The Twilight Zone - Nothing in the Dark**
It is so funny but I have been thinking about Nothing in the Dark since perhaps Thursday, wanting to
watch and write about it for the blog. But that chance to really give it my
full attention and absorb its message—which has always resonated with me, even
since I was a youth watching it during marathons—came early Sunday morning,
around 1 AM. I wanted the episode viewing experience to be when it was good and
dark. Robert Redford just recently starred in his final film as a starring actor,
a film I have recorded and look forward to [The Old Man & the Gun], and seeing him as a young man, the
fresh-faced kid getting to share the screen with such a special actress as Gladys
Cooper, Nothing in the Dark is especially
significant. Cooper’s fear of Mr. Death might invoke the memory of One for the Angels and its pitchman played by the
great Ed Wynn, whose attempts to escape a similar *phantom* will eventually
come to an end.
This time, you have Cooper holing up in the depressing basement of a building condemned and at the point of collapse, with RG Armstrong arriving to warn her that the police will remove her if she doesn’t leave by the time his employees (a demolition work crew who “clear out the old in way for the new”) get there. In the meantime, Redford, a young police officer seemingly shot by a criminal who gets away in a car that speeds off, lies in the snow near Cooper’s building, needing her help. Cooper, hesitant because she believes he could be Mr. Death trying to trick her into opening her home to him, proclaims it isn’t fair that he would use his wounded condition as a means to get her out from behind the locked door. But once she does, helping him inside, tending to his wounds, offering him drink, Cooper and Redford talk about her fear of Mr. Death and an experience on a bus where she noticed him touch the hand of an old woman knitting socks right before she died. She claims he is everywhere, never carrying the same appearance, but nonetheless she knows it is him. Redford seems to kindly humor her, trying to keep her calm despite her persistence that Mr. Death is indeed after her. When Armstrong doesn’t notice Redford, the gig is up and Cooper realizes she’s been had…but is Mr. Death really all that terrifying?
Redford’s innocent face and handsome matinee idol features make him a great candidate for being able to assure Cooper of Mr. Death not being what many of us scared to die consider “it”…in fact, the episode allows Cooper to go as many of us would dream, in her sleep, without serious pain or anguish. She merely takes his hand, and Redford comfortingly caresses her fingers and that’s it. She looks at her sleeping deceased body, assured by Redford that it wasn’t at all as terrible as Cooper had often worried it would be. RG almost apologizing for having to see her out of the building, not some “destroyer”, wanting to clear the air of just what his purpose is, alternates from what he first appears when he crams his foot in the crack and kicks open the door so Cooper can’t block his path. Redford, not scary at all, is very much similar to Armstrong…appearances can be deceiving but perhaps what lies after death isn’t as frightening as we might anticipate. If anything, Twilight Zone often concentrates on a theme and gives us a proposed outcome that is like a hug, not always a shrug. Cooper as the nervy, anxious elderly Wanda Dunn, a shut-in who never leaves because of her intense, immobilizing fear of death holds the screen quite dutifully with Redford a calm of the storm she needs before “passing on”. The conclusion is quite romantic in its depiction of a passing that isn’t nearly as horrible as the one eventually dying might have been led to believe. This used to be quite a marathon favorite of mine…I used to really look forward to it. Partly because of Redford being on my favorite show, but mostly because of the location (it is quite a lot of space although the environs are quite dilapidated and gloomy, the structure barely holding itself up) and Cooper’s performance. Although I love Cooper in this, my favorite of her Twilight Zone appearances is in Night Call, later in the fifth season. This is still such a wonderful performance, quite memorable. I do feel that perhaps over the years, though, this episode hasn’t really sustained its relevance, mainly because of how the theme was familiar to TZ fans because of One for the Angels. 4/5
This time, you have Cooper holing up in the depressing basement of a building condemned and at the point of collapse, with RG Armstrong arriving to warn her that the police will remove her if she doesn’t leave by the time his employees (a demolition work crew who “clear out the old in way for the new”) get there. In the meantime, Redford, a young police officer seemingly shot by a criminal who gets away in a car that speeds off, lies in the snow near Cooper’s building, needing her help. Cooper, hesitant because she believes he could be Mr. Death trying to trick her into opening her home to him, proclaims it isn’t fair that he would use his wounded condition as a means to get her out from behind the locked door. But once she does, helping him inside, tending to his wounds, offering him drink, Cooper and Redford talk about her fear of Mr. Death and an experience on a bus where she noticed him touch the hand of an old woman knitting socks right before she died. She claims he is everywhere, never carrying the same appearance, but nonetheless she knows it is him. Redford seems to kindly humor her, trying to keep her calm despite her persistence that Mr. Death is indeed after her. When Armstrong doesn’t notice Redford, the gig is up and Cooper realizes she’s been had…but is Mr. Death really all that terrifying?
Redford’s innocent face and handsome matinee idol features make him a great candidate for being able to assure Cooper of Mr. Death not being what many of us scared to die consider “it”…in fact, the episode allows Cooper to go as many of us would dream, in her sleep, without serious pain or anguish. She merely takes his hand, and Redford comfortingly caresses her fingers and that’s it. She looks at her sleeping deceased body, assured by Redford that it wasn’t at all as terrible as Cooper had often worried it would be. RG almost apologizing for having to see her out of the building, not some “destroyer”, wanting to clear the air of just what his purpose is, alternates from what he first appears when he crams his foot in the crack and kicks open the door so Cooper can’t block his path. Redford, not scary at all, is very much similar to Armstrong…appearances can be deceiving but perhaps what lies after death isn’t as frightening as we might anticipate. If anything, Twilight Zone often concentrates on a theme and gives us a proposed outcome that is like a hug, not always a shrug. Cooper as the nervy, anxious elderly Wanda Dunn, a shut-in who never leaves because of her intense, immobilizing fear of death holds the screen quite dutifully with Redford a calm of the storm she needs before “passing on”. The conclusion is quite romantic in its depiction of a passing that isn’t nearly as horrible as the one eventually dying might have been led to believe. This used to be quite a marathon favorite of mine…I used to really look forward to it. Partly because of Redford being on my favorite show, but mostly because of the location (it is quite a lot of space although the environs are quite dilapidated and gloomy, the structure barely holding itself up) and Cooper’s performance. Although I love Cooper in this, my favorite of her Twilight Zone appearances is in Night Call, later in the fifth season. This is still such a wonderful performance, quite memorable. I do feel that perhaps over the years, though, this episode hasn’t really sustained its relevance, mainly because of how the theme was familiar to TZ fans because of One for the Angels. 4/5
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