Monthly Archives: June 2016

Tales of Tomorrow – The Dune Roller (01/04/52)

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ttdunerollers02Ol’ Cap Zanser is telling 12 year old Sally Burgess tall tales about Dune Rollers.  They are flaming hoop snakes that roll along with their tail in their mouth, taller than a man can reach.  Cap attributes the high number of deaths on this island to that fabled creature.  The fact that this is called Lightning Island and not Flaming Hoop Snake Island seems to undermine his theory a little.

Sally is going to the dock to meet her father on the boat that identifies as mail.  Before she leaves, she hands Sam some rocks she has collected.  He is paying her a dime each for these special specimens.  He files them away in his special rock file cabinet.

Sally returns from the dock with her father and sister.  When Sam hears Sally’s sister Jean is coming he frets about his appearance and says he would have changed his shirt. In a fitting microcosm of the times, Jean walks in with her arms full of groceries and her father walks in with an armful of science books.  Maybe Sam wanted to change his shirt so she could wash it.

ttdunerollers20Sam shows Dr. Burgess his rocks and is stunned to see the two rocks that he filed have fused into one pointy stone, and that the weight is now double the two stones combined.  Burgess theorizes that the stones are a mineral from a meteor.  The fragments are trying to recombine into the original rock.

Jean calls Dr. Burgess and Sam to dinner.  Sam says he needs to change his shirt.  This guy goes through shirts like Bruce Banner.  Dr. Burgess goes to check on the rocks before dinner and Jean tells him to get to the table.  She calls him Carl so maybe I have misjudged their relationship.

After dinner, they go to check on the rocks.  They find that two stones have burned their way out of the cabinet, fused together, and burned their way right through the front door leaving a scorched cutout like Speedy Gonzalez.  Later that night, Cap is attacked by the flaming stones and killed.

ttdunerollers29Instead of the usual commercial for Kreisler Watchbands, this episode has a bizarre break where a man gives the mission statement of the series.  “The stories may seem improbable but are they impossible? Nobody really knows.  We do know the universe that surrounds us is an enormous mystery.  Our stories try to break through the barrier of life as we know it through discovery and our imaginations what life beyond may be like.”  And if you understand that last sentence, you should be working for the NSA.

Dr. Burgess and Sam find Cap’s body and assume he was killed by lightning.  Sam says he looks like the “Japs” he saw in WWII who had been hit by a flame-thrower.  They realize that these rolling stones are the mythological titular dune rollers.  Dr. Burgess plans to blow up the main stone, but Sam volunteers to take that risky assignment so Burgess can get the girls off the island.

It isn’t even clear what this is supposed to accomplish.  Is he intending to blow up the main rock?  Wouldn’t it just reassemble?  And why did he drop some stones at the blast site? Was it to lure the master rock?  But the smaller stones seek out the big rock — the big rock isn’t like Uber conveniently picking up the kid rocks.

But the bigger mystery is why this young girl is living on a remote island with Sam and Cap.  At least Jonny Quest had his dad to keep an eye on Race Bannon.

ttdunerollers38The very end should have had one of those horror movie question marks at the end.  We pan to see a glowing dune roller.  But is it a large fragment from the blast?  Is it another one? The last shot is bizarre and difficult to describe.  It is not just a zoom-in on the rock — the soil below it is moving.  I think they were trying to create an illusion that it was growing.  It is pretty clever, but doesn’t work today. On a fuzzy 1952 RCA, who knows? [1] 

Post-Post:

  • [1] Actually, the lousy YouTube version might be a good 1952 RCA emulator.
  • Bruce Cabot (Sam) starred in King Kong.  No, the other one.  Before that.
  • Sally is played by Lee Graham and is clearly a young girl.  Graham’s other IMDb credits include Storekeeper, Marine, Titanic Lookout, Crew Chief and a few more androgynous roles.  Back then these would have been traditionally male jobs.  If this were 50 years later, I would get it, but in the 1950’s, I can make no sense out of it.

Night Visions – Switch (09/23/02)

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nvswitch02This episode is rated dead last in the IMDb User Ratings, redeeming a shred of credibility in that dubious index.  As I watched it, it just seemed like a mess.  At the end, I realized it was worse than that — it was also a hugely missed opportunity.

Rather than the usual snotty recap — because it is almost recap-proof — maybe just a few observations like I had for another fiasco, Poltergeist.

I haven’t seen Pam Grier in many things, but from what I’ve seen and heard, this is a pretty unusual role for her.  She does well as the psychiatrist and not just because the rest of the cast is so bad.  But they are.

Natasha Gregson Wagner gives such an awful performance that the ending made me question whether it was a conscious acting choice.  Maybe the wooden, stilted delivery was meant on convey that someone else was doing the driving.  I don’t think that is the case, but if so, the director should have told her to moderate it a little.  Or a little less.

The director’s thought process also eludes me.  Jefery Levy did a great job with the suspenseful Dead Air.  He also made the bizarre After Life into a solid episode.  His style here is radically different, though.  Granted, he was portraying a different environment — the psyche of a trouble young woman — but this is just off-putting.  The constant jump cuts and flashing lights are just too jarring to be effective.   I would advise avoiding if you have epilepsy; or good taste.  Add Wagner’s leaden voice-over, and it is deadly.

I’m not sure I can fairly evaluate the writing because the execution was so bad.  That’s why the Grammys present separate awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.  This episode is like if Elton John were forced to live with William Shatner’s version of Rocket Man as the only rendition of that song the public would ever hear.

There are enough good points — and actual ideas! — throughout, that I tend to think the direction, the performances and the poor presentation on YouTube conspired against this script.  The end reveal is great, and like Bitter Harvest, it is followed up with another twist.

This has been a good series so far; it deserved a better fate.  This episode represents its low-point.

Post-Post:

  • Sydney says she was young when her mother died.  Natasha Gregson Wagner was eleven when her mother Natalie Wood died.  Both mothers died under questionable circumstances.
  • Her father Robert Wagner was in a TV series named Switch.
  • Director Jefery Levy co-wrote Ghoulies.

Night Visions – Cargo (09/23/02)

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nvcargo09The first five seconds of this episode are just wrong and wronger . . . no, the ones after tattoo-boy‘s introduction.  But we’ll get back to that.

As well as I can make out on the crummy YouTube presentation, the camera is winding through a dark junky area . . . an alley, a construction site, a warehouse, a post-apocalyptic city?  A woman is calling out in a whisper for Sergei.  A man and a very sick woman join the search.  The woman fires up a lighter and they pass some sad souls . . . homeless, refugees?  One is eating a rat.  A drop of blood falls on the woman and they see Segei’s bloody corpse above them.

The camera pulls back through a hole to reveal that this has all taken place in a shipping container.  The problem is that the very first shot of the episode is an exterior of the ship, and the second shot is the exterior of the shipping container on-board.  This could have been a very cool reveal, but it is not just telegraphed — it is HD-transmitted to ruin the impact.

nvcargo04Crewman Mark Stevens is inspecting the area and hears the screams from the container.  He finds the Captain [1] and First Mate Taforner and tells them he thinks they might have stowaways because he hears “whispers, moans and screams” in the cargo hold of the ship, and they don’t sound like Kate Winslet.  Also, the rat problem has subsided. Taforner is suspiciously defensive and dismissive of Stevens’ concern.

Back in the titular cargo container, they discover that two more of their comrades — they all have eastern European or Russki accents, BTW — have been similarly killed. Stevens is inspecting the hold again when he finds finds higher than normal carbon dioxide levels indicating stowaways.[2]  Taforner is again angry, but Stevens tells him they have been at sea for weeks and the people could be starving — the only people ever to lose weight on a cruise.  After Taforner leaves, the woman calls to Stevens.

Through the world’s highest glory hole, she begs Stevens not to tell the Captain because he might kill them.  She does want to be let out, though, because something inside is killing them.  And the smell!  My God, the smell! Stevens finds an acetylene torch and a crowbar. As another person is being attacked, he begins cutting into the container.  For some reason he only cuts out a section about one foot square — why, you could only fit a human head through there!

nvcargo11Turns out the Captain and Taforner are in cahoots.  They tell Stevens the things inside are not human.  The Czars used them to terrorize the serfs.  The Russian mob uses them as assassins.  And as they get hungry, they feed on their own.

The Captain and Taforner [3] force Stevens’ head into the hole and the things chew it off.  In another scene graphic for TV, his headless body does a little dance before collapsing.  The camera pulls back to reveal this container is being shipped to New York.

Like many of the episodes I’ve watched, I think this would have been really good if it just had a better transfer.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Philip Baker Hall — he is usually so good that miscasting him seems impossible. They pulled it off here, though.
  • [2] This is so dumb I don’t even know where to start.  Micro-changes in air density is sounding more plausible.
  • [3] C’mon, you were thinkin’ it, too.  Dayum, I don’t care how corny it is, that song is awesome.
  • The IMDb lists a character called Dad From the Past.  I have no idea what that is about.  Even if there were a cut scene, I see nowhere to insert daddy-issues for any of the characters.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – And the Desert Shall Blossom (12/21/58)

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ahpdesertblossom16Sheriff Jeff rides out to the Tom & Ben’s shack in the desert.  The town council is concerned about the two old coots living with no visible means of support.  They claim to be homesteaders but can provide no evidence of being farmers or prospectors.

Sigh . . . this is a pretty thin story that relies on a ludicrous plot-point and has a familiar ending.  There just isn’t much to grab onto here.

The Sheriff assures them that the town council just has their welfare in mind.  The fact that this beautiful location would be the perfect spot for a red rock spa resort surely plays no role in their decision, and is not mentioned here.  And where is this utopia where the government is so concerned about old people who pay no taxes and give no campaign contributions?

ahpdesertblossom13The Sheriff is on their side and just needs some evidence, any evidence that they are really homesteaders — say, growing a single crop or mining enough gold to sustain them.  The absurd plot-point is that they finally agree that if the geezers can grow a single rose bush that flowers, they can can technically be considered farmers.  Are we sure these guys aren’t making campaign contributions?  That kind of sleazy technicality is the essence of politics.

As luck would have it, they get a visitor.  A stranger’s car breaks down just in front of their shack.  The old guys tell the man — credited spoilerifically as Killer on IMDb — that the nearest town is 47 miles away.  They claim they can walk it in a day and a half which seems unlikely.  Killer pulls a gun and insists that they lead him to town.  Tom — or Ben, it really doesn’t matter — gets his hand on a pistol and shoots Killer with one of those AHP patented one-shot kills.  This series wounds less people than Jack Bauer.

ahpdesertblossom30One month later, the Sheriff comes by again looking for Killer.  He doesn’t find Killer, but the boys do show him a thriving rose bush on top of a burial plot-shaped mound of dirt.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s closing remarks, as usual, he assures the audience — and by audience, I mean FCC —  that the old fellows were caught and punished.  In an unusual departure, however, he actually says that after using Killer for fertilizer, they continued the practice with other criminals and innocent passersby.

That comment and the camaraderie of the guys are the only reasons to sit through this episode.  I rate it 17.5 out of Isaiah 35.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
  • Title Analysis: Very good.  Streamlined from the source, but still identifiable.  Even more on-point if you look at the original.
  • Killer played Chief Bell in The Thirty-Fathom Grave.

Twilight Zone S4 – On Thursday We Leave for Home (05/02/63)

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tzonthursday0115William Benteen is in charge of 187 people on a distant rock.  They left the earth 30 years ago, according to Serling, “In search of a new millennium.”  The year is 1991, so the joke’s on them — they could have stuck around and it would have soon come to them.  After three decades, the earth has become a distant memory for many and a legend for the young.  Now they have finally received a signal that a rescue ship will arrive in one month.

As the ship gets closer, like the men of the Indianapolis, the colonists just get more tense.  A woman commits suicide — the ninth in the last six months.  At the funeral, Benteen leads them in a chant of “There’s a ship coming” over and over as sort of a hypnotic Kool-Aid.  Despite his autocratic ways, four out of five colonists recommend Benteen.[1]

A meteor shower breaks up the festivities and forces the colonists into a cave.  The meteors might be the flashiest special effects ever seen on TZ.  Through a combination of flash-bombs, camera tricks, and the crew throwing rocks at the actors, this really comes off as a great, chaotic event.  In the cave, Benteen displays his additional role as the camp doctor.  Later he is the camp counselor as he comforts kids from 6 to a creepy 30 with his stories of earth, and how they fled wars and came to this arid rock. They hear a ship landing and suddenly the soil isn’t so arid any more — they are very excited.  Hey, it’s the spacecraft from Death Ship [2] — maybe we’ll meet TV’s Oscar Madisoy!

tzonthursday0141Like the meteor shower, the close-up of the ship is like nothing seen before in TZ.  In fact, many of the sets for this episode are the best in the show’s run.  The cavernous . . er, cavern, the shanty town, the bleak landscape, the number of extras — all are on a scale never seen before.

Commander Sloan comes down the ramp of the ship and tells the group they are taking them back to earth. The group erupts in celebration.  Even Benteen is elated.  He does seem a little irritated that Sloan calls him Mr. instead of Captain Benteen.  He didn’t rule this group for 30 years to be called “Mr.”  He is further threatened when Sloan offers more advance medical care to the group, and is seen as the group’s “messiah.”

At a gathering in the cave, Benteen instructs the colonists on the dates and weights of the flight out.  Sloan takes over the gathering and takes questions from the crowd. Benteen is irritated at his loss of control.  As their caps have almost the same logo as the Miami Heat, Sloan suggests a game of baseball to get in the earth-spirit, Benteen tells the crowd it is dangerously hot and tries to engage them in a singalong instead, but is less successful than Carter Burke.  He tells Sloan that while they are still on the planet, he is in charge.

tzonthursday0181Later on the ship Benteen tells Sloan that he expects his group to stay together after the return to earth — under his watchful eye.  He has not asked their opinion on this.  He regards them as children — he must decide what is best for them. Fearing he is losing his grip on his flock, he gets the group together in the cave. As they ask about different parts of the US, he tells them they will all stay together and he magnanimously agrees to continue as their leader.

When they protest, he desperately begins to tell them how awful earth is, and how they must stay together.  They take a vote and Benteen is humiliated.  Throughout the episode, the 110 degree heat has covered Benteen in a sheen of sweat. Now it serves as further illustration of his desperation.  He attacks the ship in a futile gesture.

He watches as his people board the ship.  He just can’t leave this place that he has ruled for 30 years.  Even after they have evacuated, Benteen goes back to the cave and preaches to his imaginary flock.  Eventually, he realizes that he has been left alone on the planet and runs outside, pleading to the skies, “Don’t leave me here!”

It really is an effective, heartbreaking ending.  Unlike other TZ episodes, his desolation is not a hallucination (Where is Everybody?), there is no hint of irony or humor (Time Enough at Last), and he doesn’t even have a sexy robot for company (The Lonely).  He is alone on this planet, a man whose entire being was invested in his community.  It is surely his own fault, but this is a man who took control of a stranded bunch of colonists and kept them alive for 30 years.  The burden of that responsibility, then the sudden loss of that status would mess anyone up.  He is, at once, a victim of himself and of circumstances.  The key to the episode is that Serling keeps Benteen human.  He was controlling, but maybe necessarily so.  He didn’t deserve to live the next 40 years alone.

tzonthursday0189Serling:  “William Benteen — once a god, now a population of one.”

There are several reviews that cite this episode as being the best of the 4th season, and one of the best of the series.  Let’s not get crazy.  I would slice & dice it a little more — it is probably Serling’s best script of the 4th season.  In some ways it is not even a Twilight Zone script. There is no twist, no great irony; the ending is more horrific than usual.  It is, however, a great piece of drama that seems like it could have played on any of the dramatic anthology series in the “Golden Age.”

I set the alarm for 9 on this episode.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Sadly, I misremembered this slogan as being for Dentyne when it was actually Trident.  Maybe I should have gone for Bactine.
  • [2] And Forbidden Planet and six other TZ episodes.
  • It is an interesting choice that the group does not seem to have buttons on their clothes, but have ties and lashes.  Our Amish are better than their Amish.
  • Early in the episode there is the most lengthy, blatant microphone shot I have ever seen in a TV show.  The mic in Kentucky Fried Movie was less obtrusive.
  • As usual on TZ, there was not a 3rd grader on the set to correct their scientific inaccuracies.  This planet is described as being a billion miles away — not even out of our solar system.
  • There was, however, a 2nd grader on set — director Buzz Kulik cast his son Daniel.  To cover up this blatant act of nepotism, Daniel’s last name is spelled Kulick in the credits, completely fooling everyone.
  • James Whitmore looks amazingly like Alan Tudyk.