The Twilight Zone by Grant Barry Keith;

Author:Grant, Barry Keith; [Grant, Barry Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PER010110 PERFORMING ARTS / Television / Genres / Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror, PER010030 PERFORMING ARTS / Television / History & Criticism, PER004140 PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Genres / Science Fiction & Fantasy
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

The choreography of the camera and actors in “Eye of the Beholder.”

In some cases we may hypothesize that a particular director was assigned to a specific episode because they had some affinity for the subject: Robert Florey with the noirish “Perchance to Dream” and the overheated “The Fever,” John Brahm with “Judgment Night” and “The Four of Us Are Dying,” Mitchell Leisen with “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (1.4: October 23, 1959), Jacques Tourneur with “Night Call,” Ida Lupino with “The Masks,” veteran comedy director Norman Z. McLeod with “Once upon a Time.” Elsewhere I have read the “Uncle Simon” episode within the context of Don Siegel’s other films, especially Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Grant 2010, 43–49). But it is also the case that, as written, “Uncle Simon” is a typical Serling morality tale with a narrative twist at the end that suggests once again the irony of poetic justice for a venal and vindictive character. The plot involves an irascible, rancorous old man (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) and his repressed and bitter niece Barbara Polk (Constance Ford), who tends slavishly to his excessive demands but is only waiting for him to die in order to inherit his ample estate as recompense for the constant abuse she has endured. After Uncle Simon suffers an accidental fall that breaks his back, Barbara offers no assistance when she realizes he is dying. And so she comes into his estate—with the proviso in his will that she must care for his last experiment. The experiment turns out to be a robot of himself invented by Uncle Simon, a slightly modified Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet but here with Uncle Simon’s grating voice and unctuous personality. Just as we might read something of Siegel’s concern with emotional alienation in “Uncle Simon,” so we may also understand it as a Serling morality tale. Here, as elsewhere, personal directorial touches or themes do not preclude reading an episode of the show as being consistent with expressing aspects of Serling’s overarching vision as well.

Undoubtedly, the episode most celebrated for its imaginative visuals is “Eye of the Beholder,” written by Serling and directed by Douglas Heyes. In the story, Janet Tyler (Maxine Stuart [under bandages] / Donna Douglas [after bandages removed]), whose face is horribly disfigured, is in the hospital awaiting the results of her final allowable attempt at corrective surgery. If the surgery is unsuccessful, by law she will become an outcast, exiled to an isolated community of similarly repulsive-looking people. The episode is shot in such a way (lighting and shadow, over-the-shoulder shots and subjective point-of-view shots, blocking, and framing) so that we never see the characters’ faces—until the twist climax, when Janet’s bandages are finally removed and we discover that the faces of the doctors and nurses are horribly distorted while the protagonist is, from our perspective, conventionally beautiful (Donna Douglas would go on to play Elly Mae Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies). Heyes and George Clemens worked together to choreograph the blocking of actors and

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