Late Twilight Zone

Serling introduces "Night Call"

 I wore my TZ shirt (sort of a rogue's gallery of the some of the classic icons recognizable to the show) today for the first time and knew I might eventually get around to watching a few episodes tonight. 

Love this shot of Johnson and the Lincoln bust

I was watching Spielberg's "Lincoln" (2012) on HBO the other night, and funnily enough, "Back There" and "The Passersby" were both episodes that sort of surfaced, to no surprise. There never is a day or night where, at some point, Twilight Zone doesn't cross my mind. It will always be my favorite show no doubt. But "Back There" is an episode that goes way back to the 90s. I was always fascinated by the idea of what could happen if someone was allowed to go back in time and try to alter history. The results of that could be catastrophic with the best intentions meant well for the country ultimately causing irreparable damage furthering an even worse future. This story, though, is so meant for Twilight Zone. And time travel indeed was quite a popular tool used for storytelling on the show. I chuckle to myself because I guess I've written this in some form or another how many times on the blog through the years? Too many to count, I suppose. I really wanted to catch "Back There" during the SYFY marathon (it came on here early morning, about 6:30, and I was asleep, New Year's Day, because I was up late), but I just watched a recording off of SYFY from the DVR of it when it came on that morning. I really wanted to watch it in complete form, though. Besides I think Russell Johnson's Corrigan trying to fight off the effects of a drugged wine by John Wilkes Booth (John Lasell), not a whole lot seems excised from what you typically see on SYFY. But SYFY has been egregious with the commercial interruptions, so watching "Back There" without that on Netflix with the lights out and that Goldsmith score felt just so right. Johnson's time travel might be a bit ambivalent and the twist with the attendant ending up very wealthy due to inheritance might be anti-climactic; however, I think there is just something about Johnson getting the chance to go there, period. Even if he can't save Lincoln, Johnson actually finding himself in 1865 is just this neat concept I always enjoy. He just couldn't get inside that Ford's Theater or anyone much to believe him about Lincoln's life in jeopardy. That score, it really enhances everything in that episode.

This image remains so creepy

Ione is a big reason this episode really lands with me

"The Grave" was shown in the mid afternoon on New Year's Day by SYFY this year, and I just don't think you can ever get the full effect of its spooky power unless its right at the dead of night, with the lights off, where that howling wind, spitting up dust and shivering the coats of its meager township who always feared outlaw Pinto Sykes until a Circuit Judge traveling through rattled the men to remove this cancer from the midst. Now, I have written a review for this in time's past but I could never not talk about "The Grave". It's just a damn good ghost story. Not only that, it serves as a story about fear, no matter how macho and alpha you present yourself, and who more fits that category than Lee Marvin. Marvin's casting is so right for the role of Conny Miller, a hired quickdraw who never lived up to the sum paid him to find and kill Pinto Sykes. It took a group of cowards who never would have ganged up on Pinto if some outsider hadn't questioned their manhood. Conny gets that same manhood questioned when dared by the likes of Best (a Twilight Zone regular), Lee Van Cleef, and Strother Martin (his name of Mothershed is sure inspired) to go up to the grave of Pinto and bury a bowie knife into the heart of it. A test to see if he does have courage because none of them admit could do so. That whole conclusion after leaving the saloon (the bartender is Stafford Repp, of the 60s Batman show) is pure ghost western atmospheric goodness. Never has a Midnight walk to a lowly western town grave been as gulp-in-the-throat. That wind seemed to live and breathe and desire to send shivers and make the heart skip a beat. And Ione so freely and comfortably moving about, a bit liquored up but always smiling with that "I know something you don't know" assurance--and that laugh just unsettles me every time!--as Marvin tries to make it appear he's not a bit scared, although its clear even he can't shake off the mystique of Pinto. For someone who is not in the episode but for a few seconds, Pinto's legend is built up quite a bit. By the end, you'd think Pinto will always live rent free in the minds of those in town. Especially considering Conny will serve as a reminder of Pinto's legend beyond the grave.

I almost always used to pair "The Grave" with "Night Call" as my "back to back spook shows". The telephone call from beyond the grave with Gladys Cooper (a big TZ fave of mine; her "Nothing in the Dark" is another memorable turn, and "The Passage of Lady Anne" was one of my favorite episodes of the oft-undervalued fourth season) as a tormented cripple just trying to figure out who keeps ringing in to her home. That opening scene with the big storm and Cooper in her bed is classic Jacques Tourneur. I don't think the episode ever quite reaches the creepy heights of that first scene, but Cooper is just so damn watchable and the twist regarding where the calls come from, the history we will eventually learn of why they are originating there, and Cooper's realization that her loneliness could have been quelled but because of how she domineeringly impacted this caller in the past she'll lose that voice on the "other side". I can't watch this during the day and quite get the eerie lingering creeps "Night Call" provides in the dark of night. That this is wedged between "Black Leather Jackets" and "From Agnes with Love" tells us how schizophrenic the fifth season of Twilight Zone was. I wish this episode and "The Grave" were as loved by the fandom as they are by me, but the eclectic variety that exists in this series produces so many noteworthy episodes, some that I might cherish won't be as important to others.