Episode Spotlight: "Living Doll" (11/01/1963)

Season 5, Episode 6 (126 overall)

Originally aired 11/01/2013

Cayuga Production # 2621

Fifty years ago tonight, a mean ol’ sumbitch matched wits with a doll… and lost miserably. Jeez, wotta wuss.

Erich Streator is your average everyday wicked stepfather. Overbearing and cruel, he makes life miserable for his wife Annabelle and stepdaughter Christie on a daily basis. When Annabelle buys Christie a new Talky Tina doll, Erich is clearly perturbed because, well, nobody in his house should ever enjoy anything. Kinda reminds me of my stepdad when I was a kid.

Hi Daddy! Meet your adorable new nemesis!

“My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much,” coos Tina whenever her string is pulled. But whenever she’s alone with Erich, she says other, more interesting phrases: they start with “I don’t think I like you” and quickly escalate to “I’m going to kill you.” The aforementioned battle of wits escalates from there and, to borrow a catchphrase from Highlander: there can be only one.

ZICREE RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!

I was pretty new to the series when I first read Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion in 1982, and there were many episodes that I hadn't seen yet, one of which was “Living Doll.” Zicree’s comments on the episodes are as follows:

“Erich Streator is trying desperately not to alienate his wife and her young daughter. When the child brings home a doll that makes clear its murderous intentions --- but only when it's alone with him --- Erich is in one hell of a bind. If he tries to tell his wife of it, he sounds like a lunatic, and if he tries to protect himself by attempting (unsuccessfully) to destroy the doll, his actions seem those of a twisted mind striking out resentfully to hurt a helpless little girl. Poor Erich; it is clear early on that he hasn't much of a chance against this ruthless doll.” 

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Zicree?

This was all I knew about “Living Doll” until I finally saw it a few years later. I was expecting to see a basically decent guy get decimated unfairly by an evil doll; imagine my surprise to discover that said “decent guy” was actually the villain of the piece! Did Zicree even watch the episode before writing about it? He couldn't have possibly sympathized with Erich Streator AT ALL if he had; however, the excessive praise he heaps on it would seem to imply that not only had he seen it, but had deemed it absolute top tier Zone: “Masterfully written and superbly directed, acted, photographed and scored, it is an episode that can stand with the best of any season.”  It was at this point, at the tender of age of 13, that I had the sobering realization that Zicree was perhaps not the be-all-end-all Twilight Zone expert that I’d assumed he was. I mean, he’d written a goddamned book about it; how the hell could he have been so incredibly wrong?

I think, in describing this dark event in my TZ-formative years, I've figured out why I’m so hostile toward Zicree. Serling was my new idol (after outgrowing such childhood heroes as Spiderman and Luke Skywalker), but he died before I ever heard his name, so Zicree, having chronicled Serling’s wonderful TV series, was the closest I could get to him. And the son of a bitch let me down by being so blatantly wrong about something so obvious. Erich Streator was a bad guy; he deserved what he got. This was the cosmic justice that lay at the very heart of The Twilight Zone, which even I understood at that early age. If Zicree didn't understand that, then who was he to write the book in the first place?

Ahem. I think I might just have exorcised a serious demon here. Maybe now I can move on with my life. Maybe I can even forgive Mr. Zicree his egregious trespasses against my inner child. Maybe.

Okay, therapy session over. Let’s move on.

“Living Doll” has a great concept (which is unfortunately pretty clichéd nowadays; I’m looking at you, Child’s Play franchise) which, coupled with Telly Savalas’s fantastic bad-guy-you-love-to-hate performance, makes for a highly entertaining half-hour (except for the last thirty seconds; see below). Unfortunately, it’s pretty flat on a visual level, the exception being when the action moves to Erich’s garage, where he attempts to dispose of Tina in a number of ways (she’s definitely more menacing in semi-darkness). Still, these scenes offer nothing on the level of, say, season three’s “The Dummy” (which features a menacing ventriloquist’s dummy framed by complex camera work with marvelous lighting).  And the final shot of the episode, in which slow-motion is abruptly employed for no apparent reason, does nothing to advance the mood (and was likely done to stretch out the ending to accommodate Serling’s closing narration, which suggests poor planning during filming).  

In fact, the ending is disappointing in general, since having Tina murder Erich is the easiest possible conclusion. Why not have Erich scared straight, so to speak, and forced to treat his family better under Tina’s ongoing supervision? Further, why the hell does Tina threaten Annabelle (Christie’s one and only champion) after Erich is dispatched? Up until this point, the episode was operating under the cosmic justice approach (discussed in detail last week) but, in the final moment, gears are abruptly switched over to something more akin to chaos theory. It seems Tina is just an all-around evil doll (yawn) instead of a protective shield for a mistreated child (infinitely more satisfying) after all.

One minor bid of weirdness. Annabelle says to Erich that “I know you got more than you bargained for when you married me; two for the price of one, wasn’t it?” Um… surely he was aware that she had a kid, right…? If he wasn’t, then I’m almost willing to cut him some slack for being such an asshole. On that note, surely she was aware that he was a profoundly mean bastard, so why the hell did she marry him in the first place? 

Jerry Sohl and Charles Beaumont

“Living Doll” is the first of three episodes credited to writer Charles Beaumont this season. Unfortunately, he didn't actually write any of them, as by this time his health was rapidly deteriorating (he passed away in 1967). In this particular case, Beaumont mapped out the plot with Jerry Sohl, who ghostwrote the script.

THE MUSIC

“Living Doll” features another great score from Bernard Herrmann. As a fan(atic) of his work, I find it fascinating to compare his Twilight Zone work with the film scores he composed around the same time (for example, his score for 1959’s Journey to the Center of the Earth shares similar instrumentation with TZ’s “The Lonely” from that same year). His sole film score in 1963 was Jason and the Argonauts which, now that I think about it, doesn’t really sound like “Living Doll” at all.  Here, Herrmann employs a very small ensemble (two harps, celesta and bass clarinet) to create moody, suspenseful cues that perfectly underline the escalating psychological warfare between Erich and Talky Tina. The original Herrmann recordings have never been properly released; however, they can be obtained via the isolated music tracks present on both the DVD and blu-ray sets of season five (from Image Entertainment).  

Additionally, Joel McNeely recorded all seven of Herrmann’s Twilight Zone scores in 1999 for a 2-CD set released by Varese Sarabande Records (which was the only game in town for 4/7ths of Herrmann’s TZ output before Image came along). I do have some issues with some of McNeely’s interpretations (some cues are too fast while others are too slow; further, much of “Where Is Everybody?” just sounds off to my ears); however, his take on “Living Doll” is quite good (though it’s no match for the original recording).

FAMILIAR FACES

Telly Savalas, who has a long history of imposing and often malevolent characters on his resume, is perfect as Erich Streator.  This is his only TZ appearance, but he does have another connection to the series: he appeared in 1962’s Cape Fear, which was scored by Bernard Herrmann (and co-starred TZ vets Martin Balsam, Edward Platt and Paul Comi). Savalas also played super villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, one of my favorite James Bond films.

Mary La Roche (Annabelle Streator) previously entered The Twilight Zone as Mary, Gregory West’s mistress, in season one’s “A World of His Own.” Here she plays an unhappy wife, so I guess she got to play both sides of the extramarital fence (though I guess Erich isn't depicted as an adulterer; but honestly, would we be surprised?).

Tracy Stratford is convincingly sad and under-loved as Christie (she was also Tina in season three’s “Little Girl Lost,” which was also scored by Bernard Herrmann. Wait, so first she played Tina, then she had a doll named Tina… is it possible that Talky Tina came from the fourth dimension?). Additionally, Stratford provided the voice of Lucy Van Pelt in the 1960s Charlie Brown TV specials. So when Annabelle tells Erich to see a psychiatrist, I wonder if she meant….

Good grief! Uh, I mean... who loves ya, baby???

And hey, Telly Savalas and Charlie Brown are both bald. Coincidence?  I dunno… maybe Charles Schulz was a Twilight Zone fan…?

June Foray, probably the hardest working voice actor in Hollywood, provides the unforgettable voice of Talky Tina. She’ll also do some (slightly controversial) dubbing later this season in “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” but she has another less-obvious TZ connection as well.  80’s kids like me will have no trouble remembering the 1985 film Weird Science, but do you remember the TV spin-off, which lasted five seasons (1994-1998) on the USA Network? In the episode “Sci-Fi Zoned,” the main characters are trapped inside black and white episodes of their favorite TV show (a thinly-veiled TZ knockoff called The Sci-Fi Zone), one of which involves a murderous doll named “Talking Tammy,” who is voiced by…. yup, you guessed it, June Foray (she also voices a sentient candy bar named “Baby Ruth” in the same episode).

An iconic episode like this is almost guaranteed to spawn a parody somewhere along the line. Like “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” a few weeks back, “Living Doll” got the Simpsons treatment in 1992’s “Treehouse of Horror III,” in which a Krusty the Klown doll menaces Homer Simpson (“Clown without Pity”). Also of interest to genre fans is the framing device employed in this episode, which is patterned after TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents and features the rotund Homer standing in for Hitch.

Good morn--- D'oh!

Bif Bang Pow! has immortalized Talky Tina in every conceivable form (a talking bobblehead, action figure, and a fully-functioning life-sized replica). The bobblehead seems to be sold out but, as of this writing, the action figure and life-size replica are still available through Entertainment Earth (but, as with any collectible, they won’t be around forever). I can’t comment on the life-sized replica since I don't own it (c'mon, how could I possibly justify buying a fucking doll? For over a hundred bucks, no less!), but I've reviewed the other two (see here and here).

Questionable ending aside, “Living Doll” is great fun and a definite highlight of The Twilight Zone’s fifth and final season. Other than the misfire “A Kind of a Stopwatch” two weeks ago, season five’s offerings have ranged from good to excellent… unfortunately, the quality is about to start dipping in a big way.  Stay tuned, but temper your expectations from here on out.

Next week: Hoo boy. Where’s Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery when you need ‘em? 

Episode Spotlight: "The Last Night of a Jockey" (10/25/1963)

Season 5, Episode 5 (125 overall)

Originally aired 10/25/1963

Cayuga Production # 2616

50 years ago tonight, a little man’s dream of being big came true.  No, this isn’t the Tom Hanks movie.

Rod Serling’s “The Last Night of a Jockey” introduces us to disgraced horse jockey Grady, where we find him brooding drunkenly in his apartment after being banned from racing for horse doping. He engages in a conversation with a mysterious “inner voice” who describes itself thusly:

I'm your memory, your conscience, Mr. Grady. I'm every one of your aspirations and recollections. I'm every one of your failures and defeats. I also wear the wreaths of all your victories. I'm what you call the Alter Ego. 

Later, it elaborates further:

I'm the fate every man makes for himself. You generally find me down at the bottom of the barrel. I'm the strength dredged up in desperation. I'm the last gasp. In some cases I'm something very good. In some cases, depending upon the person I'm representing, I can work miracles. I come with heroism, sacrifice, strength. And even better than that, I can epitomize everything noble in men. 

The Alter Ego offers to grant the diminutive Grady a single wish. Grady, who harbors a grudge against the universe for his slight stature, wishes to be big. He takes a nap (or, more likely, passes out) and, when he awakens, is delighted to discover that he’s suddenly eight feet tall. He then receives a call from the racing commission with the unexpected news that he’s been granted a second chance. He looks ahead to future glories on the track, until a crash of lightning interrupts his reverie. He’s now ten feet tall, rendering his return to racing impossible.

It’s evident that Grady’s Alter Ego is much more than a simple voice in his head; it appears to be some sort of celestial entity capable of modifying its target’s physical form at will. This entity is only masquerading as a voice inside Grady’s head as a means of communicating with him. But what exactly is said entity? I have a theory: call me crazy, but I believe Grady’s Alter Ego is none other than The Twilight Zone itself.

The Twilight Zone isn't an easy thing to define. Despite Rod Serling’s opening narrations, it’s not really a physical location that you can “cross over into.” It’s more conceptual, more abstract: sometimes it’s a state of mind, sometimes it’s a strange situation or circumstance, sometimes it’s a supernatural event. Like ice cream or toothpaste (or even vodka these days), it comes in many flavors. But if there’s one prevalent manifestation of this nebulous entity, it’s a device by which cosmic justice is dispensed, righting that which is wrong through unusual means.  We see it time and time again throughout the series’ run: innocent or luckless people are granted second chances, while the cruel and selfish are knocked for a loop befitting their misdeeds. Grady falls into the latter category: his reinstatement (which turns out to be an unattainable carrot after his supernatural growth spurt) is nothing if not comeuppance for his years of cheating.

Rod Serling’s “The Last Night of a Jockey” is a fascinating variation on his earlier “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room.” Both concern small, petty men, both of whom encounter alternate versions of themselves in mirrors. Both feature tour-de-force performances from their respective leads, and we get both ends of the retribution spectrum by comparing them: Joe Mantell’s likable but misguided Jackie Rhodes (the titular Nervous Man), receives The Twilight Zone’s patented second chance, while the coarse and hostile Grady is given the proverbial other end of the stick. While many of Serling’s contributions to the show’s fifth season are warmed-over retreads of earlier, better episodes, this is an unexpected (and quite welcome) exception; a Yang to a pre-existing Yin, if you will.

Yin and Yang... in The Twilight Zone.

 

In the late 80’s, CBS/Fox released a number of episodes on VHS, each volume containing two half-hour episodes (there were 22 of these tapes released, I believe). The episodes chosen for each volume often shared similar themes (“The Prime Mover” and “The Fever” are both set in Las Vegas; “Perchance to Dream” and “Shadow Play” involve nightmares; “The Last Flight” and “King Nine Will Not Return” concern military aircraft; etc.).  Neither “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room” or “The Last Night of a Jockey” found inclusion in these releases; however, they would’ve made a natural, quite complimentary pair.

“The Last Night of a Jockey,” which takes place entirely in Grady’s cramped studio apartment, has an effectively claustrophobic vibe (which intensifies as Grady’s size increases). The sight of the ten foot-tall Grady stomping around his (now tiny) apartment is an effectively surreal sequence (I’m reminded of Orson Welles engaging in a similar room-trashing tantrum in Citizen Kane). 

Presumably Mickey Rooney was chosen for this role because of his previous work as a horse jockey in 1944’s National Velvet, not to mention his 5’2” height. It’s certainly tempting to dock this episode a point for typecasting; however, Rooney’s performance more than transcends any surface relation to that earlier role (or potential stereotyping). He’s an absolute revelation here, alternately violently hostile and mournfully self-loathing as Grady, and at the same time articulate and smug as Grady’s Alter Ego.

“The Last Night of a Jockey” has the distinction of spawning one of the strangest DVD commentary tracks ever recorded. The track (which first appeared in the Definitive Edition DVD season five set, and was surprisingly carried forward to the blu-ray edition) features an argumentative and uncooperative Rooney repeatedly barking at an unnamed interviewer and exhibiting several bizarre behaviors. When asked for any memories he has about appearing in the episode, he answers “No, I don’t remember it. I don’t care anything about it!” When asked how he might explain the episode to younger viewers, Rooney replies as follows: “The younger audience doesn’t want to see this. They’re all watching sex and things!” There’s much more where that came from; trust me, it’s a surreal and frequently uncomfortable listen.  Wait, I wonder if he was in character as Grady when he recorded it…? If so, the man’s a goddamned genius.

“The Last Night of a Jockey” is a welcome comeback after last week’s flaccid offering, setting the bar back up where season five started out. Sadly, that bar won’t stay up there for long.

Next week: She’s the doll that does everything. She moves, she talks, she…. kills???

Episode Spotlight: "A Kind of a Stopwatch" (10/18/1963)

Season 5, episode 5 (124 overall)

Originally aired 10/18/1963

Cayuga Production # 2609

50 years ago tonight, a Chatty Charlie talked his way straight into The Twilight Zone. Yeah, I know, that’s a pretty lame opening line, but frankly, this episode doesn’t merit me bringing my A game.

Patrick Thomas McNulty, in the words of writer Rod Serling, is “the biggest bore on Earth, (who) holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break.” His mouth clearly lacks a pause button, which means he registers pretty high on the ObnoxioMeter™ (I’m gonna squeeze him in between Henry Bemis and James B.W. Bevis).

"A Kind of a Stopwatch" features one of the simplest, most basic plots ever presented on the series. Guy is given a stopwatch by a stranger. The stopwatch stops time. Guy uses stopwatch to attempt a bank robbery. Guy accidentally breaks stopwatch, freezing time forever.

“A Kind of a Stopwatch” is limp and uninvolving; further, it’s difficult to ascertain what Serling’s intent was here (it plays like a light comedy up until the “surprise” tragic ending). I can’t begin to imagine why Serling would waste such an intriguing concept on such a lifeless story, but it’s not the first time he’s done this (“Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” I’m looking at you). The various questions raised by the script are not so much unanswered as outright ignored. Why does the magic stopwatch exist? What’s the point of freezing time? What application would such a thing be useful for (other than self-amusement or petty crime)? Since the stranger (Potts) is apparently ignorant of the watch’s magical properties, we can presume that he had no hand in creating it (and extrapolate from there that he in fact isn't a supernatural being with godlike powers), but this presumption leads to more questions: where the hell did the thing come from? And how did Potts end up with it? 

And if you start dwelling on the science of the whole thing, well…. it just leads to more frustration. It appears only people and animals (goldfish and, in a ridiculously stupid montage of stock footage, race horses) are affected by the stopwatch, since McNulty is able to eat a doughnut and steal money from the local bank, so inanimate objects are apparently immune. But wait, we also witness automobiles and other vehicles being affected (including a helicopter, which freezes in mid-air, which opens up even more questions), so apparently only some inanimate objects are affected.  I’m clearly overthinking this, but in the absence of anything interesting to lock onto, the mind can’t help but start digging. I’m totally cool with suspending my disbelief if I’m being entertained. If I’m not being entertained… well goddammit, things better at least make some kind of sense.

I've mentioned before that, as the series sputters toward its inevitable demise, we find copious examples of Serling borrowing from earlier, superior episodes.  Here, the ending is uncomfortably reminiscent of season one’s “Time Enough at Last” (the teleplay for which Serling also wrote). Instead of breaking his glasses, as the ill-fated Henry Bemis did, McNulty breaks the magic stopwatch; in both cases, the respective protagonists are cursed with a lifetime of solitude (but hey, at least the world isn't a decimated wasteland here).  The first scene in Joe’s Bar recalls “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” with its baseball conversations (Abner Doubleday’s name even gets dropped again!). There’s also a bit of “The Mind and the Matter” here too, I guess (but Archibald Beechcroft was able to will the human race back from wherever he’d sent them… the cornfield? I dunno). And McNulty is certainly reminiscent of the talkative Jamie Tennyson from “The Silence.”  Jesus, it’s like Serling just threw several pre-existing scripts into a blender and came up with this.

After freezing and unfreezing his goldfish, McNulty attributes his newfound ability to stop time to an alcohol-induced hallucination and turns in for the night.  We see a “clock wipe” transitional effect which advances the action to the next morning, which is the only time in the entire series that we see this particular visual cliché. I’d like to think this was intentional, since the episode deals with the concept of time, but I doubt there was that much thought behind it.

“A Kind of a Stopwatch” was semi-remade as “A Little Peace and Quiet” on the CBS revival series in 1985. The enchanted device wasn’t a watch; rather, a mysterious amulet did the time-stopping. The only thing interesting about it is the ending, in which the protagonist (A Christmas Story’s Melinda Dillon) freezes time mere seconds before a devastating attack on the US (presumably by Russia). The episode closes on a motionless tableau of panicked citizens and a nuclear missile hanging still in the sky overhead which, while effective, is blatantly ripped off from a 1952 short story by Arthur C. Clarke entitled “All the Time in the World,” which ends more or less the same way.

THE MUSIC

“A Kind of a Stopwatch” features an original music score by Nathan Van Cleave, who contributed a number of memorable scores to the series (among them “Perchance to Dream” and “The Midnight Sun”), but this isn't one of them. The only bright spot in this collection of comedic cues (Fred Steiner’s score for last season’s “The Bard” comes to mind) is a recurring melody loop evoking the passage of time, which appears several times throughout the episode. Here's the cue written for the first time-stopping event, appropriately titled "The First Time":

Van Cleave’s score for “A Kind of a Stopwatch” has never been released, but you’ll find it available as an isolated music track on the Definitive DVD and blu-ray sets for season five.

FAMILIAR FACES

While I find Richard Erdman annoying here as the loquacious McNulty, I absolutely love him in the 1951 film noir Cry Danger, in which he co-stars with Dick Powell.  More recently (that’s right, the 88 year-old guy is still kicking as of this writing), he’s enjoying a recurring role on NBC’s Community as Leonard, Greendale Community College’s oldest student. I’m a big fan of the series (it’s my second favorite comedy currently in production, right after Modern Family).

Joe the Bartender is played by Herbie Faye, who also played Charlie the Bartender in the 1962 big-screen adaptation of Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight. He also appeared in episodes of both The Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E., both of which starred our beloved TZ alum Jack Klugman (I know, it’s a pretty tenuous connection, but I’ll take any opportunity to mention Klugman’s name).

The announcer heard giving the play-by-play during the televised baseball game in Joe’s bar is Sam Balter, who played sportscasters in several other TV shows (including The Adventures of Superman and Climax!) and feature films (including 1951’s Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and 1955’s Kiss Me Deadly, another favorite noir of mine).  His work here, according to the Internet Movie Database, is his final credited role.

Ken Drake, here appearing as an unnamed customer in Joe’s bar, was also seen in season two’s “A Hundred Yards over the Rim.” He’ll also provide the spectral voice on the other end of Gladys Cooper’s telephone line in “Night Call” later this season. Oh, and he played the judge who pronounces the android Adam Link guilty of murder in the “I, Robot” episode of The Outer Limits.

And last but not least, Doris Singleton plays McNulty's boss's secretary. We never hear her name, but McNulty calls her "Doll," "Honey Doll," and "Honey Baby" at various points in the episode. Sexual harassment? Perhaps. TZ babe?  Definitely.

“A Kind of a Stopwatch” isn't exactly awful on the level of “Mr. Bevis,” but it’s pretty bad all the same. It feels much longer than 25 minutes which, given the time-freezing gag, is probably appropriate (oh, the irony!). It’s season five’s first true dud and, sadly, it won’t be the last.

Next week:

Mi Taylor, fifteen years after National Velvet:  older, certainly not wiser, and a whole lot sweatier.