Dennis Hopper plays Peter Vollmer, a sort of street corner neo-Nazi who hasn\u2019t been having much success selling his neighbors on his ideas.\u00a0 He also has a friend, Ernst Ganz who also happens to be a Holocaust survivor.\u00a0 He\u2019s known Peter since he was a scared little boy beaten by his father.\u00a0 Ernst criticizes Peter for adopting the same cause that the Nazis had established back in their time.\u00a0 But he doesn\u2019t reject Peter because he still thinks of the scared little boy he pitied before.<\/p>\n
After Peter suffers a particularly humiliating failure in his street corner proselytizing, a man who stands cloaked in the shadows of the night tells Peter that his technique is all wrong and starts to teach him how to work the crowd and get them to sympathize with his message.\u00a0 This works remarkably well and Peter\u2019s group starts drawing larger and more enthusiastic crowds.<\/p>\n
Next the shadow man tells Peter that he needs a martyr to solidify his cause.\u00a0 Peter tells his comrades that one of their oldest members is a spy and orders them to murder him but to make it look like their enemies did it.\u00a0 They kill the man and indeed, the crowds become even bigger.<\/p>\n
Finally, Ernst sees how the movement is growing and decides he must stop it.\u00a0 He goes to the rally and belittles Peter and tells the crowd that Peter is just a cut-rate Hitler and a coward.\u00a0 Peter implores Ernst to stop but Ernst refuses.\u00a0 Peter slaps Ernst in the face but as he leaves he tells the crowd that Nazis always handle the truth with violence.<\/p>\n
Now the shadow man comes back and tells Peter he must kill Ernst.\u00a0 Peter complains that he is sick of taking orders from someone hiding in the shadows.\u00a0 The man steps forward and reveals himself to be Adolph Hitler. \u00a0Now Peter is completely overwhelmed and agrees to kill Ernst with the Luger pistol that Hitler gives him.\u00a0 Hitler\u2019s parting words to Peter is for him to remember that from now on he has no sentiment, and is made of steel.<\/p>\n
Peter goes to Ernst\u2019s apartment and after Ernst taunts him he pulls out the gun and kills Ernst.\u00a0 His dying words are that Peter has become steel and has therefore lost his humanity.\u00a0 Peter goes back to his headquarters and the police have come to arrest him for complicity in the murder of his \u201cmartyred\u201d comrade.\u00a0 Peter runs onto the roof of the building and is shot down by the police.\u00a0 As he lies dying, he tells the police that something is wrong because even though he\u2019s made of steel, he\u2019 bleeding.\u00a0 Then we see the shadow of Hitler walking away and Rod Serling gives a speech on how the Nazis still live through the hate and prejudice that still exists.<\/p>\n
Whew!\u00a0 Okay, Rod thinks the Nazis are coming.\u00a0 Now this is in the 1960s when we\u2019ve been fighting proxy wars against the Russian and Chinese communists for decades and Fidel Castro is emplacing Russian nukes in Cuba.\u00a0 But Nazis are what\u2019s worrying Rod.\u00a0 Looking back on what that attitude spawned I guess Rod is why the Social Justice Warriors rule the campuses and infect just about every institution in the United States.\u00a0 For the fruits of this hysteria I\u2019ll have to flunk Mr. Serling on this overwrought exercise.\u00a0 F.<\/p>\n
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