TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 12:35am EST, one of the DEFINITIVE episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: “SHADOW PLAY” (written by Charles Beaumont, directed by John Brahm, originally broadcast May 5, 1961) Though convicted murderer Dennis Weaver (in one of the epitomes of tense Twilight Zone performances) tries to share his recurring nightmare of electrocution with his fellow death-row inmates in “Shadow Play” (the second of writer Beaumont’s two great Twilight Zone episodes about the nature of dreams; the other, season one’s “Perchance to Dream”), beseeching anyone who’ll listen that they, too, are all part of his dream, it is to no avail—he is condemned to walk the last mile every night. Keep an eye—and ear—out for the marvelous mid-episode jump cut from Weaver getting electrocuted to a sizzling steak in a suburban oven, a surreal, even Dada-like juxtaposition that rivals Kubrick’s bone-to-spaceship jump cut in 2001. Writer Beaumont introduces, perhaps for the first time, the concept of "meta" into the American consciousness with this episode, as the underlying premise is that Weaver's conception of being on death row is only based on what he's seen in movies! Movie writer/director Cameron Crowe was so beholden to “Shadow Play” that he had it playing on the Jumbotron in a totally deserted Times Square (save for a panicked Tom Cruise) during the opening scene of his 2001 film Vanilla Sky (itself a remake of a ’97 Twilight Zone-ish Spanish film, Open Your Eyes), which deals with similar themes acted out in the twilight zone between dream and reality, as Beaumont concluded: "We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live, instead...in The Twilight Zone?" #thetwilightzone #twilightzone #rodserling #charlesbeaumont #johnbrahm #tv #television #tvhistory #televisionhistory #dennisweaver #arlenschumer @dgareps @dbbushman @adamschumer @richard_syrett https://www.instagram.com/arlenschumer/p/CYj_4iSPMt7/?utm_medium=tumblr
