I gave this a very favorable review in my IMDb user comments in August of 2016. The more I watch this, though, the less effect it has with me. If anything, Barbara's narcissism wears out its welcome with each passing viewing. So I think I'll call this one of the last times I watch it. This really isn't a Twilight Zone episode until the very end when Barbara is about to depart where she wishes to be: back in 1934, far away from her boozing slumber in a big room in a big mansion watching a projection in the dark in 1959. Particularly alarming to me was Barbara's dismissal of her former leading man, a Chicago businessman in Hollywood on business, passing by for a friendly visit, receiving a cold shoulder and hard "go away". That really bothered me, but I got that the "sickness" of what fame does to you can turn you into that 1959 Barbara. I get that Danny wants to call Barbara back, somehow draw her into 1959, dragging her into the Beverly Hills sunlight and out of her tethered chainlink to a nostalgic past...but I just think it was better for her to get her wish and drift into the ether of celluloid.
There is some seriously harsh opening Rod Serling narration about Barbara:
Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.
"Struck down by hit-and-run years." Man, you'd think Lupino was a petrified corpse in 1959. Of course, she was of the age where Hollywood said you had "aged out", but I didn't think Lupino was some gross hag with her best years behind her. Now, in the scene where the Hollywood producer takes a good look at her and sees her as a bit part middle-aged mom while Barbara still remains stuck in that 1935 leading woman role mentality, you could see this as an inevitable butting of heads. I guess, if anything, this speaks on that Hollywood machine always churning in the new and out the "old", although the "old" don't consider themselves all to eager to just abandon their stardom. That "chasing the dragon". I guess for Barbara the dragon was 1935. But those leading men were gone, no longer the romantic cinematic gods of her youth. This is a sad place to live for people who enjoyed superstardom and eventually fell into the "retirement home" Hollywood seems quite capable of doing without a care in the world. I imagine that is not a fun place to be...experiencing the highs of fame and then the eventual sealed-shut doors of the glamour station that is Hollywood.
Ida Lupino has the desperate "aging former star who clings to the movie stardom past" part, unable to recognize that the era of her youth has passed her by. This really isn't a Twilight Zone episode in the traditional sense until the very end where Lupino's Barb so desires to return to where she belongs—on screen in the starring role—and until then, for the most part, this seems closer to a playhouse show (an actor's showcase) than a tale of the supernatural, fantasy, or science fiction.
Barb locks herself away in her "theatre room" watching her films from thirty years ago. Her loyal agent, bless his heart, Danny (Martin Balsam), tries to break her free from the past that traps her in her home. He even sets up a meet with a former producer who has a bit part (as a mother) in a new movie for Barb, but she is too oblivious to realize her current status as a has-been to notice that few roles are out there for a woman of her "particular vintage".
Hollywood is cruel to the older performance artists, often pushing along those who were once quite the face of the movies as the younger generation emerges to usurp their place on the throne. Ida plays Barb as totally naive to where her position in Hollywood is, put in her place harshly by the producer who seemed to act as if he was doing her a favor even offering the bit part. Balsam parlays a friend stuck in a grueling spot, hopelessly trying to pry Barb away from her delusion only to lose her to what she wants more than anything else: to be with those actors of her youth in the characters that made them legends of the screen. One good scene has Danny confrontationally addressing how those actors of the 30s are "dead" and she needs to realize that. When informed that a former actor she was famously paired with wishes to see her, Barb anticipates it to a severe degree, only to be considerably disappointed when the "real" person (not the 30s actor she so identifies with every time she puts the movie on in her theatre room) shows up quite aged. Time can be quite a pain.
Leave it to the Twilight Zone to offer Barb a chance to go where she wishes ever so passionately. This isn't the episode one would relate to typical TZ, but Lupino gets to offer her best Sunset Boulevard. While I think Lupino is a good actress, she isn't ragged enough to truly set off her pitiable actress lost to obscurity. She had aged too well!
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