Tuesday, July 16, 2013

TV Classic: The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone

Season 1 - Episode 2 ("One For The Angels")




STARRING: Ed Wynn, Murray Hamilton, Dana Dillaway



I think that, for most anyway, people often think that The Twilight Zone is only a show that specifies in the sci-fi or horror genre. Sure, most of the more memorable episodes center around things such as aliens ("To Serve Man"), monsters ("Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"), or psychic powers ("It's A Good Life"), but there are other episodes that don't do that. Rod Serling liked the write episodes that had more of a hopeful feeling to them. Serling's stories could be as saccharine and sweet as they could be tragic and horrific. However, there is a reason that these episodes are not necessarily as famous as their creepier brethren. For every "Night of The Meek" there are another two "Bewitchen Pool" (which is still the pound for pound worst episode, but I'll get to that someday). "One For The Angels" falls closer to the latter then the former.



In "One For The Angels", Ed Wynn portrays Lou Bookman, a sidewalk pitchman. Essentially he makes a living trying to sell assorted goods to assorted people because apparently that was an honest to God career path back then. We see that Bookman is much beloved by the children near his house and he loves them back, which certainly isn't creepy or anything. Nope. Not at all. Anyway, after returning to his room, he is greeted by a mysterious man in a suit (Hamilton). Now, we the viewer, already know this man is up to no good. We saw him watching Bookman before and writing something down in a notepad. After some back and forth between the two, it is revealed that the mysterious man is actually Death himself! And he is here to tell Lou that he will die at 12:00 tonight!



But hold on, Death says that exceptions can be made in order to push off death to a later date. Of course, those are for important people and Lou Bookman is not an important man. But, Bookman somehow manages to convince Death to give him a little longer in order to make the perfect pitch to someone. Now, Lou has no intention of actually doing this and he decides to say this right into Death's face because he is an idiot. Thinking he pulled one over on Death anyway, Lou goes about his business until he hears a cry from outside. It turns out to be coming from Maggie (Dillaway), one of the children Lou has a friendship with. Maggie got hit by a car and will most likely die sometime during the night. It turns out the Death caused this to happen because he needs to bring a body to heaven at 12:00 and if Bookman won't go, he will take someone from him instead. Lou tries to sacrifice himself instead, but Death insists that a deal is a deal.



Later that night, as the girl lies comatose, Lou tries to come up with a new plan in order to save Maggie. When Death shows up, Lou begins to plead with him at first. Death, however, is still not having any of it, and continues to insist that a deal is a deal. So Lou decides to give his pitch of a lifetime to Death in order to stall him. Lou tries to sell Death ties and other goods and somehow manages to stall him til past 12. Maggie lives and Lou makes his pitch of a lifetime, so he goes off to Heaven with Death now. I guess his body is just kind of left on the stairs.



If you possibly couldn't tell by that description, "One For The Angels" is incredibly sappy and rather dull. It doesn't help that Wynn's portrayal of Bookman is terrible. Wynn is great at portraying Bookman as a terrible salesman, but that's not what the end of this episode calls for. If I was Death I would have been bored straight away with Bookman's crappy pitch. Bookman basically just talks about how the ties he sells have nice fabric. Like, no shit, of course they do. Why does Death even need ties? Or toy robots? Wynn talks slow, with a lisp, and clearly does not have the capability to sell even a glass of water to a man dying of thirst. Unfortunately since he is the star of the episode, we spend a lot of time with the annoying Lou Bookman.



If it wasn't for Murray Hamilton's portrayal of Death, "One For The Angels" may have went down as one of the worst episodes of The Twilight Zone that I have watched. Hamilton portrays Death not as a bad man, but as a man just trying to do his job. He remains calm and calculated even after Bookman tricks him into pushing off his death. Well, calm until Bookman starts to sell him on the wonders of fine ties, that is.



"One For The Angels" is too sappy for it's own good and features arguably the worst starring performance in any episode of The Twilight Zone. Luckily, Death is here to save the day. Or something like that.



FINAL GRADE: D



Next Time on The Twilight Zone: We find out why it's always good to give the town drunk a gun. We find out what happens to "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".
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