Let’s Watch The Twilight Zone: Episode Twenty-Three
Rod Serling voice over introduces us to...an office! Look, there’s a desk, and lamps and a bunch of things that are definitely real in here!
And, oh, here’s Arthur Curtis, a 36-year-old businessman with a wife and young daughter--also real.
But, as we’ll soon learn, there’s a world of difference (get it--that’s the name of the episode) between reality and what is created in the mind.
End voice over. Start Arthur Curtis going over some details of his life with his secretary--he’s got to get a gift for a birthday party, he’s excited to finally go on vacation. It’s all cool. He goes into his office to make a phone call, but the phone’s not working, so he gets up to go complain to his secretary when we hear;
Arthur freezes. The camera spins around. And we’re on a film set. A crew of about 20 people is staring silently at Arthur. He’s confused. They’re mad. The director gets up and comes to talk to Arthur. “C’mon, Jerry,” he says, “is it so hard to make a phone call?”
A look of pure devastation crosses Arthur’s face, followed by confusion. “Is this some kind of joke? Where am I!?” He goes racing around his office to find (the actress playing) his secretary lounging in the other room, and that the view through his office window is a painted backdrop. He hates it.
The crew decides to call an ambulance for him because they believe he’s having a nervous breakdown. He manages to find a real phone and calls the operator for his home phone number (because he can’t remember it) and the operator informs him that the address he gave either doesn’t have a phone or doesn’t exist. “But I live there!!!!” is the anguished response as he hangs up and takes off running. (A white guy screaming and running in confusion--classic Twilight Zone already.)
He exits out the stage door onto the back lot and is immediately knocked down by a car being driven by his (Jerry’s) extremely angry ex-wife, Nora (not Mrs.) Reagan. She came here to collect what Jerry owes her from the divorce and she doesn’t care if he’s drunk or having a mental breakdown or what--she’s taking him away and she’s not bringing him back until she’s paid what she’s owed.
Somehow Arthur/Jerry ends up driving (wasn’t she supposed to be kidnapping him?) and instead of going where Nora wants him to, he starts driving around looking for “his” house. It’s not there. The street isn’t even there. He gets out to ask directions, gets immediately distracted by a little girl he thinks is his daughter, runs up to her, and scares the bejeezus out of a random child.Good one, dude!
Nora is sick of this nonsense, “get in the car, Jerry,” she’ll drive us home.
When they get there the sprinklers are going full bore and, predictably, Jerry is all “this is not my beautiful house” and Nora does not care. All she cares about is where the checkbook is.
While she tears the place apart looking for it, Jerry’s agent (manager?) arrives to tell him to get it the fuck together. He doesn’t have too many chances left in Hollywood. And if he can’t make this work, he’s done in this town. Arthur/Jerry insists that he can’t, he’s sick, and the agent agrees to try to sell that story for today--but his ass better be back on set by tomorrow.
Arthur/Jerry tries to pull the old phone the operator trick again, this time to give him the number to his office. Once again, no such place, no such number. “But I’ve worked there for 7 years!” (Endless screaming)
Arthur/Jerry ends up overwhelmed or passing out or something because next thing he knows he’s waking up in bed with his agent watching over him. The agent shows him the script of what they’ve been shooting and reads him the character descriptions of Arthur Curtis and his wife, Marion. (I guess this is supposed to be a reveal in case we couldn’t figure out Arthur was the character Jerry was playing?)
The agent is doing his best to convince Jerry that he is not Arthur--that everything he knows about Arthur comes out of this script and that Jerry is just a “sweet, unhappy man, burdened with that harpy (Nora), trying to find some happiness.” (Remember when Rod Serling talked about being accused of not being able to write for women--I wonder why???)
Anyway, don’t worry about it, Jerry, because the studio is canceling the whole picture. “Arthur Curtis is dead” [dramatically throws the script in a waste bin].
Arthur/Jerry doesn’t like that either! He jumps up, “I’ve got to get to my office!” “Jerry, your office is a set, they’re probably tearing it down already!” Too bad! Here’s some high speed footage of Arthur/Jerry driving to set. And, sure enough, when he gets there, it’s halfway to being dismantled.
“Don’t leave me here!” Arthur wails, clutching at his face. He does not want to be stuck being Jerry.
And suddenly, the office is back. The photos of wife and daughter back on the desk, secretary properly in the other room, wife actually coming in asking where the eff he’s been all day because she’s been trying to call him.
Arthur is so happy. And if he hears a distant echo of a voice talking about getting those lamps and tables of here, so what? Let’s go on vacation right now! We don’t have to wait for Saturday! I don’t want to lose you Marion!
Begin closing voice over, over a close up of the front page of the script, titled The Private Life of Arthur Curtis. (Hollywood couldn’t have been that done with Jerry if they were going to build a whole movie around him, but I digress.)
This monologue is extremely intense, talking about how the usual way to exit to life is in pine box. But apparently there are other ways. Like for Jerry Reagan, who is on a highway with an exit sign that says “this way to escape.” We watch a plane take off and literally vanish into the sky (not a bad effect for 1960). There goes Arthur Curtis, en route to The Twilight Zone.
Do I wish this had been better to women? Yes. Do I wish this had more of the Hollywood setting? I love nothing more than shot of people in costumes for various projects mingling around together on a back lot, so of course.
But, otherwise, it’s a good little episode of the “one guy freaking out” variety.
