Twilight Zone in Close-ups

"Facial expression is the most subjective manifestation of man, more subjective even than speech, for vocabulary and grammar are subject to more or less universally valid rules and conventions, while the play of features... is a manifestation not governed by objective canons, even though it is largely a matter of imitation. This most subjective and individual of human manifestations is rendered objective in the close-up." Béla Balázs from Theory of the Film

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3.37 The Changing of the Guard

Director: Robert Ellis Miller

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“They all come and go like ghosts. Faces, names, smiles. The funny things they said or the sad things, or the poignant ones. I gave them nothing. I gave them nothing at all. Poetry that left their minds the minute they themselves left. Aged slogans that were out of date when I taught them. Quotations dear to me that were meaningless to them.”

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On this day in 1962, "The Changing of the Guard" hit the airwaves for the very first time!

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3.36 Cavender is Coming

Director: Christian Nyby

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“Small message of reassurance to that horizontal young lady: don’t despair, help is en route. It’s coming in an odd form from a very distant place, but it’s, nonetheless, coming.”

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"Cavender is Coming" aired for the first time on this day in 1962!

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3.35 I Sing the Body Electric

Director: James Sheldon, William F. Claxton

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Ray Bradbury

First Aired: 18 May 1962

"As of this moment, the wonderful electric grandmother moved into the lives of children and father. She became integral and important. She became the essence. As of this moment, they would never see lightning, never hear poetry read, never listen to foreign tongues without thinking of her. Everything they would ever see, hear, taste, feel would remind them of her. She was all life, and all life was wondrous, quick, electrical—like Grandma."

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3.35 I Sing the Body Electric

Director: James Sheldon, William F. Claxton

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Ray Bradbury

First Aired: 18 May 1962

"They make a fairly convincing pitch here. It doesn't seem possible, though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good, except, of course, in the Twilight Zone."

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1.25 People Are Alike All Over

Director: Mitchell Leisen

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“They’re taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers up into the unknown.”

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"People Are Alike All Over" first aired on this day 66 years ago!

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5.25 The Masks

Director: Ida Lupino

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Rod Serling

First Aired: 20 March 1964

"Mardi Gras incident. The dramatis personae being four people who came to celebrate and, in a sense, let themselves go. This they did with a vengeance. They now wear the faces of all that was inside them–and they'll wear them for the rest of their lives, said lives now to be spent in the shadow."

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5.25 The Masks

Director: Ida Lupino

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Rod Serling

First Aired: 20 March 1964

"Mardi Gras incident. The dramatis personae being four people who came to celebrate and, in a sense, let themselves go. This they did with a vengeance. They now wear the faces of all that was inside them–and they'll wear them for the rest of their lives, said lives now to be spent in the shadow."

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3.26 Little Girl Lost

Director: Paul Stewart

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“Missing: one frightened little girl. Name: Bettina Miller. Description: six years of age, average height and build, light brown hair, quite pretty. Last seen being tucked in bed by her mother a few hours ago. Last heard: ‘Ay, there’s the rub,’ as Hamlet put it. For Bettina Miller can be heard quite clearly, despite the rather curious fact that she can’t be seen, at all.”

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On this day 64 years ago, "Little Girl Lost" first hit the airwaves!

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5.23 Queen of the Nile

Director: John Brahm

Director of Photography: Charles Wheeler

“Jordan Herrick, syndicated columnist, whose work appears in more than a hundred newspapers. By nature a cynic, a disbeliever, caught for the moment by a lovely vision. He knows the vision he’s seen is no dream; she is Pamela Morris, renowned movie star, whose name is a household word and whose face is known to millions.”

✨Support✨

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"Queen of the Nile" aired for the first time on this day in 1964!

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4.07 Jess-Belle

Director: Buzz Kulik

Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack

Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.

First Aired: 14 February 1963

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4.07 Jess-Belle

Director: Buzz Kulik

Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack

Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.

First Aired: 14 February 1963

Jess-Belle: I want to win a man's love. Granny Hart: Well, womankind's got her own kind of witchcraft for that. Jess-Belle: He was mine for a while. Came sneaking off at night, kept a-quiet what went on between him and me. Never took me anyplace for the world to know. He made me promises. He made them when his face was hot as blood. Forgot them as soon as he was ten feet from my door. Granny Hart: Honey, you don't know much about men, do you? Jess-Belle: Only him.

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2.15 The Invaders

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“This is the woman who lives in the house, a woman who’s been alone for many years, a strong, simple woman whose only problem up until this moment has been that of acquiring enough food to eat, a woman about to face terror…”

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"The Invaders" first hit the airwaves on this day 65 years ago!

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3.08 It’s a Good Life

Director: James Sheldon

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Rod Serling, based on a story by Jerome Bixby

...the people in Peaksville, Ohio, have to smile. They have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque, walking horror. This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion. Oh, yes, I did forget something, didn't I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He's six-years-old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you'd better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge.

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3.08 It’s a Good Life

Director: James Sheldon

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

Writer: Rod Serling, based on a story by Jerome Bixby

Dan Hollis: You monster, you. You dirty little monster. You murderer. You think about me. Go ahead, Anthony. You think bad thoughts about me. And maybe some man in this room, some man with guts, somebody who's so sick to death of living in a place like this, and willing to take a chance, will sneak up behind you and lay something heavy across your skull, and end this once and for all!

Anthony Fremont: You're a bad man! You're a very bad man!

Dan Hollis: You think that. Go ahead, Anthony. I'm a very bad man. Keep thinking that. Somebody sneak up behind him! Somebody end this now while he's thinking about me! Won't somebody take a lamp or a bottle or something and end this!?

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3.17 One More Pallbearer

Director: Lamont Johnson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“What you have just looked at takes place 300 feet underground, beneath the basement of a New York City skyscraper. It’s owned and lived in by one Paul Radin. Mr. Radin is rich, eccentric, and single-minded. How rich we can already perceive; how eccentric and single-minded we shall see in a moment…”

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64 years ago today, "One More Pallbearer" aired for the first time!

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2.12 Dust

Director: Douglas Heyes

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“There’s nothing in his sentence that says he’s gotta be tormented by a pig who sells trinkets at funerals.”

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"Dust" had its TV debut on this day in 1961!

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Best of Beaumont Beatdown

Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone, astoundingly wrote 92 teleplays of the show’s 156 episodes (70 of those 92 being Serling’s original stories). It wouldn’t have been humanly possible for Serling to write them all, so he had to find fellow writers who could match the tone and quality he had envisioned for the series. Enter up-and-coming writers Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Beaumont would go on to have the second most writing credits for the series, after Serling, including teleplays for some especially beloved and macabre episodes.

As it turns out, Beaumont’s birthday falls on January 2nd, fitting in neatly with the New Year’s tradition of marathoning the Twilight Zone. So, I thought it’d be fun to commemorate what would have been Beaumont’s 97th birthday by putting his episodes* head-to-head in a little tournament!

This bracket was concocted using imdb ratings for each episode and then modeled roughly after March Madness brackets from there:

Round 1 includes eight epic match-ups and will be live for 3 days from 15 Dec. [All Matchups]

Round 2 will start on 20 Dec. [All Matchups]

Round 3 will start on 24 Dec. [All Matchups]

The Finals will start on 30 Dec. [Finals]**

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Feel free to add your own propaganda for your favorite episodes via reblogs, comments, or messages! If you submit propaganda in one round, and that episode wins, I’ll include it in future rounds and you won’t have to re-submit.***

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*I did not include the episodes of the Twilight Zone that were entirely ghost-written for Beaumont. Maybe I’ll put together a little write-up about Jerry Sohl, who wrote season 5’s “Queen of the Nile” and “Living Doll” to make up for it later!

**Links will produce posts once each round is live.

**Not all propaganda submitted may be included, if I suspect anything submitted is generative “AI” it will not be added to later rounds.

——— ——— ———

A list of all episodes included is below the jump!

1.9 "Perchance to Dream" 1.20 "Elegy" 1.24 "Long Live Walter Jameson" 1.28 "A Nice Place to Visit" 2.5 "The Howling Man" 2.20 "Static" (teleplay; story by OCee Ritch) 2.21 "The Prime Mover" (teleplay; story by George Clayton Johnson) 2.22 "Long Distance Call" (co-written with William Idelson) 2.26 "Shadow Play" 3.12 "The Jungle" 3.18 "Dead Man's Shoes" (story; teleplay by OCee Ritch) 3.25 "The Fugitive" 3.27 "Person or Persons Unknown" 4.1 "In His Image" 4.3 "Valley of the Shadow" 4.8 "Miniature" 4.9 "Printer's Devil" 4.17 "Passage on the Lady Anne" 5.17 "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" (story; teleplay by John Tomerlin)

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The Best of Beaumont is…

“The Howling Man”

The results are in and you voted “The Howling Man” as the best episode of The Twilight Zone penned by Charles Beaumont!

It was a tough competition!

Here’s a ranking of all the competing episodes:

"The Howling Man" (Season 2, Episode 5)

"Miniature" (Season 4, Episode 8)

"Shadow Play" (Season 2, Episode 26)

"Number 12 Looks Just Like You" (Season 5, Episode 17) [story; teleplay by John Tomerlin]

"A Nice Place to Visit" (Season 1, Episode 28)

"Dead Man's Shoes" (Season 3, Episode 18) [story; teleplay by OCee Ritch]

"The Fugitive" (Season 3, Episode 25)

"Person or Persons Unknown" (Season 3, Episode 27)

"Elegy" (Season 1, Episode 20)

"Perchance to Dream" (Season 1, Episode 9)

"In His Image" (Season 4, Episode 1)

"Long Live Walter Jameson" (Season 1, Episode 24)

"Long Distance Call" (Season 2, Episode 22) [co-written with William Idelson]

"Passage on the Lady Anne" (Season 4, Episode 17)

"The Prime Mover" (Season 2, Episode 21) [teleplay; story by George Clayton Johnson]

"The Jungle" (Season 3, Episode 12)

"Valley of the Shadow" (Season 4, Episode 3)

"Printer's Devil" (Season 4, Episode 9)

"Static" (Season 2, Episode 20) [teleplay; story by OCee Ritch]

Putting together this little exercise highlighted just how much range Charles Beaumont had as a speculative fiction writer. Though there are certainly a few shared themes, motifs, and pre-occupations across these episodes, they are all really different from one another!

Hope you all enjoyed this tournament and this year’s marathon!

P.S. Maybe I’ll get cooking on a similar tourney for Richard Matheson’s episodes? Or maybe I should make all the devils, robots, or aliens square up? Sound off!