TZ Promo: "Mute" (1/31/1963)

Season 4, Episode 5 (#107 overall)

Cayuga Production # 4858

Originally aired January 31, 1963

Before we start, notice anything strange about that title card?  That lettering is positively GIGANTIC.  Okay, the title is a measly four letters long, but other short-titled episodes didn't get an oversized card (“Dust” and “Two,” for example). Oddly enough, the title is regular-sized in the end credits.  After the missing quotation marks two weeks ago (“Valley of the Shadow”) and now this, I’m starting to think Pacific Title had a gremlin on staff, tampering with their output.

Richard Matheson’s “Mute” opens on a clandestine meeting in which several couples enter into a secret pact to raise their children in silence, to (hopefully) promote telepathy.  It’s not disclosed if this consortium has already achieved some success in this rather peculiar endeavor, or if they’re flying completely blind.  It’s so crazy, it might just work.

And work it does.  Fast forward ten years to a house fire in the quaint little town of German Corners, PA.  A young girl, Ilse Nielsen, is found outside the house, safe and sound, while her parents are charred to a crisp inside.  Volunteer fireman-slash-town sheriff Harry Wheeler brings the girl home temporarily until her disposition is decided.  Ilse doesn't speak to anyone, but she can hear them plainly enough, and through a series of telepathic flashes, we see that this kid is the real deal.  Cora, Ilse’s new foster mother, dotes on her to the point of hysterical obsession (we discover that the Wheelers’ only child drowned, so I guess we can cut her a bit of a break… just a bit now); meanwhile, her new schoolteacher, Miss Frank, apparently wants to eat her for lunch, piece by quivering piece.

What we have here is your basic fish-out-of-water story.  Will Ilse retain her unique individuality, or will she go native and start talking like the other chimps in town?  My God, the suspense is unbearable! Okay, I’m being a bit flippant here, but there actually is a fair amount of tension throughout. We immediately identify with Ilse (especially compared with the rest of the characters), so naturally we want and hope for the best for her… but what exactly is best for her?  That’s the question at the heart of this story, and unfortunately Matheson gets it completely and utterly wrong.

 Extra crispy.

The episode succeeds best in those moments in which we’re offered glimpses inside Ilse’s thoughts (she’s able to  highjack someone else’s eyes to witness the discovery of her parents’ charred corpses, for example). The shrill echo effect used to represent how Ilse hears spoken voices is effective (if it’s harsh on our ears, imagine her discomfort!).   

Ilse is well-played by Ann Jillian, acting mostly with her eyes. Jillian, who would grow up to be a staggeringly beautiful woman, is probably best known for playing herself in The Ann Jillian Story, a 1988 TV movie chronicling her battle with breast cancer (for which she won a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination).  Is it creepy to consider her a TZ babe?  Probably, since for our purposes she’s a kid.  Dammit.

Frank Overton plays Harry Wheeler with what appears to be an all-consuming resentment for everything and everyone.  We last saw Overton in season one’s “Walking Distance,” in which he wasn't nearly as cranky.

The highly annoying and frequently-hysterical Cora Wheeler is played by Barbara Baxley.  She’ll return to The Twilight Zone 23 years later in “Profile in Silver” (incidentally one of my favorites of the revived series).  Don’t worry; she’s not nearly as gratingly manic there.  Maybe she’s mellowed with age…?

Twilight Zone veteran Oscar Beregi (“The Rip Van Winkle Caper,” “Deaths-Head Revisited”) essays the Karl Werner role competently enough, but it’s the least interesting of his three TZ roles.  Blame Matheson’s script, which doesn't give an actor of his magnitude nearly enough to do.

Irene Dailey is quite effective as Miss Frank, the teacher-from-hell who misdiagnoses Ilse’s unique condition and relentlessly badgers her to speak.  Dailey is best remembered for her work on TV’s Another World (which I've never seen, so I can’t comment on her work there.  Days of Our Lives, on the other hand, well… that’s another story).

The fire at the Nielsen residence is well-staged (that’s a real fire, folks), which adds some nice production value.  However, some unintentional comedy arises from Percy Helton’s cameo as a firefighter on the scene.  Helton is impossible to miss in anything he ever did, given his comically raspy voice (imagine a slightly-less obnoxious Andy Devine).  We’ll see (and hear) him again in season five’s “Mr. Garrity and the Graves.”

If the sight of Ilse fleeing the house and out into traffic seems painfully familiar, it’s because we just saw the exact same scene played out a mere seven episodes ago, in season three’s “I Sing the Body Electric.” Both were shot on the same city park/town square set (MGM Lot 2; thanks again, Martin Grams!), and both use almost-identical shots:

I've been talking about the series’ visual identity a lot lately, examining the recurrence of specific imagery across multiple unrelated episodes, but I think this crosses the line a bit (a lot, actually).

“Mute” is the first episode of the fourth season to feature an original music score.  Fred Steiner (who will contribute a full two-thirds of the original scores in this abbreviated season) delivers a compelling work heavy on the strings (particularly the viola) with the occasional harp flourish thrown in for good measure.  The cue used at the start of the prologue (a zither piece that sounds like a reject from Anton Karas’ score for The Third Man) isn't by Steiner, though: it’s an uncredited library composition called "Peasant Waltz" (see cute sheet above). Steiner scored a total of seven Twilight Zone episodes (including season three’s "The Passersby," which is easily one of my top 5 favorite TZ scores), matching the output of Bernard Herrmann and Jerry Goldsmith, but he’s probably best remembered as the composer of the themes for both Perry Mason and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

“Mute” is ultimately hard to watch because so many of the characters are just plain unpleasant. Sheriff Wheeler is gruff to the point of cruelty, his wife Cora is a trembling basket case set to erupt at the drop of a hat, and Miss Frank, Ilse’s school teacher, is an unabashed sadist.  Ilse’s struggles are primarily due not to the loss of her parents, but to the emotional and psychological chaos inflicted upon her by these three individuals, chaos that will undoubtedly continue after the end credits roll.  The script implies that Ilse’s unconventional upbringing is a form of abuse, and that her new life in German Corners represents her salvation, but Matheson completely wrecks it by making her saviors so toxic. If Ilse’s new parents were Jonathan and Martha Kent, I might feel differently… but they aren't, and I don’t.

The climactic moment when Ilse finally capitulates and speaks is effective enough from a dramatic standpoint, but impossible to accept as a triumph.  We could argue the questionable merits of the consortium’s antisocial (and anti-verbal) methods, but at the end of the day, they've figured out how to cultivate and promote telepathy, and the profound implications therein demand further research and development.  By leaving Ilse in German Corners, the Werners both squash her budding talent and abandon her in an emotionally hostile environment.  So yeah, even the well-meaning Werners, who came to America to save Ilse, end up screwing the poor kid over like everybody else.  The girl can’t win.

I would've liked to see Ilse’s telepathy explored more; and perhaps expanded to include telekinesis.  I’d love to see her wreak some good old fashioned havoc on German Corners (maybe toss that bitch Miss Frank out a window or something).  At the very least, maybe a quick end scene suggesting that Ilse will continue developing her talents on her own, in secret…. yeah, that might've made quite a difference.  As it is, “Mute” ends with Ilse smiling contentedly, which is supposed to signify a happy ending… but it’s anything but that.  Despite the window dressing, we've just watched a goddamned tragedy unfold before our eyes.

Next week:  Matheson redeems himself with season four’s finest episode.  Three guys in a flying saucer land on a remote planet and face the darkest horror imaginable.  Not to be missed.

TZ Promo: “Deaths-head Revisited” (11/10/1961)

Season 3, Episode 9 (#74 overall)

Cayuga Production # 4804

Two weeks ago, The Twilight Zone gave us a goosebumps-inducing tale involving a vengeful ghost. Tonight, we celebrate the 50th birthday of a different kind of ghost story. However, this time we’ll see more justice than vengeance.


“Deaths-head Revisited,” written by Rod Serling and directed by Don Medford, introduces us to one of the Zone’s most deplorable characters: Captain Gunther Lutze, a former Nazi officer who has the unbelievable gall to visit the ruins of a concentration camp to indulge his nostalgia (does this make him Martin Sloan's evil counterpart?). Playing Lutze is Oscar Beregi (last seen in season two’s “The Rip Van Winkle Caper." He’ll appear again in season four’s “Mute”), and it’s a spot-on performance. He manages to create a vivid portrayal of an arrogant, wicked bastard without even an ounce of scenery chewing.


We are also introduced to one of The Twilight Zone’s most compelling and sympathetic characters: Arnold Becker, a concentration camp ghost, played with convincing frailty (tinged with righteous anger) by Joseph Schildkraut (probably best remembered as Anne Frank’s father in 1959’s The Diary of Anne Frank). He'll appear again later this season in another outstanding episode, “The Trade-Ins.”


The two play off one another marvelously. The characters are clearly archetypal, meant to embody larger collectives, but both are nuanced enough that we invest in them as individuals (by contrast, a similar exercise in season five’s “The Encounter” won’t be as successful because those characters are more stereotype than archetype). The whole affair is a bit of a loaded argument, of course: Nazi versus Jew. Who will prevail, especially in a cosmic justice-oriented universe like The Twilight Zone? The episode manages to avoid coming off as a black and white argument for human rights, thanks to the aforementioned performances, plus a great Serling script. Mention should also be made of Medford’s directing… there are several shots that elevate the episode above the standard “talking head” TV approach (the dizzy POV shot with Lutze staring up the somber Dachau ghosts is quite nice). The episode looks particularly glorious on a big screen in high definition (thanks to Samsung and Image Entertainment for making this possible in my living room).


It’s not much of a spoiler to note that Lutze gets exactly what’s coming to him in the end. Watching Becker maneuvering him toward his unfortunate destiny…. well, that’s the fun. Odd using a word like “fun” in reference to such a deadly serious episode, which deals with such deadly serious themes, but there you go. “Deaths-head Revisited” is another one of those episodes in which everything works beautifully, and it’s one of my top 20 favorites.


THE MUSIC

“Deaths-head Revisited” is another stock-scored episode, which means existing cues from the CBS Music Library were re-purposed (versus commissioning a new, original score). The dominant cue, which appears throughout the episode, is called “Mysterious Storm” by Jerry Goldsmith. This cue, along with lots of other early Goldsmith TV work, can be found on Jerry Goldsmith: The Early Years from Prometheus Records.

Of course, "Mysterious Storm" (along with the rest of the music used in the episode) can also be accessed in isolated form on both the Definitive Edition DVD and more recent blu-ray release of season three from Image Entertainment. Folks, I'm gonna keep plugging these blu-rays till every last one of you caves in and buys 'em.

Next week: Damn, is it hot in here, or what? Hoo-boy!

TZ Promo: “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” (4/21/1961)

“The Rip Van Winkle Caper” (4/21/1961)
Season Two, Episode 24 (60 overall)
Cayuga Production # 173-3655

Earlier in season two (“A Most Unusual Camera”), a band of thieves fell victim to greed and turned on one another, with deadly results. Despite its potential, it was one of the lamest episodes of the entire series. 50 years ago tonight, another band of thieves was similarly torn apart by greed, but this time Serling and company got it right. It’s one of my Top 40 favorites.


“The Rip Van Winkle Caper,” written by Rod Serling and directed by Justus Addiss, tells the tale of four master criminals whose combined talents result in the successful heist of a fortune in gold bullion. They hole up in a cave in the desert, where they’ll lie in wait until the case goes cold and they can emerge free… and very, very rich.


How long, you ask? About one hundred years. But how, you ask? Why, suspended animation, of course. Check out those cool glass coffins… um, I mean chambers. A similar device will appear in season five’s “The Long Morrow” (hell, it might be the same prop for all I know). We’ll get to it in… oh, about three years.


Anyway, our villains seal themselves up in the coffins (chambers, damn it!), which fill with an eerie chemical fog, and then… well, watch it. I’m not spoiling it. I will say that, in a way, it’s a nice thematic bookend to season one’s “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” and not just because of the similar Death Valley locations. Speaking of which, spotlighting this episode gives me a chance to promote Twilight Zone: On Location 2010 again. It’s a great short film by Paul Giammarco, in which he tracks down the locations where “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” and other desert-set episodes were shot. Do check it out.


Oscar Beregi and Simon Oakland star, both of whom we’ll see again later in the series. Beregi comes back as a Nazi in season three’s brilliant “Death’s Head Revisited” and again as a German professor in season four’s “Mute.” Oakland, meanwhile, will pop up as a Navy captain in season four’s “The Thirty-Fathom Grave,” but genre fans will probably remember him best as the psychologist who matter-of-factly explains Norman Bates’ rather shocking condition at the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.


Forbidden Planet alert! The futuristic car seen at the episode’s end is a leftover prop from MGM’s classic film, modified a bit but still recognizable. It’s amazing how often the show used Forbidden Planet props… I for one never get tired of seeing them. After a lifetime of relative indifference, it's slowly but surely become one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time.


“The Rip Van Winkle Caper” is one of eighteen episodes adapted into short story form by Serling for a trilogy of TZ paperbacks between 1960 and 1962 (Stories from The Twilight Zone, More Stories from The Twilight Zone, and New Stories from The Twilight Zone). I discovered all three of them one fateful afternoon at a drugstore in Canby, Oregon, during the summer of 1982, shortly after I first discovered the series in syndication. They were $1.95 each, and I bought all three. I hadn’t seen many episodes at that point, so most of the stories were new to me. “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” was one such story and, as I recall, it was one of my favorites. When I finally saw the episode some time later, I was similarly impressed. The books have been reprinted several times over the decades. I don't have my original copies of the books anymore... I have earlier vintage editions, similar to those pictured above (I couldn't even find pictures of my first copies on Google Images!). One of these days I'll spotlight each volume by itself.

Next week: Hush up, blabbermouth. Seriously, you’re driving us all crazy. Zip it, why don’tcha? No? Okay fine, I’ve got a little wager for you….