode is elevated by Newmar’s delicious she-devil and, I must admit, watching Feathersmith getting his just desserts doled out to him in multiple stages is entertaining.  We also get some great skewed camera angles to signify Feathersmith’s mental unraveling in act four, hearkening back to similar unraveling scenes in season one’s “Where Is Everybody?” and season three’s “The Dummy.”  And the final scene positively drips with irony and cosmic justice, so things do end well…. but ultimately, the lopsided pacing really undermines the episode’s effectiveness.  In the final analysis (well, mine anyway), “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” only intermittently rises above mediocrity.

Next week:  An overgrown man-child longs for the past.  No, it’s not my life story.

TZ Promo: “The Odyssey of Flight 33” (2/24/1961)

“The Odyssey of Flight 33”

Season Two, Episode 18 (54 overall)
Cayuga Production # 173-3651

Are you afraid to fly? If you are, it’s likely because you’re afraid that your plane will crash. It’s not an irrational fear --- planes do in fact crash. They say it’s statistically safer to fly than drive a car, but who knows?


Air disasters are a recurring event on The Twilight Zone. It usually involves spaceships ("I Shot an Arrow into the Air," "People Are Alike All Over," "Death Ship," "Probe 7 – Over and Out"), but we’ve lost a few planes too ("Twenty Two," "The Arrival," "Ring-A-Ding Girl"). But what if your particular air catastrophe didn’t involve a crash at all? What if instead your plane became dislodged in time…? Fifty years ago tonight, it happened in “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” written by Rod Serling and directed by Justuss Addiss. A commercial airliner hits a freak tailwind and breaks the time barrier. Where do they end up? I don’t want to give anything away, but here’s a clue…

I am dino, hear me roar!

Yeah, it's a friggin' dinosaur, and a pretty unconvincing one at that. But hey, it was 1961! Turns out the two brief glimpses of this beast constituted the single most expensive shot in the show's five year history. As a Ray Harryhausen fan, I find her (I've always thought of it as female, don't ask me why) most appealing.

Ain't no such thing as a No Smoking sign on my plane.

The episode stars John Anderson as our intrepid pilot, Captain Farver. We last saw him in season one's "A Passage for Trumpet" (which, coincidentally, was repeated fifty years ago last week), and we'll see him again in season four's "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" and season five's "The Old Man in the Cave"). He keeps his cool in spite of the outlandish circumstances that befall his crew. Call him The Twilight Zone's Captain Sully. Anderson might be best remembered as California Charlie, the used car salesman Marion Crane sells her car to in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Fans of TV's The Outer Limits can tell you that he was quite good as the Ebonite Interrogator in that series' excellent "Nightmare." And speaking of The Outer Limits... well, stay tuned.


Speaking of "People Are Alike All Over," Paul Comi (above, left) makes his second Twilight Zone appearance here, this time as Anderson's copilot, First Officer Craig. In the former, he's the one that, ahem, didn't survive the crash; here we find him trapped aboard a doomed flight (man, this guy should just stay on the ground). Rounding out our cockpit crew is Navigator "Magellan" Hatch, played by Sandy Kenyon (above, right), who appeared in damn near every TV show in the 50's and 60's. You may not know the name, but you will absolutely recognize the guy. He'll visit The Twilight Zone again in season three's "The Shelter" and season four's "Valley of the Shadow."

We're called Flight Attendants now.

“The Odyssey of Flight 33” is generally well-regarded, but I’ve never been particularly fond of it. Oh sure, it’s a great idea, but Serling never really develops it. There’s also no moral dilemma, no character development, and no twist at the end. There’s really no resolution to the plight of Flight 33 at all, which doesn’t help matters. We’re left wondering if they ever made it home. Interestingly, the same can be said of season four’s “Death Ship,” which is one of my favorite episodes, but the characters there are quite well developed, which makes all the difference. Still, for 25 minutes, “Odyssey” sufficiently holds one’s interest. And it’s certainly well done on a technical level… even that goofy Claymation brontosaurus is charming. It certainly ain’t bad, but it’s nothing spectacular either. Your (air) mileage may vary.

Next week: And speaking of bad…. Burgess Meredith and Don Rickles can’t even save the day. Uh-oh.

That's right, Rod. Hang your head in shame.

TZ Promo: "A Passage for Trumpet" (5/20/1960)

His name is Joey Crown. He's a trumpet player whose drunkenness has derailed a promising career. He's at the end of his rope and is looking for an escape. He pawns his horn, gets drunk one last time, and steps out in front of a moving truck... and straight into The Twilight Zone.

"A Passage for Trumpet," which first aired 50 years ago tonight, is the first of four episodes to star character actor Jack Klugman, best known for his roles on TV's The Odd Couple and, later, Quincy. Klugman had a knack --- perhaps more than any other TZ actor --- for capturing the elusive essence of a basically decent guy who's missed the boat in life, the down and (almost) out dreamer. In three of his four TZ outings, he plays variations on this same basic character (the exception, season four's "Death Ship," finds him more focused and intense, but still brilliant). Sure, Crown's to blame for his bad choices. We still feel for the guy nevertheless, and we want things to work out for him. As Joey Crown, Klugman turns in a wistful, self-deprecating performance that absolutely shines. You can't help but root for him.

Crown meets up with Gabe, a fellow trumpeter played by John Anderson. The less I say about him the better (no spoilers here), but Anderson's performance is every bit as solid (if a bit less nuanced) than Klugman's. He also gets to utter my single favorite line of dialogue from the entire series: "You're in the middle, between the two: the real, and the shadow." If that doesn't sum up The Twilight Zone, I don't know what does.

Serling's script is predictably stellar, and the episode benefits greatly from the partnership of director Don Medford and Director of Photography George T. Clemens. Much of the episode takes place in what looks like the backstage area of a theater (scaffolding abounds), and the chiaroscuro lighting is gorgeous to behold. Mention should also be made of Lyn Murray's excellent jazz score. I ranked "A Passage for Trumpet" in my Top 40 back in November, but it didn't quite make my Top 10 (Klugman's other three TZ episodes, however, did). I think it's safe to say that I'm a huge Jack Klugman fan.

Coming up two weeks from tonight: One of the worst Twilight Zone episodes ever made celebrates the big 5-0. I'm dreading it in a HUGE way. In fact, it may be my single least favorite episode in the series' 156 episode run. Tune in to see what makes it so horrible.