16FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
Month: February 2019
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 34 – The After Hours
I’ll go through this episode but really one word suffices to explain my review, mannequins.
The lovely Anne Francis plays a young woman named Marsha White. She is in a large department store looking to purchase a gold thimble for her mother. An obliging elevator operator brings her express to the ninth floor. But when she gets off the elevator, the whole floor is deserted, dark and empty of merchandise. Looking confusedly for an explanation she is startled to see and hear a woman. A very elegantly dressed woman asks her if she needs service and Marsha tells her what she wants to buy. The woman produces the gold thimble and Marsha pays her. Then the woman looks at her strangely and asks her if she’s happy. They get into a little spat about the inappropriateness of the question and Marsha is headed back downstairs with her purchase. But studying the thimble she realizes it is damaged and she gets off at the third floor to visit the Complaint Department.
There she is told to return it to the Housewares Department for an exchange or a refund. However, when she states that she bought it on the ninth floor she is met with the news that the store has no ninth floor. While arguing with the staff about this, Marsha thinks she sees the impertinent sales lady on the floor and rushes to her but when she gets closer, she realizes that she is looking at a mannequin, one that is dressed exactly like the sales lady and in fact has the same face as her. Marsha faints and is taken care of by the store staff. Somehow when the store closes, Marsha finds herself locked in. She starts hearing the mannequins talking to her and when she retreats into the elevator it brings her to the ninth floor. There she is greeted by the sales lady and finally by all the mannequins now animated and acting as if they know her well. Incidentally the elevator operator turns out to be a mannequin too.
Obviously, Marsha is very upset by this turn of events but the sales lady calms her down and convinces her to try to remember the details of her recent past. Finally, Marsha remembers that she herself is a mannequin and was on the one-month vacation that mannequins get to take and go out into the world and be human. It seems she is a day late and the sales lady has been delayed a day on her turn because of it. She apologizes to the sales lady, tells the elevator operator that she had a good time and assumes a mannequin pose and in the next scene she’s just a mannequin on the store display. One of the sales managers (the very recognizable character actor James Millholin) who had been dealing with Marsha’s complaints is startled when he sees the resemblance to the recent patron who was so upset by the other mannequin but nothing comes of his astonishment. Finally, Serling makes some final comments about the story.
Mannequins. I’ll put up with a lot in a sci fi or fantasy story. And I am second to no man in my admiration of the acting and other attributes possessed by the lovely and charming Miss Anne Francis but I will not submit to mannequin tales. That is too much. F.
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 33 – Mr. Bevis
For those who’ve been reading the last few of these reviews you will have noticed that I prefer humorous and upbeat Twilight Zone episodes. So of course Rod Serling comes back with an episode so goofily silly and so ridiculously upbeat that he makes me eat my words.
Orson Bean plays the part of James B. W. Bevis. He’s a man-child who enjoys zither music, model ships, dogs, sliding down bannisters and playing football with the neighborhood kids. Unfortunately, he’s not as good at getting to work on time, paying his bills, owning a reasonable automobile or maintaining bureaucratic decorum.
His idiosyncratic lifestyle leads him to lose his job, car and apartment all in the same morning. While drowning his sorrow at the local watering hole he chances to notice in the bar mirror, a man seated in a chair behind him. When the man speaks to him he turns and realizes the man isn’t there. Or rather he’s visible only in the mirror. This is how he meets his guardian angel.
The angel, named J. Hardy Hempstead, explains that he has been the guardian angel to the Bemis family for hundreds of years and he has been responsible for saving James from the consequences of many of his careless and clumsy actions for many years. Furthermore, he is about to reverse the unfortunate results of the present day and restore his life to prosperity. In order to affect this change, he will alter Bevis in various ways to avoid the behaviors that have caused his problems.
Hempstead dresses Bevis in a suit, puts him three weeks ahead on his rent, gives him a sports car and when they arrive at work his bizarre desk decorations are gone and his boss is praising him for his efficient and diligent work habits and providing him with a ten dollar raise. But when Bevis tells Hempstead that he wants to celebrate his success by going home and playing ball with the kids on the street he is told that they won’t play with him anymore. Bevis is not that guy anymore.
It’s too much for Bevis. He insists that Hempstead returns things to the way they were previously. Immediately he gets fired again and he heads out the door uplifted to have gotten his priorities straightened out again. As he reaches the street his car is restored to working order, so he knows that Hempstead is still looking out for him. In fact, a fire hydrant that he is parked next to magically moves over a spot just as a cop is going to write him a ticket.
Let’s just say that there is such thing as too much of a good thing. I do prefer the sunnier side of the street and all that but this is a bit much. I’d give it a C but Orson Bean is on our side of the aisle (he was Breitbart’s father-in-law) so I’ll give it a B-.
15FEB2019 – Quote of the Day
“The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.”
Margaret Thatcher
15FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
A Little Good News – Barr Approved by Senate
Finally. Now shut down Mueller, arrest Comey and clear out the NSA, CIA and FBI, by tomorrow.
The Z-Man Addresses Fraternal Isolation
This post is along the same lines as my ideas about the need for a new fraternal organization.
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=16461#comments
Without a doubt the isolation is one of the biggest penalties we are paying for allowing leftists to destroy our society. Reading this reinforces my belief that starting something new is the way forward.
President Trump is Looking to End Disparate Impact as an Affirmative Action Tool
In addition to the other benefits we get from a Trump presidency he is working to defang all of the regulatory tools that Obama inflicted on us during his regime. Among those disparate impact is one of the most noxious.
Good read.
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 32 – A Passage for Trumpet
An alcoholic trumpet player named Joey Crown is trying to get a friendly club owner to hire him as a musician. But Joey has a very bad reputation as an unreliable drunk. The man gives Joey some money but turns him down. Joey is at the end of his rope and decides to sell his trumpet to the local pawn shop. The shop owner gives him eight bucks but immediately puts it in the window for twenty-five. Even more depressed now he goes out and spends the money on booze. Staggering down the street he sees a speeding truck heading toward him and jumps in front of it.
In the next scene it’s twilight and Joey finds himself on the ground but apparently unharmed. He is amazed and slightly elated. He goes up to a few of the people walking on the street but no one seems to be able to hear or see him. And he discovers that he has no reflection in a mirror. After talking to himself for a while he wanders off in a puzzled mood. While walking down an alley he hears someone playing a very skilled trumpet solo. He finds a man in formal attire sitting on a fire escape playing. Joey compliments the man’s playing. The man thanks him and asks if Joey would like to try the trumpet. Joey thanks him and takes the horn and plays it well. The man compliments him and speaks knowingly about various aspects of Joey’s life. Joey asks him how he can see him but nobody else can. Joey thinks that both of them are dead and the living can’t see them as ghosts. The man says that actually he himself is not dead, the others are dead and Joey is actually in a limbo state between life and death following his accident. The man says that Joey has the choice to live or die and he reminds Joey that he has a pretty wonderful gift of being able to bring emotion to others and joy to himself. He points out the good things in life that maybe Joey has forgotten about.
As the man walks away Joey asks him his name and he says, “Gabe, as in Gabriel.”
In the next scene Joey is on the sidewalk and a crowd is forming around him. He is dazed from the impact with the truck but he hasn’t been seriously injured. The truck driver is worried about police or insurance repercussions from the accident so he puts some cash in Joey’s hand and asks him to forget about the accident. Joey walks away and sees the pawn shop. He uses the money from the truck driver to buy back his trumpet.
That night Joey is on the roof of his apartment building happily playing the trumpet to himself when a young woman strikes up a conversation about how much she likes his playing. She says she’s new to the City and wishes she had someone to show her around. Joey offers to show here around Manhattan and you can tell that his life is turning around in every way.
Jack Klugman is Joey Crown. Klugman was in at least three Twilight Zone episodes and I actually had forgotten about this one altogether. This is the best of the three. It’s a very sentimental and almost hackneyed. But for me it strikes the right balance. God doesn’t come down out of the sky and blind Joey with the light of heaven. He sends an angel in the shape of a fellow musician to play a sweet trumpet song and talk man to man with him. Of course the Angel Gabriel is usually portrayed as blowing a blast on the trump of doom at the end of the world but a horn player takes his gigs where he finds them. I’m feeling sentimental. It’s an A.
14FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
