Brief Passages - Twilight Zone (Mr. Denton on Doomsday)

Henry J Fate has a potion for Mr. Denton

I just love “Mr. Denton on Doomsday”. I realize this isn’t high on many Twilight Zone fans’ list, perhaps not even in their Top 100. I understand maybe why that is. Essentially it is a supernatural reworking of the fantastic Gregory Peck film, “The Gunfighter”. Duryea, who cut his teeth in his youth as a heel in western film, as he aged became a reliable character actor, a veteran with plenty of offers in the television medium available to him. I’m glad he took this role as a guilt-stricken drunk in some hot desert town, some nameless stop that Twilight Zone offered numerous times with its western backdrop supernatural episodes. While Landau leaves the best impression as this scummy black hat mocking Duryea and his addiction to liquor, put in his place with help from the enigmatic Fate (Atterbury, who I think has a great face), a traveling salesman with a discreet magic that proves he isn’t all snake oil, Duryea agonizing and weak, willing to sing for the booze, is his equal. Duryea’s downtrodden Denton is gutwrenching but how TZ gives him redemption is so rewarding…and what a performance. This show really was a great showcase for the marvelous talent in the 50s and 60s. Cooper, of Young and the Restless, is also good as the saloon madam who tries to console Duryea. God that music gets me right in the feels…it just fits the Denton character’s lows and highs, valleys and peaks so well. I really enjoy when the TZ took us to the Old West. And who didn't applaud when Landau was slapped silly by Duryea? The magic of the gun and the way Fate allows Duryea and a young face challenging him an out is TZ through and through.

--Brian

This episode has the eye intro

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So just for 2020, along with my other ongoing projects for the horror genre, I thought it would be fun to build towards my [now annual] self-created 4^th of July Twilight Zone Marathon with a “brief passages” series for the first season. I thought it would be a neat sort of 2020 episodic footprint and the point of the “brief passages” part is to try and limit myself to just a “mini-review” five-to-six line paragraph for each episode of the Twilight Zone (and some Universal Monster films as well) in the first season. My marathon for Independence Day will not be as extensive as it was in 2019…ten episodes, five from the third season and five from the fifth. Because I have written big reviews for many of the first season episodes in the past, this “brief passages” format won’t be as difficult while those certain few that might not have gotten a more elaborate, detailed treatment, it should be quite a challenge to limit myself.