What Do You Do When the Monks Want to Eat You?

From wikipedia.org
I've started to dread the credit "Written by Rod Serling" when watching The Twilight Zone. Don't get me wrong, I've sang his praises in the past and still do; he was a superb craftsman. Too often though he was just too damn matter of fact. Also he sometimes allows his prose to run away with him (a little like Ray Bradbury). Then there are those similar themes surfacing again and again (the little man with a chance of redemption, the Nazi getting his come-uppance, the nostalgic yearning for the past). I watched his later series, 'Night Gallery' recently (and more on that later), but even there the episode that got Emmy-nominated, Serling's "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" is a very close reworking of Serling's earlier Twilight Zone episode, 'The Trouble with Templeton'. It's also conspicuously out of kilter with the refreshing darkness of the rest of the series, being hopelessly maudlin (as usual, I'm probably in the minority on this one). Serling at his worst has his characters declaim 'seriously' in sentimental yarns lacking bite. This is the Twilight Zone, Rod, take some drugs, get drunk, have an orgasm, but get out of your dogmatic mind, for goodness sake!
Anyhow! Series Three seems to be a monumental slog by him, every episode signed 'Written by Rod Serling' (it is a prodigious feat of creativity, it must be admitted), but thankfully tonight there was one "Based on a story by Manly Wade Wellman: 'Still Valley'. Not by any stretch a masterpiece, but I recognised it as a story I'd read years ago. Set in the American Civil War, it was about a sorcerer in a Southern States town threatening to overthrow the Union army through witchcraft. The story was better than Serling's adaptation, but it still boosted me no end to see it onscreen. There's a lot in the back catalogues, folks.
Yes, the back catalogue. Once upon a time I wrote a tv series using such tales. Naturally it was never produced, but it did get me noticed by an American couple who ran a small production company. I was 'Shakespeare', they 'loved me', 'Come in and see us!' I did. They didn't want to produce my series. Instead they wanted me to write their script based on a treatment they supplied. It was wonderfully tacky stuff about blind Templar monks coming back from the dead, though there was little to the treatment and what there was was probably ripped off from Amando de Ossorio's BLIND DEAD series of zombie movies about the same subject. Nevertheless I agreed to tackle it.
Asking about a fee though changed the atmosphere. Warmth turned to chill. Between bouts of writing I consulted friends, checked with the Writer's Museum, Filmbase, etc., and the advice was the same; do nothing for nothing! Even if it's a small nominal sum, any payment would show their commitment to me. Otherwise they could have several writers working on the same thing and in the end they could choose whatever version they liked with no monetary loss. I had to have it out with them, and have it out with them I did. I was accused of not trusting them. Well, maybe, but they held all the cards and I was an out-of-work wannabe scriptwriter. I asked for a very small figure, maybe one hundred euros. After all I had done a lot of work at that point (little did they know I actually had a first draft written). No! I was a viper! I shamed them! Down the stairs! I was evicted from the office and that, my friends, was the end of that.
A shame though. I liked that script, if I do say so myself (nice scene in a library; sex scene with a seal), but as they owned the treatment, I don't own the rights. A salutary lesson in scriptwriting taught and learnt in a classroom we fondly call The Twilight Zone.

Off Warbling Somewhere in Frenchy Speak

Image from www.wikipedia.org
I really have to give up those 4 a.m. drunken bursts of written diarrhoea. In the end a good night was had by all, including, I am sure, the Cavan masseuse.
You know there cannot be a shirt in my wardrobe that hasn't been besmirched by my love of olive oil. And as for that old chestnut about a hot iron and some brown paper, that's all it is, an old chestnut, and tree seeds have no place in modern laundry practice. I should know; I worked in a professional laundry for three years (well, summers). Blithely I emptied out the sacks of urine-soaked pyjamas and operating room balls of fat on to the conveyor belt. I had sacks of blood drip by my feet from the overhead rails. They even found an amputated hand where I worked (a week before I started). Yes, an industrial laundry that tackled hospital and hotel garments and linen. Anyhow I still never learnt how to iron a shirt.
Believe it or not, short though it is, I only got round to finishing 'Three Men in a Boat' the other day. Very lightweight - never likely to provoke more than a smile - it just couldn't generate enough enthusiasm in this reader to keep me reading for any length of time, though it would never alienate me enough to make me throw it away. Still, although the jokes don't quite do it in this day and age, it is something of a masterclass in how to write comedically over an extended piece of work. Hypocrisy and misdirection are used well, if too repeatedly, and the whole comes across as less of a novel and more a transcribed comedy routine from some observational nineteenth century stand-up.
Series Two of 'The Twilight Zone' isn't up to the standard of its predecessor. Four lemmons in a row today, all of them from Mr Serling. He seems to have let his sentimentality and didacticism run roughshod over his sense of story. It's a relief to get Matheson's 'The Invaders', a somewhat famous episode about an old woman in a farmhouse attacked by the diminutive occupants of a flying saucer. What's really worthy of note in the second series is the development of Jerry Goldsmith as a composer. His music makes itself felt everytime it's used (you know when it's a Goldsmith episode). 'The Invaders' episode, in particular, has a score that looks forward to his classic film music for 'Alien' and 'The Omen', despite the fact that the episode was broadcast in 1961. Fantastic!

From the Outskirts

From www.wikipedia.org
Why do so many of 'The Twilight Zone' episodes happen on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone (I'm just going by Mr Serling's introductions). What the hell would it be like in the centre?

I watched an episode earlier entitled 'The Lateness of the Hour'. In terms of direction, dialogue and even acting, this was one of the worst of both seasons. It says a lot for the series then that it prefigures much of the Rachael subplot in 'Bladerunner'. Of course, Dick, the author of the original novel (written in 1966), dealt with the whole question of what it means to be human throughout his entire career (which started in the early 50s). The use of robots to highlight this question features in literature a lot earlier too; consider Hoffmann (and in particular, his 'The Sandman') or even, one could argue, 'Pinocchio' (think of Spielberg and Aldiss' take on the story in 'A.I.'). Still the Twilight Zone episode explicitly deals with a robot, with false memories of childhood, believing itself to be human, but coming to the realisation that it is not.

On a side note, it's funny how the use of an abrasive bit of music to drive home the punchline can put a particular interpretation on the ending.

As another aside, the young star of this episode, Inger Stevens, led a particularly tragic life. She had a nasty habit of having affairs with her costars, the last one with Burt Reynolds. Never happy though, she committed suicide at the age of 35. It then emerged that she had been married to African American actor, Ike Jones, for ten years, but this had been covered up for the sake of her career. The 60s really were a different time.

Zoned Out

Image from www.scifi.com
I should mention that a week or so ago I finished watching Season One of the original Twilight Zone series. All my life my preference has been for the Richard Matheson ('The Last Flight', 'Third from the Sun') and Charles Beaumont ('Perchance to Dream', 'Long Live Walter Jameson') tales. My esimation of Rod Serling, who wrote the bulk of Season One (and of the other four seasons too; apparently over 120 25 minute episodes) has just grown and grown. Despite a moralistic tone, some occasionally clunky dialogue and a definite streak of sentimentality, his tales are showcases of good storytelling. Perfectly formed, they tend to center on an urban nobody, a thirty-something loser, given a chance at redemption, he something takes, but as often rejects ('The Big Tall Wish'). 'The Twilight Zone' features so heavily in my psyche, having made such a big impact from my childhood television viewing, that I could write on and on about its strengths and weaknesses. I won't. I'll just say there are some masterpieces: Burgess Meredith in 'Time Enough at Last' (though a little too schematic this viewing around), 'The After Hours', 'And When the Sky Was Opened', and 'The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street'. That last one is particularly famous, but I could not remember having seen it before. Despite two aliens with antennae (who nevertheless must form the basis for the alien duo from 'The Simpsons'), this is a powerful tale of human weakness which starts humbly and builds inexorably to the final frightening frenzy. Masterly.
I'm on to Season Two now and delighted in Beaumont's classic 'The Howling Man' last night. Then there was William Shatner in 'Nick o' Time', with the bobbing devil-headed, napkin-dispensing fortune teller (Matheson has Shatner's character's psychology just right). They really don't make them like that any more, and more's the pity.

Requiem for a Heavyweight

Made in 1962, 'Requiem for a Heavyweight' tells the tale of aging heavyweight, Mountain Rivera (Anthony Quinn), who after an encounter with a young Cassius Clay, must give up the ring or risk losing his sight. While he tries to find work with the help of employment agent, Julie Harris, beloved, but flawed manager, Maish (Jackie Gleason), tries to save his life after getting in debt to mobster, Ma Greeny.

 

The movie opens with a disorienting subjective shot (recalling for me the opening of Mamoulian's 'Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde'), closing when Quinn looks in the mirror at his disfigured face. It's powerful stuff from the outset and builds inexorably to a heart-breaking finale. Rod Serling, the man behind 'The Twilight Zone', wrote the screenplay. While I disagree with the common view that Serling wrote the best 'Twilight Zone' episodes (Matheson and Beaumont did that), there's no doubt he could write powerful drama (watch 'Seven Days in May' for proof). This is a fine work by Serling. Any writer who can make an Indian headdress and a war whoop into nails every bit as painful as those of a crucifixion, gets my vote. But he does have help.

 

Fine though the direction is, and beautifully noir-ish as the cinematography might be, it is the unlikely threesome of Anthony Quinn, Mickey Rooney and Jackie Gleeson who push this movie into greatness. They are electrifying. Quinn, as full of mumbles as any Stallone, is the clear, and superior, model for Rocky. But he invests Rivera with a dignity and honour that Stallone could only dream of. It's easy to dismiss Quinn as a minor lead, but a few moment's consideration of a career that included roles in 'La Strada', 'Lust for Life' and 'Warlock', would should what a mistake this would be. This is a heart-wrenching performance and one of his best. But he is matched by a wonderfully underplayed Rooney as his coach, and a powerhouse performance by Gleeson as his beloved Maish. Gleeson, not dissimilar to a more sympathetic Orson Welles, portrays all the complexity of a once good man fighting with his baser instincts. This from the man who became 'Smokey' in the 'Smokey and the Bandit' movies.

 

Anyhow forget your 'Million Dollar Baby's, this is the real deal. Beautiful characterisation, a strong, emotive story, clear direction and mesmeric performances. A small movie, but a great one.