This is a morality play dressed up in Western trappings. Denton is a former gun hand turned town drunk. He turned to drink because he had to shoot a sixteen-year old kid who came gunning for his reputation as the fastest gun. One day while Denton is lying on the ground after being humiliated by the local bully he finds a Colt pistol and picks it up. When the bully tries to use the gun as an excuse to murder Denton in a shootout Denton accidentally fires off a few shots that each time hit a target that saves his life. Inspired by his change of luck, he walks away from the saloon and tries to restart his life. But his success with the gun reignites his reputation and a gunfighter challenges him to a duel. While preparing to sneak out of town before the fight Denton runs into a travelling peddler named Henry J. Fate. We’ve been seeing Mr. Fate in every scene where Denton had his amazing luck with the gun and so we already know he’s the source of the gun and Denton’s success. He’s peddling a “potion” that makes anyone who takes it a dead shot for exactly ten seconds. Denton accepts the potion and shows up to the duel. When his opponent also drinks a potion before the gunfight it is of course not shocking that both shooters end up hitting their opponents in the gun hand. And a conveniently present doctor informs each man that he will never be fast with a gun again. Mr. Denton tells his young opponent that they are both blessed with being free of the gunfighter’s fate. Denton is played by Dan Duryea who was a fairly well-known character actor of the Hollywood golden age and the town bully was played by Martin Landeau who was a well known television actor especially from the long running, Mission Impossible series. Landau shows up in several other episodes of the Twilight Zone. I would rate this episode as fair. The storyline is mildly entertaining but hardly original or surprising.
Category: Twilight Zone
individual reviews of all the Twilight Zone series episodes
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 2 – One for the Angels
A sidewalk pitchman (the guy with the foldable suitcase/table full of cheap junk) named Lou Bookman (Ed Wynn) is visited by Death. Not wanting to die he negotiates a delay until he can “Make a Pitch for the Angels.” Death agrees to this but once the agreement is made Bookman gloats that he’ll stop making pitches forever. But the consequences involve the death in his place of a small child that Bookman knows. The little girl is struck by a truck and will die at midnight when Bookman was scheduled to die. Bookman awaits Death and delays him by distracting him with his most persuasive sales pitch and succeeds in saving the girl’s life. And of course, that pitch was the “One for the Angels.” And at that point Mr. Bookman is ready for his journey with Death who really isn’t a bad guy.
Wynn was a comic actor of the vaudeville era. My only other memory of him was a small part in the original Mary Poppins movie from the 1960s. The whole teleplay is highly sentimental and affected but it works. It’s a gentle fantasy that tugs at the heartstrings and appeals to our sympathy for the little guy who also happens to be a nice guy. For myself, being a rank sentimentalist, it appeals to my childhood view of how the world should be. So, it feels comfortably familiar. In other words, it’s nostalgic escapism and sometimes that’s exactly what I want. You have to decide for yourself if this type of story is acceptable entertainment for you.
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 1 – Where is Everybody?
I am embarking on a long voyage of discovery. And like most long voyages it will be a combination of rare moments of pleasure immersed in long stretches of boredom. That’s right, I intend to review the whole Twilight Zone series in its original order. You will benefit from my suffering and will thereby know which episodes to skip, which to give a chance and which to view without fear of boredom. Greater love hath no blogger than this, that he lay down his sanity for his readers.
Season 1
Episode 1 – Where is Everybody?
Earl Holliman (the guy who played the cook on Forbidden Planet) is a man wandering around a town that seems to have had people in it immediately before but now is completely empty. He finds fresh coffee, lit cigarettes and running machines but no people. I guess it’s supposed to be mysterious and claustrophobic but mostly it’s just boring and annoying. At the end we find out he’s an astronaut in an isolation chamber hallucinating. This is preparation for a future moon mission. Granted this was made in 1959 and Sputnik launched in 1957. That means the Space Race was all the rage. So maybe this seemed more interesting back then. But honestly, it’s really dull. This was the first episode of the whole series. The fact that they would lead with this should have been a warning to viewers of what was to come. Not a very auspicious beginning.