Brief Passages - Twilight Zone (Perchance to Dream)

Despite being sandwiched between two outstanding, iconic episodes of Twilight Zone (after “Time Enough at Last” and before “Judgment Night”), the ridiculously underrated director, Robert Florey, who made an absolute classic in the 30s (and who almost directed “Frankenstein” (1931)), “Murders on the Rue Morgue”, gave us “Perchance to Dream”, with a simply fantastic performance from Richard Conte as the tormented Edward Hall and a sultry, delicious Suzanne Lloyd as his “dream killer”, Maya, the Cat Girl. Larch, as the therapist who hopes to try and understand what is driving him to not sleep, is the third in such a fine cast. The way Florey shoots Larch’s building and the crowd moving through the revolving door of that building…it is in the perspective of a weary Conte who has a warped view of things because he hasn’t slept in four days! It is so intimidating to Conte because he believes at any moment he’ll die if his weak heart is shocked by another nightmare…Maya, you might could say, is death. He thinks she is there to kill him, and all his heart needs is one more jolt. How Florey shoots the dream sequences, the use of camera tilts, some foggy lens, emphasizing the darkness that seems to engulf almost all of the amusement park except what Conte lasers in on, even the water gun shooting gallery and Maya seductive dance are seemingly sinister instead of entertainment. Conte really sells it, too. Larch’s therapist always appears uneasy and never fails to convey concern for Conte, obviously. But there is a neat trick…when Conte arrives at Larch’s office he lies down and falls asleep. Whatever you do…don’t fall asleep. Lloyd as Maya, with a fun bit of gotcha when she’s also revealed to be Larch’s therapist, is quite captivating. You can see why Conte’s eyes latch onto her and he’s unable to resist her. And his inability to resist is his doom. The episode thrives on Conte’s paranoia, terror, and his obvious mental decline.

--Brian

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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.