Twilight Zone Companion Page 34
Producer: Herbert Hirschman
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Director of Photography:Robert W. Pittack
Music: Fred Steiner
Cast: Ilse Nielsen: Ann Jillian Harry Wheeler: Frank Overton Cora Wheeler: Barbara Baxley Miss Frank: Irene Dailey Prof. Karl Werner: Oscar Beregi Frau Nielsen: Claudia Bryer Holger Nielsen: Robert Boon Frau Maria Werner: Eva Soreny Tom Poulter: Percy Helton
wnat you re witnessing is me curtain-raiser to a most extraordinary play; to wit, the signing of a pact, the commencement of a project. The play itself will be performed almost entirely offstage. The final scenes are to be enacted a decade hence and with a different cast. The main character of these final scenes is Ilse, the daughter of Professor and Mrs. Nielsen, age two. At the moment she lies sleeping in her crib, unaware of the singular drama in which she is to be involved. Ten years from this moment, Ilse Nielsen is to know the desolating terror of living simultaneously in the world and in the Twilight Zone.
In Germany in 1953, a group of people pledge that, in order to develop their mental powers, they and their children will communicate solely through telepathy. The Nielsen family then moves to German Corners, Pennsylvania. Ten years later, their house burns down. Prof. Nielsen and his wife are killed; their last act: to telepathically warn their daughter Ilse, who escapes unharmed. Sheriff Harry Wheeler and his wife take Ilse in, but they are appalled to find she cannot speak, read or write the result, they assume, of maltreatment by her reclusive parents. Ilse, a highly-developed telepath, can read the thoughts of those around her, but their speech is a hopeless garble. She is marooned, with no way to communicate. Cora, whose own daughter drowned, is determined to keep Ilse. When Harry writes letters about Ilse to a German address found amongst Prof. Nielsens papers, Cora surreptitiously destroys them. Wanting Ilse to learn to talk, Harry sends her to a class taught by Miss Frank, who tries to get Ilse to say her own name by having the entire class repeat it in unison. When this fails, she realizes that Ilse can read her thoughts. Miss Franks father had tried to make her into a medium when she was a child; she assumes this has happened to Ilse, too. Over a period of days, Miss Frank has her class think Ilses name which Ilse finds deafening. Meanwhile, Prof. Werner and his wife arrive in town from Germany, concerned that they have not heard from the Nielsens in months. At the Wheeler house, they discover that Miss Franks methods have destroyed Ilses telepathic ability; their thoughts are a painful jumble to her. Hysterically, she cries out, My name is Ilse! again and again. Cora tells the Werners that she loves Ilse and wont let them take her. Realizing that Ilse would now be an outcast in a community of telepaths, the Werners let the Wheelers keep her. But Frau Werner tells her husband it is no tragedy; Ilses real parents saw her only as an experiment. But now she will be loved.
It has been noted in a book of proven wisdom that perfect love casteth out fear. While ifs unlikely that this observation was meant to include that specific fear which follows the loss of extrasensory perception, the principle remains, as always, beautifully intact. Case in point, that of Ilse Nielsen, former resident of the Twilight Zone.
In 1962, Richard Matheson wrote a novelette entitled Mute. Initially, it was published in The Fiend in You, edited by Charles Beaumont, then subsequently in Mathesons Shock II (Dell, 1964). The story concerns a telepathic boy who, following the death of his parents, must contend with well-meaning adults who mistake his silence for traumatized muteness.
Matheson adapted the story for Twilight Zone, retaining the basic story but changing the gender of the child. What emerged was an episode that was crushingly pro-conformity.
What is so disturbingparticularly to anyone who believes that talent and individuality are sacred itemsis the manner in which the story evolves. With the exception of the child herself (Ann Jillian, years later to play a sexpot on TVs Ifs A Living), virtually all of the main characters are either brutishly insensitive or cruelly neurotic. As Sheriff Harry Wheeler, Frank Overton exhibits none of the warmth and perceptiveness he showed as the father in Walking Distance; instead, he is cool and undemonstrative. His wife Cora is a selfish, hysterical woman who professes to love Ilse but is actually maniacally intent on keeping possession of a child she irrationally feels is her own daughter returned to her. Then there is Miss Frank (Irene Dailey), the schoolteacher. She spells her character out clearly to her class when she says of Ilse, We are going to work with her until shes exactly like everybody else. In the end, when Ilse is traumatized into screaming My name is Ilse! over and over again, it is a triumph of sadistic and misguided teaching methods.
Paradoxically, this is treated as a happy ending. And to allay any suspicions that what we have been watching is actually a tragedy, Matheson provides a final scene involving the German couple who were participants in the original telepathy experiment. Having come with the intention of taking Ilse to join others of her kind, they change their minds when they see that now, although she has lost her telepathic ability, she has gained love (and that is so much more important than telepathy). This convenient reverse is neither satisfying nor convincing.
Without intending to, Mute focuses in on a terrible aspect of real life: those adults who commit secret atrocities against children, whose deeds never come to light, who are never punished for their actions. As most often in real life, the villains get away scot-free, their brutalities utterly successful in destroying a specialand vulnerabletalent. The problem with Mute is that instead of taking a moral stand against this behavior, it rationalizes these monstrous acts. As Richard Matheson himself says, Its not that bad because shes found a home and found loving parents, which she did lose, you know. So its six of one, half dozen of the other.
There is one issue that Mute fails to answer. Love may be more important than telepathy, but what kind of life will Ilse have with such parents and such a teacher?
JESS-BELLE (2/14/63)
Written by Earl Hamner, Jr.
Producer: Herbert Hirschman
Director: Buzz Kulik
Director of Photography: Robert W. Pittack
Music: Van Cleave
Cast Jess-Belle: Anne Francis Billy-Ben Turner: James Best Ellwyn Glover: Laura Devon Granny Hart: Jeanette Nolan Ossie Stone: Virginia Gregg Luther Glover: George Mitchell Mattie Glover: Helen Kleeb Obed Miller: Jim Boles Minister: Jon Lormer
The Twilight Zone has existed in many lands, in many times. It has its roots in history, in something that happened long, long ago and got told about and handed down from one generation of folk to the other. In the telling the story gets added to and embroidered on, so that what might have happened in the time of the Druids is told as if it took place yesterday in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Such stories are best told by an elderly grandfather on a cold winter’s night by the fireside in the southern hills of the Twilight Zone.”
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Billy-Ben Turner proposes to Ellwyn Glover, the pretty daughter of a successful farmer. But Jess-Belle Stone, a poor-but-beautiful girl Billy-Ben passionately romanced on the sly before falling in love with Elly, is determined the marriage never take place. In desperation, she seeks the aid of Granny Hart, who is rumored to be a witch. Granny has a love potion. Having no money, Jess offers to pay for it with her silver hair pin; but Granny is inexplicably repulsed by the object therell be another price, one that Jess will soon know. Jess drinks down the potion. The magic works: the moment Billy sees her, he forgets utterly about Elly and belongs totally to Jess. Jess is joyful, but come midnight she learns the terrible price she has paid for her beloved prize: she transforms into a leopard and prowls until dawn. Granny Hart is a witch, and now so is Jess. She has bartered away her soul and is doomed to become a cat every night. In anguish, Jess initially rejects Billys pleas to marry him. But eventually her love for Billy triumphs over her apprehension; she accepts his proposal. Before they can be wed, though, a hunting party is organized to track down what the community assumes to be a wildcat. The menfolk corner the leopard in the Glovers sh
ed and fire at it.
It disappears in a cloud of smoke and Jesss spell over Billy is broken. A year passes and Billy is now preparing to marry Elly. He assumes that Jess is dead, but he soon finds hes sadly mistaken. At the wedding, a spider appears on Ellys gown one that vanishes in smoke and flame when Billy tries to crush it! When Billy and Elly return to his cabin, an unseen force grabs Ellys arm, then a rat pushes over a grandfather clock, narrowly missing them. Elly is terrified. Billy tells her to sit in a chair, read the Bible and not move. He rushes to Granny Harts cabin and demands to know the method for killing a witch. Granny asks for a lock of his hair so she can bewitch him, but hes too smart for her; he pays her in coin and learns that Jess can be killed by stabbing one of her dresses through the heart with silver. From Jesss mother, he gets Jesss intended wedding dress and silver hair pin. These in hand, he returns home and finds Elly waiting for him outside the door. But when she opens her mouth, her voice is Jess-Belles Elly is possessed! Hurriedly, Billy slips the dress on a form and stabs it. Jess materializes in the dress then disappears, vanquished for good. Billy is relieved to see that Elly is herself again. Strolling outside, they see a falling starsure sign that a witch has just died.
Jess-Belle has no closing narration by Serling. Instead, it ends with a repeat of a folk song heard at the beginning:
Fair was Elly Glover;
Dark was Jess-Belle.
Both they loved the same man,
And both they loved him well
Jess-Belle, Earl Hamner, Jr.s, finest Twilight Zone episode, is a classic tale of love and witchcraft.
The story behind the creation of Jess-Belle is as remarkable as the episode itself. Herb Hirschman called me on a Friday, Earl Hamner recalls, and he said, Ive just had a script knocked out from under me, we cant do it. By a week from today I need an hour-long script. I know you are interested in folklore and backwoods-type stories, and I just have the feeling that maybe you could have a script for me in a week.
I said, Herb, it usually takes me a week to think of an idea. I have to scratch my head and get drunk and sleep and wrestle and walk before that kind of idea will come. He said, Well, think about it until Monday and call me on Monday.
So on Monday I called and said, Herb, I do have an idea, and I outlined it briefly, and it was Jess-Belle. He said, Can you have it for me by Friday? I said, Well, that will mean that Ill have to write an act a day, and I also want to write a folk song to go along with it. And I could hear the hopelessness in his voice, but he said, Well, go ahead and try it. So I did, and I delivered it that Friday, having written one act each day, and it was one of those cases where I really fell in love with the script.
Another person much taken with Jess-Belle was its director, Buzz Kulik. I loved it, he says, because I thought it was such a well-written piece. I always liked what Hamner did if he stayed in his own back yard. He had such a good ear for these people, they all rang true.
Created with great precision, Hamners characters speak with a charming authenticity. Hamner also makes clever use of language with double meanings. Jess-Belle goes to Granny Hart for a love potion. After shes cursed, Billy-Ben refers to her as a hellcat, completely unaware that the term is quite literally accurate. Then, when Jess-Belle is temporarily banished, cancelling her influence over Billy-Ben, Billy sidles up to Elly and says, Im enduring glad to see ya, Elly … Its been a long spell, again unaware that his words are much more than just a quaint colloquialism.
The complexity of Jess-Belle adds greatly to its effectiveness. Jess-Belle is never presented as wholly evil. Rather, she is a victim. Tricked out of her soul, forever under a terrible curse, she is a tragic figure. Especially moving is a scene between Jess, who has finally discovered the full cost of her actions, and the bewitched Billy-Ben:
billy-ben: Hold out your hand. I got somethin for you. (He gives her the ring)
jess-belle: Ellys ring.
billy-ben: Jess-Belles ring. Belongs to the one I love, and the one I love is you. Every minute Im away from you is a sufferin and a torment.
jess-belle: Sufferin and torment. You know what sufferin and torment means?
billy-ben: Sure. Its havin a girl that your hearts cravin and have her keep puttin the wed-din day off.
jess-belle: All kinds of torment in this world, I reckon.
billy-ben: What would you know of torment, girl?
jess-belle: Its the torment comes from buyin somethin, findin out the price is dear.
billy-ben: Well, what did you buy that cost so dear? jess-belle: Somethin I love.
billy-ben: You still love it though the price was high? jess-belle: Better than life. billy-ben: Better than me?
jess-belle (.Bittersweet smile): Aint nothin I love better than you.
Basically, all she wanted was to love someone, says Hamner of Jess-Belle. But it goes back to Faust: if you sell your soul, forget it.
In the leads, Anne Francis and James Best are wonderful. There is a feeling of past history between them that makes the characters relationships believable.
The single most striking performance in Jess-Belle is that of Jeanette Nolan as Granny Hart. Speaking with the same authentic-sounding backwoods accent she used in The Hunt, she is a truly marvelous character. Our introduction to her comes in the opening shot of Act One. We see her in extreme closeup, stirring a bubbling kettle and looking for all the world like a witch. A black hood covers her head. Several white strands escape from under the cloth and straggle down her face. She mumbles an incantation under her breath. Suddenly, theres a knock at the door. She stands up and throws the black cloth back, off her head, draping it over her shoulders. We see that she wears a white frilled blouse and that her hair is neatly braided around her head. She no longer resembles something out of Macbeth, but rather seems an attractive, utterly presentable woman.
Later, she reveals more of her character. When Jess-Belle discovers shes under a curse, she hurries back to Grannys cabin. She knocks on the door. Granny Hart ignores it. Jess storms in. Didnt you hear me knockin? she asks.
I never let trouble in the door if I can hep it, she answers.
How do you know Im trouble?
Granny smiles. Why child, there aint much I dont know. She tells Jess that she herself is a witch and that she has turned Jess into a witch, too. Jess begs to be changed back, but Granny tells her that shell remain as she is until she dies.
I hope I die soon, says Jess.
Why, youre lookin at it all wrong, says Granny Hart. Be a witch. Take a witchs pleasure. She grins. Take the man you bargained for
give him witch’s love
DEATH SHIP (2/7/63)
Written by Richard Matheson
Producer: Herbert Hirschman
Director: Don Medford
Director of Photography:Robert W. Pittack
Music: stock
Cast: Capt. Paul Ross: Jack Klugman Lt. Ted Mason: Ross Martin Lt. Mike Carter: Fredrick Beir Ruth: Mary Webster Jeannie: Tammy Marihugh Ross Martin, Jack Klugman Kramer: Ross Elliott
Picture of the spaceship E-89, cruising above the thirteenth planet of star system fifty-one, the year 1997. In a little while, supposedly, the ship will be landed and specimens taken: vegetable, mineral and, if any, animal. These will be brought back to overpopulated Earth, where technicians will evaluate them and, if everything is satisfactory, stamp their findings with the word inhabitable and open up yet another planet for colonization. These are the things that are supposed to happen … Picture of the crew of the spaceship E-89: Captain Ross, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Carter. Three men who have just reached a place which is as far from home as they will ever be. Three men who in a matter of minutes will be plunged into the darkest nightmare reaches of the Twilight Zone.
When Lieutenant Masons monitor shows something glinting on the surface of the planet, Captain Ross brings the ship in for a landing. They are shocked by what greets them: a wrecked duplicate of their own ship, and inside it what appear to be their own dead bodies, ident
ical down to the identification cards in their pockets! Mason and Carter are convinced that they are dead, but the strong-willed Captain Ross rejects this utterly. Back on board their ship he offers his own theory: somehow they have gone through a time warp and witnessed a possible future in which their ship crashed on takeoff and they were killed. If they dont try to go back up, they wont die. Mason objects: Ross has no one waiting back on Earth for him, he says. Theres an even more serious consideration, though; this is a harsh planet, and their food and power supplies will soon be depleted. Carter wearily rubs his eyesand finds himself back on Earth, being greeted by Mr. Kramer and Mrs. Nolan, two of his neighbors. Eager to see
his wife, he rushes home. Though he doesnt find her, he does find a veiled black hat, black gloves and a black purse on the bed, plus a telegram informing his wife that her husband has died. Abruptly Rosss voice brings him back to the ship. He tells the Captain of his bizzare experienceand suddenly remembers that both Mr. Kramer and Mrs. Nolan are dead. Ross glances over to the bunk where Mason is napping, and is amazed to see that hes disappeared! As for Mason, hes awakened back on Earth, and is joyously reunited with his wife and daughter, both previously killed in an automobile accident. Suddenly, Ross appears on the scene. He grabs Mason, they struggleand both of them are back on the ship. Ross now has a new theory: the wrecked ship and the scenes back on Earth are illusions designed by telepathic aliens in order to stop them from reporting to Earth about this planet. In order to prove it, Ross takes the ship back up into space. There is no malfunction and no crash. Mason and Carter gladly concede that Ross must have been right after all. But then Ross orders them to prepare to land; theyve got orders to collect samples, and hes determined to prove that there is no wrecked ship. Certain that if they try to land theyll crash, Carter tries to wrest the controls away. The ship plunges out of control. Ross and Mason manage to land the ship safely. But when they open the window ports, they see the same wrecked ship outside. Carter is in despair; hes sure that the next time they take off they will crash. But Mason, drained of all but hopelessness, corrects him: they wont crash … because they already have crashed. They are dead. He pleads with Ross to let them go, but Ross refuses. We are going to go over it again!” he says. Abruptly, all three find themselves back at the beginning, with Mason spotting a strange glint on his screen …