Read Online Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree - Free Book Online
Authors: Marc Scott Zicree
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Glass. In the present, Martin heads down a dirt road toward his home town. The camera pans over to a mirror in which we see his reflection. This cuts to a reflection of Martin in a drugstore mirror in the past, just as he enters. A similar device was used for the return to the present. Martin jumps on a spinning merry-go-round which cuts to a record spinning in a jukebox in the present-day version of the same drug store.
Serling realized that the harsh, hard-edged style of writing hed used in Where Is Everybody? and The Lonely wouldnt do here. Instead, he used a style that was wistful, nostalgic. A longing for the past fills this episode, and that longing is communicated more through words than action. Nowhere is Serlings command of the language more in evidence. Take for example this scene near the end of the show, between Martin and his father:
father: Martin, you have to leave here. Theres no room, theres no place. Do you understand that?
martin: I see that now, but I dont understand. Why not?
father: I guess because we only get one chance.
Maybe theres only one summer to every customer. That little boy, the one I know, the one who belongs here, this is his summer, just as it was yours oncedont make him share it.
martin (Bitterly): All right.
father: Martin, is it so bad where youre from?
martin: I thought so, Pop. Ive been living at a dead run and I was tired. Then one day, I knew I had to come back here. I had to come back and get on a merry-go-round and eat cotton candy and listen to a band concert, to stop and breathe and close my eyes and smell and listen.
father: I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, youll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are.
Maybe you havent been looking in the right place. Youve been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.
Then, too, there is Serlings closing narration, perhaps the most touching and beautifully written of any episode of The Twilight Zone.
Walking Distance is also a prime example of how greatly a musical score can benefit a piece of drama. Bernard Herrmann, with movie credits including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Three Worlds of Gulliver; Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts, was one of the great composers of fantasy film music. Here, his gentle and evocative score permeates the episode, omnipresent yet unobtrusive. Listening to this score, composed specifically for this episode, it is hard to believe any composerparticularly one with such distinguished credits in feature filmswould bother to take such pains. In mood, if not in specifics, the score is reminiscent of much of Herrmanns superb score for Francois Truffauts Fahrenheit 451, which he composed seven years later. But to Buck Houghton, theres no mystery behind the excellence of the Walking Distance score. When you have a good rough cut, a musician does a better job than he would with a less distinguished picture. Bernie responded very strongly to things that he thought were good. Its a great score.
This episode was certainly Serlings most personal and undoubtedly one of the series most finely crafted. Surprisingly, for all its beauty and lyricism, Walking Distance caused Houghton and Serling some problems. Following the production and sale of the pilot, but before regular production of the series began, network vice-president William Dozier was given several of Serlings Twilight Zone scripts to read. Buck Houghton explains where the trouble came in: The pilot could have happened. This was about a guy in a space machine who got claustrophobia to a point where he thought he was the only man in the world. That was one of the two or three Twilight Zones that could have happened. The next script that Bill Dozier read was Walking Distance, about a guy who walks into his own home town hale and hearty and comes back with a limp that he got as a child, and Dozier said, Bullshit!
Serling realized that the harsh, hard-edged style of writing hed used in Where Is Everybody? and The Lonely wouldnt do here. Instead, he used a style that was wistful, nostalgic. A longing for the past fills this episode, and that longing is communicated more through words than action. Nowhere is Serlings command of the language more in evidence. Take for example this scene near the end of the show, between Martin and his father:
father: Martin, you have to leave here. Theres no room, theres no place. Do you understand that?
martin: I see that now, but I dont understand. Why not?
father: I guess because we only get one chance.
Maybe theres only one summer to every customer. That little boy, the one I know, the one who belongs here, this is his summer, just as it was yours oncedont make him share it.
martin (Bitterly): All right.
father: Martin, is it so bad where youre from?
martin: I thought so, Pop. Ive been living at a dead run and I was tired. Then one day, I knew I had to come back here. I had to come back and get on a merry-go-round and eat cotton candy and listen to a band concert, to stop and breathe and close my eyes and smell and listen.
father: I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, youll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are.
Maybe you havent been looking in the right place. Youve been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.
Then, too, there is Serlings closing narration, perhaps the most touching and beautifully written of any episode of The Twilight Zone.
Walking Distance is also a prime example of how greatly a musical score can benefit a piece of drama. Bernard Herrmann, with movie credits including The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Three Worlds of Gulliver; Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts, was one of the great composers of fantasy film music. Here, his gentle and evocative score permeates the episode, omnipresent yet unobtrusive. Listening to this score, composed specifically for this episode, it is hard to believe any composerparticularly one with such distinguished credits in feature filmswould bother to take such pains. In mood, if not in specifics, the score is reminiscent of much of Herrmanns superb score for Francois Truffauts Fahrenheit 451, which he composed seven years later. But to Buck Houghton, theres no mystery behind the excellence of the Walking Distance score. When you have a good rough cut, a musician does a better job than he would with a less distinguished picture. Bernie responded very strongly to things that he thought were good. Its a great score.
This episode was certainly Serlings most personal and undoubtedly one of the series most finely crafted. Surprisingly, for all its beauty and lyricism, Walking Distance caused Houghton and Serling some problems. Following the production and sale of the pilot, but before regular production of the series began, network vice-president William Dozier was given several of Serlings Twilight Zone scripts to read. Buck Houghton explains where the trouble came in: The pilot could have happened. This was about a guy in a space machine who got claustrophobia to a point where he thought he was the only man in the world. That was one of the two or three Twilight Zones that could have happened. The next script that Bill Dozier read was Walking Distance, about a guy who walks into his own home town hale and hearty and comes back with a limp that he got as a child, and Dozier said, Bullshit!
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