Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 11 – Still Valley

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I guess this would be called historical fantasy.

Sergeant Joseph Paradine is a confederate scout near the front in the Civil War, probably in and around northern Maryland.  While investigating troop movements he discovers that a whole column of Union soldiers is frozen in place on the main street of a small town.  The men are frozen in mid stride and some are even frozen in the act of drinking from a canteen or lifting a heavy weight.  They are as still as statues and nothing happening around them wakes them from this state.

While trying to figure what was going on, Paradine hears a noise coming from a house on the street and discovers a crazy old man named Teague who claims he is responsible for the frozen Yankee soldiers.  Asked how he did it he informs Paradine that he is the seventh son of the seventh son of a seventh son.  His family has been full of warlocks for generations and he has a book of spells that can freeze the whole Union Army.  When asked why he doesn’t he tells Paradine that he is about to die.  So, he tells the sergeant to take the book and do it for him.  But before he dies, he explicitly tells Paradine that when he casts the spells, he is invoking the Devil.

Back at the camp of Paradine’s outfit he returns and tells the tale of what he saw and what can be accomplished with the power of the book.  His commanding officer thinks Paradine is suffering from delusions.  But a company returns from an area where Paradine has tested the power of the book and attests that a frozen column of Yankee soldiers is indeed right over the ridge from their camp for all to see.

Now the soldiers are beginning to become excited by the prospect of snatching a Confederate victory out of the jaws of defeat.  But as Paradine starts to read the spell he realizes that it explicitly renounces God.  Now, even though his CO is urging him to read the spell, Paradine explains that if he reads the spell then instead of Damn Yankees it will be the Confederacy that will be damned.  His comrades beg him to remember that if he doesn’t do it the Confederacy is dead.  Paradine replies that if the Confederacy must die then at least it will be buried in hallowed ground.  And saying this he throws the book into the camp fire.  In the epilogue, Serling says that the troop headed north the next day and ended up in a town called Gettysburg.  The tone at the end is a little too solemn and righteous for a fantasy but it seemed well meaning.

Gary Merrill played Paradine and did an admirable job.  Teague was played by an actor named Vaughn Taylor that I am unfamiliar with but he was very amusingly over the top.

This is a minor tale but it gets the job done.  Tastes will vary on this one but I’ll stake it to a solid B.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 10 – The Midnight Sun

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When we meet Norma and her neighbor Mrs. Bronson, they are just becoming the last two people living in their Manhattan apartment building.  Their other neighbors, the Shusters are leaving town to head north to the Finger Lakes to escape the deadly heat associated with the death spiral of the Earth into the Sun.  Apparently, the temperature at midnight (when by the way the sun is still high in the sky) is 110◦F and in only a day or two survival will become impossible.  So, the cause of the change in Earth’s orbit is unexplained but we soldier on.

Norma is an artist and seems to specialize in landscapes featuring gigantic suns with hills and buildings in the foreground.  The women agonize over their fate and cry a lot.  In the next scene Norma has shed her dress and is stylishly sweating in her underwear which is actually a great improvement to the show.  It distracts from the lack of action.  When Norma goes to the store, she gets some fruit juice they open a can and cry some more.  Later on, a man breaks into the building and forces his way into Norma’s apartment and drinks all her water.  Then he tells us his wife and baby have died and he’s at the end of his rope.  He leaves and the women cry some more.  Then Norma paints a picture of a cool blue water fall and Mrs. Bronson goes crazy and wants to swim in the picture but luckily, she dies before she can try and Norma cries some more.

In the next scene it’s a 120◦F and the thermometer explodes and the liquid leaks out and the paint drips down from Norma’s paintings and she screams and falls down.

In the next scene it’s really, really dark and cold and Mrs. Bronson is alive again and we find out that Norma was having a fever dream about the heat and actually the Earth is flying away from the Sun and in a day or two survival will become impossible.  But at least nobody is crying at the moment.

Okay, I’m being a little sarcastic.  It’s not awful but it’s kinda slow.  The actresses are sympathetic and the acting isn’t terrible but let’s say my attention wavered.  The actress playing Norma is quite attractive and I’ll even give a half point for the surprise ending but honestly this is a C+ at best.

The Highwaymen – A Movie Review

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Camera Girl rarely requests a movie so when she does, I try to meet her halfway.  She told me she saw an interview with Kevin Costner on one of her girlie morning shows and he was talking about a Netflix movie he was in called “The Highwaymen.”  We both liked Costner in “Open Range,” so I was willing to give this a shot.  I’m glad I did.

Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson play two retired Texas Rangers (actually the Rangers had been disbanded by a woman Texas governor named Ma Ferguson (played by Kathy Bates) who are called out of retirement out of desperation because Bonnie and Clyde were on a murder and robbery spree that even the FBI couldn’t stop.  Costner and Harrelson are (respectively) Frank Hamer and Maney Gault.  Although most of the time Maney calls Frank, Pancho.  The two old lawmen discover that they’ve lost more than a step and after testing out their current accuracy with pistols they decide to invest heavily in machine guns to try and even up the fight with the Barrow gang.

Every few days the Barrows murder a few more police and always in a brutal and sadistic way.  When one particular shooting is recorded to have involved a thousand rounds of ammunition Maney questions if he and Pancho are even sane for contemplating a confrontation with these trigger-happy killers.  And in fact, the FBI is also dead set against the old pair getting involved in the manhunt once the two rangers leave Texas soil.  They taunt them for their old-fashioned methods and flaunt their access to wire-tapping information and coordinated roadblocks across the Mid-West.

But what the old men do possess is an understanding of how these desperados think and operate.  Hamer anticipates the ways that the gang avoids the police and why they will end up down in Louisiana where they will face their reckoning.

And of course, since this is the story of Bonnie and Clyde, we see a torrent of lead, riddle the gangsters’ car and bodies with bullets.  It is a sobering sight.

During the manhunt we learn a little about Maney and Frank and how they developed the reputation as mankillers.  We see that Gault is a man filled with remorse for some of the excesses that were forced on him in his days shooting it out with bandits.  And we find out that Hamer is the ruthless opponent he is because of his personal knowledge of how dangerous and unhesitating their opponents really are.

Although the movie shows just how popular Bonnie and Clyde were for the young and poor people in the Mid-West it in no way portrays them as victims.  Bonnie is especially shown to take a sadistic delight in terrifying her victims at the moment of death.  The one really touching scene is when Hamer comes face to face with Clyde Barrow’s father.  You see the opposite points of view on what caused Clyde’s fate but he learns that the man has come to terms with the action that he knows Hamer must perform, kill his son.  He needs it done to put an end to his family’s agony.

Costner and Harrelson are an odd couple and Costner is the straight man to Harrelson’s slightly eccentric character.  They do a good and generally understated job of showing us the story of how Bonnie and Clyde were finally stopped.

It’s a good crime drama and well worth the time spent.  Well done, Camera Girl, well done.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 9 – Deaths-Head Revisited

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A man shows up at a small hotel in a German town and signs in as Mr. Schmidt.  But the hotel clerk recognizes him as an SS officer who used to work at the local concentration camp during World War II (this story is taking place in 1960s Germany).

In the next scene the man is dropped off at the camp (Dachau) and walks around smiling and reminiscing about the death and torture he doled out during his time as Captain Lutze of the SS.  In the middle of his reverie he hears a door open and he sees a man dressed in the garb of one of the concentration camp prisoners of seventeen years ago.  And in fact, he remembers the man’s name was Becker.  Lutze commends Becker on his youthful appearance saying he looks very much as he remembered him seventeen years ago.  He asks Becker if he is a caretaker of the site and Becker evasively says that in a manner of speaking, he is.

Lutze attempts to convince Becker to put aside the past and accept that Lutze was only following orders when he worked at the camp.  Becker refuses this reasoning and instead characterizes Lutze as not a soldier but a sadist who relished his activities.  He lists Lutze’s crimes in the various areas of the camps.  The gallows where men were hanged by the neck or left hanging by their limbs in agony.  The medical building where vivisection of men, women and children was carried out.  The gate where men were machine gunned down in crowds.  Becker names all these things and then he reveals to Lutze that a trial will be conducted and judged by the men whom Lutze mistreated.

And as Lutze looks around one of the barracks, he sees the other prisoners in their uniforms looking at him with expressions that accused him of these high crimes.  As the charges are enumerated, Lutze panics and passes out.

When Lutze awakes Becker informs him that the trial is over and he has been found guilty.  Now Lutze becomes angry and arrogant dismissing Becker’s talk of punishment as foolish but as Lutze begins to act threateningly toward Becker, he stops short and seems shocked.  Becker smiles and tells Lutze that he has remembered correctly that Lutze killed him seventeen years ago just as the Americans were liberating the camp.  And so, it doesn’t seem as if Lutze will be able to murder his way out of this situation.  Now Becker speaks clearly about what is happening.  The ghosts of the men Lutze murdered haunt the camp and now that he has returned, they will pass judgement on him.

Becker pronounces the sentence.  He says Lutze will now experience all the agonies that he doled out against the prisoners of the camp for the rest of his life.  And that this pain would render him insane.  And finally, Becker ends by saying, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from God.”

Lutze goes insane and in the last scene a doctor and the police are gathering up Lutze and the doctor says of the camp, “Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?”

In his epilogue Serling says all the camps must remain because, “they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.”

Let me first address the artistic aspect of this episode.  Oscar Beregi plays Captain Lutze and I am not familiar with him.  Becker is played by Joseph Schildkraut who I best remember from a much lighter but memorable part he played in the depression era comedy, “The Shop Around the Corner.”  Both men did an admirable job with their decidedly difficult parts.

With respect to the didactic aspect of the episode I’ll address a couple of points.

This episode is said to be a reaction to the contemporary trial of Adolf Eichmann.  Eichmann had been the architect of the concentration camp system and Serling used this episode to make sure that the world had not forgotten the Nazi genocide of the European Jews.  When he says that keeping the camps around will prevent men from forgetting the lesson they teach, I’m afraid that is an overly optimistic assessment.  Even at the time, the USSR and the USA were poised with tens of thousands of ICBMs with a combined killing power to make the Holocaust look like a slipshod affair.  And as the Rwanda genocide showed us many years later you don’t have to be a Nazi (or even ever have heard of them) to butcher your fellow man on a wholesale basis.

My second comment has to do with Becker’s statement about Lutze’s sentence, “This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.”  This seems unlikely.  For there not to be hatred and revenge associated with the victims of such atrocities would be non-human.  Even a saint would revolt at foregoing hatred and revenge for such evil.

A

Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 1)

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Dramatis Personae: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – (AOC); Nancy Pelosi (NP); Al Gore – (AG); Narrator who looks and sounds like Rod Serling – (NRS); Barack Obama – (BO); Michelle Obama – (MO);

 

Scene 1- Unknown Office building; 8 pm Mid-July

A narrator, who looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Rod Serling circa 1961, is standing in front of a map of the United States

NRS – Tonight’s cautionary tale is most unusual and requires that we imagine the following.  Here behind me is a map of the United States.  But what if suddenly it disappeared (whole map goes dark except one point of light) and all that was left was a tiny dot called Washington D.C.?  Now imagine that within this tiny world there was no longer radio, television, the internet, telephones, gas engines or even electricity.  And assume that the only thing that farmers were allowed to grow was vegetables.  No beef, pork, chicken or fish.  And finally imagine that even wishing for any of these things was now a death sentence executed by a monster.  If you can imagine all that you’ve just entered the Bizarro Zone (well I couldn’t use the real name).

Scene 2 – A ramshackle farm building with peeling paint and a wooden porch with a porch swing with an old haggard woman fanning herself with a piece of paper.

NRS – And here is the lair of the monster, a farmhouse with all the misery of pre-industrial life on display.  Over there in the swing on the porch is Aunt Nancy Pelosi, she once had the most influence over the monster but one time she hinted that maybe eliminating all private jets wouldn’t be a “good thing” and she was reduced to the cracked-brain non-gavel wielding hag you see before you.

NP – Hey not so much of the hag thing.  I just got another facelift and I’m a damn good-looking babe, you male chauvinist pig.

NRS – As I was saying, the monster does not like to be contradicted.  Oh, and I’ve forgotten to introduce the monster.  She’s a bug-eyed petulant millennial Latina from the Bronx who can’t even spell climatology but don’t be fooled.  There’s a nasty mean streak behind that googly eyed expression and what passes for a brain is completely in charge of her surroundings.  Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or as she’s known to her fawning minions A-oh-see. (swift view change to show AOC trying to get something unstuck from between her horse teeth with her pinky nail, then noticing the camera and glaring in a cross-eyed scowl.

Scene 3 – Same farmhouse from the viewpoint facing the road.  An overweight man (Al Gore) on a delivery bicycle is straining along the driveway to the house.  On the ground in front of the house A-oh-see is playing in the dust.  He pulls up in front of her.

AG – Hi, there A-oh-see.  My it’s good to see you today.  Whatcha doing there?  Whatever it is it’s sure good, but I was just wondering what you were doing there.

AOC – I was figuring out how many white men it takes to pull a wagon for ten women of color in the next Cinco de Mayo parade.

AG – Oh, that’s a real good thing.  Why I never knew so much good figuring going on as you sure can do.

AOC – Yeah, go away now, you’re starting to make me mad.

(Gore quickly scurries away toward the house.  He carries some boxes into the kitchen and addresses Michelle Obama who is shucking corn in the sink)

AG – Hello Mrs. Obama, it’s certainly a good day today and we all just love A-oh-see so much, that’s right, she was out there figuring and figuring and it was just great.

MO – Hello Al.  Yeah, it’s certainly a great day all right and we’re real happy here, we are.

AG – I brought you some things for the party tonight.  I’ve got corn flour and whole wheat flour and baking soda.

MO – Have you got any white flour for the cake?

AG – Oh, we don’t have any more of that.  Not since A-oh-see explained to us just how evil white is.  No, we don’t want none of that, we don’t.  I mean we used to think it was useful but it’s real good that A-oh-see set us straight on that.  Well not straight, we don’t say straight no more we don’t, no sir, I mean no ma’am, Ma’am.

MO – Yeah, it’s funny how you forget how things used to be when you could just say something without being afraid.

AG – Oh, it’s good that you said that but I don’t think you mean it because it’s much better now that we don’t say anything that A-oh-see says is bad.  It’s real, good.

MO – That’s right, it’s real, good.  But last week when she was denouncing honey because it was stolen from bees, she got so excited from screaming that her eyes were extra bulged out and I thought maybe her blood pressure might be reaching maybe five hundred or something, mumble, mumble, mumble…

(Al Gore looking panicky and grabbing his box and heading for the door)

AG – I better be getting on, but can you let A-oh-see know that I got her corn flour that she likes so much?  Can you tell her it was me who got it specially for her?

MO – I sure will Al.  But don’t worry she hates you much less than most other white men.

Scene 4 – Same farmhouse, upstairs where Barack Obama is putting on his tie for the party.  He looks in the mirror and sees A-oh-see staring at him in her friendliest cross-eyed frown.

BO – Oh, hi there, A-oh-see.  It’s good that you were standing behind so quiet like.

AOC – None of the other congress persons came to play with me today.  I wanted congress persons to play with today.

BO – Yes, it’s good that you wanted them to come but last time you denounced Debbie Wasserman Schultz to the Congressional Black Caucus as a Zionist collaborator and they shaved her head and painted it red.  Folks were awful upset about that.

AOC – But I want to play with other congress persons.

BO – Tell you what, we’ll invite some of the rinos.  They’ll be so grateful just for being asked that they’ll come even if you do denounce them.  they’re used to it anyway.  Anyway, A-oh-see everybody loves you.  You’re everybody’s favorite.

AOC – But I remember one time that somebody thought bad things about me.  I can’t remember who it was.  Who was that?

BO – Oh, that was Joe Crowley, after you beat him in the primary.  He said you weren’t qualified.  But don’t worry, Michelle had the FBI and the IRS defenestrate him so he won’t bother you anymore.

AOC – That’s right Joe Crowley, he was a bad white man, a very bad white man.  I hate anybody who doesn’t do what I want.

BO – But everybody loves you A-oh-see, you’re everybody’s favorite.  Now come on, let’s get ready for the party.

 

To be continued …

American Nations – A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America – by Colin Woodard – A Book Review – Part 2

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(The first part of this review is found here)

 

In the second and third parts of the review I’ll go in depth about how the characteristics of the more important “nations” influenced how the political and social divisions in the later history of the United States would align.

Although the Spanish, French and even the English at Jamestown colonized earlier than the New England colonists, the Pilgrims and the Puritans were the biggest influence on early American life.  The Puritans left England, en masse, from mostly East Anglia to found a populous religiously intolerant Calvinist “heaven on Earth’ that they could run their own way.  They despised the aristocratic Norman noblemen and believed that a tightly knit town life run by selectmen who all agreed with the Puritan values would give them the social cohesion and resources needed to flourish and spread their way of life to the surrounding communities and eventually the other nations.

The abiding characteristic that marks the Yankee is his desire to interfere with anyone else who does not live life the way the Puritan thinks it should be lived.  They are inveterate busybodies who cannot abide anyone enjoying life except on their terms.  This was notable in the 1600s and is equally true today.  Even with the demise of their belief in God they have turned their social justice proclivities into a cult that invests much of their time and energy in policing everybody else’s business.

As a practical consequence of their numbers and their organized approach to life they quickly spread in all available directions.  They spread north and east into New Hampshire, Maine and even the Canadian Maritime Provinces.  They went west and south into Connecticut, Long Island and eventually most of New York State.  Later when the western areas of the continent became accessible, they migrated to the Great Lakes region essentially colonizing all of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and parts of Ohio and even northwestern Pennsylvania.  And much later, in the mid to late 1800s, they even colonized the Pacific Northwest forming the core of Oregon and Washington and even areas of northern California.

One very exceptional branch that emerged late from Yankeedom (as Woodard names the New England founding) was the Mormons.  They were a radical sect founded by a Yankee from New York state named Joseph Smith.  Their extremely unorthodox beliefs and community couldn’t hope to be accepted in the confines of orthodox New England so they eventually fled the United States for Utah.  But it is interesting that their New England heritage of religious communalism is probably the only way that they were able to survive the high desert of the Far West.  Their cooperative lifestyle allowed farming in an area where all other small farmers eventually failed and left.

Diametrically opposed to the culture and the approach of the Puritans of Yankeedom were the landed gentry who colonized Virginia and later the Carolinas.  These men were landed gentry who utilized indentured farmers and later on, black slaves to become wealthy from tobacco, rice and sugar estates that they were given by their aristocratic connections in England.  In Virginia, the Carolinas and later in Georgia, the local government was a closely held enterprise of the wealthy few who did not even permit the common men to vote and certainly not hold office.  And once the system of farming was worked out, these men accumulated great wealth and lived more sumptuously than their patrons back in England ever dreamed of.  The colony of Virginia never expanded much beyond its original borders but the deep south plantations of the Carolinas moved steadily west through the gulf state areas of Alabama, Mississippi, and eventually into Florida.  Later when cotton became the great cash crop, areas of Tennessee, Arkansas and even Texas were also included in this plantation society.  These aristocrats were the spiritual descendants of the landed nobility of England and felt that they were owed obedience by the common people and should answer only to themselves in the way they transacted business and lived their lives.  Woodard compares the rivalry between the Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of the Deep South as an analogue to the sides of the English Civil War where the puritan roundheads under Cromwell fought to the death against the cavalier gentlemen of King Charles.  And indeed, the documents of the time show that both sides saw it in the same terms.

At all times and even during the American Revolution when these opponents were allies and even countrymen a rivalry and a bitter hatred existed between these two “nations.”

In the next installment I’ll talk about how the other nations and especially the Appalachians figured into this wrestling match for control of North America.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 8 – It’s a Good Life

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Okay, so this is it, this is the payoff.  This is the quintessential Twilight Zone episode.  Not even I dare to dispute the primacy of this one.  This is the A+ by which all other episodes are measured against and found wanting.

Rod Serling is standing in front of a map of the United States when the whole thing goes dark except for one dot on the map that he tells us is Peaksville, Ohio.  He tells us that the people there don’t know if the rest of the world was destroyed or if they have been removed from the rest of reality but either way, they are cut off from everything else.  And he tells us that this was done by a monster and that the monster rules this little world through fear and intimidation.  He has eliminated electric power, automobiles, radio and television and all other modern conveniences.  Then Mr. Serling shows us the monster.  It’s a cute little six-year-old boy named Anthony Fremont.  He can read thoughts and he can create or destroy anything he wants to just by thinking it.

Next, we see life in Peaksville.  A grocery store bicycle delivery man shows up at the Fremont farm and says some polite things about the three headed gophers that Anthony is playing with just in time for Anthony to get tired of it and kill it with his mind.  And then he sends it into the cornfield which means it disappears.

The deliveryman talks to Mrs. Fremont about the things that have run out in the store and about the tomato soup that he found because he knows Anthony likes it.  And we meet Aunt Amy who has been crack brained since Anthony stopped her from singing a while ago.  Anthony likes music but not singing.  And then we see Mr. Fremont in his room getting ready for a party that night and talking to Anthony about his day.  Anthony says that no children came to play with him and he wanted them to.  His father reminds Anthony that last time children visited him he sent them to the cornfield and if he keeps doing that eventually there won’t be anybody left.  Just then a collie dog starts barking outside and we find out that Anthony doesn’t like dogs, so soon we hear a yelp of pain and the dog joins the three headed gopher in the cornfield.

That night is a dual celebration.  Anthony will present one of his occasional television shows and it is also Dan Hollis’s birthday.  The television show is a vicious battle between two triceratopses jabbing each other with their horns and attempting to throw each other off a cliff.  When one dinosaur is victorious the television goes blank and Anthony declares, “that’s all the television there is.”  Ethel presents her husband Dan with two birthday presents, a bottle of brandy and a Perry Como record album.  Dan speculates that maybe they could listen to the instrumental introduction before the singing.  But Mr Fremont declares that it would be too risky.

While the rest of the party gathers around while Anthony listens to Pat Riley play the piano Dan Hollis starts getting drunk on his brandy.  Initially he just becomes maudlin about the dwindling supply of whiskey but eventually he starts railing against Anthony and blaming his parents for bringing him into the world.  When Anthony becomes angry with him, Dan tells Anthony, “that’s right you think those bad thoughts about me and maybe some man whose had enough of this will take some something hard across your skull and end this.”  For a second it looks like Aunt Amy is reaching for a fireplace poker but then she backs off.  Anthony says to Dan, “You’re a bad man, a very bad man and you keep thinking bad thoughts about me.”  Then he points his finger at Dan and as a shadow on the wall we see Dan turn into a jack in the box.  Then we see Dan’s face bobbing as if on the jack in the box.  Mr. Fremont begs his son, “please son, send it to the cornfield.”  And he does.  Then he warns Ethel Hollis that she better not think bad thoughts or he’ll do the same to her too.

While everyone tries to put a happy face on what has happened, they notice that it’s snowing (in the summer).  Mr. Fremont starts to say that that will destroy half the crop but then he squelches his thought and finishes off by saying it’s a good thing that Anthony made it snow.  And finally, he says with all the sincerity of a man with a gun to his head that tomorrow is gonna be a real good day.

This is the best Twilight Zone episode.  It’s the vision of hell on earth.  It’s a petulant child with the powers of life and death.  The story is original, creepy and fun.  A+

Conservative Tree House has an Article About Brennan’s Involvement in the Russia-gate Origin

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Sundance over at CTH has remarkable stamina for untangling the Gordian Knot of the Russia-Gate conspirators.  I confess it’s more than I can stomach.  But if you are interested in who did what and when, there is an enormous story to be read.  I just hope some of them end up in the slammer.  But time will tell.

Rand Paul: “it was Brennan who insisted the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report”…

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 7 – The Grave

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A western themed Twilight Zone with Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef and Strother Martin, what’s not to like?  Lee Marvin is a bounty hunter named Conny Miller who comes home to find that the man he’s been hunting for months, Pinto Sykes, arrived back in town ahead of him and was finished off by an armed deputation of eight townsmen who opened fire on him all together.

The men tell Conny that before he died Pinto told them that Conny wasn’t really trying to catch him because he was afraid of Pinto.  And Pinto left word that if Conny ever showed up near his grave he would reach up and grab Conny.  Conny declared that he was never afraid of Pinto in life and he certainly wasn’t afraid of him now that he was dead.

Two of the men, Johnny Rob and Steinhart (played by Lee van Cleef) each bet Conny a twenty-dollar gold piece that he won’t visit the grave that night.  Another man named Mothershed (played by Strother Martin) said he would have bet against Conny too but he was out of cash.  Conny covers the bets and is about to leave when the men ask him how they will know if he really went all the way onto the grave.  It’s decided that he will stick a bowie knife into the earth and leave it there for them to see in the morning.

When Conny gets to the graveyard he meets pinto’s sister Ione Sykes who seems slightly unhinged and who laughs and tells Conny that Pinto is waiting for him.  She leaves and he heads for the grave.  At this point Conny is extremely jumpy and he pulls his gun when he hears something clanking in the high wind.  But he reaches the grave and plunges the knife into the grave.  But when he turns to leave, he seems to be pulled down onto the grave.

The next day the men are worried that something has happened to Conny.  They meet Ione who is going to place a dinner plate on Pinto’s grave as a memento.  When they get to the grave, they find Conny dead on the ground and are horrified.  But Steinhart explains it all as completely natural.  He theorized that Conny was very scared but managed to plunge his knife into the ground but as they could see he plunged it through the hem of his long coat and when he tried to get up, he felt the tug of the coat held by the knife and imagined Pinto was pulling him down and had a heart attack.  This seemed logical but Ione, who was wearing a long cape noted that the wind last night was the same as it was then and showed them that the wind couldn’t have blown his coat across the grave.

A very amusing ghost story with some of the best western actors of the time.  A-.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 6 – The Mirror

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Peter Falk is Ramos Clemente, who is a stand in for Fidel Castro.  Clemente and his four lieutenants are celebrating their victory over and capture of the former dictator De Cruz (a stand-in for Battista).  The five friends toast each other with the wine they’ve captured in the Presidential Palace.  De Cruz is brought in and Clemente taunts him with the prospect of a slow torturous death.  De Cruz dismisses his taunts and rails at Clemente with the reality that now he was the new dictator and he would be living in fear of the next avenging angel to follow.  De Cruz follows up by telling them that the ornate mirror on the wall of the Presidential Office is magic and will show Clemente the face of his would-be assassins.  Clemente sends off De Cruz to his fate but we can see that de Cruz’s words have hit home in Clemente’s mind.

At this point one of Clemente’s lieutenants upbraids him for treating De Cruz in an extralegal fashion.  He insists that Clemente cannot murder De Cruz but must have him tried in court.  Clemente explodes at him and calls him a fool and dismisses his criticism as stupid.  But when Clemente turns away from his critical comrade, he sees in the mirror that this man is now holding a gun as if he means to shoot Clemente.  But when he turns back to the man, he has no gun and isn’t even looking toward him.  But now Clemente remembers De Cruz’s words of the magic mirror.  He accuses the man of plotting his murder.  And immediately Clemente pushes his comrade through the balcony doors and throws him down to his death.

Now two of his other three lieutenants are shocked and agitated and upbraid him for what they see as insanity.  By the way one of these two is dressed and made up to look like Che Guevara.  Clemente argues with them and when he turns to the mirror again the two men are shown with a gun and knife.  He tells the two men to go down to the prison and make sure De Cruz hasn’t escaped.  They go reluctantly and as soon as they are gone, he calls the gate of the prison and tells the guards to kill his two lieutenants when the appear.  Then he tells the guards to let him know when it is done.

Facing his last comrade, he asks him whether his turn will be next to turn on Clemente.  The man says that there are two kinds of men, followers and leaders and he himself will follow Clemente until that day when he no longer thinks Clemente is the strongest.  But he also tells Clemente that he can never again think of other men as his friends.  A dictator has no friends, only followers or rivals.  This seems to satisfy Clemente.  Next the lieutenant answers the phone and informs Clemente that his two men have been executed by the prison guards.  This seems to depress Clemente and he turns away.  But when he looks in the mirror again, he sees his last comrade leering at him and holding a glass of wine.  When he turns around the man is not holding any wine.  When shortly after the man offers Clemente a glass of wine, he assumes the man is trying to poison him.  He slaps the glass out of his hand and accuses him.  The man mocks him for believing in magic mirrors but despite this Clemente shoots him dead.  Now he is alone.

In the next scene the Catholic priest in charge of the area comes to Clemente and demands that the firing squads that have been working around the clock killing De Cruz’s men end.  Clemente refuses saying he will kill off all his would-be assassins.  The priest leaves but he tells Clemente that all dictators always miss the one real assassin.

As he leaves and closes the door Clemente in desperation throws his gun through the mirror and a few seconds later the priest and the guards outside the door hear a shot ring out and enter to find Clemente has committed suicide.

At the time Castro was in the news having just overthrown Battista and taken control of Cuba.  Of course, no magic mirror overthrew Castro and he only finally died a few years ago but Peter Falk is so much fun to watch in this thing as a crazy Latin American dictator.   A-