THE TWILIGHT ZONE creator Rod Serling would have been 100 years old this year, and as our fellow fans of the iconic sci-fi/horror anthology series will surely agree that's something worth celebrating. In fact, we've started already, and we're teaming up with Rod's daughter, Anne Serling, to show you a side of Mr. Serling and his wildly influential creations you've never seen before, culminating in a 100th Birthday Party for Rod hosted with our perennial pals at Chattanooga Whiskey in their elegant distillery/event hall. Black and white dress code encouraged!
Rod always said that the secret to the success and lasting legacy of the series was that it was made up of "good stories, well told." It didn't hurt matters that titans from Charles Beaumont to Richard Matheson and even Serling himself were the authors of those stories. So now, as we count the days till CFF 2024's opening date (June 21), here are five essential episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE to visit or revisit before you join us in June! If you haven't grabbed your badge already, head to chattfilmfest.org because our LIMITED-TIME EARLY BIRD PRICING ends on March 15!
The Grave (Season 3, Ep 7)
Proving yet again that what you don’t see is scarier than what you do, icon Lee Marvin stars in a spooky-ass tale set in the Old West. Pinto Sykes, a no-account bandit, had been terrorizing the region and his hometown… until the good folk finally had all they could stand and gunned him down on Main Street. Marvin’s character Connie Miller is a bounty hunter who had been hired to trail Sykes and bring him to justice. Connie was always a day behind Sykes, until the night he came ditty bopping back to town and was told Pinto was already dead and buried, and, before he passed, had issued a threat to Connie. That prompted some local saloon regulars to challenge Miller to a bet that didn’t end well. The episode features a gaggle of accomplished character actors, including the great Strother Martin and Elen Willard, who plays Pinto’s whacked-out sister, Ione.
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (Season 1, Ep 22)
Part of Serling’s genius was he figured out how to rail against injustice and slip it past the censors and sponsors. All he had to do was camouflage his commentary inside science fiction, horror, and fantasy. This episode, penned by Serling, answers to all three of those descriptions. Some crafty aliens, intent on invading Earth, throw panic into the good folks of the eponymous Maple Street by turning off their electricity and devices. (Imagine in today’s world your iPhone going on the fritz. That would freak out anybody.) A science fiction-loving youngster adds to the mayhem by suggesting the neighborhood has been invaded by aliens disguised as humans. The theme of paranoia and friends turning against friends resonates to this day. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street may well be the greatest piece ever written about mob violence in any medium,” wrote Marc Scott Zicree in his essential The Twilight Zone Companion. We concur.
The Lonely (Season 1, Ep 7)
Rod Serling’s creation attracted many of the finest actors of the day, and “The Lonely,” written by the great man himself, is no exception. The lead character, played by Jack Warden, is a criminal sentenced to a fate worse than death - isolation on an asteroid nine million miles from Earth. Warden’s character James Corry has a shack to call home and every few months a ship arrives with supplies, but he’s still about to go Looney Tunes… until the benevolent captain of the ship smuggles a comely female robot in with the groceries. Corry is repulsed at first, but to paraphrase an old soul ballad, he found love on a two-way street and lost it on a shitty asteroid.
The Invaders (Season 2, Ep 15)
Talk about your irony. Agnes Moorehead, a great actress whose credits range from Gone with the Wind to Bewitched, plays a lonely old woman living in a shack with nary a lightbulb, hot water faucet, or Wi-Fi router in sight. One night her dreary existence gets kicked up a few notches when a spacecraft lands on her roof, and the two tiny interstellar marauders inside seem intent on taking her out - with her own shoes. Not really, but they do wield one of her kitchen knives, which had to leave a mark. Moorehead’s character, who in the credits is referred to only as Woman, eventually turns the tables on the spacemen. The final reveal shows the viewer where these unlucky astronauts are from, and suffice it to say, it’s not where the audience expected. There’s one other cool thing about this one: Moorehead doesn’t speak a word but still destroys the role.
A Game of Pool (Season 3, Ep 5)
Who needs car chases, sex scenes, bullets flying, and bombs blowing shit all to hell? Certainly not this classic episode, written by George Clayton Johnson. Set in a seedy pool hall and starring the great Jack Klugman - a Twilight Zone stalwart who shines in a handful of the show’s classics - and comedian Jonathan Winters, crushing his first dramatic role, this episode’s title tells all… Except for the high stakes of the wager. As Klugman’s character Jesse Cardiff eventually learns, be careful what you wish for.
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