The Twilight Zone - A World of Difference
I don’t think I ever watched “A World of Difference” uncut but while watching it tonight, I didn’t see a lot that I recall Syfy cutting out. My mind was blown when I caught this during a New Year’s marathon about two or three years ago. Marathons typically give you all these episodes in succession so they don’t get to breathe. I like during the year after the marathons when I get the chance to rewatch and take a few to let each episode rest on the mind as I think about what they have to say.
“A World of Difference” follows quite a string of classic
episodes and I think it can stand alongside them, even if it might just be a
pinch below them. That is not a slight when you are talking about “Mirror Image”
and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”. Imagine following those episodes
and measuring up! Howard Duff as Arthur Curtis or Gerry Raigan (depending on
which is the tableau of reality and reality itself) just continues the run of
outstanding performances on this excellently cast show…time and again, “The
Twilight Zone” provided actors and actresses some real parts with serious
complexity. So Duff *is* Arthur Curtis, a business executive with a wife and
daughter, preparing for a weekend getaway to San Francisco. He’s also Gerry
Raigan, down-on-his-luck alcoholic actor with a ferocious ex-wife and agency
about to drop him as a client.
Gerry’s ex-wife, Nora (Eileen Ryan), follows the grand tradition of Serling’s “monstrous” female characters with faces that warp into vicious, greedy, selfish, demanding, soul-crushing, emasculating wives, expecting him to sign checks the court ordered...granted, this go-around, it's Matheson to blame, as he wrote the episode. She’s designed as one of a few reasons Arthur now exists.
Arthur refuses to believe, despite what his eyes show him, that Gerry is who he really is, seemingly so lost in his part because it allows him to have a life that is simple, rewarding, fulfilling, and satisfying. Arthur has a wife that loves him, a job that provides his family with a comfortable living, a secretary in synch with him at the office, a child he cares deeply for, and a life that doesn’t whittle him down into a pitiable drunk with few prospects left.
Gerry, on the other hand, seems to be on the verge of an acting career that has disintegrated to the point that one more screw up could be his last chance, as the director of “The Private World of Arthur Curtis” clearly shows he’s at his wits’ end when Arthur is befuddled by the appearance of lights, camera, crew, movie props, dressing rooms, scripts, and sets. Duff plays it with a disorientation and confusion that indicates Gerry truly has so vanished into Arthur that the life of the actor is about absorbed by the actual character.
I think there is so much to this material to sink your teeth into. The idea that if you could leave one rotten life that has taken its toll on you for a completely imagined “tableau” far more appealing, or that a performer could get so wrapped up in a movie part it becomes all too real; The Twilight Zone actually providing the chance to escape into that tableau, the actor discarded for the business executive. Characters you prefer to embrace as opposed to the reality of the actor’s world, where Arthur’s life can be embraced and Gerry’s left behind…The Twilight Zone can help a fella out.
We have seen in the case of “…Willoughby” that the escape can take a rather grim conclusion, “The World of Difference” goes in a different direction even as you can sort of see the similarities. And yet, the script’s title even throws up an interesting question…the title of “The Private World of Arthur Curtis” sort of asks, “What is the private world of a fictional character?” Is the film “reality” but a private world for Arthur? So much to mull over! 4.5/5
Gerry’s ex-wife, Nora (Eileen Ryan), follows the grand tradition of Serling’s “monstrous” female characters with faces that warp into vicious, greedy, selfish, demanding, soul-crushing, emasculating wives, expecting him to sign checks the court ordered...granted, this go-around, it's Matheson to blame, as he wrote the episode. She’s designed as one of a few reasons Arthur now exists.
Arthur refuses to believe, despite what his eyes show him, that Gerry is who he really is, seemingly so lost in his part because it allows him to have a life that is simple, rewarding, fulfilling, and satisfying. Arthur has a wife that loves him, a job that provides his family with a comfortable living, a secretary in synch with him at the office, a child he cares deeply for, and a life that doesn’t whittle him down into a pitiable drunk with few prospects left.
Gerry, on the other hand, seems to be on the verge of an acting career that has disintegrated to the point that one more screw up could be his last chance, as the director of “The Private World of Arthur Curtis” clearly shows he’s at his wits’ end when Arthur is befuddled by the appearance of lights, camera, crew, movie props, dressing rooms, scripts, and sets. Duff plays it with a disorientation and confusion that indicates Gerry truly has so vanished into Arthur that the life of the actor is about absorbed by the actual character.
I think there is so much to this material to sink your teeth into. The idea that if you could leave one rotten life that has taken its toll on you for a completely imagined “tableau” far more appealing, or that a performer could get so wrapped up in a movie part it becomes all too real; The Twilight Zone actually providing the chance to escape into that tableau, the actor discarded for the business executive. Characters you prefer to embrace as opposed to the reality of the actor’s world, where Arthur’s life can be embraced and Gerry’s left behind…The Twilight Zone can help a fella out.
We have seen in the case of “…Willoughby” that the escape can take a rather grim conclusion, “The World of Difference” goes in a different direction even as you can sort of see the similarities. And yet, the script’s title even throws up an interesting question…the title of “The Private World of Arthur Curtis” sort of asks, “What is the private world of a fictional character?” Is the film “reality” but a private world for Arthur? So much to mull over! 4.5/5
*David White as the sympathetic agent, Brinkley, reminds me
of the weary Frank (Frank Sutton) of the TZ episode, “The Dummy”, while Gerry
is just so reminiscent of the browbeaten Gart Williams (James Daly) of “A Stop
at Willoughby”. I think you can see how shadows of characters and situations
they are under (often with strain from toxic lives that grind and deteriorate)
often return, sometimes with a brand new coat of paint, others times broad or
fine strokes, but Serling, due to his genius, could still offer meat to chew
and content to ponder.
**The music, once again, is on pointe as it conjures this feeling of unease and imbalance, mirroring the torment and out of sorts Arthur/Gerry, trying to disprove what one reality is telling him (if that is the reality) in favor of the tableau.
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