Episode Spotlight: "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" (1/17/1964)

Season 5, Episode 16 (136 overall)

Originally aired 1/17/1964

Cayuga Production # 2612

I recently turned 44, which isn’t terribly old in the grand scheme of things, but I’m experiencing some fairly significant hair loss. It really bugs me to see older men --- like really old --- sporting full heads of hair. They’ll probably be dead within a few short years; meanwhile, I've still got a few decades left, during which I’ll continue to lose hair. It doesn’t seem fair, dammit. Old men don’t need hair in their twilight years; in fact, it’s kinda strange to see an old man who isn’t balding. They’d probably prefer to live longer and have less hair, given the choice, and I’d happily trade a few of my years for a thick, lustrous head of hair. Sounds like an equitable trade to me.

Fifty years ago tonight, a man inexplicably gained the ability to make such impossible trades. “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” is exactly what it sounds like: the titular Salvadore Ross uses his newfound supernatural bartering talents to better himself. 

Sal is aggressively courting Leah; it’s not a matter of love, it’s a matter of possession. He makes no attempt to hide it, either: “I want her,” he unabashedly tells Leah’s disapproving father. Leah, however, has standards when it comes to choosing a mate, and the crude and directionless Sal doesn’t measure up. Sal angrily punches a wall after she breaks things off with him and ends up in the hospital.

He’s kept overnight for some reason (did a broken bone really require an overnight hospital stay back in the 60’s?), and is roomed with an old man with the flu. They joke about trading maladies and, the next morning, Sal is shocked and delighted to discover that his hand is healed, but he has a cold. The old man objects; his new broken hand will never heal, given his advanced age. No take-backs, Sal decrees as he leaves.

Sal then uses his new talent to systematically improve himself: he sells his youth for a vast fortune, then regains it by buying time from others, a year at a time. Soon he’s young again (but still quite rich) and back on Leah’s scent. She’s still not interested, though, seeing as how he lacks the non-material qualities she prizes most: kindness, selflessness, compassion.

When we next see Sal, he’s a changed man. Leah sees the change and relents; he is the man she wants after all. Her father will have none of it, and pulls a gun on Sal. Sal begs for him to show him mercy and compassion, to which he coldly replies: “Compassion? Don’t you remember? I sold it to you yesterday.” He pulls the trigger.

Written by Jerry McNeely from a short story by Henry Slesar, “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” is one of the better offerings of the fifth season despite the ridiculously implausible and confusing ending. Leah is convinced that Sal has evolved into a man worthy of her love… in a single day? Sal’s proven himself to be a manipulative bastard in the past; she has no reason whatsoever to think he’s not simply putting on an act. Why does Sal ask Mr. Maitland for compassion when he knows for a fact he no longer possesses it? Does the acquisition of compassion somehow impair his memory? And if Mr. Maitland is the upright saintly type we've been led to believe he is, why would he ever sell his compassion --- his defining, honorable trait --- to anyone, especially a slimeball like Sal? It’s sloppy, expedient and… yes, another example of the dreaded deus ex machina. The end renders everything before it moot.

If there’s one thing I like about the ending, it’s that it serves as a nice bookend for season one’s “The Four Of Us Are Dying,” which also ends with Don Gordon getting shot by an old man. But that ending was organic and jibed with the events that preceded it; I guess we can argue that cosmic justice is indeed served here by Sal getting blown away, but at what cost? A good man (Mr. Maitland) is now a soulless shell of a man (and will almost certainly go to prison for murder), and the innocent Leah just lost the man she loves and her father in one shot (har har). If this is cosmic justice, it’s hugely skewed.

But “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” is still an entertaining episode, thanks largely to the great cast and the clever story (up till that ending, that is). The concept of buying and selling years is a fascinating one: the 2011 sci-fi film In Time uses this idea as the basis for its parallel-earth society, the citizens of which have built-in bio-clocks that keep them frozen at the age of 25 forever… as long as they continually acquire time, which is their currency.

There's particularly effective bit at the top of act two. The elderly Sal enters an elevator, which is operated by a young man. When he gets off, he's young again... and the bellhop is now an old man, holding a big fat check in his hands.

Rod’s not smoking during his opening narration: he’s holding a pair of sunglasses. I dunno, maybe sponsor American Tobacco was giving away sunglasses in some kind of promotion or something (remember all that Joe Camel and Marlboro Man merchandise?).

THE MUSIC

The episode is stock-scored, mostly with non-TZ cues from the CBS Music Library; however, we do hear a few bits of Fred Steiner’s scores for “King Nine Will Not Return” (“Sand”) and “The Passersby” (“Morning,” which was also used in last week’s “The Long Morrow”).

FAMILIAR FACES

The major players this week should be quite familiar to Twilight Zone fans. First up is Don Gordon (Salvadore Ross), who memorably played one of Arch Hammer’s alternate identities in season one’s “The Four of Us Are Dying.” He also appeared on The Outer Limits twice (“The Invisibles” and “Second Chance”).

*Sigh* Gail Kobe (Leah Maitland) is on hand for her third and final TZ appearance (she made me swoon in season one’s “A World of Difference,” then again in season four’s “In His Image”). Like Don Gordon, she popped up on The Outer Limits twice (“Specimen: Unknown” and “Keeper of the Purple Twilight”).  If you can’t tell, I have something of a crush on her. She passed away last August. Rest in peace, you beautiful thing you.

Mr. Maitland is played by Vaughn Taylor in his fifth and final TZ excursion (he appeared in season one’s “Time Enough at Last,” season three’s “Still Valley” and “I Sing the Body Electric,” and season four’s “The Incredible World of Horace Ford”). He also did two episodes of The Outer Limits (“The Guests” and “Expanding Human”).

The unnamed old man in the hospital is played by J. Pat O'Malley, whom you may remember from “The Chaser” in season one and “The Fugitive” in season three. He’ll also be back later this season for “Mr. Garrity and the Graves.” Interestingly, the unnamed hospital nurse is played by Kathleen O'Malley… his daughter!

“The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” is quite good, better than many season five offerings, and it shines despite its unsatisfying conclusion. If we could just take a page from Sal’s book and trade its ending for a different one….

Next week:

“The Eye of the Beholder,” but without the pig people. It’s better than it sounds.

TZ Promo: "In His Image" (1/03/1963)

Season 4, Episode 1 (#103 overall)

Cayuga Production # 4851

Originally aired January 3, 1963

The revamped Twilight Zone launched fifty years ago tonight with Charles Beaumont’s “In His Image.” There’s really no way I can discuss the episode without spoiling it, so… fuck it, I won’t even try.  In fact, I’ll get it over with by very quickly encapsulating the proceedings:

Guy murders a woman in a subway in what appears to be a brief psychotic episode. Guy picks up girlfriend and drives to his hometown.  Lots of details about the town don’t jibe with his memory, and he has a couple more violent episodes as he tries to figure out what the hell is happening.  He eventually tracks down a man who appears to be his identical twin, but is actually his maker.  It turns out our troubled hero is a robot, one with an unfixable flaw that causes him to periodically go crazy.  Creator and creation clash in an epic battle, from which only one of them will emerge.

See, I didn't spoil everything after all (I guess I could just mentioned that Beaumont’s teleplay was based on his own short story “The Man Who Made Himself,” which is a spoiler in itself).

George Grizzard shines as both Alan Talbot (the creation) and Walter Ryder, Jr. (the creator).  The two are completely different personalities (Alan is humored and gregarious, while Walter is bitter and withdrawn), and Grizzard expertly inhabits both.  Hands down, this is one of my favorite performances in the series' five-year run.  Season two’s “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room” featured a similar two-sides-of-the-same-coin performance by Joe Mantell, but his excellent work was hampered by less-than-optimal rear projection.  Here, things are technically perfect. If there are split-screen seams, I sure as hell can't see them (not even under Blu-ray’s high-resolution microscope).

Grizzard appeared in many television series throughout the fifties and sixties, and was an accomplished theater performer (he won a Tony in 1996 for his work in the revival of A Delicate Balance (shown at left).  Genre fans may have spotted him on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, on which he appeared three times. More recently, he had a recurring role on TV's Law and Order, and his last appearance on film was in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers in 2006, shortly before he passed away in 2007).

Alan's girlfriend Jessica is played by the lovely Gail Kobe.  TZ babe alert!  *sigh*  We caught a brief glimpse of her in season one’s “A World of Difference,” and we’ll see her again in season five’s “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross.”  She’s equally delicious in two of The Outer Limits’ sillier endeavors (“Specimen: Unknown” and “Keeper of the Purple Twilight;” the latter has to be seen to be believed). 

At least The Outer Limits was kind enough to get her all wet for us.

Katherine Squire, last seen in season three’s “One More Pallbearer,” appears for a brief but memorable role as the crazy Christian lady who badgers Alan in the subway, and good God is she repellent.  This is "witnessing" at its most coarse and obnoxious; thankfully, Alan dispatches her by tossing her in front of an oncoming train.  Sometimes murderous rages can be productive after all.

The onset of Alan’s violent fits are conveyed to us via a cacophony of blips, bloops and buzzes (standard sci-fi gizmos-gone-crazy sound effects; apparently inaudible to others), along with a bright light that comes over his face (apparently invisible to others; it’s reminiscent of the “death light” depicted in season one’s “The Purple Testament”).  It’s all effective enough but, frankly, Grizzard’s tortured reactions would have sufficed, and kept things a bit more subtle.

When Alan arrives at Walter's residence for what will become an epic showdown, we're treated to a nice atmospheric shot of Walter sneaking up behind him in the shadows.  If this shot looks vaguely familiar, it may be because we've already seen Grizzard perform a very similar arrival in season one's "The Chaser."

I'm sure this wasn't done intentionally, but it's a marvelous piece of visual continuity regardless (one that Arlen Schumer apparently missed in his amazing Visions from The Twilight Zone coffee table book, in which he draws several visual parallels between images from various episodes. By the way, every true TZ fan needs to own this book. It's about twenty years out of print, but can easily be tracked down on Amazon or eBay).

When viewed as a whole, The Twilight Zone is positively bristling with compelling and iconic images; here we get one of my personal favorites. Upon receiving a forearm injury right before the midway act break, Alan slowly peels the skin back to reveal the first concrete hint about the mystery of his identity.

  Boom!  You’re a robot, dude.

The idea of a simulacrum carrying on in ignorance of its own artifice was almost certainly a sci-fi cliché by the time The Twilight Zone tackled it (in season one’s “The After-Hours” and season two’s “The Lateness of the Hour”), but in the capable hands of writer Charles Beaumont, the concept never feels unoriginal or stale (Beaumont also wrote another surprise-it’s-a-robot story called “Last Rites” in 1955, an equally fine yarn that would've made a great TZ episode).  Harlan Ellison would employ this device in his 1965 Outer Limits teleplay “Demon with a Glass Hand” (which happens to be my all-time favorite TOL episode; maybe I’m a much bigger fan of surprise-robot stories than I realized).

Walter Ryder Jr.’s basement lab is a pretty impressive set, complete with the usual wall-sized computer terminals and assorted gadgetry.  Particularly effective is what appears to be a brick-lined incinerator unit in the wall, but is more likely some sort of finishing/activation chamber for Ryder Jr.’s mechanical offspring (speaking of which, check out those failed proto-Alans lying dormant on a double-wide gurney).

And hey, Forbidden Planet alert!  The notorious bank of Pac-Man lights, originally a piece of equipment in that film’s C-57D Space Cruiser, makes yet another appearance on the series. This prop was used previously in “People Are Alike All Over,” “Elegy" and “Third From the Sun." I'm betting we'll see it again before the series ends...

As the first double-length TZ episode aired, “In His Image” never feels overlong or bloated (an attribute which next week’s episode will sadly not share).  It’s an absolute winner, one of my top 20 favorites of all time.

Next week:  There’s something scary inside that wrecked submarine, so whatever you do, don’t go down there!  No?  Okay, whatever you do, don’t go down there twice!  Still no?  Okay, can we at least agree that you won’t go down there a third time?  Oh come on, seriously??!