EXCLUSIVE BLU-RAY FEATURES
* 13 new audio commentaries, featuring The Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Scott Zicree, author/film historian Gary Gerani (Fantastic Television), Twilight Zone writer Earl Hamner, writer William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run), author Bill Warren (Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties), writer/producer Jeff Vlaming (NCIS, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica), writer/producer Joseph Dougherty (thirtysomething, Judging Amy, Saving Grace), authors/historians Scott Skelton and Jim Benson (Night Gallery: An After Hours Tour), and writer/producer Jaime Paglia (Eureka).
* Vintage audio interview with director of photography George T. Clemens
ALSO INCLUDES
* Audio commentaries by Marc Scott Zicree for Death Ship and William Windom for Miniature
* Vintage audio recollections with Herbert Hirschman, Ross Martin, Burgess Meredith, Pat Hingle, Earl Hamner, Buzz Kulik and Anne Francis Video Interviews with Morgan Brittany, Anne Francis, Paul Comi and John Furia, Jr.
*7 radio dramas featuring Blair Underwood, Jason Alexander, Lou Diamond Phillips, H. M. Wynant, Mike Starr, Barry Bostwick and John Ratzenberger
* Isolated scores for all 18 episodes featuring Fred Steiner, Van Cleave, Rene Garriguenc and others
* Rod Serling promos for “Next Week’s” show
* Rod Serling blooper from He’s Alive
* Saturday Night Live clip
* The Famous Writers School promo with Rod Serling
* Genesee Beer spot
* Twilight Zone season 4 billboards
Image Entertainment. Five blu-ray DVDs. 935 minutes. $99.98. Full frame. B&W. Mono.
The Twilight Zone was well established as a cult favorite long before it began its fourth season in January, 1963. Fans knew each season was going to bring another batch of quirky, unpredictable episodes. They could never predict what they would be feeling by the end of the show: shock, amusement, inspiration, introspection. At the start of the fourth season, some of the biggest changes in the show’s history confronted them.
The show had moved from its old time slot of Friday nights at 10 to Thursdays at 9. Herbert Hirschman had replaced producer Buck Houghton. Rod Serling no longer appeared onscreen at the beginning of the episode to introduce it. In the new opening sequence, the word “the” was dropped from the title, to just Twilight Zone.
This box set has, like every other set in the series, entire episodes fully restored and remastered from original negatives and uncompressed PCM mono soundtracks. The episodes have simply never looked better. Even episodes I have seen dozens of times seem fresh and invigorated.
The DVD extras are a surprise, too, even considering those on the other sets. As usual, there is the animated standard introduction, then another menu for episode titles. Each episode menu has four thumbnail scene selections with an additional button marked “special features”. Clicking that one opens the list of what extras are available, such as video interviews and audio portions of interviews author Marc Scott Zicree had in 1978 with TZ participants for his book, The Twilight Zone Companion, first published in 1982 and updated in 1989. Each episode also has a chapter stop for the following week’s episode promo done by Serling on camera. I won’t ruin the surprises you’ll have discovering the extras for each episode. You’re going to be delighted with what you find, guaranteed! English subtitles are a useful option.
Other DVD extras include isolated scores for all episodes. You can watch the episode and hear only the music. Some episodes were revamped as radio episodes for a short-lived series. Those included with this set are noted below.
In His Image – Writer: Charles Beaumont. If I had to name five episodes I wish I had written, this would be one of them. I love the way Beaumont keeps piling on the mysterious circumstances the character played by George Grizzard experiences, only to have the story resolved in a plausible and satisfying conclusion. Grizzard plays a young man taking his fiancée back to his home town to visit his aunt. But things aren’t right with him, as we see when the story starts with him in a subway in the middle of the night. Troubled by sudden pains and voices in his head, he has the urge to kill and throws an old woman onto the tracks of the oncoming train. Once he and his fiancée arrive in his home town, he discovers some things have changed: someone else lives in his aunt’s house and has for years. The hotel where they hope to get a meal has no restaurant and clearly never did. The university where he works simply isn’t there, just an open field! And that’s not his most unsettling discovery of all… Marc Zicree interviews producer Herbert Hirschman, who discusses this and other season four episodes for about sixteen minutes.
The Thirty Fathom Grave – Writer: Rod Serling. A fine cast including Simon Oakland, Bill Bixby, and Mike Kellin play crew members of a U. S. Navy destroyer who pick up desperate tappings from inside a submarine that sank twenty years ago. Radio version starring Blair Underwood.
Valley of the Shadow – Writer: Charles Beaumont. Ed Nelson plays a reporter who stops to get gas in a remote Midwestern town. After his dog jumps from his convertible to chase a cat, he witnesses a little girl (Morgan Brittany) pull a small device from her pocket and make the dog disappear. By the time someone finds his “lost” dog, he’s had enough of this town and its strange inhabitants. On the way out of town, his car smashes against an invisible force field and he’s compelled to hang around against his will. The town has secrets it must protect. Video interview with Morgan Brittany.
He’s Alive – Writer: Rod Serling. Dennis Hopper stars as the leader of a neo-Nazi movement holding a series of rallies in an urban neighborhood. An elderly Jewish survivor of Dauchau concentration camp feebly opposes his gang of bullies. Then a mysterious man, who stays obscured in the shadows, appears whenever the neo-Nazi is alone to empower him to achieve his goals. Rod Serling blooper.
Mute – Writer: Richard Matheson. In Germany in 1953, two families devote their lives to teaching their children to communicate with telepathy. Ten years later, one of their girls (Ann Jillian) is now an orphan living in Pennsylvania and trying to put her past behind her as she grows into a normal pre-teen American. The other parents arrive from Germany to take her home and make her complete the development of her ESP. Isolated score by Fred Steiner.
Death Ship – Writer: Ricard Matheson. Three astronauts (Jack Klugman, Ross Martin, Frederick Beir) land on a planet much like Earth and discover a wrecked space ship exactly like their own and with three dead bodies inside that look exactly like them! As they continue their explorations, they encounter the loved ones they left on Earth! Does all this mean they will crash if they attempt to leave? Or is there an explanation? Audio commentary by Marc Scott Zicree. Zicree interview with Ross Martin.
Jess-Belle – Writer: Earl Hamner Jr. A scorned girl (Anne Francis) in the Blue Ridge Mountains visits a witch (Jeanette Nolan) to get a spell cast on her to win back her former lover (James Best), who has just announced his engagement to another (Laura Devon). But the price Jess-Belle must pay when the full moon rises is too great to bear. Zicree
interview with Earl Hamner Jr., Buzz Kulik, Anne Francis. Isolated score by Van Cleave. Video interview with Anne Francis. This is another one I wish I had written. It was as good as any horror film I’d ever seen, back in 1963.
Miniature – Writer: Charles Beaumont. Robert Duvall plays a shy lonely man who visits a museum on his lunch hour and becomes entranced by what he sees inside a Victorian doll house: a tiny, live woman (Barbara Barrie)! He insists to everyone that she’s really there, but only when he is alone with the display. Has he in fact gone crazy or can he find a satisfying solution? With Pert Kelton and William Windom. Audio commentary by William Windom. Isolated score by Fred Steiner. Color scenes from the syndicated version.
Printer’s Devil – Writer: Charles Beaumont. A small-time newspaper publisher (Robert Sterling) is so despondent over his financial problems that he drives to a remote bridge and prepares to drown himself in the river. But a feisty old man (Burgess Meredith) approaches him from out of the dark and convinces him to give him a job as reporter and linotype operator—in exchange for his soul, of course. Instantly the newspaper triples its readership as the old guy manages to scoop the competition on all sorts of disasters and calamities. To the publisher’s horror, he begins to understand his new employee has more to do with the news than just reporting it. How can he get rid of him? Zicree interview with Burgess Meredith.
No Time Like the Past – Writer: Rod Serling. A man (Dana Andrews) unhappy with modern times volunteers to go back in time to change history and prevent wars. It’s not as easy as he thinks. Radio version with Jason Alexander.
The Parallel – Writer: Rod Serling. An astronaut survives an aborted mission into outer space but soon learns this world isn’t like the one he left in some significant ways. Did he go into a parallel world? Video interview with Paul Comi. Radio version with Lou Diamond Phillips.
I Dream of Genie – Writer: John Furia Jr. A humble accountant (Howard Morris) finds an Arabian lamp that produces a genie (Jack Albertson) who says he will grant him one wish. The accountant is so fearful of making the wrong wish he can’t decide, then hits upon the most obvious solution. With Patricia Barry, Mark Miller, and Joyce Jameson. Video interview with John Furia. Isolated score by Fred Steiner.
The New Exhibit – Writer: Charles Beaumont and Jerry Sohl. When a wax museum announces it will close down, the tour guide and caretaker (Martin Balsam) of the “Murderers Row” exhibit persuades the museum proprietor to allow him to store the wax figures in his basement. He becomes so obsessed with caring for them that his wife (Maggie Mahoney) fears for his sanity. Maybe she should try to get rid of them herself… Or will someone get rid of her first…? This is another suspenseful story that kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through to the end. I just knew these creepy wax figures were alive. The question was when they would make their move!
Of Late I Think of Cliffordville – Writer: Rod Serling. Albert Salmi plays an ailing old tycoon who wishes he could return to the town of his youth forty years in the past and rebuild his financial empire all over again. A beautiful devil (Julie Newmar) offers to make his dream come true at a special price he can easily afford: his soul. Radio version with H. M. Wynant.
The Incredible World of Horace Ford – Writer: Reginald Rose. Nostalgia for an idyllic childhood isn’t always based on as much accuracy as the fancier thinks. In this case, a middle-aged toy designer (Pat Hingle) revisits his old neighborhood and finds himself back in time and a boy again. But he soon learns his childhood was anything but something he ever wants to relive. Zicree interview with Pat Hingle. Radio version with Mike Starr.
On Thursday We Leave for Home – Writer: Rod Serling. On a desolate planet, a colony of 187 people from Earth have survived thirty years under the self-appointed leadership of their captain (James Whitmore). When a ship comes to take them home, he can’t cope with the realization that he will no longer be in charge of their lives on Earth and argues to prevent them from leaving.
Passage on the Lady Anne – Writer: Charles Beaumont. A young couple in a trouble marriage takes a cruise from America to England to rekindle their love. Once they are underway, they discover no one else on board is younger than 75. Everyone seems unusually concerned with helping them save their marriage. Cast includes Joyce Van Patten, Gladys Cooper, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and Alan Napier. Isolated score by Rene Garrigueno.
The Bard – Writer: Rod Serling. Jack Weston plays a struggling TV writer who uses a little black magic to summon William Shakespeare (John Williams) from the afterlife so the Bard can write a teleplay he can pass off as his own work. Radio version with John Ratzenberger. Isolated score by Fred Steiner.
Some Twilight Zone stories played better as half-hour episodes. Writers had problems stretching out the plots to an hour length and producers didn’t like the extra expenses. The series had one more season to go and returned in the fall with a new season of half-hour episodes. And fans weren’t disappointed, as we’ll see in a few months when season five is released on blu-ray!
