1x07 "A Scythe for Sore Eyes"

This week, we wrap up our epic two-part exploration of The Twilight Zone’s three encounters with Mr. Death with the best of the lot, “The Hitch-hiker.” Craig compares the original radio play against the TZ adaptation, commits a near-unforgivable blunder when he confuses military branches (on Veteran’s Day of all days!), and once again leans heavily on fan favorite Dr. Reba Wissner for knowledge and guidance. raig...Disclaimeraig the spouse

Dr. Reba Wissner’s A Dimension of Sound: Music in The Twilight Zone

https://www.amazon.com/Dimension-Sound-Music-Twilight-Media/dp/1576472167/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478659363&sr=8-1&keywords=reba+wissner

Dr. Reba Wissner’s We Will Control All That Your Hear: The Outer Limits and the Aural Imagination

https://www.amazon.com/Will-Control-All-That-Hear/dp/1576472531/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1478659363&sr=8-2&keywords=reba+wissner

Opening theme: “Neither Here nor There” by Twin Loops

Closing music: “Route 66” by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters (from the album Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters: Their Complete Recordings Together, copyright 1996 by MCA)

“The Lonely Man Theme (The Incredible Hulk)” composed by Joe Harnell

“Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins (from the album Top Gun: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, copyright 1986 by Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music)

The Twilight Zone is a trademark of CBS, Inc.

Between Light and a Shadow: A Twilight Zone Podcast is a nonprofit podcast. Music clips and dialogue excerpts used herein are the property of their respective copyright owners; we claim no ownership of these materials. Their use is strictly for illustrative purposes and should be considered Fair Use as stated in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. section 107.

TZ Repeat: "The Hitch-hiker" (8/12/1960)

50 years ago tonight, CBS viewers were treated to an extraordinary half hour of television. Sure, it was a repeat, but The Twilight Zone is often better the second time around. You pick up things you might have missed the first time around. And speaking of picking up...

“The Hitch-hiker,” which premiered on 1/22/1960, reappeared for its encore telecast 50 years ago tonight. I’ve already covered the episode fairly extensively (see here), but I will say this: It’s a truly great episode (one of my top 10 favorites, in fact) with a truly unique history. It was originally presented as a radio show, which accounts for the large chunks of narration by the protagonist (radio was so much more internal than television). Character narration, a staple of police/detective shows (Dragnet in particular), was pretty uncommon on The Twilight Zone (since we had Rod Serling and all), but it did happen a few other times (“King Nine Will Not Return” and “The Long Morrow” come to mind; I’m sure there are a few others). The narrative device is particularly effective here: Inger Stevens’ anguished voiceover matches her onscreen performance quite well (the approach is much more elegant than, say, having one talk to oneself constantly, as in “Where Is Everybody?” or season five’s “The Last Night of a Jockey”). Her voice becomes a calm monotone when she realizes the true identity of her mysterious follower, and the lifeless expression on her face in the final shot is chilling.

Hey, it just occurred to me that the hitch-hiker himself would make a great bobble head… Bif Bang Pow!, are you listening? Maybe his THUMB could bobble…. or is that too silly?

Coming up: We’re only six weeks away from the start of season two! But for now, the summer repeats continue with an interesting tale of a plane that lands not so much in the wrong place, but in the wrong time…

TZ Promo: “The Hitch-hiker” (1/22/1960)

I discovered old radio shows like Suspense and Inner Sanctum a few years before I discovered The Twilight Zone. I bought a few of them on cassette, and one of them was "The Hitch-hiker," an episode of Suspense from 1942 that starred Orson Welles as a man who, while traveling cross-country by car, is menaced the same ominous man hitch-hiking along the way. The radio script was written by Lucille Fletcher, wife of film and radio composer Bernard Herrmann, who contributed the musical score for the radio production (a nice bit of synergy that would be repeated, in a fashion, 18 years later; more on this below). Fletcher also wrote Suspense's most famous episode, "Sorry, Wrong Number."

Rod Serling's take on "The Hitch-hiker" changes the protagonist from male to female (the beautiful Inger Stevens is marvelous in the role), but otherwise remains very faithful to Fletcher's original tale. Alvin Ganzer's direction is superb (watch for the scene where our heroine almost gets the business end of a moving train), and the cinematography by George T. Clemens is appropriately dark and moody (the final scene is masterfully done).

Perhaps the most interesting component of the episode, however, is the underscore. "The Hitch-hiker" doesn't feature a composer credit; rather, it is "stock-scored" (i.e. scored using assorted cues from the CBS Music Library, often by multiple composers and without any perceptible unifying theme). At some point in time before The Twilight Zone debuted, Bernard Herrmann recorded a number of suites (collections of short cues) designed to be used and re-used in various CBS shows. Much of the music he contributed was actually recycled music he'd written years earlier for various radio shows. And, delightfully (as these things tend to delight people like me), some of his original "Hitch-hiker" radio score appears in the TZ adaptation! This brilliant touch elevates an already-great episode to sheer excellence. Needless to say, it's one of my top ten favorite episodes of all time.

Bernard Herrmann

Herrmann's score (well, five out of nine total cues) was released on the 1983 vinyl LP The Outer Space Suite from Cerberus Records (which is obviously way out of print). Those same five cues were later released on CD in 1999 on the 4-disc Twilight Zone 40^th Anniversary collection (which, as far as I know, is still in print and easily obtained).

Incidentally, Suspense wasn't the only radio program to produce "The Hitch-hiker." It was first done by Campbell Playhouse in 1941, and later in 1946 by Mercury Summer Theater. Orson Welles starred in all three. The Suspense version can be found here.

Who exactly is the hitch-hiker? I won't give it away, but if you see him on the side of the road…. Man, keep on driving. Don't stop.

Next week's episode features a battle of wills between a cranky man in a Las Vegas casino and a most insistent slot machine. Take a gamble on it, won't you?