Rod Serling Movies

During a manned space flight, a spaceship crashlands on a distant, desolate terrain, which may be an uncharted asteroid. The three surviving astronauts -- Donlin (Edward Binns), Corey (Dewey Martin), and Pierson (Ted Otis) -- begin a long and arduous search for food and water. Unfortunately, Corey gets greedy, and he ultimately murders his two comrades. Only at the very end does Corey realize that his homicidal behavior was totally unecessary. First telecast January 15, 1960, "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" was scripted by Rod Serling from a story idea by Madelon Champion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Once seen in childhood, the January 1, 1960 Twilight Zone episode "The Four of Us Are Dying" can never be forgotten. Set in a surrealistic New York City (replete with flashing neon signs and forced-perspective streets), the story concerns one Arch Hammer (Harry Townes), a two-bit hood gifted with the ability to change his facial features. In rapid succession, he assumes the personalities of two recently deceased individuals -- jazz musician Johnny Foster (Ross Martin) and murdered gangster Virgil Sterig (Phillip Pine) -- for his own financial and sexual gain. But Arch comes to grief when, pursued by Sterig's killers, he transforms his face into that of punkish prizefighter Andy Marshak (Don Gordon). Enchancing the episode's dramatic clout is a brilliant performance by Beverly Garland as a nightclub singer and a driving musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. "The Four of Us Are Dying" was written by Rod Serling from a story by George Clayton Johnson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Twilight Zone's Yuletide offering for the 1960-61 season was this videotaped episode. Art Carney stars as Henry Corwin, a philosophical, booze-guzzling department store Santa Claus. Dismissed from his job, the disgruntled Corwin stumbles across a strange-looking bag, one that profoundly changes not only his life but the lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact. Reliable TV actors John Fiedler and Burt Mustin spice up the proceedings in this irresistably charming exercise. Written by Rod Serling, "Night of the Meek" first aired December 23, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The scene is the magnificent but isolated home of scientist Dr. Loren (John Hoyt), his wife (Irene Tedrow), and their attractive young daughter Jana (Inger Stevens). To insulate himself from the world, Dr. Loren has created a household staff of robots, who cater to the Lorens' every whim. Eventually, Jana becomes fed up with her sheltered existence and demands that Dr. Loren dismantle all of his robots -- something which, for reasons made painfully clear in the episode's second act, he cannot bring himself to do. Written by Rod Serling, "The Lateness of the Hour" was the first of six Twilight Zone episodes to be shot on videotape, as part of an overall CBS economy drive. The episode originally aired December 2, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As had been the case with the first season's inaugural episode "Where Is Everybody?", the second season of Twilight Zone opened with a "solo" drama, wherein the protagonist finds himself alone in a bizarre situation, with no memory of how he got there. In "King Nine Will Not Return," Robert Cummings stars as Army Air Force captain James Embry, who awakens to find himself stumbling through the desert, near the wreckage of a WWII bomber. Laboriously putting the pieces together, Embry desperately searches for his fellow crew members, who seemingly appear and disappear right before his eyes. Inspired by the recent disovery of the wreckage of the American bomber Lady Be Good in the Libyan Desert, "King Nine Will Not Return" was written by Rod Serling and first aired September 30, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though obviously an episode designed to absorb the costs of the more expensive Twilight Zone installments, this was one of the better efforts of the series' second season, with a tour de force performance by Joe Mantell as penny-ante gangster Jackie Rhoades. Ordered to bump off a rival gangster, the timorous Rhoades tries to summon up the courage for the foul deed, only to be thwarted at every turn by his own conscience -- who as it turns out has more "guts" than Jackie ever dreamed of. Though essentially a solo endeavor, the episode also features a good performance from future producer-director William D. Gordon as Jackie's nasty boss, while another future director, Brian G. Hutton, serves as Joe Mantell's back-to-camera stand-in when the actor "confronts" himself. Written by Rod Serling and scored by Jerry Goldsmith, "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" was the first episode produced for Twilight Zone's second season, even though it was telecast as the third episode, on October 14, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scriptwriter Rod Serling had intended the June 3, 1960, Twilight Zone episode as the pilot for a TV series starring Burgess Meredith, but when Meredith balked, the title role was recast with Orson Bean. A natural-born eccentric and misfit, James B.W. Bevis somehow or other warrants the special attention of guardian angel J. Hardy Hempstead (Henry Jones). After briefly tasting success for the first time in his life, however, Bevis decides that he was happier when he was a loser. TV-series perennials Charles Lane, William Schallert, Horace McMahon, and Vito Scotti make brief appearances. Though "Mr. Bevis" did not graduate to a weekly series, Serling recycled the premise for his 1962 Twilight Zone episode "Cavender Is Coming" -- and, to a lesser extent, for the second-season installment "Mr. Dingle the Strong." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Even non-devotees of The Twilight Zone are able to distinguish the series' first-season episodes from the later installments. Instead of the familiar "dee-dee-dee-doo, dee-dee-dee-doo" theme music by Marius Constant, each season-one Twilight Zone was introduced with a more lugubrious, string-dominated theme by the great Bernard Herrmann, who also composed the incidental music for such classic first-season episodes as "The Lonely" and "Walking Distance." Also, series creator and host narrator Rod Serling does not appear on camera to deliver his opening and closing narration -- except for a delightful gag appearance at the end of the season's final episode, "A World of His Own." The series' two most frequent guest stars make their inaugural Twilight Zone appearances in the course of season one. Burgess Meredith is poignantly cast as a myopic bookworm who ends up a sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust in "Time Enough at Last," while Jack Klugman is seen as a luckless musician whose life is turned around by a remarkable near-death experience in "A Passage for Trumpet." Other notable actors appearing in this season's 36 episodes include Martin Landau, Fritz Weaver, Ed Wynn, David Wayne, Vera Miles, Ida Lupino, Anne Francis, and Roddy McDowall. Among the best and most memorable episodes of the first-season Twilight Zone crop are "Third From the Sun," "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," "People Are Alike All Over," and "A Stop at Willoughby." Lesser episodes, though still worthy of special mention, include the series opener "Where Is Everybody?," one of the few Zones with a "logical" rather than supernatural ending; "The Hitch-Hiker," a haunting adaptation of Lucille Fletcher's classic radio play; "The Mighty Casey," a baseball fantasy which had to be filmed twice so that Jack Warden could replace the original story by Paul Douglas, who fell ill during shooting and died shortly afterward; and "Mr. Bevis," which Rod Serling intended as the pilot for a series about a bumbling guardian angel. ~ All Movie Guide

Richard Matheson was first represented on the Twilight Zone with the December 11, 1959 episode "And When the Sky Was Opened," adapted by Rod Serling from Matheson's short story "Disappearing Act." After an experimental space flight crash-lands, the three crew members -- who have miraculously survived -- begin experiencing strange sensations. As the episode develops, it becomes obvious that no one but the crewmen have any memory of the crash. . .and before long, no one has any memory whatsoever of the crew itself! This tricky, complex set-up was brilliantly handled by director Douglas Heyes (making his own Twilight Zone debut) and by a topnotch cast, including Rod Taylor, Jim Hutton, and Charles Aidman as the benighted astronauts (also, keep an eye out for Sue Randall, aka "Miss Landers" on Leave It to Beaver. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ida Lupino stars as Barbara Jean Trenton, a 1930s movie queen who refuses to admit that she's grown too old to play romantic roles. As her loyal agent Danny Weiss (Martin Balsam) looks on with a mixture of pity and disgust, Barbara insists upon sitting in her Hollywood mansion watching her old films. A surprise visit from her now-decrepit leading man Jerry Hearndon (Jerome Cowan) forces Barbara to face reality -- or does it? Bearing traces of Sunset Boulevard, but with a poignant Twilight Zone twist, "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" was written by Rod Serling and directed by Mitchell Leisen (one of the last assignments for this veteran); the episode originally aired October 23, 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ed Wynn guest stars as Lew Bookman, an aging and not altogether successful sidewalk salesman. When Mr. Death (Murray Hamilton) shows up to "collect" Lew, the latter refuses to go. This leaves Mr. Death no other choice but to claim an alternate soul in Lew's place -- a little girl named Maggie (Dana Dillaway). Adapted from a script he'd written during his days in Cincinnati television, Rod Serling's "One for the Angels" made its Twilight Zone bow on October 9, 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his first Twilight Zone appearance, Burgess Meredith stars as Henry Bemis, a miopic bank clerk who wants nothing more out of life than to be left alone to read his precious books. He unexpectedly gets his wish when, while hiding in a bank vault with a book in his hands, a hydrogen bomb devastates the city around him. The sole survivor of this nuclear attack, Henry is at first stricken with panic, then becomes delighted at the prospect of reading to his heart's content, without being nagged by his wife (Jacqueline De Wit) or his boss (Vaughn Taylor). The episode's ironic payoff is so well known that it does not bear repeating here; suffice to say that the ending was invoked in the first few moments of 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie. First telecast November 20, 1959, "Time Enough at Last" was scripted by Rod Serling from a short story by Lynn Venable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide