Cast:
Opening sequence: Albert Brooks (the Driver), Dan Aykroyd (the Passenger), and Burgess Meredith (Narrator); Segment "Time Out": Vic Morrow (Bill Connor, segment "Time Out"), Doug McGrath (Larry), and Charles Hallahan (Ray); Segment "Kick the Can": Scatman Crothers (Mr. Bloom), Bill Quinn (Leo Conroy), Martin Garner (Mr. Weinstein), Selma Diamond (Mrs. Weinstein), Helen Shaw (Mrs. Dempsey), and Murray Matheson (Mr. Agee); Segment "It's a Good Life": Kathleen Quinlan (Helen Foley), Jeremy Licht (Anthony), Kevin McCarthy (Uncle Walt), Patricia Barry (Mother), and William Schallert (Father); Segment "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet": John Lithgow (John Valentine), Abbe Lane (Sr. Flight attendant), Donna Dixon (Jr. Flight attendant), John Dennis Johnston (Co-Pilot), and Larry Cedar (Gremlin)
Directed by John Landis (#328 - Trading Places, #410 - Coming to America, #513 - Spies Like Us, #1114 - Animal House, #1462 - The Blues Brothers, #1465 - An American Werewolf in London, #1699 - Blues Brothers 2000, and #1718 - The Stupids), Steven Spielberg (#126 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind, #168-#170, #302, #351, #480, #563, #573, #642, #958, #1068, #1305, #1478, #1520, #1528, #1560, #1843, and #2000 - Duel),
Joe Dante (#007 - Looney Tunes: Back in Action, #096 - Gremlins, #097 - Small Soldiers, #1494 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch, #1744 - The Howling) and George Miller (#380 - Mad Max, #392 - Happy Feet, #493 - The Witches of Eastwick, #707 - Mad Max 2, #781 - Mad Max: Fury Road)
Review:
The Twilight Zone, originally broadcast on CBS in 1959, is generally considered one of the best television shows of its time, if not one of the best ever. There were 156 episodes of the anthology series, with a good majority of them (92!) written by series creator (and presenter) Rod Serling. He had come up with the idea for an anthology series that would use its "science-fiction setting" to have more freedom to write what he felt. Technically, the show was not meant to be scary, but it just happened to have plenty of twists within a mostly consistent show. Providing a list of what episodes are the best seems futile, but here is a list of episodes that would be neat for one to check out if they want to see just what the show could do in its format (most are a half-hour long, minus the hour-long fourth season): "One for the Angels", "Walking Distance", "A Quality of Mercy", "Printer's Devil", and "One More Pallbearer" (one could also go for Serling's reported favorites in "The Invaders" and "Time Enough at Last"). Rod Serling had an interest in doing a Twilight Zone film for quite some time prior to his death in 1975. Various cast members that had appeared in an original episode appear in the film: Burgess Meredith, Patricia Barry, Peter Brocco, Murray Matheson, Kevin McCarthy, Bill Mumy, and William Schallert. The movie was marked by tragedy in the making of the first segment of the film due to an accident involving a helicopter crash during filming on July 23, 1982. Two children, Myca Dinh Le, Renee Shin-Yi Chen were hired to do a scene at night (under the table) that involved pyrotechnics and a helicopter. This resulted in an accident that saw the death of Morrow and the two children. Various people, which included Landis, were tried and ultimately acquitted on manslaughter charges in a trial that spanned 1986 and 1987. Of course, the tragedy as a whole sparked a movement for fire safety regulations and entertainment industry requirements, complete with a safety committee made by the Directors Guild of America about safety bulletins and a phone hotline. The film was released 40 years ago in June of 1983, and it was a mild success with audiences. It would inspire CBS (who had the rights to the show because Serling had sold it to them) to go forward with a second rendition of the show in 1985. After its end in 1989, two further shows came and went in the following decades (2002-2003 and 2019-2020).
The opening segment (roughly eight minutes) features Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd in a car conversation that eventually talks about the show within the movie and the question of if one wants to see something "really scary"? It is, uh, a strange way to start a movie, mostly because when I think of Twilight Zone, I don't think, man suddenly finds a surprise in a car. But it is with two folks that I like, so there's that. Burgess Meredith, who appeared in classic episodes of the show such as "Time Enough at Last", introduces each story in narration, which is a nice tribute to Serling's previous method, although they do use Serling's voice for the ending as a whole. John Landis directed this sequence alongside the first segment in "Time Out". The segment, lasting roughly 18 minutes, involves a racist and resentful man that goes to a bar after being passed over for promotion that finds himself wrapped up in the past, more specifically places such as Nazi-occupied France, a racist Klan rally, or in Vietnam. Evidently, the segment is a mishmash of the classic stories "Back There" (namely the time travel) and "A Quality of Mercy", with the writer being none other than Landis. The original scripted idea obviously couldn't be completed due to the tragedy that occurred, which apparently was meant to have a resolution that would've tried to find redemption for the racist that saw him try to help two children out of a helicopter attack in a Vietnamese swamp. Instead, it ends on him going through a frenzy of terrifying events before being sent off by a train despite yelling out to his friends that he can see out of the slats. As such, the story is mild because it requires a bit more bite than what is required to either reach a payoff of redemption...or the opposite, and a segment that doesn't even last the time of an actual TV episode isn't going to cut it. As such, Morrow is essentially trapped in a segment with an unavoidable pall over the entire thing, but you can see the glimmer in one part of the diner scene. There he is, blithering around with a dirty mouth, and for a moment you can see him for what he is beyond the epithets: a loser who really thought the world owed him one because of what he looks and sounds like "as an American". Intended redemption or not, there obviously was something that could've been done here beyond what you know.
"Kick the Can" (lasting roughly 21 minutes) is based on the third season episode of the same name originally written by George Clayton Johnson. The segment screenplay was written by Johnson, Richard Matheson, and Melissa Mathison. It was directed by Steven Spielberg. Apparently, he had plans for an ambitious segment before the helicopter tragedy led to him curtailing plans...for a remake of an episode that I honestly can't remember watching to begin with beyond the phrase "old people get young". It has been rumored that Spielberg, under contract but having lost the heart for the project due to the tragedy, made only a half-hearted effort here. All of this is meant to subside the actual thoughts of the story about "the day we stop playing is the day we start getting old", which I vaguely remember seeing in my neighborhood park when I was a kid. If the Landis segment could be thought of as perhaps a bit too short, the Spielberg segment can be best described as half-brained and half-effective. I can't tell what is more annoying, its cloying sense of "cheer" for such an average effort, or the very rumor of Spielberg half-assing a story just to get out of a dilemma. Crothers actually does provide a decent performance here, pulling some of the mysterious requirements necessary to make a story telegraphed to us in every step of the way not nearly as painful as it could be, and Quinn is at least a quality foil the basic arguments made involving the inevitability of age. By the time the segment gets to the ultimate decision made, the lesson put there is at least one that isn't sapped of hokum...and then of course Crothers does a fourth wall bit before leaving. As a whole, it's just an okay segment, one that makes you wonder if being the "light segment" of the film is really a compliment.
"It's a Good Life" (roughly 27 minutes long) is loosely based off the third season episode of the same name (as written by Serling that was based on a short story by Jerome Bixby). Matheson wrote the screenplay for this segment (which Serling had discussed prior to his death as writing a draft to make into a film), with Joe Dante serving as director. The story involves a lady schoolteacher finding the company of a young boy at a rural diner when she helps him after he is accosted only to then accidently back her car into his bike. She gives him a ride home and meets the rest of his family, who all seem nice. Heck, I like Kevin McCarthy, what could go wrong with his character presence? Despite having quite a hill to climb in trying to remake one of the most famous Zone episodes, Dante has provided something special here: an off-beat and weird segment that seems to take you on a trip of not just sight and sound but of mind. It is a delightful and deranged segment, headlined by a useful cast. I of course dig the presences around the supporting folks like McCarthy, ever the panicky one in trying to keep appearances as essentially the elder statesmen of character presences here, made clear when he tries to figure just how a magic trick with an imaginative boy is going to go. Quinlan and Lichy make quite an effective pairing in the realm of dealing with such a funhouse of creativity that invites a tragic quality not present in the earlier adaptation (of course, since this adaptation uses an eight-year-old rather than a six-year-old, why not?), which seems like a suitable twist. It's a neat story as a whole.
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (22 minutes) is a remake of the story of the same name (based on the short story by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay for this segment) that had premiered in the fifth season of the show, which I'm sure you remember had William Shatner as star. George Miller serves as director here. The key change is to the circumstances of the man in the predicament of seeing a gremlin on the plane he is flying in: the TV episode had him travel with his wife after just spending time in a sanitarium while the film features a man with a fear of flying traveling alone. The segment is all about the tension that comes with what you know of the person observing a nightmare right in front of their eyes that obviously could be just our nightmare too: what if you saw something that no one could see that could lead to your death? The gremlin costume is the biggest evident difference in adaptation, mainly because it actually looks quite spooky in the moments it is seen in the dark rainy night, which only add to the fear portrayed excellently by Lithgow. This segment is probably the one that hews closest to the original spirit of the TV episode, which either makes it the best segment of the film or a pretty close second and one can't go wrong there. The movie begins and ends with the same man asking if one wants to see something really scary. Friends of anthologies with varying quality such as O. Henry's Full House (1952) or Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) will be just fine with this movie, one that will have enough peaks and lows to make the 101-minute runtime seem useful to perhaps step further into the realm of the Twilight Zone and see just how fun anthology can be in the right hands.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment