THE OUTER LIMITS COMPANION
DAVID J. SCHOW
Research Associate Jeffrey Frentzen College of Musical Knowledge Lawrence Rapchak Production Associates Douglas Kaufman Gregory Nicotero
A GNP / Crescendo
Book Hollywood, California 1998
THE OUTER LIMITSTMCOMPANION A GNP/Crescendo Book, published by arrangement with the author.
I OuMWuIo I .
Copyright
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© David J. Schow, 1986, 1998. All Rights Reserved.
Cover design by David J. Schow. All Rights Reserved. Text design and layout by the author and
Zyborg d.Zign.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored into or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, internet, electronic bulletin board, e-mail or any other means now known and extant or yet to be invented), without the prior written permission of both the copyright holder and the above publisher of the book.
For information
GNP/Crescendo Record Co., Inc., Publishing Division, 8480-A Sunset Blvd./ Hollywood, CA 90069/ TOLL 1-800-654-7029/ FAX (213) 656-0639. E-mail: [email protected]/ WEBSITE: www.gnpcrescendo.com
address: FREE:
Portions of this book appeared previously and in altered form in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, December, 1982 through February, 1985. An earlier edition of this book appeared under the title The Outer Limits: The Official Companion (Ace Books, December, 1986). Published by the Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Teleplay selections appearing in this book are copyright
©
1963-1965 Leslie Stevens, Joseph Stefano and Metro­
Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. Photos and film representations from The Outer Limits television series are
© 1963-1965 Leslie Stevens,
Joseph Stefano
and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., and are used by permission. Photos from the Showtime Network's The Outer Limits television series are
©
1995 Outer Productions, Inc.
All rights
reserved. The Outer Limits is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., and is licensed by MGM Consumer Products. Visit The Outer Limits website at www.theouterlimits.com. Excerpt from the screenplay Psycho, by Joseph Stefano, on p. 44 copyright
©
by Universal Pictures, a Division of
Universal City StudiOS, Inc. All rights reserved. Courtesy of MCA Publishing Rights, a Division of MCA, Inc. Due to a pagination error this edition contains no Page 186. No information or text is missing. Live with it.
PRINTING HISTORY First GNP/Crescendo edition / August 1998. 10 9 876 54321 ISBN 0-9665169-0-7 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
ACKNOWlfOGfM fNTS The book you now hold in your hands reall y has been years in the making, as they used to say in those old colossal/stupendous/g igantic movie extravaganzas . It was not intended to be. But. Applause, if you please, for our cast of thousands . Above al l , the author must express the deepest possible thanks to Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who patiently endured repeated and often exhaustive delving into their pasts, and without whose kindness and assistance this book could not exist. Without their pioneering approach to telev ision, you would be holding air right now, and it is hoped that their work has been done some measure of j ustice. Few words are comprehensive enough to convey the debt of grat itude owed Murray Oken, formerly Western Division director of United Arti sts Television, who contributed selflessly to the project in its early stages . Special thanks, too, to M arilyn Stefano, who i s a great hostess. A long time ago, Jeffrey Frentzen was the only other person on the face of the planet w i l l ing to eat, drink, sleep and l ive The Outer Limits on a 24/7 basis. His efforts remain indispensable to thi s present volume. People who worked on The Outer Limits or with its creators were fundamental to thi s project, and without exception they accommodated many arcane questions and generously supplied information, referral s, photographs or other unique production materials from the program : Allan B alter, Claude B inyon, Jr. , Orin Borsten, Wil l iam B oyett, Ben B rady, John B rahm , Johnny Chambers , Wah Ming Chang, Francis Cockre l l , Ol iver Crawford, Robert C u l p , Jim Danforth , Robert C . Dennis, Meyer ' M ike' Dol insky, Richard Dorso, David Duncan , John E lizalde, S idney Ellis, Harlan E llison, John Erman, Roger A . Farris, Joanna Frank, Dominic Frontiere, James Goldstone, Conrad Hal l , B ill Hart, B yron Haskin, Robert Cleveland Johnson, Robert H . Justman, Lee H . Katzin, Milton Krims, Martin Landau, Hugh Langtry, Anthony Lawrence, Paul LeB aron, Seeleg Lester, Stephen Lord, Tasha Martel , Elaine Michea, Ib Melchior, Dav i d McCallum, Lou M orheim, Sam Neuman , John M. Nickolaus, Meryl O'Laughl in, Gerd Oswald, Wil l i am P. Owens, Lindsley Parsons, Jr. , B . Ritchie Payne, Kenneth Peach, Vic Perrin, Fred B . Phi l l ips, John S . 'Jack' Poplin, Peter Mark Richman, Dean Riesner, Cliff Robertson, Ralph Rodine, Jerome Ross, Donald S. S anford, Tom Selden, Henry S i lva, Dean Smith, Jerry Sohl, E l l i s St. Joseph, Harry Thomas, Gene Warren , Sr. , Grace Lee Whitney, and Ben Wright. Then there are the many people you may not know, who supplied data, entrusted me with rare or one-of-a-kind Outer Limits memorab ilia (either from their personal collections or by helping to dig them up with Egyptologist fervor) , or otherwise assisted the project w ith their talents, encouragements and adv ice: T. E. D. Klein, Grant Christian, Dave Ayres, Douglas B arrett Anthony Jones, Forrest J. Ackerman , Robert Sabat, Jim Trupin, Peggy Sniderman, Marc Scott Zicree, B ob Reed, Gary Geran i , Bob Skotak, Gene Trindl, Paul Coltrin, Jim Rondeau, Terry Kepner, Abel P. M ills , Jeffrey Talbot, Harry West of KZAZ-TV, Ted Bohus, Susan Dalton of the University of Wisconsin, James H. Bums, Marcus N ickerson, James M . Elrod, Andrew Sniderman, Dr. James A Corrick, Curt Stubbs, Mark K ligman, Jon and Joan Rosen, Trini Ruiz, Randy M artin, Sharon Em ily, Lea Braff, Mick Garri s, Lea E. Harp , Jerry Neeley, Dave Ichikawa, Jeff Weinstein, Brian Math ie, Karl M i l ler, Darren Raley, Larry Rapchak, Mon Ayash, Joel Schulman , Debra Richardson, John Windsor, John Javna, Gary Dumm, Nader Gabbai , Mel i ssa Ann S inger, Ginjer B uchanan, John Rounds, Gerald Hurley, Leo Leiber, Sandra Dodd, Terry Knipe, Shannon Parr and Cathi Milandin, B i l l Warren , Kevin Danzey, Tim Murphy, Jim Mathenia, Bob M artin and Dave Everitt (formerly of Fangoria magazine ) , Colleen Mal one and Mark Hoist of MGM/United Artists, and the very demented folks at KXLU-FM in Los Angeles. Finally, our thanks to the brigade of attorneys who helped us navigate choppy seas : Cynth ia Webb and Richard Weltman, Herbert Nusbaum of MGM/UA, Thomas L. Scheussler, and David Siff. Thank you all , ladies and gentlemen.
I. VIII
A�KNOWlfOGfM fNTS
B U T W A I T! T H A T'S N O T A l l! The 1 998 edition could not have come to pass without the participation of the folks below; all equally essential and much-appreciated: Neil Norman, Mark B anning and Ray Costa of GNP/Crescendo Records, ' Digital ' Douglas Kaufman of Zyborg d.zign, Gregory J. Nicotero, Jesus Gonzales , Dominic Stefano, Shakti Chen Stevens, Dominic Frontiere, B ob B um s (at last ! ) , B rendan Dawes (who established a fabulous Outer Limits website in the UK at : http://www.subnet.co.uk/brendan/outer.html). Jeff Kaufman , Sabucat Productions, Amy B arbash, my evil twin David J. S kal , Tracy Torme, Sheldon Teitelbaum, Alex Motamen, Richard Cohen, Fangoria Magazine 's Anthony Timpone, Michael Gingold and Steve Newton, Andrew Asch and Mark Altman of Sci-Fi Universe Magazine, Ted Okuda of Filmfax Magazine, Steven R . Johnson of Delirious Magazine, Michael Key of Makeup Artist Magazine, Alain Carraze of Destination : Series i n France, B ob Stephens of the San Francisco Examinel; Chris Martinez of AP Wirephoto, Tom Weaver (doubleplusgood interview thanks), Michael Cassutt, Chris Turman, Mark B urbey, Danny S oracco and Chris Choin of Dimensional Designs , Scott Spiegel, Steve Bissette, Kyle Counts, Donnie Gillespie, Donovan B randt, Taylor White and John Henny of Creature Features in B urbank, Erin Perry of IN·FINN·ITY Productions , William Lenihan, Richard Cohen, Matthew J. Dewan (the world 's most intense ' Fun and Games ' fan) , Russell Adams and Lidia Youn of Schulman Photo Lab, Stephen Lord and Harlan Ellison (again), Robert H . Justman ( again and again), Richard Christian Matheson, Ed Asner, Sally Kellerman, Shirley Knight, Henry S i lva, Robert Sampson , Bill Hart, the staff of the Museum for Radio and Television B roadcasting, in New York City (and now, in LA) , Jessie and all the subsequent staff of the still-much-missed Outer Limits Bookstore, Kari Barba of Outer Limits Tattoo, Michael and Tricia Bellocchio of Outer Limits Furn iture & Design, the management of the Outer Limits Lounge in Sparks, Nevada, Debbie Notkin, editor of the Prima Books novelizations of Outer Limits episodes (Volumes I-II-III), Jennifer Fox of Prima Publi shing, Deborah Goodwin, Cristina Dodson and Steven J. Rubin of Showtime Networks, Joe Rhodes of TV Guide , Herr Doktor F. Paul Wilson (your tape is in the m ai l ) , Carol B ua, Susan Toumaian, Denine Nethercutt, and Deborah Waldron of MGM, UA, and/or MGM/UA, the Fax Lady from Vancouver (who wishes to remain anonymous), director B i l l Malone (for requesting - and getting ! - Jeff Corey for our episode of HB O ' s Perversions of Science series, 'The Exile' ) , and Arion Berger (with gratitude, for writing ' Incredibly Tame Stories: Probing the Outer Limits of S l ick ' ) . And yes, w e have more attomies : Legal thanks t o Alan Rubin , Douglas Venturelli and Patti Felker, shining beacons of rationality and hermetically-sealed logic . Finally, my everlasting love to the amazing Christa Faust, Indexatrix . . . who still hasn 't seen all 49 episodes. Yet. -
DJS
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Pr e f a c e t o t�e S e c o n � [� i t i o n The main text of the book you are now holding originally appeared in trade paperback form as The Outer Limits : The Official Companion (Ace B ooks, Berkley Publishing Group, December 1 986), and, prior to that, as a series of eight articles plus an episode guide in Rod Serling 's The Twilight Zone Magazine ( 1 982-85 ) . With any luck, this edition o f the more sanely­ titled Outer Limits Companion should be a more definitive text, incorporating addenda, corrigenda, restored copy, more interviews and more photos. Several new sections detail significant events in Outer Limits history that transpired following publication of the original edition. Every page of the earlier text has been re-examined, re-thought, embellished, and in some instances, rewritten. The first edition was accomplished without recourse to the many digital and word processing miracles routine to the production of this edition - one file of photographs in this present volume was received via e-mai l . By contrast, the first draft of this work in book form was done on a manual typewriter - all 800 manuscript pages of it. The submission draft weighed in at nine and a half pounds . Keeping pace w ith the tech, this edition effortlessly set new extremes for crashing hard drives, corrupting files and losing scanned material i nto the ether. Obviously, some research sources are much richer now than they were in the early 1 980s - tape, disc, and 1 6-millimeter print resources i n particul ar. Another factor, more elusive, is the contention that the single best way to find out about any topic is to commit your observations to print . . . then wait for people to crawl out of the woodwork to correct you. Happily, most of the erroneous data i n the first edition amounted to simple typos or educated conjecture based on incomplete material ( such as the summation of the un produced script, 'The Watchbird,' the ful l synopsis of which is now incorporated into Appendix II) . On the other hand, as we approach the Millennium we also reach the terminus of available oral h istory on certain subjects . The opportunities to interview film akers who began their careers in the s ilents, for example, are almost all gone. S ince publication of the first edition many fine Outer L imits talents have been Left: David McC a l l u m prepa res to 'tilt ti m e ' i n 'The Forms of T h i n g s U n known . '
lost t o u s forever. I had m y last talk with director B yron Haskin at his home in Montecito, California, on Hallowe'en, 1 98 3 , never suspecting that he was to die the following Apri l . I took what were probably the last photographs of him for publication, and regret that he never got to see the finished book. He was able to relish some of his own peppery quotes, however, in the magazine-article version. Then, on July 4th, 1 989, Vic Perrin died. The Control Voice was gone, silenced. I still have a tape of Vic reading Control Voice speeches that were never aired. Joe and Marilyn Stefano were among the attendees at Vic 's memorial service in Sherman Oaks, and he was elegantly eulogized, but when the speeches were done I think it would not have been out of l ine to give him a round of applause. He was a performer, and it seemed somehow wrong to send him down in silence. It is also worth noting here that Vic's widow, Rita, attempted to get credit for her husband on the Outer Limits video box copy. Quoted in an interview printed in Starlog # 1 55 (June 1 990) , she said, 'They said it was too late, that the boxes had already been printed and they owed Vic nothing, contractually. ' Within a month of Vic Perrin , Gerd Oswald died. Without Gerd there never would have been access to one of the two existing prints of The Unknown , from which came the frame blowups used herein, in the days before v ideo sampling and 'pulls' direct from the tape (or disc) image. He was the single most important director to the visual ' identity' of the show, and therefore a crucial component to the longevity it still enjoys. It's a pity he and Vic and B yron were not around to be interviewed by TNT for their Outer Limits Marathons; Haskin's mordant commentary in particular would have been hugely entertaining - and probably censored, especially when he referred to certain network executives as 'horse cocks . ' Two days before Perrin's passing, staunch Outer Limits regular Ben Wright died. Many others are no longer with us to tell their stories, either, including Warren Oates, John B rahm and Robert C. Dennis ( 1 982), S imon Oakland ( 1 98 3 ) , Walter B urke, Neil Hamilton, Ralph Rodine and Meyer Dolinsky ( 1 984), Kent Smith and Grant Williams (198 5 ) , Ralph Meeker and Abraham Sofaer ( 1 98 8 ) , Robert Webber ( 1 989), John Hoyt (199 1 ) , Robert F. S imon ( 1 992), and Edward Mulhare and Richard Jaeckel ( 1 997). Makeup
XIII
TH [ OUHR liMITS COM PANION artist Fred Phil l ips died March 2 1 st, 1 99 3 , after progressive blindness compel led him to retire from the industry. Midway through the layout process for this edition, in August, 1 997, B ob B urns informed me that Project Unlimited founding father Gene Warren had died. By no means i s this a complete necrology, and I have no intention of rooting through the Acknowledgements and i nserting ' the l ate' next to the names of those who have since died. I The single most valuable contributor to ' the Project' in its earlier incarnations was Jeffrey Frentzen, here more properly credited as Research Associate. From the l ate 1 970s through the mid1 980s, Jeffs resources and data helped neatly plug the gaps in my own pile of interviews and incunabula. While the writing i s mine (and, I hasten to add, the critical opinions herein, plus any m istake s ) , the legwork was close to a 50-50 split, and there is not a page in this book that i s not touched i n some way by the hard work Jeff accomplished, frequently under trying and adverse conditions . New to this volume are t w o sections on The Outer Limits' unique and compelling music, courtesy of composer and conductor Lawrence Rapchak , himself an attendee at one of the very first Outer Limits 'marathons' (in 1 979). Time constraints and my own musicological ignorance prevented inclusion of these long-planned sections i n the first edition, and it i s a pleasure and a relief to be able to incorporate them here. The biggest advantage of the first edition, I've always joked, was that it was printed on such crappy paper stock that it would lay flat no matter what page
it was opened to, and that said paper made the book so l ight it could practically be mailed anywhere in the continental US for a single first class stamp. The paper caused two more serious problems - the severe cropping of several unique photos , and bad photo reproduction all around. These l atter defects have, I hope, been corrected i n the present edition, thanks to the dogged persistence and l ate hours of Douglas Kaufman. Gregory Nicotero, the 'N' of KNB EFX Group, also sacrificed his computer to the vampiric needs of the Project, and without his help in grabbing hundreds of frames this edition would contain less than half the pictures it does. Other newfound contributors and helpmates are named as comprehensively as possible adj acent to the original Acknowledgments. The first edition also became quite a hot bootleg item, to j udge by subsequent ' work s ' entirely dependent upon its information - sans accreditation - and by the number of bastard Xerox copies seen in the offices of assorted production companies, which deserve the obscurity of remaining nameless. No doubt, some readers will feel distressed that thi s volume does not cover S howtime Network's ' revival' of The Outer Limits in more detail . Others may lament the l ack of a detailed episode guide for the Showtime seri e s ' proposed 88 segments-which would make this book almost three times its present length, were such coverage attempted to a depth even approximating that lent the original series . That i s another book entirely. A diff e rent book, for another writer to tackle. The original O u ter Lim its the fundamental concern of th is book - has maintained its legendary status without decaying into s imple camp, and I certainly did not think I would be writing about it into the 1 990s. For holding the battery and bulb together for this edition, the credit goes to Neil Norman of GNP/Crescendo Records, who encouraged a revision on the faith that this book had a vast potential audience it had not yet reached. ' The O uter Limits - god, that was my life , ' Dominic S tefano ( son of Joe) told me on Hallowe'en, 1 995 . Who knows? Perhaps in 2007 I'll be doing this all over again . -DJS 1 3 July 1 997
David J. Schow with Vic Perri n , the Control Voice, at his home i n J u ne, 1 9 84. (Photo: G. Hofl
I For a special Stop Press note regarding Leslie
Stevens, please see Page
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399.
INTRooumON
I
I n t rD� u c t iDn There is nothing wrong with your television set .. As recited weekly by the omnipresent, yet never-glimpsed Control Voice, the opening narration for The Outer Limits has one of the highest recognition factors of any catch-phrase in the h i s tory of television-chances are you know it even if you 've never heard of The Outer Limits . Today, the Control Voice seems familiar, l ike an old friend. In the early 1 960s, it was new and decidedly odd. Here was a TV show 'host' you could not see, and who might be a ghost, or a machine, or possibly an alien being. It was stuff that was not normal. The central figures in the landscape of commercial TV at this time were a motley bunch. Our medical horizons were being defined by a pair of doctors named Kildare and Casey, the latter with the hopefu l implications o f h i s chalkboard infinity symbol. Legal fireball Perry Mason shared a caseload with The Defenders and a more v igorous , ' now ' gang who staffed a combination cop show/gavel opera called Arrest and Trial. Vic Morrow was still slugging it out with the Nazis on Combat! while McHale 's Navy yucked it up in the Pacific Theatre. S id Caesar and Joey B ishop were the kings of TV comedy. Fred Flintstone was in prime time. Variety shows top l ined Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, and a newcomer-a lanky, country-boy type named Jimmy Dean (in his pre-sausage days) abetted by one of the first Muppets, a ragged hound dog named Rowlf, whose canine contemporary, Lassie, was a biggie on Sunday nights as a lead-i n to Wal t D isney's program. The Clampett family was entrenched in their Beverly Hills manse, the fragile beauty of Inger Stevens graced The Farmer 's Daughter, youth rebel lion consisted of Fred MacMurray versus My Three Sons, and George C. Scott was in the midst of his acclaimed East Side/West Side series. Audiences were presumed to be singing along with Mitch Miller, dancing to Lawrence Welk, and being caught unawares by Allen Funt 's obnoxiously intrusive Candid Camera . 1 963 was the heyday of the western , and TV ' s most popular cowpokes included Matt D i l l o n and h i s deputy Chester, the whole Cartwright clan, the steer-punchers of Rawhide ( including Clint Eastwood as the ramrod) , and the pilgrims of Wagon Train . The days of Playhouse 90 had come to an end, and many anthology shows (shows without continuing week-to-week characters) had bitten the stage dust. In
1 96 3 , Kraft Suspense Theatre gave the format a last try, as did Chrysler Theatre, with host B ob Hope. The Bell Telephone Hour was still around. Alfred Hitchcock had begun his n inth year of intoning 'Good ee-vening ' prior to the weekly mayhem on the program bearin g h i s name. S u spense and the supernatural were a dead issue as far as Thriller (hosted by B oris Karloff) was concerned; that series had expired the previous year. Sporadic forays into science fiction were sti l l being made by The Twilight Zone generally very basic tales founded on the staples of science fiction literature, supplied with twist endings, scripted by the top fantasists of the period, and bracketed by the unforgettable presence of Rod Serling. Apart from these shows, the h istory of science fiction on TV had been a dismal one indeed. Tales of Tomorrow ( 1 95 1 -5 3 ) touched science fictional themes now and then, but its stilted, two-act format was overly reminiscent of a high school play. Ziv/UATV 's Men Into Space ( 1 959-60) was mostly concerned with the Destination : Moon angle, featuring rock-j awed space pioneers beset by meteor storms and depletions of precious fuel. When an anthology show made a stab at the genre, it usually followed this lead, as with a Desilu Playhouse segment, ' Man in Orbit,' which starred Lee Marvin as an astronaut. Science fiction was best served, it seemed, by the police-procedural approach used by Truman B radley for Science Fiction Theatre ( 1 955-56), which gave us arid dramas of chemical mixes and the laws of physics. The alternative was the rash of heavily militarized, proto- Star Trek space operas that had overrun the tube since 1 949, when Captain Video debuted on the Dumont Network. In his j etwash came Tom Corbett, Space Cadet ( 1 950), Space Patrol ( 1 95 1 ) , Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (both 1 95 3 ) , A tom Squad ( 1 95 3 ) , and Commando Cody, Cap tain Z-R O and Jet Jackson , Flying Commando (all 1 95 5 ) . Although The Outer Limits could b e considered a stepchild of Rod Serling's, a more direct conceptual antecedent can be found in the short-lived Way Out ( 1 96 1 ) , which was hosted by fantasy writer Roald Dahl. Way Out featured supernatural horror tales, frequently with downbeat endings, and outrageous monsters created by makeup artist Dick Smith-
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION presaging the moody Gothic c limate and bizarre beings that would become the backbone of The Outer Limits . The earliest publicity for The Outer Limits d i d use the Science Fiction Theatre approach as a selling point:
Limits' initial promotion was actually l e s s concerned with hewing t o the boundaries of known technology than in providing the network brass with a template they could easily recognize , a past series to which The Outer Limits could favorabl y be compare d . The brochures also Each episode of THE OUTER LIMITS begins promi sed the heady menu of 'new worlds beyond with a scientific fact. That fact is dramatized, reality; sights and sounds never before experienced; illumined, projected in to the Future and adventures of th e inn ermost mind, th e farth est de veloped into a highly imaginative yet believable adventure .. . the swift developments galaxies, and all that lies between . ' in space, electronics , 'miracle ' medicine and Twilight Zon e 's true province was fantasy, atomics provide fresh stimuli for the creative although it, too, is most often labeled science fiction. dramatist, and bring 'the unknown ' more More importantly, it was a hit. ' It was a prestigious frighteningly close , more fascinatingly real. show from the moment it went on the air, ' said John Erman, who worked as a casting director for both Fortunately, the show shook off thi s programs . 'Rod was one of the most celebrated writers dependency o n textbook science early on, though of his day; the show got good ratings and terrific its creator would remain intrigued by (and base acc laim . ' For the A B C network bras s , then, most of his scripts on) hard science. The Outer compari son of Th e to Lim its Outer Serl i n g ' s show could only be beneficial . Once it secured a slot in prime time, Th e Outer Limits found its own way, but in retrospect the points of similarity shared by the two are intriguing to note. B y modern stan­ dards, both have two strikes against them by being black-and-white anthology shows­ which means no color, and no continuing char­ acters . Th e Outer Limits ' third strike was that it comprised a TV syndication package of a scant 49 one-hour episode s . If it was ' stripped' by local affiliates in syndication (that is, run daily on weekdays, or five times per week ) , it would bare l y provide two Jill Howorth and David McCo l l u m ' h ig h six' on the set of 'The Sixth F i nger. ' (Cou rtesy B o b Burns)
INTRooumON
Alien extras cavort with fem a l e d ress-a l i kes beh ind the scenes of 'A Feasi b i l i ty Study. ' (Cou rtesy Forrest J. Ac kermanl
Wel l , not exactly. The plot described i s that of an Outer L imits episode titled 'Fun and Games '-slightly modified, misted by memory. Outer L im its ' most germane similarity to its half-hour predecessor was that it was blessed with extraordinarily innovative founders . The people in the key production positions were both writers before becoming producers, and what Rod Serling was to The Twilight Zone, Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano were to The Outer Limits . Their series would blend science fiction and Gothic horror in l iterate teleplay s , well-filmed a s film, eschewing the prosaic techniques of TV and running contrary to the medi um's entropic flow of dullness. The anthology format (held in such dread by the continuing-character orientation at the network s ) lent itself uncommonly well to
months of non-repeating program material . Run once weekly, it could stretch to a year .. _almost. Among telev ision programs that found their audiences and grew increasingly pop u l ar i n syndication (during a time when syndicated TV was the only way to re-experience these series after their initial broadcasts and reruns), The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone share a rare distinction : They have remained in syndication continuously ever since their network cancellation s . Technically, neither show has been off the air since its inception . Apart from the rej uvenation of endless reruns, both shows have also gained the kind of immortality Joseph Heller unknowingly achieved when he coined the phrase Catch -22-a permanent place in the contemporary idiom . Epi sodes from one serie s are frequently misremembered as being from the other. When the Reader, a Los Angeles tabloid, polled pedestrians as to their favorite TV reruns, they got the following recap from a salesgirl : The old Twilight Zones were scary even though they were in black and white. There was one epi sode I' l l never forget . . . about a crazy scientist who creates a species of wild l izard people who use boomerangs with serrated edges. Then he puts two humans out into the swamp w ith them to see what w i l l happen. The girl is always fall ing and twisting her leg. It's frightening, but I think they finally hack and slash their way out.
'Where ' s my tie? ' Wa rren Oates cracks a n un-a l ien s m i l e between ta kes on the set of 'The Mutant. '
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION Andromedan visitor of 'The Galaxy Being , ' the ant­ l ike extraterrestrial bad boys who were 'The Zanti Misfits , ' or the swollen forebrained, pointy eared super-intellect of the far future presented in 'The S ixth Finger'-as well as the Control Voice 's cadenced invitation to venture ' from the inner mind to . .THE OUTER LIMITS . ' For the casual TV fan, this show was obviously not coming from the same place as Bonanza or The Beverly Hillbillies . To find out exactly where it did come from, we must delve into some unusual lives and the formation of one very unusual production company. It is a singular period in the TV timeline: the end of the so-called Golden Age, the genesis of televised science fiction and fantasy, and the inception of a series that has admirably withstood the harsh tests of time and v ideo technology-and beyond. In the words of the Control Voice, you are about to participate in a great adventure. .
'C an you tel l m e a nyth i n g more ? ' Robert C u l p a n d Arl i n e Ma rtel consult a ' d i g i ta l ' computer i n ' Demon With a Glass H a nd . '
ground breaking treatments o f fantastic material . Themes so basic that they have since become genre cliches would be unveiled for the first time on TV. The show would be received as an alien element in the monochrome landscape of commercial TV, and its ' numbers' would insist that it was not a success. More than three decades l ater, however, people are s t i l l watching it, and t i m e has offered the acknowledgments of popularity and artistic success. In 1 983 the series made the ' Critic ' s Choice' section o f Video Review after Stephen King, in his informal, book-length s urvey of the horror field, Danse Macabre , called it ' the best program of its type ever to run on network TV.' (Just to demonstrate how times have changed since Danse Macabre was published in 1 98 1 , King went on to write, ' And by the way, if you get it in your area, warm up the old Betamax and send me the complete catalogue by way of the publisher. On second thought, you better not. It's probably illegal. But treasure the run while you ' ve got it; like Thriller, the l ike of The Outer Limits will not be seen again. ' Things did change . . . and in another way, they ' v e gone j ust as King predicted. ) For most viewers, the hallmarks of The Outer Limits were its more well-remembered Stuntman M i ke La ne recoi l s from t h e p u b l i c ity photog ra pher on t h e set o f ' Keeper monsters-the shimmering, mouthless of the Purple Twi l i g ht. '
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PlfASf STANO BY
P l [ A S [ S TA N O B Y Broadcast 1 6 Septe m b e r 1 9 63 Writte n and D i rected by Lesl i e Stevens P i l ot tile: Please Sta n d B y Episode t i t l e : 'The G a l axy B e i n g ' Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman Di rector of photography: J o h n N i ckolaus CAST: A l l a n M axwel l (Cl iff Robertso n ) . Carol M axwe l l (Jacq u e l i n e Scott). Andromedan B e i n g (Wi l l i a m 0 Doug las, J r. and C h a rles M acQua rry). Gene ' B uddy' M a xwe l l ( Lee P h i l i ps). Loreen (Allyson Ames). Caretaker Collins ( Roy Sickner). State Trooper (James Frawley). National G u a rd Major ( B i l l Catc h i n g ) , Po l i c e m a n (Allen Pinson) WITH: Po lly B u rson, May Boss, Don H a rvey, Mavis N e a l , W i l l i a m Stevens, Peter Madsen.
The Andromedan u n leashes a blast of radiatio n .
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Cottage-industry inventor Allan Maxwell has built a high-powered transceiving device adj acent to his commercial radio station, and on it scans ' three­ dimensional static ' that resolves into the image of an alien who hails from the Andromeda galaxy. Using a translating computer, Allan discovers that the Being i s a tinkerer, much like himself, and they find time for a brief exchange of ideas before an unavoidable social commitment prompts Allan to leave temporarily. A snafu at the radio station during his absence causes his scanner to teleport the Being to Earth, where with its radioactive aura it kills a deejay, fries the station's caretaker, and wreaks havoc as it searches for Allan to help it. By the time Allan is able to conduct the creature back to his transmission shack, the police and National Guard have been called out. When a trigger-happy sheriff accidentally shoots Allan's wife, the Being cauterizes the wound with radiation and saves her l ife . Then it confronts its would-be destroyers with a show of force by wiping out the radio tower with a wave of its hand. 'I warn you, ' it tel l s the crowd, 'there are powers in the Universe beyond anything you know. There is much you have to learn. You must explore. You must reach out. Go to your homes-go and give thought to the mysteries of the Un iverse. I will leave you now . . . in peace. ' It reveals to Allan that since it has violated a law prohibiting
contact with destructive societies (such as Earth) , it will be destroyed by its own race. It cannot stay, and it cannot return home. Moving back into the workshop, it say s , ' End of transmission' . . . and then tunes itself out of existence by turning down the transmitter power. The planet Earth is a speck of dust, remote and alone in the void. There are powers in the universe inscrutable and profound. Fear cannot save us. Rage cannot help us. We must see the stranger in a new light-the light of understanding . And to achieve th is , we must begin to understand ourselves , and each other.
Network executives are notoriously critical audiences, and this pilot film, with its dazzling alien, its visual/aural assault on the senses, its cosmic plot, and its offbeat Control Voice, might have been too much to digest in a single great gulp. No one in the screening room was more interested in finding out the reactions of the brass than the man who had conceived the whole project. To him, Please Stand By wasn't just science fiction and wasn't j ust another series pilot. This man was pitching a philosophy.
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lfSlI f SHVfNS
T� e l e s l i e S t e v e n s S t o r y One of the things that make me know The Outer Limits was ahead of its time was the restraint placed upon it by the network, by money, by time, keeping it from having its ful l shot. It's l ike something trying t o peck its way out of an egg, only the she l l i s too hard. Let that she l l crack open, and it w i l l all begin to happen. -Leslie Stevens
Conversation with Leslie Clark Stevens III could be a spellbinding, disorienting thing. A keen-eyed, sharply cut, infectiously self-assured man , he spoke ­ rather, he divulged information-in low, rhythmic, carefully-measured units, as though aware his mind was ramming ahead ful l-tilt, and conscious of the need to break his output up into digestible portions so his audience might assimilate it more easily. Thi s process always seemed to amuse him. B ut on occasion he'd share the joke. ' A funny thing happens with imaginative material , ' he said. 'It has to have what I call the taproot into the awe and mystery of the universe, that overtone of truth behind appearances that shows up in all good science fiction. When you start to bullshit science fiction, it goes to pieces sooo fast ! If you're into the absolute quintessence of the emerging new mythological age, read Rhythms of Vision by B lair. He ties together Mitchell , Atlantis , and all those books having to do with cosmic alignment, and the magnetic lines in the Earth, with people like Peter Tompkins you know, the math that occurs in the Aztec pyramids - and then ties that with forms and resonances, with modern , heavy physic s . ' One is tempted t o call Stevens' million-doll ar smile a Hollywood smile, the kind intended to melt the hearts of money men like sherbet in a microwave oven . 'When you tie all that stuff together, you begin to see the dim outline of the Aquarian Age . . . and that's what The Outer Limits did at its best; that's what a good show has to do. If it doesn't tie i nto the emergence of a new awarenes s , a new age, then it's off target just enough to be a terrible off-putter. ' Stevens, a typically robust Aquarius, was born February 3 , 1 924, at Wal ter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, the only child of Nellie Stevens (nee Milliken) and Leslie Clark Stevens II. His father was a Left: C h a rles Sch neema n ' s promoti o n a l pai nting depicti ng The Outer Lim its ' fi rst contact.
Lesl i e Steven s i n the d i rector's c h a i r, c i rca 1 96 2 .
US Navy vice admiral , a graduate o f MIT and inventor of the arresting gear u sed to land jets on aircraft carriers , a naval attache to Moscow, and an author and artist whose own father, the original Leslie Clark Stevens, h ad been a Methodist c l ergyman and misSiOnary. Stevens described his father as 'very hard-science, but imaginative. He rewarded me with a weekly allowance at the rate of a penny a word for memorizing Shakespeare and the B ible . ' In 1 934, as part of his schooling at Westminster Abbey, the eleven-year-old Leslie also attended performances of Shakespeare at the Old Vic . 'As a result of this exposure and incentive, ' he say s , 'I decided one afternoon that I was a playwright. I had never written a play, nor could I write one . ' B y age 1 2 he had put his first play on paper, and, writing about thi s experience years later for Theatre Arts Magazine, reflected : My first plays were such that sensible friends advi sed me to forget my conviction. Some stil l d o . B ut I could n o more forget it than I could forget my own name. I continued to write . . . During m y beg i n n i n g years I av oided technique; as a consequence, I failed. For over fifteen years I m i sconceived and m isbegot a host of 'plays '-hundreds upon hundreds of pages of dialogue devoid of drama. And yet, somehow, the world rewards even the blindest persi stence. Even the most ignom inious of fail ures add up to priceless experience.
At fifteen, while attending Western High School in
THf ounR liM ITS COM PANION scary, ' remembered Stevens. B urgess Meredith and Agnes Moorehead were also affiliated with the troupe during Stevens' tour of duty. After nearly a month the truant officers showed up to collect him. ' B ut my parents made a deal with them , ' he recall s . ' With their permission , I stayed out of school, provided I'd go to summer school l ater and gradu ate , which I final l y did . ' Young Stevens toured with the company for nearly six months, and after graduating, wrote six plays for various summer stock groups. ' I don't think Orson ever knew I was playing hookey; he just took it for granted that I was part of the company, ' said Stevens. Actress Vivi a n Nathan and Lesl i e Steven s backstage d u ri n g rehea rsa ls for The Lovers . 'He used to make the cast think he had total recall by quoting their l ines to them from the Washington, DC, he entered one of his efforts, 'The middle of the house, yelling at them onstage. B ut then, Mechanical Rat , ' in a contest sponsored by Orson he'd forget, halfway through the line, and say out of the Welles' Mercury Theatre, which was then touring the comer of his mouth to me, 'What's the next line, what's nation's capital doing Henry IV, Part I. ' It was about the next l ine? ! ' I'd prompt him; I held his book while robots , ' said Stevens. 'It was sort of science fiction, he rehearsed. And then, of course, he would rave on even then ! And the prize was to get to hang around and say, 'Oh, plumed l ike estriches: and the cast would w ith the Merc ury Players . ' Stevens won the all be amazed . . . and miss the whole thing. ' competition and immediatel y began showing up at In 1 943 h e enlisted i n the U S Army Air Corps and rehearsal s . ' Orson started using me as his gofer; I became an intelligence officer, spending the next three guess he thought I was in the company. I'd get him years stationed in Iceland, where he organized small coffee, a newspaper, stuff l ike that. And when they left stage entertainments to boost morale. He came out of Washington and went to Philadelphia, I just went with the service a ful l captain in 1 946, and spent the them ! ' following year studying at the Yale School of Drama When Stevens' parents next heard from their son, on his GI B i l l benefits. Then he moved to New York it was by postcard. 'They nearly fainted, because they and began a three-year stint with the American Theatre didn't know what had happened to me at first. I told Wing, becoming a night c lerk in a hotel to support them I was safe, and they could reach me through the himself while writing. At 25 he was a night-ward Chestnut Street Opera House. I meant that l iterally, attendant in a psychiatric hospital , and at twenty-eight because I was sleeping in a coil of rope up in the fly a copyboy for Time magazine. 'I had the same job for gallery. ' Stevens became a stand-in and assistant to the same people in both place s , ' he would l ater remark lighting expert Jean Rosenthal. During performances, to TV Guide. 'They were all in little rooms , ready to he would don a green doublet for a walk-on role as j ump out the windows , and I had to c lean up after them Hotspur's page. ' Anything I could do to get an extra and take them meal s . ' During this time he also wrote eight bucks was worth it. I ate well , because in the eleven new plays, and some experimental ventures and Boar's Head Tavern scenes they used real beer, loaves musical revues with a new friend living in Greenwich of bread, and cold vegetable soup, so the actors could Village, a songwriter named Joseph Stefano. actually eat something while they were performing. Inspired by the positive criticism he received from They'd leave all that after every show and I'd eat it former teacher Joseph Anthony, himself an every night . ' accompl ished director and actor, Stevens set out to Hotspur, in this production, was played b y John realize one of his dramas on a stage. The year was Emery, then married to Tallulah B ankhead. ' She was
lfSlIf SnVfNS 1 95 3 and the play was Bullji·ght. George Axelrod (then famous for The Seven - Year Itch), read and invested in the play; other backers followed suit and an equity bond was posted. When Stevens had a nut of $ 1 0,000, he mounted the production in the Theatre de Lys, a 299-seat venue on Christopher Street i n Greenwich Village. ' It's important to note that a Mexican tragedy about bullfighting with no bull involved a definite possibility of failure , ' S tevens wryly observed. Hurd Hatfield starred as Domingo del Cristobal Salamanca, a highborn Castilian who fall s from grace and destroys the lives of those around him, eventually causing the death of his younger brother (whom he sees as a better version of himself) in the bullring. The play premiered in January, 1 954, and the enth u siastic reception afforded it by drama critics impelled it through fifty-six performances. With his next p l ay, S tevens stepped up to Broadway, as Champagne Complex ran for 23 nights at the Cort in Manhattan. The ' complex' of the title refers to the leading lady's penchant for stripping down to her polka-dot underwear whenever she downs a glass or two of bubbly. Her straitlaced tycoon fiance calls in a 'lay psychiatrist' to c ure her, and she fall s for the shrink after a few more sips and strips. Intended as frothy, double-entendre comedy, it was dismissed as slim and one-note by most critics . It did well enough, however, and kept Stevens in the public eye as a playwright. From 1 95 2 through 1 954, Stevens' father had chaired the American Committee for the Liberation from Bolshevism, a private organization created to finance and otherwise aid anti-Communist activities by exiles from the USSR. In 1 95 3 he authored a best­ selling book, Russian Assignment. The senior S tevens was sometimes spotted by reporters , attending his son's plays. He died in 1 95 6 . 'I still own his collection of H . G. Wells first editions , ' said S tevens. ' Between us we had thousands of old pulps, Amazing Stories, and Astoundings. ' Stevens' next play was his most ambitious yet, set in 1 2th Century France and focusing on the droit du seigneur, a medieval c ustom s upposedly giving the lord of a manor the right to sleep with the bride of any of his vassals on her wedding n ight. B ut The Lovers struck out, opening May 1 0th, 1 95 6 , at the Martin Beck Theatre and closing in four days. Theatre Arts found some good things to say about it: ' [The]
performances had an inherent dignity, and even an occasional loftiness, that Hollywood would do well to match when it undertakes this sort of thing, as it so often does . ' It did. The Lovers later became the foundation for the 1 95 6 Charlton Heston epic, The War Lord, directed by Franklin Schaffner. 'Flops hurt , ' noted S teven s . ' Perhaps they deserve to be battered by the press. B ut into every flop there has gone much labor, and I maintain that the very fact the c urtain went up on opening night should bring some degree of recognition. What a flop actually incurs i s abuse, derision, and blanket unemployment . . . I shall never forget the extraordinary disparity between the notices of two of the major New York critics when The Lovers arrived on B roadway. These critics regularly sit in the aisle seats of the fourth row of the center section, on opposite sides of the house . About twenty seats separate the two men , and, as a result, they see the play from slightly different angles. They are both literate, cultured men of integrity, and they both represent maj or newspapers . One had this verdict: 'An impressive work of art.' The other: 'Lamentably thi n . ' The only method I know for surviving their praise or blame is to remember that reviews are expressions of opinion , reflections of personal taste-and that opinion and taste are not well­ defined things that can be assessed with any degree of finality. ' While Champagne Complex was sti ll on the boards back East, Stevens broke into TV writing with a script for the prestigious Four Star Playhouse . ' Award , ' starring Franchot Tone and Ida Lupino, was broadcast June 30, 1 95 5 . He then adapted the 1 944 musical Bloomer Girl for a Producers' Showcase airing on May 28th, 1 95 6 . Kraft Television Theatre produced his teleplay, 'The Duel , ' the following year, and then came Playhouse 90. Stevens' first script for this hallmark anthology series was ' Invitation to a Gunfighter, ' a hard, dark tale about a town that hires a gunslinger to assassinate an outlaw (it inspired the 1 964 Yul B rynner film of the same title). Stevens' subsequent Playhouse 90s included 'The Violent Heart' (an adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier story ) , 'The Second Man ' (based on the Edward Grierson novel), ' Charley's Aunt' and 'Rumors of Evening. ' In ' Portrait of a Murderer, ' Tab H unter starred in Stevens' study of Donald Bashor, who was executed in 1 95 7 . B y 1 95 8 , Stevens had made Hollywood h i s home,
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THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
Leslie Stevens ( R ) d i sc u sses h i s script for Marriage-Ga-Round with sta rs Claudette Col bert i n 1 95 8 .
sold h i s first movie script, and had his biggest success on Broadway. The film script was The Left-Handed Gun , based on a Philco TV Playhouse drama by Gore Vidal titled 'The Death of B illy the Kid . ' A low budget precursor to the nihilist Western s of the mid- 1 960s, the film was Arthur Penn's first feature as a director, and Paul Newman repeated the role he had played in the TV version . More of a psychological study than an oat opera, it incorporates realistic violence and an existentialist tone upon which S teven s , a proponent of the New Wave in European cinema, would later rely when fi lming h i s dark l y disturbing fi lm Private Property. On Broadway, Marriage-Go-Round became the pivotal production of S tevens' play-writing career when it commenced a two-year run of 43 1 performances at the Plymouth Theatre, October 29, 1 95 8 . Charles Boyer played an anthropology
profe s sor who i s vi sited b y the daughter of an old S wedish colleague-a Nordic bombshel l (Julie Newmar) bent on seducing him, so that she may bear a child of guaranteed brain power as well as physical superiority. While Stevens' return to the realm of adult comedy did not garner many critical p l audi t s , his s l i c k l y -conceived, risque fable was a tremendous hit with audience s . S oon 20th Century - Fox was intere sted in a fi l m vers ion of Marriage-Go-Round, and Stevens was forming his own company, Daystar Production s , in partnership with one-time talent agent Stanley Colbert. Daystar' s star client was actre s s Kate Manx-S teven s ' second wife , after Ruth Ramsey, whom he'd wed during his salad days in New York and l ater divorced. While cementing TV and film deals with Fox , Stevens began work on his first independent feature , Private P rop erty , while simultaneou s l y preparing a new C h a rles Boyer a n d play about the cosmetic s industry, The Pink Jungle , for B roadway. B y 1 95 9 , at age 3 5 , he was pulling down $9 ,000 per week, and was firmly in his element in Hollywood's perv asive environment of deal-making and high stakes . B ut was the writing . any good? ' There's nothing wrong with being a hack writer, ' Stevens told Time magazine-his former employers. 'I would point with pride to the inspired hacking of Shakespeare , Michelangelo­ you can go through a big l i st . I am a firm believer in Hollywood's golden future , and thumb my nose at those who cry, Twilight in the Smog ! ' ' From the moment his father had begun paying him to memorize the B ard , the connection between writing and money was w e l l e stab l i shed in S tevens' consciousne s s , and he chased his goal relentlessly. ' The best artists I know suppress a smile when a member of the audience speaks of their talent or their 'gifts . ' I write in longhand, and
OAYSTAR the pressure of the pencil through the years has created a ridge of callus on my fingers . Whenever I hear talk of talent, the callus seems to throb. But there is another gift - the ability to endure . And endurance and inner conviction, carefully chained to a writing desk, can be a powerful combination. ' Obligingly, Time would dub S tevens a ' hot writer­ tycoon ' and a member of ' the new breed; the curious combination of corporation executive and creative artist. ' ' He was dazzling , ' recalled John Erman, who linked up with Stevens at Fox . ' He was l ike a blond Orson Welles. He was young, good looking very sure of himself. He had had a terrific success in the theatre, and knew what he wanted and where he wanted to be - a man who was very secure in his craft. I was impressed with him . ' Robert Justman , later t o work for Daystar on Th e Outer Limits , said of S tevens, ' He was quick to smile and had a good sense of humor. A very charming man, enthusiastic and omnivorously interested in everything. I think he was a sort of Renaissance Man. He was always planning, always try ing to achieve succes sfu l ends, and he sometimes overreached himself. But you don't get anywhere without trying. He affected certain
external characteristics . He always wore a black suit - he had a number of them . ' 'Leslie was an image maker, ' said Claude B inyon Jr. , also soon to sign on with Daystar. ' He was one of those guys with a black Lincoln Continental and eight pairs of sunglasses - all black - in the glove compartment, in case one pair got lost or broke or something . I think he wanted to be President of the United States . ' True enough, Stevens rarely failed to impress those with whom he dealt in Hollywood. He was a doer, fast and competent, but al so forward-thinking and revolutionary. No one knew quite what to expect of this offbeat and visionary young artist. ' Leslie was interested in various philosophies, and was very in charge of his emotions,' said Justman. 'I think he knew quite a bit about Zen and other Eastern -philosophical -rel igioso kinds of things . B ecause he looked so youthful, with his blond hair and fair skin and unblemi shed complexion, he seemed almost mysterious at times, as if he was ageless, or came from another time, perhaps from the future. ' Tom Selden , a production assistant on Outer L imits , added, ' Or maybe Leslie just has a portrait in his c loset that's very old . . . '
O a y s t a r Pr o � u c t i o n s Basically, I'm a writer. 1 became a director to protect the writer, and 1 became a producer to protect both of them , and a company owner to protect them all . The artist is a serious danger in thi s business. S uddenl y an arti st w i l l say, ' I real ly like this. You guys are tel ling me t o stop at 5 : 30 and wreck an entire sequence when everything is going great? This might go down in history, and you're asking me to save five grand?' -Leslie S tevens
Throughout his career, Stevens had grown to resent interference from the non-creative backers he calls ' producer types ' -the executives and money men who frequently dismissed him as a writer-for-hire, appropriated credit they did not earn, or handed down commercially-motivated edicts that h ampered his artistic expre s sion .
Independent production was the solution , and in 1 95 9 the trade papers announced the formation of Daystar Production s . ' It ' s from Shakespeare, ' said Stevens . . 'The star that shines in the day is the s u n . I wanted to use ' S olar' but that was already taken by some other company. 1 I'm a great believer in the 'solar channel , ' the realization that the actual body of the sun itself i s conscious-not sentient, but conscious . Now, that usually makes people say, 'Holy shit, what's he talking about, and why isn't he in a lunatic asylum?' There ' s so much to it that to cover i t casually i n a couple of sentences, won't do i t j u stice. B ut it will whet your appetite . . . right ? ' The logo o f the new firm was the sun, surrounded by five stars . Years later, S tevens put an ' S ' in the center of the sun. Other ' indie-prods ' existed at the time, such as Quinn Martin Production s , which turned out
THf OUHR liMITS CO M PANION Th e Un touchables o n the Desilu S tudios lot. ' We called Daystar 'Hol lywood's First Free-Inde­ pendent' because everyone else, like Quinn, was studio-connected, ' said S teven s . ' We wanted the distinction of not being tied to anyone. ' The S teven s - C olbert comb i n e ' s first production was a fi lm titled Private Property ( 1 95 9 ) , also written and directed by Steven s , and bankrolled to the tune of $60,000 by Ray S tark, at that time producer of the lavish film version of Th e World of Susie Won g . S tevens shot most of it at the Hedges Place addre s s he shared with Kate Manx, who starred. The total outlay for sets was $500--0ne month's rental on the empty home just above Stevens' own. Colbert paid nx:k-lxxtorn wages to all participants, and overtirre to no one. To save more money, they even put ll'ffi I:xJlh; in the lighting equiprrent ' On studio �, irs like one big taxi 11rtr, nmning all the time,' said Stevens, who put 00th cast and crew through two weeks of rigorous rehearsals, then shot the film in ten days. The story involves two Beat-speaking hoodlums, Duke (Corey A l l e n ) and h i s impoten t , s l i ghtly retarded p a l B oots (Warren Oate s ) , who victimize a housewife (Kate Manx) entirely at random . After spying on her from the house next door, Duke ' s plan is to seduce her, then turn her over to B oots . B oth men wind up dead on the bottom of the Stevens s w i m m i n g pool . ' Th e seduction-by -proxy campaign inev itably makes one squirm a bit , ' reported News w e e k . 'Property compel s t h e attention in a way that i s almost hypnotic . ' Tim e said that the fi lm ' c arri e d the New Wav e crashing into the heart of Hollywood , ' and the Catholic Church rated it Condemn ed. 20th Century-Fox was impressed by the boxoffice returns of over one mill ion dollars on S tevens' shoestring investment, and quickly tried to interest Daystar in a five-picture deal budgeted at the same figure .
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'I wouldn't touch a big Hollywood picture with a b arge pole , ' S tevens said at the time. ' When millions are involved, you have to satisfy the bankers. I want to satisfy myself. I don't need money now; I want freedom-and in the movies you can only have freedom on a low budget. ' After completing a never-produced murder­ on-the-backlot script, Mask of Terror, for Fox , Stevens entered into a co-production deal with them for the fi lm v e rsi o n of Marriag e ­ Go-Round, which became one o f Walter Lang's last features (he had directed Tin Pan Alley and The King and J). Julie Newmar reprised her Broadway role while James Mason and Susan Hayward took over the parts played on the stage by Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert. Stevens had also planned to make a novelization of the s t o r y t h e fi r s t publication of Daystar Press, but had to put his literary aspirations hold. 'The on disciplines of prose tend to hamper me,' he said. 'I'm an 'ear' person and I write dialogue and drama far better, I think. ' Stevens became an author in 1 969 with the publication of EST: The Steersman 's Handbook, under the byline L. Clark Stevens. In 1 962, James Mason co-produced and starred in Daystar' s next film , Hero 's Island: an adventure in w h i c h a recently freed indentured servant's fami l y must battle pirates and colonial overseers on an island off the North Carolina coast in l 7 1 8 . ' I t was way ahead of its time , ' said S teven s , ' and a true art film, because who the hell would want to see a movie about indentured servants in 1 9627 It didn't mean anything . ' It was filmed on S anta Catal ina I sland, an hour by boat from L A . Today, i n dependent TV production companies are legion, but in 1 962 the story was different. ' Daystar was originally formed to make feature s , ' said S t e v en s . ' B ut we discovered that each time we fini shed a fi l m ,
OAYSTAR we'd lose the whole crew because there was no way to employ them continuously between films. We moved into TV to hold on to the same group of rel i able art i s t s , to keep the crew together through continuity of employment. We went to United Artists and said, 'Look, here ' s a full-fledged production company ready to do stuff. You have anything you want done ? ' ' At UA he met Richard Dorso, a vice president in charge of developing new programming, and was handed a l i s t of series concept s , with instructions to check off whatever ideas struck his fancy as possible Daystar fodder. ' One of the items on that list was a thing called Rode o . I checked it off, not realizing that that little mention on the list meant that United Artists would later own any show I ever did having anyth ing to do with rodeo performing, because they had originally ' suggested' it. ' ' Rodeo , U S A ' was the pilot teleplay S tevens completed in December, 1 96 1 , and it sold a series, Stoney Burke , for the 1 962-63 season, with UA as the co-owners . Jack Lord played the title character, a rider on the modern-day rodeo circuit, and among his regular sidekicks were Warren Oate s , B ruce Dern, and B il l Hart (later O u ter Limits ' key stuntman ) . ' The very fact that we turned out shows was staggering to the rest of the industry, ' noted Steven s . ' How in the name of God could a company with no soundstages , no e q u ipment, nothing , deliver first-run , ful l ­ production , g l o s s y - g orge o u s stuff, with photography and casts better than theirs? ' A quick look at Stoney B u rke 's credit roll provides most of the answer, in that it reads like a dry run for the soon-to-come O u ter Limits dream team . Every episode features at least one actor who would later appear in a pivotal role on Th e O u ter Limits . Many of the music cues composed by Dominic Frontiere to augment cowpunching action found their way into assorted O u te r L i m its e p i s o d e s as p art of Daystar' s permanent l ibrary of s o undtrac k s . Episodes o f Stoney B u rke , weirdly enough, even look l ike episodes of Th e O u ter Limits albeit an O u ter Lim its in which the c oncern s are bronco-busting, rather than hobnobbing with creatures from outer space. Sto n ey B u rke 's production manager was -
Titles a n d logos from the open i n g a n d closing cred it seq uences to Daysto r ' s fi rst TV series, Stoney Burke ( 1 962-6 3 ) .
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THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION Lindsley Parsons , Jr. , a Twilig h t Zon e alumnus who had signed onto ' Rodeo, U S A ' (retitled ' The Contender' ) as an assistant director. He had a knack for unearthing inexpensive locations and hammering together shooting stage rental deals on a day-to-day basis w ith Revue, Fox, and MGM . 'Stoney Burke was allegedly shot all over the Midwest, ' s aid Parson s . ' B ut we shot it mostly in the S anta Clarita Valley, u s ing a bunch of livestock provided by a rodeo s upplier who lived next to the Disney Ranch . ' When Daystar took on Th e O u ter Limits , it was Parsons who negotiated a cut-rate deal for the use of the famous MGM backlots, and the soundstages at KTTV-Channel l I on S un s e t B ou l e v ard i n downtown Hollywood. ' We had almost total control of those stages , ' recalled Parsons . ' There wasn't a lot going o n over there . ' Originally owned b y C B S and the Times Mirror Company (the ' TTV' in KTTV first stood for Times Television) , Channel 1 1 's mainstays were things like the Sheriff Joh n children's show and newscasts . I t was s o l d to Metromedia, Inc . , in 1 96 3 , and today it is the headquarters of the Fox Television Network. ' S tage Three was very small, and S tage Four was the big one , ' said Parsons . ' Ironically, I used to work under S tage Four, watching old movies for a living. I was the guy who cut the plot out of every movie on the air. They called u s 'film editors , ' but it was in a believing sense only. Some Honest John car lot would buy 90 minutes of air time, a 90-minute movie, and w ant a half­ hour of commercials-so something had to go ! ' With the Stoney B u rke deal set at A B C -TV and 3 1 more episodes in production, Daystar moved its headquarters, taking over all four floors of the old Crosby B uilding at 9028 S unset Boulevard, strolling distance from such famous industry eateries as S c andia and the Cock and B u l l . S tevens wrote the first eight scripts ( ' and rewrote most of the others ' ) , and, after bumping Parsons from Assistant D irector to Production Manager, set about devising a flock of new series pilots , most of them advantaging Sto n ey B u rke as a platform for spin-offs . ' The pilots were quality product for the price, ' s aid Parsons . ' Leslie wanted to become a 'mini-major,' the Spelling- Goldberg of those day s . ' S tevens was shooting for the sort of continuous , multiple­ series reputation ultimatel y enjoyed by his old
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competitor, Q uinn Martin . Kin ca id was begotten o f the Stoney B u rke episode of the same title, and starred Dick Clark and David Winters as youth counselors . It filmed at the Glendale YMCA and the backlot ranch sets at Columbia S tudio s . D o n e concurrently w i t h Kin caid w a s Border Patrol, based on the ' Point of Entry ' episode of Sto n ey B u rke . It starred Wil liam Smith as B order Patrol officer Joe Cardiff, and Cesare Danova as the Chief of Police of ' Cuidad Central '-two men whose cooperative efforts keep the peace on both sides of the international fence . Ma rk
Vic k e rs ,
Mas t e r
of
Weap o n s
( alternatel y known as Mr. Vic k e r s ) a g g re s s i v e l y c ou n t e r e d the i n d u s tr y ' s e s tabl i s h e d c o p - s h o w format. J . D . C annon starred a s the acerbic M ar k Vickers , n ominall y a w e apons e xp e rt c al l e d upon to help s o l v e crimes , b ut m o r e properly a Z e n theoris t w h o s e deducti v e ability a n d v as t education permit him to a s s emble puzzle pieces in a way no one else c an . ' Th e Weapons M an ' e p i sode o f S to n ey B u rke intro d u c e d Vickers a s a m an w h o flies from a s s i g nment to a s s ignment in a private p l an e , accompanie d b y h i s right-hand man, the eponymous James Webster (William O . D o u g l a s , J r. ) ; the m y s te r y i s w h y an Amer i c an g o v e rn me n t a l l i as o n is ' ac cidental l y ' kil l e d b y an I n d i an ( Henry S il v a ) w ith a J ap an es e arrow. The temple s c e n e s w er e shot a t Yama s h i ro , s t i l l i n b u s ines s a s a res t au r ant in the Hol l y w ood H il l s , just above the Magic C astle . A quic k look at ' Th e Weapons Man ' rev e a l s i t to be the best o f the p o tential spinoffs , w i th p lenty o f room for S te v e n s to indu l g e h i s penchant for e c l ectic p a s s ions and oddball info rmation. The s e ri e s w as to h a v e c o - s t arred Keigh Deigh a s Vickers' a s s istant, and i t s home l o c ation was to have been Ven i c e B each ' s famo u s Win d ward Avenue . The only pilot not o f S to n ey B u rke origin (until another, titled Stryker, was done l ate in 1 96 3 ) was Mr. Kingsto n , which dealt w ith e sp i o n ag e , d r u g s mu g g l i n g , and s i m i l ar action-adventure s i t u ations aboard a globe­ c r u i s i n g l u x u r y l i n e r. F i l m e d aboard the D o m i n i o n Mon a rc h in S e attle, the pilot starre d Walter Pidgeon a s t h e ship' s c aptain, a n d Peter
BlUf RIBBON �RfW Grave s a s the first officer. In anti cipation o f the series , S tevens considered purchasing an ocean liner that w a s up for sale in Italy. B ut the ship w o u l d not be needed. None of Daystar' s new pilots found a b u yer, and Stoney B u rke w a s face d w ith c ance l l ation after only one season on the air. It was at this point S tevens formulated the concept for a s cience fiction show that w o u l d j ump far b e yond
conventional TV fare-j u s t the sort of show that could ful l y utilize the talents of the artists and technicians g athered beneath the Daystar umbre l l a , and who w ere responsible for the high-quality level o f the c ompan y ' s product. The s e w ere the profe s s i onals that S tevens had affectionatel y dubbed the B lu e Ribbon Crew. I
It was Steve McQueen's Solar Productions.
T� e B l u e R i � � o n C r e w 'We were crusaders; we were nuts trying to do television better than anyone else , ' said Allan B al ter, one of Daystar's nucleus of associate producers . ' And Leslie wasn't just a producer. He was a guy who wanted to make the world a better place. ' Thi s sentiment w a s echoed by nearly all t h e former employees of Stevens' quirky little independent. They
all considered Daystar a wild and stimulating place to work, a unique, experimental atmosphere remembered with the sort of fondness reserved for family. 'We had a marvelous crew, ' said Elaine Michea, the company's Production Coordinator. 'Leslie hired very good people, many of them young and j ust starting out in the industry. It was the same group,
Mem bers of Daysta r ' s Blue Ri bbon C rew m eet on the Western record i n g stage, October 3 rd , 1 96 3 . ( L-R) : John E l izalde (back tu rned ) , Roger Farris (sunglasses) , Allan Balter, Ron S i lver m a n , J o h n Erman, Les l i e Steven s (who is a l most tota lly obscured by) Dom i n i c Frontiere ( i n white s h i rt and tie) , and (peeking i n at edge of fra me) R a l p h R i s ki n . (Cou rtesy Roger A . Farris)
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THf OUHA liMITS �OM PANION basically, throughout both Stoney Burke and The Outer Limits . ' Michea had joined Daystar after working for Philip Yordan's Security Pictures in the 1 950s, as a production secretary on such films as Inherit the Wind and Studs Lonigan . ' When we did Marriage-Co-Round, I was Leslie's secretary, ' she said. 'We had a little office over at Fox. ' This phase of Daystar consisted of Stevens, Michea, an accountant named Gerry Fischer, and a hotshot young composer named Dominic Frontiere, who became S tevens' new partner in the company after the departure of Stanley Colbert. Born in 1 93 1 in New Haven, Connecticut, Dom Frontiere had by the age of four studied the violin,
Com poser Dom i n i c Frontiere i n 1 95 7 .
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piano and accordion. A t s i x h e was entertaining regularly at a tavern in the Italian district of his hometown, and the next year studied harmony with famed accordionist Joseph B iviano. At age twelve he played the first of four solo engagements at Carnegie Hal l . An accordion v irtuoso by the time he graduated high school, he repl aced Dick Contino in Horace Heidt's Orchestra in 1 949 and toured throughout Europe, Africa, and the Orient. He also became the musical arranger for all of Heidt's TV and radio shows. In 1 95 2 , Frontiere began to study composing under Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, conducting under Felix Slatkin, and arranging with Robert Van Eps. He had j ust turned 2 1 when composer-conductor Alfred Newman, then the music director of 20th Century-Fox, took notice of the ambitious young man and sponsored his education in the arts of music adaptation and arrangement. Within no time Frontiere was arranging music for such films as Meet Me in Las Vegas ( 1 956), Ten Thousand Bedrooms ( 1 95 7 ) and The Young Lions ( 1 95 8 ) , as well as composing TV music for Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, and Dean Martin. In early 1 95 7 he also recorded his first album, Dom Frontiere Plays the Classics-all on the accordion. Jazz musician George S hearing noted, 'Technical l y, 'Flight of the B umblebee' is the high spot, but for an all-round display of taste, 'The Nutcracker S uite' stands out above the rest. ' The following year, Dominic Frontiere and his Orchestra recorded the album Pagan Festival, 'An Exotic Love Ritual for Orchestra. ' Frontiere had become friends with Stevens while providing the music for Marriage-Co-Round in 1 960. Their temperaments c leaved neatly; both enj oyed playing the executive game from the inside, like a pair of mischievous kids stowing away aboard a stuffy, straitlaced yacht party. In addition to his passion for composing, Frontiere was also an extraordinarily keen deal maker. ' He knows expenditures, and was very talented on the accounting end , ' says John Elizalde, Daystar's music supervisor. 'His whole schtick was , 'I don't want to be a producer, I j ust want to make the m u s ic . ' B ut I'm s ure he enj oyed the day-to-day machinations of making Daystar go. ' These duties also included casting, dubbing and delivery of each show's answer print, and negotiating contracts with ABC ' Dom was into postproduction and music , ' said Elaine Michea. 'And Gerry Fischer was a CPA who
BlUf RIBBON �RfW was an adv isor to Leslie's financial world. I signed the checks and took c are of the money. ' Stevens dealt with story material, with writers and directors, while Frontiere's baliwick was administrative. 'Elaine put it all together so we could work , ' said Stevens. ' She did payroll, timecards, bank stubs, and all of the office records seemingly with ease. She knew the business at a level where she could say, 'Don't hire this person, he drinks too much . ' ' Just below this top echelon was a group of titular associate producers that S tevens nicknamed ' the Six B right Young Men, ' beginning with Leon Chooluck, a Security Pictures veteran and former co-worker of Michea' s who had worked on Private Property, Stoney Burke and most of the failed pilots. When Outer Limits came along, he switched positions with Lindsley Parsons and became production manager. Chooluck Dom i n i c Frontiere a n d Lesl i e Stevens i n 1 96 3 . (Cou rtes y Dom inic Frontiere) . helped Michea recruit many of Daystar's 'below-the-line' production personnel , and oversaw would be foolhardy for me to leave Fox, where I was series production on location while Parsons conducted an executive with security and benefits. He asked if his negotiations away from the sets . Chooluck was anything would change my mind, and I told him the privy to all phases of production from script meetings only thing would be if he allowed me to direct. I had through shooting, organizing costs and making sure asked to direct episodic TV at Fox, but they were very everyone was in the right place at the right time. happy with me right where I was. Leslie said, 'All The next Bright Young Man was Ralph Riskin, right, I think you're someone I'd really like to have formerly Frontiere's agent. New projects were his working with me, and if you'll come over to Stoney specialty, and he also worked on most of Daystar's B urke, I ' l l let you direct an episode . ' I told him he'd pilots . Then came Bob B arbash, Stoney Burke 's story better let me direct two, because the first one would be editor, and Ron Silverman, whose new Daystar title rotten ! And he agreed, in a foolhardy sort of way. The was Vice-President of Administration. He was a S i x B right Young Men reall y only had one role each. marketing and research man who had developed his We did get the respon s i b i l ity of asso c iate own private polling system, ANTENA , to compete producership, one out of every six shows. B ut being with the Nielsen ratings. S ilverman had also been a very covetous of his power, Leslie did most of that writer for Variety. Allan B alter's ambition was to write work himself. Our titles were more of an incentive to scripts and produce, he had been a publicity flack for stretch ourselves . ' 20th Century-Fox and served the same function at Accordingly, Erman directed the ' Image o f Glory' Daystar. and 'Joby' segments of Stoney Burke , while each of The sixth Bright Young Man, also from Fox, was the APs in tum enj oyed a 'full card' producing credit John Erman. 'I had been i n an acting class with Jack during the series' end titles. On The Outer Limits, Lord, who'd signed to star i n Stoney Burke at the time Erman sometimes traveled to New York on a biweekly I was running the casting department at Fox, ' recalled schedule, to raid actors from the New York stage. Erman. 'Leslie invited me to be Daystar's casting ' Dominic's edict was, 'get a name actor; if you can't get director. I watched the Stoney Burke pilot, and while I a name, get a good actor. ' Pretty soon it was thought there were some admirable things about it, I worthwhile for New York actors to fly to LA to do didn't think it was going to succeed. I told Leslie it Outer Limits, in the days when there was still a very
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TH f OUHR liMITS CO M PANION great rivalry between the two cities . ' Another Stoney Burke scenarist, Frank L . Moss, was graced with a credit as co-producer of the Please Stand By pilot film . . . a credit which v an ished when Please Stand By transmogrified i nto 'The Galaxy Being' and Joseph Stefano became the new series' actual co-producer. The usual Associate Producer duties involved script conferences, working with directors and in postproduction. Apart from their principal functions (Erman in casting, B alter in publicity, and so on) each AP served another purpose, since S tevens enjoyed an environment of quick, sharp dreamers and conceptualizers . ' One thing that struck me, ' said Erman , ' was that Leslie, who was so obviously Aryan, had surrounded himself with all these aggressive, ambitious young Jewish men . ' S tevens soon had a chain of command chart distributed throughout the offices in the Daystar B u i lding. 'It was l ike a family tree, ' said Erman, ' w ith Leslie at the top . ' ' If i t was off the walI, Leslie was for it, ' says John Elizalde. ' He instituted a night school at Daystar for learning foreign languages, i n anticipation of getting work offers from outside the country. I figured what the hell-we were all there s ixteen to twenty hours a day anyway, so why not consider it? Leslie had a dynastic bent, shall we say. He wanted to establish Daystar as the ne plus ultra of production houses. ' Elizalde was j ust one of the below-the-line crew, that is, the personnel who transformed ideas into viable filmed product. 'At Daystar there were the dreamers and the workers, ' says Lindsley Parsons. 'We never really knew just what i t was that the associate producers, or 'assprods,' did since we didn't have to go through them to get to Leslie, who would listen to any of us. Somehow, he enj oyed absorbing and using, in some small way, input from anyone. He'd take it from the craft serv icemen. It was fun to work at Daystar because we had a tremendous amount of freedom. ' Parsons was brought in by E laine Michea, along with master set designer Jack Poplin, prop man ' Rapid' Richard Rubin, and makeup artist Fred Phillips. Phillips, whose father founded the Motion Picture Make-Up Artists Association, had started as an assistant to Cecil Holland, MGM 's director of makeup, in 1 926. In Michael F. B l ake 's book Lon Chaney : The Man Behind the Thousand Faces (Vestal Press, 1 993), Phillips recalled his association with the one-of-a-kind
c inema legend: I was assigned by Cec i l Holland to help Lon out whenever he had an elaborate makeup, but actuall y I was his ' hand me, get me, do me' man . . . When he'd go on the set, I'd carry hi s makeup case for him and would be his eye behind the camera to m ake sure everything was okay. . . It was Lon who taught me how to use cotton and collodion for a number of things.
I n retrospect, Daystar's camera crew is the most impressive ever assembled for TV, and it started with a felIow named Ted McCord. ' Ted did major movies,' said S tevens, ' l ike Treasure of the Sierra Madre , East of Eden, The Sound of Music, all of Bette Davis' films including Dark Victory, and a lot of Joan Crawford's pictures. You just couldn't get any bigger. ' McCord shot Private Property, then fel l ill after filming six Stoney Burkes. ' On doctor's orders, he couldn't work,' recalled Lindsley Parsons. ' S o he brought up his camera operator, a young man named Conrad Hal l . ' Ever s ince h i s graduation from USC cinema classes in 1 949, Conrad Hall had s urvived by shooting commercial s , industrial films, educational shorts, and a great deal of color 1 6-millimeter work for various Disney animal and nature films. The son of James Norman Hall (author of Mutiny on the Bounty), Hall's first official credits as Director of Photography were logged for Daystar on Stoney Burke . In an interview conducted by Leonard Maltin in 1 970, Hall said, ' Working with Ted McCord was such
D i rector of Photog ra phy Conrad Hall a n d F i rst Assista n t Di rector Lee Katz i n in the Daysta r conference room in 1 963 .
BlUf RIBBON ��fW an inspirational thing for me, because here was a man who started when the industry started. He started when he was nineteen, and had been a cameraman for many, many years. 1 saw that this man was not set i n his ways; he was as open as any young man I've ever known in my life-ready to experiment, ready to change his ideas . Working w ith somebody l ike that was very inspirational, to see that you could grow, and not stay in one place, being good at one thing your whole life, and age has nothing to do with it. ' Les l i e Stevens had already secured John Nickolaus as titular director of photography for The Outer Limits when Stoney Burke was cancelled. He personally worked out an arrangement whereby Hall would alternate Outer Limits episodes with Nickolau s , i n order t o keep H a l l with Daystar. ' Connie H a l l could get so much out of so little, ' said Steven s . 'Once, he was shooting someone on a balcony, through the branches of a willow tree. He tied a rope to the branches of the tree from below and had someone pull it very gently, giving the branches this wonderfully subtle motion. It cost fifteen cents more and made all the visual difference in the world. Another time, he lit an actress from the center of her forehead with a tiny l ight u sed for close ups. 1 asked him what he was doing that for, and he said, 'Wait till you see it on film ! ' The next day, we ran the rushes, and every time she blinked, these tiny l ittle shadow lines of eyelash were thrown all the way down her face . Now, when you think of what you're getting for the extra two minutes, that's incredible. ' ' I think everybody i s in great awe o f the technical aspects of cinematography, ' said Hal l . ' Personall y, I'm more in awe of a mechanic, of a man who knows how to take an engine apart, and put it back together again, and make it work. A camera is nothing; all you have to be able to do i s use a lens, and an f-stop, and know a couple of the minor laws that govern what happens on film, and 1 learned all these things from a guy named Slavko Vorkapich (at USC). 1 knew how to make a camera work l ike a mechanic knows how to make an motor work. 1 knew what happens when you take the film and turn it upside-down, and backwards, and inside-out; when you stop it down and open it up. 1 learned it in two years ... 1 could have learned it in six months or less. The rest of it, there's no way to explain; how the artistry comes out of you is part of you, part of your experiences in life , the way you see things . '
Hall agreed to take on Stevens' new series, and remembers the period as his opportunity to get what he cal l s all the ' gimmicks' out of his system : ' I was fairly new at the game , and had the chance to experiment a lot , ' he said. ' Anything 1 ever heard about, dreamt about, or thought up-I tried everything in the book. The Outer Limits became a school for the development of my craft . ' When Hall later left TV to do movies, he began, l ike his mentor McCord, to collect Academy Award nominations. Among his notable films of the middle 1 960s were In Cold Blood and Cool Hand Luke , and he won his first Oscar in 1 969 for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hal l ' s camera operator was William Fraker, who went on to shoot B ullitt and Rosemary 's Baby in the l ate '60s. 'His nickname was 'Fraker-sawa' , ' laughed Lindsley Parsons . Today, both Hall and Fraker reside at the top of their field. Even Dick Glouner, the man who loaded film into their cameras on Outer Limits, is now a cinematographer in his own right. 'I don't think Hall or Fraker would be cameramen today if it wasn't for Lloyd Garnell , ' said Jack Poplin, Outer Limits ' art director. ' B ecause he taught them a hell of a lot . ' Gamel l was Daystar's gaffer (the man in charge of the lighting set-ups) and the inventor of the Garnell Light, a lightweight, portable spotlight of the sort u sed for Hal l ' s eyelash shot. His nickname was 'Goldie , ' and thus the term ' goldie lites' for another type of spotlight he devised. The Outer Limits ' (uncredited) stunt wrangler was B i l l Hart-previously on-camera as 'Red' in Stoney Burke-whose first movie job was in The Alamo ( 1 95 9 ) with John Wayne. H art recruited stunt performers and assigned all the gags he didn't pe�form himself (he's the Zanti-covered soldier who does the stairway fal l in 'The Zanti Misfits , ' for example). A s the new Daystar B uilding fil led up with equipment and personnel , it became a hive-like, all - inclusive post-production facil ity as well as a meeting place and think tank. On the ground floor was the production/accounting arm , and the offices of Gerry Fischer, now titled Vice President/Treasurer in charge of business operations, Elaine Michea, and her payroll man, Robert Johnson, a s inger and announcer l ate of Seattle who was also a skil led CPA. Johnson eventually prov ided many Outer Lim its monster voices a la carte, and by virtue of a strategically produced S creen Actors Guild card wound up with a small role in Hero 's Island.
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TH f OUTfR liMITS COM PAN ION
The Outer Lim its ' foremost F i rst A D (later Prod uction Manager), Robert H. J ustm a n , at home i n 1 9 8 5 . (Photo: JS F)
Jack Poplin was also quartered on the ground floor, along with Daystar's gang of First Assistant Directors-Robert Justman, Lee Katzin, and l atterly, Claude Binyon, Jr. Justman, who was to become Outer Limits ' most versatile and valuable AD (and later, production manager) , had begun as a $50-per­ week freelancer on such productions as Harry Horner 's 1 95 2 film Red Planet Mars. He served as AD on the Robert Aldrich films Apache ( 1 954), The Big Knife ( 1 95 5 ) , Kiss Me Deadly ( 1 95 5 ) , and Attack! ( 1 957), and worked on Aldrich 's first TV series, The Doctors, in 1 96 3 . Justman 's TV experience, at that point, had included work on The Adventures of Superman ( 1 95 3 ) , The Thin Man ( 1 957-59), Northwest Passage ( 1 958-59), and One Step Beyond ( 1 959-6 1 ) , before his recruitment to Daystar by Leon Chooluck. Chooluck also brought in Lee Katzin, another aspiring director, on the basis of film work they had done together in the 1 950s. Katzin had worked his way up to the 1 st AD position on Stoney B urke, and l ike John Erman, had been promised some Outer Limits
shows as director by S tevens. B inyon arrived midway through Outer Limits ' first season, and came from film and TV production work at Warner Brothers. His entree was Lindsley Parsons, with whom he had ridden the same bus to military school in the 1 940s . ' I n TV, most ADs are not considered as creative people, ' said Justman . 'Outer Limits was unusual in that there was a very free exchange of ideas . I felt that I had a creative contribution to make, and that if I could get some of my ideas accepted, that was a kind of 'overscale' payment, what they call 'sweat equity' today. ' A 1 st AD functions on the set rather like a stage manager, yelling constantly and s uperv ising all set-ups so that the director may walk in and begin immediately to direct without worrying why, for example, a truckload of fish monster suits is stalled somewhere near the B arham B oulevard offramp instead of in the studio. ' The First ADs h ad a terrific amount of responsibility on Outer Limits, coordinating all the various elements of special effects and production, ' Katzin said. ' We were not a l l that privy t o the initial concepts of the shows . In the beginning, Daystar was prepared four episodes in advance. We'd prepare a show for seven days, then run out onto the floor and film it. S ince at that time there was no such thing as a location manager, we had to get locations, too . ' S o what else does a n AD do? 'The best he can . . . with l imited resources, ' said Justman. Frequently the ADs would gather with Conrad HaJ J , Bill Fraker, and Jack Poplin at a bar near Daystar to, as Katzin put it, 'discuss ways to do things on Outer Limits using a lot of imagination and very l ittle money. ' The bar was called the Phone B ooth. 'As you faced south from Daystar, it was about ten points off the starboard bow, ' said J ustman . ' I went there with Katzin and the others once or twice. It was a place where scantily-clad young ladies would serve your drinks. That was a big thing, in those day s . ' The Phone B ooth 's big gimmick was that each table featured a telephone, from which a c ustomer could phone any other table, or ring up that good-looking waitress across the room. Daystar's second floor housed S tevens' office plus an executive secretary, the Six Bright Young Men and support personnel. One of Stevens' assistants was Lloyd Haynes, l ater the star of the Room 222 series. Dominic Frontiere's office was found on the third floor amidst a c l atterin g aggregation of sound machines and film editing gear. On the top floor, film
BlUf RIBBON �RfW
Claude B i nyon, J r. , B i l l Bixby, a n d the C h risti a n Brothers on the set of
cutters Tony D iMarco, Richard Brockway, and Fred Baretta ran millions of feet of 35 millimeter Outer Limits film through a cluster of moviolas, at first under the superv i s ion of S tevens , and l ater under the watchful eye of producer Joseph Stefano, who taught himself the craft of film editing in these upstairs rooms. ' I was also on the third floor, ' noted John Elizalde, whose chaoti c arrangement of homemade s i gnal generators, customized osc i l l ators , and primordial synthesizers prov ided most of Outer Limits ' weird sound effects . He was brought into Daystar by Richard Brockway (who had edited Hero 's Island) , and had worked previously with Frontiere at Quinn Martin Productions on a pair of pilots, Skyfighters and The New Breed. Besides sound effects and distorted alien voices, Elizalde did live taping of the Control Voice speeches done by Vic Perrin, and all the postproduction dubbing and looping of dialogue. He and assi stant John Caper, Jr. , also worked in Daystar's basement, where the music cutting equipment was instal led, adding Frontiere's ethereal Outer Limits music to fin ished episodes. The music was either scored (using material Frontiere had composed and timed to fit specific parts of the show) or tracked (which
involved editing music from the Frontiere library into a new form). It was also here that Elizalde added his sound effects to each new show, and he and Caper were assisted by Arthur Cornall, Jay Ashworth, Jack Wood, and a part-timer, Harold Smith. Another of Day­ star's early idea men was M. B. Paul, who was credited as the optical director of unit's photography. He was the on-set superv isor for shots that would include special optical effects, and owned and operated Clambake in 1 967. h i s own equipment (Courtesy of Cla ude Bi nyon, Jr.) rental house. Jack Poplin credits Paul with the invention of the Adlux Trans-Light Screen, an oversized backdrop, l ike a giant color slide, that was inserted into windows or other such openings on a l ive set and lit from behind to provide ' instant background. ' Director Byron Haskin was soon to s i gn on as an uncred ited 'effects superv isor, ' but there was very l ittle overlap with Pau l ' s field. Mechanical on-set effects such as wafting cur�ains, falling debris , or off-camera manipulation of props fell to Thol ' S i ' S imonsen and Pat Dinga. Daystar's costumers were Forrest 'T-Bone' B utler and Sabine Manela, who had joined the company as of Hero 's Island. 'They worked on some of the actual monster suits , ' noted Elaine Michea, 'but always from designs provided by the special effects uni t . ' Construction and design o f Outer Limits ' unique aliens and creatures was entrusted, for the most part, to a group of i ndependent contractors known as Project Unlimited (about whom more a bit later) , and, on occasion , to makeup art i sts hired to assist Fred Phillips. ' Projects' (as the company was alternately called) also provi ded optical effects which were turned over to one of three Hollywood labs spec ializing in
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TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PANION
The m a n who b u i l t the Outer Lim its sets : Art D i rector Jack Popl i n , i n 1 963 . (Courtesy Jack Popl in)
combining effects with l ive-action footage : Butler­ Glouner, Ray Mercer and Company, and Consolidated Film Industries, Inc. Jack Popl in's crackerjack construction crew-the men responsible for every Gothic interior, every spaceship cockpit, and every moonscape you see in The Outer Limits-included Chester B ayhi ( a propman from Fox w h o became a s e t decorator on the Mr. Kingston pilot) and Tracey R. Bousman, ' Dick Tracy ' to his pals, who brought his experience at the Chouinard Art Institute to the Outer Limits pilot film. 'We were like a club,' said Poplin. 'I'd break down a script and hand it to Dick, who would put it into working drawings, then we'd talk with Chet about how to dress it. From there, we'd wing it with a marvelous construction foreman we had, Lowel l Thomas. ' ' S top and think o f all the control that was necessary to create an illusion for The Outer Limits, ' says Lindsley Parsons. 'We had to use a tremendous amount of ingenuity and innovation j ust to get the show done; we were a well-oiled machine without pretenses. Leslie sat down and ate with the crew. Anybody was approachable; if you had a better idea, we'd use it. Leslie was very much in favor of people improving themselves . He came up with an honor he bestowed on only two people that I know of, because I was the second. It was a Daystar Employee of the Year medall ion, with the Daystar emblem in gold. Henry
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Maak (the key grip, or supervisor of the set's ' l ifters and carriers ' ) got it the first year. ' 'Daystar was a terrific group who all enjoyed what they were doing, ' said Lee Katzin. 'We had a lot of fun , worked our collective asses off, and did some first-rate work . ' Conrad Hall added, ' You keep fighting the feeling that you're in a sausage factory, but enough people cared to make it worthwhile for me. The producer c ared, the directors c ared, the peop l e I was photographing cared, and some of the audience cared. There were people who would say, 'Gee, that's a well­ photographed show. ' ' It was time for Stevens t o appl y h i s B l ue Ribbon Crew to a pilot venture less conventional than his failed tries at action-adventure formats. In his own words, he wanted to ' stress, dwell on , and get into the awe and mystery of the universe; tap into other dimensions, other beings, and alien stuff that truly went to the outer limits of the imagination . Now, you can only do that for so long until you begin to hear, 'Uh- you're getting pretty far out, there. That may be interesting to a handful of people, but can you bring it back down to Earth so that the big numbers, the masses, will understand?'
CONSUM[ OR 01[ (Being a Brief Digression into the Essential Nature of the Medium , its A udience, and the Primal Forces that Drive Them)
'To show you nothing ever change s , ' said Lesl i e S teven s , ' here's something a senior, powerhouse executive said to me this week : ' 'Leslie , here 's the rules , now. Don 't break them . Do not work for the head. You work for the throat, which means you can grab them by the throat and cut it, or strangle them . Workfor the heart-either break it or make it. Work for the belly- either turn their stomaches or kick them in the stomach . And always go for the groin, you hear m e ? Th roat, heart, belly, groi n . I don 't want to hear head . '
' I swear to god that's what was said to me ! ' While S tevens held his Daystar crew in the highest regard, his opinion of the net worth of most TV
CONSUMf OR OIf production executives could charitably be described as a polar opposite. Yet, as company head, he had become one of those executives, and the challenge now was to somehow balance his desire for the artistic with the commercial realities of prime time. The truth, while harsh, was not entirely unmanagable. ' You see, ' he said, 'Television does not exist for any reason other than to make American commerce grind. What TV's financial backers care about is how many people did it reach? Sponsors want to sell the most consumer goods they can possibly sell-soap , automobiles, beer-and the only goal about which they give a fiddler's damn is numbers . The only thing guaranteed to appeal to the largest possible number of human beings is basic, visceral sex and v iolence. They call it 'romance' and 'adventure'-they know how to hide it-but it's still that basic human thing of fight or fl ight or reproduce, in order to peddle products that appeal to the vi sceral animal. And when your program gets gigantic numbers, you're dealing with so many mill ions of people that the only thing they have in common is that they eat, get ill, reproduce-which is the 'sex' aspect-and consume disposable products. ' Now, what networks and sponsors are after i s that continuing hook, that addictive quality-a series with a continuing star people will watch, week after week, th is being maximum addiction at minimum cost. Gunsmoke had continuing stars and amortizable sets; you had one town, plus Matt, Kitty, and Doc. Jesus, you could make a fortune on your first ten episodes ! After you've paid off the town, you only have the immediate production expenses, scripts, and casts to pay for. The profit margin on small comedies l ike A ll in the Family -one set and six people-is even larger, where you spend $ 1 00,000 per show, but you get two or three times that in ad revenues. A hundred thousand dollars, clear, every week? Gigantic . 'So i f people say, ' I ' m gonna tune this in no matter what,' that means a certain rating can be guaranteed for that timeslot, which means so many dol l ars-per­ thousand for the ads . In dramatic shows, the formula works like thi s : In an hour-long show, you get a death in the first five minutes. I suppose the theory is if we see a fellow primate get smeared, then we're suddenly interested. Then the hero comes along, trying to figure out who did it. He gets into jeopardy, which i s alleviated b y commercial breaks that offer relief-the relief of a beer, of a loan, of a vacation . That pause for relief is always to consume something. Get it? The
theme of every dramatic show on the air is consume or die . 'The war as to who is going to be first is lethal to the top three or four executives at each network or company. If they drop behind, they get fired. If they lose half a point and wind up third out of three for a certain number of consecutive week s , then a decapitation occurs . Everybody is thrown out and a whole new team i s hauled in. It's that quaking fear of losing half a point in the ratings that makes them strive for the big n umbers. Huge numbers mean huge audiences, which is what sponsors want, since they have to sell millions of teeny products to millions of people. ' Now, there's a severe penalty for that-you lose originality. The first time anything is done, it's not accepted by a lot of people; it may be brilliant and
Science ? Fiction ? You be the judge as t o m o rro w 's wo rld c o m e s a live today.
0:0 0 PM TONIGHT ON XX
•
ABC newspa per ad mat for the pre m iere of 'The G a laxy Being , ' 1 96 3 .
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION wonderfu l , but it's simply bothersome t o people who only want to see something comfortable and familiar. Any aspect of it you could call art-real art-cannot survive when it is repetitive. It's as though the original thing is a classic and the repeated thing i s a cliche. You can't be classic. You can only copy a classic. And when you do all the right things needed to bring off a tremendous success in televi sion, the devil's price you pay is that you cannot dwell upon 'art,' or original ity, because if you do, you're going to lose the big audience, the mass n umbers, and therefore give up your position to do big commercial things . ' One o f the best shows ever aired w a s The Six Wives of Henry VlII , on PB S . It got about a six in the ratings . But one of the networks said, 'Hey, this is good enough to broadcast in prime time ! ' When they aired it, it pul led about a three, and the concl u sion i s that the audience isn't there . B ut when you analyze that six, or that three, you discover twelve to sixteen mil l ion people saw that show. That's more audience than Broadway has had in the last four years . It's just that those numbers are so staggering, we fai l to realize that the flops of television are doing better than the Catholic church did l ast week ! ' Look at the non-dramatic shows closely. You'll see they deal in sex, fun , and beer drinking. The characters are usually working, trying to get dates, fixing their cars, talking to their friends in a bar; j ust goofing around the way an enormous number of Americans do. There's nothing wrong with that; it's simply that they are the largest number, sort of upper blue col lar. And the upper blue collar does not want to watch science fiction . ' When i t came time for Stevens t o field ideas for a science fiction program, there were more than ironclad demographics and the Peter Principal demands of corporate hierarchies to consider. There was also the smal l matter of that pivotal element known as the 'hook . '
M [ l N I C I{ ' S f O l lY Daniel Melnick was only twenty-six years old when he was made Vice Pre sident of Programming at ABC in 1 95 9 . For S tevens , in 1 96 2 , talking with A B C meant talking w ith Melnick: ' The very origin of The Outer Limits was a conversation between D an and myself. '
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When S tevens talked with United Artists, it meant talking with Richard Dorso, the programming V P with whom he had developed Stoney Burke into a series . ' I had a deal with Leslie as a producer under contract to U A , ' said Dorso. ' And I said, 'Let's cook up a TV series about science fiction . ' Leslie was a talented, able producer, and I knew the i dea could be sold to A BC . ' Dorso had similarly cooked up The Fugitive for Quinn Martin's group, and many other seri e s . ' Once Dan Melnick agreed it was something he w anted to see on the air, then we'd p l an how to sell it to people l ike Goldenson and Moore . ' Leonard Goldenson was A B C ' s president and chainnan of the board. I Tom Moore, at one time a publicist for a cemetery, was Goldenson's executive VP, and would ascend to the network presidency by the end of 1 96 3 . ' Melnick said, 'Definitely, let's do i t , ' ' recall s S teven s . ' B ut he stressed that o u r concept had t o be presented in 'exhibitor's term s . ' A B C was very uneasy about any departure fro m conventional prog­ ramming, so the only way I could reall y sell it to them was to stress that it was not far removed from a scare show. The one thing Dan u rged me to do was to put a monster in every show, and put it on fast-withi n the first five minute s . B ecause A B C would regard the show as a monster show m ore than anything else. ' ' My responsibility, ' said Dorso, ' was to see that the concept w orked , and when i t got to the public, that the show w orked. ' S tevens credits Dorso as the man ' who held the battery and the bulb together. ' A deal for a pilot film was struck w ith Melnick, the third side of the Daystar/UA/AB C triangle. ' He called the series Melnick's Folly, ' said Stevens . ' B y so doing, he disowned it in case it w a s a flop. But i f it w orked, then it became l ike t h e steamboat-it sai l s , therefore Melnick's F o l l y i s a big succe s s . D a n i s very astute, and c apable of hand l i n g h i m self in the Executive Wars. ' Melnick had shrewdly fol lowed the Golden Rule of corporate thinking by covering his ass both w ay s . The pilot was titled Please Stand B y at his suggestion. If it flew, he could c l aim a modest measure of credit, and if it died, he could safely say I-told-you-so to A B C . B u t ' triple-threat s , ' writer/director/producers , were considered p u sh y by the networks, and S tevens' name h ad already acquired a bit of a stigma. The free­ flowing setup at Daystar was not comprehensible to the rigidly compartmentalized bastille at A B C , and to top it off, Daystar's salvo of new pilots was a complete wash. Stevens was anxious to move on to still m ore new projects , including a series based on B u rt S t an d i s h ' s 1 92 0 ' s dime n o ve l s abo u t the adventures of Frank Merriwel l , and a show on contemporary called art work s A merican
MflNICK'S fOllY
�UNITED� ARTISTS
TE LEVI S I ON
Science Fiction Adventures of the Innermost Mind, the Farthest Galaxies . . . and All that Lies Between . . .
U n i ted Arti sts Syn d ication promotional booklet featu ring period 1 96 3 sell g ra p h ic s .
Masterpieces. If Please Stand By was presented to ABC with Stevens appearing to grab too much of the credit, i t m i ght be j i nxed before a single frame of it was seen . S tevens illuminated another hitch: ' They felt that a show wasn't a success if i t didn't run endlessly. S o no matter how good Stoney Burke was, it had been cancelled, and they thought of me as not real ly coming through, and that might j eopardize selling Please Stand By to the sponsors . ' ' To thi s day they call i t running the gauntlet, ' said S tevens . ' If you can get clear through w i thout getting clobbered, not lose any bodies, and get to the point where they'll actually take your show and put it on, then you've accomplished a very difficult and treacherou s thi ng . ' Stevens' solution was t o add n e w blood t o the project in the form of a producer who had some name recognition i n Hollywood a s a v ery succes sfu l
screenwriter. S omeone who could l ine-produce the series if the pilot sold, leaving S tevens to pursue further new projects for Daystar. Once he rolled the final page of Please Stand By o u t of h i s typewriter, S tevens phoned h i s old songwriting partner from the Greenwich Village day s , Joseph S tefano .
I A post that Goldenson still held when the first edition o f this book was publi shed i n
1 986.
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' I think I was probably five years old when I knew 1 had to be connected to the movies in some way, ' said
Joseph Stefano, a compact man with a classically Roman profi le and a remarkable fluidity of expression and emotion. 'My mother and father took me to a movie with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, and Garbo died at the end. ) When we left , I thought it was very sad because we'd never see her in another movie, and my parents explained that she didn't really die, she was j ust pretending she'd died, and that was the movie . And I thought, aha ! Some kids pick up a baseball bat and that's it; I saw that movie, and that was it. After that 1 went to the movies continually; you could get me to do anything if there was a dime or quarter in it for the movies. There were about eight theatres within walking distance of my house, and they changed films every two days. You could go to a different movie every night of the week, which i s almost what I did . ' B ut Stefano's show business career was seeded even before that, when at the age of three he won a theatre-sponsored Charleston contest against two dozen older contestants . B orn Joseph William S tefano
in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 5th, 1 922, he was the youngest of the Stefano clan. His father Dominic was a widowed tailor with three children who married a widow, Josephina, who also had three children . ' She had three sons, and he had a son and two daughters, and after they married they had two more children-my brother Peter and myself. The others were much older; they were in college by the time I was three. It was l ike gluing together two families that did not get along, and it was a very strange pyramid to be on the bottom of. To me, they were all my family, but the two sets of children were enemies. Eventually my parents broke up. My mother got a house w ith her three sons, who were working by now, Peter, and myself. After a year or so, my father came back, but without his children-he broke up with them, so to speak. It was a very painful situation, losing people who were dear to you, people you weren't supposed to see anymore. It caused all that is good about me, and all that i s bad. 1 escaped early into fantasy, into movies. ' B y age ten , S tefano was singing for radio audiences as part of the weekly children's hour, and song-and-dance heavily influenced his school years . Once he discovered ' this thing called theatre , ' he began composing songs and writing lyrics. The move to Philadelphia l i ttle theatre was inevitable, and Stefano did original musicals, writing ' the book' (words), but not the music, mainly so he could be in the productions. 'I never thought of myself as an actor, ' he said, ' until a long time later, after I'd toured. ' H e turned 2 1 i n 1 943 , and tried to enlist i n the Navy in order 'to get the war out of the way, ' but was rejected because he had two punctured eardrums. Not knowing whether this would keep him clear of the draft-hungry Army as well , he spent the next six months at home, not working, waiting for his number to come up. An aunt of young Joe's had a piano, which he transported to his home and began to practice on, religiously. 'I had a girlfriend who was teaching me, ' he said, 'but mostly I j u s t played b y ear. ' M i l itary service never materi alized, and the fol lowing year Stefano went to New York to expand his performing experience and wound up going on the road
JOSfPH SmANO m usical soap opera for TV, a collaboration which for a full season as part of a touring company doing would require an extremely fast production pace. 'We The Student Prince, and, in 1 945-46, The Merry Widow. He also pulled down a living in New York tried it to see if we could do it, ' said Stefano. 'We wrote about eight episodes, him doing one half-hour doing nightclub revues. ' I auditioned for a nightclub job, playing piano and singing. After the audition, Mervyn Nelson said to me, 'What're you wasting your time singing for? You've written some great stuff here; you should be a writer. Anybody can be a singer. ' That really had a strange, powerful effect on me. I began to think in terms of writing a whole musical, book, songs, and all . I worked on a thing called It's Your Move , rewriting it about fifteen times. It finally got produced off-Broadway in 1 946, at the Provincetown Playhouse. After that I proceeded to make a living by writing popular songs as well as the revue s . ' Stefano wrote h undreds o f tunes-pop music and show music, with and without lyrics . 'Just a pile of records , ' he smiled. ' B y 1 95 2 I was making very good money. My first hit was a Karen Chandler tune called 'One Dream . ' It was a hit mainly because of the song on the fl ip side, which I didn't write. ' A song titled ' Heartbeat' was recorded by a British artist named R uby Murray, and became a Number One hit in England for fifteen straight weeks. Other Stefano tunes were recorded by such artists as Sammy Davis Jr. and Eydie Gorme. While l iving i n Greenwich Vi llage, Stefano first encountered Leslie Stevens , who was then stil l Joe Stefa no at h i s parquet desk i n the Vi l l a d i Stefa no offices at KTIV. (Photo by Leon Chooluck; cou rtesy Joseph Stefa no) trying to crack B roadway as a script per day, and me writing two new songs per day. playwright. 'My roommate , S teve, was studying He took the idea to the networks, but nothing ever modern dance, and so was Leslie-he's always been came of it. Then we did a nightclub act for a girlfriend interested in taking classes in everything, even if you of his; he did the patter while I did the original score. were never going to use it. Steve mentioned that he had a roommate who wrote songs, and Leslie said he'd l ike We also did a m usical version of The Pickwick Papers. He did the book and I did the music and lyrics. to meet me, that maybe we could do a nightclub act or something . ' Nothing was ever done with that, either. ' Meanwhile, Stefano's revue work got him gigs in Stevens conceived the idea o f trying t o d o a
TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION Las Vegas and Paris , France, where h e wrote material for the Folies Bergere . After a long period of no contact with Stev e n s , S tefano was asked to do entr'acte music for Champagne Complex. 'It was a fun idea,' said Stefano, 'so I did it. ' He also introduced Stevens to his first wife , Ruth Ramsey, a friend of Stefano's from The Merry Widow touring company. ' I lost track o f Leslie when h e went t o Hollywood t o do Marriage-Go-Round. The next time he heard of me, I was a screenwriter. That really threw h im . ' One January evening in 1 95 3 , S tefano received a call from a boyhood buddy v isiting New York from Philadelphia on business . They arranged to meet at a local bar. ' I went over to the j ukebox to see if any of my records were on it,' recalls S tefano. 'This young girl came over to put a coin in and I said, 'Play that one,' and when she asked why I said, 'Because I wrote it ! ' The song was 'One Dream' and the girl's name was Marilyn. She was secretary of the New York Jazz Society, where these great artists would get together to jam. She l iked my song and invited me to one of the sessions. We started seeing each other, and got married in December of ' 5 3 . ' Whi l e S tevens became a much-married m an , Joe and M aril y n remained together ever since 1 95 3 . New York w a s a l s o where S tefano first encountered psychiatric analy s i s , while still a songwriter. ' I think analysis i s probably why I began writing in the first place, ' he reflects. 'As a writer, I'm fearless when i t comes to material that i s disturbing to me. I would credit to the analysis itself the release of inhibitions , of anything that might be repressed . ' While producing The Outer Limits , Stefano w a s also undergoing ' h ardcore Freudian anal y s i s , ' which consisted of lying on a couch and free-associating for fifty minutes every morning, with a doctor who didn't say a word. 'Then, having gone through fifty minutes of hell, I'd drive to KTTV and work on the show. It was a very l ush period for me, creatively, and I wrote continually. ' B ut what started him writing in the first place? The satori occurred in 1 95 6 , when S tefano was in the middle of a year-long break from songwriting. 'I was watching a Studio One or a R obert Montgomery Presents, and I said to Marilyn, ' I could write a play like that . ' B ut I h ad never seen a screenplay before. I finally asked an actor friend of mine what one looked like, and he explained scenes, shot numbers , and the indentations for dialogue. '
Stefano's story, originally titled 'The Flower Maker, ' featured characters loosely modeled on his parents. 'It began essentially as a scenario-what would be called a treatment, today-and ended as a full script. I wrote it almost the w ay you'd do a stage play. ' After changing the title to The Black Orchid, he submitted the piece to a New York agent and friend with the improbable name of Daniel Hollywood, intending it for Studio One, an hour-long mystery-suspense series on the air since 1 948. It could be said that Hollywood called right back, in both senses. He'd shown The B lack Orchid to Carlo Ponti, whose most recent production had been the epic King Vidor War and Peace. Ponti wanted the property as a vehicle for his then-wife, Sophia Loren, and asked if Stefano could transform the teleplay to feature-length . Filming was not to commence for a year, due to Loren's other commitments , and in the interim Stefano wrote ' an American version of an Italian film' for Ponti's co-producer, Marcello Girosi, from a literal translation of the Itali an screenplay. The film, Fast and Sexy, was shot both ways by Vittorio De S ica, and starred Gina Lollobrigida as a girl who returns to the Itali an village of her birth a wealthy widow after her rich B rooklyn husband dies. S tefano spent two months of 1 95 7 in Italy on the project, which he titled Anna of Brooklyn . 'De Sica put a lot of stuff from my version into the Italian one , ' said Stefano. 'I have a funny feeling that although I wouldn't understand it, since I don't speak Italian , that it would look more l ike my script than the American version. Fast and Sexy was an awful title ! ' On the basis of the script Stefano wrote for The Black Orchid, 20th Century-Fox offered him a term contract to write two new screenplays per year for seven years . 'It all happened so fast I didn't know where in hell I was , ' noted Stefano. 'I was suddenly thrust into a position it takes most writers years to get to, and I never thought I'd realize my ambition to be connected with the movies by doing screenplay s . ' When the S tefanos finally hauled stakes for California in 1 95 8 , Joe had only one other piece of writing in his folio-a treatment for a drama called 'Made in Japan, ' which his agent submitted t o Herb B rodkin a t C B S , for Playhouse 90. 'Made in Japan ' i s a powerful drama about honor, race hatred, innocence versus passion, and the conflict between what is right and what i s legal . Set in post-Occupation Japan, it concerns a soldier of good
JOSfPH STHANO Philadelphia socialite l ineage (Dean S tockwell ) who falls in love with a Japanese girl (Norbu McCarthy) and decides to break it off because she is not his kind of people. His status allows him to slip through the cracks of the law when he inadvertently allows her to die. When he realizes he really did love her, his emotional self-destruction begins. ' Made in Japan ' i s a n excellent story of characters in crisis, and was awarded the prestigious Robert E . S herwood Award, given by the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Republic to 'a television program contributing to the understanding of freedom and j ustice . ' Stefano split the $5 ,000 prize with producer B rodkin and director Herbert Hirschman . 'I was stunned when it won , ' he said. ' Everybody thought Judgement at Nuremberg would take it that year. ' Then The Black Orchid ( 1 959) was directed by Martin Ritt, who had just done The Long Hot Summer (and would l ater direct Hud and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) . Co-starring with S ophia Loren was Anthony Quinn as a man who falls i n love with the widow of a gangster and fights to convince all their assorted children that a marriage would benefit everybody. 'For a kid who saw 42nd Street fifty times, it was thrilling to walk onto the Paramount lot, ' said Stefano. 'The first time I walked onto a soundstage, the red light went on j ust as I got inside the door. They were shooting a tiny office set at the far end of the stage, and I couldn't see a thing. But I could hear Sophia Loren saying my word s , and it was an unbelievable feeling . ' S hortl y after the S tefanos arrived in Los Angeles, Marilyn gave birth to their only child, Dominic, and Joe began his contract work for Fox. 'It was very different from what I'd expected. For one thing, I had no idea of the bullshit that goes on. ' H i s first taste was a project called A Machine for Chuparosa , about a tiny Mexican village that gets a tractor for the first time. The producer could not decide whether to shoot the film in Mexico, Rio de Janeiro, Peru, or the Pyrenees , hopping from one to the next with Stefano in tow to do endless location rewrites . After a month wasted with n o resolution, Stefano asked to be released from his contract. 'I went to the front office at Fox and said, 'I know I've written a movie that's gotten great reviews (which The B lack Orchid had, along with winning a Venice Film Festival Award for Sophia Loren's performance), but I need strength . I'm not ready to deal with this sort of thing. ' M y agent h i t the ceiling and told m e I ' d probably never
work at Fox again. Two weeks later I got a call from Fox. ' H e did a treatment for Jerry Wald, The Lost Country, which was to star Anthony Perkins as a teacher who fall s in love with a young student. It fel l into limbo and was rewritten two years later by Clifford Odets , eventuall y being filmed as Wild in the Country with E l v i s Presley ! B ut Stefano's early experiences at Fox taught him the value of turning down some assignments: 'I learned how to say no. And to this day, I've never regretted not doing something to which I had originally said no. I can't think of a single exception. ' H e did say yes, however, t o a variety of TV assignments. ' Mainly, I did shows for friends of mine who had series. I saw the pilot for Saints and Sinners and I l iked it, so I did a show called 'Source of Information' for (producer) Adrian Spies . ' It featured S cott Marlowe as an unscrupulous ne'er-do-well who steals a play written by series regular Nick Adams, and uses it to interest a hospitalized ex-movie queen in a comeback. 'Tony Curtis called and asked me to do a Ford Startime, said Stefano of his next teleplay. 'Universal wanted to do a new version of the Juggler legend­ where the guy has nothing to give the Madonna as a gift, so he wants to j uggle for her and the townspeople won't let him . ' The script was titled 'The Young Juggler. ' For General Electric Theatre Stefano did two half-hour dramas. The first was a fictionalization of his father's life, 'The Committeeman , ' which starred Lee J. Cobb. The other, ' Hitler's Secret, ' was based on a story written by Richard Oswald, the father of director Gerd Oswald, with whom Stefano was soon to work so closely on The Outer Limits . He a l s o wrote three segments o f The Detectives and several episodes of The Lloyd Bridges Show. The first of these, 'A Game for Alternate Mondays,' starred Glynis Johns as a woman who habitually takes her daughter to a railroad station every other Monday, which is the only time a train comes through. On each occasion she tell s the girl her father is coming home on the train. B ridges steps off the train one day and is drawn into their fantasy, allowing himself to 'become ' the father they have pretended will arrive-rather like a version of Waiting for Godot in which someone becomes Godot, just so he can show up at last and end the waiting. /I
Jl
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION By
1 95 9 , S t efan o decided h e w anted
to make a feature with a 'big' director, and after securing a new and stronger agent, Elliot Kastner, he gave him and fellow agent Ned B rown a l i st of ten preferred directors and said ' Call me . ' The first call was from Otto Preminger, who wanted to adapt Th e Quiet Am erican ( a bestseller on the threat o f Commun i s m ) ; the second, from Wi lliam Wyler. Due to v arious creative conflicts Stefano had to regretfu l l y s a y no t o each o f them . The third call w a s from Alfred H itchcock, w h o h a d r u n into trouble with a low-budget script cal led Psycho when a fi rst draft by James
P.
Cav anaugh proved inadequate (Cavanaugh later became the story editor for Th riller) . H itchcock's agents set up an interv iew at Paramount, and while H itchcock did not l ike The Black Orchid, he did hit it off with Stefano . 2
' I 'd almost turned Psycho down , ' said Stefano, ' because I'd read the novel and didn't like it. B ut I had ideas about what I could do with the story. H itchcock's eyes lit up when I said, 'If the movie seems to be about this girl who we meet and get to know, who happens to stop at this motel and get murdered half an hour into the picture .. .' A lot of Psych o 's success has to do with your know ledge of movie conventions . It was a movie made for people who watch movies, particularly Hitchcock movie s . If we had killed, say, Grace Kelly, the audience would
The Stevens/Stefa no pa rtners h i p is a n nou nced via trade ads to the i n d u stry-at-Iarge in 1 963 .
expect it was a trick. Janet Leigh was at j ust the right
Winston Graham novel Marn ie , at the time Grace Kelfy
level; you would accept the fact she had really died . '
was interested i n playing the lead role of a kleptomaniac .
With Psycho , Stefano drank deeply from the cup o f dark
In 1 962 Stefano wrote the pilot for the Mr. Novak
Gothic wonders that was to color nearly all of his l ater
series, and adapted the Max Erl ich murder mystery Last
work , part i c u l arly h i s O u ter L i m i ts episode s . The
Train to Babylon into what was to be Gary Cooper's last
combination of the fi lm by Hitchcock (who was steeped
fil m , Th e Naked Edg e . 'I started on that script right
in a tradition of brooding, baroque image s ) , the novel by
before Psycho opened, ' he said, 'j ust when the Writer's
Robert B l och ( who had made the Grand Guignol entirely
Guild went on strike. United Artists was the only studio I
his domain i n modern horror l i terature ) , and the
could legitimately work for, and they offered me the film.
screenplay by Stefano make the movie version of Psycho
At the time, I was i n the hospital , having a disc removed
the ultimate tale for a rainy night.
from my back. I got flowers from H itchcock, with a card
'I agreed to do two more pictures w ith H i tch , ' said
Stefano. ' B ut I didn't want to do Th e B irds because I
reading, 'Why didn't you have your operation in the cutting room s ? ' '
didn't like i t . ' After Psych o , he spent several weeks
When H itchcock decided to proceed with Marn i e , he
writing a one hundred-page treatment based on the
c aJled S tefano agai n . B ut Leslie Stevens had caJled first. ' Leslie was building himself a company , ' said
THf GAlAXY BflNG Stefano. 'He needed Sto n ey B u rke to be renewed, and needed to have more than one show on the air. He was having a hard time. He called at about 1 1 : 3 0 at night and asked if he could come over and talk to me about becoming involved; if ! was w illing to make my company a third party to this new show. About ten minutes after his call, he and Dominic Frontiere walked in, and in another ten minutes, possibly fifteen, I had agreed. And we just took it from there. ' 'Joe started with us as a kind of figurehead, ' said Stevens. 'He had a name and he was new blood, which was what we needed to sell Th e O u ter Limits as a series. We hired him, and he came in a day or two before we started shooting the P lease Stand By pilot. ' ' I was told Hitchcock was very upset because I wasn't available to do Mamie , ' Stefano said. 'It was insane. How can you get angry j ust because someone is busy? He said, 'Oh, Joseph is busy producing these days, and can't do our little project over here. ' 'Joe would be the first person to say that he hadn't produced his left shoe until the day we began shooting the pilot, ' said Stevens. 'There wasn't much for him to do except stand there and watch us film it. He deserves all the praise in the world, because at the very first he had to stand there and bite his tongue instead of saying, 'Why don't you do th is , Leslie?' or 'Why don't you stop fooling around?' I'm sure he wanted to produce then, but it wasn't his time. He was very professional with me by doing the thing we agreed to do, which was help to sell the pilot. When we went into production on the actual series, Joe came into his own as a producer. ' 'Each one of Joe's 'firsts' has been a gigantic success, ' Tom Selden, Stefano's personal assistant on Outer Limits , points out. 'His first script sold as a movie screenplay, his first TV script won awards, and his first series was Th e O uter Limits . ' 'I was hip to l ife, to people and situations,' said Stefano . ' I wasn't terribly naive. 1 didn't know much about being a producer. B ut with me, you never hire a producer; you hire Joe Stefano. '
I
It was Love
2
Stefano's dealings with H i tchcock are recounted in detail i n
( 1 92 7), a s i l e n t version of Anna Karenina, which Garbo redid as a talkie i n 1 936.
John Russell Tay lor's Hitch : The Life a n d Times of A lfred Hitchcock (Pantheon ,
1 978). and Donald Spoto's The Dark 1 983). He is quoted extensively
Side of Genius (Little, B rown,
in the sections of both books dealing with Psycho and Mamie.
S f l l l N G T H f P i l OT
A p ilo t should be hard-hitting and noisy. If you get stuck with a quiet scene, have somebody in the room kick over an ashtray ! -Daniel Melnick, to Leslie Stevens
lOG-lINf Please Sta n d By typified Stevens' approach to science fiction : His plot was speculative and fantastic ; his lead actor was a popular film star; his technical j argon was fast, wild-sounding and e s sentially credible, and his affection for hard science as a story springboard was obvious. His script was finished November 1 1 , 1 962, and the pilot was budgeted at $2 1 3 ,000. After a hectic two weeks of preproduction, film started rolling on December 3rd. Shooting took . nine days at a closed-down radio station in Coldwater Canyon, and at MGM on B acklot #4's Andy Hardy S treet and on Stage #3 . The completed footage then vanished into the l abyrinth of the Daystar B uilding, where it was edited, dubbed, and scored. Dominic Frontiere claimed that the opening title theme for The Outer Limits, beginning with the powerful musical ' sting' that instantly rivets the viewer's attention, was composed at his desk in fifteen minute s . The music he did for the pilot is eerie, drifting and sonorous, rich with strings-exactly the sort of thing Stevens needed to differentiate his film from the run-of-the-mil l TV product. Rarely used in TV, Frontiere's l arge orchestra lent the pilot a further degree of class.
JJ
TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PANION One of ABC's first questions t o Stevens was, 'Who's going to host it? ' Most anthologies of the day featured on on-camera host, usually a celebrity, and every show even remotel y associated with science fiction had had one. Stevens asked his new producer, Stefano, if he would like the job a fa Rod Serling. Stefano declined. Then, during a meeting with ABC and UA executives , inspiration struck: 'They cornered me on the topic of the host , ' said Stevens. 'I heard myself say, 'You are a television set. Wel l , turn off! There'll be a little picture-dot, and then a voice would say there was nothing wrong with the set, then the picture would come back on out-of-focus, then, as we took control, it would rol l and flutter. B y then, we'd be in the outer l imits . ' It j ust came to me in a b lind flash, in the middle of a conference, and I thought to myself, my god, that sounds good ! '
Nobody. Nobody a t all. B ut the secrets o f the universe don't mind. They reveal themselves to nobodies who c are . Isaac Newton was a nobody. Michael Faraday was a bookbi nder's apprentic e . . . . The b i g laboratories spend m i ll ions of doll ars, Caro l , and they work slowly and surely, and they get results. But not the big steps. Those come from the human mind, not from the l aboratory. Cal l them inspiration, call them intuition, maybe blind luck. Maybe it's God, saying, 'Now's the time . '
PROlOGH The planet Earth is a speck af dust . . .
C l iff Robertson a n d Jacqueline Scott.
ORAMA The major theme of Please Stand By was summed up by Stevens in the closing speech he wrote for the Control Voice. Its minor premise comes from the mouth of Allan Maxwell , when he attempts to justify to his skeptical wife Carol his modest efforts to investigate the unknown. An aggressively normal person who would rather not ponder such things, Carol says, ' What makes you think you can discover anything? Who are you?' Allan's reply :
J4
Significantly, ' Who are you?' is also the first question asked Allan by the alien, and the real answer is that he is the kind of solitary, science-smart misfit that is the core character for most of Leslie Stevens' Outer Limits scripts. One nice touch is that both Allan and the Being are scientific loners , kindred spirits whose contact is possible only because both of them are breaking rules to satisfy their curiosity-Allan is bleeding power away from the radio station that provides his livelihood, and the Being says he is 'not allowed to use equipment for exploration . ' Rather than a raygun-slinging octopus come to appropriate all of Earth's v i rgins, lightbulbs, and Dr. Pepper for the nefarious ends of its homeworld, here the alien v isitor is benevolent, even passive. The destruction it causes is unintended, as is the panic it l ater prompts. It is here by acc ident, and only resorts to a show of force to get everybody to shut up and listen to it. This establishes one of The Outer Limits ' archetypes : The humane, quizzical alien who interacts with humans who only hasten its death. As far as the network was concerned, a radioactive
THf GAlAXY BflNG extraterrestrial was a monster regardless of his better qualities, and the first appearance of The Outer Limits ' first monster is a memorable one. Keeping in mind Dan Melnick's admonition to get the monster on-screen quickly, Stevens brings on the B eing 30 seconds into the first reel , as a ghostly coruscation in the ' solid static ' pattern on Allan's 3D monitor. It resolves to recognizability nine minutes into the show proper, and a nice resonance is established by the fact that as Allan watches his screen, the TV viewing audience is watching him on their screens, just after being told their TV sets were beyond their control. In Please Stand By, a similar ' loss' of control results in the transmission of the B eing to Earth. Moral : Don't monkey around with the knobs while someone else is controlling all that you see and hear. The story's conceptual antecedent is the Robert Wise film The Day the Earth Stood Still ( 1 95 1 ) , reduced in scope for TV. The character of the B eing combines the civil pragmatism of K laatu, the alien emissary, with the awesome physical presence of his police robot, Gort. While Klaatu arrives in a flying saucer, the Being, fittingly enough, crawl s forth from a kind of TV screen, and tunes himself out at the end of the show. Both visitors deliver speeches l aced with cosmic profundities after demonstrating their superior Al lyson A m e s frea ks o u t w h i l e Lee P h i l i ps restra i n s her. destructive power, and both fil m s utilize easily alienation from his work is made c lear in what she says identifiable science fiction trappings without when she sees the static pattern on the monitor: 'I don't succumbing to a conventional monster-run-amok plot. l ike it. Don't ask me to appreciate it because I can't. It's One convention Stevens does exploit is the fear of cold. It sounds l ike s leet and snow, and it looks like the masses for technology. Carol Maxwell's fear of electricity, frozen. I don't l ike it; I'm sorry. ' Fear of the Allan's research has driven them apart, and her unknown (and the machines that probe it) has made
Fi rst contact: Allan a n d the Being i n Alla n ' s m a kesh i ft lab.
Allan an introspective oddball in the eyes of his family and co-workers . His transceiving rig does worse than make no money; it draws so much power that the radio station's signal is reduced to 'a feeble beep, ' which causes Carol's dislike to tip over into active hostility : ' You know we could lose our sponsors ! ' But Stevens demonstrates a love for the toys of technology, a willingness to embrace strange new devices in a society of neophobes like Caro l . A l l an ' s c learly impossible transceiver exists not because Please Stand By was any great proponent of 1 960s science, but because Stevens understood that the essence of the science fiction form is spec ulation-not documentation. By keeping one foot firmly in the real world of marriage and bills and sponsors, and the other in fantasy l and (Allan's shed), the story slides neatly into the realm of what if without bothering to explain
J5
TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PANI O N ••
• 4
N 11'
'., . .t:1J '-
. . .
,
.�';P ' , ',' . - :.
The Being ca uterizes C a rol ' s b u l let wound to ' stop death . '
the warp and woof o f Alan's gadgetry. We are given a few credible tidbits about radio waves coming in ' at 2 1 centimeters' from somewhere Out There. 1 To explain further would engulf the story in the octopoid j ustifications of ' hard' science fiction-a digression that a hardhitting, comprehensible and commercial pilot could not afford. Allan Maxwell could almost be Stevens himself, attempting to sell his unusual pilot to a network composed of mentalities l ike Carol and Gene Maxwell-people who sometimes need their horizons broadened directly and eye-wideningly. Stevens also uses the fear of technology as a breach point for his message that science and its devices require the same leery respect that a mariner accords the sea-the potentials for risk, danger, and death are balanced by the opportunities for uplift and discovery. For now, the abrupt announcement that nothing was wrong with the television set put the unsettled viewer right where Stevens wanted him or her.
Erman. ' S o we finally gave the part to Lee Philips. At the eleventh hour, Cliff cal l s with the news that he's decided to do the pilot, so I had to consult Leslie since Cliff was very big stuff in those days and his salary was $ 1 0,000, much more than Lee's. Leslie, being courageous and wanting a success, said to get Cliff, feeling he would add to the prestige of the show. Lee chose to play Allan's brother. ' S ince the technological exposition in the script was relatively meaningless to Robertson as an actor, Stevens used cue cards and off-camera prompting to help him through the dialogue, eventuall y changing camera angles after every line or two, allowing the speeches to be patched smoothl y together in the editing room. The show's other noteworthy performance was that of William O. Douglas, Jr. , son of the Supreme Court Justice. Douglas had previously appeared in one of Stevens' Stoney B urke episode-cum-spinoff-pilots, 'The Weapons Man , ' and his mime training under
O R A M AT I S P [ R S O N H The casting of Cliff Robertson as Allan was a coup for Daystar's John Erman, who secured the actor in the wake of his much-lauded portrayal of John F. Kennedy in PT- J 09 . ' He took forever to make up his mind,' recalls
Robertson , the h i g h est·paid actor ever to work on The Outer Lim its, poses for a public i ty shot while two Daysta r tec h n ic i a n s fiddle a bout in the backg ro u n d .
THf GAlAXY BflNG Marcel Marceau was applied to his portrayal of the Galaxy Being as well as several other creatures he played while under contract to Day star during Outer Limits ' first season. 'The face is hidden and the voice is generally distorted, ' he noted in an interview. ' S o , if they are to be made anything but lunging hulks, characterization must be done with the body, or with a tilt of the head . ' 'We didn't want some lumbering stunt man in a monster suit , ' said Stevens . 'Douglas added a touch of weirdness to the way he walked by using a praying mantis as his model; you can see how he looks and Wi l l i a m O. Doug las, J r. turns with his whole body. The creature perceives a world that i s , to him, made of glass-he can't keep his balance, as though he's about to fal l off this transparent place. '
to take a diagnostic look at it. When Phillips said, ' It stinks ! ' Stevens immediately asked him to fix it. Phi l l i p s drove Wil l i am Douglas to the E l l i s B urman Studios (then in Laguna Beach) and made a life-mask of the actor's face in plaster. ' Since I was working on another project at the time , ' said Phillips, ' I asked Chuck Schram to complete the head. He made it after hours, behind everyone's backs at MGM . ' S chram w a s , a t that time, working a s a n assistant to William Tuttle, Twilight Zone 's regular makeup artist. The new head was made of slip rubber and opened only in the back, sealing off the face entirely. Douglas had to draw oxygen through a tube that fed into the mask from an air tank strapped to his chest inside the wetsuit. Large-pupiled eyes from an oversized statue of a crow were implanted into the mask's eyesockets to give the ' tri-pupilled' look Stevens had requested. The new mask took three days to complete and was delivered the day before shooting commenced on the
BfHIND THf SCfNfS The Being costume itself was an innovative amalgam of costume, makeup sculpting, and optical effects, rare in an era when TV did most of its monsters in greasepaint. To get the Being to 'glow and flicker like a man made out of blue light' (in the words of Gene Maxwell), a brown wetsuit was heavily coated in oil and glycerin, which reflected the brilliant stage l ighting in endlessly shifting patterns . When the film of the Being was negative-reversed, the dark brown costume became glaring white. B ecause of this optical trickery, Douglas could play none of his scenes on the actual sets or with any of the other actors. He was composited with the normal footage in postproduction. To enhance the effects of radiation-light emanating from the Being, Stevens used a mobile acetyline torch rig in some shots, and an extremely bright spotlight called a ' scissors arc ' in others. While this effect was inspired, the original design of the actual mask worn by Douglas was not. The Being's face was at first a wholly i nadequate papier-nulche construction, and Elaine Michea at Daystar invited her makeup-artist friend, Fred Phillips,
The Galaxy Being ' wetsuit' as it a p pea red onscreen, and as i i looked during fi l m i ng , prior to the negative-reversa l effect.
Jl
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION m icrophone next t o a v acuum c leaner hose and ' v alving ' the nozzle with the fingers . Elizalde even put the nozzle into h i s mouth to achieve weird sounds, and overlaid this with an MGM sound effects track from Th e Tim e Machin e . ' It was a tape called Morlocks , ' E lizalde recalled. 'It was a composite of elephants and l i on roars and stuff. We needed sounds that were otherworldly, but s o unded l ike s omeone putting out vast amounts of information. I used it as a basic track. ' R obert AD First C l i ff Robertson ta l ks t o t h e s u peri m posed a l i e n ; note how t h e Bei n g ' s i mage ' bleed s ' s l i g htly onto the top Ju stman scouted the edge of the console, shut-down FM station pilot. ' I t was a real rush j ob , ' said Phillips, who used for exterior shots nestled into the Hollywood fitted Douglas into the contraption on the set. hillside. 'I u sed to l isten to a show on that station After seeing his work, S tevens gave Phillips most called 'Concerto from Coldwater Canyon, ' ' ' said of the makeup duties on the pilot, and Phillips Justman. ' It was quite cold, and we were up there remained w ith the O u ter Lim its crew o n a in the middle of the night, firing blanks from a per-assignment basis through both seasons of the 5 0-caliber machine gun . ' show. The creation of the alien' s distorted electronic voice set another standard for the soon-to-be series. 'We used a single-side band transmitter Awaiting S tevens and S tefano in ABC's New and receiver so that the voice would sound York screening room were Leonard Goldenson strange, but retain a maximum of intelligibility, ' and Thomas Moore . Daniel Melnick and Richard said John E lizalde. ' You can not only modulate Dorso were also i n attendance. sound s , but you c an transfer inflections and ' They h ad been watching pilots all week , ' emotional qualities . We used this set-up all the recalls S tefano . ' I wasn't sure how they'd take thi s time, and then would add filters or echoes or o n e . When I m e t them, something in' the air gave whatever to vary the voice s . ' The technique me the idea that it had a lready been seen. ' Elizalde used had the unintended byproduct of ' I used t o have a man travel w ith all of our producing an actual AM radio transmission that p ilots , ' said Dorso, who was there representing radiated within a hundred yards of the Daystar U n i ted Artists . ' He ' d sit in the back of the Building-which means that, if you had chanced screening room and t e l l the projectionist to past around New Year' s of 1 962, you might have gradually build the sound volume, unti l , blam! it been able to catch Leslie Stevens' voice, reading h i t at the c l imax . In slow spots, you'd distract the the Galaxy Being's l i ne s , on your car radio at two execs--everybody did it in those day s . Today, in the morning ! 2 they test shows in front of a live audience . ' The chaotic ' energy noise' of the Being's Accordingly, S tevens told the projectionist to radioactive aura was produced by sticking a
TA G
J8
THf GAlAXY BflNG crank up the sound during Act Four of Please
a potato chip at the buffet table and thinking, shut
Stand By. Having no ashtrays to boot over, Dorso
up , it's sellin g , tha t 's what counts , don 't say a
did his best to distract Goldenson when he caught the Chairman of the B o ard straining to read his watch in the dark. The differences between Please Stand By and ' The Galaxy B e i n g ' (the title u s e d for i t s broadcast a s the premiere episode of The Outer Limits) versions of the pilot are primarily found i n t h e s o u n d m i x . I n Please Sta n d By, the background music is more subdued, muted, and Frontiere's end title theme i s an expanded version never heard on TV. Allan ' s radio station, KXKVI, spins different dance t u ne s . The B e in g ' s ' s ignature noise' includes a n asthmatic , bell o w s huffing-puffing sound, as though it i s having difficulty breathing i n our atmosphere, or it is heard to 'pump up' power preparatory to blowing something down with radiation . 3 The shock scene s , such as the discovery of the dead deejay's corpse, are edited to be more impactfu l . In order to speed the film to the first appearance of the alien , some expositional dialogue heard in the 'Galaxy Being' version is cut. In Please Stand By, the extra, 'bonus ' dialogue includes an addendum to the B e i n g ' s l i n e , 'I am danger to my galaxy . . . they will come for me . . . destroy your planet'-which sheds a slightly more malevolent light on his fellow Andromedans . When Carol sees the B eing in the transmission shack, she comes completely unhinged, scre ami n g and scrabbling around until Allan gives her a good shaking. The death- scream of ill-fated deej ay Eddie Phillips, as well as the lusty shriek put out by Gene Maxwell's date, Loreen, at the sight of Eddie's charred corpse, were dropped from ' The Galaxy Being . ' The extra screaming and commotion did not necessarily sell the pilot to the execs , but it helped. After the screening, S tevens noted, 'I was watching Tom Moore, and it was really kind of comedic. I stood there while Moore outstretched his hand and walked toward me . . . then went right by me and hugged S tefano ! It was l ike a Chaplin movie; I stood there thinking he was going to hug me. B ut they were all tickled to death, congratulating Joe and telling him how marvelous his show was . That always floored u s-the ones who really worked on the pilot. I was left holding
word! Don 't rock the boat! The fact that it was
going well was all that we really needed. ' ' Goldenson turned t o m e and said, ' I understand y o u wrote Psych o , ' remembered S tefano . 'I said that was right and he said, 'Well, keep i t coming . ' (The execs) tied Psycho into horror, and when they saw thi s Galaxy Being on the screen, everybody was in sync-the pilot was scary, Psycho was scary; we want scary show s . My whole i d e a o f science fiction a t the t i m e was monsters anyway-y'know, Th e Th ing . ' While S tefano left the screening feeling that Please Stand By was ' too different; too intense' for the executives, S tevens was more optimi stic : ' Once we showed them the pilot, they knew they had something. They seemed kind of astoni shed by it. B ut it was hard-edged enough to sell itself. ' Later in the day, S tefano received a phone call from Dorso i n his hotel room . ABC wanted to buy the seri e s .
I
W h i l e the rev e l ation that A l l an i s 'scanning the hydrogen static coming i n at a frequency of
21
centimeters' could be d i s m i ssed as
colorful sci-fi gobbledygook, i t i s essent i a l l y v a l i d . A l l stars contain hydrogen
which,
wavelength of
21
when
ionized,
emits
radi o
waves
at a natural
centimeters. Reading these rad i o waves is one way
astronomers can c h art stars that are so far away they are i n v i s i b l e to conventional telescope s . A perfect ly acceptable way for an alien to contact c i v i l izations that do not su spect its ex i stence is to use those radi o waves as a carrier for a s i gnal . 2
E l i zalde e x p l a i n s :
' B asical l y,
in
AM
rad i o ,
you
modulate the
ampLitude of a carrier wave i n order to make it inte l l i g i b l e .
You
tran s m i t a s i g n a l , u s i n g a m i crophone, and in s i n g l e - s ide-band you lop off half the signal . ' On an osc i l l oscope, an AM wavefornl would l ook e x ac t l y l i ke the sine-wave pattern seen during the opening titles for The
Outer Limits.
A M stands for 'amp l i tude modul ation , ' which
means adj usting the s i ze and breadth of the 'peaks' on the waveform . For the tech n i q u e E l izalde describes, the top or bottom half of that s in e-wave-the outgoing sign al-i s e l i m i n ated.
' You broadcast that
and get i t back on a recei ver,' h e cont i n u e s , 'and you de-tune the recei v e r just a l ittle b i t so the rep l acement of the m i s s i n g side of the waveform-band is not true. That d i storts the s i gnal ; you start getting squawks, and i f you tune too far one way, you wind up sounding l i ke Daisy D u c k . We put a d u m m y L oad on our tran s m i tter so it wouldn't radiate, since we didn't have a l icense to operate a single-s ide-band, b u t i t would c arry for about a h u n d red yard s . ' 3
Th i s n o i s e , excised from ' T h e Galaxy B e i n g , ' w a s u sed l ater for the fi s h creatures i n 'Tourist Attraction . '
THf O UHR liMITS CO M PANION
A V i l l a � i S t e f a n o Pr o � u c t i o n I'm sure that as a new producer, I must've done things that shocked people. Because I didn't know how to 'be' a producer-al l I knew was how to come up with a movie that I l iked. - Joseph S tefano
Once ABC voted in favor of Please Stand By, a package deal was assembled by the Wil liam Morris Agency, which at the time represented both United Artists and Daystar. 'They did two months of contract writing and nothing else,' lamented S tevens. 'They took advantage of the goose with the pewter egg . ' To this day, as a result, William Morris takes 1 0 percent of The Outer Limits ' earnings from syndication sales. ABC was also keen on having S tefano. In fact, Daniel Melnick had sent feelers concerning TV projects Stefano's way about the time S tevens secured him for Please Stand By. In order to become a ful l partner with Stevens and U A , Stefano incorporated as Villa di Stefano Productions - the 'villa' being his B everly H i l l s res idenc e . His wife designed the company logo, deriving it from an architectural blueprint of the house. ' My company was, in effect, renting me out to Daystar, ' said Stefano. ' When I got the word that the show had sold, I thought, okay, we're in business . ' Initially, Villa d i Stefano's office was several blocks from Daystar, at 934 North La Cienega in West Hollywood. Harlan Ellison, who went there to pitch story ideas , recalled it as ' an itty-bitty office somewhere near the Cock and Bull . ' Stefano had given Stevens a frank overv iew o f the pilot while still in New York: 'To me, it was like 1 950s science fiction movies, which I never saw, never l iked, and wasn't about to produce. I remember telling him that doing 'The Galaxy Being' every week was not my idea of what the show was about, and he said, 'Fine; do whatever you want-it's your show. ' He was terribly angry when Stoney Burke did not get renewed, and the fact that ABC picked up The Outer Limits did not placate him, because he wanted several shows on the air all at once. As soon as it became obvious to Leslie that I knew what I was doing, he kind of backed off from The Outer Limits to pursue other new shows. I certainly didn't enter into it with any idea of pushing him out. The problem always was that you don't need
40
two guys l ike me and Leslie to produce one show. And I think Danny Melnick, right off the bat, knew which of us was going to be making the shows that he wanted to see . ' Stefano was introduced t o the four floors of personnel at the Daystar Building. 'I couldn't imagine what some of them were doing there,' he recalls, bemused. 'Leslie just said, 'Well ... they're bright. ' It was l ike Camelot. Leslie would hire people he just liked, whose actual jobs were a mystery to me. I was never sure what Allan B alter's job at Daystar was, for example. But Leslie loved to give jobs to people - he had these great, lavish gifts of love that he would suddenl y decide you were going to be the victim of. One day he told me, 'I've got a man to do all of our script mimeographing. He's kind of expensive, but really worth it.' This man was a murderer who'd just gotten out of prison, was enormously overweight, and gay. And I said, 'Oh, Leslie, that's so wonderful of you; we're so glad to do this . ' He loved being in the position to do people good, but it was never for me or for you. It was always for him, because it made him feel wonderful. ' Stevens advised the Daystar crew that whatever Stefano requested must be done, and his time was not to be wasted with any problems, which were to be brought directly to Stevens or Frontiere instead. When S tefano walked onto the set of Please Stand By for the first time, he was surprised to find himself regarded with a mixture of awe and fear-the ' image' Stevens had created for him as producer. ' B ob Justman said something during a meeting,' said Stefano, ' and I watched him, thinking, he knows what h e 's talking about. I said to him, 'Stick around, because I'm going to need you . ' He looked at me like he couldn't believe it-this was not the Joe Stefano that Leslie had told the crew about. One day, after a meeting with Edgar Scherick (Melnick's repl acement at ABC), he said, 'You're not intractable ! ' and I thought, oh my god, where did he get that idea? Leslie was protective of me, and wanted to make the show as comfortable as possible. For me , producing was a 'fools rush in' situation . I had no trouble with acc limation, and everybody seemed to be able to do anything I asked them to. ' S tefano's education i n the tasks of producership
VillA m STHANO was furious and rapid. From the day regular production of mine without finding flowers in her dressing room. on The Outer Limits commenced, it absorbed all his Everyone w ith a speaking part received a personal time. When he wasn't writing or rewriting, he was telegram from me before they arrived. I treated my meeting with writers, screening actors, or holed up in the editing room s at Daystar, or in tran s i t between studio sets and locations. 'Once I started, I realized I had to be at the studio. I couldn't sit around the far end of S unset Boulevard while the crew was working at KTTV or MGM . ' He moved Villa di Stefano to one of a cluster of ' shabby l ittle bungalows ' on the KTTV lot next to the soundstages . Mari lyn Stefano assumed the role of interior decorator. Proudly, Stefano noted, 'My office was one of the first in the business to be done entirely in antiques. We had a huge breakfront thing, a seventeenth­ century armoire with big doors that we outfitted as a bar. ' Mixed among the required office appurtenances were small Mediterranean end tables and settees . Collector' s pieces in baroque, gilt frames hung from the walls. Stefano's desk was an ornate affair of Italian parquet. ' I t was absurd, impractical , ' said A l l an Balter. 'Like some period villa. ' On the other hand, Stefano's assistant Tom Selden said, 'The offices were gorgeous, reall y elegant. We had modern things, of course, accessible for story conferences and meetings, but Marilyn did a magnificent job . ' The decoration scheme also illustrates another aspect of Stefano the producer, according to Leslie Stevens : 'The first day Joe was in the Villa di Stefa n o ' s m a i n men (L-R) : Tom Selden, Joseph Stefa no, and Lou is Morhei m , near CBS Studios on S u n set Boulevard , j ust prior to the network pre m iere of The Outer Lim its. office, he went to Frontiere and (Cou rtesy Joseph Stefa no) requested the antique s . Everyone else had the standard-issue Formica desks . Within a people l ike stars , and we later got a lot of actors month, Joe got his way. He was a real impresario ; the because of that . ' Stefano al so sent personal letters of type to order lobster on the set while everybody else congratulation to each writer who worked on the had mixed meat s . ' series, a week or so prior to the airdate of each episode. ' I was real grand studio style, and they a l l loved B i lleted i n the KTTV bungalow were Lou Morheim, Outer Limits ' recently-engaged story editor, it,' said Stefano. 'No actress ever appeared on a show
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THf OUHR liMITS CO M PAN ION and Tom Selden, an ex-actor who Stefano recruited as an assistant after seeing a play he'd directed at the Angels Theatre, Call Me By My Rightful Name­ which starred Robert S ampson and Sally Kellerman, two actors shortly to appear in The Outer Limits . 1 'There was a l arge reception area,' recall s Selden, 'where you'd find B arbara Wil li ams, who was Joe's secretary and our coordinator. Lou Morheim's office was to the left, Joe's was straight ahead, behind Barbara, and my office was off to the right-that was where Joe did most of his writing. I functioned out of his offlce most of the time while he did rewrites locked up in mine . ' Selden joined Villa di S tefano in l ate June of 1 963 , while the ' Architects of Fear' episode of Outer Limits was in postproduction. Louis Morheim was the man who bought the Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai and packaged it, in a partnership with Yul B rynner, to produce The Magnificent Seven . With Fred Freiberger (a future producer of Star Trek) , he cowrote The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1 95 3 , adapting it from the Ray Bradbury story, 'The Foghorn. ' Of The Outer Limits, Morheim said, ' I was impressed by the pilot, and I smelled that these guys at Daystar were on the cutting edge of the future; they were not tired old hacks. Leslie Stevens asked me what my criteria would be for j udging whether a script was good or bad, and I started to say, 'Well , I'm a student of Lajos Egri, and-' I never got past the 'and. ' For Leslie, the duck j ust came down. He said, 'You've got the j ob . ' ' 2 That same week, at the invitation of producer Irwin Allen, Morheim had previewed the pilot for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea , . ' I knew I could make a much better contribution, as a dramatist, to something like The Outer Limits, ' he said. 'It was something I wanted to watch. I would never be an audience to something like Voyage . ' Morheim and S tefano formed the powerful story-generating combine that became the heart of The Outer Limits . Morheim screened oral story submissions and rode shotgun on the useful ones through the first draft stage . ' From the oral submission,' he says, ' we'd figure two weeks for a treatment or outline, and three more weeks for a first draft, for the balance of the writing, another two or three weeks. So with an organized, professional writer, we're talking two weeks for original material, and six weeks for a teleplay. ' 'Lou saw all the writers before I did, ' said
42
S tefano . ' At first, there was maybe one out of ten writers he thought ought to meet me; not much was coming around. When somebody had an idea he liked, it was rare that I didn't l ike it, because Lou knew exactly what I was looking for. ' ABC, however, did not. They wanted a more concrete bottom line, a theme statement as to j ust what the hell the new series was supposed to be about. 'They were constantly on our backs,' says Stevens. 'They wanted to know what we were going to do with the show, how we were going to 'control' it. They w anted something on paper as a g u ide l ine for everybody, hence, The Canons of Please Stand By. ' The Canons were in the form of a 'bible, ' or series format booklet, dutifully hammered out by Stefano for distribution to agents and prospective scriptwriters . ' It was from Leslie's ideas , ' he said, ' and based on the pilot. ' While it is clear that Stefano considered such an absolute, boiled-down summary to be superfluous, it is also obvious that he had a bit of fun stretching a handful of generalized concepts out to fifteen typed pages (see Appendix I). Prime among the ideas was the ' hook' Daniel Melnick had insi sted on, the one-per-week monster effect, which came to be called the ' bear. ' Stefano explained in a magazine interview: 'In the days of vaudeville, when things were going wrong and the audience was getting bored, out would come a comic in a bear outfit. Or a trained bear. That's what we do in each of our shows-we bring on the bear ! ' Once ABC got their bible, they objected to Please Stand By as a title. It was still less than a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and they did not want the program's opening to be misconstrued as a bonafide emergency alert. Stevens took a cue from his Contro l Voice speech, briefly renaming his new show Beyond Control. ' Nobody was really happy with that,' said S tefano , who wrote his earl ier scripts for the show under this mantle, which one reviewer suggested might make too ripe a target for derisive critics. Soon enough, Stevens hit upon The Outer Limits as a substitute, and the finalized title was announced in the May 1 8th, 1 963 issue of TV Guide . Stevens retitled his pilot 'The Galaxy Being , ' and made the appropriate adj ustments in the introductory Control Voice narration. The great adventure in which the TV viewer was about to participate now reached 'from the inner mind to THE OUTER LIMITS . ' The tag speech of the original pilot had run :
VillA UI STHANO We now return control of your television set to you , until next week at this same time, when the Control Voice takes over. Until then , PLEASE STAND B Y.
Thi s was modified to : ' . . . when the Control Voice will take you to THE OUTER LIMITS . ' O f the Control Voice, Stevens says, ' I originated the concept of the theme statement. I wrote it into the pilot and thought that at the end of each episode we could have some kind of brief nod to high-minded ideal s . ' Regardless of who wrote the subsequent scripts for the show, Stefano wrote most of the Control Voice speeches, and his morali stic tone soon became another 'thread' giving the show a week-to-week continuity. ' S ome of them are pretty outrageous, ' he said. ' B ut the narration never said anything I didn't firmly bel ieve in, and never without a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek. There's a lot more humor in The Outer Limits than anybody ever dreamed, simply because that's a part of me that must play. ' In reediting 'The Galaxy Being' for its network premiere, Stefano got his first taste of working on a mov iola. ' I learned how to cut film by watching footage on the machine . For example, there was a moment when the actress crosses into shadow, and you couldn't see her face. I said, 'Right there-start her dialogue, then cut to Cliff reacting, and we've gotten rid of three whole pages.' For me, seeing film in a moviola was l ike getting it back into the typewriter again-just an extens ion of writing. ' A new credit sequence was done, with a slower succession of astronomical plates run behind the end credits. The final card was a real mouthfu l : A Villa di Stefano Production / In Association with Daystar Productions / United Artists Television. The most favorable reaction to the September 1 6, 1 963 premiere broadcast of 'The Galaxy Being' came from The Hollywood Reporter: ' [Stevens has] allowed his imagination to run wild almost to the point of incredulity in the initial plot, but the production was mounted so handsomely with special effects, smoothly accelerating suspense, and acting played straight down the middle for human values rarel y given more than fleeting development in shock themers , that this v iewer' s reaction was : 'It couldn ' t possibly happen ... but I wouldn't bet heavily that it couldn't. ' Production on regular series episodes for The Outer Limits began i n May of 1 96 3 . The Villa di
S tefano bungalow, l ike the Daystar Building, buzzed with activity. 'Just getting scripts completed was a seven-days-a-week j ob , ' said Morheim. 'It never stopped. I was always taking scripts home with me. ' ' We always had five shows going at once, ' said Tom Selden. ' One being readied, one i n preproduction, one shooting, one being edited, and one in final postproduction . ' A new Outer Limits was born almost once every seven days. S tefano found himself creating scripts ' in a whirlwind, overnight-I'd hand stuff to Lou the next morning. I found out that when you're totally in control, you can get as much as you want-you get it written the way you want it, you get the director you want, and you do it the way you want to do it. B ut. . . your wife doesn't see you, your l ittle boy doesn't see you, and you become so exhausted that when the alarm goes off in the morning, you wonder if you're even capable of getting out of bed. When I found out ABC wanted thi s show, I real i zed that I'd have to do this every week, for 24 hours a day. '
Mari lyn Stefa no ba sed the 'company log o ' on an a rc h i tectu ra l floorp lan of the Stefa nos' home i n Beverly H i l l s . (Cou rtesy Gerd Oswa ld)
Selden's acting career incl uded parts i n Daddy Long Legs, The Young Captives , and Conquest of Spac e .
2 Egri authored the fundamental text
The A rt of Dramatic
Writing. As for the 'duck,' the reference is to the quiz show You Bet Your Life , in which a prop duck would drop down from the ceiling on a w i re to accost host Groucho Marx with
the Secret Word.
4J
TH f ounR liM ITS COM PANION
Season 0ne It got on the edges, in the first fifteen weeks, of being a breakthrough show. We could all feel it. After it was over we felt li ke it was an okay credit, and that was it. After five years, we saw it hadn't died, and it may have been an important show after all . In fifteen years' time there was a genuine feeling of, ' Yes, there was something in there ! ' It was worth all of the care and love we'd put into it. S o the feel i ng w e got during the first few weeks came true in t h e lon g run . -Leslie Stevens Other shows being done then, things l ike The Untouchables, had a raw-nerved edge to them . People don't work that way anymore. It was kind of w i l d i n those days. The so-called Golden Age of TV was just about over, and everybody was saying, ' Let's get out there and just have a bal l ! ' It was kind of l ike what I imagine they fel t like during the heyday of Hollywood, with certain groups off i n a corner somewhere, getting away with murder-little kook groups making the films they really wanted to make. And those are the films we're stil l watching today. -Joseph Stefano
liTHE
OUTER LlmlTSIl C H AN N E L
Co OJ
F R I DAY · 1 0 : 3 0 P. M.
SPONSOR Overleaf, Page 44: C h i l l C h a r l i e strikes the o n ly pose he ca n . Above : Ad m a t featu ring a shot from 'The Sixth Fi nger. '
The order in which episodes of The Outer Limits were broadcast bears little relation to the order in which they were produced. ' You're shooting a show every seven day s , ' said Leslie Stevens, ' and as soon as they're edited, you run rough cuts for the network. That was where people like Dan Melnick and Richard Dorso were reall y good-they'd pick what they thought were the best shows, the ones that should run first, of the ones we had finished. ' Even though Dan Melnick had been a key figure in m idwifing The Outer Limits, Stevens was not to see Melnick again once the pilot aired. Melnick was to leave ABC in late 1 963-but not before he voted thumbs-down on another particularly wild idea: 'I found out you could take a cycle note and oscil late it from the deepest possible bass to beyond the range of human hearing, and as you went it would resonate until objects in the room-glass, ashtrays-would begin to v ibrate, ' said Stevens, who proposed broadcasting j ust such a tone ! 'I cooked it up as an alien appearing aurally-a monster that wouldn't quit, and there'd be one in every house ! ' A B C was appropriately mortified by the mere idea of their TV show causing a clock to fall on someone's head, so Stevens' ' Sound Monster' was un-created.
SfASON ONf
T h e Galaxy B e i n g bows i n d u r i n g a commerc i a l for ABC ' s 1 96 3 season l i ne u p .
When 'The Galaxy Being' premiered, it also featured a clip of coming attractions, with the Control Voice saying, 'Experience the awe and mystery of the hidden world in these coming episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS ! ' Footage from ' The B orderlan d , ' ' The Hundred Days of the Dragon, ' and ' Architects of Fear' was shown. 'Television was still fairly new then, ' said Shirley Knight, who co-starred in 'The Man Who Was Never Born,' perhaps the single most enduring episode of the series. 'Not everybody had a television. B efore that, Inner Sanctum let you know that there was time when you could sit before the radio i n your home and be frightened. B ut the Control Voice was the first time somebody said, And now we 're going to control your life , you know; you may THINK it's the television-and it was wonderful because of the idea that you could have something in your own home that you could watch , and be frightened. ' Joe Stefano recalls a n early piece o f mail the company received j ust after the premiere : ' It was from
a woman who wrote : 'Your Control Voice didn't give u s back control of our set at the end of the show. Our vertical has been in trouble ever since, and we think you should pay our TV repairman ! ' '
The fa m i l i a r Outer Lim its s i n e wave ma kes a g uest a ppearance on a m o n i tor screen i n 'The H u m a n Factor. '
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TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
TH[ BORU[RlANU Broadcast 16 December 1 9 63 Writte n and d i rected by Les l i e Stevens Assista nt D i rector: Robert Justman Di rector of Photography: John N i ckolaus CAST: I a n Frazer ( M ark Richman). Eva Frazer (Nina Foch). M rs. Pa lm er ( G l a dys C o o p e r ) . Edgar P r i c e (Alfred R yd e r ) . Lincoln Russel ( P hillip Abbott). Dwight H a rtley ( B a rry Jones). Benson Sawyer ( G e n e Reynolds). O r. Sung ( N o e l DeSousa).
Mark R i c h m a n , 'The Borderla n d ' s right-ha n d m a n .
The mind of man has always longed t o know what lies beyond the world we live in . Explorers have ventured into the depths and the heights . Of these explorers , some are scientists, some are mystics. Each is driven by a different purpose. The one thing they share in common is a wish to cross the borderlands that lie beyond the Outer Limits . . .
During a seance intended t o make spiritual contact w ith the dead son of industrialist Hartley, attending physicists Ian and Eva Frazer expose the medium, Mrs. Palmer, as a fake. Then they offer the grieving man another path to the afterlife-one without guarantees. Frazer's left hand was recently trapped in an electrical field during an experiment in polarity reversal, and the two perfect right hands he shows Hartley (one his normal right, the other the 'reversed' left) convince the magnate to fund a larger-scale attempt to pry open the doorway to the alternate dimension, the
'borderlands' Ian glimpsed .. . if an attempt to contact his dead son is included in the deal. Mrs . Palmer's v indictive henchman , Price, arrives to sabotage the equipment just as Ian steps onto his newly-constructed energy platform. Price is electrocuted, the breakers blow, and the power loss causes Ian to get stuck between dimensions. He calls his wife's name, unable to orient himself in the limbo realm, his voice echoing through the lab weirdly out of sync with his lip movements. Eva blacks out the city to draw enough power to pull him back, and when his re-reversed, now-normal left hand reaches through the ' ionic rain' obscuring the platform, she grabs it and hauls him out intact. Hartley chooses that moment to j ump into the field, calling his son's name. He burns out and vanishes before the machines can be shut down. There are worlds beyond the worlds within which the explorer must explore . But there is one power which seems to transcend space and time, life and death . It is a deeply human power which holds us safe and together when all othelforces combine to tear us apart. We call it the power of love.
' S c ience fiction i s a doorway that allows your imagination to freewheel,' said Stevens. 'Science is a c arefu l l y gridded and structured view of the mysterious, so that the rational mind has a firm grounding from which you can gaze into the inexplicable pec u l i arity of the universe-the fearsomely odd space-time reversals , black holes, and so on. There are actual mysteries that occur constantly, and to look at them rationally turns up extraordinary bends in math, l ike Hausdorfs Theorems-madness
THf BOROfRlANO bends i n math, l ike Hausdorf s Theorems-madness In the episode, Eva merely goes all stars truck and that i s totally real . Cold, analytical logic that proves blankly offers, 'He's a gen i u s . ' the sun can change places with a pea, and that you can A l s o omitted w a s a n exchange between E v a and put the sun i n your pocket. S cience fiction i s a way to fellow researcher 'Linc' Russel that sheds some light expre s s these phenomena w i thout becoming so on what drives her: technical that you lose everyone except a few RUSSEL (smiles sadly) : I used to think you were technicians. ' cold-blooded. 'The Borderland,' S tevens' opening salvo for his EVA : B ecause I helped him go into danger? brand-new science fiction series, crackles with highly RUSSEL: No-because you're a mathematician. It's technical dialogue, but the depth of his concept is lost unusual for a woman. Austere. ami d the pyrotech n i c flash of the Frazers' EVA : And beautifu l . He taught me how beautiful it can be. otherdimensional probing. The cast tries valiantly to RUSSEL: Oh yes, I know how he feels about make the drama work but i s perhaps overqualified to mathematic s. It's l i ke music to him. He has a play second behind the thunder and fury of the special way of making ordinary thi ngs, like magnets, effects, and all the characters emerge as thin as paper. become my sterious and beauti fu l . And Wrapped up in his desire to produce an impressive something else I know. You're not cold and fol lowup to 'The Galaxy Being , ' S tevens edited most you're not austere . You have mastered the sternest discipline for the simplest, feminine of the character out of his telepl ay i n favor of the reason. You want to please him. extravagant, though confusing barrage of v isual s . EVA : I love him . Stevens enj oys dealing with characters o f position RUSSE L : I w i sh I ha d what he has. and wealth, expressing a working knowledge of the power-brokering that transpires in the corridors of the Once again, we have Stevens' solitary scientist, on elite, where the tuxedo can be seen as a uniform that a quest. Thi s speech also lends some context to the confers high social status on the person who wears it. closing narration by the Control Voice on the efficacy The beginning of 'The B orderland' i s overwhelmed of love. B u t stripped of such background shading, the by the trappi n g s of affluence and upper-caste scientists in 'The B orderland' do very l i ttle other than protocol-which are intended to divert our attention bustle around thei r l ab in a mock-epi c succession of from the fact that the players are pretty dul l and conventional . From Hartley and Sawyer we get the doubletalk of cool cash; from the HEY/ li M E ! scientists, a lot of i mportant- sounding hp s (if [fll l f' f � Da u ' , to t h ' l ar k . , ,- , ,U (' , , f I h � I l ' l o' t' t n tre l a r 1 credits, such as Eva's demure .' ro d ' [ / :)11(' 1 1 ' 11 01 ,,-Jo. II: J r ' ; wHw:> t 1 m b n� knewT' f a! ' iI '� oj' tt) 'j j� ,:'F'l d 1 If f j( 'II lflr-r·· n t1 a f PC t krJ (1<'f'Ci 0; acknowledgment that she holds ' the Rensslaer Chair at Midlands Universi ty ' . . . TH E OUTER LI M ITS P M O N CH. XX whatever that i s . Without knowing who these characters are, we are supposed to be impressed with them, but they remain only thumbnail sketches. Ian in particular, comes off as a bright-eyed fanati c and a bad risk. We don't know what drives him because Stevens cut from his script a speech by Eva that gives us a hint: ,
'
1 00:00
EVA: He's being pulled along, i n a straight line, almost as though some invisible force is p ul l ing at h i m . We keep th i n k i ng he's abnormal , a genius compelled to march i nto the unknown. But he's more like a child, trying to find something he's lost.
A B C promotional slick for 'The Borderla n d ' (note the ' Po p l i n Power Pylons')
THf OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION
Mark R i c h m a n exposes a phony wra ith for Gene Reynolds (R) a n d N i no Foc h .
'Primaries, three-three-one, stroke, one-one, stroke, one, polarity minus two ! ' This (plus a l itany of countdowns ) i s i ntended to maintain a tone of technical veracity that i s unnecessary by the last act, when the floodgate of special effects opens up ful l bore . For all that, ' The B orderland' i s handsomely mounted and intelligently cast. The Midlands lab set i s impressive, vast, and l i t in a darkly sinister fashion. The 'coil cel l ' platform i s gloomy and ominous, and in Stevens' first draft included a 'device resembling an electric chair; ' it looks like a Tom Swiftian deathtrap that comes alive with the unsettling hiss of the ionic rain when running at ful l power. The fleeting glimpses of 'borderlandscape' seen through the curtain of ions were paintings by renowned astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell. M.B. Paul's Adlux screens were also used to establish the backgrounds of the Midlands
lab. The shot of Hartley vanishing into the ionic rain is an ambitious effect reminiscent of one from Byr6n Haskin's own War of the Worlds namely, the shot in which a soldier's skeleton becomes v isible through the flesh as he disintegrates . Project Unlimited executed this effect (and repeated it, in 1 967, for Haskin's final film, The Power) . Jack Poplin's crew constructed the ' magnetic coi l ' power pylons by winding spray-painted garden hose around cores; these props were to tum up in many other Outer Limits episodes as background hardware . One curious note sounds when Mrs. Palmer, the spiritualist, almost stops Price from sabotaging Ian's experiment. The possibility that the Frazers just might legitimately contact another world captivates her, and while she is leaning toward the scientific, the scientists are hampered by unexpected vision s : 'I've got a -
THf BOROfRlANO feeling, Eva,' Ian says. ' I can see myself l ater, alive and weIl , with you . ' Eva responds, 'I've got to say it, Ian-I see you lost. ' They both tum out to be right, while Hartley later says, 'I feel it ! I feel I shall reach my son ! ' Whether he does remains a mystery. The script also aIlows a brief beat of irony during a conversation between Linc Russel (Ian's right-hand man, so to speak) and Benson S awyer ( Mr. Hartley's watchdog), as the need of both men for variant definitions of Hartley's ' power' speIls out the collision between fiscal wherewithal and sheer electronic force . I a n also has a speech t h a t s p e l l s out h i s brotherhood to A l l an Maxwell of 'The Galaxy Being'-from his pioneering impatience to h i s Stevens-like frustration with ' b i g labs,' and money men: IAN : But it would take a year to find them, maybe two years . Three more to persuade them .. . Three years i s too long to wait, even to be safe . . .
N i na Foch as Eva F razer (note open script on the console) .
A b r i e f g l i m pse of t h e ' borderlandsca pe. '
There's always a risk, whether I go now or test it a million times, there's always the principle of uncertainty. I'm sorry, Eva, the odds are with us. Anyone who goes out beyond the markers takes a risk-ocean explorers , the first airmen, the astronauts.
Mark Richman , a casting suggestion of S tefano's (from The Black Orchid) , is a good choice for Ian Frazer. He wordlessly conveys the sweat and spirit needed to tackle the unknown, like some metaphys ical Eagle Scout, or maybe j u st another S tevens surrogate, bucking the system. 'I was very pleased to be working with all these people, ' said Richman , ' and it was an interesting film. In one shot they had another guy in my j acket with me; I had my arm in one sleeve, he had his arm in the other, and we had to time our movements so that the two right hands would work together. It felt kind of ridiculous, but it worked. ' 'Leslie has a fantastic facility of ideas , ' said S tefano. ' I couldn't begin t o write the Outer Limits he wrote. I don't find his writing terribly deep-not shallow, but not resonant. He goes off on scientific flights of fancy that simply lose me as an audience, and he's more interested in what he's writing about than the characters he creates. They're puppets, and they tend to come out a l ittle empty. His is just a very different style-different from what I was into, but just as good. In 'The B orderland,' even though I thought Leslie's ideas were great and the drama worked for me, Danny
�1
TH f O UHR liMITS COM PANION Melnick was very concerned about it, and during a meeting he asked me what I could do. I said, 'Honestly? Nothing . You want me to tell Leslie you don't l ike what you're seeing? B e side s , how can you even tell? It isn't finished; the special effects aren't i n yet . ' ' Stevens did have a handle on the v isual impact he desired for the episode : ' They go inside-out, into a new real m . There was no LSD at that time, no expanding of consciousne s s . I wanted to get what was later called the psychedelic look, to blow everyone's mind. ' This effort caused a lot of grief, and after principal photography was completed, Stevens called in veteran director and v isual effects expert B yron Haskin to lend a hand. ' 'The B orderland' was filled w i th movi n g , shimmering lights filmed a t odd angles , ' said Haskin . ' And you've got to know what an effect is going to look like in advance , so you can shoot to fit it. You can't go panning around an actor when the background is going to be double-exposed. We had to take the film apart ree l by reel, frame by frame . We marked the many times the [ionic rain] effect was to be seen, and doing this one effect ultimately cost $ 1 4,000. S tevens saw the bill and cried. ' That bill was not appreciated by the money men, and ' The B orderland' sported no 'bear, ' as 'The Galaxy Being' had. ABC was very uneasy with the fin ished product, and held it in inventory until the middle of the season before broadcasting it. 'They were terrified we weren't going to do a good, solid, commercial monster show, ' said Steven s . 'To them, the thread of The O uter Limits was merely to present monstrous ideas . I broke the rules a few time s , rather badly, and got called for i t . In 'The B orderlan d , ' the 'bear' was not acceptable to them. And since that show was the first to be shot, I was a lready breaking regulations, i n their eye s . They wanted me to get back over into my c omer and give them something-killer bee s , p l ants w ith spore s , anything ! There had t o b e a creature o r menace that would hold the audience i f they didn't like science fiction. '
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H a rtley va n i s hes i n to the coil cel l ' s ' io n i c ra i n . '
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TH[ HUMAN fACTOR
T H [ H U M A N fA C T O R Broad cast 1 1 November 1 9 63 Written by David D u n c a n Di rected by Abner B i berman Assistant Di rector: Lee H . Katzi n D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: M a j . Roger B rothers ( H a rry G u a rd i n o ) . Dr. J a mes H a m i lton ( G a ry Merri l l ) . Col. Wi l l i a m C a m p b e l l (Joe de Santis). I n g rid Larkin (Sally Ke l l e r m a n ) , Maj. H a rold Giles ( Ivan Dixon). D r. S o l d i n i (Shirley O ' H a ra). Orderly (James B. Sikking). Peterson (John N ewton ) . Sergeant (Art Alisi). N u rse B r a i n a rd (Jane La n g l ey), Pvt. Gordon/Ice G h ost (Wi l l i a m D . Douglas, J r.), Sentry/Stunt H a m i lton ( M atty Jordan). Stunt B rothers (Dave Pern a ) , I ntercom Vo ice (Vic Perri n ) .
Ga ry Merrill as Dr. James H a m i lton .
In Northern Greenland the mountains stand like a wall along Victoria Channel, whose straight course marks the line of the Great Baffin Fault. Until recently, not even the Eskimos ventured into this A rctic waste. But today, as in other lonely places in the world, the land is dominated by those instruments of detection which stand as 'a grim reminder of man 's fear of man. This is Point TA B U, a name given this p redominantly underground base by a young officer who explained that the letters in TAB U stood for Total Abandonment of Better Understanding. Some two hundred men and a few women make this their permanent residence. Their task is to maintain a constant alert against enemy attack, and be prepared to respond to it, devastatingly. . .
In his l ab at the remote base, psychiatri st Hamilton has devised a diagnostic apparatus that permits two minds to link and share thoughts. His newest patient i s M ajor B rothers, whose most recent crazy behavior has been an attempt to blow up the nearby Hecla Isthmus using the base's atomic cartridge, a portable nuclear device. Earlier, B rothers had led an exploratory sortie to the I sthmus and allowed a trapped member of his party, Pvt. Gordon, to die there. Now he i s haunted by the accusing spectre of the dead man, and believing it to be a ' monster' intent on destroying the base, he wants to eliminate it first with the bomb. Hamilton wires B rothers up to his machine in order to lay bare B rothers' mental state . A tremor rocks the base, the machine shorts fizzlingly out, and Hamilton's mind regains consciousness in Brothers' body . . . and vice versa. Seeing another opportunity to get at the atomic cartridge, B rothers, as Hamilton, orders 'Brothers ' locked up. Hamilton's fiancee, Ingrid Larkin, gets wise to the exchange ; having melded her mind with Hamilton' s before the accident, she believes ' B rothers ' w i ld tale of actually being Hamilton, and helps him to escape. They return to the lab where B rothers, determined to murder his old body and keep Hamilton's, bursts in and grapples with Hamilton. He shoots Hamilton-in the ' B rothers ' body-before getting knocked out. As the B rothers body dies, Hamilton manages to switch their minds back, and B rothers dies in his own body. When asked by Ingrid how h e ' l l report the i n c i dent, the now-restored
53
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION Hamilton says, ' Only the truth-Major B rothers shot himself. '
much to recommend it. It was the first episode to employ Conrad Hall's outre camera angles and moody, heavily-textured lighting effects , and features fine A weapon ? No, only an instrument, neither performances from its three leads in an ideally good nor evil until men put it to use. And otherworldly setting. As in The Thing From A nother then , like so many of man 's inventions, it can World and the memorably weird TV movie A Cold be used either to save lives or destroy them , Night's Death , a snowbound outpost isolated from the to make men sane or to drive them mad, to world-at-Iarge seems a perfect stage for eerie events. increase human understanding or to betray it. David Duncan's script, however, is a depressingly But it will be men who make the choice . By conventional drama hinging on an old-hat sci-fi itself the instrument is nothing until you add gimmick-in this case, a brain swap between a the human factor. psychoanalyst and a psychotic . The teleplay is not sub-par or badly written; like Abner B iberman's The first produced Outer Limits not written by direction, it i s merely adequate. Leslie Stevens, 'The Human Factor' outwardly has B iberman , an ex-character actor ( h i s most noteworthy bit part was in the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur film The Leopard Man ) was a competent j ourneyman director who logged his six days on The Outer Limits and never worked on the show again. ' Abner was a little out of his element with this stuff, ' said 1 st AD Lee Katzin. S imilarly, 'The Human Factor' was the only script done by David Duncan for The Outer Limits . At the time, Duncan ' s screenwntmg credentials included The B lack Scorpion ( 1 957), The Thing That Couldn 't D i e and Jack Arnold's Monster On the Campus (both 1 95 8 ) , and George Pal ' s The Time Machine . ' You may have noticed the blurry bit where the heroine attempts to get the keys to the cell , ' said Duncan .of his story. 'I had rewritten this scene at the request of Joe Stefano, who had said, 'Let's get some suspense into it, so she has difficulty getting the key. ' The panel holding the keys was placed behind a switchboard operator, who thereby became its guardian. The excuse manufactured by the heroine so that she could approach the panel was that she pretended to forget the number of her own extension, and so had to look it up in the phone book, which was right next to the pane l . While doing so, she pinches the keys . In the finished film, the key panel was ten feet behind the Gary Merri l l , Ch ill Charlie (complete w ith drama l i g ht) a n d H a rry G u a rd i no . ICou rtesy Bob Burns)
54
THf HUMAN fACTOR
The sepa rate bra i n s of a n a lyst a n d soldier become . . .
operator, and within easy reach of the heroine, s o that all my dialogue-which had been retained-became meaningless . When I saw the film, I asked Stefano how come, and he said something like, 'You know, I thought that looked sort of strange myself, but no one else said anything, so I figured it must have some kind of subtle meaning, and I wasn't going to lay myself open by asking any questions ! ' ' Duncan's script was heavily revi sed about a month after the original draft was submitted, in April of 1 96 3 . Most o f the dialogue remained intact, and another doctor-Ingrid's romantic rival for Hamilton-was el iminated. Interestingly, Ingrid's l ine to Hamilton, ' You don't need a woman or a wife , ' originally ended with, 'but you might want a mistress' (at which the censors might have shaken their heads no). Stefano and Morheim are treated to the first of The Outer Limits ' several 'dialogue cameos' when Dr Hamilton-in B rothers' body-tries to prove who he is to psychiatrist Dr Soldini by saying, 'I know both your sons, Joe and Lou ! ' Another nice character touch is Hamilton's refusal to drink coffee, preferring sunflower seeds instead. ' I've given up all habits that might effect my nerves or weaken my mind and body, ' he says, doing General Jack D . Ripper proud. I One very real drawback was that 'The Human Factor' was basically a psychological suspense story that allowed l ittle room, once again , for the ' bear ' ABC had been promised. ' The Borderland' had already focused on a scientific menace rather than any kind of resident gargoyle, and to omit one from the very next show would not foster any faith between the producers and the network. Thus was born the entity known in the script as the Ice Creature, a.k.a. the Ghost
. . . two m i nds with a s i n g l e plot.
of Private Gordon, an ice-encrusted hallucinatory product of Major B rothers' dementia. It fades in three brief times to point j'accuse at Brothers , and it was better than nothing. The Outer Limits ' unbilled special effects advisor, B yron Haskin, and Wah Chang of Project Unlimited designed a lifesized figure encased in translucent amber ice, with frozen stalactites hanging from its outstretched arm and a yellow bulb inside the head that caused the empty eyesockets to glow. Nicknamed 'Chill Charlie' by Haskin, the statue never appears in the episode. In its stead is William O . Douglas, Jr. , wearing a fatigue jacket sheeted in plastic icicles, his eyes blackened and corpselike. Chill Charlie was vanquished to the realm of UATV publicity photographs , where he can be seen in stills, posed next to S ally Kellerman or Harry Guardino, or as the 'front man ' for the wrapper used on the Outer Limits gum cards that were eventually produced. Though Douglas
H a m i lton and Brothers (actu a l ly stu nt g uys Matty Jordan and Dave Perna, L.R) fry the i r hea d s .
THf OUHR liMITS CO M PANION looks thoroughly grotesque i n makeup, h e simply isn't as creepy as Chill Charlie would have been. 'The Human Factor' marks S ally Kellerman's first TV role. 'I'd seen her in Ibsen' s The Master Builder in a theatre on La Cienega,' recall s Stefano. ' When I was introduced to her, I said, 'If I'm ever in a position to do anything about you and it hasn't already been done, I'm going to do it.' At the time she said sure, thanks a lot, that sort of thing. Then came a small part in 'The Human Factor,' and I got S ally for it. I told her it wasn't much, but it was a piece of film she could show anybody. Then I told Connie Hal l , 'Don't give me any shit about how we're in Greenland; I want Dietrich, Garbo, right out of the Thirties ! ' Then I told the costumers to find a way to get her out of uniform and into something glamorous. The wardrobe woman found her a coat with a fur collar, and when she put it up around her neck l ike this, she looked sensational . Everyone thought she was my lady, but it wasn't anything. She was my Harry Cohn personification ! ' Casting director John Erman had also directed Kellerman in little theatre. ' Stefano saw, in her, his chance to do what Hitchcock had done with Ingrid Bergman , ' he said ( appropriately, the n ame of
Kellerman's character i s Ingrid). ' Since I was dating S al l y at the time, I remember very specific things­ S tefano got her to diet, got her a new wardrobe, and finally decided to fashion a whole episode around her. That show, 'The Bellero Shield,' was the beginning of the new S ally Kellerman, and she was delighted and gratefu l , because she had just been kicking around, l ike so many of u s . ' Kellerman had appeared i n features a s far back a s 1 95 7 , in Reform School Girl; based on her ' piece of film' from 'The Human Factor, ' she was quickly signed to the William Morris Agency. Of ' The Human Factor, ' Daily Variety was quick to cite ' motivational haziness, loose ends and apparent contradictions , ' calling the episode a ' lesser edition' of The Outer Limits . More to the point, it i s unfortunately easy t o say that 'The Human Factor, ' but for its too-few bright spots, i s as cold and barren as the Arctic tundra itself. Gen. Ripper turned up a year l ater, in Stanley Kubrick's Dr.
Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, refusing to pollute his ' precious bodily fluids' by
drinking only distilled water and pure grain alcohol . He, too, wanted to solve h i s problems with A-bombs.
(L) : C h i l l Charlie mugs for p u b l i ci ty photog ra p hers in the company of S a l ly Kellerma n . (R) : The Ghost of Private Gordon (Wi l l i a m O . Doug las, Jr.) as he a p pea red i n the episode.
TOURIST ATTRACTION
T O U R I S T AT T R A C T I O N Broad cast 2 3 December 1 963 Written by Dean Riesner D i rected by Lasl o Benedek Assistant D i rector: Robert J ustm a n D i rector of Photography: J o h n N i ckolaus CAST: J o h n Dexter IRalph M e e ker). Lyn n Arthur IJanet B l a i r). To m Evans IJe rry Douglas), Prof. Arrivelo IJay Novello). Gen. Juan M e rcurio I H enry Silva). Reporter IWi l l a rd Sage). 2 n d Reporter I Edward Colmens). Oswa ldo [Major Domol lJon S i l o ) . Ca pt. Fortunato [ M e rcurio's aidel l Francis Ravel). Skipper IStua rt Lancaster). Paco [J a n itorl l M a rtin Garre lega), Mario I H e n ry Delgado). Butler I M a rco Anto n i o ) , I chthyosaurus M e rcurius I R o g e r Ste rn), Oth e r I chthyosaurs IBil1 H a rt, Pa u l Stader, George Roboth a m ) W I T H : No e l d e S o u s a a n d S h e l l ey M o rriso n .
In man 's dark and troubled history, there are vestiges of strange gods. This stone statue was once such a god, a thousand years gone by, in the central mountains of Pan A merica. Today, new gods have emerged-the god of power, the god of money. The Republic of San Bias lies west of the Orinoco Basin and slightly north of the Equator. Its principal exports are coffee, copra, mahogany, mace, and saffron. In a hundred-odd years the reins of government have changed many times in blood and fire and death. The last of the revolutions was led by General Juan Mercurio, the most absolute and powerful ruler of them all. Only the Indians who live close to the old gods in the volcanic uplands are unimpressed. They have seen the coming of Conquistadors, with the power of their guns and flashing flags; the revo­ lutionaries, with their zeal and willingness to die; the Americans, with the power of their money and bulldozers, with their summer houseboats in the crater lake of A ripana, with their gadgets, and machines, and devices . . .
I n the coastal waters o f S an B Ias, corporate mercenary John Dexter c aptures an enormous , prehi storic amphibian, one that resembles the ancient stone carvings of reptilian gods. His plans to ship the creature back to the U . S . for study are countered by General Juan Mercurio, a Castro-like dictator who promptly christens the find Ichthyosaurus Mercurius,
disallows its removal from the country, and plans to exhibit it in his World's Fair to draw touri st trade. The amphibian is locked in a freezer under guard, but an accident allows it to thaw out and escape. It is quickly recaptured, Arrivelo, a professor at the local university, reveals that the creature u sed ultrasonic emissions to disintegrate the iron of the freezer door, and that the similar sounds it continues to broadcast may be a form of SOS to others of its kind. When Dexter tries to smuggle the creature out of San B I as, an army of the beasts rises from Lake Aripana to reclaim their comrade. The sight paralyzes Dexter with fright, and he is convinced to let the captive creature go free. The school of creatures then destroys Mercurio Dam with their u l trasonics, bringing an apocalyptic flood to San B Ias . Mercurio's corpse i s seen among the victims of the catastrophe. Dexter survives, and his newfound experience with fear and humility allows him to reach a reconciliation with his estranged mi stress, Lynn Arthur. The forces of nature will not submit to injustice. No man has the right, nor will the checks and balances of the universe permit him, to place his fellows under the harsh yoke of repression. Nor may he again place the forces of nature under the triple yoke of vanity, greed, and ambition. In the words of Shelley: 'Here lies your tyrant, who would rule the world, immortal. '
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TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PANION ' 'Touri st Attraction' was the closest w e ever came to those kinds of schlocky sci-fi movies that overran the 1 950s, ' said Joseph S tefano . Echoing him, writer Dean Riesner said, 'The closest 1 ever came to science fiction is that 1 once went to a track meet with Ray Bradbury. ' Stefano had expressed an i nterest i n doing an Outer Limits with a political slant, and at the time public notice was very much on Dominican despot Raphael Truj i llo, who had j ust died. Riesner took the Trujillo slant and merged it with his recent reading on John Lilly's famous research into dolphin intelligence, thus yielding the show's main attraction-the corps of dinosauric, skin-di v i n g sea mon sters who use a sophi sticated form of sonic communicati o n , l i ke dolphins, and were prehistoric i n origin, like the coelacanth. What evolved was almost a remake of the 1 954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon, even down to the tedi ous expositional dialogue that establi shes the coelacanth as the present-day role model for the antediluvian amphibian s . 'The material I ' d written w a s mediocre , ' said Riesner. '1 blame certain shortcomings the show had on the fact that I wrote in many special effects aspects that gave the production people difficulty. ' When Stevens reviewed the teleplay, he told S tefano it was too expensive to produce. Stefano rewrote the script to simplify it, and whereas the straightforward narrative set-up rel ated by the Control Voice i s Riesner's, the business of ' old gods' and quotations from Shelley i s pure Stefano. 'They didn't have t o change it too much to make it awfu l , ' Riesner maintained. Undaunted, Stefano asked Riesner to consider doing another episode, and the writer declined, responding, 'I had no real interest in writing science fiction. ' One way Stefano bridged broad gaps i n the story was to bring on the Control Voice in the middle of the show, twice, to explain what was going on during underwater scenes : Moving th rough the deep, protected only by a tank of air and a hunting spear, the scientist-explorer descends beyond the San Bias shelf. But all unknown to h im, the observer is himself observed. Hidden in the sinuous rills of seaweed, sightless eyes, blind for centuries, stare out of the abyss. The legendary creature of the deeps, sensing through nerve receptors in its skin, becomes aware of the alien in vader, man.
H e n ry S i lva (Ll as General J u a n Merc u r i o .
And l ater, when the c reature s gang up on Mercurio Dam : Pressed and strained by constant drilling of ultrasonic beams, the concrete face of the dam cracks and faults. Ten million tons of pressure builds toward ultimate collapse . . .
These editorial i ntru s i o n s on the episode­ in-progress were j arring and mostly superfluous, and the technique was not used again until Harlan Ellison wrote similar descriptive passages in Outer Limits ' second season, for ' Soldier. ' ' I didn't get too invol ved in that show, ' said Stevens . 'Although 1 did insist the fi sh be true to form, and not have two legs or something. The script called for hundreds of these creatures, and we could only afford three. ' The manufacture of the full -body amphibian suits was the largest single Outer Limits j ob handed to Proj ect Unlimited, and B yron Haskin and Wah Chang collaborated on the design, which is froggi sh, toothy, and a b i t wall -eyed. ' We u sed these huge,
TOURIST AnRA�TION
Dexter reels i n h i s catch of the day.
industrial-sized baker's bowl s to mix the l atex , fifteen , twenty gallons at a time , ' recall s Proj ects team member Paul LeB aron . 'There was a failed paint store on one side of the Projects address, and we rented it just to get enough room for the baker's oven we used to cure the suits. We built a shell around the oven, to make it even bigger. The mold for the suit weighed three hundred pounds . We had it on a block and fal l , and everybody at- Projects would have to gather around it j ust to lift it into the oven ! We made all the suits from that mold, and once, while we were heaving it out, the darn thing slipped and nearly broke my leg. I got a contusion on my right thigh that swelled up l ike a bal loon, and after about two weeks I had to have it operated on. They took out almost a cup of blood . ' Once t h e s u i t s were completed, Production Manager Lin Parsons loaded them into his station wagon and met the stunt crew at his home to test-dunk the costumes in his swimming pool. ' We put in l ittle bags of lead shot for negative buoyancy, ' he said. 'And the hump on the back of the suit was for a scuba tank. I went into the water with the stunt men during the tests. It startled my neighbors a little bit ! ' When the suits absorbed enough water to sink properly, a new problem arose. ' They'd get waterlogged, l ike a sponge, ' said 1 st AD Robert Justman . 'So they became incredibly heavy, and hard to move around in. ' Another handicap was described by Wah Chang: 'The time we had to put these costumes together was not sufficient to safeguard against certain factors-like the divers l i terall y
bursting through the suits after being submerged. ' Either the latex rubber ripped apart due to the added weight of the water, or the divers would become claustrophobic. Underwater cameraman and stunt regular Paul S tader initiated a hand-clapping gesture for the fish-men to use to indicate thei r need to surface . On one occasion the s i gnal was m i s interpreted as hammy self-applause for a successfully completed shot, and Stevens recalled watching rushes in which the monsters suddenly surface and tear their heads off, yell ing, 'Goddammit, I'm drowning ! ' Lack of stock shots of a bursting dam meant that Project Unlimited had to shoot i t as a miniature effect, in haste . ' We d i d that in one take, ' said Gene Warren , who supervised the model shot. ' We packed it off in a hurry for (editor) Fred B aretta to strip into the rough cut, and hoped it wasn't l aughed off the screen . ' Typical o f the fast shuffle suffered b y the plot i n favor o f monster window-dressing i s the scene where the captive Ichthyosaurus Mercurius i s put on ice. There i s no question that the beast will thaw out and go on the rampage, and that the 'accidental ' defrost i s at the hands of a pair of drunken ethnic stereotypes brings the show in line with even Stefano's definition of schlock. The creature drags itself through the freezer door, top-heavy and wobbling, a scant menace hardly j ustifying the wholesale panic that ensues . There is a vague hint that the creature's ultrasonic buzzing somehow immobilizes human beings, but not enough of one to overcome the v i sual evidence that these sluggish monsters could easily be outdist anced by a brisk walking pace . With the exception of Henry S ilva's steely-eyed Mercurio, a tinpot tyrant brimming over with swagger and cunning, the performances are disposable. In the early scenes, Ralph Meeker's aloof delivery serves well the sort of corporate dispassion that makes Dexter l i ttle better than Mercurio, but his cynical asides are often so dry and quick that they speed past both the viewer and the other characters . Too quickly, Meeker seems simply bored with the whole affair, and s ince Janet B l air is twice as old as the Lynn Arthur character is supposed to be (in the script), the two form another Outer Limits Odd Couple, l ike Gary Merri ll and Sally Kellerman in 'The Human Factor. '
TH[ OUHR liMITS COMPANION
O U T, U A M N f U B U U G f T S !
Most of a horde of Ichthyosaurus Mercurius emerges from the backlot lake at MGM. (Cou rtesy Claude B i nyon, Jr. 1
Thi s was the first of three Oute r Limits assignments for Hungarian director Laslo B enedek, whose biggest successes had come a decade earlier with the Frederic March Death of a Salesman and The Wild One, with Marlon B rando. ' Laslo was a very precise man who had done features for years, ' said Jack Poplin. 'His first comment would always be, 'De scrip needs to be vorked on, and since he was used to a feature pace, he'd get into corners . For this episode, we built the rear end of a yacht. Laslo was always shooting the wrong way ; we'd have to keep scooting the backings around . ' Much o f the music heard in the episode i s b y Dominic Frontiere's old teacher and friend, Robert Van Eps . 'B obby i s really a world-class orchestrator, ' noted John Elizalde, ' and Dom brought him into The Outer Limits. Some Frontiere music was tracked into Act Four, and both composers received credit. Van Eps' music then went into the stock library for the show, to be heard in l ater episodes such as 'Moonstone' and 'The Mutant. ' Dean Riesner l ater wrote the phenomenall y successful T V miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, and co-wrote the Clint Eastwood vehicles Dirty Harry and The Enforcer. He has seen 'Tourist Attraction ' several times in syndication, and said, 'I sit and watch it with dreaded fascination, wondering what the hell is going on . '
'Leslie had told me to take care of all the 'artistic stuff,' and put my mark on The Outer Limits, ' said Joseph S tefano . 'Then United Arti sts called us to New York, to ask why these shows were coming in $20,000, $30,000 over budget. And I thought, aha, Leslie's letting me have whatever I want ! If I wanted five actors, all of whom would get top-of- the-show billings, I'd get them-and there went the budget for the whole show. I did not know we could not do that, but afterward, I was in on all the budget meetings, paring down . I'd take one top-of-the-show actor and then get others who weren't as well known. I'd rule out scripts with speci al effects we couldn't afford. I could rewrite a three- set scene onto a single set and still get the writer' s ideas across. We were getting about $ 1 20,000 per show, and my primary concern became bringing our budgets as close to that figure as I could, because anything over that was deficit financed. That $ 1 20,000 mark was where UA was waiting for us, with money they wouldn't get back until reruns. Leslie and
'
Ralph Meeker a n d Ja net B l a i r ponder the i r Odd Couple status .
UAMNfD BUUGHS I weren't paying for all the overages ! ' According to Elaine M ichea, 'We had a free rei n t o arrange the outflow, b u t UA co-signed the checks. We only had so much money for the series as a whole, so if a show ran over, we' d try to make i t up by bringing the next show in under. ' The estimated budgets for individual episodes were broken down by Michea with Production Manager Lin Parsons, and for 'Touri st Attraction , ' the figures tallied this way : Available budget: Estimated budget: Final budget:
$ 1 64,553 $ 1 79,792 $ 1 76,926
'For this series, it was impossible to gauge costs on a set basis , ' said S tevens. ' We broke costs down in order of importance-overhead, then sets, then casts, then effects and makeup. ' While Stefano was phasing into The Outer Limits, getting his sea-legs as a producer, 'The B orderland' went far over budget, and the Chill Charlie fiasco helped do likewise for 'The Human Factor. ' Early advertising for The Outer Limits touted 'distinctive stories and distinguished stars ' . . . and stars of distinction, like Cliff Robertson, Gary Merrill, Ralph Meeker, and Janet Blair, were usually expenSIve. Then 'Tourist Attraction ' achieved the dubious distinction of being the most expensive Outer Limits epi sode yet produced, and as a result, in late June of 1 963, S tevens' office fil led up with accountants from UATY. 'Their 'creative voice' was the veto power they could wield by turning off the financial spigot , ' S tevens said. ' It w a s their j ob to j ump on u s , screaming, whenever w e went the slightest b i t over. ' About the time ' Tourist Attraction ' was completed, another incident brought a UATV accountant to Stefano's office. ' When we first began production on The Outer Limits, I asked for my check, and they sent me a check, ' said S tefano . ' After I'd collected five or six checks, this young man from UATV came to see me, and said, 'We are very worried, Joe, because you have now collected your producer's fee on six shows, and you've only shot your third. And if something happened to you . . . ' But what he meant was : if you suddenly decided to fuck off to South America, we 'd be in trouble! Here was this man I'd never seen before, this child, sitting in my office tel l ing me we'd have to work out some arrangement, and what if I'd collected on 3 2 shows and only finished 207 He was really hot. I l istened to his whole spiel, then said,
'What i t comes down to i s you're afraid I'm going to collect my money and walk away from my own show. ' When he left, I called Leslie and told him I would not accept any more checks until each show went on the air. I j ust thought you got paid for 32 episodes-I didn't know you had to wait until they were finished ! And then the cal l s started, from UATV, from ABC ; they were all very worried because now I wasn't taking any money. They said, 'C'mon, Joe, this is ridiculous, everybody needs money, it's okay. ' I just said nope. And that's why, long after we fini shed production, I was still collecting a check, every week. ' Fresh from his flying classes, Stevens dropped by and asked if Joe wanted to ride in a helicopter. They went up with S tevens at the throttle, flying out from an airport in S anta Monica to buzz Stefano's Beverly Hills home. ' Afterward, in the car, Leslie turned to me and said that everyone was very upset over what I was doing with the producer's fee s , ' said Stefano. 'They thought I was gearing up to leave the show in a snit. I told him not to worry, I wasn't angry, I wasn't going to leave the show. But I'd made my statement, and that was how it was going to be. It was fun sticking to my �I.'Q-
Stefa no consu lts the Ichthy a bout scri pt revisions on the freezer room set.
THf O UHR liM ITS COM PANION gun s . I thought i t was important t o d o that . ' Stevens found one solution t o the dire problem of budget overrun s right in The Outer Limits ' own backyard. At his request, B yron Haskin put on his director's hat and did the next show on the production roster, ' Architects of Fear'-the first episode to come
in under budget. This turnaround sent the accounting munchkins back to their cubicles, permitting Daystar, S tefano, and company to return to the business of doing weekly television.
P r e s e n t i n � B y r o n H a s l( i n The Outer Limits budgets were not tops, not adequate for the material, and under-average for the time. A lot of directors, i ncluding Stevens , went over; some shows cost twice their budgets, and others you had to wrestle them off the set to fin i sh them. I had originally been contacted to work on Outer Limits by Leon Chooluck, and Stevens and I agreed that my associ ation with the show would be in a nameless position, supervi s i n g the special effects . I didn't want credit as an associ ate producer-the ' ass-prod' credi t suggests a gofer, a guy who fetches coffee for the real producer. I worked as an advi sor, and didn't want screen credit except as a director, because a 'triple threat' guy i s always suspect in this business. -Byron Haskin
Once known as John B arrymore ' s favorite cameraman, and winner of an Academy Award for special effects as far back as 1 93 8 , B yron ' Bunny' Haskin's career encompassed the breadth of cinema as a 20th Century artform. At the time he joined the Daystar team, he had been working in film for nearly half a century. 'I think The Outer Limits far surpasses those things that Rod Serling did, ' said Haskin. 'Twilight Zone was off into other areas. I n The Outer Limits there was a thread of spookiness , of the offbeat; the title itself was the dress-coat that held the series together-taking things to the outer limits of your credence, and your abi lity to absorb shock. ' An outspoken , ami able walrus of a man given to scatological wisecrackery, Haskin proved capable of tossing together creatures and camera tricks despite the constant shortages of time and money, and was adept at running interference with what he called the industry's 'mogUl types . ' Born i n 1 8 89 i n Portland, Oregon, Haskin spent three years as an art student at the University of
California at B erkeley before enlisting as a Naval Aviation cadet during World War One. He later worked as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News, and dabbled in adverti sing before signing on as a cameraman for International Newsreel and Pathe News. He m igrated to Hollywood in 1 9 1 9 and became an assistant cameraman to Lyman B roening, then an assistant director for Louis J. Selznick. By 1 922 he was a first cameraman for Warners, after brief stints at the old S amuel Goldwyn and Metro companies. Among the directors he worked with during the 1 920s were Allan Dwan (who did the Douglas Fairbanks Robin Hood) , Malcolm St. Clair (who did the original version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1 928), the legendary Raoul Walsh, and Alan Crosland (director of The Jazz Singer) , whose son would l ater become another of The Outer Limits ' directors . Haskin's first three features as director were all s ilent films for Warners, done in 1 927 : Ginsberg the Great, Matinee Ladies, and Irish Hearts. That year he also did The Siren for Columbia, and in the early 1 930s he j oined the special effects department at Warners, working in production, as a second unit camera­ man/director, and as an effects photographer on such · films as the 1 935 A Midsummer Night's Dream (the James Cagney version, featuring a 1 5 -year-old Mickey Rooney as Puck) and the classic Captain Blood. In 1 937 he succeeded Fred Jackson as head of the special effects department at Warners, a post he held until the end of World War Two . Stage 5 at Warners became ' B un n ' s stage, ' and most of the special effects copyrights secured by the studio at this time were developed by Haskin and his crew, who in 1 93 8 were awarded a ' Class I I I ScientificlTechnical Prize' from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 'pioneering the development, and for the first practical application to motion p icture production, of the triple­ headed background projector. ' Haskin was also an Oscar nominee for his work on The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex ( 1 939), The Sea Hawk ( 1 940),
BYRON HASKIN The Sea Wolf ( 1 94 1 ) , and Desperate Journey ( 1 942) . Haskin resumed his directorial career i n 1 947 with I Walk A lone, starring B urt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. After Too Late for Tears ( 1 949) he made the Disney Treasure Island i n England the same year. Then he l inked up with fantasy film producer George Pal i n the early 1 950s. Pal had just done Destination Moon and When Worlds Collide, and his love for science fiction was well-matched with Haskin's expertise i n optical trickery. Their first collaboration, War of the Worlds ( 1 95 3 ) , i s probably the film for which Haskin i s best remembered as a director, and it deservedly won an Oscar for its special effects. Throughout the 1 950s, Haskin directed a broad variety of pictures, including, for Pal, The Byron H a s k i n , H a l lowe ' e n 1 9 8 3 . (Photo b y DJS) Naked Jungle ( 1 954) , Conquest of Space ( 1 95 5 ) , which featured future Outer Limits co-worker things , we just did them one way or another­ Tom Selden in a small role, and From Earth to the whatever the hell would fit the money. ' Moon ( 1 95 8 ) . He also did a lot of Westerns and After 'rescuing' the speci al effects of 'The swashbucklers , including Tarzan 's Peril, Warpath , B orderland, ' Haskin helped design Chill Charlie for Silver City (all 1 95 1 ) , The Denver & Rio Grande 'The Human Factor, ' intending to use it in conj unction ( 1 952), His Majesty O 'Keefe ( 1 95 3 ) , Long John Silver with a special ' transmission mirror'-an optical ( 1 954), The First Texan ( 1 956), and The Little Savage effects tool he had used on Captain Sindbad, shipped ( 1 959). B efore retiring in 1 96 8 , he would do the in from Europe for Haskin's use on The Outer Limits . l noteworthy Robinson Crusoe on Mars ( 1 964) , The It was a budget-saving plan that backfired when Chill Power ( 1 967 , his final film for Pal ) , and lend technical Charli e was abandoned. Then c ame ' Tourist assistance in 1 966 to a science fiction TV pilot called Attraction,' of which Haskin said, 'It starred this Star Trek. His last film prior to linking up with well-known singer dame, but it was not a musical . It Daystar was Captain Sindbad, completed i n Europe i n went thousands of dollars over cost, took ten days to early 1 963 . Haskin had made the transition to TV work shoot, and was no damned good anyhow ! ' in ] 957 on the Meet McGraw series, and he worked Then came 'The Architects of Fear, ' a turning exclusively for The Outer Limits through mid- 1 964. point for The Outer Limits in more ways than 'My topmost post, if you could call it that, was budgetary ones. organizing the design and construction of the monsters, ' he said. ' I had a good rapport with the people at Project Unlimited, especially Wah Chang, who had a wry, weird sense of the strange. ' Chang, Haskin's 'trans m i rror' paralleled t h e famous Schufftan Haskin, and Projects co-founder Gene Warren Process, an in-camera matting system popular during the Expressionist period i n German cinema and u t i lized to great round-tabled various Outer Limits 'bears ' during effect in such films as Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Born in 1 893, conferences with Daystar and S tefan o ' s story Eugene Schufftan won an Academy Award for h i s cinem­ department. ' Stefano and I would talk over each story atography on The Hustler i n 1 962. B oth h i s and Haskin's at those meetings, and I would sketch my ideas for systems employed a half-silvered mirror with select areas of monsters on a charcoal pad. After we oohed and total reflection, locked down at a 45-degree angle between the aahhed them, we'd take them to Projects to see what set and the c amera. Photos, paintings, or other visuals were could be made from them. I tried to keep the ones I then positioned so they were reflected i n the mirror, and the fil m recorded the interaction between the live performers on­ designed down to the workable s ize of an average set and the backgrounds which existed only in the m i rror. man. We didn't make any problem out of solving such
oJ
THf OUHA liMITS COMPANION
T H [ A A C H I T [ CTS O f f [ A A Broadcast 3 0 Septe m b e r 1 963 Written by Meyer Doli nsky D i rected by Byron Haskin Assistant D i rector: Lee H . Katz i n D i rector of Photography: Conra d H a l l CAST: A l l e n Leig hton I R o b e rt C u l p ) , Yvette Leig hton I G e r a l d i n e Brooksl. O r. P h i l l i p G a i n e r I Le o n a rd Stonel. O r. H e rschel l M a rtin Wo lfsonl. O r. Paul Fredericks I Do u g l a s H e n derson), the Thetan [Al l e n as alien] IJanos Prohaska), Carl Ford I Lee Z i m m er), Bert Bolsey IHal Bokarl. ' B i g To m ' IWiliiam Bushl. Fred IClay Ta n n e r), a n d G i n g e r t h e d o g .
' H i s middle name should 've been Outer Limits ! ' Robert C u l p i n m id­ m utation .
Is this the day ? Is this the beginn ing of the end? There is no time to wonder, no time to ask, 'Why is it happening, why is it finally happening ? ' There is time only for few-Jor the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray ? Or do we merely run now, and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day ? J
An idealistic coterie of scientists resolves to unify the warring nations of Earth by providing a common enemy to unite against, an extraterrestrial ' scarecrow' that will land a spaceship while the UN i s in session, and confront the General Assembly, l aser pistol in hand. They draw lots, and physicist Allen Leighton i s chosen to undergo a radical surgical procedure that will transform him into ' a perfect inhabitant of the planet Theta. ' Allen's death is faked and the grueling series of transplants and modifications to his body proceeds. Unaware of the plot, his wife Yvette persi sts in bel ieving he i s not dead, and thanks to a v ague psychic l ink they share, she ' feels' sympathetic pains
64
as A llen suffers on the operating table. Once the bizarre transformation is complete, Allen is launched into orbit as a weather satellite, but he comes down off course and makes a forced l anding in the woods near the United Labs facility where the plan was hatched. Now a hideous , scaly, bird-footed, nitrogen-breathing monstrosity, Allen uses the laser to disintegrate a station wagon as a warning to a trio of hunters; they in tum put a bullet i n his back as he makes a run for the lab. Yvette again feels her husband's pain, and hurries to United Labs, beating Allen's fellow scientists there. Before dying from its mortal wound, the creature demonstrates the 'mark against evil '-a personal gesture Allen had shared with his wife-and Yvette realizes the horrifying truth. Scarecrows and magic and other fatalfears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made , then their m istake will not have been merely grotesque. It will have been at least a lesso n--a lesson at last to be learned.
The Outer Limits ' problems with budget hassles and lackluster scripts were both squashed for the first time by ' The Architects of Fear, ' a compelling episode that showcased many elements that became icons of the program's unique identity. Despite obvious plot contrivances , the show i s frankly unforgettable, with
THf ARCHIHCTS Of ffAR convincing, straight-arrow performances and dead tough dialogue. It features what is probably the most ambitious monster suit ever attempted for TV i n the day and age of 1 963-indeed, the Thetan is superior i n concept (and even i n execution) when compared t o most equivalent creepy-crawlies of 1 95 0 s sci-fi cinema-a creation that caused not only a deluge of fan mai l , but an unexpected bout w ith home-town censorship. Ironically, the story starts with the 'it's so crazy it might work' philosophy that traditionally crops up at the end of most of the ' Killer B ' s ' of science fiction mov i e s , and proceeds with uncondescending logic toward a c limax that is believable in spite of all the outlandish elements that must mesh together. Leslie S tevens said, ' I produced, or helped produce, the first few shows to help Joe get his feet under him, to let him get scripts ready, to start preproduction, and help him find his way around. Then, when it was his tum to produce, he came through full blast, with flying colors . The unit was able to hear him talk sensibly, with all kinds of taste and authority, and watch him get things done. ' S tefano wanted strongly to make shows that l ooked like short feature films instead of run-of-the-mill TV, and with 'Architects , ' both he and The Outer Limits began to hit their stride . Production on the series had been grinding away for just over a month, and the script was the first story purchased by Lou Morheim. 'I knew Meyer Dolinsky as the writer of a number of Mr. Novaks , ' said Morheim. ' He was also a friend of mine who was part of a playwright's group I once conducted. ' Among Dolinsky's early TV work are found episodes of Ben Casey, The Storefront Lawyers, and Daystar's own Stoney Burke. Dolinsky recalled h i s first Vil l a di S tefano meeting: 'I threw out an idea that Lou just fel l in love with-the only way you'd stop war and really make this planet shape up would be to get somebody to scare the shit out of everyone. Love was not going to do it. Lou l iked that, but S tefano decided our message couldn't be that grim. S o we tossed a little love into the final scene, so it ended up that love could do it. Probably rightly. ' Dolinsky's teleplay i s crisp and specific, the only omissions from his draft being Yvette's final scenes with the ' normal' Allen. She plucks a grey hair from his head, j oking, 'He loves me . . . ' B efore she can get to he loves me not, he stops her, but by then she has noticed an irregularity in the
(L·R) Leonard Stone, Ma rti n Wolfson, and Doug las Henderson .
skin of his forehead-the first outward manifestation of his biological mutation. She touches his scalp-line, drawing her finger down toward his eyes , and this is the genesis of the personal gesture they share. 'The thing that worked best was the 'mark against evil,' said Dolinsky. ' I had restructured the old monster­ on-the-Ioose idea, but that added a sensitivity not normally found in that sort of story. ' S tefano wrote i n the spectacular scene in which a trio of duck h unters is s urprised by the first appearance of Allen in Thetan form. B yron Haskin added a dog. 'Instead of having hundreds of people screaming and running from the monster, I used the dog as the first 'being' to encounter the Thetan, ' said Haskin. ' Its reaction was more spontaneous, and therefore more real. A dog can't reason per se, and yet it was scared. An animal ' s reaction is honest, as opposed to an actor who reacts for money. It was a v isual embellishment that made our monster more believably scary. I think all we did to spook the dog was kick it in the ass, which sent it howling . ' Dolinsky confirmed that S tefano's production rewrite also ' heightened that which was v irtually
TH[ OUHn liMITS COMPANION
The Theta n-ette escapes i n the lab, having been freed by Allen .
Allen and Yvette. Dolinsky's original ending also showed the scientists acting more defi netively to destroy the Thetan before Yvette has a chance to discover that it is Allen, by cutting its nitrogen tank hoses and flooding the lab with oxygen . The strengths of ' Architects' are tied into human dilemmas : Allen's devotion to scientific ideals versus his genuinely sensitive relationship with Yvette ; Gainer's tight-lipped, almost fanatic dedication versus his obvious concern for the ordeal Allen, hi s friend, must endure ; the cadre of scienti sts, regular guys all , capable o f the best intentions, yet victimized b y screw ups and poor insight. To try and unite the world, they destroy the already-perfect union of two people. Instead of bettering the world, they kill one of the small, good things left in it. Allen's transformation i s a n attempt b y a group of technologically-advanced geni uses to redress the global nuclear threat made possible by their own scientific predecessors. They assume a massive responsibility for humankind, and then blow it. But even their hideous miscalculation i s treated with a rare degree of compassion by the story. Dolinsky was also responsible for the classically­ informed stream of gibberish belted out by Allen when he suffers a ' schizophrenic episode' and run s amuck in the lab:
transcnptIOn of the dialogue as performed in the episode by Robert Culp; for one thing, Culp was permitted some i nterpreti ve leeway, for another, 'nightshade ' was substituted for ' Mandrake root,' possibly because of the percei ved lewd connotations of the l atter. The culmination of this sequence-the Act Two cap-finds a still-deranged Allen attempting to phone his wife and being restrained by the determined scienti sts. He shouts out a line distorted with grief, and therefore difficult to understand when viewing the show. It sounds like 'I want to talk to her ! '-meaning Yvette-but i s really, ' I am going to talk to my son ! ' . . . meaning the zygote he now knows his wife to be carrying, another 'being' in the process of being created. What a Thetan might look like was a topic first round-tabled by Dolinsky. 'There was a girl I was going out with who was seeing a doctor, ' he said. ' She got a bunch of doctors together to gi ve me the science of it. A lot was too technical to show up in the script, but we spent an evening throwing around the question, What would you do to transform an ordinary human being into a projected figure from a planet with a
ALLEN : I am Caliban with a Ph. D . . . baa baa black sheep have you any Mandrake root? The Solar Spectrum has the shadow of Alexander's horse. Get away from me ! S tand bac k ! Do you think your white pudgy hands can hold Odysseus? Prometheus unbound. Tycho's star !
The excerpt above does not represent an exact
Robert C u l p a n d Gera l d i ne Brooks.
THf ARCHIHCTS Of ffAR
Janos Prohaska .
being into a projected figure from a planet with a diffe rent atmosphere ? The teleplay describes the result: (Allen's) body i s flatter, h i s skin made up of dark, oily scales. Infrared orbs are his eyes, his bald skull i s flat with a bony grid structure on top for n i trogen proc e s s i ng and digestive gaseous expiration. His legs are bowed and foreshortened, and h i s arms have the same ape like appearance, w ith only three fingers; there is an extra knee joint for loping. There are no ears . Two small holes appear where once there was a nose. Two vertical slots replace a mouth from which i s attached tubing leading to the nitrogen tank strapped around h i s middle.
Haskin brought in a Hungarian stuntman and acrobat named Janos Prohaska to portray the alien. Prohaska' s spec ialties included p l aying ape s in circuses and on TV (he l ater became the popular Cookie Bear on The Andy Williams Show) , and building monster costumes that defied the man-in-a­ suit look in his Santa Monica workshop. ' When I first met Janos,' said Haskin, ' he came into my office, put a beer bottle on the table, and then stood on his head with his finger in the bottle, supporting himself. He could defy the law of gravity. ' To realize the Thetan's backward-jointed, birdlike leg structure, Prohaska used taloned stilts that raised him nearly two feet off the ground. By gripping
armatures inside the elbows of the Thetan costume, he could balance himself like a man leaning forward onto crutches . ' Everybody at Projects worked on that costume, ' said Jim Danforth, ' and I think Byron Haskin designed it. ' The enormous headpiece sculpted by Wah Chang included functional eyelids, pulsating veins, and a bellows-mouth all operated by a network of air cylinders . Prohaska was sealed into a rubberoid skin, canted plungingly forward on his stilts, his vision l imited to what he could see out of the Thetan's 'nose' while wearing a head four times the size of his own. Lin Parsons recalled, 'The suit arrived in pieces while we were shooting out on MGM Lot #3 . We put the legs on Janos , then the torso, then the hands. Projects rushed in the head at absolutely the last minute. We slapped it on him and said, 'Do it ! ' And he started weaving around like a drunk ! They'd used a lot of airplane dope in the head which hadn't quite dried, and so the minute he put it on he was gulping nothing but glue fumes ! ' Haskin noted, 'He managed a kind of loping walk, l ike a crow hopping along, that was effective behind bushes and in shadows. But we couldn't get too much speed out of it. It was like a tree trunk with a whip on it from Day of the Trijfids-d ump ! ' Gene Warren, of Projects, added, 'Janos was crouched over all the time, and the odd leg position was very hard on him,' and Lee Katzin, the 1 st AD, said, 'The heat inside the suit was unbelievable, and we had to stop a number of times just to let Janos breathe. ' 'It was heartbreaking t o see him when they finally let him come out for air, ' said Stefano, of Prohaska. 'The man was soaking wet and heaving. I j ust couldn't understand why he would do it; but, you know, you need somebody to play a monster and somebody always says, 'okay' . . . and then you've got to worry about air-conditioning his suit ! ' John Erman cast Robert Culp as Allen. 'Culp was already a TV personality, ' said Erman, ' and I was very impressed with h im . ' Culp had starred as Texas Ranger Toby Gilman in the 1 957-59 series Trackdown , and had just come from film roles in PT- I 09 and The Raiders . He became Th e Outer Lim its ' most recognizable human face , and following his three star turns on the series, became better known as I Spy's Kelly Robinson.2 I n ' Architects , ' he is very much the committed ideali s t , controlled, uncomplaining, resigned to his agreed-upon fate, yet guilt-ridden over his abandonment of Yvette for the ' greater good' of
TH f O UHR liMITS �O MPANION
A post-op Theta n a n swers q u esti ons via voice-box i n a scene that demonstrates Conrad H a l l ' s d ra matic lig hting tec h n i q u e .
the United Labs scheme. Culp recalled his first meeting with Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano: ' I really didn't understand how they were going to get away with doing this show on the sort of budget they had, but I was game. I went home and pretty soon the script showed up. I have always adored science fiction; what I didn't realize was that it was a part of me, and was going to be a part of me for the rest of my life after that . ' 'Culp's middle name should have been Outer Limits , ' said Haskin. ' B ecause he's a weirdo, of sorts. He wanted to make up his own camera angles and use ideas that wouldn't have worked in a million years. I'd l ine up a shot that would get us through and make the budget requirement, and meanwhile Culp would be hanging off some part of the ceiling on a rope, telling me his idea of an entrance would be better. His l ine
The bullet-style space capsule c i rcles before land i n g .
was alway s , This would be a great way to play it ! ' but I never fel l for that. We had our explosive moments over such things, but we got along. ' One such i n s tance was a makeup whipped together i n two hours, on the lab set, by Culp and Fred Phillips. 'I had a 5 : 30 makeup call-four hours a day, for five day s , just on makeup, ' said Culp. During these sessions he and Phillips hit upon the idea of showing an intermediate stage in Allen's literal alienization. 'Phillips picked up a paper cup off the floor; it still had coffee in it. I said, 'What is that?' and he said, That's your face,' and plop-he glued it onto my face and started to build on top of it. He told me, 'Y'know, this is the way Jack Pierce originally created the Frankenstein makeup for Karloff, just with cotton and gum and ordinary j unk that's in your makeup case . ' ' It was a pretty good-sized cup; it covered my nose and
The ' Fra n ken-Hea d ' shot conceived by Culp a n d F red P h i l l i p s .
mouth. He built it up with cotton that was covered in latex, which burnt my skin . ' To this fleshy, scaly snout Phillips added surgical tubing, to provide a v isual continuity between it and the Projects monster head. ' It was not meant to appear for more than a few seconds, ' said Phillips. Just after Dr. Gainer tells Yvette, ' You've got a baby to think about now, ' there comes a quick shot of Allen, beneath a sheet on the operating table, his head bandaged. He is hairless now, glistening and reptilian. If you blink, you'll miss the shot. 'It was wasteful, and shot without my j urisdictive help , ' said Haskin. ' I think it turned up in t h e final c u t for about twelve frames of fil m . ' 3 ' It's a miracle that anything got done, ' said Culp. 'All our shows-'our' shows , essentially, in those
THf ARCHIHm Of ffAR
Janos Prohaska strikes a pose i n the completed Theta n costu m e at Project U n l i m ited, while Pa u l Pattee (R) looks o n .
days-had the same schedule they have today-six or seven days. And this was not a series where you had standing sets. Everything was original, everything started from scratch each week. How could anyone do this show, under these conditions, every week? It's
kind of l ike figuring out how the bumblebee can fly­ everybody didn't know that you couldn't do it, so they did it anyhow, and we all h ad a wonderful time . ' F o r t h e s h o w ' s eventful l as t a c t , Proj ects
TH f O UHR liMITS COMPANION executed shots of the Thetan space capsule against a starfield, circl ing prior to descent, and landing with animated retro-rockets firing. Haskin claimed the 'circling' shot was a rarity, since all through the 1 950s model spaceships generally 'flew' only in straight lines. The astonishingly quick disintegration of the hunters' station wagon was a startling effect, though simply achieved. It flares white, caves in and vaporizes in the blink of an eye, leaving a smoking residue on the ground. Projects man Ralph Rodine said, 'We 'vanished' things in a variety of ways on that series. ' The 'Architects' score was one of Dominic Frontiere's personal favorites, and incorporated eight different versions of a love theme, 'Allen & Yvette. ' The marchlike music that rolls in full-blast as the Thetan crashes through the woods was titled 'The B ug B ugs Out' by Frontiere's copyist, Roger Farris-the man responsible for translating the master score into individual sheets of music for each member of the orchestra. Some of The Outer Limits ' film noir aspects were also tested in 'Architects ' by Conrad Hal l . 'There were T V technicians telling m e things l ike I had to have a two-to-one lighting ratio, or people wouldn't be visible on TV, ' said Hal l . 'Well, people don't have to be visible all the time. Sometimes their outline is enough. When it's important to see their faces, you put l ight on them, or have them move into the l ight. We handled the show as if it was not an electronic mediu m , with certain technicalities required for reproduction. I made it look as if it was going to be seen on a motion picture screen, and what the 'experts' did not understand was that it was better! In every instance where they said, 'It won't look good on television,' they were wrong . . . because I'd seen it, and it looked great ! ' This reasoning makes it impossible for Hall to conceive of the program being done in color: 'The Outer Limits look was very much a product of black-and-white photography. ' The editing technique used to present the Thetan worked better than anyone expected. B its and pieces of the creature are presented in quick cuts, nearly always obscured by foliage or kept in partial shadow, allowing the viewer to form a mental 'col lage' of Allan's horrifying new form. It was a trick that worked well for Haskin, since he had shot Charles Gemora's Martian in War of the Worlds the
10
same way. ( S imilarly, the Galaxy Being's appearance in the pilot episode of Th e Outer Lim its was so startlingly different for TV at the time that very few people noticed the alien was only seen from the waist up.) Haskin's 'trick, ' as such, worked a little too well . During the broadcast o f 'Architects' on the last day of September, 1 96 3 , several of ABC's regional affil i ates broadcast a black screen during the Thetan's appearance, since, in the j udgement of more than one local station manager, the monster was too frightening to look at ! The time-honored justification that it was 'disturbing to young minds ' was trotted out to support the decision to censor most of the show's final act, effectively blaming the tunnel vision of the affiliates on the kids in the audience. One such station was WEWS, Channel 5 in Cleveland, Ohio. The fol lowing day's edition of the Cleveland Press featured a full-length photo of the Thetan, used in TV Gu ide 's 1 963 Fall Premiere issue, alongside a column of viewer letters . Five out of six protested the blackout. In some parts of the country, the Thetan footage was tape-delayed until after the 1 1 o'clock news; in others, it was never shown at all . One v iewer called the WEWS censorship 'reminiscent of something a police state would do . ' This moved Stefano t o comment, 'What do they think? That it isn't a police state already? '
The Control Voice opener from ' Architects' i s heard i n the background as part of a gag employing an Outer Limits v i deotape, seen in the beginning of the movie Hackers ( 1 99 5 ) . 2
Culp i s still a v isible presence i n motion pictures a n d TV, but many people do not know he i s also a writer of not­ i n c o n siderable talent. H i s personal retrospective of h i s friendship w i th S am Peckinpah and critical observations on the i mportance of The Wild Bunch to c i nematic hi story (as published i n the October, 1 994 issue of The Pe/fect Vision) i s recommended.
3 I checked. The shot runs 30 frames, or
I 1 /4 seconds-OJS
CONTROllm fXPfRlMfNT
CO NTAO llfU fXPfA I M fNT Broadcast 1 3 J a n u a ry 1 964 Written and d i rected by Lesl i e Stevens Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: J o h n N i cko l a u s CAST: Senior Solar System I n spector Phobos·D ne ( B a rry M o rse). Accredited E a rth Ca reta ker Diemos (Carrol O'Connor), Carla Duveen ( G race Lee Whitney), Bert Hamil ( R o b e rt Fortier). Arleen Schnable ( Li n d a Hutchins). M a rtian Computer Control ' Pro b a b i l ity Vo i c e ' ( Leslie Stevens).
Ba rry Morse a n d Ca rrol O ' Connor as Phobos a n d Diemos.
Who has not seen the dark corners of great cities, whose small and shabby creatures wander without purpose in the secret corners of the n ight? Without purpose ? There are those whose purpose reaches far beyond our wildest dreams . . .
Stuffy, pri ssy, by-the-book Inspector Phobos , a Martian administrator, arriv e s on Earth with instructions to assess the strange local c ustom of 'murder' in terms of its threat potential to the galaxy at large. 'It only happens here, on this weird l ittle planet, ' h e marvels t o h i s Earth liaison, Diemo s , ' a friendly, if somewhat befogged, field man hermited away in his Earth Caretaker Post-a seedy pawnshop. Together this interstellar Odd Couple isolates a forthcoming incidence of murder-in which j il ted sexpot Carla Duveen uses a pistol to blow away two-timing lothario Bert Hamil in the lobby of the Lux-Del Hotel-and uses a Martian 'temporal condenser' to reverse time and replay the killing over and over, in fast and slow motion, even stopping the sequence altogether. Phobos is utterly befuddled by the i llogical sequence of events that culminate in the shooting. When he tampers with the event by flicking Carla's bullet off trajectory, sparing Bert, Martian Computer Control sends a frantic alarm : ' Fatal error ! ' They advise that in the new scheme of events, Bert and Carla will marry and produce a child that, because of Bert's miraculous
escape from death, will think itself invincible, grow up to become a dictator and start an atomic war whose chain reactions will cause a galactic catastrophe. To save both B ert and the universe, Phobos then alters the events of the shooting so Bert is spared through a lucky acc i dent. The l overs are reconc i l ed and Phobos chooses to remain with Diemos on this quaint l ittle world, that he might further sample such intriguing native diversions as coffee and c igarettes. Who knows ? Perhaps the alteration of one small event may someday bring the end of the world. But that someday is a long way off, and until then there is a good life to be lived in the here and now.
No one believed Leslie Stevens when he proposed to complete an Outer Limits episode in four days . . . until he went ahead and did it. The skeleton of ' Controlled Experiment' was written by Stevens on a New York to LA flight, and the show took four and a half shooting days to complete. At $ 1 00,000, it was the cheapest Outer Limits ever. Stevens dubbed this last-minute l ifesaving technique the ' bottle show '-as in pulling an episode right out of a bottle, like a genie. ' When they know you can do it, and do it fast, you become the fire department, to bail the show out of trouble , ' said Stevens . ' We were far into deficit financing, and the front office was kill ing us, saying, 'Look here ! You've used up all the money ! You're behind ! It hasn't gone the way it should ! And when you're reall y scared, you find yourself using every bit of your expertise to do a show that will be enormously inexpensive . . . and stil l be effective . '
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TH[ O UHR liMITS CO M PAN ION
Grace Lee Wh itney blasts a ' two-faced , n o good, black-hea rted two­ timed '
Con structed for three s imple sets and fiv e characters , the show is reminiscent of a filmed stage play, and cleverly stands precepts from other Outer Lim its shows on their head s . Humankind's misinterpretation of benign alien intel l i gence is reversed here into the comical confusion Phobos experiences over the hows and whys of Earth people. Here is what happen s when he examines some of Carla Duveen's money : PHOBOS : Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Sec/orum . . . what does that mean? DIEMOS : It's a dead l anguage. Latin. They use it to impress each other. PHOBOS : What's this bird holding the vegetation? DIEMOS : Nesting materials. Symbol of the home. PHOBOS : And this brick pyramid? DIEMOS : Also symbol of the home . PHOBOS : B ut it's got one eye looking out of it. DTEMOS : Symbol of the home owner. PHOBOS : Who's the old lady? DIEMOS : It's an old man. PHOBOS : What does it all mean? DIEMOS : Who knows?
Who knows ? is also the question posed at the end by the Control Voice, which then puts forth the oddly inappropriate idea that the future doesn't matter, but the 'here and now ' does. This sentiment was atypical of both S tevens and The Outer Limits, with its party l ine of cosmic responsibility and the balances of j ustice, and soon the consequences of ignoring the future would be forcefully expressed in 'The Man Who Was Never B orn . ' We are left with the impression that Phobos has doomed the galaxy merely to wallow in his newfound fondness for Earth. Technically, though, he hasn't, even though B ert will never find the cigarette case Phobos slips into his breast pocket to stop Carla's bullet-because Phobos steals it! The consequences are never meant to be deeply pondered, however, and the show i s Stevens' attempt to have some fUll inside The Outer Limits as well as save money. As a simple comedy, the show is very good. Carrol O'Connor plays Diemos as a nonplused, bemused tour guide to B arry Morse's Phobos , who maintains the no-nonsense, harried demeanor of a supervisor with too much to do . . . at least, until he gets his first taste of some of the more popular Earth vices. A scene in which Phobos gets ' buzzed' on coffee while Diemos races to keep up with the labyrinthine coordinates rattled off by the M arti an computer is done in a cascade of intercutting that is quite funny.2 Another bit, in which customer Frank Brant is hustled out of Diem os' pawnshop because Phobos ' was starting to black out , ' s uggests that Phobos can't stand even the physical proximity of Earth people. It is actuall y the smell of booze making Phobos dizzy, per dialogue deleted from the shot in which Phobos tries to log statistics on the 'Earth Creature (who) is now passing within three feet of my place of concealment : ' PHOBOS : . . . Without meaning to be offensive, i t i s a matter of scientific fact that the one which has just passed by me gives off distinct fumes of A 2 0 2 MA 6 ' This solution of alcohol is sold at troughs and is deliberately swal lowed to induce dull i ng of the brain stem .
This is what Diemos i s referring to when he responds, ' You build up a tolerance to it after a while . ' Stevens wanted t o shoot key scenes several ways, with normal-speed and fast-motion cameras , to permit repeated use of his lighting set-ups and allow a very fast shooting pace. 'It was inventive, ' he said, ' i n terms of filling a n entire show with half a show's worth
CONTROllfO fXPfRlMfNT of footage. ' ' Stevens wanted to reuse shots, and run the film forward and backward to save money, ' said B yron Haskin. ' Once again, he didn't know ahead of time what the effects were going to look like, and Larry B utler ended up inserting an effect that looked like lightni ng, which di srupted the thing entirely. ' Whenever Phobos tinkers with time, the scene negative-reverses, then i s obliterated by strobing flashes that white-out the TV screen-and kill the pace of the show. This effect alone (accompanied by the most grating sound effect John Elizalde could scare up on his equipment at Daystar) uses up a good two minutes or so of the episode's running time. 'We had a lot of fun making that episode , ' said 1 st AD Robert Justman . 'Robert Fortier was an extremely funny man who could walk backwards, miming his actions in reverse and keeping his eyes dead-ahead while the others moved around him . ' In one scene, Fortier holds his pose while Morse bustles around him taking his temperature and affixing leads to his head. Later, aboard the elevator, he looks about to explode into laughter as Morse and O'Connor play their parts to the hilt, and as Phobos sneaks a cigarette the 'frozen' Bert Hamil begins b l i nking furiously i n the background. Grace Lee Whitney, soon to achieve a measure of notoriety as Star Trek's Yeoman Janice Rand, noted that ' B arry Morse and Carrol O'Connor got along famously on that show. B etween takes, they'd sit right down to their chess game. ' Leslie Stevens entered the sound booth once again, this time to record the l ines spoken by the entity which, in the script , is called the ' S uper High­ Frequency Laser Voice . ' Per the original teleplay, the Martians were t o have long, bony fingers with extra knuckle joints and serrated, insectile fingertips since-once again-the episode lacked an operative 'monster. ' There was probably no time for Project Unlimited to dash out two pairs of funky alien gloves, so Phobos and Diemos wear simple Earth-type rubber gloves while operating their temporal condenser. Diemos also dons Earth sunglasses while staring into the machine's ' lightning' effect. In the episode's opening shot, we see a weird­ looking UFO hovering in space, executing a slow revolve, presumably above the Earth . It contradicts Phobos ' comments about his ' in stantaneo u s transmission' from Mars, and serves no purpose . . .
except, perhaps, to demonstrate the rule laid down by Robert S ilverberg in the days he wrote pulp science fiction: When in doubt as to whether a story is science fictional , throw in a robot or a spaceship. S ince the physical appearance of the Martians is so prosaic, somebody opted for the spaceship, which is seen again at fade-out (though it is never mentioned in Stevens' script), probably to assuage A B C-Yes, this is science fiction . Here 's a flying saucer. See ? The alien craft is one of two model spaceships built by Paul Blaisdell for Invasion of the Saucer Men ( 1 95 7 ) ; a cardboard version was blown to bits for the climax of that film, and the principal miniature was carved from white pine. It can also be glimpsed in the cheesy 1 959 bottom-of-the-bill classic, Invisible Invaders. Another funny bit involves Diemos' threadbare pawnshop customer, Frank B rant. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the object Frank trundles in to hock is a rebuilt typewriter-another bit of wry editorializing by Steven s . ' I remember the last Stoney Burke Leslie wrote very wel l , ' said Lee Katzin. ' It was about taking horses to slaughter. He wrote it as a symbolic piece, to show what was happening to him at AB C . ' 3
The ' g uest sta r ' U F O from Invasion of the Saucer Men, ca rved from white p i n e by low-budget effects-master Paul B l a i sdel l . (Photo: DJS; cou rtesy Bob Burns)
Both Martians are named for the respective Martian moons on which they were born . The actual spe l l ing of ' Diemos' is D eimos ; Stevens' script uses the spe l l ing Diemos throughout.
2
Offworlders have real ly got to beware Earth's bad habits. In 1 96 1 , a Twilighr Zone episode, 'Wi l l the Real M artian Please Stand Up?' featured John Hoyt as yet another Martian victim of Earth's caffe ine-and-nicotine syndrome. After drinking 1 5 cups of coffee i n a diner, he says, of cigarettes, 'They're wonderfu l . We haven't g o t a rhing l i k e t h i s on Mars . '
3
By sheer coincidence, 'The Journey' ( see Appendix I V ) , starred M ark Richman , who was also to star in the fi nal epi sode of The Ourer Limirs , 'The Probe . '
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
T H f H U N D R f D D AY S O f T H f D R A G O N Broadcast 2 3 Septe m b e r 1 9 63 Written by Allan B a lter and Robert M i ntz D i rected by Byron Haskin Assistant D i rector: Lee H . Katz i n Di rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: Wi l l i a m Lyons S e l b y (Sidney B l a ckmer), Theodore Pearson ( P h i l l i p Pine), Carol Selby Conner ( N a n cy R e n n i ck), Ann Pea rson (Joan Camden), Li C h i n-Su n g ( R i ch a rd Loo), D r. B o b Conner ( M a rk Roberts), D r. Su-Li n (Aki Aleong), Major H o Ch i-Wo n g ( C l a rence Lung), We n Lee (James H o n g ) , Li Kwa n (James Va g i ). Fra n k S u m m ers ( B e rt Remsen). Carter (Dennis McCarthy). Briggs ( R i ch a rd G itti ngs), B ryan ( R o b e rt Brubaker). Oriental i n hotel ( E u g e n e Chan), F B I Agent Marshall ( H enry Scott). Vo ice of Mr Schumacher (Vic Perri n ) , Vo ice of Election Returns Commentator ( Leslie Steve ns). Selby ' s deadly double gets h i s face m a shed by the s i n i ster Dr. S u-Li n .
Somewhere south of the Mongolian border and north of the Tropic of Cancel; in that part of the world we call the Orient, a slumbering giant has shaken itself to wakefulness. Passed over in most histories as a nation forgotten by time, its close­ packed millions , in the short span of twen ty years , have been stirred to a fury by one man : Li Chin-Sung . A benevolent despot in his homeland, Sung stands as an irresponsible threat to peace in the eyes of the rest of the world. William Lyons Selby--ca ndidate for the Presidency of the United States ; predicted by every poll, survey and primary to be a certain winner in the forthcoming election . . .
Behind the B amboo Curtain , a Chinese scientist demonstrates to monarch Li Chin-Sung a serum which makes human flesh pliable, putty-like and easily changed. A physical double for American presidential hopeful Wi lliam Lyons Selby is injected w ith the drug, and after a metal template i s pressed onto his face he assumes Selby's features . He has already perfected his impersonation using tapes of Selby's speeches, and meticulous research into his personal background. In the States, the real Selby is assassinated in his hotel room while on the campaign trail . The bogus Selby is elected and inaugurated as the new Chief Executive. Although the switch remains undetected, Selby's
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associates and family have noticed disquietingly small personal changes , and Vice President Ted Pearson questions his running mate ' s radical policy alterations-in particular, h i s inexplicably cordial relations with the Sung regime in China. B y now, ' Selby' and S ung have plotted to replace the entire executive staff with double agents, as well as key figures in l abor, industry, and the media. Pearson's double attempts to kill him at his home, but is thwarted by the timely appearance of Selby's daughter and son-in-l aw, who have come to discuss their suspicions about the man who seems to be Selby. With the help of the Secret Service, Pearson uncovers the truth , and exposes the scheme by presenting h i s own doppelganger to the guests at a posh Washington reception. Whil e everyone watches , Pearson demonstrates the drug on the phony Selby, angrily mutilating his face once it has become pliable. A nearby aide suggests that Pearson's first act as the new President should be to order the retaliatory bombing of China. Considering the devastating results of such a move, Pearson replies thoughtfully, 'There will be no order. ' For Theodore Pearson , not even so monstrous a crime as the assassination of William Lyons Selby Justifies an act of war, because there is no war as
THf HUNORfU OAYS Of THf ORAGON we know it--only annihilation . A great American has been killed in the service of his country. Now it is the job o.l those who continue to serve to carry on guarding our freedom with dign ity and unrelenting vigilance.
'Political science fiction was no longer a fantasy after November 22nd, 1 963 , ' said Joseph Stefano. ' We were talking about the assassination of a President two months before a real President was killed. That hadn't happened in my time-the world seemed to be coming apart at the seam s , and I wasn't about to trust anybody. ' The title of this episode derives from the so-called Hundred Days of Napoleon-the span of time between Napoleon' s return to France from Elba, and his downfall at the B attle of Waterloo. Here, the Hundred Days represents the short but damaging period the bogus Selby spends in the Oval Office. 'The Hundred Days of the Dragon ' was a first script sale for the team of Allan B alter and Robert Mintz. B alter, one of Daystar's Six Bright Young Men, l ater became the story editor (and a frequent scriptwriter) for the longest running spy show on TV, Mission : Impossihle, and his Outer Limits script i s very much in the same vein. ' S uppose you could change people's faces, ' B al ter suggested to Mintz. ' Whose face would you change? ' A few years after The Outer Limits, B al ter was getting a haircut and listening to his barber reminisce about his favorite episode of the series . ' He told me, 'That's still one of the best things ever put on the air,' and enthusiastically recounted the plot. When I told him I had written that particular show, he could barely finish cutting my hair. ' ' Dragon' teems with subtle , double-edged dialogue that reflects the deception-of-appearance theme, and the political doubletalk is m irrored by the sini ster, alternate meanings imp l i c i t in almost everything the Selby impostor says. He laughingly quotes Calvin Coolidge, after we have seen the real Selby quote Truman and Dewey. After blasting a rattlesnake with a shotgun during a hunting sortie w ith Pearson , he says, ' I've had my fil l of hunting, ' and we real ize that thi s is the man who has just gunned down the real Selby, with a smile on his face. Yet his marksmanship plants seeds of doubt in Pearson, who knows that the real Selby couldn't shoot worth a damn. The hunting scene smacks of Teddy Roosevelt (in fact , Sidney Blackmer portrayed Roosevelt in the 1 948 film
My Girl Tisa) , a form of h istorical short­ hand that establishes the American c liche of the 'perfect presi­ dent'-the rugged outdoorsman as well as one who walks the Dr. S u-Li n (Aki Aleong) a n d the corridors of power. Presidential Mold . Perhaps aware of the story ' s s i m i l arities to the recent fil m The Manchurian Candidate ( 1 962), director B yron Haskin concentrates on the culture-shock and science fiction aspects, hitting the viewer with both in the first minutes of the show. The lab of Dr. S u-Lin looks deceptively ordinary, with the calming, swaying shadows of vegetation from the ' real ' world showing through half-closed venetian blinds. In this calculatedly normal setting, we are first exposed to the fantastic proposition of Su-Lin's shape-changing drug. The steel cookie-cutter molds used to mash the subject's pliable skin into a new physiognomy are quite unbelievable, but the plot follows real istically from this departure point. The dead earnestness and tight, unemotional logic with which Li Chin-S ung's plot
Sid ney Blackmer (L) and ru n n i n g mate P h i l l i p P i n e .
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
The rea l Ted Pearson (L) confronts h i s rea r-projected doppelganger.
unfolds directly contrasts the campaign trail babble, fireside chat homilies, and happy platitudes spouted by the Selby contingent. In ' Dragon, ' it i s the Chinese malefactors who are the show's alien menace. The casting of S idney B l ackmer reflected Stefano's interest in procuring ' people who were not working much in movies or TV anymore; people with fabulous faces, types , and styles, l ike B l ackmer, or Neil Hamilton, or George MacReady with his great scar. ' Blackmer gifts the phony Selby with a stiletto smirk and narrowed eyes that signal a black shift in his character when he is exposed at the reception; earlier, we see him open faced and whitely American . . . but this is also the Selby impostor, practicing. The awfulness of manually rearranging a person's facial features was nicely realized using a Project Unlimited clay bust of Selby never shown full-face onscreen because, as Fred Phillips put it, ' S omebody always had their fingers in it. ' I The scenes in which Pearson meets his own double face-to-face , and l ater, exhibits him to onlookers at the reception, were s imple rear-projection shots filmed with eerie precision. First AD Lee Katzin supplied crowds where there were none, for the S RO scenes of parades and rallies. ' We had fun making twenty extras look like two hundred, ' he said. ' We doubled them back and forth in front of the candidate, wearing different hats we'd stick on them off-camera. We'd 'busy' the shot with people in the foreground, then I'd ride on top of the camera, in front of the dolly,
with two balloons I'd run past in front of the len s . ' One bril liance o f the script is that Ted Pearson opts not to push that Big Red B utton , even with our worst political fears realized. Phillip Pine, who, l ike Blackmer, had specialized in acting the parts of gangsters and crooked politicos throughout his career, invests Pearson with intensity and conviction . ' Dragon 's casting slyly ignore s the s l i m line separating criminal s and politicians, and Pine counters thi s c l iche by making Pearson honestly friendly and sympathetic-the true 'ideal American . ' Perhaps more than any other Outer Lim its episode, ' Dragon ' is strongly bound to its score-sinister music in a stylized ' Oriental ' idiom originall y composed b y Dominic Frontiere t o keynote the Japanese malefactor in 'The Weapons Man ' episode of Stoney Burke . The main theme i s composed in three ' l ayers, ' the foundation being an ominous modal figure played by low, muted trombones, bassoon, two bass clarinets, cellos, basses, with a piano and bass guitar doubling it. The middle texture i s an ' undulating' figure voiced in '4th s ' ( a recognizable dev ice upon which much Eastern music i s based) and performed by guitar, marimba, celeste, violas, muted french horns and accordion. Weaving through al l this is the keen of 1 2 violins using harmonics to achieve a high-register ' s l iding' sound. The story's only real drawback i s that it has dated so severely in the w ake of John F. Kennedy 's assassination. It i s difficult, today, to swallow Selby's utter l ack of real security, his apparently limitless public access, and his surfeit of free time. That an enemy agent could sneak right in through Pearson's back door without being detected, let alone ventilated by a legion of Secret Service goons ( who are handily in evidence during the climax ) , seems outrageous in l ight of today's political climate. ' Dragon' was chosen as the next show to be broadcast following the premiere of 'The Galaxy Being , ' and Leslie Stevens said of it, 'I was delighted to see that go as an early show. It gave the series the impetus and power to get it started and make it do well from the very first. ' A n artifically color-tinted shot o f the face being deformed to demonstrate its malleabi l ity was used as an on-the-cut j oke in the 1 993 film Mrs . Doubtfire-Sa l l y F i e l d ' s screen brood is watching the epi sode on TV as Li Chin-Sung says, 'And . . . fingerprints?'
THf MAN WITH THf POWfR
I
TH f MAN WITH TH f POWfR Broad cast 7 Octo ber 1 9 63 Written by Jerome Ross D i rected by Laslo B e n e d e k Assistant D i rector: L e e H . Katz i n D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: H a rold J . F i n l ey ( D o n a l d Pleasence), Vera F i n l ey ( Prisci l l a M o rri l l ) , Dean Radcl iffe ( Edward C. Pl att), Steve Cra n d o n ( Fred B i er), D r. Sigmund H i n d e m a n n (John M a rley), D r. Keen a n ( Fra n k M axwe l l ) . D r. H e n s c h e l l ( Pa u l La m b e rt). D r. Tre m a i n e (James McCa l l i o n ) , Emily Radcl iffe (Ann Loos), F i n ley's MD ( H a rry E l l e rbee), Fi rst Tree Pruner (Saul Gross), 2 n d Tree Pruner ( Fred Crone). Secretary ( D i a n e Stro m ) , Detective ( Pa u l Kent), N u rse (Jane B a rclay), Surgeon ( Pat O ' H a r a )
The g rid-sha ped scar from the ' l i n k-gate' i m plant i s clea rly visible on the forehead of H a rold F i n ley (Donald Pleasence) .
In the course of centuries, Man has devoured the Earth itself: The Machine Age has dried up the seas of oil. Industry has consumed the heartlands of coal. The Atomic Age has plundered the rare elements-uranium , cobalt, plutonium--Ieaving behind worthless deposits of lead and ashes. Starvation is at hand. Only here , in the void of space, is there a new source of atomic power. Above us, in the debris of the solar system , in the meteorites and asteroids, are the materials needed to drive the reactors. Yet in their distant, silent orbits , these chunks of matter are beyond the reach of Man , beyond the reach of human hands. .. but not beyond the reach of human minds. Driving along a country road in an ordinary car is a modest man : Harold 1. Finley, quiet and profound . . .
A tree pruning truck blocks the road, and Finley, an unassertive, M i lquetoast college instructor, i s intimidated into detouring by a pair o f snarling workmen, After he departs, a broil ing gray cloud shot through with snapping arcs of electricity appears, discharging hot bolts that gasify the men. Eager to participate in some small way in space research, Finley has devised a ' link-gate' which, when implanted into his brain, allows him to focus ambient cosmic energy into a discrete beam. He successfully levitates a half-ton meteor fragment, and a group of scientists decide that if Finley can control the power, the l ink-gate can be implanted into an astronaut for the purpose of telekinetically directing mining operations in outer space. Unknown to Finley, his unconscious resentments and hostilities also influence the growing energy he commands. His nagging, overbearing wife, Vera, i s jolted off a l adder, and later begs him to spare her after she is tossed around the living room. Finley's dictatorial boss, who opposes the l ink-gate research, is vaporized in his own bedroom by the crackling cloud. When Finley realizes that human emotions are ill­ equipped to deal with so huge a force, he protests the l i nk-gate operation scheduled for a young astronaut. The duty-bound doctors drug Finley and proceed anyway. The unconscious Finley nevertheless stops the surgery within seconds as the energy cloud wipes out Dr Keenan (Finley's most enthusiastic advocate) and
11
THf ounR liMITS COM PANION the surgeon holding the second l i nk-gate. Overcome with regret, Finley says, 'If I have such power, then I don't want to live . . . ' Then the cloud disintegrates him. Deep beyond the kindest, gentlest soul may lurk violent thoughts , deadly wishes. Someday Man will learn to cope with the monsters of the mind. Then, and only then , when the human mind is truly in control of itself, can we begin to utilize the great and hidden powers of the universe.
Leslie Stevens' creative input influenced several Outer Limits episodes not bearing h i s name as writer/director, much l ike B yron Haskin's uncredited participation in special effects. 'I became very much a part of The Man With the Power,' for example , ' he said. The notion of the energy flux, ' the cosmic substance of the universe, ' was his, as well as the premise of the show : ' A simple little nobody gains power over the whole world. ' The show also strongly reflects the pro-space thinking of the early 1 960s, when NASA's Mercury program was the Right Stuff to trailblaze that final , starry frontier. When Finley meets astronaut S teve Crandon, the man due for l ink-gate implantation, his
remarks are impassioned: FINLEY: You astronauts have brought a whole new v itality to bear on the business of l iving. There's been nothing l ike you s ince the old pioneering days. You make up for all the mi series and d isappointments, the fai lures and kicks in the teeth that the rest of us have to bear. Just do me one favor--don't wait t i l l you're my age to make your mark. Do it while you're young and strong and vigorous. Do it right now.
The physicists of the Space Agency are depicted as desperate men who see, in Finley, a means of justifying their government tenure. They're as honest with him as they have to be, and when he threatens the status of their project, they are more than willing to roll over him. Their attempt turns out to be the last time anybody supercedes Finley' s wishes. The central conflict i s that of Finley with the monster produced by his own Id, and although a psychiatrist ducks into the episode periodically to belabor the obvious, Finley does not see the light until l ate i n the third act, by which time his fate is apparent even to those viewers who missed Forbidden Planet. The c limax is a predictable frenzy of destruction with the party l ine of the worst monster movies as a coda: Man Was Not Meant to Meddle With Such Things. 'The Man With the Power' was Jerome Ross' only Outer Limits script, and the fact he was working simultaneously on other TV scripts while writing it may account for its derivative nature, according to Ross himself: ' M y diary shows that revisions took about two day s , ' he said. 'The shooting script contained few alterations, and I recall finding it satisfactory. ' The only significant deletion is of Finley's final scene with Vera, in which he straightens out his last will and testament prior to trotting off to meet his doom-a scene which would have indicated Finley's fore­ knowledge of what was to befall him. Donald Pleasence effortlessly es says the beleagured Finley, a part that hardly taxes his abilities. He was contracted by John Erman after completing his role in George Stevens' dinosauric B iblical epic , The Greatest Story Ever Told. 'One of my closest friends was an actor in that picture named John Considine, ' said Erman. 'Through him, I met Gary Raymond, David McCallum, Harald (Donald Pleasence) aid s Vera (Prisc i l l a Morri l l ) a fter psychoki netically Donald Pleasence, Jill Haworth , and others. I saw shovi ng her off the ladder.
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THf MAN WITH THf POWfR them all socially, and realized it would be a coup to get them all to do The Outer Limits while they were still in America; it was a very serendipitous thing. I went with Donald down to the immigration office to explain why his visa needed a two-week extension. ' Pleasence breathes life into the role of Finley, the downtrodden little man who longs to go to the stars, but the supporting cast is more strident than involving. Leslie Stevens helped brainstorm the memorable optical effect depicting the energy cloud. ' I was real proud of myself, ' he said, 'for coming up with the idea of shooting a little electrical spark, enlarging it, and superimposing it on a cloud of ink . ' For the most part, Laslo B enedek's direction i s speedless. ' Laslo d i d a bunch o f Stoney Burkes that were very good,' said Lee Katzin. ' B ut on Outer Limits he just didn't fare wel l . ' One o f Katzin's duties, a s First Assistant Director, was to break down the shooting script into a shot-by-shot schedule that provided for the most efficient usage possible of crew, actors , locations and material in the time available for each episode. For the first fifteen Outer Limits shows , he alternated the AD slot with Robert Justman (just as John Nickolaus and Conrad Hall traded off as Director of Photography) . Together the two men evolved a wisecracking style for the breakdown sheets that became very popular w ith the casts and crew. Here is a sample from Katzin's breakdown for'The Man With the Power' : EXT . F I NLEY HOUS E - DAY - 6 3 / 8 Pgs . - ( 1 3 )
Scs . - 3
D E S C R I P T I ON : Ve r a is rea l ly a vera na s ty woman - H e r s nubbe ry i nc i t e s Haro l d ' s i r e - and you Tha t know wha t tha t me a n s Terribly Hos t i l e Shape mak e s h i s / he r / i t s app e a ranc e and Vera make s l i ke Mary Ma r t i n r i gh t i n t o the p e tun i a s .
Katzin noted that one Outer Limits actor sent a breakdown sheet to The New Yorker: 'They submitted it as Perelman humor with its brains kicked out. I just hoped that people would read the scripts as assiduously as B obby and I had to. ' After reviewing 'The Man With the Power, ' Time magazine projected The Outer Limits as a 'foldee, ' saying, 'Science fiction has never shot much o f a ray into television, and this year's try, The Outer Limits, i s unlikely t o start a n e w trend. ' After a recap o f the plot more simpleminded and wrong than the script could ever be, Time concluded, ' At the end, an announcer
said, 'We now return control of your television set to you. ' That was a mistake. They'll never get control of it again. '
Electric w h i p lashes o f F i n ley-generated havoc background a n ABC. Television commerc i a l for The Outer Limits .
'The Man With the Power, ' the fourth Outer Limits show broadcast, is the last to make use of a pre­ title prologue-in this case, Finley's encounter with the tree pruners . By the fifth week of prime time, ABC decided a shrewder commercial strategy was to insert a clip from the body of each episode ahead of the opening titles, to give audiences a titillating glimpse of that show' s 'bear' before they saw anything else. This was done in the next show to be broadcast, 'The Sixth Finger. ' Narrative 'teasers , ' which were generally SOP for Act One prologues, did not suit the monster needs of ABC again until ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, ' in December of 1 96 3 . Alongside 'The S ixth Finger' also debuted a shortened version of the original Control Voice introduction. Throughout both seasons of The Outer Limits , the speech was constantly trimmed to speed things along, and its most familiar incarnation is the version used from 'The S ixth Finger' until the end of the first season : There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture . We are controlling transmission . We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure . You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to THE OUTER LIMITS.
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
Stefano 's Story factory ' I can't tell you how I fought, and how my agents fought, ' said Joseph Stefano. 'They wanted me, as producer, to write six shows the first year. I said four, and wouldn't budge. B ut when the production schedule came up short, or we needed a show in a hurry to fil l a gap, guess who got to sit down and write one? We initially sought out science fiction writers, and they were the worst! They didn't seem to have any concept of what film writing was about . ' Among the earliest visitors to the Villa di Stefano bungalow at KTTV were Arthur C. Clarke, Ray B radbury, and Twilight Zone 's own Charles B eaumont. 'I told Lou Morheim that we'd better forget these guy s , ' Stefano continues . 'We did pay for some scripts we didn't shoot, and w e got other scripts from well-known writers that were just as unproduceable. So, at first, Leslie just said, 'I'll do one,' and I said, 'Okay, I ' l l do another one . . . . 'Joe and I did not grow up reading science fiction pulps, as Stevens had , ' said Morheim. ' We were quite willing to buy published science fiction material, but most of it was about the exploration of other planets, which couldn't be done for an hour show on a limited budget. Secondly, we discovered that most of these stories had no uniqueness. The characters and concepts were all interchangeable, and did not work on a dramatic level . Most of it got so preoccupied with gadgetry and visual conception that the material that moves an audience on an emotional level was missing. We wanted to say things that had both a dramatic and an intellectual impact, and we were looking for ways to open people's minds to alien things-alien philosophies, creature s , c ulture s . Writers are essentially missionaries without portfolio, and the show gave us a way to say things that were very close to our hearts. ' Of Stefano's first four scripts for The Outer Lim its , only two, 'A Feasi b i lity S tudy ' and 'Nightmare' (written as ' Ebon S truck First' ) ever went before the c ameras . A nother, ' The Cats , ' featured an alien infiltration plot i n which invaders possess the bodies of household pets. Stefano dropped it even though it was completed. 'It suddenl y occurred to me that a child watching this show might have a cat of his own, and make too close an identification , ' he said. The remaining script, a two-part episode entitled ' Small Wonder, ' was j udged too potentially costly to '
film since it involved a man who is micro-miniaturized to enter a woman's brain to destroy her ' hostility center. ' Next came a massive rewrite of a script by Richard Newman , 'Little Mother of All the World'­ also never filmed. I 'In an anthology show, the biggest fight is with story material; to keep it coming and have it at some level of quality, ' said B yron Haskin. 'We had a real pro team with Stefano and Morheim. Seventy-five percent of the success of any individual episode lay not i n the story selection , but in the writing and development Stefano put into it. The quality and appeal that Outer Limits had was mainly in this spooky talent that Stefano had. He put it into Psycho, and Hitchcock never again reached that level of creepy horror. Stefano and The Outer Limits were made for each other. ' The period between the program ' s network premiere and Christmas of 1 963 i s packed with scripts Stefano wrote in a hurry, or, frequently, rewrote from scratch. These were not hunt-and-peck line revisions, but massive front-to-back overhauls that often scrapped most of the original teleplay. ' S ince I've never liked rewriting , ' he said, 'a script had to be pretty good for me to want to rewrite it, or else the story had to be one I just didn't want to lose . ' Very quickly, his 'four scripts' grew to fourteen. Besides these ( and excepting the four shows scripted by Stevens), almost every Outer Limits show by another writer contains at least two major scenes written by Stefano. ' When you're in that kind of crunch situation, ' he said, ' You draw on things you wouldn't use if you had more time. I was digging fast. I'd call Lou in and say, 'I've got this idea for a story; what do you think?' He'd say, 'Wonderfu l , ' and I'd write it. I'd usually get up around five A . M . , see my son before he went to school , then head for the studio. We were shooting a t KTTV and MGM, and from one to the other is a long drive. Tom Selden, my assistant, drove me while I sat in the car with a typewriter on my lap. I wasn't about to waste that travel time. Other times, I'd j ust lock myself in my office and not let anyone come near, and I'd do a script over the weekend so we'd have something to send over to mimeo on Monday morning . ' ' I stayed a t Joe's house a s much a s I did m y own
STHANO'S STORY fA�TORY never really gave a damn about the credits; arbitration apartment, ' said Selden. 'I'd sleep on the couch i n was automatic. The only shows I really cared about, order t o drive h i m t o the studio the next morning, credit-wise, were the ones I'd written from scratch. while he typed in the car. I figure the average workday Writing i s so visceral that if you're working on for that year was sixteen or seventeen hours per day, someone else 's gut, it's j ust not as much fun . ' He also seven days a week. Joe wrote 80 percent of that time, or whenever he did not absolutely have to be on the sets or i n the c utting rooms. ' ' I t was al l very c arefu l l y planned, ' said Stefano. 'The work that went into an episode before we ever got into pre-production was enormous, because I wanted to make sure that when I signed off on a script, that script was going to be shot, and I didn't want anybody saying we didn't have time to get a scene, or something. M y office was two minutes from the soundstages where most of the (show's interiors) were shot, and I found it was easy to stay on top of the show. S ubsequently, I found out that a lot of stuff that goes into production isn't terribly well­ planned . . . and then, everybody cries. I can remember wishing, sometimes, that I had ten thousand dollars more for that week's show, or one more day of shooting. B ut I can't remember thinking of all that work as a huge problem, or something that was impossible. That was just not a word anybody ever used . ' When Stefano and Morhei m concocted a storyline, it was usually Morheim who wrote a treatment and fed the idea to an outside writer, who would produce a script that Stefano could work with. 'It was in Lou's contract that he absolutely did not do rewrites,' said Stefano. ' He would do David McCa l l u m g ives Joseph Stefa no 'The Sixth F i nger. ' teleplays strictly a la carte, with us deferred to Morheim i n matters of science : hiring him separately as a writer. ' When he and ' S ometimes I'd tell Lou we needed a basis in scientific Morheim shared story credit, Stefano left the teleplay credit to the original writer. When the Stefano rewrite fact for a story, and he'd supply it. I tended not to rely on it too strongly in the things I wrote . I was not was more massive, the writer usually received the unaware of the scientific aspect, and I certainly knew story credit. ' Unless the Writer's Guild insisted on it, I didn't take credit,' Stefano said. ' For that, you had to where in hell it ought to be in anything brought in by any other writer. But my only real criterion was if I have written 75 percent of what was seen onscreen. I
81
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION believed what I saw, then m y audiences would, too. My feeling was that if a story took place in a house in Beverly Hills, it's going to be scarier than if it's on some unknown planet. I saw i n Outer Limits an opportunity to express the normal worries that a man with a wife and growing son i n this country would have, and the censors didn't mind that, because whatever ideas were being expressed were all in the realm of fantasy, to them. ' 'When you work at the kind o f pace w e did o n The Outer Limits, sometimes you don't get to mask what you write. B ut I've never done that too well anyway ; my work is very revealing. I just lay i t out there. If you have more time, then you tend to find the emotion, write it, then artfully mask it, then polish, then start slanting things to protect yourself. I've seen writers whose second draft destroyed the essence of a script, because they were protecting themselves. If only they'd been willing to stay with the exposure ! On Outer Limits, I frequently had no choice; I didn't have the time to look at it and say, 'Oops, I didn't want anybody to know I was saying this . ! ' ' While Stefano feel s that working under pressure 'produces the best you can possibly do, ' some of the .
.
1.09
)
' BEYOND CONTROL' 5F - #2
'THE FEASIBILITY STUDY' ' r it t e n B y
J o s eph S t e fano
I·l a r c h
2 9 . 1963
* ,� ' ' ' o , .
DAYSTAR - V ILl...A. d l S'I'EFANO-U . A .
Script cover for Stefa n o ' s i n itia l d raft of ' A Fea s i b i l i ty Study, ' dated March 29, 1 963 .
scripts on which he was able to lavish more time show off his talent as a scenarist. 'Joe was one of the few screenwriters who did beautifu l n arrativ e , ' said Morheim. 'He never j ust typed, He exits. He gave you the attitude, the look, the atmosphere of a scene, which made for very good reading. When a script that has that kind of literary fee l comes from the producer of the show, everybody kind of polishes their shoes . ' A s producer, S tefano also l earned how t o cut costs i n the typewriter: ' If I couldn't afford to shoot something, I'd find another way as a writer to make it work, whereas the producer who does not write tends to think in terms of doing without, or cutting, which destroys the fabric. I learned very quickly that I want that moment; I want the scene and I want the people, and if I can't afford to play it in the foyer of a palace, let's just put up some black velvet as a backdrop and not say where we are. Therefore, the show began to get a 'look' which came, to a great extent, from the fact that we didn't have a lot of money. ' Stefano kept a tight rein on dialogue in both his own scripts and the rewrites . 'On The Outer Limits, I had a rule that no one could change any dialogue without my okay. If it was a minor thing, I'd say no and hang up the phone. If it was something serious, I'd talk with the actor, and sometimes change what was written. B ut usually I'd have it shot both way s . ' With a knowing grin, Stefano adds, ' Actors quickly learn that when a producer says to shoot it both ways, that means the actor's way isn't going to wind up onscreen , y'know? I can't act. A n d most actors can't write. I t annoys me when a producer lets a n actor get away with something l ike that. Too many producers j ust stop caring when they get the okay from a network to do a show-they know the thing is going to be filmed, and already they're off to find their next property. There's very little on TV today where I get the feeling, wow, they really dug doing thi s ! I get the feeling they had to do it; that they had a l arge mortgage to pay off. It seems to be done by executive groups now, rather than by one individual with some vision, some terrible urge, who somehow breaks through, and does what he must do. Which, even if it isn't great, has a vitality to it. If you make it w ith someone truly spectacular, it can ruin your sex life for a year. No one can tum you on l ike that again . That's kind of what happened for me with The Outer Limits . ' For a plot summary of these never-filmed O uter Limits adventures, refer to Appendix II.
A ffASIBlliTY STUDY
A f f A S I B l l i T Y ST U DY Broad cast 1 3 Apri l 1 964 Written by Joseph Stefa no Wo rking title: 'The Fea s i b i l ity Stu dy' D i rected by Byron Haskin Assistant Di recto r: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: J o h n N i ckolaus Cast: D r. S i m o n H o l m (Sam Wa n a m aker). Andrea H o l m ( Phyllis Love ). R a l p h Cashman ( David Opatoshu). R h e a Cash m a n (Joyce Va n Patte n). Vo ice of the Autho rity ( B e n Wri g ht). The Autho rity ( R o be rt J ustm a n ) , Father Fonta n n a ( Fra n k P u g i l a ) , Tee n a g e d L u m i n o i d ( G l e n n G a n n o n ) .
neighborhood like mine or yours. Those who will he abducted sleep in dreamy ignorance, unaware that theyare about to hecome the suhjects of a grotesque and soph isticated experiment . . . a feasibility study.
Andrea (Phyl l i s Love) inside the steril ization tube as Lu m i noid teen (Glenn Gannon) looks on .
The planet Luminos: A minor planet, sultry and simmering. Incapacitated. Earth scientists have concluded that there could be no life on Luminos, that it is too close to its own sun, and that its inhabitants would be victimized by their own blighting atmosphere . But there is life on Luminos-life that should resemble ours , but doesn 't. Desperate life , suffering a great and terrible need. The Luminoids have begun to search the universe in an effort to gratify that need. They seek a planet on which life is healthy, vibrant, strong, and mobile. They need such people to do their work, to labor and slave for th em , to manufacture their splendored dreams. Th e Luminoids n eed slaves, and they have chosen the planet off which their slaves will be abducted. Not too many at first, a neighborhood-full, perhaps. A
Residents of a s ix-block section of Midgard Drive i n B everly Hills awake one morning to find the air alive with a strange, particulate rain, the telephone l ines fil led w ith insectile nattering, and their neighborhood corralled by a barrier of choking fog. When R alph Cashman drives into it he is confronted by a pitted, volcanic landscape and stalked by three rag-clad aliens who appear to be composed of a silvery, m ineral- like matter. Realizing they're not on Earth anymore, he escapes to warn the others, and · before the shocked eyes of h i s wife Rhea and neighbors S imon and Andrea Holm, he is whisked away by a teleportation beam. S imon finds an intruder watching all this from a toolshed; it turns out to be a curious alien teenager, also blemished with the silver, rocklike eruptions, who forces Andrea to chauffeur him back into the m ist-bank. S imon chases them on foot and discovers a ' Contemplative Energy Plant , ' an arena-like think tank housing dozens of aliens, all frozen fast by the growths. An elderly alien, the Authority, explains that he has brought S imon's neighborhood to thei r planet, Luminos, and encased it i n a sterile bubble of fog i n order to test the Earthlings' hardiness as potential s l av e l abor, since a ' hot organism in the gene s ' has rendered the Luminoids
THf O UHR liMITS CO MPANION
Storyboard s ketches for Scs. 1 A-B-C-D-E , the d i s i nteg ration o f the six-block sample.
'doomed and immobile. ' The Authority reasons that the 'vain flesh-men' of Earth would prefer slavery to being infected by the touch of the Luminoids and becoming ugly, motionless rocks; enough test subjects from the abducted neighborhood should survive, therefore, to j ustify the theft of the remainder of Earth's population . S imon arranges a neighborhood meeting in a local church, and finds that Andrea has been infected by merely breathing the same air as the Luminoid teenager. In stumbles Cashman , in an advanced state of contagion. S imon proposes they all voluntarily infect themselves to save the rest of the Earth. All in the group join hands with Andrea and Cashman, thwarting the Luminoid plot. B ack on Earth, the enormous crater where their neighborhood once was remams as a kind of mute monument to their self-sacrifice. 'Do not enter upon or cross this area . Do not touch or remove possibly radioactive dirt or rocks. If you have any knowledge concerning this disappearan ce, p lease contact your nearest police department. ' It could have happened to any neighborhood. Had those who lived in this one been less h uman , less brave, it would have happened to all the neighborhoods of the Earth . Feasibility study ended. Abduction of human race: Infeasible.
'Joe S tefano came i n one day and said, ' We're going to uproot a whole city block this week ! ' said Leslie S tevens. ' We all went crosseyed because it sounded so impractical. ' Written during the hiatus between ABC's purchase of ' The Galaxy B e i n g ' and the start of episode-to-epi sode production, ' A Feasibility Study' i s , according to S tefano, ' the most humanitarian script of the series, I feel , though some of the events and dialogue are heavy-handed and preachy. ' The show hews to the loose rules set down in the Canons by outwardly being a thinly-veiled anti-slavery diatribe. What it is reall y concerned with are v ivid sketches of the human spirit: Andrea's independence and will to fight; Ralph Cashman's dogged escape back to the town area; S imon's last minute surge of bravery and conversion to crusader, which wins the approval of Andrea (who had planned to divorce him) and leads to the nonviolent act of rebellion that spares all of Earth. There is also the spirit of the Luminoids, determined and smugly superior. Stefano's writing is at its most arch and fancifu l in the grand speeches given by the Luminoid Authority, who slaps down each of S imon's protests with a handy and reasoned rebuttal. ' S ince no single fraction of l ife-energy i s wasted on meaningless movement,' he explains , ' all energy, all the mad, monstrous force of it i s made avail able to the mind.
Storyboa rd fra mes depicti ng Ralph Cash m a n ' s first encou nter with the L u mi noids (note the ' black moss g rowth ' referred to i n early drafts of the script) , and young Cynth i a C a s h m a n witness i n g R a l p h ' s su bseq uent va n i s h ment - 'He poofed . '
�4
A ffASIBIUTY STUOY THE AUTHORITY: That veil of gas clouds you wandered through is little more than a deterrent, simil ar to those brick and mortar things you erect on Earth. But the humming you hear, that is what will keep you strong and useful. As anyone who has l istened to a great, demonic speaker will tell you, sound waves can reach and subj ugate the most recalcitrant organism.
Ralph Cashman (David Opatosh u ) enters the c h u rc h .
The s c i-fi ' furniture ' of the show-matter teleportation, disintegration rays , the goon squad of s i lent, lumbering monsters , and the c liche of extraterrestrial invasion-smacks of the supernatural in context, and the real excitement of the episode comes from the wall of Luminoid fog and the horrors that wait beyond it. For Ralph and S imon, penetration of the v apor takes on the nervous undertone of exploring a haunted house. The renegade Luminoid teenager plays the Gothic role of the Thing in the Attic ( 'I'll go away-if you will, ' he says in a creepy, distorted voice). The phones transmit only ghostly static (a speeded-up version of the Luminoid 'crowd noise' heard later) , and the Contemplative Energy Plant is a Dantean Hel l , the opposite of the church S imon fool i shly trusts to save him from his marital stubbornness. There is also a devil's deal of sorts: 'You will be happy, ' says the Authority. ' Your lives here will be comfortable and secure, and you will be free to worship and love and think as haphazardly as usual . ' It is the middle-class dream-guaranteed comfort,
Can y o u comprehend the scope and skill o f minds that are never drained, never dulled? Minds like nuclear birds, soaring to the most splendored dreamings of the universe?' The proper tone of administrative arrogance was provided for the Authority by the voice of Ben Wright, a British character actor soon to become better known for his portrayal of Herr Zeller in The Sound of Music ( 1 965). 'I rather imagine they wanted my B ritish voice to contrast the American voices of the Earth people, to more clearly and easily differentiate them, ' said Wright. ' I was originally to play the part, as well , but when they tried to fit me into the alien mask, they found my head was too big. Like most actors, I suppose. ' So who was in the Luminoid suit? 'That was me, ' said 1 st AD Robert Justman . ' B en got paid for it, but it was me. It was one of those cases where I j umped into things on the set to expedite the production. I lip­ synched his speech while he stood off-camera, reading it. I have this talent for miming speech while someone else i s talking; I used t o drive my wife crazy b y repeating everything just a s she said it. ' In the interest of brevity, S tefano snipped some interesting insights from the Authority's l i n e s . He notes that the Luminoid government passed an ' Abduction Act' to legitimatize their interstellar kidnapping, and there i s an added threat, besides contagion, that will prompt ' Yes, my dear. On my planet, the left hand has an entirely different function. Phyl l i s Love a n d Lu m i noid compa n ion g e t t h e ca ption treatment from F i rst AD Robert J u stma n . the new slaves to work: 11
(Cou rtesy Robert H . J u stman)
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION security and personal 'freedom'-with enslavement as the price tag. For the sake of credibility, Stefano substituted 'Luminos' for Venus, the alien bastille of the original script. The Luminoid disability, described as a consuming growth of thick, black, glistening lichens , was changed t o the metallic scabs and lava-like engulfment seen in the episode. Still other alterations came courtesy of ABC's Department of Standards and Practices-that is, the censors . 'They were absolutely treacherous when it came to having children in jeopardy, ' said Stefano, whose first draft teleplay had the kids and pets of Midgard Drive as the first to succumb to the alien environment. Ralph Cashman's daughter Cynthia discovers her dad sprawled on the front walk, and witnesses the beam of light that atomizes him. ' He poofed, ' she tells the adults. With the references to children removed, Midgard Drive was left conspicuously all-adult, and when Stefano condensed several minor characters into the principal ones, it seems that the Holms and the Cashmans are all alone until everyone gathers at the church for the denouement. 'There was enough thinking going on in The Outer Limits to worry people,' said Stevens. ' It was scary, because Congress was getting tough, and (Newton) Minow was calling TV a 'vast wastel and . ' ' ABC was already in hot water with the Federal Communications Commission for their December 3rd, 1 96 1 broadcast of 'A Lion Walks Among Us' as an episode of the series Bus Stop (based on the William Inge play and the subsequent film version, which starred Marilyn Monroe) . Adapted by Ellis Kadison from a Tom Wicker novel and directed by Robert Altman, 'Lion' starred teen idol Fabian Forte as a homicidal rapist. Decried as ' an hour of ugliness ' by the New York Times, the pre sentation flinted a firestorm of controversy over what was morally permissable on TV. Bus Stop was cancelled and Oliver Treyz, the VP who had green-lighted the series, was ousted and repl aced with Tom Moore . The network censor subsequently assigned to The Outer Limits and other shows under Moore was Dorothy B rown. 'Dorothy Brown was the person standing between Stefano and the network people like Moore and Ben Brady, ' said Stevens. 'The network is a triopoly­ Programming tries to second-guess what the sponsors One of the actual ' background Lu m i no i d ' c utouts . (Cou rtesy Jack Pap l i n )
A ffASIBlliTY STUOY want, and Practices (a.k.a. Network Continuity) can cut from a show whatever is necessary to please Programming. B rown's responsibility was not as a true censor, but to cover ABC's corporate behind. To make them look awfully good legally. To say, ' Sir, we told these producers, writers, and directors that they could not fire a gun and hit a man in this scene, and here's the memo that proves we told them, but they did not obey us. They j ust put it on the air that way. It's their faul t because this memo proves to y o u h o w busily we're trying to regulate this show the way you want us to. ' Brown was on ABC's payroll, and her dictates were designed to keep the FCC at arm's length while the gang in Programming tried to squeeze around those edicts as covertly as possible. 'The corporate way of doing things,' said Stevens, ' i s to slam the accelerator to the floor and keep your foot on the brake. And you know what happens-you shake yourself to death ! ' Director B yron Haskin summed up the censors and execs more pointedly : 'They were bloated with self-importance, and threw down the most insane ukases of do this, don 't do that. It isn't even the am usement business anymore , it's the world of advertis ing-and any rel ation to honest drama i s purely coincidental. ' Brown's main objection t o ' A Feasibility Study' was its ending, which she interpreted as condoning mass suicide. ' She saw the act of martyrdom as a negative gesture rather than a noble one , ' said Stefano. ' B ut I probably proved my point when ABC saw the fini shed fi lm, with everyone joining hands. It was very moving and in spirational , and that's when they approved it. ' This process took far longer than anyone reckoned, however, and the show was not aired until eight months after its completion . Haskin directed the show two weeks after wrapping ' Hundred Days of the Dragon. ' ' It's not my favorite, ' he said. ' From an effects standpoint, it was a little too ambitious for the series. The great power that control led Luminos was a bunch of rocks; how can anybody generate suspense or excitement when the monsters look like still pictures?' The early acts, which take place mostly outdoors, are harshly lit and sl ightly overexposed, to lend them an eye-grating qual ity that aptly suggests the 'hot' Luminoid �tmosphere. When the Cashmans and Holms squint up mto the sky, their features are obscured by haloes of back- l ighting. Shooting through vaseline-smeared lenses and rippled glass helped to conceal the fact that
Theft of Beverly H i l l s rea l estate from Ea rth leaves a crater that w i l l proba bly be developed i n to pricey la kefront property.
the Contemplative Energy Plant is mostly a forced­ perspective miniature set of gypsum-and-plaster, with live Luminoid extras filling up the foreground. Only a few feet behind them, off-camera grips manipulated foot-high photo cutouts of other Luminoids that appeared to be far away, dotted into the metallic hillside . There is no ' Midgard Drive' in Beverly Hills (although Stefano would return to a similar Norse reference l ater, in 'The Bellero Shield' ) ; exteriors were shot on MGM's backlot suburbia, where it proved impossible for Haskin to adequately present the wall of mist called for in the script. ' We fucked around all day with one take that killed itself, ' he said. 'Our smoke pots were at the mercy of gusting winds ; our 'fog' fl oated aimlessly, everywhere . ' The barrier was provided in postproduction as an optical effect. The opening of the show prov ides a montage of outer space dissolves, using, in addition to Project Unlimited footage, shots of a moon fly-by and starfield from It's a Wondelfu l Life ( 1 94 6 ) , and another
The Conte m p lative E nergy Plant.
�1
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION perspective shot of planets in space from-ironically-Invaders From Mars ( 1 95 3 ) . Other special effects , such as the vanishing engine in S imon's car, or the shuttlecock spaceship that filches the sample of Earth real estate, seem tossed in with minimal story relevance. Their job, apparently, i s to divert the viewer from the fact that this allegory looks less l ike the then-popular view of what science fiction was . The fuzzy business of the engine-that the Luminoids omitted motors from all autos to prevent their guinea pigs from cru i s ing-i s instantly defeated by the fact that Ralph' s car functions okay. The spaceship, like the one in ' Controlled Experiment, ' serves the purpose of a Robert J ustma n as Ben Wrig ht a s the Lu m i noid Authority. science fiction ' hook' by appearing necessary reaction. I didn't know it until I saw dailies , early in the show. Had this script been done l ater i n the and B yron said, 'She would not react the way we season, Stefano may have bypassed the hardware i ssue wanted. ' Now, I didn't give a damn what the actress by favoring instantaneous teleportation, the better to thought; I knew what I wanted my audience to think. I jump right into the story-as indeed he did in ' Fun and ran the film and ran it and ran it. . . and finally I ran it Games . ' backwards, so that she appeared to recoi l . I wasn't 'A Feasibility Study ' also gave S tefano a chance aware you could print film in reverse. And Tony said, to fine-tune his film editing technique . 'Tony DiMarco 'You can only give her about three steps before it looks used to look at me with his mouth open most of the l ike she's walking backwards . ' So I had him do it, to time, because I'd suggest things that sounded show me, and then I began to really see what could be impossible, ' Stefano said. 'In 'Feasibility,' we had an done to a film in the editing stage. ' actress-Joyce Van Patten-who could not give a I n consideration of the censorship problem that kept the show in the can and on the shelf until nearly a year after he had turned in his teleplay for it, Stefano was asked if things might be done for TV today that were disal lowed in 1 96 3 . 'No,' he said. ' Maybe the other way around. ' DO NOr eNtER UPON Oil CROSs ' I d o remember cutting out all those squiggly THIS PREA . DO NOT lO ue; monsters , ' recalled Jack Poplin. 'My wife and I cut up OR REMOVE POSSiSlY RADiO a bunch of 8x 1 Os and numbered them. Later I sent her ACTIVE DIRT OR ROCKS . a card with one of them glued onto it, saying, 'I was an all-American boy 'til I met you ! ' IF '()lJ HA'JE At« KNOM..E.ooe
WARN'NG -
CONCERNING nus DlSAPPEAR.AMcE Pl£ASE:CONI'AGr YOUR NEAREST
POUCE DEPARlMENT
GfRO OSWAlD
An� Now ... Ger� Oswal� Gerd was one of my favorite d irectors-as you no doubt can tell . -Joseph S tefano
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1 9 1 9, Gerd Oswald was the son of Austrian producer director Richard Oswald (formerly Orenstein), who directed the first film version of A round the World in 80 Days. Young Gerd appeared as a performer on the B erlin stage with Hedy Lamarr, and in several of his father's films, including My Song Goes Round the World, Poor Like a Chu rchmouse, and Countess Maritza, based on the operetta by Emmerlich Kalman . 'We got out of Germany by 1 93 3 , before things got rough with Hitler, ' Oswald recalled. 'We moved back to Austria, where I'd spent a great deal of my youth, then got out of there j ust prior to the A nschluss. We spent a year each in Engl and and France, and then I emigrated to the States, to Los Angeles, in November of 1 93 8 . ' He briefly transitioned through little theatre, as a producer. 'I did a play called 'Brainwashed,' which opened at the Trouper's Theatre, which is now the L.A. S tage Company. It was a leading experimental theatre at the time, and I met my first wife there. I was mostly stalling for time until I could get what I wanted, and within a year I'd become an assistant director. Throughout the early 1 940s I Gerd Oswa ld did quite a few pictures, as an AD, between Monogram and Republic San Quentin, Silent Witness, Isle of Missing Men. For the King B rothers I did Hitler, the Beast of Berlin. ' He also worked for the Producer's Releasing Company, and spent nearly ten years at Paramount before getting a break at 20th Century-Fox, where he worked as AD for Billy Wilder on Sunset Boulevard, George S tevens on A Place in the Sun, and Anatole Litvak on Decision Before Dawn. In 1 95 1 , Oswald was promoted to production manager, and by 1 95 2 he was directing second unit assignments and studio tests. 'Everything I know now, I learned from assisting certain directors-what you should and should not do, ' he said. He worked with Lewis Milestone on the -
n inth remake of Les Miserables, and Joseph L . Mankiewicz on the four-star s p y thriller Five Fingers. In 1 95 3 , after doing White Witch Doctor, Fox made Oswald an associate producer on Elia Kazan's Man on a Tightrope and Nunally Johnson's Night People . He moved up another rung, to full producer, for Fox's first European production in Cinema-scope, Oasis ( 1 954). ' At Fox, I went with (head of production) Darryl F. Zanuck to Europe two or three times a year, to screen pictures there , ' said Oswald. ' I kept saying, 'I want to be a director, ' and Zanuck would say, 'No, you
i n 1 9 84.
(Photo : DJSI
want to be a producer. All a director does is say action and cut. ' ' When Zanuck read the script t o Oasis, h e vented on producer Spiro S kouras . ' He said, 'We can't put our l abel on this picture ! ' ' Oswald recalled. 'It was the worst script he had ever seen and they were already shooting in Morocco. He asked me to salvage it and I told him I had one condition-when I came back, I wanted a director's contract, and a certain property for my first picture, an increase in salary, the whole bit. I was the only one who could speak all the languages, so they told me, okay, I could have anything. And when I got back from Morocco, there was the script to A Kiss Before Dying, waiting on my desk . ' Oswald got h i s long-term directorial contract i n
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION 1 95 5 after doing ' an awful picture , ' Untamed, with Henry King. He made his feature debut while on 'loan-out' to United Artists. A Kiss Before Dying was an adaptation of Ira Levin's best-selling first novel, starring Robert Wagner as a psychopathic killer. Oswald did three more films for UA in 1 95 6 : Crime of Passion (another murder mystery starring Barbara Stanwyck) , and a pair of Westerns, The Brass Legend and Fury at Showdown . 'Fury was one of my six or seven-day epic s , ' said Oswald. 'I finished Crime on a Monday and we started Fury on Wednesday. ' In 1 957 he directed Valerie (a post-Civil War drama) , Paris Holiday (a B ob Hope comedy ) , and moved to Columbia to do Screaming Mimi, another mystery. ' Valerie got massacred in the cutting room, ' said Oswald. 'The same thing happened t o Screaming Mimi. Hal Makelim was producer who butchered Valerie; he was also this Mormon, vegetarian fanatic. Harry Joe Brown, the producer on Screaming Mimi, butchered that one so bad I considered taking my name off it. ' At the 1 95 8 Cannes Film Festival, Oswald was voted one of the ten most popul ar and promising new American directors , by his European peers. He returned to Europe in 1 95 9 to write, direct, and produce The Day the Rains Came, and in 1 960 wrote and directed Stefan Zweig's The Royal Game, which was released by J . Arthur Rank as Three Moves to Freedom -and by Allied Artists, as Brainwashed. This story of a German aristocrat imprisoned by the Nazis won a prize for Outstanding Artistic Achievement from the Federal German Republic. Oswald was also one of the many directors who put in time on the overblown Darry l Zanuck war epic The Longest Day, directing the parachute assault on the French village of St. Mere-Eglise, which v ignette featured Red B uttons . While living in Italy in early 1 963, Oswald did a French-Italian thriller titled Storm Over Ceylon. ' My father came to visit me while I was there,' he said. ' He got very ill and went to stay with my mother's family in Germany. When I took him to the airport, I knew it was the last time I'd see him. I came back to America, and when he passed away about a year later, it did not come as news to me. S ince I had anticipated his death, I don't think it really affected my Outer Limits work, which I started soon after I returned. ' A reedy, econom ically- statu red man who continued to direct through the late 1 980s, Oswald's most striking trait was an eagerness to j ump into the thick of a question or problem in order to answer or resolve it as quickly and efficiently as possible. He was most often described by his fellow former Daystar workers as 'journeyman' and ' workmanlike, ' and always looked back on his Outer Limits days with
great fondness . ' I w a s approached by Leslie Stevens t o work on Outer Limits as one of the regulars, ' Oswald said. 'He knew of my previous work, and showed me the pilot and series concept. By that time, they'd completed six or seven episodes, but I saw none of the sets or finished footage-merely some elaborate brochures S tevens had. Once I started working on the show, I never saw Stevens anymore; he was involved on other projects while Joe S tefano worked exclusively on Outer Limits . At the time I came into the fold, Joe was the producer, and I was fortunate enough to get his scripts. In a kind of mutual admiration set-up, I wound up doing every other one . ' ' I ' d never heard o f Gerd before The Outer Limits, ' said Stefano. ' B ut he had a feel for Gothic drama and the Expressionist style of cinema. He could achieve a v isual impact beyond the capabilities of a lot of American directors, and once I realized what I had, I set it up so he could do my scripts. That's one of the few chauvinistic things 1 ever did on the entire serie s . ' Oswald's technique also matched u p with Conrad Hall's experimental camera style, and he often referred to the Stefano/Oswald/Hall creative threesome as the ' troika. ' Oswald directed nearly a full third of the Outer Limits catalogue-fourteen episodes pervaded by the dark, moody atmosphere he conj ured by using sudden camera movements , odd angles, dense compositions, patterned splashes of background lighting, and a start-stop, 'probing' aspect applied to the camera's point of view. ' On every movie or TV show I ever did, ' he noted, 'I called the shots on set-ups . All the camera blocking was mine, even the selection of lenses. A lot of our 'effects' were done in the camera. We used the old Caligari concept of fantasy, and talked a lot about creating an eerie mood in technical terms not necessarily requiring optical effects. 1 also worked very closely with Stefano during the editing stage. Most of the shows 1 did after that first one, 'Specimen: Unknown,' were by good writers-Stefano, Meyer Dolinsky, Robert Towne. Lou Morheim was also a very talented man . ' O swald commenced shooting ' Specimen : Unknown' August 2 3 , 1 96 3 , on Stage #4 at KTTV, while e lsewhere B yron Haskin was steering ' A Feasibility Study' through i t s final day o f filming. Ironically, ' Specimen : Unknown' would have three directors , due to production problems, but Oswald's O u ter L imits work suffers not at all from this inauspicious debut; he was soon to demonstrate the power he could wring out of a six-day shooting schedule. S imply put, The Outer Limits would not have the unique look for which it is now famous, if Gerd Oswald had never come along.
SPfClMfN: UNKNOWN
SPfCI M fN : U N KN OWN Broad cast 24 February 1 9 64 Written by Stephen Lord. Additi o n a l materi a l by Joseph Stefa no. Pro l o g u e by Les l i e Stevens D i rected by G e rd Oswa ld. Pro l o g u e d i rected by Robert H . Justman Assistant Di rector: Lee H . Katz i n D i rector of Photography: C o n r a d H a l l CAST: Col. J . T. MacWi l l i a rms (Ste p h e n M c N a l ly), C a p t . M i ke Dowe l i n g ( R i ch a rd J a e c k e l ) , Major Clark B e n e d i ct ( R usse l l Johnson), L t Ke nneth Gavin (Art h u r Bata n i des), Lt. Gordon Halper ( Peter Baldwin), Lt. R u p e rt Lawrence Howard ( Dabney Coleman), J a n et Dowe l i n g ( G a i l Ko be), Major Nathan J e n n i n g s (John Ke l l o g g ) , Sergeant (Walt Davis), Project Adonis I ntercom Voice ( R o be rt J o h n s o n ) . Dabney Colema n face-to-pistil with ' M i s s Adon i s ' d u r i n g the episode' s added prolog ue.
For centuries, Man has looked to the skies and sought to uncover the mysteries of the universe. The telescope brought into focus the craters on the Moon and the canals on Mars, but it was limited, and Man 's insistent hunger for knowledge and experience would not be satisfied until he broke the massive chains of gravity and set foot himself on a planet other than his own . Project Mercury was his first venture into space--a testament to his technical ingenuity and courage, a green light to a hundred other projects which would take him still further. This is Project Adonis, a laboratory orbiting a thousand miles above the Earth , a tiny, far�flung world connected only by radio and memory, and inhabited by a handful of men dedicated to removing the unknown for future space travelers. At ten minutes after six on Jan uary 8th , Lieutenant Rupert Howard stumbled upon something clinging to the wall of the space-lock that appeared alive . He called them 'space barnacles ' for temporary identification . They were not . . .
When the mushroom-shaped ' dormant spores' Howard removes from the hull of the Adonis space station are incubated, they quickly mature into white, poinsettia-like flowers , long-stemmed, with waxy
petals, growing from pods that issue tentacled roots. The pod section suddenly showers Howard with fresh spores, and as he collects some for examination, the central petal lifts to expose the plant's stigma, which squirts a lethal white vapor into his face while emitting an unearthly screeching noise. Gagging, Howard stuffs the plant out a space-disposal hatch, but before he can get rid of all the samples he i s overcome and killed by the gas . The investigation into Howard's death is delayed by a change of shift in Adonis personnel. By the time anyone realizes the plants are responsible, they are already aboard a shuttle bound for Earth with the newly-relieved crew. When Capt. Doweling goes outside the craft to repair a damaged servomechani sm, the other three occupants of the shuttle succumb to the gas as the plants multiply astoni shingly fast, even penetrating the metal bulkheads w ith their stems . A plan to destroy the shuttle while still in orbit i s scrubbed, and it crash-lands off course in a woodland area. By the time Project Adonis officers arrive, the plants have rooted by the thousands in Earth soil. A rainstorm sweeps through the area, and grim fears about the water nouri shing the plants are allayed when it does quite the opp o s ite-the plants screech , dissolve, and d i e when exposed t o water. Doweling and all but one of the shuttle party are rescued and revived.
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
Project Adon is, by way of Men Into Space.
There are many things up there , evil and hungry, awesome and splendid. And gentle things , too . Merciful things like rain.
' ' 'Specimen: Unknown' was a case where I was just in hysterics , ' said Leslie S tevens. ' You get past being afraid and you laugh, and slide under your seat and have to be picked up. It was just a disaster; we got it together out of blind hope, really. ' It's hard to believe that Stevens is talking about The Outer Limits ' highest-rated episode, but it might be said that ' Specimen: Unknown' ' s basic problem was that it was short on everything-short on plot, on running time, even short on death-dealing alien flowers . 'They wanted to present a menace from outer space and they didn't know what to develop it into, ' said scriptwriter S tephen Lord. ' B ut it had t o be something simple, that human beings regard without a second thought. ' Like other writers who had come to Villa di Stefano via the Hollywood method of the 'cattle cal l , ' Lord knocked story seeds back and forth with Joseph Stefano and Lou Morheim until an idea took root. He soon turned i n a first draft presenting alien plantlife as the menace-of-the-week. 'The first act depicted two young lovers c limbing around the hills in Malibu, ' said Lord. 'They witness a flying saucer swooping across the horizon. Later, near the beach, they unknowingly come across the flowers and are the first v ictims. ' The saucer is seen to lay down a
jetwash of spores that bloom i nstantly on contact with the ground, and emit the poisonous gas as a defense mechanism whenever anyone comes near them. ' B ut it didn't work , ' added Lord. ' Staying Earthbound wouldn't hold up for an hour-long show. ' He winged a v ariation on the idea in Stefano's office, setting the show's first half aboard an orbital space station, and added the punchline of rainwater killing the malignant plants. Excited by the twist, S tefano exclaimed, ' Let's do it ! ' ' I got m y 'legs' on O uter Lim its b y doing ' Specimen: Unknown, ' ' said Gerd Oswald. ' I got stuck with that script and there wasn't much you could do. It was a very weak story. The only interesting thing about it was the end-the rain destroying the plants like a word from God. I built the whole film up to that one moment; otherwise there wasn't much meat to it. Dreadfu l . ' Apparently, no one on the crew cared to acknowledge the j ust-released film Day of the Triffids, based on the popular John Wyndham novel about an invasion of lethal alien plants that are eventually destroyed by seawater. Trouble-like the malignant plants-spread quickly. ' When I saw the first dailies, ' said Stevens, ' they told me, 'Leslie, we cannot afford enough flowers ' I said that was too bad; they'd have to make more out of . . . something. S o Dick Rubin, the prop man, made them out of Kleenex. Past the twenty or so flowers in the foreground, there they were , plain as day. . .
Ru pert Lawrence Howard gets gassed .
SPfClMfN: UNKNOWN
Russell Johnson as Major Bened ict.
Kleenex ! It was all perfectly in focu s , so of course you could see that there were only six rows of flowers and 40 rows of Kleenex on sticks after that. And I thought, holy shit, this isn't going to work ! And then we showed the flowers 'dealing death' and it looked l ike they were squirting out talcum powder and popcorn. I could see the wires on the plants. I was beside myself! ' When Oswald turned in his fin ished footage, Stefano's phone started ringing. ' I got a call from Leslie, and he said that 'Specimen: Unknown' was too short, that it couldn't be used. To be five minutes short on a show was trauma, just horror time. Do you know how much film passes through a moviola in five minutes? Jesus, only the first half of the show ! That was scary. I said, 'You take care of it,' and Leslie took over. ' 'To have that show forty-five minutes long when
it was supposed to fil l an hour was adding the worst kind of insult to grievous inj ury, ' said Stevens. The shots of the Adonis space station (a model left over from the Ziv/UA TV series Men Into Space) were lengthened; the early portion of the episode cuts back to the station, floating in space, as often as possible. The long shots of Doweling's EVA to repair the shuttle were more recycled footage from Men Into Space; intercut with Oswald's c lose-ups of Richard Jaeckel near the exterior hatch, the sequence won the show a few more precious seconds . . . but not enough. l Finally, Stevens dashed out a prologue on his yellow legal pad and handed it over to 1 st AD Robert Justman to get on film-fast. Originally, the show opened with the burial in space of Rupert Howard, who had existed previously only in dialogue references
More Men Into Space footage press-ga nged i nto The Outer Lim its.
by the other characters. The plants are not revealed as the antagonists until they kill a lab rabbit much later in the show-an element of suspense dispelled by the need for padding. ' We brought in an actor who was then very busy, ' said Stefano. ' Dabney Coleman, whom we had used in other bit parts, and whom I liked . ' His scenes were filmed long after principal photography was complete, and none of the other actors in the show were available. Justman recall ed his directorial debut: ' I did the whole prologue in one take, then did the cutaways (close-ups) . There is a rather large shadow of a microphone hanging down into the opening shot. I cringed when I saw it. My big chance to direct at last. . . and there's the boom ! ' MacWi l l i a m s (Stephen McN a l ly) stops to consider the flowers.
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION O n the plus side i s Oswald's grim staging of the space burial , which , along with several scenes of l i fe- under-the­ sunlamp in the sky lab, presage similar scenes in 200J .- A Space Odyssey. The most chilling moment of the show lacks action of any sort , and works almost as sneakily as a good radio play-namely, the moment when the Earth-bound characters stare in mute shock while Russell Johnson's gasping voice describes what is going on aboard the wayward shuttle:
G a i l Kobe holds u p one of t h e l i ly-wh ite i nvaders by its support t u b e (wh i c h , wi t h l u c k, won ' t show on·camera i n t h e fi n i shed episode) . (Cou rtesy Gary Gera n i & Foto Fa ntasies)
B ENEDICT: These plants, the gas they release-poisonous. Destroys hemoglobin in the blood. Gavin almost out, Halper already unconscious. Both turning l ike Howard and the rabbit I'm beginning to feel weaker. . . aft compartment overrun with the plants . . . they shoot spores, hundreds at a time, they grow on anything; even penetrate metal with their stem s . . .it's a malignant thing . . . don't let us land . . . contamination . . . destruct us . . . destrucL .
Stefano rendered a long Control Voice speech that l aboriously thumbnai l s the h i story of the space Project Unlimited supplied some 1 50 prop plants, program , and even spells out the exact time and date of some of which were rigged to 'deal death' in the form the prologue's action. The customary ' teaser, ' the pre­ of aerosol mist and spores (actual ly Puffed Wheat credit excerpt showcasing the ' bear, ' was in thi s case breakfast cereal) . 'The sculpt for those plants were nearly three minutes long, but this helped the show done by a fellow named Johnny Neppolitano, ' recalled reach an acceptable length . Just barely. 2 Jim Danforth. The crumpled, full-sized Adoni s shuttle 'Specimen : Unknown' i s trapped in the idiom of exterior was built by Jack Poplin's crew in the Tarzan the 1 950s sci-fi flick to deprecating extremes , stressing hardware, phony pulp suspense (the shuttle's inev itable malfunction and Doweling's 'perilous' EVA to fix it), technology-conscious cornbal l dialogue ( M ac Wi l liams says of Doweling's wife, ' She's been sitting on the edge of her oscilloscope for days '), and a painfully preordained deus ex machina conclusion. The genre myth that the military is the sole group ideological ly suited to be tinkering around in orbital labs ' Up There ' is perpetuated here for no reason other than its cliched expediency ; it sounds terribly authentic when all the stalwart scientists have ranks in front of their names. Since the players are all interchangeable Air Force joes, the performances , while competent, are all trapped inside uniform s . Arthur B atanides and Russell (Attack of the Crab Monsters) Johnson have fine, expressive faces, but no opportunity to express anything. The Proiect Adon i s shuttle en route to The Twilight Zone.
SPWMfN: UNKNOWN
Wa lt Davis gets victi m i zed by vapor . . .
Forest portion of MGM B acklot #3-in fact , shooting notes for the episode specify ' extra fol iage' to hide the World War II barges from the Combat! series, which were sitting i n the lake j ust over the hillside from where the shuttle is augured nose-first into the ground. Writing in the April 4, 1 964, TV Guide, B ob S tahl mentions , 'In a rare spirit of cooperation, C B S ' s Twilight Zone has purchased a spaceship mockup created originally for ABC's Outer Limits . ' The mockup was painted black and used in Twilight Zone 's notorious Adam and Eve episode, ' Probe 7 , Over and Out . ' Stephen Lord added that, 'To my knowledge, 'Specimen: Unknown' contained the first televi sed use of the word shutt/eeraft in reference to a space
vehicle . ' Leslie S tevens only had two words in reference to the episode itself, and they were desperation measures. ' Talk about laugh s , ' he said, 'we were just dying. And this wasn't fun laughter. This was the kind of nervous laughter that comes out of you j ust as you get put before a firing squad ! ' Despite its l iteral shortcomings , the episode peaked the Nielsen ratings for The Outer Lim its . ' The thing I always found maddening was the network's inability to read their own lag in the rating s , ' s ai d S teven s . ' They're terribly misinterpreted all the time . S ometimes you get lucky; a documentary on army ants plays opposite your show, you get a good rating, and everyt ing 's . okay. You ' l l notice that every new s enes IS . . j ammed with its best shows for the fust five . weeks or so, then you'll get a turkey. The audIence usually forgives you for that first turkey, and it gets a good ratings because it followed a strong episode . But if you put on a strong show the next week, it'll get a far lower rating because everyone expected it to be lousy, because the previous show was the turkey. ' ' Specimen : Unknown ' ' s third director was B yron H askin , who fil med the show's ' p ickup s '-cl o seups and in sert shots not requiring the principal actors , such as the shots of Rupert Howard's gloved hands prying spores off the Adonis hul l , or close shots of the flowers doing their deadly stuff. A man named Rock Walker ( still working today, u s u a l l y as a stuntman) did 'hand inserts ' for the princely sum of $25 .47 per day. Pickups were another of Haskin's routine chores on O u ter Lim its ; he did them fast and without mishaps, using a crew of t wenty. On the day pickups were done for ' S pecimen : Unknown , ' H askin also completed all the insert shots for three other shows : 'The Man With the Power, ' 'A Feasibility Study, ' and 'The S ixth Finger. '
?
The space station model is c learly visible on the videocassette box issued i n 1 98 8 by M G M(UA, which also topl ines Dabney Coleman (who received no onscreen credi t ) as the star of the episode. 2 To get an idea of what the unpadded episode looks l ike, begi n
. . . and sporulated .
v i e w i n g a t t h e start of t h e space buri a l .
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
TH f S I XTH f l N G f A Broad cast 14 Octo ber 1 9 63 Writte n by Ellis St. Joseph. Additi o n a l materi a l by Joseph Stefa no. D i rected by J a m e s G o l dston e . Assista nt D i rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: J o h n Nickolaus CAST Gwyl l m G riffiths ( David McCa l l u m ) , Prof. Mathers ( Edward M u l h a re), Cathy Eva n s (J i l l Hawo rth), G e rt 'the Bread' Evans (Constance Cavendish), Wilt Morgan ( R o b e rt Doyle), M rs. Ives ( N o ra M a rlowe), Darwin the M o n key (Janos Prohoska), Consta ble's Dep uty # 1 /Stunt (Chuck Hayward), #2 ( G e o rg e Pe k i n g ) , Stunt Mathers (AI Wyatt)
Cathy U i l l Haworth) touches a tea r on the face of the super-evolved Gwy l l m (David McC a l l u m )-a shot that does not a ppea r in the episode.
Where are we going ? L ife , the timeless , mysterious gift, is stiil evolving . Wha t wonders--or terrors--does evolution hold i n storef or us i n the next ten thousand years ? In a millon ? In six million ? Perhaps the answer lies in this old house in this old and misty valley . . .
Guilt-ridden over his partIcIpation i n an atomic bomb project, Prof. Mathers secludes himself in a bucolic Welsh mining town to seek a way to speed humankind's evolutionary progres s beyond the capacity for war. Assisting him is Darwin, a super­ evolved chimpanzee that represents an early stage of Mathers' experimentation. Gwyllm Griffi ths, brash, unwashed, but with ambitions beyond a lifetime of labor in the coal mines, applies as Mathers' guinea pig, eager to have his intel lect ampl ified. Through Mathers' 'molecular approach to genetics , ' Gwyllm i s thrust 1 0,000 years into his biologic future . He promptly reads Mathers' entire l ibrary in one night and becomes a v irtuoso on the piano. His hairline recedes as his cranium expands, and he grows a sixth finger on each hand, for ' additional dexterity. ' Mathers realizes the evolutionary mechanism he has set in motion is now steamro l l ing along u nder its own impetus , and fearfully notes the psychological changes that
accompany Gwyllm's growing brainpower. To him, Mathers soon looks ' as monstrous as the Missing Link , ' and when his l andlady, Mrs . Ives, spots Gwyllm she sees only an inhuman freak. Now telepathic, Gwyllm reads her intention to alert the townsfolk, and tell s her heart to stop. To satisfy his old resentment for the town's ' dirt and stupidity, ' he plans to obliterate it, and when Mathers feebly intercedes , Gwyllm knocks him unconscious w ith a kinetic potshot. He is about to deal l ikewise with a pair of deputies sent to intercept him when he suddenly evolves beyond the desire for vengeance. Returning to the lab, he mesmerizes his girlfriend Cathy into working Mathers' machinery so that he may evolve further, into a non-corporeal vortex of intelligence, but she snaps out of her trance in time to reverse the controls and bring the old, 20th century Gwyllm-her Gwyllm-back. A n experiment too soon , too swift, and yet may we still hope to discover a method by which , in one generation , the whole human race could be rendered intelligent, beyond hatred, or revenge , or the desire for power? Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution ?
' 'The S i xth Finger' was the first, and possibly the only script I read through and immediately said film it, ' said Joseph S tefano. ' Now, you can't know what that means, when I fel t the need to rewrite every script that came in. ' Ellis St. Joseph's entree t o Villa d i Stefano was a
THf SIXTH flNGfR play he had written called The Passage, and he drew the seminal idea for 'The Sixth Finger' from George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah : ' I wanted to depict Shaw ' s deadly serious feelings toward evolution, and extend them into my belief that man will evolve past the physical stage and into a creature of pure , formless intel lect. ' S t . Joseph framed these concepts in the Emlyn Wil liams play, The Corn is Green , whose protagoni s t , Morgan Evan s , is a backward Welsh miner who craves an education. He falls under the guidance of a schoolteacher who ultimately sends him off to Oxford with a scholarship. The science fiction needs of The Outer Limits were served by recent developments in genetic research. St. Joseph contributed the idea of the additional finger. 'This aspect of the story came from a personal incident, ' he said. 'My grandmother gave birth to a child with a deformed sixth finger on one hand. It was immediatel y cut off. The boy died when only two months old . ' S t . Joseph's first draft impressed S tefano, who said, 'I didn't touch a word of it. ' S ome scenes and characters were dropped or condensed to save money, and five speaking parts were deleted: Bryn Evans (Gert the B read ' s l e g le s s , wheelchai r-bound, B ible-thumping husband) ; Wilks, the local constable; Robbart and Emlyn, two coal miners (the l atter named for playwright Wil liams); and the fat Mr. Caradoc, owner of the mine. Gwllym's hostility toward mining is exacerbated by the loss of his father and brothers in a cave-in. B ryn, similarly, has lost the use of his legs in a mine explosion (and it is this character that offers us the vaguest hint that Cathy is ' simpleminded' as a result of inbreeding in the town) . The beginning of Act Four, showing Gwyllm's vengefu l rampage against the mine, was omitted. Originall y, Gwyllm disposes of Wilks and his deputies, then proceeds to the mine, where a gatekeeper sees him coming, enveloped in a bituminous aura. Mr. Caradoc sets off the disaster whistle j ust as Gwyllm reduces him to smoldering ashes, then Gwyllm places a box of dynamite at the mouth of the mine and ignites the fuse with a burning glance. One of the trapped, terrified miners, Emlyn, attacks Gwyllm with a pickaxe and i s flattened by a burst of kinetic force . Then Gwyllm suddenly becomes translucent-he has evolved beyond his need for vendetta (as he does after zapping Wilks' deputies off their motorcycles in the telecast version) , and abandons the burning fuse to walk back to Mathers'
' Would y o u be w i l l i ng t o go b a c k t o a n ape, Professor? ' McCa l l u m freezes Edwa rd M u l h a re with a pop q u i z .
David
lab. Robbart stamps out the fuse. Gwyllm later tells Cathy his ghostly translucence evidences another phase of h i s evolution : 'I c an now l ive by photosynthesis of pure l ight ! ' Also deleted from St. Joseph's script was more of the scene in which Mathers tries to stop Gwyllm when he decl are s : ' The whole town must be utterly destroyed. An example must be made . ' MATHERS : You're wron g ! We may seem stupid to you, primitive; we may have our shortcomings, but we are what you once were . It would be m urder. GWYLLM (smiles icily ) : Self-preservation. MATHERS : Have pity . . . GWYLLM : Your so-called civilization wiped out the savages that stood in its way ! The man of the future must do the same with the man of today, before thei r brutality and ignorance can unleash u n i versal destru c t i o n . Isn't that what you wanted, Professor? MATHER S : Heaven help me; I hoped to advance humanity . . . GWYLLM (deadly serious) : You wanted a n answer to the atom bomb. I am that answer. MATHERS (desperately) : Wai t ! For all your intelligence, you don't realize-you have passed the borderline that separates a human being from a biological monstrosity of all mind! You no longer relate to humanity !
Then Mathers pulls out his pistol, which does him no good. The whittled-down version of the script was only forty pages long, and by the (untrue) TV rule of thumb
THf O UHR liMITS COMPANION
Janos Prohaska eyeballs J i l l Haworth ' s 1 96 3 street d u d s .
that one script page equals one minute of running time, something had to be done to fil l 'The S ixth Finger's gaps. 'We had a meeting on the set,' recall s director James Goldstone, 'to determine what we could do that didn't disrupt the structure of the piece, and utilized things we already had at hand-we couldn't build new sets or introduce new actors, and i t had to be the sort of thing that could run twenty seconds or two minutes, depending on how we wanted to play it. I don't recall who among us had the initial idea: What if Gwyllm di scovered music? One of us went, 'Music ! Aha­ mathematics ! ' ' I remember feeling a little bit responsible for suggesting that sequence, ' said David McCallum. 'We came up with the idea of having Gwyllm play the piano in the night, having learned very fast . One scene had me looking through book after book; it was shot over my shoulder as I was turning pages, quite fast. And I found an edition of B ach preludes, flipped open to the music, and paused, j u st for a split second. ' Stefano quickly wrote a five-page insert in which the music from Wil t Morgan's concertina matches with the first notes of Gwyllm's performance, during a dissolve to the house as Mathers i s awakened by the
9�
piano . (This l i n k i s l e s s obvious in the fini shed episode, being u sed as an act break rather than a straight segue. ) 'We sent a prop man t o Wallich's Music City, ' said Goldstone, 'to pick up the new Glenn Gould recording of the B ach preludes, which were performed faster than anyone had ever done them before. I'd heard them within the previous two days, on KFAC as I was driving to the studio. David picked the ones he thought he could master a l ittle fingering for, and then mimed to the record. ' S ince Goldstone wanted to begin the shot with Gwyllm's hands and tilt directly up to his face, no 'cheating' using an off-camera pianist could be involved. McCallum's father was a musician (as 'The S ixth Finger' was being filmed, he was just starting a fifty-eight-city tour with Montovani), and David had spent several years at the Royal Academy of Music as an oboe player. 'I took the recording home and learned enough of it to mime,' McCallum said. 'Joe S tefano wrote the dialogue where Gwyll m talks about i t being a simple matter of mathematics and manual dexterity. B ut you try playing the piano with six fingers sometime-it's not all that easy ! ' I Of Gwyllm's philosophical di scourse with Mathers during this scene, S tefano said, 'I tried to emulate Ellis St. Joseph's fine style. ' The blend between the work of both writers i s seaml e s s . Here , Gwyl l m speaks S tefano's lines : GWYLLM : Amazing, i sn't it, the things that endure the ravages of time and taste? Thi s simple prelude, for i nstance. B ach will quite probably outlive us all . . . . Man produces little that is lasting-truly lasting. It's understandable. Fear,
Proha ska scul pts one of m a ny a pe heads in h i s Sa nta Mon ica workshop.
THf SIXTH flNGm conformity, immoral ity; these are heavy burdens . Great drainers of creative energy. And when we are drained of creative energy we do not create. We procreate; we do not create.
And here, he speaks Ellis St. Joseph ' s : GWYLLM : The human race h a s a gift, Professor, a gift that sets it above all the other creatures that abound upon this planet: The gift of thought, of reasoning, of understan d i n g . The highly­ developed brain . B ut the human race has ceased to develop. It struggles for petty comfort and false security; there is no time for thought. Soon there will be no time for reasoning, and Man will lose sight of the truth !
Gwyllm's observations on the human condition make the piano scene one of Outer Limits ' most captivating moments . 'It was shot within hours of its conception, and it's an example of what is so exciting about film,' said Goldstone. ' You have a problem, and people of good will and creative spirit get together to solve that problem, and have an idea that becomes one of the best scenes in the show. This transcended intellectual point-making with a moment that was visual, and totally sensory. It was fun . ' By 1 96 3 , Goldstone had directed 80-odd TV shows in six years, and his maiden outing on The Outer Limits impressed S tefano enough for him to want the lanky, mellow-voiced director on h i s permanent team. 'Joe tried to get me to do other episode s , ' Goldstone said. ' B ut I was either unavailable, or the scripts weren't what I wanted to do. ' He eventually returned to direct one of the best shows of The Outer Limits ' second season, 'The Inheritors . ' 'The S ixth Finger' would be much diminished without the powerful central presence of David McCal l u m , here making one of his earliest appearances on American TV prior to his worldwide, fast-lane success as The Man From U.N. CLE. 's Illya K uryakin. He had crossed the Atlantic to play Judas Iscariot in The Greatest Story Ever Told, which i s where John Erman found both McCallum and Jill Haworth, then only 1 8 years old. ' I originall y offered the part of Gwyllm to Gary Raymond, ' said Erman. Raymond, late of El Cid and Suddenly, Last Summer, was another of Erman's friends from the cast of Greatest Story. 'Gary thought it was a silly script, undignified for a professional . He told me, 'Oh, no, I
can't do this, I'm a serious actor ! ' So David did it, and was wonderful. I've talked to Gary since then, and he always laughs and says, 'You know, I was a fool to have turned that part down ! ' ' Raymond later became a regular on the Rat Patrol series . St. Joseph met McCallum on the set one day. ' He was terribly shy, ' St. Joseph remembered. 'He came up and said, of the script, 'I hope I can do it j ustice . ' ' First AD Robert Justman adds : ' David d i d a fantastic job. He had to go from a brash young miner to a being that was incredibly intelligent. As he went from stage to stage he changed the way he walked, the way he moved and phrased things . A most amazing interpretation. ' The dangerous, critical-mass aspect of Gwyllm's literally swelling head is conveyed early, as he erupts into rage over his own ignorance: ' What good is intelligence without knowledge? I'm hungry to know things. To learn everything that is. Fetch me books. B ooks about everything. All the books you have. I want to read them all ! ' In The Corn is Green , Morgan Evans voices a similar sentiment. ' I want to get more c lever still , ' he says, surveying a library. 'To know what is behind all them books . ' Gwyllm ' s physical evol ution was the most elaborate prosthetic makeup job ever devised for The Outer Limits . John Chambers (who would win the first-ever Academy Award for makeup in 1 968 for his revolutionary Planet of the Apes designs) made a life-mask of McCallum, then did concept sketches of the three evolutionary phases required. 'I'd seen many movies that u sed appliances on the face, and there always seemed to be a deadness, ' said McCallum. ' I asked John t o retain the mouth, the cheekbones, and my eyes, so I could go for expression . ' Chamber s had the same idea. 'I wanted to keep the basic thread of McCallum's identity through each evolutionary stage, ' h e said, ' b y adhering closely t o h i s physiognomy. Keep the eyes, keep the mouth free. Don't lose sight of the man . ' His first sketch of Gwyllm's final phase incorporated grotesque, bulging eyeballs, which were eliminated. ' Concepts often originate from what a graphic artist thinks will impress the producer, with little regard for feasibility of construction, ' Chambers added. He worked with the Outer Limits company for the first three days of shooting, until called away by a family emergency. 'John designed and made the appliances,' said McCallum. ' And Freddie Phillips put them on me. I
99
THf O UHR liMITS CO MPAN ION used t o come i n about four o'clock i n the morning, and we'd get my head on by about 9 : 00 or 1 0: 00 . ' The other stages of Gwyllm's transformation took about three hours per app lication. Even the l arge , final-stage mask (dubbed ' Dr. S ilvana' by Robert Justman) allowed McCallum a great deal of subtle facial animation, but because of its weight the actor could only keep it on for about four hours at a stretch. ' If you stick a great big thing like that on your face and head,' he said, 'there's also a certain amount of claustrophobia . ' Phillips also improvi sed Gwyllm's brief regression to a Neanderthaloid stage when Cathy reverses the dial on Mathers' evolution machine. ' I gave David a n A b e L i n c o l n beard , s t u c k a quarter-apple into his mouth, and g lued his lips together. They shot it that way. ' The bud of Gwyllm's sixth finger was also a quick on-the-set contrivance by Phillips, who adds, 'It was made from spirit gum, cotton, and sealer in about twenty minutes. They wanted a finger and nobody had bothered to make one . ' A third makeup artist, Harry Thomas , was hired to assist Phillips during the six-day shoot. The Welsh community backdrop was provided by English Towne Street on the MGM lot, and Mrs . Ives' boardinghouse was a Victorian mansion on Lot #2 known as the Vinegar Tree House. The stock footage establishing the Welsh village was lifted from How Green Was My Valley ( 1 94 1 ) , and it was on these same hillsides, on the 20th Century-Fox lot, that a younger James Goldstone used to horseback ride at the time John Ford was filming that picture , which also features characters named Evan s , Morgan , Griffith, and Gwllym. Janos Prohaska returned to The Outer Limits to play Darwin, using his own stage-tour chimp costume. 'Janos was a delight , ' said Goldstone. ' He had tremendous energy, and a sort of puckishness. With the suit on, he became an ape-a Hungarian ape , who'd peek up girls' dresses and say offcolor things. Jill Haworth and the other women on the set were startled to find that this 'ape' was somewhat lascivious when his head was on, and when it was off he was j ust a craftsman with a thick accent, gasping for breath. ' 2 Byron Haskin directed, in postproduction, all the shots of Gwyllm changing inside Mathers' ' sonic chamber'-a long-winded session due to all the makeup changes involved. McCallum describes this duty as ' getting in the box ' . . . and for a time, there was some question as to what should come out of that box at the concl usion of the episode. Dorothy B rown,
WO
M a k e u p a rtist J o h n C h a m bers ' sketc hes depicti ng t h e prog ressive stages of Gwyl l m ' s evol ution . (Cou rtesy Gory Gera n i )
THf SIXTH flNGfR the ABC censor, had objected to the Darwinism and promotion of evolution inherent in 'The S ixth Finger. ' One of the earliest deletions from the script was a speech by Mathers on the taboo topic : MATHERS : In the short span of nine months, every human embryo passes through a million years of its previous evolution-from protoplasm to fish, to amphibian , to furry ape with a tai l , to man . I'm experimenting with a means of continuing this process i n the same lifetime . . .
This process was also referenced in Ellis St. Joseph's original draft of the Control Voice prologue : 'Life--born in the primeval sea which first covered our planet-has evolved out of the water, crawled up on the shore , climbed the trees, then descended and stood upright, to become what we call a human being. But life is still evolving . . . ' These details handily foreshadow the fate the first draft had in store for Gwllym, following his devolution :
132
• 13 3
55.
CONTINUED :
She takes a s t e p toward h im , then s t ops s h o r t ) f r e e z e s . . . a s Gwy l lm ' 5 image b l u r s aga in , pu l s a te s , r e - cmerge s a s a heavy- broNed , ha iry c r e a ture , ha l f - human , half - s im i an .
CLOSE UP - CATHY as
134
she
cries
CLOSE SHOT -
out
132
133
in horro r .
Her
eye s
d i late .
13 4
GLA S S - DOORED CHA1mER
Seen t hru g l a s s d o o r ,
the ha l f - human c rea ture b l urs , p u l s a t e s ; r e - em c r g e s as an ape : then an amph ib i o u s r e p t i l e ; then a s e a c r e a ture w i t h g i l l s gasping on the f l o o r ; then the p r o t o p l a s m i c f o rm o f a j e l lyf i s h , c l ouding i n d e a t h .
,
Dynamo ' s
SOUND
1s
sudd e n l y s i l e n c e d . CUT
135
MED .
CLOSE
SHOT
-
SHARP TO : 135
C O NTROL BOARD
as I'1athcrs turns o f f the g e n e r a t o r T s s w l t h . Behind h im , C o n s t ab l e and othe r arm e d m e n are hurr i e d l y e n te r ing l a b o r a t ory . Cathy has turned away , b u r i e d her f a c e in he r hand s . CAt-lERA FOLLm'J'S Mathe r s , a s he s w i f t ly move s to g l as s ­ d o o red chamber and l o o ks i n S id e . E n t e r i n g SHOT , C o n s t a b l e J o in s h i m t he r e . C ONSTABLE Hherc
is
he ?
In t h e re . 136
F ROM THEIR
P. O . V . ,
CAi>lERA SLO,lLY PULLS
He has origin
•
As
CAMERA HOLDS
M,lTHERS
( g a z i n g downward )
A NGLING DO,INHARD T H R U GLASS I N on 1'iha t
is
f.1ATHERS ' g o n e b a c k t o the o f life . . . on
CLOSE
UP
of
1'HE END !
l e f t o f GVly l lm .
VOI CE very
primeval
136
(0.s . )
s ub s tan c e :
FADE OUT .
A c h a m ber's eye-view of Gwllym ' s progress.
101
THf O UHR liMITS COMPANION
John C h a m bers recreates the ' S ixth F i nger' a p p l i a nce c i rca 1 96 6 .
'That was unpopular with the production people, ' said S t . Joseph . ' S o the way they ended i t in the final version was less apocalyptic . ' 'There was also some discussion that Cathy should open the box and out would j ump this sort of rhesus monkey, ' said McCallum, laughing. ' For that we would've used a real monkey; that would be all that was left of Gwyllm, and he'd go leaping around the room. I still think there's something wonderfu l about the idea of this woman keeping her boyfriend as a pet monkey ! In the ending we did shoot, he comes back 'dead,' and discovers the tear on Cathy's face , which saves him-the classic Matter of Life and Death ending, you know, the tear on the rose. '
101
(Photos cou rtesy David J . D i l l o n l
As McCal l um was to discover, ABC's sensitivity to the topic of evolution was minutely focused: ' I changed one word from the script, and i t had t o do directly with the rel igious aspect of the show. ' As written, Gwyllm's line was, 'It is the goal of evolution; Man's final destiny is to become what he imagined in the beginning when he first learned the idea of the angels . ' McCallum continues : 'I changed it to 'first dreamed the idea,' because it was as if Gwyllm was talking scientifically about angels, and I felt that was totally wrong. I thought someone with a massive intellect would consider the concept of angel s primeval. I was reprimanded b y having t o change i t back, and if y o u l isten, you'll notice that one line i s dubbed in. ' A s t o the idea o f extemporization, McCallum was quick to add: 'In those days, I was still the kid from Glasgow who'd come over to Hollywood. And doing this show and The Forms of Things Unknown' was, for me, wonderful because it wasn't only getting a job and doing a good job, but the ideas and the scripts were wonderful as well . So I don't think there's ever been much of a sense of 'making it up as I went along . ' I mean, scripts are scripts , and writers write those words for a jolly good reason, and I think you should stick to it. ' ' We had all kinds of prolonged meetings in which the question of
THf SIXTH flNGfR evolution was debated, ' said Lou Morheim. 'Our position was that being able to evolve into the future was basic to science fiction, and to kill that would be to k i l l a whole body of science fiction material. ' D irecting A B C ' s attention t o a recent network broadcast of Inherit the Wind also helped. 'In the end we prevailed. The new ending of 'The S i xth Finger' was probabl y more satisfactory to the audience, and the changes we were asked by ABC to make in the beginning were never made . ' What evolved from all thi s was a stimulating and touching drama, one of the best shows The Outer Limits had to offer. ' The main makeup, the big one, was j u s t i s sued as a Hallowe'en mask , ' said McCallum. 'They sent me one. After all these years, now I have my head back. ' The scene uses three different prel ude s . A s i t opens, Gwy l l m plays t h e Pre l ude a n d Fugue # 2 i n C Minor. M o s t o f h i s conversation w i t h M athers i s underscored by t h e Prel ude and Fugue #5 in D M ajor. When he says, 'I shall stop soon, anyway, ' he begins the Prel ude and Fugue #1 in C Major. He does not q u i te fin i s h any of the pieces. 2
McCa l l u m ' i n the box. ' ( I n sert shows Gwyl l m ' s brief cave m a n phase.)
Prohaska used the same costume i n a much l arger role in­ believe it or don't-the 1 967 fi lm Bikini Beac h .
Ha ppy E n d i n g : 'I brought him back, a n d h e ' s glad. H e touched m e . '
TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
T H [ M A N W H O WA S N [ V [ R B O R N Broadcast 2 8 October 1 9 63 Writte n by Anthony Lawre nce Di rected by Leo n a rd Horn Assistant D i rector: Lee H . Katz i n D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: Andro ( M a rtin La n d a u ) , N o e l l e Andresen ( S h i rley K n i g ht), Bertram Cabot (John Considine), Ca pt. Joseph Reardon ( Karl H e l d ) , M rs. McCluskey ( M ax i n e Stu a rt), M i n ister ( M a rlowe Jensen). Old Man [in u n used footage] (Jack R a i n e )
Andro (Ma rti n La ndau) m a kes h i s case to a stronaut Joseph Reardon (Karl Held) .
Here , in the bright, clustered loneliness of the billion , billion stars , loneliness can be an exciting , voluntary thing , unlike the loneliness Man suffers on Earth . Here , deep in the starry nowhere , a man can be as one with space and time; preoccupied, yet not indiffe rent; anxious and yet at peace. His name is Joseph Reardon . He is , in this present year, thirty years old. This is the first time he has made this journey alone . . .
Andro with him as proof of the calamity in store for Earth's future. B ut the second trip through the warp k i l l s Reardon, who fade s to nothingness before Andro's eyes. His dying plea: ' Find Cabot ! Kill him if you have to ! ' B ack in the Earth of 1 96 3 , Andro u ses his power of hypnotic suggestion to conceal his true appearance. Others see him as a tall, haunted, vaguely European gentleman ; his precise and poetical speech (learned from a vast l ibrary of l iterature that is all that remains of our culture in Andro's time) al lows him to pose as a visiting academic. He meets and fal l s in love with Noelle Andresen, an occupant of the boarding house where he takes a room . Though drawn to the mysterious Professor Andro, Noelle is betrothed to an
While cruising in Earth orbit, astronaut Reardon penetrates a non-material barrier that shakes his ship and causes everything aboard to momentaril y negative-reverse. He tries t o raise h i s Project Control and gets only radio static. He immediately lands on a blistered, barren stretch of desert and i s confronted by a gnarled, robe-clad mutant with a face l ike petrified lava. The creature addresses Reardon in Engl ish, says his name is Andro, that this is the planet Earth, and that the year is 2 1 48- 1 85 years after the date of Reardon's lift-off. Andro explains that the wasteland Reardon sees i s essentially the work of a single man-Bertram Cabot, Jr. , who in the late twentieth century nurtured an alien bacterium that got out of control and caused the corruption of human DNA, mass steril ity and global plague that resulted in Andro. Once they decide that Reardon passed through a ' time convulsion' in space, the astronaut opts to return to the past, taking B i l l Brac e ' s forced-perspective pai nting depicting the fa r-future l i bra ry of Andro ' s ' sa fe and dear upholstered memories . '
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THf MAN WHO WAS NfVfR BORN Anny Lieutenant named B ertram Cabot-not the man Andro seeks , but his father-to-be. Andro real izes he must prevent their wedding and the birth of Bertram, Jr. , but his attempt to shoot Cabot at the altar is foiled and he loses hypnotic contro l , appearing i n h i s true form t o the wedding throng and escaping in the ensuing panic. Noelle follows him back into the woods where Reardon's spaceship is concealed, proclaiming her newfound love for him, and insists that now she could never marry the violent Cabot, who is in pursuit of his purloined bride with an impromptu posse. Andro and Noelle escape in the ship and relocate the time warp. As they pass back through into 2 1 48 , Andro realizes his plan to change the world has succeeded-he immediately vanishes , having created a future world into which he was never born . Left in tears, totall y alone, Noelle is stranded in the dark abyss of space. It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beac h , you set up a differen t patte rn , and everything in the world is changed. It can also be said that love can change the future , if it is deep enough , true enough , and selfless enough . It can prevent a wal� prohibit a plague, keep the whole world . . . whole.
'I wanted to do a romantic fairy tal e , ' said screenwriter Anthony Lawrence of 'The Man Who Was Never B orn . ' ' I wanted to touch people emotional ly, with a kind of lyrical , poetic thing that not too many people were doing in TV. ' In this case the fairy tale is Beauty and the Beast, and Joseph Stefano noted, 'Leslie Stevens had this saying-'giving a story a haircut'-which meant altering a classic plot to fit your own devices . ' Lawrence's resul tant telepl ay i s delicate and dreamlike, and lends the tale a resonance worthy of a vintage fable. Though it is the Mobius-strip twist of plot and the bravura performances that make this a perennial favorite among Outer Limits fans , it i s also an ideal anthology script, a peak point for the series both musically and photographically, and a good story, well told-one dense with subtexts, and satisfying on many level s. Andro is one of The Outer Limits ' most tragic heroes . Like the series' more ' humane' aliens, he is warm and sympathetic, but also imbued with a sad romanticism that cripples his outlook j ust as much as it makes him unique and poetical . When he first tell s
J o h n Consid i ne, S h i rley K n i g ht, Martin La nda u .
Reardon that 'time and space are indivisible, ' h e offers (in a deleted l ine) the simile : 'They are as lovers clinging together among the infinite imponderables'­ instantly setting the emotional tone for the entire passion play. The 'safe and dear uphol stered memories' of Andro's 2 1 48 l ibrary make him as much an inhabitant of the nineteenth century as the twenty-second; reared on A n n a Karen ina and ' M ark Twain ' s whole meandering Mississippi, ' he finds himself a fairy tale princess in Noelle, who is herself anachronistic and totally ill-suited for a lock-jawed war hound like Cabot. In a bit of dialogue cut from the original script, she tel l s Andro, ' You don't seem like a professor. You 're more l ike a prince-a cheated nobleman who has been imprisoned for a long time on a desert island somewhere . ' In another cut line, she tells him of her desire to become 'a natural ist, a female Thoreau . ' Always clad in blinding white and frills, Noelle radiates purity l ike a searchlight at a world premiere, and once this princess meets her prince it is pretty clear she can dispense with her fiance altogether. ' I don't love him, ' she muses. 'I don't think I ever did . ' B ut in loving her, Andro speeds his own destruction , and to
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A typ ically maady Outer Limits shot o f Joseph Reardon (Karl Held) i n Ea rth orbit.
save the future Earth (a world that surely would have rejected him since he would still be a mutant, and a damned ugly one at that), he dooms them both. His nobly-motivated mission i s actually a suicide run , since he has seen Reardon d i e on his second pass through the timewarp and has no reason to believe he will be spared the same fate. And even if there was some magical place, neither past nor future, to which these two could flee, their romance i s ultimately unconsummatable. B ertram Cabot, Jr. 's plague has not only left Andro h ideous, like the B east, but sterile. These l iterally star-crossed l overs are allowed only a few moments to be together before oblivion enfolds them both. The strongest theme in 'The Man Who Was Never Born ' deals with the power of i llusions. The most contemporary piece of literature to which Andro refers is The Great Gatsby, in which Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby lives a life that is a self-inflicted tall tale, or, as Andro says of his Professor face, 'a suggestion. ' Gatsby's 'greatness' is wrapped up in the fact that he dreams his dream-life so powerfu l l y and completel y ; seeing things in terms of ideals , as he wants them to be, and
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n o t as they reall y are. Seduced by the literature o f the past, Andro expects the reality of 1 963 to be as refined as fiction, and after fai ling to stop the violent and abrasive Cabot, he opts to neutralize Noelle instead, since she, l ike him, has been chasing illusions most of her life . She dismisses her first glimpse of Andro's mutant form in the forest as a hallucination, and l ater, after his cover is blown at the wedding (where she stares right at him) , she pointedly tells him, 'I didn't see anything, except that you didn't want me to marry h im . ' Noelle will never see anything but Professor Andro. ' I think there ' s an aspect of (Noelle) that's horrified, but also kind of fascinated, ' noted Shirley Knight. ' She becomes almost childlike in her wonder at this man . ' 'The Man Who Was Never B orn ' was also Outer Limits ' first sheer fantasy, if for no other reason than the broad impos s i b i lities in story logic. S ince Reardon's convenient disintegration is never explained, the sheer significance of Andro's death is undermined; the v iewer expects him to vanish as a consequence of traversing the timewarp a second time, and not as a
THf MAN WHO WAS NfVfR BORN result of his rearrangement of history. Several fantastic i t . J o e Stefano i s one o f them . He said, 'Go. Write it the coincidences push the table irretrievably into the realm way you feel it. ' With ' Specimen : Unknown ' and of make-believe: that Andro could pilot Reardon's ' Moonstone' in various stages of production , Stefano spaceship at all (think of flying one of those nice, wanted to avoid doing too many overpriced shows set familiar j umbo jets all by your lonesome, ' autopilot' in outer space. Lawrence handed in his first draft, titled and al l); that Andro, who says he has ' memorized ' Cry of the Unborn , ' in August of 1 96 3 . 'Joe liked it,' every detail of his life , ' would fai l to instantly he said. 'He said I had written something very much recognize Noelle as Cabot, Jr. ' s mother; that Andro's l ike h i s own wntmg, and I fel t extremel y lucky fall to Earth lands him practically in Noelle's complimented. He felt that t o edge away from the backyard at not only the right place, but the right time technological themes would make a more interesting for his purpose. But the fact that Andro overshoots his show, and not just because of the production costs . It target year points up one small bril liance of the script: was also right about this time that ABC started forcing Bertram Cabot, Jr. , i s never seen, only spoken of in awed, hateful tones by Andro. He i s another illusion, him toward the monster-of-the-week. We gave the one Andro creates from history books, pursues, and network what they wanted, and veered off in another never finds. He is the story's true Beast-monster, that direction at the same time . ' i s-and the real man who is never born. Director Leonard Hom's excel lent point-of-view The m i l itant Cabot' s i l lusion i s Noelle, who camera takes us along for the ride, sneaking peeks at abandons him to futilely clutch her wedding veil like the real Andro while the hypnotized, b l i s sful l y some tangible leftover from a ghost. Lawrence says unaware characters like Mrs . McCluskey (Noelle's that the character of Cabot, for him, expressed a sense of rigidity and authority : ' A kind of narrow, mil itaristic point of view. I don't think I was necessarily anti-military, but I felt this was a good way to balance off Andro, who had an ugly exterior but a beautiful sou ! . ' Just as Cabot's I ill usion of wedded bliss with Noelle i s shattered, so does Andro find a prosaic twentieth century that is not at all the antique shadow he expects. S o much of what we see i s his romantic fabrication of the type of world he wishes was his own-particularly the enchanted fores t where h e meets Noelle, his symbolic ideal , h i s Daisy Buchanan. Much o f t h i s intricate weave of illusions becomes clearer on repeat v iewings of the episode. ' I got a telephone call from Joe Stefano,' remembered Martin Landau. ' He said, There's a script on it's way I'd l ike you to have a look at, because I think you'll find the character very interesting . ' The script arrived within the hour, and I read it, and loved it. ' Anthony Lawrence grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs , Ray B radbury, and Jack London ( 'The Star Rover had a tremendous effect on me' ) , and favored the anthology format because, ' You're not stuck with running characters , and you have a chance to do something a little more creative. There are very few people who have afforded me the luxury to Ma rti n La ndau a s Andro poses outside Jack Popl i n ' s spacesh i p mockup (note the write what I wanted, in the way I wanted to write fol iage visible through the ' u n d ra ped ' u pper hatch) . ICou rtesy Bob Burns) .
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Andro ' s s h i p penetrotes the 'time convu lsion . '
landlady) have their backs turned. ' You sound like an Englishman , ' she chirps, as the deformed mutant only we can see stumping up the steps behind her say s , ' Ye s , I'm from London . ' After Andro ' s first confrontation with Cabot, Horn tilts from Martin Landau's perfectly human face to his gnaded and knobby hand, grasping the porch pillar-a subtly done and surprising visual touch that tell s us all we need to know about Andro's hypnotic powers w ithout tedious exposition. First AD Lee Katzin rec alled Horn as cinematically-oriented, emphasizing character, and a workhorse committed to long hours on the set. I ' Lenny was really inventive , ' he said. ' He and Conrad Hall played off each other's talents quite well . ' ' I wanted a romantic look t o contrast the horror content, ' said Hal l , ' so I used a special filter originally designed for enlargers, to soften portraits . ' For the closeups, Hal l draped netting, scrims, or sheer silk
Andro watches helplessly a s Reardon va n i shes: ' I ' m n o t going t o m a ke it through !' . . .
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over the camera lens to diffuse the shot, giving it a filmy, dream like qual ity. The painstaking and time-consuming c amera set-ups are ev ident throughout the show. One such shot i s of Andro and Noelle, as they pause in the forest prior to their blastoff. 'Tell me, Andro, what you really are , ' she say s . A low, subjective angle gives us Martin Landau's head in dead silhouette, framed by bright fol iage . As he responds , ' Ugly, ' his front teeth reflect a hard diamond of l ight. The show's final shot i s most striking: Noelle, alone in the spaceship cockpit, dwindles back and back into space until she becomes j ust another star in the firmament. Hall laid a great deal of camera track down inside KTTV's Stage #2, got the longest boom mike MGM had, and lit only the two cockpit seats, killing every other l ight onstage. Once the camera had pulled far enough away from S hirley Knight, she was repl aced by a photo cutout that was shrunk optically. ' I almost didn't do the part because I was five months pregnant,' said Shirley Knight. ' Everybody was so wonderful; Joe Stefano, Conrad Hal l . I remember asking Martin 'So, are you going to be giving me advice in this other capacity, actor to actor?' And he said, 'Absolutely not. You're on your own . ' Leslie Stevens w a s a very socially conscious man, a loving producer who cared about what he was doing, which i s why he did it so wel l , I think. ' ' S i x days i s not a lot o f time i n which t o shoot a 'mini-movie,' with a lot of special effects , ' noted Landau. 'I was on the same set as myself and as Andro, in an extensive makeup. B ut sometimes a pressure-cooker condition i s very good, because although you're working twelve, fourteen, sixteen­ hour day s , there's something going on-a vital ity, an energy, a sense of creativity. ' The Andro mask supplied by Project Unlimited was so imperfect that most of the Outer Limits crew recalled its ill fit . 'Martin Landau couldn't breathe, ' said Jack Poplin. 'It's too bad some of those things couldn't have been taped; there were some horrendous bloopers that went on. ' Fixing the mask fell to Fred Phillips. ' It was another mask I didn't know anything about until they threw it at me, ' he said. 'The strap that hooked around Landau's neck was not correct, the eyes did not work out, and the impression taken of his face was lousy to boot ! ' The appliance was corrected by Phillips and John Chambers, during Chambers' stint on 'The Sixth Finger. ' Rig ht: Trade ad for 'The Man Who Was N ever Born ' as it a p pea red i n the Hollywood Reporter.
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION the tone of one of Andro's rhapsodies : A n actor fi l l s i n the blanks, breathes life i nto the spaces between the l i nes. That is what i l l u m inates and defines a character. The actor's tools are h i s face, body, voice, and the rainbow of experience and emotion deep inside him which enable him to move from youth to age, health to s ickness, from joy to pain , as a musician changes notes.
Andro and Noelle i n thei r own version o f a n enchanted forest. (Cou rtesy Bob B u rns)
Landau was yet another alumnus of The Greatest Story Ever Told (he played Caiaphas, the High Priest), as was John Considine. While casting Twilight Zone , John Erman had gotten Landau for a show called ' Mr. Denton on Doomsday ' i n 1 95 9 , and h i s friend Considine had j ust completed one, 'The Thirty Fathom Grave, ' at MGM. Shirley Knight, already a two-time Oscar nominee in 1 963, had taken an acting class taught by Landau in 1 95 8 , at which time Landau attended her first wedding, to Ben Perssons. ' B ut that time,' Landau told a newspaper interviewer, 'I didn't pack a gun . ' A confidant and close friend o f James Dean, Landau had begun teaching drama classes in 1 95 5 as an ass istant to Curt Conway (who would later appear in ' Moonstone' and ' Keeper of the Purple Twi light' ) ; in later years, another o f h i s students would b e Warren Oates. Speaking of his own acting technique twenty years later, Landau shared observations in very much
' I think my favorite thing about The Outer Limits was that it was groundbreaking , ' said Shirley Knight. 'At the time you're working on it, you're aware that you're working on something you care about and that the people you're working with are extremel y committed, b u t you're n o t aware o f what people in Hollywood might call its 'legs . ' You're not aware, in 1 963, that people are going to be watching thi s in 1 996 and saying, oh , that's really wondelful, let's talk about that, let's look at that again . It's l ike rediscovering something you thought was lost, but isn't, because a lot of people found it. You do an awful lot of work, and there are things that stand out, and The Outer Limits is definitely one; it's nice to see it has survived. When people ask me to see some of my work, they always want something recent, so I say, 'Wel l , look at Indictment: The McMartin Trial . . . and also look at The Outer Limits. It's nice that it has survived . ' Once Anthony Lawrence's title was changed, his teleplay underwent minimal trimm i n g . 2 One significant deletion was Andro's explanation that his psychic powers are another side-effect of the Cabot symbiote. The biggest change was the elimination of Lawrence's final scene, which was to follow the shot of
Bertra m Ca bot Wo h n Considi ne) gets the vei l but loses the bride.
THf MAN WHO WAS NfVfR BORN
A poetical shot of Andro conte m p lating possi ble futu res .
Noelle, stranded in space. She awakes, as if from a dream, on a grassy knoll , and calls out for Andro, who is nowhere to be seen. Then she encounters a kindly, middle-aged man , piloting an air-car: MAN : Could I help you? NOELLE (after a pause) : What is this place? MAN : It i s London. (smiles) That is, if you follow this road, you w i l l come into the Old Town. NOELLE : And the time? MAN : The time? NOELLE: The year? MAN (a smile , then ) : Tw e n t y - 0 n e - fo r t y ­ eight. Are you lost? NOELLE (pauses): No. Just alone.
This scene was filmed on the MGM backlot, on the third day of principal photography, with Jack Raine as the future man. Set dressing for the scene specifies that the obelisk­ the sole topside distinguishing feature of Andro 's ravaged world-remains visible in the distance. Lee Katzin recalled the vehicle used was a hovercraft : ' I t was a futuristic-looking thing, but it sure didn't work terribly wel l . ' Most likely it was the ' space tax i ' left over from Forbidden Planet,
a l s o utilized on The Twilight Zone. This epilogue was cut because it ran the show into overtime. While it demonstrates that everything is indeed all right in the revi sed future , it suggests the cop-out that the whole drama was j ust a dream of Noelle's . Eliminating it provided The Outer Limits with one of its most memorable downbeat endings (counterbalancing that of 'The Sixth Finger, ' which had been revised to be more upbeat), and Lawrence was pleased with the new finale: ' It gave the show a mystique which the other ending did not have, and that made it much more interesting . ' Like Dav id McCallum, Lawrence was to also work with George Pal on the never-to-be-realized Odd John project. 'I stil l get mail when that episode shows, to this day, ' noted Martin Landau . 'I loved the texture of that show. It was a very beautifu l piece; thought­ provoking, as well . I'd like to see that sort of thing happen again . I would say, 'Hey, pay attention-if you could do this thirty years ago, why can't you do it now ? '
Hom died i n 1 975 a t the age o f 49. 2 The altered title i s frequently m i sremembered by both O U ler L im its fans and crewpeople alike as The Man Who Never Was-th e
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fi l m
about WWlI ' s
fam o u s
Operat ion
M i ncemeat.
Not-So-Happy E n d i n g : S h i rley K n i g h t fades out i n Conrad H a l l ' s a m b itious c l o s i n g shot
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M O O N STO N [ Broad cast 9 M a rch 1 9 64 Written by Wi l l i a m Bast. Story materi a l by Joseph Stefa n o and Lou Morheim. Di rected by Robert Florey Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: J o h n Nickolaus CAST: Prof. D i a n a Brice ( R uth Roman). G e n . Lee Stocker (Alex Nicol). Major Clint Anderson (Tim O'Connor). D r. Philip M e n d l ( C u rt Conway). Lt. Ernie Travers ( H a ri Rhodes). G r i p p i a n Vo ice (Ben Wri g ht). Scanner U n it Vo ice (Vic Perri n ) .
A gang of Grippians eyeball thei r prospects on Ea rth ' s Moon .
In Man 's conquest of space , his own moon must be the first to surrender. From there he will step his way across the heavens to the edge of infinity. Each step will be as uncertain as the last, yet each will bring h im closer to ultimate truth . Lunar Expedition One: Here a handfu l of brave scientists and technicians pave the way to the future . Their mission : To collect information that will eventually enable Man to inhabit the Moon ; to use the Moon as a springboard to the stars. Once during each twenty-four hour period, a force of thre e , commanded by Genera l Lee Stocker and including Lieutenant Travers and Major Clint Anderson , makes its slow, uncharted way across the lunar sUiface, a sUlface whose depths and desires are , as yet, unprobed . . .
During one o f their dail y moonwalks, Maj or Anderson falls into a crater ful l of quicksand-like moondust and finds a radiant white spheroid buried there. This basketball-sized ' moonstone' turns out to be a space vessel containing five fugitives from the planet Grippia-monocular, anemone-like beings who are on the run from the tyrants who have conquered their homeworld and would use their collective genius to create new weapons for the invasion and enslavement of other planets. General Stocker agrees to transmit a signal that will lead a rescue ship to the fugitives, who then begin feeding their vast knowledge
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into the moonbase's computers . The resident scientists are astounded by the new facts and formulae . B ut the hoped for rescue ship has already been wiped out by the tyrants, who follow the signal and arrive in a much l arger sphere, demanding the immediate return of the renegade Grippian s . Stocker, once faced with a similar no-win situation during the Korean War, refuses, and the tyrants commence obliterating the moonbase. To prevent the devastation, the five Grippians opt to surrender, but before the l arger moonstone can absorb them, they blow themselves to c inders. 'Well, that's one way to defeat the tyrants , ' says A nderson. S tocker's fiancee Diana Brice, realizing that Stocker has been haunted by g u i l t over h i s identical ineffectiveness in Korea, agrees , ' It was the only way. ' The tyrants retreat into space, empty-handed. The steps Man takes across the heavens of his universe are as uncertain as those steps he takes across the rooms of h is own life. And yet if he walks with an open mind, those steps must lead h im even tually to that most perfect of all destinations, truth .
' One time , ' said Leslie Stevens, 'Lin Parsons was walking down a hall way near Joe Stefano's office, carrying a l arge l ightbulb; you know, one of those spherical l ampshades. Joe spotted him, pointed at the bulb, and said, 'There's our next show-he's holding a moonstone! ' At first, the seamless Grippian sphere was to have been a l arge wooden bal l , over which optical effects
MOONSTONf would be superimposed, but Parsons Leon manager production and Chooluck managed to scare up one of the milky, oversized globes they'd seen hanging from the streetlamp posts in Beverly Hills. John Nickolaus recalled that choruses of ' B ring on the street lamp ! ' greeted the prop during filming, and the crew consensus was that their 'moonstone' was as hot as a pistol. ' My idea was to come up with creatures so small they could fit inside that lamp,' said Lou Morheim. The story, unfortunately, is built entirely around this v isual gimmick, and hampered by the same stale s c i-fi cl iches that handicap ' Specimen : Unknown. ' Though the plight of the very seems Grippians runaway momentous, it fails to hang together The Moonstone, s u peri m posed over a C h esley Boneste l l l u n a r pai nting titled 'The Straight Wa l l . ' convincingly. Several times they moonbase, and then make a deal w ith Stocker's people express a nebulous need for 'energy, ' yet none of the based on a trade of scientific information so far in moonbase's forms of power are usefu l to them even advance of our own science that it i s impossible to though they somehow intend to energize themselves Rather than addressing these questions, the verify. on Earth. They are too weak to send an SOS to the script i s too busy substituting plot motion for moonbase, or Grippia, but powerful enough to revive substance by j umping from the tiresome trappings of Anderson from an electrical mishap with a brilliant moon walking to alien platitudes, from the already­ light beam, and blow themselves to smithereens at the dated Korean War references to lunar soap opera (a finale. They don't seem to realize that the signal beam love triangle among Diana, Stocker, and Anderson) . they aim ' in the direction of Grippia' will give away Even the Control Voice speech i s lacking. Beyond their exact location to any Grippian who cares to tune tell ing us what we can already see on screen, there is in. And while they quite loftily advise Stocker that ' If an oblique riff about questing for truth that relates you are ever to destroy evi l , you must survive to fight directly to nothing we see in the episode. it, ' they have absolutely no qualms about wiping ' Anytime we began to get really science jictiony, themselves out and leaving their human benefactors I knew we were in trouble , ' said Stefano. ' 'Moonstone' defenseless and at the mercy of a gang of extremely caused a lot of problems, as did any show calling for then guys-who bad Grippian aggravated 'futuristic' qualities. The things we could afford to do conveniently turn tail and split without any vengeful were tight, n atural istic dramas and Gothic aggression, although earlier they stomp the base's melodramas . ' After the strong character motivation scanner unit flat j ust to exhibit their muscle. Yes , they seen in 'The S ixth Finger' and 'The Man Who Was behave barbarically, but no differently than most Never B orn , ' ' Moonstone' i s thin beer indeed, and a bounty hunters might under similar c ircumstances. In big step backward for The Outer Limits . fact, there is no real proof that the Grippians in the The teleplay w a s a one-time assignment for writer little moonstone are benevolent; they could easily be William B ast, and a one-time job for director Robert smooth-talking criminals who con the Earth-folk into Florey, an old-guard film industry veteran whose work harboring them from their own police. Stocker never in ' Moonstone' is competently done, but flat and speaks to the supposed tyrants and all communication uninvolv i n g . John Nickolaus characterized it as is relayed via the fugitives, who don't bother to reveal ' l acking any distinctive style. ' The cast was headed by themselves until long after being brought to the
THf O UTfR liMITS CO MPANION fictional Earth future not to include My Lai or Lt. William Calley. Anderson is not only repel lent, but also a bit of a stumblebum-it i s he who blunders into the pit of ' l unar quicksand' and, later, plunges drunkenly into the exposed w iring of a control console. This latter accident, from which the Grippians revi v e Anderson, is utterly phony­ l ooking. Written in the script as a fall from an overhead catwalk, it was oversimplified, and O'Connor's stunt man appears to purposefully dive right into the machine's guts . B ast's script contained some spectacular action scenes, most of which were not done for logistical and budgetary reasons . Here is what was to happen when Stocker tries to load the moonstone onto the base's shuttlecraft, to escape: ( With in the larger Moonstone) Hundreds of eyes shine ominously, glowing more and more brightly until thei r i ridescence i s nearly hypnotic. Then, suddenly, they attack - hot rays of light zoom downward . One by one, the eyes rotate out of the oval eddy, moving slowly in the direction of the dome. In an endless stream they pour fort h . Two space-suited men have started run n i n g now, c l u m s i ly, awkwardly trying to win the frustrating Alex N icol (L) a n d Ti m O ' Connor recover the benevolent Moonstone on Jack Popl i n ' s lunar battle against weight-Iessness, the lunar set. The cyclora ma (with the visible sea m) was provided by MGM; you may remem ber the dust, and their c umbersome spacesuits. mounta i n spires i n the background from Forbidden Planet. The eyes hover c l oser and c loser . (One of the men steps into a pit of moondust another Outer Limits Odd Couple: Ruth Roman and is sucked under. His partner is cornered by delivers the only performance with any humanity and the stream of eyes) . . In a pathetic gesture of Alex Nicol (who directed the grade Z horror film The defiance, he grabs a large rock and throws it Screaming Skull in 1 95 8 ) i s stiff and i l l-at-ease as with hatefu l fury at the giant eye. His figure is illuminated by the beam , frozen in negative for Stocker, whose indecision makes him seem confused, an i n stant - a gallant, defiant statue - then unsympathetic, even criminally stupid. Stocker's dissolves into nothing. extra-corny courtship of Diana B rice i s riddled with . .
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l udicro u s dialogue, as when he compares the Moonstone's inscrutab i l ity to that of 'a woman scientist,' or mawkishly asks Diana to be his ' moon bride . ' Tim O'Connor's Anderson maintains a hysterical dislike of Stocker that far outweighs the General 's somewhat foggy war crimes. ' Ask him what it feels like to know you're responsible for the massacre of a whole vill age , ' Anderson snarls, in a
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As originall y written, Dr. Mendl dies in a fiery explosion of the base's l aboratory dome, but his revised death scene at the hands of the Grippian invaders is still stirring. Explosions chase him around the lab, and he bursts through a pair of swinging doors to fal l at Stocker's feet. He is momentarily spot-lit by the death-beam , which v aporizes him as Diana
MOONSTONf screams, then dwindles to a tiny dot of white light on the now-bare floor. Several dialogue bits cut from B ast's script try their best to offer the principals some depth, such as an exchange in which Stocker ruminates on his proposal of marriage to Diana: 'Wouldn't you enjoy being the first woman married on the Moon ? ' he asks . ' You could sell your story to every l ittle magazine, for the littlest of those poor, Earth-bound people who read every little magazine . ' Diana reveals she i s a widow, and that she had no feeling for her first husband, either. ' Moonstone' i s partially redeemed by some splendid v i s u a l s , i n c l uding an extravagant ' lunar exterior' built by Jack Poplin on KTTV's Stage #2. It is a dark moonscape with jagged mountain s and columns of rock, floored in a good five­ The lead Grippian bad·g uy eye cuts loose at Dr. Mend l . . the ' s uited' dialogue. The shot depicting the big inch depth of sand. 'That 'sand' was a very Moonstone's ravagement of the remote scanner unit light material used normally for insulation, ' said was added at the last minute. ' S tock footage ' from a Poplin, ' an aggregate that functions as a bonding agent 1 95 9 Men Into Space episode ( 'Caves of the Moon, ' for plaster. We'd dye whole barrel s of it different written by Meyer Dolinsky) w a s overdubbed t o colors; you'd get differing values on black-and-white establish the scanner, then a painted-out freeze-frame film. I designed all the Outer Limits sets basically in was inserted to depict it, post-attack. color; it did something for the actors . I got the moon Paintings by astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell backdrops from MGM, and we built the rock columns were used as background plates for the many shots of to hide the gaps between them . ' John Nickolaus remembered, 'The l unar skyscape was a deep blue backing that was lit around the edges . ' While technically e lementary by today's standards, the life-sized set i s a grand achievement considering the small scale of TV, and looks as good as any similar set used in science fiction theatrical features up to that time. Much of the astronautical gear resident to The Outer Limits c ame courtesy of the Ziv-UA series Men Into Space, from the distinctive helmeted suits (with weighted lead sandals) to the ' space pi lot seat' first seen in ' Specimen : Unknown ' and 'The M an Who Was Never Born . ' In ' Moonstone , ' a broad strip of black tape was added to the lower portion of each helmet visor, so that the actors' lip movements would not have to match the post-production dubbing of all . . . who staggers a round the l a b prior to getti ng eva porated .
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION several quotable sentiments, such as, 'The mind earns by doing; the heart earns by trying . ' Or: 'In the end, it is usually the good minds who enable evil to thrive. ' B u t for the most part, the speeches are slow and repetitious . On hearing them again years later Ben Wright remarked, ' What a gabby old poop ! ' ' I don't dislike any of the Outer Limits episodes,' said Leslie S tevens, 'but some of them are hysterical , for a l l t h e wrong reason s . ' Case i n point : ' Moonstone. ' 'It had an entity in the middle of it that talked, and everything it said was absolute bi lg e ! We went into hysterics every time it spoke ! ' Stefano suggested Hari Rhodes for the part of Lt.
The Men Into Space stock shot of the sca n n i n g u n i t .
the two Moonstones cruising against the lunar surface. S ince Bonestell also worked on Men Into Space (he received an individual credit on each episode for ' space concepts ' ) , the pre-fab footage was a near­ perfect match-up. The Grippians themselves were designed at Project Unlimited by the father and son team of Marcel and Victor Delgado. ' We worked up a variety of small models with tendri l s , ' said Gene Warren. 'The 'eyes' were dressed-up, tissue-papered ping pong ball s held on sticks . ' The Grippian puppets were filmed inside a water tank so that their ' hair' would drift about as they swayed and moved. The mostly ponderous Grippian monologues were dubbed by Ben Wright, and as was customary for Outer Limits ' more thoughtful aliens, they express
NEW TIME! t h e f u r t hest l i m i t s of known f a c t . . . and h'vflncH Discover adventure never before dreamed of . or even dared . . . as science and fiction meet !
Travel to
Travers, whereupon one of ABC's brain boys pointed out that Rhodes was black. ' Or, at that time, a Negro actor, ' said S tefano. What ruffled the network was that Rhodes had been proposed for a part ' not specifically written for a black actor. S o they said, 'Well, write it in the script: black actor. Stefano scribbled this onto his copy of the teleplay on the spot. Case closed. It i s to be hoped that the lack of a complicated story and the v ariety of sets and special effects perhaps made this Outer Limits episode more accessible to the mass TV audience. B ut it is no pun to say that, ultimately, ' Moonstone' is more a show for the eyes than the brain . '
T h e G r i p p i a n tyra nts zero i n on t h e moon base d o m e .
0.8.1I.
0 . 8 . I .T.
I
Broadcast 4 November 1 9 63 Written by M eyer Do l i n s ky D i rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assista nt D i rector: L e e H . Katz i n Di rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: Senator Jeremiah O r v i l l e ( Peter B reck). Byron L o m a x (J eff Corey). Col. G rover (Alan Baxter). O r Cl ifford Scott ( H a rry Townes). B a rb a ra Scott ( J o a n n e G i l b e rt). Clyde Wyatt (Sam Reese). Or P h i l l i p Fletcher ( Konstantin Shayne). Fred Severn [OBIT operative] (Jason Wingreen). Capt. J a m e s H a rrison ( R o b e rt Beneveds). Or Anderson ( Lindsay Wo rkm an). Arm a n d Yo u n g e r (Chuck H a m i lton). O B I T Creature (Wi l l i a m O. D o u g l as. J r.).
Capt. Ha rrison (Robert Beneveds) looks h i s onco m i n g death i n the eye .
In this room , twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the D efense Department's Cypress Hills Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through OBIT, a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained, but for the facts you are about to witness.
The Outer B and Individuated Teletracer - OBIT - is a hellishly precise surveillance machine that i s thrown into a n unwanted spotlight by a m urder investigation. While spying on Cypress Hills scientists and dutifully logging their assorted transgressions, Capt. Harrison spots a 'phantom image' on the screen which resolves into a one-eyed albino monster. Its fearsome claws c lose on air, as if choking a pantomime victim. At that moment, human hands slap around Harrison's neck, and he watches the creature on the screen strangle h i m . This k i l l i n g prompts an investigation into Cypress Hills and OBIT by Senator Orville. The head of the research base, Clifford Scott, has vanished following a ' mental collapse, ' and i n his stead i s administrator B yron Lomax. The extent and uses of O B IT shock Orv i l l e ; it has seemingly permeated all levels of society. As the hearings progress, the OBIT creature and other operatives are
seen attempting to locate the m i s s ing S cott and e l i m inate all witnesses for the prosecution. One initially hostile witness, Col. Grover, breaks down on the stand in horror at OBIT's true nature and leads Orville to Scott, who is not crazy, but hiding out at a mental institution because he saw the same monster on the OBIT screen, and discovered it was Lomax himself! The murdered Henderson had been working for S cott, with orders to monitor Lomax. Scott i s produced as a surprise witness and uses the machine to expose Lomax to the court, but Lomax holds everyone at bay long enough to deliver a grandiose speech. He gloats that ' the machines are everywhere , ' and they will demoralize and divide the population of Earth, making us easy invasion fodder for his race. As he speaks, his gestures are duplicated on the OBIT screen by his alien alter ego. B efore sentries can apprehend h i m , Lomax reverts to h i s true form and dematerializes. Agents of the Justice Department are rounding up the machines now. But these machines, these inventions of another planet, have been cunningly conceived to play on our most mortal weakness. In the last analysis, dear friends , whether OBIT lives up to its name or not will depend on you .
'I'm very much in love with freedom , ' said Meyer Dolinsky. ' B ut I'm also concerned that we do have restraints against extreme totalitarianism. The political focus of 'O.B .LT' is all mine; it's a reverse on the
1 11
TH f O UHR liMITS �O MPANION
H.U.A.C. thing. These people, far from helping a free society, are really its worst enemy, in the sense they breed so much hostility and fear that they curiously accomplish the very thing they are trying to prevent. Witch-hunting i s the wrong way to go about it. ' The 'peeping Tom ' nature of the OBIT machine neatly impl icates the TV viewer as wel l , in Dolinsky's slick plot about moral conquest. As the OBIT men spy on their subjects, they are in turn watched by the Outer Limits audience, who, by extrapolation, is probably also being monitored. ' People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from OB IT, ' says Lomax-an innocuous-sounding policy statement that permits him to psychologically undermine our entire planet. Importantly, ' O . B .LT' demonstrates that the exposure of a sinister plot is not in itself a remedy, and stresses the need for forthright action before it i s too late. The decision to act, or to ignore the plot and be destroyed, rests with us. Stefano had read an obscure book on the invasion
of privacy theme, which he pas sed along to Dolinsky. ' Originally, I had the OBIT machine all over the place, ' said Dolinsky, who submitted a script with a fair amount of globe-trotting action centered around the device. 'I changed it because they wanted to cut costs; my canvas had been wider. I confined it to the Army base, which helped the dramatics but wasn't as much fun . ' While working superlatively as both a cautionary fable and a tight courtroom drama, ' O . B . LT' could also do w ithout its eccentrically designed monster. 'We didn't need it,' Dolinsky stressed. ' Our concept was for an x­ ray type camera that could see through buildings. It became personified in the monster and the monster was the sort of thing we had to invent for the network . ' 'The script had very l ittle action o n the page, ' said S tefano. ' B ut Gerd Oswald transformed it. ' Oswald had a wealth of experience filming gavel­ operas by v irtue of his work on Perry Mason. I Limited to very basic sets and lengthy inquest sequences, he experimented with chiaroscuro tricks. ' S ometimes I'd dare Connie Hall to do something and he'd always do it,' he said. ' We'd generally opt for the unconventional . ' One example is how Oswald chose to shoot Jeff Corey, as Lomax : 'I kept moving closer to him in stages , until I could focus on one of his eyes through his eyeglasses, and the reflections in the glass, to build the menace. ' This forms one e lement of a 'monster eye' motif that is competently s ustained throughout the show. The creature glimpsed through the static on the OBIT screen i s appropriately Cyclopean-a thoughtful effect achieved by tilting the actor's head inside the alien mask so that his real eye peers from dead center. The OBIT's circular screen recal l s the earliest round­ screened TV sets, and symbolizes the invasive nature of this new medium by suggesting a more complex technology, such as that of a radar scope. The dull , utilitarian rooms in which the hearings are conducted are broken up by patterns of c i rc u lar blobs of background lighting. The arrangement of tables and chairs is arena-like, also circular, as are the distortive, bottle-bottom spectacles worn by Lomax . In the show's final shot, Oswald pulls up into a high-angle, omniscient-god point of view. . . as though everyone is still being quietly watched. Jeff Corey had gone under the microscope of the House Un-American Activities Committee himself in
0.8.11 1 95 1 , and again i n 1 95 3-and was blackl isted for sticking to h i s rights under the First and Fifth Amendments. His burgeoning career as a character actor suddenly in limbo, and his service as a decorated World War II naval combat photographer irrelevant to the HUAC's 'name-naming' sessions, Corey i nvesting the ensuing decade in college study and teaching acting c l a s se s . He did not act professionally again until The Untouchables ( 1 960) , and was cast in The Outer Limits shortly after completing Yellow Canary ( l 963 )-a breakthrough job that l iberated him from the blacklist, courtesy of Pat Boone. In an interview done for Starlog (December, 1 989) by Kathryn M. Drennan, Corey noted that he enj oyed ' O . B .LT. ' and said, of the blackl ist, 'I just couldn't be an informer. I know I've got guts, and I know I care so much for my country. I demonstrated it. ' ' I love 'O. B . LT,' ' said Oswald. ' There i s absolutely n o action i n i t and t o sustain that for an hour show was remarkable. ' The episode i s ful l of excellent dialogue, powerfully delivered. Here i s the j i ttery Dr. Scott, explaining what he tuned in on the OBIT screen: SCOTT: When I told them what I saw, they g o t very quiet, and looked at me with great, quiet eyes. Quiet can tell you so much. Until they looked at me that way, I was certain that I had seen what I had seen. Dead certain. Of course, I hadn't. It was j ust that my l i fe had become a n ightmare, so natural ly I saw the sort of things that inhabit a nightmare world. I saw a monster. When I told them that, they got very quiet.
The close-cropped Col . Grover, staunchly militant, approves of the OBIT at first. . . and then is horrified by it: GROVER: It's awful-a �ful! I feel responsible; I should've spoken out. . . It's the most hideous creation ever conceived ! No one can l augh, or joke. It watches , saps the very spirit. And the worst thing of al l i s I watch it. I can't not look. It's like a drug-a hOlTible drug. You can't resist it. It's an addiction !
Th u s , Dolinsky smoothly sl ipped h i s critical scalpel into the old one-eyed monster itself­ telev ision. Thanks to the engaging tension between Orville and Lomax, the plot moves briskly, and the gaps left by the lack of TV's usual running around are fi lled by the well-de l i vered contributions of the
Wi l l i a m O . Doug las, J r. as the Helosia n .
supporting players . As w ith ' Specimen : Unknown, ' Oswald builds the whole show toward a s ingle c l imactic moment, but here the payoff is no d i s appointment , as Lomax holds the .c ourt momentarily spellbound. LOMAX : The machines are everywhere ! Oh, you'l l find them al l ; you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show out of smashing a few of them, but for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built, and they'll demoral ize you, break your spirit, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them ! You're a savage, despairing planet. And when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired . . . You're all of the same dark persuasion-you demand, insist on knowing every private thought and hunger in everyone. Your fam i l ie s , your neighbors, everyone hut yourselves!
1 19
TH f OUTfR liM ITS COM PANION Anderson is seen ' spreading agar o n petri dishes with platinum wire' which we, the viewers, cannot see-another visual quirk which contributes greatly to the show's quietly unsettling undercurrents. The music which opens Act Three is a Dominic Frontiere cue originally composed for the failed Daystar pilot Mark Vickers : Master of Weapons, as the signature theme for the main character. Years later the Wah Chang-sculpted OBIT mask turned up on a guest monster in an episode of The Munsters , while the OBIT console (sans screen) ironically became the center of worldwide communications for Leo G . Carroll on Th e Ma n From UN. CLE.
Lomax demon strates OBIT to Senator Orvi lle ( Peter B reck) .
To which Senator Orville responds (in a cut line) , 'Thank you for your speech. It will be engraved on your tombstones. ' Also omitted from the script i s one line revealing the origin of the aliens to be a planet called Helos . The black pun in the Control Voice's tag speech is Dolinsky's, as was the notion that OBIT only focuses on living targets, rendering the tools they use or the articles they hold invisible on the monitor screen . Thus, Joanne Gilbert, as Barbara, pantomimes smoking a c igarette ; earlier, Dr.
All characters appearing on the OBIT monitor were shot on color film to accommodate the blue-screen process. Better­ known today than in 1 96 3 , blue-screen (or blue­ backing) uses a background either colored blue or illuminated with blue light, in front of which actors are posed and lit with white light. The film is printed so that everything colored blue is eliminated, leaving the actors on a 'blank' background which can then be manipulated to the desired dramatic effect. Curiously, this means that many of the creatures seen in The Outer Lim its had to be filmed in color, though they were never intended to be seen that way. (Unfortunately, none of this process or workprint footage has survived.) ' O . B . I .T's broadcast caused Daku (the same Variety critic who had panned 'The Galaxy Being') to opine : 'The Outer Limit� has successfully overcome a mediocre start with a succession of good sci-fi stories that have establ ished this as a unique and interesting series . . . [this] teleplay has a lot of bite, and the moral is obvious. '
I
Oswald directed many segments of Perry Mason for Ben B rady, who was l ater to become producer of The Outer Limits ' second season .
Lomax revea ls h i s i n most a l ien self to the court.
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Pa u l Richards, Eduard F ra n z a n d Joseph Cotten pretend to ig nore the Theta n i n their m idst d u r i n g a photo session for the 1 963 ' F a l l Preview' issue of TV Guide. (Photo by Gene Tri ndl)
During ' O . B . I . T' ' s second day of shooti n g , September 1 6th, 1 963, while Gerd Oswald and h i s crew were working into the dinner hour on KTTV's Stage #4, The Outer Limits ' network premiere lit up TV sets across the country with 'The Galaxy Being . ' Hyperbolic press releases from AB C c laimed: 'No,
this season on television won 't be the same old stuff. These will be television programs of conspicuous excellence . Over one hundred million dollars has been spent in eight months to bring America this completely new kind of television . ' The 'New AB C ' s vanguard o f shows included 1 00 Grand, two variety
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TH f OUTfR liM ITS COM PANION series alternately hosted b y S i d Caesar and Edie Adams, The Farmer's Daughter, and a disastrous, two-hour l ive talk show hosted by Jerry Lewi s . Other than The Outer Limits , only one of these 'conspicuously excellent' shows remains i n syndication today-Th e Fugitive , starring Dav i d Janssen. The Outer Limits was covered in Look, Time , and Newsweek. Numberless newspaper fil lers were written around publ icity shots of the monsters . TV Guide did several pieces; one, 'They Deal i n Ideas-and Outer Space' was a career overview of the S tevens/Stefano team intelligently written by Richard Gehman. The Thetan from ' Architects of Fear' appeared in the ' Fall Preview' i ssue for 1 96 3 , posed i ncongruously between Paul Richards and Eduard Franz of Breaking Point, and Joseph Cotten of Hollywood and the Stars. A whole gang of monsters got to mug for a photo feature called 'Now, Everyone say CHEES E , ' published in TV Guide the same week as the episode 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' was broadcast. The series never made the cover of TV Guide, except as a blurb above a photo from The Andy Griffith Show. Apart from a cartoony rendering of the Galaxy Being used in local TV l i stings and on promotional b i llboards around Hollywood, apparently the only piece of publicity art done for The Outer Limits was a painting, also based on the pi lot, by Charles Schneeman. Considered a 'discovery ' of Astounding Stories (today known as Analog), Schneeman was a stalwart of the science fiction pulps whose artwork dated to Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories in ] 9 3 4 . Today the painting is owned by Stefano's son, Dominic (see Page 8).
Outer Lim its gum cards with wra pper ( Ll .
112
ABC tried to evolve a mystique around the Outer Limits monsters by never showing them in the earliest commercials for the program . In one spot, the Control Voice spiel plays out against the fluctuating sine-wave pattern used to preface Please Stand By ; thi s i s fol lowed by the radio tower explosion from 'The Galaxy Being' and a slow-motion shot of Nina Foch thrashing around in 'The B orderland. ' In a later, even more confu sing ad, the Control Voice tells us, 'Thrill to the awe and mystery of the h idden world. ' Then a different voice continues : ' You will journey into strange realms of science fiction. You will journey through uncharted galaxies, from the inner mind of Man to THE OUTER LIMITS . . . every week on ABC. ' This i s backed by a rapidfire succession of clips from eight epi sodes-none showing a monster (with the exception of the energy cloud wiping out the Finley l iv i ng room in The Man w ith the Power ' ) , making the spot a very odd compendium of characters' reaction shots. Even stranger was an ABC special touting the new fal l lineup. Called What's New, it opened with the Outer Limits i nterference/sine-wave pattern , with a wife-to-husband voice over: 'Look, Charlie-what's that? ' 'Gee , honey, / don 't know what it is . . . ' '/ never saw anything like that before . . . ' ANNO UNCER : Of course not-it's NEW!
After a tinkly dance-band i ntro and (no kidding) a song about the new fal l shows sung by Edie Adams the voices of the vapid Charli e and h i s twilight wife returned:
fVfRY800Y SAY �HHSf
An Outer Limits ' fa m i ly portra it' from the early part of the first season (L-R) :The m a n with 'The Sixth F i nger, ' the G a laxy Being (note that the suit has been spray-pa i n ted si lver for p u b l i c ity photog ra phy) , the m a n g led clay head of Wi l l i a m Lyon s Selby from 'The H u n d red Days of the Dragon , ' a Lu m l noid from 'A Fea s i b i l ity Study, ' Andro from 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' Ichthyosaurus Mercurius from 'Tourist Attraction , ' a n d C h i l l Charlie from 'The H u m a n Factor. ' A n d n o , these a re n o t t h e orig i n a l actors. (Photo by Gene Tri ndl)
'Oh-oh , there if is again , Charlie! ' 'There 's nothing to he afraid of, honey ; it's only Science Fiction . '
Charl i e i s cut short b y a boom i n g , echo­ chambered, haunted house voice that b e l l o w s , 'OUTERRRR LIMITS ! ' Leslie Stevens m u s t have been amused and dismayed; here was the awe and mystery of the universe colliding head-on with the audience he had once called ' your basic trailer park;
the Panorama City Lube Pit. ' All clips in this preview show were from 'The Galaxy Being , ' most notably the Being's first discourse with Cliff Robertson, presented almost in its entirety. Monster magazines eagerly did their bit. The O u ter Lim its was enth u s i astical l y pre v iewed i n Famous Monsters of Filmland and even received a few encouraging critical comments (pl u s good photo coverage) from the inimitable Castle of Frankenstein . A set of fifty Outer Limits gum cards was minted
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
The Outer Lim its board game cover, featu ring a Theta n , C h i l l Charlie (sort of) , a n d . . . what?
by a company called B ubble s , Inc . , (the s ame imprimatur of Topps which produced the Mars Attacks! card set in 1 962) featuring color-tinted photos from the show backed by some of the most outrageous captions ever conceived. A shot of the 'bear' from 'Don't Open Til l Doomsday' was t itled 'The Brainless Glob' and summed up by copywriter Len B rown as follows : A spacecraft from a distant planet lands on Earth . When the spaceship took off, the fami l y completely forgot about their pet Glob. Globs are kept as pets by these space people and are given the same love as people on Earth give to their puppies. But Globs exist for love and die without it. When the people on Earth see the Glob sitting alone, they run away in fear. And the poor, sad Glob dies of a broken heart.
Needless to say, thi s has nothing to do with ' Don't Open Till Doomsday, ' although its suppositions are almost as wild. In 1 984, a complete set of the Outer Limits cards was l isted in a collector's catalogue with a price tag exceeding $ 1 200 ! About ten years later, a reprint set of the cards was minted i n a limited edition of 5000 units, reproducing as a title card the Chill Charl ie illustration from the orig inal bubble gum wrapper. Oversi zed cards and gold-foiled ' chase cards' were also produced from thi s set, which appears to have been shot from the orig inal cards rather than
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the original plates for the cards. It also differs from the original in that the wacky synopses are reproduced on white backgrounds, rather than yellow. In January, 1 964, Dell Publishing commenced a bimonthly series of Outer Limits comic books, which ran for s ixteen i ssues worth of original stories done under license from Daystar-Villa di Stefano (the i s sues from # 1 7 onward were reprints). These stories, w ith titles l i ke ' B attleground of Monsters' and 'The Day the B lob Invaded Earth, ' were presented in a three­ chapter format, and were pure pulp nonsense from front cover to back. H ad ABC spotted these plotlines, they m ight have been ecstatic, but the comics well served the purpose of Outer Limits juvenilia. For younger fans of the show M i lton B radley also produced an Outer Limits board game (featuring 42 monster cards) and six 1 00-piece j igsaw puzzles depicting monsters from the show. Collegev i lle produced an Outer Lim its Hallowe'en costume consisting of a one-piece s i lkscreened polyester suit with a plastic monster mask. The idea of an official Monster of the Month Club with Will i am O. Douglas, Jr. , as the 'chief barnstormer, ' was briefly negotiated with Stefano, but nothing ever came of it. Leslie Stevens , meanwhile, remained a hands-on
fVfRY800Y SAY �HffSf producer. 'As a creator, ' he noted, ' I would say, 'Joe, whatever you come up with, if we get network approval for it, you got it.' So, Joe would come in with 10 or 25 ideas , of which they would select certain ones. That's all I had to do with Joe; he'd do the script, the casting, everything. He had a great deal of theatrical excitement about him. I never would have gone near Sir Cedric Hardwicke to do a part on one of our shows ( see 'The Forms of Things Unknown' ) , as Joe did. I (became) part of that anonymous group of people who saw to it that we had makeup on the set, that burned-out l ights were replaced, that the caterer was on time, that the actors' dressing rooms were satisfactory, that the filming was on schedule, and on and on. My job was backstopping and rescuing and seeing that it all got done . ' Around the time o f the program' s premiere , Stefano did a ' guest column' for critic Cecil Smith in the Los Angeles Times. Here he laid down h i s guidelines o n 'tolerable terror' (derived from the
.1 tHE OUTER LI M ITS , •'%
J igsaw Puzzle ( ' j u n ior' editions were a l so prod uced) . depiction of a flying Ebonite .
Note the
Canons) for a readership that would normally not think twice about watching something called The Outer Limits. ' It was a very prestigious sort of thing to do at that time , ' Stefano said. The Outer Lim its had arrived.
THE O U
TE LIM IT
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
NIGHTMAA[ Broadcast 2 December 1 9 63 Written by Joseph Stefano Original title: ' Ebon Struck First' D i rected by John Erman Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: J o h n N i ckolaus CAST: Col. Luke Ston e ( Ed Nelson), M a j . J o n g (James S h i geta), Ebon ite I nterro g ator (John Anderson). Pvt. Arth ur Dix ( M a rtin Sheen), Lt. J a mes P. Willowmore (Bill Gunn), Capt. Te rrence R a l p h Brookman (David Fra n k h a m ) , Lt. Esra Krug (Sasha H a rd e n ) . G e n . Benton ( B e n Wri g ht), C o m m a n d i n g General (Whit Bissell), Chief of Staff (Wi l l a rd Sage), Dix's Mother (Lillian Adams), Kru g ' s Gran dfath e r ( M a rtin Brandt), Krug's Governess ( Lisa Mann), Or. Whorf ( B e rn a rd Kates), 'Welcome to Compound Zero-Th ree . '
A war between worlds had long been dreaded. Throughout recent history, Man, convinced that life on other planets would be as anxious and belligerent as life on h is own, has g ravely predicted that some dreadful form of combat would inevitably take place between our world and that of someone else. And Man was right. To the eternal credit of the peoples of this planet Earth, history shall be able to proclaim loudly and justly that in this war between Unified Earth and the planet Ebon, Ebon struck first. Ebon: Its form of life unknown, its way of life unpredictable. To the fighting troops of Earth, a black question mark at the end of a dark, foreboding journey.
A six-man multinational strike force led by Col . Stone i s captured and made prisoners of war by the Eboni tes-satanic, bat-winged, gargoyle-like aliens who wield control wands that can manipul ate the five human senses. The first soldier to be subj ected to an 'exploratory interview' is the apple-pie neurotic Pvt. Dix, who i s rendered mute and led away. He returns with hi s stolen voice regained after questioning, leaving the group to conj ecture as to what he might have talked about. Willowmore, a black officer, is casually blinded by the aliens, and Krug, a German, is softened up w i th hal l u c inations of his Jewish grandfather, whom he betrayed to the Nazis while j ust
Ebon ite G u a rd ( Pa u l Sta der).
a child. He never returns, and Willowmore comes back in shock. Having asked for his sight back, he got it on the condition that he look at the corpse of Krug, who died during interrogation . . . and the first thing he saw was the gaping hole left when the Ebonites removed Krug's heart. S tone ' sleeps' through his own interview and Maj or Jong, a Chinese more emotionally resilient than the others, blacks out after having the bones in his right arm pulverized by an Eboni te wand. After Jong's session the group i s allowed basic necessities and ' the respect due a conquered enemy. ' The group' s consensus i s that Jong has turned traitor, and StOlle insists there be no leniency for traitors . Straws are drawn and B rookman is assigned to execute Jong by strangulation. When B rookman cannot bring himself to kill another man in cold blood, Jong i l l ustrates that all the men had motives for talking. Dix suffers a mental breakdown, revealing that he confided secrets to an hal lucination of hi s mother. Raving, he cuts and runs from the compound and is scooped up by the Ebonite guards. The Ebonite Interrogator conducts S tone to a cubicle where they encounter an Earth General and his Chief of S taff. The alien explains that Ebon's attack on Earth was accidental , and to make amends, his race agreed to continue with the phony ' war' in order to provide the Earth commanders with a test scenario to determine how Earth troops such as
NIGHTMARf Stone's men would ' behave or m isbehave' in actual conflict. The Ebonite is by now affronted by the immorality of this game, and refuses to sanction it, in an attempt to prevent further harm to S tone's men (Krug died of a coronary and the Ebonites fought to save him, but failed) . When the Interrogator returns to the POW compound to expose the charade to the remaining men, he is j umped by B rookman, Wil lowmore, and Jong. S tone breaks from the cubicle , with the E arth generals in pursuit, and orders his men to release the Ebonite. The Chief of staff backs up Stone's command with a pistol, but the men no longer believe the evidence of their own eyes. There i s a scuffle; B rookman grabs the gun and shoots the Chief of S taff, who dies on the floor. The horrible truth dawns o n The Ebonite I n te r r o g o to r U o h n Anderson) a n d Col . Stone (Ed Nelson) . B rookman, w h o earlier could n o t murder a great because it ended the war. If you wanted to give fellow human : ' I thought he was . . . ' something the stamp of approval, you made it military, 'He wasn't,' says Stone grimly. ' He was real. ' and I was attacking part of that faith in the military. I Th e exploration of human behavior under was politically naive i n those days, and a lot of what I simulated conditions of stress is a commonplace was writing wasn't based on any great passion or component of the machinery called war. So long knowledge, but on superstitions, thoughts and feel ings as Man anticipates and prepares for combat, be it about who worried me. 'Nightmare' wasn't written out with neighboring nations or with our neighbors in of cynicism, but out of deep suspicion. If you think of space, these unreal games must be played, and that in terms of 1 963 or '64, it's shocking and there are only real men to play them . A ccording to disturbing. Now, of course, nobody's surprised. It took established military procedure , the results of the a few years for the government to prove I was right. Ebon maneuvers will be recorded in books andfed into comp u ters for the edification and enlightenment of all the strategists of the future. Perhaps they will learn something .
Arguably Outer Limits ' best-written show, 'Nightmare' i s a tour de force of ensemble acting that illustrates j ust how resourceful the program' s cast and crew could be when squeezed by the l i mitations of time and budget. Once again, as in ' Specimen: Unknown' and ' Moonstone, ' the military was up in space, but Stefano's approach to this topic was different. ' I had some very strong problems with the government situation at that time , ' he said. 'Space was not bad; space agencies were not bad. But I had little faith, and v irtually no trust, in the people in charge of the Space Age. In World War Two, the military dropped the atom bomb, and everyone thought that was
H a l l u c i nation or not? Lt. Krug (Sasha H a rden) i s encouraged by Dr. Whorf (Bernard Kates) to ' tell them . . a n d get it over with . ' .
121
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
The planet E bo n : 'A b l a c k q uestion m ar k at t h e e n d o f a d a rk, forebod i ng journey. '
The idea of war games was not particularly popular, and there was a lot of stress testing going on just then. I said let's do a real game, push these guys to the limit and see how much they can take. A real theatre piece. ' The soldiers' ordeal i n ' Nightmare ' i s the experimentation stage of established scientific method, the next step to follow s imple observ ation (as seen i n 'O.B .LT' ) . B ut here the experiment has gone too far; it i s beyond corrective measures and can only plummet toward its dark and frightening conclus i o n . The Unified Earth so hoped for in ' Architects of Fear' is here realized in Col. Stone's interracial, multinational crew, but that unity i s now subj ugated from within. Stefano suggests that for all its deadliness , soldiering is still a childish game. When the Ebonite exposes the Earth generals to Stone, one of them exclaims, ' You've spoiled the whole game ! ' The opening scene of the episode features S tone pep-talking his boys l ike a football coach: 'Whatever the Ebonites are, however they live or die, win or lose . . . ' The pawn-pushing of the officers in charge soon forces S tone's men to resort to games as the only way of asserting their capacity of choice: The selection of Jong's executioner becomes the old straw-pulling game; the men bandy the precise meaning of a code number back and forth, straining for a technicality by which they can justify murdering Jong; Jong calls the planned murder of the Interrogator 'the vengeance game . ' Abbreviating Jong's rank as 'Maj . ' transforms his name itself into a Chinese game-mah jongg. Present in the Ebonite's lines are the games of language soon to become familiar to America with Watergate : treason is given the euphemistic mantel of 'telling true things ' ; ruthless interrogation i s ' an exploratory i nterview ; ' and the
worst kind of coercion translates as 'Private Dix will be the first to accept my inv itation . ' When the Interrogator c al l s the d i sastro u s experiment a 'charade'-another game-the General behaves l ike a naughty kid caught red-handed, puffing up enough to tell S tone 'I'm sorry. . . but I do not apologi ze . ' When Dix goes mad, he hums 'Tw inkle, Twinkle, Little S tar, ' which recalls our first glimpse of a planet that does not twi nkle l ike the stars in children's songs, but which looks more l ike an evil black hole punched in the fabric of space. Thi s ' game' gives the men no way out, and they succumb to easy bigotry and their animal fear of the unknown . Stefano deleted a great deal o f dialogue from h i s first draft teleplay, and w h i l e m o s t o f the omissions are not essential material, they broaden the already-deep characters and c l arify certain aspects of the complicated plot. Jong, for example, is designated as a ' Chinese Independent , ' which adds a layer to his presumed guilt by associ ating him with one of 1 963 America's most recent enemi e s , the C h inese Communists. He also explains the haiku poeti c form to the men, which sets up scenes we do see : the Commanding General estimating Jong's potenti al for treason by saying, ' Perhaps. Recites poetry, ' and Jong doing exactly that while being tortured. B ut his favorite haiku, by Ryota, i s missing from the episode : None broke the silence . . . Nor visitor, nor host, nor White chrysanthemum.
Dropped from Stone's 'pep-talk' were the l ines noting: There i s no G e n e v a Convention between planets ; no civilized law to protect us, except those we bring with us. All we know for certain about the Ebonites is that they are hostile and aggressive . . . which means they at least think like men.
After Krug's death, Jong and B rookman have a talk that eerily forecasts the events to come : lONG : I feel too sad to mourn anyone . B ROOKMAN: S ad? Or sorry for yourself? JONG: Myself? No. For you . All of you. I feel ineffably sad for all of you. B ROOKMAN : This sadness, Major-does it make you feel like doing something heroic? JONG: You mean tell all, in the hope of saving all?
NIGHTMARf I thought of doing that . . . It made me feel like a born and saintly warrior, all warm and noble inside . BROOKMAN : You wouldn't be the first man who turned traitor over mistaken notions of heroism. JONG : What would you do to me, then, if I turned traitor? BROOKMAN : One of us would kill you. JONG : Which one? (Sudden ly Brookman is paged for h is 'interview, ' as if the Ebonite P.A . had just answered long 's question . ) JONG : N o . Not Captain B rookman . Too civilized. Not a bare-handed assassin at all .
Later, Brookman pulls the short straw, and when asking Stone how he should kill Jong, say s , ' With my bare hands?' ' If a lot of that stuff had been left in, it would have confused everybody, ' said Stefano. ' It was a joy to write it, knowing that I would be able to cut it out . ' Only one change from script to film is trul y critical, and it involves the unexpected compas s i o n the Ebonite shows S tone's men. He confronts the generals alone (without Stone), realizes he cannot reach them, and so goes to the POW compound to tell the truth to Stone and his remaining men. The seriousness of what occurs next is lampooned by Robert Justman's comedic shooting notes for the scene : INT .
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Right up until the show was filmed, it was Stone, not B rookman, who murders the Chief of Staff. The l ine concerning real men and unreal games was originally presented by the Ebonite, but Stefano divided it between Stone and the Control Voice. If you watch the final shot of the finished episode closely, though, you'll see the Ebonite speaking as the Control Voice wraps things up. S tefano's ' exteriors ' on Ebon, meant to depict only a milky-white, even sky and a fiat, vast, empty black surface, slick and glassy-hard as some ebony gem , were shot on a nearly naked soundstage dressed with a few outcrops of Jack Poplin's fabricated rocks. 'There are several ways to make them , ' Poplin said. 'Polyurethane foam i s poured into molds; there
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Stone a n d the I n terrogator with a prone Pvt. Dix (Ma rti n Sheen) . This publicity shot is more brightly-l it than the epi sode itself-hence the visi b i l ity of the Ebonite ' s underwea r !
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
Lt. Wi llowmore ( B i l l G u n n ) i s b l i nded by a n Ebonite sentry.
are vacuum-formed plastic sheets you can bend and shape, or then there are rubber skins you can stretch over any form. We used the rubber skins around actors many times, so they wouldn't be hurt . ' Robert Justman hung a lot of black vel vet, to transform the set into a featureless kind of limbo area, heightening the impression that the whole show is an experimental stage drama. Although Byron Haskin was set to direct the episode, the time was right for John Erman, Daystar's casting man, to direct his first Outer Limits as part of his agreement with Leslie S tevens. 'I inherited John, ' said Stefano, ' but I l iked h i m and wanted h i m t o have one of my scripts, even though he hadn't really directed anything before . That didn't worry me,
Ma j . J o n g W a m e s S h igeta) gets h i s arm p u lverized w h i l e m u m bl i ng h a i k u .
130
because I had never done anything before, either. ' ' I had no real technique as a director' said Erman. ' And I think one of the deficiencies of that show was that it was done on Connie Hall's off-week. He alternated episodes with John Nickolaus, and while John is a lovely man with whom I've worked a great deal since then, he's very conventi onal . Unless you pushed him into doing odd or provocative lighting, he wouldn't do it. Whereas Connie would walk onto a set and say, 'Oh God, wouldn't it be interesting if we did this! ' John could do all that-he could do anything, and was very skilled- but the director had to come up with it, and I was not ready to come up with it. ' Erman's actual directing debut was the ' Image of Glory' episode of Stoney Burke , shot by Conrad Hall in January of 1 96 3 . Another problem w a s the way Erman looked at
Lt. Krug under the E bonite card i a c device.
scripts : 'All I saw were the casting problems,' he said. ' B ut I knew I would be directing 'Nightmare' by the time I cast it, and I surrounded myself w ith actors who were my pal s , because I was frightened. We did read­ throughs of the script at my house one weekend, and the next weekend--in the middle of shooting-at Jimmy Shigeta's house. We'd rehearse, and discuss the characters and their relationships. That was Martin S heen's first j ob out here. I'd seen him on live TV and he'd come out from New York and rented an apartment here. I'd pick him up each day for work; he used to sit on his stoop at 5 : 30 in the morning to wait for me. Ed Nelson and I went way back, to when I'd first started casting . B il l Gunn came out of my New York experience; he was a very serious actor and writer. David Frankham was somebody I'd known from the
NIGHTMARf Player's Ring, which was a theatre here like the Circle and the Square in New York-I'd used him in a series called Hong Kong at Fox, two or three years earlier, since they always needed British people. Jimmy Shigeta had just had an enormous success in Flower Drum Song. I cast John Anderson because we were friends . ' A former actor himself, Erman was very much an ' actor's director, ' and this partially accounts for the terrifi c ensemble work on view i n ' Nightmare. ' l B ut w h i le the performances were inspired, the finished fil m was not what Stefano had envisioned. ' It j ust didn't work , ' Tom Selden recalls . ' It wasn't that Joe was disappointed in the direction; it just didn't matter. Sometimes the pace i s wrong, the angles are wrong, something J o h n Anderson, David F ra n k h a m , Bill Gunn, Ed Nelson, Ma rti n Sheen. is wrong, and a film doesn't jell. S o he reworked the show in the editing room , reconstructing career I have today. So he did me a huge favor. ' it and turning it almost entirely around . ' Despite its staginess, 'Nightmare' i s surprisingly ' I was promi sed a certain number o f Outer Limits intellectual TV drama, and the series' most potent v iew in my deal with Leslie, ' said Erman. ' B ut after Joe of phobia and conspiracy. A high point of the show's saw 'Nightmare,' he was not happy with my work, and capacity for tension and S tefano's skill as a scenarist i s told me he didn't want me to do any more. I n the scene in which L t . Wil lowmore h a s his horrifying retrospect, I think he w a s right when he said I dealt breakdown. He i s too overwhelmed by the sight of Lt. wonderfully with the actors, but did not have enough Krug's heartless corpse to do anything but grope for film experience. I asked A l S argent, who i s now a words and scream, his nerves flayed raw. B i l l Gunn's successful writer, what was wrong and he said, 'It performance places a cold finger on the sou l . looks too much like a play; you approach things from The episode w a s also a nightmare schedule-wise, the proscenium arch, and you have to learn the film according to Wah Chang: ' It was a real rush job; we medium better. ' I imagine Joe, in editing, wanted to worked into the early morning hours to get the masks make it more theatrical, and I'd let him down, and he done. Paul Pattee worked l ike a Troj an on the wing­ was pulling every trick he could to give i t more style l ike portion of the costume and could not get it right. than I had. I went to Leslie and said, 'I'm very He made duplicates of one wing model rather than confused. I really feel I want to be a director and Joe trying to do a right and left side, and as it went, we had doesn't want me to direct anymore. ' And Leslie said, 'If all right wings and no left ones ! ' that's what you really want, then you should stop Fitting the devilish appliances was a headache for casting. And direct.' Once I made that decision, I Fred Phillips, as well . ' Projects did a fine job on wanted to leave Daystar very quickly, before I got truly those, ' he said, 'except that they did not understand scared. And I had some very rocky times right after I how to blend the edges of a mask to look natural on an left. Joe and Leslie and I did not part enemies i n any actor's face . They dealt mostly in heavy slip rubber way. It was go and do what you need to do . At that and polyurethane; you need foam rubber to make an time, it was very painfu l and difficult for me. But if appl i ance pliable and light. S ome of their impressions Stefano hadn't done that, I might have potchkied (of actors' faces) were not exact, so the masks weren't around, j ust casting, for the next few years because it proper. ' To blend the mask edges, Phi l l ips used thick was so comfortable for me . . . and I might not have the black makeup w ithout powder to cut the glare .
1J1
THf OUHA liMITS mMffiNION At least, that's h o w i t appeared to onlookers . In truth, Anderson found the Ebonite getup extremely claustrophobic, and learned that the squishing noises he heard whenever he moved around were due to his own backed-up sweat. Later, he growled to director Erman , ' You owe me one because of thi s ! ' Anderson also dubbed the Interrogator's bizarre voice, described i n the script as 'high , reedy, cold and mechanical, ' via the single­ side-band technique used in 'The Galaxy Being . ' In an interview conducted by Mark Phil lips for h i s 1 996 book Science Fiction Television Series , Anderson also rec alled returning to his home one day to find a gang of Outer Limits fanati c s c amped out in h i s driveway, armed with Ebonite photos and seeking autographs: 'I thought, 'Geez, they're nice people, but i s thi s all they have to do?' Especially when they said that every weekend they went around looking for Outer Limits people ! ' 2 ' I took our son, Dominic, to the studio to walk around on the set , ' remembers Marilyn Stefano. 'He was five at the time. When he encountered John Anderson in costume, he cringed and clung to my skirt . . . until he looked down and saw that the alien was wearing tenni s shoes. That broke the ice ! '
Lt. Jong Ua mes S h igeta) with the I n te r rog a to r .
Sometimes the effect i s convincing, sometimes not; often i t is a matter of lighting, not makeup, that sells the illusion of the Ebonites. On the second day of shooting, Phi l l ips had a flat tire on the Hollywood Freeway, leaving actor John Anderson to apply h i s o w n Ebonite makeup and mask. ' He did a fine j ob , ' said Phillips. The 'TV cheapnes s ' of the batwinged bodystocking distressed Erman, and was unpopular w ith the Ebonite actors, since ' N ightmare' was filmed during one of LA's characteristic September heat waves. The air conditioning on the KTTV stages was negated by the extra l i ghting required for the totally black set s , and actors began fainting as the temperatures soared. Whi le his fellow actors became sweat-drenched and d izzy, John Anderson seemed to take it all in stride, smoking cigars and never seeming to need a fresh costume . . .
After participating i n the Theatre West workshop with Carro l l O'Connor a n d Jeff Corey, both of w h o m he eventually c a s t in The O uter L imits , Erman's acting debut was i n The B lackboarq Jungle i n 1 95 5 , the same year he appeared in The Benny Goodman Story . He l ater directed most of the segments of the ground breaking TV m i n iseries Roots. I n 1 984 he tapped h i s old p a l Martin Sheen for another m i n i series, The A tlanta Ch ild Murders .
2
The ful l title of the book is Science Fiction Television Series : Episode Guides , Histories , and Casts and Credits for 62 Prime Time Shows , 1 959 through 1 989, by Mark Ph i l l ips and Frank Garc i a ( McFarland and C o . , 1 996) . Pages 23 1 -244 feature an excellent shortforrn overv i e w of The Outer Limits along with quotes and rem i n i sc e n c e s from Joseph Stefano , Lesl i e Stevens, Robert J ustman, Seeleg Lester, and actors John Anderson , Joey Tat a , Karl H e l d , and Mart i n Landau . Additional l y, the episode guide features 'bullet quotes' from writers Anthony Lawrence and Richard Landau, and actors Peter M ark R i c h m a n , R u s s e l l J o h n s o n , Tim O'Connor, WiL l i am O'Connell and M i chael Constantine. Wel l - researched and h i g h l y recommended . . . even though the layout guys printed the photo of the Thetan on page 234 sideways .
THf OUTfR liMITS SfSSIONS
T�e Outer limits Sessions Dominic brings to his work a rare combination of keen musical perception, (a) delicate blend of sensitive feeling and exciting tempo, and attention to detail . The contributions he has already made to the arts of composing, conducting and arranging single him out as a talent to be reckoned with . -Alfred Newman, 1 962
standard orchestra: out-of-tune p i anos playing together, strings played i n alternate quarter-tones to produce dissonance, or a harp sound electronically enhanced through repeti t i o n plus a home-made predecessor to the Echoplex system. John E l izalde explained: 'We had a couple of rudimentary synthesizers, which were not terribly prevalent at the time-there was a University of Chicago project, and Bell Labs, and (Robert) Moog, of course, but that sort of thing was stratospherically out of s ight for our small operation. I was a self-taught electronics engineer; in the late 1 940s there was nothing commercially available that would give you satisfactory reproduction. The only real way to do it was to roll your own-so I learned audi o . ' One device fabricated b y Elizalde o n the third floor of Daystar was the ' Onafets ' (spell i t backward), responsible for the weird, sliding, ' swooping' sounds heard in such episodes as ' N ightmare' and 'The Mice . ' Roger Farris recalled it as 'a black box with a rheostat-type dial , like a big studio time clock, with masking tape on the front marking the approximate pitches or notes . ' Essentially, it was a fancy signal generator with varying waveforms. 'That was a very w i de-range o s c i l l ator, ' said E l izalde, ' w i th 1 80
Dominic Frontiere's 'Outer Limits period' easi l y qualifies him a s equal t o the soundtrack music o f Jerry Goldsmith or Bernard Herrmann as a composer of the outre. Beyond the music, it was frequently the circumstances under which it was produced, or the methods employed to produce it, which were unique. Music is most s imply described as the movement or sculpting of masses of air, and under Frontiere's direction, Outer Limits air assumed shapes at once disturbing, imaginative, and phantasmal. 'Alfred Newman once told me that as far as he was concerned, the greatest music written for movies was wasted on B movies,' said Frontiere. 'If the movie is good, and you're good, it is possible for the music to really work. If the movie is not good, and you're good, nothing i s going to help it or the music. I believe music to be totally subservient to the film itself. ' Deceptive 'electronic tonalities' to the contrary, one tool Frontiere never used for The Outer Limits was that almost surreal invention known as the theremi n , though Harry Lubin, Frontiere's replacement during the series' second season, did use one. This namesake of Russian composer and electronics expert Leon There m i n resembled nothing so much a s a wooden lectern w i th two looped metal 'handlebars ' j utting out of i t at right angles; i t provided eerie ' technological ' soundscape punctuation for such sci-fi classics as Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing From Another World. I Many Outer Limits sounds traditionally credited to the theremi n actually came F rontiere cond ucts; Roger Farris, wea ring s u n g l a sses, is seated beh i n d h i m . That's The Outer from more unexpected sources within a Limits d i sti nctive harp over on the right. I
(Cou rtesy Roger A . Farris)
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION half t o the other t o get a sound that's impossible with only one . ' Many o f Frontiere's Outer Limits cues were designed to be altered in m inor way s , to produce additional separate cues. The love theme from ' Architects of Fear, ' titled ' Yvette & Allen , ' was recorded in seven variations-not seven different pieces of music, but the same piece, played seven times, with minor changes in timing. 'We'd stop at bar 1 7 and start again o n the downbeat of 1 8 , or we'd skip bars , ' said Elizalde. 'We'd do them at different tempos, we'd do 'curtains' and face-down endings right on the scoring stage . ' This greatly expanded the options for creative scoring based on a minimum of material . F rontiere works the stri ng sectio n . (Cou rtesy Dom i n i c F rontiere) The meticu l o u s planning of the sessions was the responsibility o f Roger degrees of twist on the dial so we could go three or Farris , who devi sed the logistical strategy of beginning four octaves. If I remember correctly, we had a ramp the work day with a ful l orchestra (or howevermany wave, triangles, squares, and sine waves. We j ust pieces were called for) and dismissing individual played it like an instrument, either against an already­ players once their i nstrument was no longer needed. existing score or by itself. Dominic was just uncanny S ince players were paid by the hour, this type of with it, like he'd been playing the darned thing forever, tightwire scheduling permitted Daystar to avoid Leslie and he coined the name. ' Farris spelled it Onaphets S tevens' worst nightmare-the concept of union whenever he specified its use on the music cue sheets. musicians sitting around and getting paid for doing Elizalde built another system by hooking up a 4nothing. Farris did most of his work, as he recalled, track Ampex tape recorder to another variable-speed ' at night . . .all night. . .in a studio in my home. Doing oscillator which could i nstantly change the speed of the kind of work I do, you can't work at the production playback. ' It was powerfu l , ' said Elizalde, 'but, company. There's too damned much confusion . ' His again, existing systems were horribly expensive. ' credit as Music Coordinator encompassed the jobs of Another unexpected Outer Limits instrument was copyi s t (preparing the score for each individual the old ' s tomach Steinway '-Frontiere's v irtuoso musician), talent booker, and all-around assistant t o specialty. Far from being appropriate only for Frontiere, which meant helping to force-fi t a $45 ,000 wedding receptions or ethnic dance-fests, the music budget into the first thirteen weeks of The Outer accordion is fundamental to the scores of ' Architects Limits-a budget that would probably run four or five of Fear, ' 'The Hundred Day s of the Dragon, ' times that today. 'Nightmare' and many others-the listener i s j ust not For scoring episodes, the music crew used a aware that such a seemingly 'conventional' instrument system ' unique in its time , ' according to Elizalde-the is playing so much. A single accordion played at ful l music was recorded blind, with no film playback on volume can cut right through a medium-sized the scoring stage. ' Dominic and I would look at the orchestra with l ittle difficulty, while veneering a picture and determine where music should go. We ' space age' sheen to the music. Frontiere also used an broke down the cues on a Moviola; about 3 5 -40 pages electric guitar and electric bass guitar i n every session; of cues, always to the nearest tenth of a second. That these play almost constantly during some of the cues (a would be the last time we saw the film, which was 'cue' being any self-contained piece of music) . u sually tied up in effects or post work. All the music ' We u sed the harp a l ot , ' noted E lizalde. would be tracked or scored according to those cue 'Sometimes two. You can give half the job to one and
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Page 3 of Roger Farris' brea kdown s h eet for the August 3 rd session, featu ring cues for 'The H u m a n Factor, ' Tou r i st Attraction, ' 'The H u n d red Days of the Dragon , ' and 'Arc h i tects of Fear. ' (Cou rtesy Roger A. Farris)
sheets. Dominic would write to the timing sheets we turned out, and once the score was written, that was the last he saw of it Dominic never tracked the shows (from existing music)-that was John Caper and I. All the tracking was done on 3 5 -mill imeter magnetic film, for later optical transfer. ' S i nce Elizalde also dubbed the shows (adding dialogue or sound effects in post) , he did see the footage again, ' but never an answer print ' The music dev i sed by Fron t iere required a 'feature-sized' orchestra and was very classically oriented. 'We used as many strings as the law would allow, ' joked El izalde . 'The sound was extremely rich for television . ' I n al l, thirteen episodes were scored (including the two pi lots , Please Stand By and The Unknown ) , in whole or i n part, w ith the balance of the Outer Limits material tracked from those scores or Stoney Burke
cues. The music was recorded by engineer Artie B ecker at Western Recorders on S unset Boulevard, except for the Please Stand By session . That was accomp l ished on the S am uel Goldwyn Stage at 20th Century-Fox . o oalmost in secret 'That was one of the queerest, most curious things I've ever experienced, ' recalled Roger Farri s. 'There was nobody on the lot Cleopatra had j ust cost something l i ke five m i l lion, and the whole studio was shut down . There was a guard at the gate , and that was it The commissary was closed. There was a lunch truck that used to pull up to the old-time fire station there , and we had our l unch on picnic benches, and there was nothing but silence ! What was normally l ike busy little city was just dead. It was eeri e . '
THf D UHR liMITS �DM PANIDN consist of a soft repetition of the main motif, played by strings and horns. 2
14 JANUARY 1963 An orchestra of 40 players records six and a half minutes of music for the Please Stand By pilot film, with Edward Powel l l isted as the arranger (the person who actually ' voices' the composer's music for all instruments). Probably a Stoney Burke session. Regarding the re-use of Stoney Burke cues in The Outer Limits, Farris said, 'If you've got a good piece of material, why not use it? You use the piece of music that best fits the scene, and sometimes , one you've heard before is better-and Dominic did some beautiful theme s . ' Prime among these i s ' S oames' Theme, ' recorded for the Stoney Burke episode 'Point of Honor, ' yet more recognizable as the aggressive martial-style music heard throughout most of 'The Zanti Misfits '-j azzed up for The Outer Limits with the Onaphets . Frontiere's distinctive Outer Limits opening title ' sting'-the one he composed in 1 5 minutes-formed the foundation for a menu of v ariants, including the often-used 'bumper' cues (which generally announce the end of an act, prior to a commercial break) featuring block-like brass chords augmented with heavy percussion-bass drum, tam-tam (gong) , and suspended cymbal . Here, Frontiere was able to make even the timeworn concept of the ' shock chord' fresh and startling. The ' End Title' for the pilot was longer, featuring three extra bars of music than the version familiar today to most Outer Limits fans . These measures
'That was beautiful!'
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2 3 A U G U ST 1 9 6 3 In a marathon session beginning at 9 : 00 AM and concluding at 7 : 30 PM, a 44-piece orchestra records a huge s l ab of m aterial including the scores for ' Architects of Fear, ' 'The H uman Factor, ' 'Tourist Attraction, ' and ' The Hundred Days of the Dragon, ' p l u s a few cues each for ' Control led Experiment' and 'The B orderland. ' Clearly, the intent was to stockpile a great deal of material for tracking use-the fundaments of the Outer Limits music ' library. ' Frontiere's friend and teacher Robert Van Eps composed most of the 'Tourist Attraction' cues, though Frontiere conducted them. This day's work employed the largest orchestra used on the series , with the string section especi ally lush for TV: 1 2 violins, 3 violas, 3 celli and 2 double basses. Farris' razor-sharp timings list a lunch break from 1 1 :40 to 1 : 30, but during that time 1 0 musicians hung around long enough to record Robert Van Eps' 'mariachi' music for 'Tourist Attraction . ' All tolled, the l ibrary grew by more than an hour and a half of music this day. At this session, Frontiere also re-recorded al l the main title music for the series , with its attendant loops, ' teaser curtains , ' and bumpers ( some as brief as three seconds). These versions, rather than the Please Stand By takes, ( including the edited-down, shorter ' End Titl e ' ) are the ones heard throughout the first season. ' Dragon' i s mostly derived from Stoney Burke c u e s , w i th s i gn ifi c ant varIatIon s . Frontiere used only bass clarinets ( n o other clarinets), which lend a somber, 'reedy' quality to the music . The silvery ' whistling' sound heard during some cues is not the wailing of the Onaphets , but all the violins using harmonics. Also notable is a tense l ittle percussion trio consisting of a gong, finger cymbals , and a small tom-torn-maximum atmosphere , provided economicall y. Several recurrent Outer Limits motifs were established during this session. The nasty two­ note 'jab' first heard in 'Architects of Fear' (as Allen's artificial lung collapses in the lab, for example) was played first by violins, then repeated by two piccolos, harp, piano, and vibraphone. An intense cello melody (first heard
(Cou rtesy D o m i n i c Frontiere)
THf OUHR liMITS SfSSIONS when Allen's name is announced as the ' volunteer' ) evolves throughout the episode into a leitmotif for Allen's sacrifice and suffering. It expands into a whirlwind of scurrying figuration played by all the strings in the orchestra (when Allen gets his first injection), and finally mutates into the galumphing Thetan 'march music' (fascinatingly titled 'A 10 Cent B ug ' by Farris) during the climax-the 'jab' now played by churning horns, trombones, low strings and winds; the cello melody now fanfared by three trumpets . For ' Yvette & Allen , ' Frontiere considers his tender, smoky love theme in the context of an almost morbid story and forces what would otherwise sound l ike lounge music to resonate, emphasizing the tragedy (compare it to the 'canned' dance music played by KXKVI). It features a slightly 'blue' accordion solo by Jack Preisner, and a Farris notation on the actual score reads, 'play pretty, Jack. '
3 O CTO B f R 1 9 6 3 A 3 1 -piece orchestra (still lavish by TV standards) records about 17 minutes of score for 'The Man Who Was Never Born ' (the on-stage photos in this section are all from this session ) . Thi s is both Frontiere's most sumptuous Outer Limits score and his most conventional, due to its basic symphonic nature . It i s essentially built around two main themes , one for Andro (serpentine low winds, trombone, bass guitar and low strings), and a pastoral flute for Noelle in 5/4 time. When Noelle is first stalked by Andro at the lake, her flute theme i s heard in a fully-scored version played by two guitars, harp, celeste , two v ibraphones and divided strings-a luxurious tapestry which helps define the tale as an unabashed romance. Noelle's theme reappears in a number of musical 'voices' besides its initial solo flute : solo horn (Andro picks up the frog), solo bassoon (in the woods during Act IV), and a short, emphatic version for strings and horn when Bert Cabot picks up the wedding veil during the spaceship's blastoff. Almost the entire score is centered around a single pitch (E), including the luminous 'Transformation' chord, first heard when Andro approaches Noelle in the parlor. Conrad H al l ' s soft-focus camera i s perfectly complimented b y Frontiere's shimmering cue, with its prominent harp glissandi. ' (The episode) is almost as strong musically as it
i s photographically,' noted Frontiere.
1 0 N OHMBfR 1 9 6 3 A red-letter day in the history of bizarre music, as twelve musicians l ay down the score to 'Nightmare . ' I n t o t h i s v irtual Chamber Orchestra from Hel l , Frontiere incorporated t h e Onaphets , making an already-eccentric score brilliant. The opening cue (the planet Ebon seen from space) was titled 'Galaxies , ' a piece apparently composed by Frontiere for another show, since the score shows that he gave it a full brass, string and woodwind treatment. No recording of thi s fully­ scored version i s known to have been made, and the music was imported into the 'Nightmare' session and played on the available instruments. It was later tracked onto the similar opening sequence for 'A Feasibility StUdy. ' The slow, plodding ' heartbeat' backdrop was provided by a single bas s , bass guitar, and timpani, with the glittery ' star' chords by two harps and a v ibraphone. Over this Hermann-esque ground layer, the larger 'Nightmare' theme is played in octaves by flute, electric violin, accordion, electric guitar, and finally, the Onaphets in its highest register. One of the most otherworldly cues is 'Nazi s , ' first heard under Lt. Krug's speech about h i s youth. It begin s with a soft accordion, harp and v ibraphone, then (when Krug goes to the water trough) flowers into richer chords as a flute and electric violin play a plaintive duet, with the flute occasionally 'falling off' or dragging the pitch of the longer notes downward. 'Kill Jong' is at once w i stful and exotic, yet mysterious and threatening. A low ' tread' of harps, bas s , bass g u itar, drums and electric piano is established, over which Frontiere layers a sinuous melody played by flute, violin, electric guitar and the Onaphets-all overdosed on reverb , then leaned against the glistening sound of a bell tree, a soothing incongruity in the midst of terror and uncertainty. When Lt. Willowmore returns from his interrogation, the Onaphets and electric violin execute a sickly twist on the main theme, to which a piccolo is added while a militaristic snare drum taps nervously away. Almost everything about the soundscape of 'Nightmare' borders on the revolutionary, supporting Frontiere' s contention that ' it's always more fun writing for a show you know i s good, as opposed to
131
TH[ OUHR liMITS CO M PAN ION something where your heart just i sn't i n it, because you know there's nothing on the screen. '
12 o[c[MHR 19�3 A 1 2-piece ensemble nearly identical to the one from the 'Nightmare ' session records 'The Mice , ' referenced o n most o f the cues a s 'Jelly Man ! ' S ince the opening of ' The M i c e ' uses the 'Galaxies' cue verbatim, one would assume the rest of the 'Nightmare' score would simply be tracked onto this new episode. Instead, Frontiere took many passages from 'Nightmare' note-for-note and created new cues by attaching new music to them. Thi s way, 'Kill Jong' turned into 'Jellyman Morton, ' during the scene in which Diana Sands describes seeing the Chromoite consume l ake scum. For the curious, a solo, unaccompanied Onaphets can be heard twice i n this epi sode-first when the Chromoite 'eavesdrops ' on two scientists d iscussing the lake scum, and next at the very end, under the Control Voice wrap-up.
13 o[c[MHR 19�3 An orchestra of five-two harps, two guitars , and a double bass-records almost n i ne m i n utes of additional music for ' Controlled Experiment. ' Most of the score for Leslie Stevens' ' bottle show ' was created as economically as the no-frills episode itself. Three 'big' cues were recorded during the August 23 session : ( 1 ) The opening shot (flying saucer) , later used i n other episodes as an ' urban' theme under estab l i shing shots of cities, government buildings, landing jets, and so on. (2) The ominous pawnshop underscore. (3) A cue t itled ' Coffee Time, ' heard when Phobos first encounters coffee and cigarettes, a friendly composition featuring gentle glockenspiel, vibraphone and harp sounds over hushed string chords-possibly the most ' soothing' cue written by Frontiere for the entire series. When Phobos and D iemos enter the lobby of the Lux-Del Hote l , the slightly j azzy 5 -piece combo dominates, with a c lever use of very d istant, subtle underlays to the basic score, akin to 'background color. ' One is a v ibraphone glissando l oop (similar to that heard during the episode title and main cast credits of each ep i s ode ) ; another is a nutty loop of electronically-produced ' boops ; ' another, a melange
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o f twangy guitar and harp sounds. A highli ght of this score i s a cute l ittle number retitled (from another Stoney Burke original cue) ' Good Glory, Carl a ! , ' built over a ' walking bass' figure, as B ert deploys h i s careful proposal , near the end.
3 J A N UA RY 1 9 � 4 An orchestra of 28 records the music for 'Don't Open Til l Doomsday. ' One great cue i n this episode was titled ' Lay the Green,' heard under the scene where Emmet B alfour bribes Mrs. Justice, then carrying through to the shot of B alfour outside Mrs . Kry's manse. It is a nifty, agitated thing played by the strings, embroidered by upward arpeggios on flute, clarinet, and harp. The ragtime music ( like the mariachi music i n 'Tourist Attraction ' ) w a s composed and arranged by Robert Van Eps . Original loops, vamps, b i t s and p ieces were also recorded for 'ZZZZZ' at thi s session, including that episode's teaser music.
21 J A N UA RY 1 9 � 4 An orchestra of 29 records 'The Inv i s ibles . ' Agai n , Frontiere retrofits h i s earlier Outer Limits scores, spinning variations on themes from 'Architects of Fear, ' 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' and the Main Title. Again, all cues were recorded fresh. For example, 'A 1 0 Cent B u g , ' from 'Architects,' i s rescored into a slightly faster version hilariously titled 'The Pain in Spai n , ' for the scene where Luis Spain i s crippled by a Lincoln Continental . The fol lowing cu e , ' Spain i n Pai n , ' (where Spain l imps from his bed to the door) i s a rewrite of one of the ' Andro' cues from 'The Man Who Was Never B orn . '
20 f[BRUARY 19�4 A 42-piece orchestra records nearly 25 minutes of music for The Unknown , a.k.a. 'The Forms of Things Unknown,' at the final Outer Limits session of the first season. Much of the music is heav i l y reverbed, and many cues are harsh, almost v iolent-the funeral , Leonora's panicked flight through the woods, Andre's death cocktail , and Tone's first appearance at the sliding doors, for example.
THf OUTfR liMITS SfSSIONS
Lesl i e Stevens (center, i n b l a c k suit) strides away from w h a t he has wroug ht, October 3 rd , 1 96 3 .
We first hear striking, broken harp chords during the opening shot (through the foliage), which strum while the violins sustain a high tremolo ' B . ' Typ ical of the bi-pack nature of much of Frontiere's music, the effect i s rich , yet scary. As Joe Stefano said, 'Rather than provoking a mood or underscoring an action, Dominic's music becomes a scene' s subtext, saying words unwritten. ' The frantic cue that accompanies Andre's death twists unexpectedly into an almost romantic theme-a supple, somewhat ' French'-sounding cue performed by strings-as his killers wade out of the lake. The arresting ' clock' motif is a three- note bit d istinctively colored by muted brass and chimes, w ith the third and highest note always becoming more dissonant as the motif is repeated. Thi s motif then transforms into the introductory accompaniment to the odd little waltz which is the signature for the silver dancing figurine. Like the episode itself, the score is probably
(Cou rtesy Dom i n ic Frontiere)
Frontiere ' s most harmoni c a l l y d i s sonant, thu s , ' progressive , ' helping t o produce a European foreign­ film feel for a show that already looked l ike imported art-house fodder to begin with. ' Anthologies are more difficult to do because you must be good and original every week , ' said Dominic Frontiere. ' B ecause of risk, talent, and luck, The It had unnamable Outer Limits was precedental . effects on televi sion and set new levels of quality for the medium . '
Called ' the Soviet Edi son' and the father o f modern electronic music, Prof. Theremin's l i fe i s the subject of a fasc inating 1 993 documentary, Theremin : A n Electronic Odyssey, written and directed by Steven Mart i n . 2
Thi s version c a n b e heard on The Outer Limits Original Television Soundtrack recording ( G N P/Crescendo, GNPD
8032, 1 99 3 ) , track #22. Many of the other themes mentioned in this chapter are also avai lable on this album.
TH f OUHR liM ITS �OM PANION
CO R P U S [A RTH li N G Broadcast 1 8 N o v e m b e r 1 9 63 Written by Orin B o rsten Some materi a l by Lou M o r h e i m and Joseph Stefa no. Based ( l oosely) o n the novel Corpus E a rth l i ng. by Louis Charbo n n e a u . D i re cted by G e rd Oswald Assistant Di rector: Claude B i nyon. J r. D i rector of Ph otogra phy: Conrad H a l l CAST: D r. Pa u l Cameron ( R o bert C u l p ) . Laurie Hendricks-Ca m e ron (Salome Jens). D r. J o n a s Te m p l e ( B a rry Atwater). R a l p h [phys ic ian ] ( David G a rner). Ca reta ker ( Ken R e n a rd). Vo ice of the R ocks ( R obert Johnson)
Paranaia person ified : Robert C u l p a s Dr. Paul Ca meron .
Rocks : silent, inanimate objects torn from the Earth 's ancient crust, yielding up to Man over the long centuries all that is known of the planet on which we live ; withholding from Man forever their veiled secrets of the nature of matter and cosmic catastrophe , the secrets of other worlds in the vastness of the universe . . . of other forms of life . . . of strange organisms beyond the imagination of Man . . .
Two unidentifi able rock samples i n D r Temple's geology lab are actually protoplasmic alien invaders capable of entering and controlling a human ' corpus . ' Thanks t o a metal plate i n h i s skull that makes him 'defective' and useless to the aliens, Paul Cameron can hear them communicating telepathically. They mesmerize him and gently suggest that this ' l istener' kill himself. Paul is prevented from j umping out a window by his wife, Laurie , and Temple, but fears for his sanity since no one else can hear the voices inside his head. He and Laurie decide to head for Mexico, for a few days' rest and a second honeymoon i n a secluded cabin hideaway. One of the rocks metamorphoses into a spider-l ike parasite and possesses Temple, sending him robotically in pursuit. He catches Laurie alone and forces the second parasite on her. When Paul returns and crawls into bed w ith h i s wife, he finds a gaunt, demonic thing, pasty-white and hollow-eyed,
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beckoning the ' l istener' to come closer. Utterly bug­ eyed with panic, he flees, holing up i n a Tij uana hotel until the cabin's Caretaker summons him back. The alien possessing Laurie has made her deathly i l l . Temple ambushes Paul a t the cabin, shooting h i m in the shoulder; Paul manages to stab Temple to death with a scalpel, and h i s corpse evacuates the parasite. Then Laurie tries to kill him and he is forced to shoot her. The two aliens then hypnotize Paul into dropping his gun, but his hand brushes a hot stove, which shocks him back to cognizance. He overturns the stove onto the aliens , setting the cabin ablaze. The creatures melt to gelatinous goo as Paul carries Laurie's corpse outside, where the Caretaker continues to tend his ring of ceremonial fires. Two black crystalline rocks . Unclasslfiable . Objects on the border between the living and the non- living . A reminder of the thin line that separates the an imate from the inanimate . Something to ponder on-something to stay the hand when it reaches out innocently for the whitened pebble , the veined stone , the dead, unmoving rocks of our planet.
' When 'Corpus Earthling' was fin ished and the music added, I sat there w i shing I could say don 't air this, ' said Joseph Stefano. 'I had never thought it could be that scary, and I was horrified. It hit me i n a d isturbing way I never wanted our shows to hit people; i t was frightening as opposed to scary. ' 'Do you know anything about paranoia? ' Paul
CORPUS fARTHliNG Cameron asks h i s w i fe . ' I have several clas s i c symptoms, i n case they might have escaped your notice. ' He says thi s before his friend Temple tries to kill him, before he finds a monster awaiting him i n bed, before h i s world becomes one o f absolute paranoia realized. Here Robert Culp plays the flip s ide of his ' Architects of Fear' character Allen Leighton, who gives up h i s humanity to save the world. Allen loses his loved ones, and dies. Paul Cameron must sacrifice his loved ones to keep from becoming the invader; he fights to retain his humanity and loses everything, but surv ives . . . and the world is spared another alien invasion. 'Corpus Earthling ' ' s fade-out i s also an example of how Stefano used the Control Voice to 'put the world back i n order again by the end of the program, ' a s h e put i t . ' I didn't want kids going t o bed thinking anything was s t i l l h anging around . ' In a 1 963 i nterview he elaborated: ' I've made i t a strict rule for myself never to put children i n a frightening v iewing s ituation. I see to i t that my own child watches the program, and I'm happy that he hasn't been fri ghtened by a single one of them. ' The show represents one of the cleanest combinations of adult and j uvenile horror ever achieved by The Outer Limits . The lurking alabaster husks that Laurie and Temple become place 'Corpus Earthling' firmly in horror film territory. Paul's palpable fear of insanity, the loss of identity implicit in the alien takeover (a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers), and his v ictimization by the people closest to him all squeeze the most common and vulnerable human psychological pressure points. On top of that, there are these squirming, h i s s ing, glob monsters that stick to your face and zombi fy you. ' During my story conference with S tefano, I gave him an idea for a teleplay, ' said Orin B orsten. ' He passed on my idea, but gave me the paperback novel Corpus Earthling (Zenith B ooks, 1 960) , to which the series had rights. Would I come back with my own ideas for translating it to television?' In the novel , author Lou i s Charbonneau presents Paul as a university instructor w ith a heavy letch for Laurie, one of h i s students. He i s a l atent telepath, and on at least three occasions has been compelled toward suici de by an alien force that calls him the ' l istener. ' These invaders were inadvertently brought to Earth along w ith the first geological samples from Mars (the time is post - 1 990) , and are eager to adapt themselves to the human hosts they find here. Dr. Temple, who at
Salome J e n s a s La urie Ca meron con fronts ' two black crysta l l i n e rocks . '
first diagnoses Paul a s schizophreni c after hearing about the 'voices' in his head, becomes the first person possessed. ' With a shudder I thought of the scientist's habit of touching a strange crystal with the tongue, ' thinks Pau l . Eventually h e k i l l s the alien advance guard (the first one he bums up when it escapes from its dead human host and into the body of a sand crab), and d iscovers a telepathi c g irlfriend living i n the trailer next to h i s . ' I found the book u n interesting dramatically, ' said B orsten. ' B ut the central concept of rocks turning into beings, I decided, could be the basis for an interesting segment. ' B orsten's first draft was top-loaded with dialogue intended to support the methodology by which rocks might possess human beings. First the rocks talked about i t : SECOND VOICE : Do the body shells o f these earthlings have the density we need? FIRST VOICE: Some will be strong hosts for ·us.
The rocks wi n : A possessed La urie th reatens to k i l l Pa u l .
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THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION Others will last for only a few days-then deteriorate . But I believe that earthl ing bodies w il l serve us well if we limit our energies when we take possession. Care must be taken not to draw excessively upon the body matter. SECOND VOICE: What about their inte l ligence? Memory? FIRST VOICE: Our control will be complete .
Then the people talked about it: JONA S : . . . it's the th in l ine between the animate and the inanimate. PAUL (grimly): Over at the hospital . . .the psychiatric ward . . . they call it the thin l ine between sanity and insanity. JONAS : The lower the level of life and matter, the more we're convinced of its existence. PAU L : The l ine I know about is easily crossed. Is yours? JONA S : All our investigations lead us to believe that l ife began with lifeless compounds . PAU L : Jonas, about what I heard . . (meaning the voices of the rocks) . . .I know you' re not a biologist or an astronomer, but what do you th ink? Is it possible that there m ight be some alien form of life capable of invading and taking control of a human being? JONAS : We're all fairly certain that some sort of extraterrestrial l i fe exists. LAU RIE: The law of chance alone. JONAS: Why not an intell igent super-virus that depends at on some stage of its existence on another organism? You're a medical man. What are v iruses but parasites that enter the body and thrive on living cells? LAURIE: Think of all the experiments that link viruses to human malignancy. PAU L (excited) : A creature from another world that's like the fi ltrable virus we know on earth . . . JONAS : Exactly. PAU L : But where the virus invades the body cells to multiply, this one harnesses the body's strength and mobil ity. It adds up . . . only . . . would a higher form of virus from some other planet be able to uti l ize a total ly strange organism l ike man? JONAS : Most sc ienti sts believe that everything in the universe is composed of the same limited number of atoms. No matter what strange evolutionary paths other life forms have taken, we can postul ate a kind of basic universal structure. .
All thi s is not so ponderous when one stops to cons ider the ease with which science fiction moviegoers and fans accept the concept of ' al ien possession' today, but it was wisely pared down to j ust
141
Dr. Tem p l e (Ba rry Atwater) fa i l s to notice the g lobular a l ien rock parasite a bout to mount h i s h a n d . . .
a few lines i n the shooting script. Also eliminated were several exchanges between Paul and Laurie that expand upon Paul's chronic fears and his attitude toward the woman he loves. While this material was illuminating, the clearcut performances of Robert Culp and S alome Jens make it redundant. Strangely, Gerd Oswald cl aimed, 'There was no real attempt to accentuate the n ightmarish feeling i n t h i s particular episode , ' and Robert C u l p d i d n o t find his role noteworthy, saying, 'I must have phoned that one in. ' ' It was completely subjecti ve , ' Oswald added. 'All the characters were isolated, set off, and I kept things very claustrophobic. It was a distorted v ision . ' Conrad Hall concurs : ' We may have devi ated from Stefano's original intention on that one . The material evoked an ugly and disturbing mood . ' The result is ten se, and plucks at the nerves w i th Oswald's
. . . a n d gets turned i nto a zomb i e assass i n .
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
,
were all having fun-something n o one has anymore. ' 'Corpus Earthling' also marked the debut of two important Outer Limits crewmen. It was the first of two episodes done as ' fill-ins' by Claude B inyon, Jr. , prior to becoming a permanent 1 st AD on the program. It was also the first episode for which Daystar accountant Robert Johnson dubbed the voices of the aliens (though he was heard previously, as a human , in ' Specimen: Unknown ' and ' The Man Who Was Never Born ' ) . His mellifluous, resonant voice would soon become quite familiar to the Outer Limits audience, and would later attain immortality as the tape recorder voice heard in every episode of Mission : Impossible . 'A long waiting, but over now, ' say the rocks, 'and time to invade the bodies of these things called human beings . ' This bit of ' Corpus Earthling' dialogue was invoked in 1 982, as part of a film-within­ a-film monster movie, ' starring' Edward E . French
and Cookie Mueller, seen in S usan Seidelman's debut feature Smithereens (French also built the disgusting alien parasites seen in the brief clip). Oswald and his crew also devi sed a sly in-joke to give Conrad Hall's dauntless cameraman, William Fraker, a bit of recognition, since he never received screen credit for his Outer Limits work. During the scene where Paul refuses to answer his phone, he also warns Laurie not to open their apartment door when a strange thumping i s heard outside. Determined to prove his fear i s all in his mind, she peeks out and sighs, ' It's B i l l y Fraker-he's been drinking again . ' 1
Fraker received one of h i s first screen credits on the never­ broadcast O uter Lim its spinoff p i l ot for Th e Unknown . S alome Jens' l i n e is not a complete ad-l i b ; it's in the Borsten teleplay, with the name given as ' B i l l Cogan . '
Voi ces fro m t� e Oute r li m its VIC PfRRIN 'The only thing an awful lot of young people can identify me with i s The Outer Limits, ' said Vic Perrin, who essayed the famous Control Voice speeches for each episode of the series. 'I'll go in for an interview and people not of my generation will say, 'Tell me about yourself. ' These casting directors fresh out of UCLA film school know what The Outer Limits i s because i t ' s something they grew up with. It always puts me a few notches up in their esteem. ' Victor Perrin came out o f the heyday o f radio drama, and before he crossed paths with The Outer Limits he had been doing character voices for twenty years, and TV roles for half that time. His first announcing job was for a Madison, Wisconsin radio station for a tidy $40 per week. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Speech from the University of Wisconsin in 1 940, Perrin headed for the West Coast by train, arriving in Los Angeles w ith $ 1 .65 i n his pocket and two letters addressed 'To Whom It May Concern . ' Perrin worked as a florist's delivery boy for $ 1 5 per week until Walter B unker, the production manager at NBC Radio, secured him a j ob as a parking lot attendant-so as to have him on hand the next time an opportunity to audition presented itself. The day Perrin was to be fitted for his NBC page's uniform, he
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auditioned and became a j unior announcer for NBC. 'I did coast-to-coast remotes from the Wilshire Bowl, from the Florentine Gardens, and dance remotes from the B iltmore Bowl , ' he said. ' When the government insisted that NBC divest itself of one of its networks, the B lue or the Red, I went with the B lue, which made me a senior announcer. ' His career ballooned, and by the end of World War Two Perrrin was pulling down $400 a week. 'That was a fortune at that time . . . and announcing wasn't what I wanted to do ! I just walked out on it, sat under a tree, and decided I wanted to be an actor. ' He j oined Charles Laughton's speech workshop along with such fellow students as Shelley Winters and Jane Wyatt. ' Laughton was a great master; he got our minds and bodies involved in the words we were saying. You have to submit to being beaten to a pulp; your ego suffers so, and your ego i s what you rely upon when you're performing. To have it ripped to shreds leaves you open to new ways of doing things . ' He moved into regular parts o n the radio dramas Escape, Columbia Workshop , Romance, Dr. Christian, Masquerade , Mayor of the Town ( w ith Lionel B arrymore), The Story of Polly Stone, and many others. 'I was on One Man 's Family for seven years, playing Ross Farns worth, a mother-dominated schoolteacher who was very cruel to his wife , Joan. I used to get nasty letters ! I established my connection
VOICfS fROM THf OUHR liMITS w ith Jack Webb on the radio Dragnet, and Norman McDonnel l on the radio Gunsmoke . ' Perrin soon branched into telev ision, playing everything from DA's to doctors, from murderers to gamblers . 'I did very well as an actor, ' he said. 'I loved doing the sleazy l ittle characters . ' During Perrin's audition for Please Stand By, h i s w i fe was seated in the recording booth next to Leslie S tevens. As Perrin recited, Stevens slapped his hand to his head and exclaimed, 'Oh my god ! ' Mrs . Perrin was aghast. ' She told me afterwards that she was sure S tevens had hated me, ' Perrin recalled. B ut Stevens explained: ' It's like me to be going oh jesus, oh god on the spot, because I remember having good feelings about him the moment he spoke . ' The Control Voice was born. ' Vi c was extraordi n ary, ' said John Elizalde, who recorded the Control Voice readings at Daystar. ' He'd come i n at 1 1 : 3 0 a t night, o r 1 : 00 i n the morning, because h i s schedule was so ful l . It didn't matter. We were there all the time, and were always ready for h i m . I t was remarkable; sometimes he'd pick up the paper and do the speech cold. His comprehension of the Vic Perri n , the Control Voice. (Cou rtesy V i c Perri n) printed word was astounding to me. He'd physical punctuation,' he said. 'One thing I learned usually do a narration ful l of twists and turns all in one from Laughton was to have an 'instant playback' take. ' Perrin also contributed voiceover dialogue i n upstairs, as though there's a little guy sitting on my postproduction whenever it was needed. ' We did the shoulder, l istening. When I get the inflection correct, speeches for four or five shows in about two hours , ' he the little guy say s , 'Okay, you can go on now. ' So I said i n 1 98 5 . 'We'd do them in gangs, and that was it. correct myself before the director has a chance to. ' I have a little trouble, today, recapturing the rather Until h i s death i n July of 1 98 9 , Vic Perrin ominous tone I used when I read those. But the continued to secure work on the strength of h i s Outer i nteresting thing about florid writing is that if you do i t Limits credential. 'If God gave me a talent, ' he said, flat, without trying t o b e Shakespearian, y o u can get ' it's the abi lity to sound more intelligent than I am on away with it. I thought it should be direct , not things that I know absolutely nothing about ! ' commanding, but authoritative . ' He had no input on content-that was Stefano's domain-and often did BfN WRIGHT not know the plots of the individual shows . 'There were times when John E l izalde would explain, from British-born Ben Huntington Wright emigrated to the booth, that a speech led into a certain scene. ' America i n the aftermath of World War Two. ' A dull Perrin's method was t o ' conduct' his recitations production, World War Two , ' j oked Wright, who rose with a baton-like motion of his right hand, holding the to the rank of captain in the British Army. 'The first two fingers pressed against h i s thumb. Years of costumes were awfu l ; the sound effects terribly loud. A thi s practice left a distinctive dent in his middle finger. long contract, to be sure, but for terrible money ! ' To ' It's l ike diagramming a sentence, like accent marks, or this country he brought h i s experience as a veteran of
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lHf OUHR liMITS CO MPANION the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and as a seasoned radio actor. His work in the U . S . included a year as Sherlock Holmes for the ABC network (his Watson was Eric Snowden) , and a stint on One Man 's Family, where Vic Perrin was a regular. Wright's skill with foreign accents led him to many on-camera roles in films and TV, primarily as military officers . His stocky build, ramrod posture , piercing gaze, and penci l moustache became his trademarks. 'They picked me principally because of my radio background,' he said. ' Word gets around as to who can do voice-overs, and who knows the dialects . ' B efore turning to The Outer Limits, he did a breadth of work ranging from the voice of the young composer in Walt Disney' s 1 0 1 Dalmatians to the narration for Cleopatra ( 1 963). Wright lent the overbearing Luminoid Authority a voice in 'A Feasibility Study, ' as well as doing the pacifistic , quietly noble Grippians for ' Moonstone. ' H e appeared as an Earth general i n 'Nightmare , ' and as a millionaire industrialist a season l ater, in ' Wolf 359.' ' Benjy used t o work the Gunsmoke radio show a lot,' said Vic Perrin . ' We used to kid him about being a pompous Britisher because he worked the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen . You can't get more elegant than that . '
Ben Wright i n h u m a n for m .
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(Cou rtesy B e n Wright)
R O H Rl J O H N S O N ' One of the reasons I like voice work is that I love the English language, ' said Robert Cleveland Johnson. 'I love the sound of it, and what you can do with the written word . ' The man who did the Daystar payroll b y day and most of The Outer Limits ' best-known 'monster voice s ' by night began his career at age sixteen, by falling in with a little theatre group called B l ue Room Productions. The company included several attorneys who encouraged the young Johnson to develop his voice. 'This was in the days prior to PA systems,' said Johnson. ' S ince there was nothing to give you a boost, you had to have a big, booming voice in court. I admired their vocal ability, and used it as a model . ' Another o f Johnson's models was the famous '30s sportscaster, Ted Husing. B y the end of World War Two, Johnson had worked as a singer, actor, and vocal performer with profe s sionals from major symphony orchestras , B roadway, and Hollywood. To support his family he completed a degree in accounting (his father's field) , and kept his voice i n trim by becoming an 'evening host' for what was then a relatively new medium, FM radio. ' Those were the days when you really did stand in the studio with your hand cupped over your ear, ' Johnson said. ' I sang, hosted, acted in dramatic sketches, and was an announcer. ' When TV began to draw advertising revenue away from radio, Johnson became an accountant for the National Lead Company. Two days after moving to Hollywood from Portland, Oregon, he was hired by Walter Lantz, of Woody Woodpecker fame, thanks to Dallas McKennon, an old friend who did cartoon voices for Lantz. Johnson also sang with the Hollywood Bowl Opera Company, the Guild Opera, and the Los Angeles Opera during this time. It was while working at Security Pictures, then based at Kling Studios, that he met Elaine Michea, who l ater h ired him for his accounting skills during the formation of Daystar Productions . l During production of Hero 's Island, Johnson was press-ganged into double duty when Leslie Stevens found himself short one colonial overseer. ' I went over to Catalina Island as kind of a location manager, ' said Johnson. ' Leslie got ahead of his own schedule, and decided to shoot some scenes w ith an actor who was still on the mainland somewhere. They tried all afternoon to
VOICfS fROM THf OUHR liMITS resurrect thi s guy, and finally, w e were sitting in a production meeting about ten o'clock at night, and Leslie said, 'Y'know, I can't quite remember the size of that guy. ' The assistant director clapped his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Well, he's about Bobby 's size ! ' Now, here's the drama of it: I had anticipated thi s, and at that instant I pulled my SAG card from my front pocket and said, 'Would this be of any help?' Leslie's eyes bugged out and he yelled, 'Get h im over to wardrobe! ' ' Ultimately, i t was Elaine Michea who pitched Johnson to Stevens as a voice man. 'I vied with Vic Perrin to do the Control Voi c e , ' said John s o n . 'Although I'm sure h e never knew it. I'd heard him for years on the radio. But I was still i n my 'formative' stage and he was an established voice-over man, so he got it.' S ince Johnson worked in the Daystar bui lding, he was instantly available whenever dubbing work was needed up on the fourth floor. 'When they were ready to have talking rocks, or whatever' said Michea, ' B ob would run upstairs, do his thing, then come back down to his desk. ' Someti mes i t was j ust a line or two, a telephone or intercom voice; other times it was a full­ blown al ien speech, a maj or vocal role with many l ines (as in both 'The Guests ' and ' Fun and Games ' ) . 'It was fun, ' said Johnson, 'and I thought I was l ucky to get such work. My god, to me it was l ike play for pay ! Often, I would not have seen the script prior to the actual recording session, and Joe S tefano would 'brief a character for me. In a very short time, without fillng my head up with ideas and procedure, we'd arrive at a form ula for doing the character. Most of my performances are pretty spontaneous because there was no lead time; the most would be a phone call a day beforehand. Stefano was pretty descriptive, explicit and expl anatory. ' Desp i te h i s standing in S AG , Johnson never appeared physically i n any Outer Limits epi sode. 'Bob was thri lled to death with doing those monster speeches , ' noted Robert Justman, who l ater recommended Johnson to Mission: Impossible creator Bruce Geller. What began as a one-time reading for the pi lot grew into 1 75 separate assignments on behalf of the Impossible Missions Force, as TV's most famous pre-recorded voice. While Johnson retired from accounting in 1 97 5 , he remained interested in unlocking the potentials of voice, and in 1 983 released his unique voice coaching course via mail order. When Mission : Impossible was rev ived in 1 989,
Robert Johnson, the often·heard, never·seen Man of a Thousand Mon ster Voices. (Photo : Reed Soron; cou rtesy Robert J o hnson)
Johnson renewed his most famous gig. 'The Outer Limits was a very i m aginative show, ' he said. ' You could let your mind roam beyond the script. I'm a fai rly smart writer; I know the rules of grammar and I like phrasing and deli vering l i nes, investing them with something more than they had in the beginning. I loved thi s show because it let your head go where it wanted to go. I'm sure that nearly everybody 'added' to those scripts, while they were watching and l i stening . ' The next Oute r Lim its assi gnment for both Johnson and Vic Perrin would be a suitable challenge, in that i t required them to invest some dramatic punch i nto such di alogue as : 'Pie ben zo a lanz tri ob trinsini! '
K l i n g Studios was housed on the old Charl ie Chap l i n stage in m i dtown H o l l y wood. Th i s b u i l d i n g today houses A & M Records a n d w a s a l s o an Outer Limits shooting stage briefly during the show's second season.
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T H [ ZA N T I M I S f I TS I Broad cast 3 0 D e c e m b e r 1 9 63 Written by Joseph Stefa no Di rected by Leo n a rd H o rn Assistant D i rector: Robert J ustm a n Di rector of Photography: J o h n N i ckolaus CAST: Prof. Stephen Grave ( M ichael To l a n ) . G e n . M a xi m i l l i a n R . H a rt ( R o b e rt F. S i m o n ) . Maj. Roger H i l l ( C la u d e Woo l m a n ) . Ben G a rth ( B ruce Dern). Lisa Lawrence ( O l ive Deeri n g ) . C o m m u n icati ons Operator ( Lex Johnson), R a d a r Operator (Joey Tata). Computer Tech n i c i a n ( G e o rg e Sims). A i r Po li c e Sergeant ( M ike M i kler), Corp D e l a n o (Bill H a rt), Vo ices of Radio Newscaster, Zanti Reg ent, a n d Zanti Commander ( R o b e rt J o h nson). Vo ice of Zanti Priso n e r (Vic Perri n )
' Do not betray u s . Our privacy m ust be m a i nta i ned . . .
Throughout history, compassionate minds have pondered this dark and disturbing question : What is society to do with those members who are a threat to society, those malcontents and misfits whose behavior undermines and destroys the foundations of civilization ? Diffe rent ages have found different answers . Misfits have been burned, branded, and banished. Today on this planet Earth , the crim inal is in carcera ted in h umane institutions , or he is executed. Other planets use other methods . This is the story of how the peljectionist rulers of th e p lanet Zanti attempted to solve the problem of the Zanti misfits.
Grave, a historian, arrives at the California ghost town of Morgue to document the arrival of a penal ship from the planet Zanti, whose rulers , incapable of executing their own species, have coerced Earth officials into allowing them to exile their criminals to our world. The Zanti government has threatened ' total annihilation ' to anyone disturbing their cordoned-off tract of desert, but have not anticipated the intrusion of rich, neurotic Lisa Lawrence and her psychopathic paramour, Ben Garth, who run down a checkpoint sentry and trespass into the restricted area. Garth happens upon the Zanti ship, a bullet-shaped capsule
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perched on a rock scarp. A hatch springs open and he i s attacked by the Regent of Prisoners-a large , antlike insect about a foot long, with a humanoid face, round­ pupilled eyes, and tiny, mean teeth. Back at the military command post in Morgue, Grave, Gen . Hart, and his men listen in horror as the Zanti radio l ink transmits Garth' s death-scream s . While Grave volunteers to enter the Zanti landing area as an emissary, Lisa finds Garth's corpse wedged into the cliffside and is chased back to her car by the Regent. Grave arrives in time to smash the Regent with a
Gen H a rt (Robert F. Si mon) and Grave (Michael To lan) suss the Zanti l a n d i n g a rea . Ma j . H i l l (C laude Woo l m a n ) is seated i n the background .
THf ZANTI MISfITS boulder, but the Zanti prisoners commandeer the ship and attack the command post, which is set up in an abandoned hotel. A fierce firefight with rifles and grenades ensues, from which H art's men emerge victorious. When Hart grimly wonders how the Zantis will retaliate, a new transmission comes in, long distance, from the planet's Commander: 'We will not retaliate. We never intended to. We knew that you could not live with such aliens in your midst. It was always our intention that you destroy them and their guards, who were of the same spoiled persuasion. We chose your planet for that purpose. We are incapable of executing our own species, but you are not. You are practiced executioners. We thank you . ' Throughout history, various societies have tried various methods of exterminating those members who have proven their inability or unwillingness to live sanely among their fellow men . The Zantis merely tried one more method, neither better nor worse than all the others. Neither more human nor less human than all the others. Perhaps, merely . . . nonhuman .
An enduring Outer Limits favorite more because of its unique alien menace than its underdeveloped themes (the politics of aggression, the capacity of any spec ies for self-destruction ) , 'The Zanti Misfits , ' according t o Stefano, was written ' t o give some thought to the way we've been killing each other, legal ly and illegally, throughout all of history. ' It was the first of a group of scripts done by Stefano while his Outer Limits output was at its most furious pace, from October through the end of 1 96 3 . In
.
Ma j . H i l l rea lizes his need for more a m m o .
Tota l destruction to a nyone who i nvades it! '
addition to his pro forma touch-ups and revisions on every Outer Limits teleplay, he turned out five more original scripts during this period. ' I didn't have the time to do treatments or outline s , ' he said. 'I just made them up as I went along, according to a v i s ion in my head-not a step-by-step formula, but more like a dream. This made my analysis more difficult. I'd no longer free-associate , but I 'd correct and edit what I'd dreamt the previous night, and spin it into a tale ! B ut this was great for my writing, though , and this was a very lush period for me . ' Stefano's claim that h e would lock himself into his office in order to complete a script over a weekend is no exaggeration, and the fi rst two scripts thus produced, 'The Zanti Misfits' and ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, ' introduce cryptic characters who seem to have deep philosophical problems , but little time to address them , or even explain for the audience
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Bad guy Bruce Dern a s seen from the Zanti porthole.
what they are. Stefano assigns each character a clear value within the aggression theme : Grave is the academic turned killer in spite of his high-sounding morals; Major Hill is the dog of war whose only comprehension of superiority lies in the comparative size of the enemy's stick; the aptly-named Gen Hart is an old-school soldier (in effect an experienced, wiser version of Hill) who is frustrated by his own idealism and the impenetrabil ity of protoco l ; B e n Garth represents the human instinct to kill turned rebelliously outward upon the entire world, while his around-the­ bend lover, Lisa Lawrence, is that same instinct, focused suicidally inward. Once established, these symbolic character types do not develop; they remain ciphers , caught up in the whirlwind of events culminating in a conventional action capper, the Zanti attack. Thi s climax is exciting and satisfying, but the business leading up to it is meandering and muddy. The chase between the Zanti Regent and Lisa is hard to swallow (crawling bug overtakes running human). Grave, who comes to preserve peace, kills the Regent as though there is no option-like running away and outdi stancing it. Then Lisa dissolves into an incoherent monologue about her own self-destruction that stops the show dead. Part of the problem was due to script tightening. Hart, for the most part, seems to be merely a harried military peacekeeper. He complains, ' If [the Zantis] retaliate, it means death and suffering, broken bodies, and broken hearts. I can't let everybody break. ' This isn't very meaningfu l , because it is the tail end of a longer speech cut by Stefano from the original draft :
HART: I hate w ar, Steve ! I hate the people who cause it and I hate them with every atom of my being ! So I pretend to respect the enemy, even l ike h i m . I try to m i n imize him with love ! I hate the Zanti s . I hate our comprom ising ourselves. Yet I recommended it. I d i d ! B ecause almost anything is better than a war! Right now I would l ike to go in there , pick up that detestable 'Red Spec i a l ' phone and adv ise the Chief to destruct ! Wipe them off the face of our Earth . C lean the face of o u r Earth of every hosti l e , aggressive, coerc ing being o r non-being o n i t !
I
would l ike to do that . . .but I can't. B ecause I'm afraid. And I ' m o l d . And I ' m sick of a l l thi s !
We are told Grav e ' s father was a war correspondent, that Grave is a ' sentimentalist' (he uses his dad's old typewriter), and that he would have liked to have reported live from Hiroshima if he could have helped. Presumably he follows in his father's footsteps
The Zanti Regent as seen th rough the windshield of Dave Lesser's Lincoln Continenta l .
THf ZANTI MISfITS by first turning the Zanti l anding into a war in his own mind, then doing everything possible to make this view self-fulfilling. His very first act-fl icking an Earth ant from a post, in deadly presagement of what i s to come-is hostile. He eagerly vol unteers as an em issary of peace, and sure enough, he's the first Earthl ing to kill a Zanti . Lisa i s the biggest question mark o f all . Nothing really j ustifies her strung-out behavior, but she does momentarily permit the episode to weirdly resemble a B i g Bug movie of the 1 950s: Hero with Th ick Glasses S aves High-Heeled Femme in Familiar Desert Milieu (with the characteri stic gigantism of the insect antagonists left out). And those insect antagoni sts are what boost this show into the front rank of unforgettable Outer Limits episodes. Stefano blithely exploits the human fear of crawling, bristling bugs, and it matters little that we Earthlings are much bigger than the Zantis-we, l i ke Lisa, would probably run l ike hell if confronted by one. Wh ile the use of stop-motion animation to motivate the tiny critters endears the show to spec i al effects fans , Leonard Horn ' s w e l l ­ Bruce Dern a n d Ol ive Deeri ng encou nter Zonti ' s F ive Most Wa nted . planned direction packs t h e episode w ith from the inside. striking visual images: The uneasy expressions traded The loud and chaotic-if terribly one-sided­ by the command post soldiers as they l isten to the battle that exterminates the Zan tis i s doubly interesting bizarre Zant i voice emitting from a tran s l at i ng due to the fact that it was not included in Stefano's first computer, for example. Or Ben Garth's face looming script. Originally, the revelatory Zanti transmission hugely in the Zanti ship's porthole as a segmented leg was to precede the slaughter, with the show fading out (the first we see of the aliens) squeaks across the glass as the first shot i s fired. The incl usion of the battl� was a winning gamble, and Horn manages to show a few convincing human casualties am id the somewhat extreme shots of Zanti s getting blown to bits by explosions and point-blank gunfi re. One shot, showing a screaming, Zanti-covered soldier falling down the hotel steps and flailing around, packs a wal lop even today, and the battle sequence illustrates one way Stefano could present a mass murder on network TV with no i nterference from the censors-so long as aliens were the ones getting massacred. Luckily, the time Horn lavi shed on his camera set­ ups shows onscreen . ' Lenny Horn would still be shooting The Zanti M i sfits' today if I hadn't pulled the plug on h im , ' said 1st AD Robert Justman . 'After I knew he had enough coverage it was a matter of A ha rdcore Zanti l i fer.
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saying, 'This i s i t ; w e can't afford t o stay any longer ! ' ' John Nickolaus recalled, ' Once, an actor i n the same shot as the rigged Zanti s blew his lines, and it took S i Simonsen half an hour t o re-rig all the wires for a retake-they were frequently getting all tangled up. ' Ghost Town Street, a stock Western set on the MGM lot, was used as Morgue, California, and the exteriors of the Zanti landing zone were filmed at the famous Vasquez Rocks formations j ust outside of Los Angeles (a location almost as prevalent in science fiction fi lms as Bronson Caverns). It was here that B ruce Dern, as Ben Garth (a part originally offered to Burt Reynolds), did his own stunt fall down the rock incline. ' B ruce and I were good friends , ' noted Justman. ' Even then, he was training to be an Olympic runner, and he'd use the time between set-ups to run . I'd tell him, 'You've got to be back i n half an hour, and in exactly half an hour he'd be back so I could tell him, 'Another fifteen minutes ! ' ' Dern i s the show's most interesting piece of casting (he had been a semi-regular on Stoney Burke), and Garth , the story ' s most uncl uttered character. As street-lethal as thi s hood is, he i s nonetheless spellbound as he squints toward the Zanti ship and asks the ti me-honored science fiction question, ' What do you suppose that is . . . ?' Olive Deeri ng, then the wife of Alfred Ryder (seen in 'The Borderland ' ) , was cast by John Erman, who had seen her in a playhouse production of Suddenly Last Summer. Wah Chang sculpted the show's true stars, and after Stefano told the Project Unlimited crew that the aliens were 'not pretty enough , ' Chang softened their physi ognomies and turned them over to Paul LeB aron for mass production. 'We built the main ones around
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wire armatures because o f budget and time restrictions,' Chang said. 'This made the animation less flexible than we wanted. ' 2 The stop-motion animation o f the four Zantis seen in close-up (Chang gave them differing expressions and hair distribution) was executed by AI Hamm, who had done the Monkey Money sequence for Mighty Joe Young ( 1 949). Operating the camera for thi s time-gobb l i n g process was Ralph Rodine, with whom Hamm had done the animated Speedy Alka-Seltzer commercials a few years earlier. The Zanti voices were the result of John Eli zalde working his u sual audio magi c , speeding up and distorting the voices of Robert Johnson and Vic Perri n reading l i nes in the Zanti language i n vented by S tefano: 'Lanz trinsini lobe zan a mang lis lanz ob. ' Thi s i s the only time in the entire series an ali en i s heard speaking anything but English. To S tefano's credi t , the show's s i ngle most haunting scene depicts the Earth personnel l i stening to thi s weird al ien tongue and wondering j ust what the hell they've gotten into. It is a direct contrast to the pyrotechni c action that makes the show hurtle along, and demonstrates that it is very often the little things that are the most unnerving.
'Zanti ' i s also t h e n a m e of t h e a l i e n overseer, played by Cynthia Zamperi n i , who appears in the beginning of Critters
2: The Main Cou rse ( 1 98 8 ) , the feature directorial debut of
screenwriter Mick Garri s . 2
Stop-motion, a process in w h i c h t h e position of a stati onary model or obj ect is manipulated every few frames of fi l m in order to confer the i l l usion of independent movement when the completed fil m is proj ected, usually util izes complex, j ointed armatures that are costly and time consuming to mac h i n e .
MONSTfRS, INWRPORAHO
Monsters, Incor�orate�
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Another Outer Limits fa m i ly portra it ( L-R) : Andro, from 'The Man Who Was N ever Born , ' the Box Demon from ' Do n ' t Open Ti l l Doomsday, ' the E m pyri a n from ' Second C h a nce, ' Al lyson Ames (Lesl i e Stevens' th i rd wife, who a p pea red in 'The G a laxy Bei n g ' and ' Prod uction and Decay of Stra nge Particles ' ) . an E bon ite from ' N ightmare, ' and the Bifrost a l i e n from 'The Bellero S h ield . '
A l ittle thing that creeps across a desk can cost two thousand dollars to make. Of course, in quantity they become cheaper. A monster outfit-the kind you dress a man up in-can run as high as seven or eight thousand dollars . That's more than you're al lowed i n most shows for your entire cast ! -Joseph Stefano
B yron Haskin cheerfully characterized Project Unl im ited as ' a rubber and glue factory that stunk up the neighborhood. ' The first true ' special effects company, ' Project U n l imited, Inc . designed and developed The Outer Limits ' v i s ually unique al iens, executed model animation and optical trickery, and
served as a c atch-all special effects pool that participated in each of the series' 49 episodes. Assembled i n the l ate 1 950s (and referred to as ' Projects' by most of its alumn i ) , the organization's first work was on the George Pal feature tom thumb ( 1 95 8 ) . S ubsequent assignments for Pal included Atlantis-The Lost Continent, The Time Machine, and The Wondeljul World of the Brothers Grimm . Other fantasy films of the early 1 960s heav i l y infl uenced by Projects were Dinosaurus! ( 1 960), Master of the World ( 1 96 1 ) , Jack the Giant Killer and Journey to the 7th Planet (both 1 962) . Th e Outer Lim its was the company's first TV work, and it was brought into the Daystar fold by Leon Chool uck and Byron Haskin. The company heads were Wah Ming Chang and
TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PAN ION Gene Warren, along with Tim B aar, the 'gang boss' who assembled the group i n 1 95 8 . Outer Limits ' effects coordinator, M . B . Pau l , was the l iaison between Vi lla di Stefano and Projects, assigning work to the group at an average ceiling of $ 1 0,000 per episode. The Outer Limits provided continuous , bread-and-butter money for Projects at a time when feature fi lm work was sporad i c , but the seri e s ' demands were frequently high-pressure ones. Chang and Warren sat in on the Daystar script meetings, making suggestions and sketching monsters while episodes took shape at the conference table, ' I did all the contracting and pre-planni ng , ' said Warren . 'The only way a show l ike The Outer Limits could be feasibly done was if we were in on each show from the beginning. If something looked impossible to do under the circumstances , we advi sed Daystar and tried to help with rewriting. They appreciated this since we
were all under the same pressure. Once they had a start date for shooting, the devices, costumes and so on had to be ready by that date-so Projects had to start working on effects two weeks before the scripts were approved by the network, in some cases. Our budgets were adequate; we didn't really make that much money. Unlike Star Trek, where e ighty per cent of the effects were stock shots, and reusable, The Outer Limits was worse than usual because you needed new creations every week. S ometimes we'd refurbish an old monster suit, j ust to ease the pressure . I wonder now how we ever did it ! ' After the meetings, Chang said, ' We would go back (to Projects) and try to figure out how thi s thing could actually be done. ' A talented sculptor and designer, Chang was often behind the camera himself, filming effects, when he wasn't roughing out the look of next week's 'bear' in wood or clay. Warren used
Project U n l i m ited c rew on the set of Jack the Giant Killer in 1 96 1 . ( F i rst row, knee l i n g ) : Dave Morick and Don Sa h l i n . (Second row, sitti ng) : Ma rion the secreta ry, Marcel Delgado, B i l l Brace. (Back row) : Gene Wa rren (fa r left) , Ti m Boar, P h i l Kel l ison, Victor Delgado, Wa h Ming Chang (making ' devi l horns' over B race ' s head) , Pa u l LeBaron ( i n cap) a n d B l a n d i n g S l oa n . (Cou rtesy J i m Danforth)
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MONSHAS, INWAPOAAHO
An u n i d e n tified Proj ects tec h n i c i a n h o l d s the u n pa i nted Theta n headpiece.
A sna pshot of the fin ished Theta n outside Projects (note the Sunset Bou levard address-5 5 55-in the background) .
said Stefano aide Tom Selden. ' If a script said a detailed cue sheets to 'direct, ' from his desk, most of creature had to push buttons or run a computer, they Projects' optical effects-warp s , shimmers , immediatel y started designing things with fingers and spaceships, rays, disintegrations, and the like . Once hands to do all that, and we said, 'No, no, that's not the recorded on film, these effects were shipped to either way to go at all ! ' ' Eventually, Projects' outlook the Ray Mercer or B utler-Glouner companies, for broadened, enabling them to conceive such wild composition with l i ve-action footage . Very often , the concoctions as the Chromoite from 'The Mice,' the man shuttling film cans all over Hollywood was B yron phallic denizen of ' Don't Open Till Doomsday, ' and Haskin. 'I was at Projects a lot , ' he said. 'I remember the amorphous nasties seen in ' Corpus Earthling' and taking Janos Prohaska over there to see if he could fit 'The Invi sibles . ' into the Thetan costume and be able to work it. ' Of the monsters , Warren noted, 'We did not always agree with Stefano, but his was a very strong personal ity, and he made that show hang together. Joe was very definite on what he wanted, but was always behind. He'd miss early meetings because he was busy finishing another episode, and by the time he did show up, we were al ready b u i l ding some­ thing . ' Th i s accounts for the extremely vague, though very adaptable, descriptions of the assorted creatures found in many Outer Limits scripts. ' We had t o educate B l a n d i n g Sloan touches u p a n a l ien soldier head from ' Keeper o f the Purple Twi l i g ht. ' (Cou rtesy Bob Burns) Projects in s uch thing s , '
TH f OUHR liMITS COMPANION helped everyone else, cri s s ­ crossmg credits. Ralph Rodine, for example, was both a cameraman and an accompl i shed animator. 'I had a Local 44 card as a prop-maker, but not as a Rodine c ameraman , ' said. ' S ometimes an outside supervisor would rai se a stink , coming down and complaining th at I was operating a camera . . . at which point, Wah would step in and say, 'I'm running thi s c amera, not Ralph, and who are you to be telling me how to run my company, anyway? ! ' ' Projects' sheer di vers ity lent it an atmosphere that was anything but union-conscious, and Chang and Warren worked hard to get their people into other facets of the industry. 'Jim Danforth tried to get into Albert Whitl ock's group, and the matte painters' union , ' s a i d Rodine. ' B ut even with Projects pushing for h i m , he couldn't, because the structure at Projects was not in keeping with the established system of ladder­ cl imbing. As far as the unions were concerned, we were legal , but not entirely on the up-and-up. We kind of scooted along that way. ' Another Projects stal wart wa s Paul LeB aron, a master prop and model-maker who was often called upon to fin i sh up head The C h romoite ( H u g h La ngtry) assi sts Joe Stefa no for a goof on the set of 'The Mice, ' on location i n sculpts done by Chang. ' I made MGM ' s Ta rza n Forest (note rubber b a n d on t h e a l ien ' s wri st) . molds and cast mask s , ' he said, ' I 'When we were caught in a budget overrun and was more mechanical , and a s a rule I wouldn't sculpt had to come up with a new monster, at less than our because I wasn't any good at it. I'd make the armatures usual allotment of money, ' said Leslie Stevens , ' we and the frames that held things together. ' LeB aron would joke that our next monster was going to be an constructed the fabulous fl ying mach ine seen i n innertube with feathers on i t . ' Master of t h e World, a n d a t Project s , he built Try ing to pinpoint exactly who d i d what at everything from monsters to flying saucers. Projects is not only difficult, but ultimately pointless. Rodine, LeB aron, and Jim Danforth (then only 23 It was a ' gray union shop' in which duties were years old) were accorded individual credits beneath the performed by whoever had a free hand. Everyone Projects mantle in the end titles for The Outer Limits.
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MONSHRS, INCPORAl[O 'Tim Baar fixed that up, ' said LeB aron, 'He was a pretty good lobbyist. ' Rodine elaborated: ' Before The Outer Limits, the credit would have read, 'Project, Unlimited : Gene Warren , Wah Chang, Tim B aar. ' When both The Outer Limits and feature work became steady, Paul, Jim, and I petitioned Gene Warren for a raise. Warren suggested we take screen credit i nstead. I voted for the money; Danforth and LeBaron for the credit. So our names appeared rather arbitrarily­ you'd see them on some show we didn't work on, then you'd see Ray Mercer's name on a show we did do. ' Apart from Chang , Warren , B aar, Rodine, LeBaron, and Danforth, Project Unlimited included AI Hamm (model animation) , B i l l B race (matte paintings) , and Paul Pattee, a modelmaker, sculptor and all-purpose assistant who did weird things like submerge himself in six feet of water and breathe through a hunk of hose in order to operate a hand­ puppet monster for an episode titled 'The Invisible Enemy. ' The Projects prop shop was run by Marcel Delgado (who worked with Willis O'Brien on King Kong in 1 933) and his son, Victor. ' He was a great all­ round effects man , ' said Warren . 'He did molds and sculpts, and he and Victor built most of the actual creature costumes . ' Jim Danforth pointed out that B i l l Brace w a s actually the ' art director' a t Projects; B race also did designs, and painted masks and mattes . He did the ' l ibrary shot' in 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' while Rodine photographed it. For shows such as 'The S i xth Finger, ' which utilized a triumvirate of makeup artists, Projects batted cleanup, providing such extras as the massive gloves with elongated fingers worn by David McCallum, or even futuristic lab equipment or props . Also with Projects at this time, though not involved in Outer Limits work, were David Pal, Tom Holland, Don Sahlin (an animator and artist who l ater worked for Muppet-master Jim H en s o n ) , Phil Kel lison, Blanding Sloan, and Dave Morick. ' Sloan was a friend of Wah' s who didn't do much work , ' said LeBaron . ' Dave was an actor who played a lot of Germans on Hogan 's Heroes; he was more or less a cleanup guy, and a good helper. ' Working in an adv isory capacity was a Disney technician named B ob Mattey, who in 1 975 was called out of retirement to dev ise ' B ruce , ' the mechanical killer shark seen 111 Jaws. Besides Byron Haskin, Projects also worked in close conjunction with Janos Prohaska and makeup
A typ ical Ralph Rod i n e-style ' va n i s h ment' from 'Arc h i tects of Fear. '
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TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
Projects personnel gather a round the m a n-made Martia n sea o f sand for 'The Invisible Enemy, ' a second season episode. Gene Wa rren stands center i n the white s h i rt to the right of the camera operator. (Cou rtesy Bob B u rnsl
Don Post pai nts the fi n i s h i n g touches onto a Lu m i noid head mask for ' A Fea s i b i l i ty Study. '
(Cou rtesy Bob B u rnsl
MONSTfRS, INCORPORATfO man Fred Phillips. 'In some cases, Phil lips did monsters by himself, ' said Chang. 'I do recall going over designs and making appliances of actors with Phillips . ' According to WalTen , M . B . Paul, the effects coordinator, was ' primarily involved with optical effects , while we handled 'physical' effects. He wasn't really an in-between man, because if, say, Jack Poplin wanted to know something, he'd come directly to Projects rather than ask Paul . ' ' Project U n l imited was a t 5 5 5 5 S unset Boulevard , ' said LeB aron. ' Right down the street from KTTY. ' Warren recalled, 'We had a 2500square-foot shop, art and conference rooms, and two long soundstages . We had Mitchell and Bell & Howell cameras; we rented anything for bigger setup s . ' Ralph Rodine would often light and shoot effects setups in the parking lot. ' We were always trying new ways of 'vanishing' people and things on The Outer Limits , ' he said. 'We had an Acme optical printer left over from the Pal films, and used that to create all kinds of beams and rays . ' A s much a s Stefano's scripts , Gerd Oswald's direction, or Conrad Hall's cinematography, Wah Chang's eccentric monster designs are another of The Outer Limits ' distinctive signatures. As he said: ' You try to create the best thing you can within the time and budget. ' After retiring from the movie business, Chang fabricated fine art sculptures and castings , many of which were sold through a gallery in Mexico run by his old partner, Gene WalTen . ' Did Gene ever t e l l y o u h o w we'd negotiate?' Makeup a rtist F red P h i l l i ps on the set of 'The Sixth F i nger with David said Claude B inyon, Jr. , who became responsible for McCa l l u m . (Cou rtesy F red P h i l l i psi contracting Projects work during the series' second season . 'We'd sit in my office and drink scotch, and I'd gradually work him down to a lower price than it should have been. It was always in fun . And he'd sit there and say, 'My God, I gave the show away again ! ' Binyon also worked out the detail s on some optical effects with Frank Van Der Veer, founder of the now famous Van Der Veer Photo Effects house. 'Every once in a while, something would go wrong with one of our effects , ' remembered Paul LeBaron. 'And I'd have to go down to KTTV or Paramount and straighten it out. It was a bore; I nearly lost my mind on that deal . I'm tellin' you, we were working on a shoestring down there ! '
Outside Projects
-
Proiecf
-
on S u n set Bou leva rd, 1 964. (Cou rtesy B o b Burnsl
THf OUHR liMITS �OM PANION
I T C R AW l [ D O U T O f T H [ W O O D W O R K Broadcast 9 December 1 9 63 Written by Joseph Stefano Di rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assistant D i rector: L e e H . Katz i n Di rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: J o ry Peters (Scott M a rlowe), Prof. Stu a rt Peters ( M i chael Forrest), D r. Block ( Kent Smith), Gaby Christian ( B a rb a ra Lu n a ) , D e L SgL Thomas S i r o l e o (Ed A s n e r ) , Prof. Ste p h a n i e Linden (Joan La mden), Wa rren Edgar M o rley ( G e n e D a rfler), New Se ntry (Ted d e Corsia), Coroner (To m Pa l m e r), C l e a n i n g Lady ( Lea M a rmer), NO RCO I ntercom Vo ice ( R o bert Johnson).
The Outer Lim its ' i m morta l Vac u u m C leaner Monster m a kes its chaotic debut.
His name is Warren Edgar Morley. For the past six months, he has guarded this gate ji'om eight in the morning until six at night, at which time he is replaced by another just like himself. These are the last few moments oj' his life .
At NORCO, a top-security energy research facility tucked away in the San Fernando Val ley, a c leaning woman working the midnight shift finds a mysterious black dustball stuck against a baseboard, and when she sucks it into her vacuum cleaner, it amplifies into a strobing, chaotic cloud of lethal energy that instantly consumes her and leaves no trace. Later, physicist Stuart Peters arrives to accept a position at NORCO with his younger brother lory in tow. Morley, the gate guard, tries to warn them away with a message scribbled inside a matchbook, and is destroyed for this attempt by the energy cloud, which shorts out a pacemaker-like control box strapped to Morley's chest. Stuart shows the matchbook to NORCO head Dr. Block, who has managed to pen up the energy-sucking cloud inside a chamber called the Pit. He has used the cloud to terrify the NORCO staff to death with heart attacks, after which he reanimates them, using the pacemaker boxes, in order that they may continue research into new ways to generate energy to feed the ever-hungry cloud. The next time lory sees Stuart, Stuart is wearing one of the boxes, which shorts out
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and kills him when he accidentally pl unges into a bathtub ful l of water. With the help of Prof. Linden (another unwilling NORCO zombie) , the detective investigating Stuart's death uncovers NORCO's secret. Linden shoots B lock, but before B lock dies he unleashes the energy c loud from the Pit. It goes amok, killing all the NORCO personnel by leaching the power from their pacemakers-including Dr. Linden. Before she expires, she tell s the detective, Siroleo, that a local power blackout will force the thing back into the Pit, which has self-contained power generators. The plan works, with lory showing up just as all the ruckus dies down. ' It's under control , ' advises S iroleo. ' For the moment . . . ' The Conservation of Energy La w--a principle which states that energy can be changed in form but that it cannot be either created or destroyed, And this is true of all energy--t he energy of genius , of madness , oj' the heart, of the atom . And so it must be lived with . It must be controlled, channeled for good, held isolated fi'om evil, and somehow lived with , peaceably.
Unconventionally structured and staffed with abstruse characters, ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' nearly demands to be interpreted as allegory, since as a linear dramatic narrative it does very little. Two typical Stefano touches are hugely presented : The bastille of scientific research presented in Old Dark House terms, and characters that i l l u m inate their oddbal l
IT CRAWlfO OUT Of THf WOODWORK backgrounds largely in terms of talkative asides not directly relevant to the plot. The story can easily be read for the obvious parable, a caution against the destructive potential of n u clear power, that annihilatory boogeyman of post-World War Two thinking, and the need for the technicians who toy with it to be governed by a h uman conscience. B ut paradoxical ly, the show's bas i s , and perhaps its message, is the thing least accessible to the v iewer since it has to do with a theory held by Stefano abou writing. 'We write, or make films, as a kind of exorcism ' he said. 'And what keeps us writing is the fact the e things never really do get exorcised no matter how many films or scripts we do. ' Under pressure to deliver complete scripts in whirlwind weekends of typing, Stefano conceived a monster that consumes all forms of energy. The idea came to him from thin air ' or, it might be said, right out of the woodwork. The concept of an energy cloud, first explored in 'The Man With the Power, ' i s reprised here as a voracious monster of Lovecraftian proportions, and contrasts Stefano's approach to that of Leslie Stevens. In 'Power' the cloud, while ominous and lethal, is stately, like a methodical lightning storm . Stefano's literal Thing in the Pit gobbles up everything in its path in an eyeblink of time. 'The trick of the show is to put the unreal in the midst of the real, ' said Stefano. 'If there's a grotesque, awe- inspiring monster coming at you, there's a mechanism in your psyche that tells you it's unreal . You always know you're inside something, so relax and have fun . I try to invent convincing people and put them into real houses, to build reality into other areas of the show so the audience can sit back and be scared in comfort. The terror must always
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Stu (Michael Forest) shorts o u t i n t h e bathtu b .
b e unreal . ' The isolated NORCO plant, dark and appropriately disused, ' was j ust a restructuring of the old haunted house motif. ' ' Woodwork ' ' ' s problematic characters are complex enough to seem real, but are trapped in a dramatic chaos only slightly less controlled than the madly strobing energy cloud that dispatches many of them by the final c urtain . 'Jory is the perennial younger brother who doesn't bother to develop because his older brother, S t u , has 'become' that mature personality ' said Stefano. ' You can get crushed by older brothers . ' At one point, Stuart suggests to Dr. B lock that it might be good for Jory to be independent, on his own, noting that Jory is technically his ward. Stefano cut the following lines from his script : BLOCK: Is he financially dependent on you? . STUART: No. He came into his trust at eighteen. BLOCK: He sounds weak . (pause) I didn't mean that unkindly. STUART: I know. And he is . . . in the way a wounded deer is weak.
Most of the story's irrelevancies are heaped into Jory's mouth. He rambles on tirelessly about his chronic nightmares and never sleeping during the day, even though he does j ust that after smelling something 'deadly sweet' in his hotel room, which has been my steri o u s l y cleaned up while he slept. The implication seems to be that NORCO gassed Jory in his room i n order to retrieve the incriminating matchbook already handed over to Dr. Block by Stu . . . but Gaby-and the viewer-never finds out. One
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TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION When the energy cloud i s freed from the Pit to run amok, it i s S iroleo w h o says, 'As long as we're in the dark, we're as safe as we can be'-a nice turnabout on the dark fears Stefano wielded so well in other shows. ' I thought that ( The S i xth Finger') was one of the most i nteresting, poet i c , dramati c shows I ' d ever seen, ' recalled Ed Asner, 'so when I got the call to do The Outer Limits, I almost might have done it for nothing. When I first heard the Control Voice it was l ike, yeah , I 'm with you ; wherever you 're going , take me with you . I thought I was going to levitate out of my living room ! ' 'We have to find a way to The Outer Lim its crew on the 'Woodwork' set. (From left, past the bald i n g g ri p) : Sta nd·i n Allan or change , break, the 'Whitey' C h ristie, Gerd Oswa ld, Gene Da rfler, a n d Lee Katz i n (wea ring h at) . Conservation of Energy Law, ' of the few meaningful speeches he delivers is a L inden tell s Stu. It i s B lock, of course, who needs to recounting of his parents' death i n a boating acc ident­ create new energy to feed the hungry force in the Pit, which connects directly to Stu's death-by-water, in the so he may investigate it. ' Every man wants to solve hotel bathtub. one mystery before he dies , ' he says after Linden Death and talk of death abound in ' Woodwork . ' shoots him. Despite name-dropping the Conservation Several characters-notably Stu-die more than once. of Energy Law, it is c lear within moments that ' You must get over thi s repugnance for death, ' the 'Woodwork' has no truck w ith real science. Stefano sinister Block purrs (in a thick Kissinger accent) at was more interested in painting a nightmari sh picture Prof. Linden, one of the NORCO scientists he has of what goes on inside top secret, government-funded resurrected. 'For you to hate death is as foolish as for labs-the type that would never let ordinary citizens a l ive person to hate life . ' True enough, but dying i s past their iron gates. It seems that B lock's obsessive nevertheless shown t o b e a hideous and agonizing plan to study the energy cloud backfires because once experience-we see the NORCO zombies grimacing he kills his dissident researchers , then reanimates them and screaming as their pacemaker boxes are shorted to serve his needs, they l ack the sort of burning out or drained; Stu's death in the Pit, and later, by scientifi c curiosity Stu evi nces when he first walks into electrocution in the tub, are both protracted and the lab. He is alive, his soul is his own, and he is the painful. Stefano's macabre black humor tints the scene new blood B lock needs. Linden, on the other hand, i s in which Jory tells Stu he wouldn't be 'caught dead never seen doing anything except drifting around the working at a place l ike NORCO '-where, of course, obviously disused and unmaintained lab. If B lock all the workers except B lock are a/ready dead. really wanted to make a name for himself, he should S i nce the indeci s i ve Jory is too weak to carry the have marketed those miraculous 'pacemaker' boxes plot past the point of Stu's bathtub death, Stefano with which he revivifies the dead. brings on Ed Asner as the tough, teddy-bearish S iroleo The soulless nature o f B lock's NORCO drones i s to del iver some of the best l ines in the show. ' Stuart a n aspect o f the show's indictment o f atomic energy. Peters had scar tissue as fresh as tomorrow morning's The only use to which B lock i s able to put the energy milk,' he says. 'If he'd been i n any better health, they cloud is murder. Like real-life nuclear researchers , he would have given him a morning show on television . '
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IT CRAWlfO OUT Of TH[ WOOOWORK i s a slave to the power he i s presumably investigating, and no matter what the rationalization for puttering with such power might be, the bottom l ine i s always the struggle to keep it penned up and under control. B ut Stefano takes great care, i n the closing Control Voice speech , to mention such things as genius, madness, and the human heart before getting around to atoms , hinting at the personal demons this script m ight have helped him to corral and control. The Energy Creature itself is ingen i o u s l y conceived. Smoke effects were used as the basi s for matte cutouts which were edited together in ' skip­ frame ' fashion, providing a kind of zero-to-ninety effect for the cloud's progress. Gerd Oswald's build-up to the monster's explosive birth from the vacuum cleaner i s a suspense-laden ' breakaway' sequence that provides an abrupt segue from the real, mundane world of the j anitoress to the depths of The Outer Limits . . . while, almost incidentally, providing one of the series' more memorable i mages. For the first time in several months , The Outer Limits again faded i n with a legitimate 'teaser' rather than a monster excerpt displaced from the rest of the episode Typically, 1 st AD Lee Katzi n ' s burlesque encapsulation of the prologue in his shooting breakdown notes made the most of the ' moment ' : D E S C R I P T I ON :
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' You have to be acting up a storm at the greatest monster s ince Moby Dick,' said Ed Asner, ' but you had to create the monster i n your head because they weren't going to put it in until later. It would have been nice to have that l ittle moment of reality-that l ittle thri ll, when the tiger leaps out of the bushes at you, rather than hav ing to 'create' the monster in my mind. But it was one devastating monster. And such a sad story ! ' Lee Katzi n remarked that this was ' a kitsch sort of show, with a lot of strange camera angles. ' Oswald gave the weak story a heavy coat of gloss by keeping
Another NORCO zomb i e bites b i g ato m i c death .
the NORCO i nteriors morgue-l ike, and resorting to extreme, bizarre camera angles, particularly whenever B lock is seen discoursing on death. 'I l iked that one, ' said Oswald. 'There was a kind o f claustrophobia, a feel i ng of menace and mystery created by the lady doctor w i th the pacemaker. ' H ard and shocking i m ages-the terrified struggles of Stu, and l ater S iroleo, as they scream for help behind the soundproof glass port in the Pit corridor, or the startling smash cut from Jory's calm discussion of Stu's 'nice smile' to a close-up of Stu's death rictus as his corpse lies on a slab at NORCO-help the show seem more portentous and threatening than it really i s . B right, sparking carbon arc lights called ' lightning scis sors, ' along with six-foot tal l , propeller-like wind machines helped create the on-set effect of the passage of what Katzin termed THE (gasp ) ENERG Y (choke) BEING (shudder) . For S tefano , thi s unstab l e , insatiable, all­ consuming vortex was The Outer Limits. ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' chronicles-or cannibali zes­ the massive drain on h i s personal energies and the furious pace that caused some of his mid-season scripts to seem foggy, rushed, or imprec ise in comparison with h i s earlier shows. At times, it must have seemed all too easy to become a NORCO-like slave to the demands of producing the series. The Outer Limits , one m ight say, occasionally went beyond control. B ut as S iroleo demonstrates, thi s 'monster' might be subdued by a simple phone call and brought under control. .. for the moment. ' I was not unaware of that, and it's true of producing for telev i s i on , ' said Stefano. 'Am I In control of the show. . . or does it control me ? '
TH f ounR liMITS COM PANION
THE M ICE Broadcast 6 J a n u a ry 1 964 Written by Joseph Stefa no Based on the teleplay ' Exchange Stude nt. ' by B i l l S B a l l i n ge r. Story idea by Lou Morheim. (Teleplay credited to Ballinger a n d Stefa n o . ) D i rected by A l a n Cros l a n d . J r. Assistant D i rector: Robert J ustm a n D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: C h i n o R ivera ( H e n ry S i l v a ) . D r J u l i a H a rrison ( D i a n a Sands). Dr Thomas Ke l l a n d e r ( M ichael H i g g i ns). D r Robert R i c h a rdson (Ronald Foster). H a d d o n (Don Ross). Goldsmith (Gene Tyburn). Chromoite ( H u g h Langtry). Prison Wa rden ( Francis DeSales). D r Wi l l i a m s ( Da b n ey Coleman). Chromo Transmission Vo ice ( R o b e rt Johnson).
The C h romoite a p pears i n side the 'Teleportation Agency. '
In dreams , some of us walk the stars . In dreams, some of us ride the whelming brine of space, where every port is a shining one, and none are beyond our reach . Some of us, in dreams, cannot reach beyond the walls of our own little sleep .
Faced with life imprisonment for murder, convict Chino Rivera volunteers as a human guinea pig for an 'inhabitant exchange' between Earth and the p lanet Chromo. ' It's worked with mice , ' the supervi sing scientist, Dr. Kellander, says of the ' te leportation
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agency ' built from Chromoite instructions, which beams a native of that world to our planet . A gelatinous , crab-clawed biped, the Chromoite i s allowed t o roam the l ab compound freely while Kellander's group waits for the ideal time to beam Rivera to Chromo. R ivera spends his free time trying to escape, and when Dr. Richardson is discovered strangled at a nearby lake, the natural suspect is Rivera (who was missing from his room at the time) and not the alien, which Rivera cal l s a 'garbage eater' even though Chromoites are s upposed to l i v e by photosynthesis. Dr Julia Harrison observes the alien eating a doughy scum that has spawned in the lake shortly following its arrrivai. The Chromoite chases her back to the lab building, just as the attempt to transmit Rivera fails and all contact with Chromo is lost. The Chromoite murders a guard and tries to commandeer the transporter. Rivera shoots it with the dead guard's pistol, aborting the escape attempt. Then the aliens on Chromo recontact Kellander, admitting that ' Chromo's soil no longer yields , ' and that they have been seeking a new planet on which they may grow vast quantities of their ' staff of Iife '-the lake scum. The Chromoite is no expendable guinea pig, but the planet's most eminent scientist, and having failed in their deception, the homeworld requests his return . Kellander sees Rivera in a new and honorable l ight, and tel l s him that the parole board will take his selfless actions into consi deration. A s for the thwarted
THf Min invaders, he tells them, sadly and accusingly, ' You should have asked . ' Hunger frightens and hurts, and i t has many faces, and every man must somtimes face the terror of one of them. Wouldn 't it seem that a misery known and understood by all men would lead Man not to deception and murder, but to faith, and hope, and love ?
' It was a problem when I'd get a script from a writer, and make my suggestions for changes, and then get back a second draft that was still not good,' said Joe Stefano. ' At that point, you have a choice. Either you give the writer another shot, or you take it home with you. Which most producers do, because you know it's going to be faster to do it yourself when you need it for next week. You don't have to offer a third rewrite, so I didn't ask for one . I just did i t the way I wanted it. ' In broad outline, both 'The Mice' and its gene s i s script, B i l l B a l l i nger's ' Exchange Student, ' are similar. The original teleplay gives us a vaguely Hispanic convict named Cully: lean, compact, and hard, about thirty years old. . . there is a Spanish-American or even a slight touch ofAmerican Indian to (his) features. He is usually laconic, and speaks from behind an emotionless mask, which doesn 't always conceal his deep strain of self-sufficiency. For the most part, Cully acts as a foi l for a rain of D i a n a S a n d s da nces i n t h e c l utches o f t h e C h romoite. pseudo- scientifi c gobbledygook endl e s s l y SOTERIAN: You would escape ? I f I helped you? dispensed b y Marius Kellander, o n e of a trio o f CULLY: r would escape . B ut why should you help? scientists who have discovered a planet called S oter SOTERIA N : Pity. I have already helped you. I have 'in the constellation of Dorado. ' In residence at the disconnected the power rays in there (indicates lab is a Soterian visitor who has obligingly constructed window). a dupl icate of the device that ' flashed' it to Earth, CULLY (as he starts for the door) : Just pity? where i t secretly carries out its fifth-columnist food­ SOTERIAN: Isn't pity enough ? nurturing mission. Cully, the test guinea-pig for the machine, is set up as the fal l guy by the alien before it Technical explanations hang all over the story like murders a scienti st who tampers with the scum food. Spanish moss, and for the most part, Cully i s a one­ Kellander' s group gets wise to the approaching dimensional 'thud' who supplies the ear into which Soterian invasion fleet, and spends the entire fourth act Kellander pours his windy di scourse . Here's a sample: chasing the renegade alien around before Cully turns hero and subdues it. The Soterian l acks the grandeur of KELLANDE R : The Hecron Insti tute of Neo­ the speech-making aliens native to The Outer Limits, Kinematics (is) sometimes referred to by the and its most interesting lines occur as it sets up Cully: SOTERIAN: You have bread. We have thi s-our ' staff of life . ' Soter i s very different in many ways, some very hOlTible. Do not go. CULLY (calculatingly) : What chance have I got? B ack to prison. Unless I could . . . ' move around, ' like you . . .
newspapers as the T. H . I . N . K . CENTER . . . At the Center, we work in all scientific fields directly or indirectly related to the theory of motion. That's what part of our name means-Kinematics­ motion in the abstrac t . Neo means new, advanced theories of motion. For our purposes, now, we can simply cal l it space travel .
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THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION Stefano jettisoned most o f Kellander's logorrhea and, in 'The Mice , ' gives us Chino Rivera-anything but 'emotionless , ' a full-blooded, extroverted creation who gives the story a much-needed human focu s . Named after Stefano's good friend and B everly H i l l s neighbor, dancer Chita Rivera (herself soon t o b e cast in The Outer Limits ) , Chino is brought to vibrant life by Henry Silva, who j umps into the role with both feet and quite rightly walks away with the whole show. Bright-eyed, street smart, quick and intense, Chino plays off the straight-arrow stuffiness of Kellander, constantly kidding and dancing around him in ways the poor doctor is j ust too dedicated to comprehend. When he fi rst sees the teleportation dev ice, he exc laims, 'That's my getaway car ! ' Stamped by society as a misfit, Chino is considered less than human by Kellander, who is harshly determined to ignore any ev idence to the contrary. A running commentary on hunger, worked in by Stefano, makes Chino seem more alive than the scientists around him because of that ache in his gut-once a physical hunger, now an ideological one. The scientists are complacent, mentally fatted, and bored. They seek to val idate themselves by probing other worlds, and lack the drive to discover the Earthbound lust Chino already has for life. His lively, reckless attitude never fai ls to irritate and perplex Kellander:
T h e scientist from C h romo c h ows down o n eerie lake sc u m .
(Cou rtesy Gary Gero n i l
KELLANDER : I didn't think you'd try to escape. CHINO: Neither did I ! KELLANDER: No? I think you had i t i n mind the minute you walked out of the warden's office. That's probably the only reason you volunteered. CHINO: Come to think of it. .. you're right ! KELLAN DER (angered) : What's the matter with you, Chino? Are you a psychopathic liar? Do you know when you lie and when you're tel l ing the truth? CHINO: What's the difference if I know? What's important is if you know !
Kellander's intellectual blinders disallow even the s imple connection of the l ake s c u m w ith the Chromoite's activ ities, in the same way they make him automatically peg Chino as Richardson's murderer. In the end, with those bl inders slapped away, his rage is as genuine and human as Chino himself: ' You have deceived us ! ' he shouts toward Chromo. At cross purposes to such rich and promising character detail in 'The Mice' are story cheats held over from the Ball inger script , the overuse of redundant and even repeat footage to pad out the
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running time, and the physical form of the alien itself. The Chromoite (changed from ' Soterian' because it probably sounded less mushy) is never described in either script as anything but ' h umanoid ' and ' repulsive . ' Gene Warren of Project Unlimited took those two words to the outer limit by designing one of the series' most outrageous and improbable beings­ alien that looks like a silver Portuguese man-of-war on legs, with dangling, mucoid pseudopodia, weed-l ike appurtenances poking out of its jell Ied mass, clutching crab claws, and a slavering mouth hole that snaps wetly open to ingest the thick, alabaster goop growing on the l ake. As Claude B inyon, Jr. , later said, 'It looks l ike the aftermath of a bad hysterectomy. ' It certainly is a j arring sight when first seen, worrying its claws around in a hand-wringing gesture and making a liquid gargling noise-but we see far too much of it. Non­ friendly aliens were kept in the shadows in most Outer Limits shows , but one thing the viewer gets in 'The Mice' is lots of the Chromoite. The globular headpiece of the costume was poured slip rubber and solidified glue weighing between 70 and 1 50 pounds (estimates vary). It had to be lowered onto stuntman Hugh
THf MI�f Langtry using a block and tackle attached to a tree in MGM's Tarzan Forest, where the exteriors were shot. The Chromoite's whole scheme seems fuzzy and needlessly compl icated. The scum food grows so quickly and easily that the whole alien ruse to test it on Earth seems unnecessary and risky. Only the tunnel vi sion of the scientists allows the plot to get as far as it does, and the Chromoite cannot honestly expect to escape, once exposed. Not helping matters are frequent tracking shots of the creature stomping through the forest, used as transitional footage and obviously printed up and spliced in during editing for want of anything better. More time is eaten up by a repeated sequence in which security guards cru i se the woods and cl imb in and out of their car. The same shot of a dead (or unconscious) guard shows up, confusingly, in two places in the episode . Another sentry is vaporized during Chino's battle with the Chromoite, but nobody seems to care about him, or even notice he's gone . Whether or not Alan Crosland's direction is any good is tough to assess-both of h i s Outer Limits shows , 'The M i c e ' and 'The Mutant, ' were heavily compromised on the script level at a time when Stefano's main objective was to stream l ine production. Crosland did bring off the shoot quickly and efficiently, filming all the woodland and lake scen e s , amazingly, in one day. l Cinematographer John Nickolaus had j ust Henry S i lva a s C h i n o Rivera . left The Outer Limits to work on The Travels imperiled heroine phase. Sands died tragically in 1 972 of laimie McPheeters series; with 'The Mice , ' Conrad following the release of one of her infrequent features, Hall settled in for a long haul of six episodes in a row, Georgia Georgia . without rel ief, culminating in a 1 4-day shoot on 'The Mice' finds the Outer Limits crew doing Stefano's elaborate pilot, The Unknown . The opening their best to make mediocre material work in a hurry, scenes of 'The Mice , ' set in the waterfront prison and prov ides a diverting, if di sappointing, hour of milieu, are dark and somber, and u ltimately frustrating television. B ut Stefano, once having gotten the hang of when nothing follows to match them atmospherically. writing at top speed, now made sure that h i s next new The degeneration of the story i s best s ummed up by a scripts would be episodes not to be forgotten. And compari son of Stefano's opening and closing Control even the Chromo ite-or rather, h i s overblown Voice speeches-the first is positively lyrical , the costume-got a chance to come back and try again. second j ust belabors the obvious. Cast as Julia Harrison was Diana Sands, a talented yet underrated stage actress who did little TV work. Crosl and's father d i rected t w o fundamental fi l m s o f the Perhaps this was another case of Stefano writing-or 1 920s-Don Juan ( 1 92 5 ) , one of the fi rst movies with a not writing-' black actre s s ' into h i s script. synchronized music track, and The Ja:: Singer ( 1 92 7 ) , one of Unfortunately, next to nothing i s made of her attraction the first with 'talking sequence s . ' to Chino, and her role does not grow much beyond the
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TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PAN ION
TH[ INVISIBl[S Broadcast 3 February 1 9 64 Written by Joseph Stefa no D i rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assistant Di rector: L e e H . Katzi n ( p re p a rati o n ) Claude B i llyon, J r ( p roducti o n ) D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: G I A A g e n t Luis B. Spain ( D o n Gordon), G e n e ro Planetta (Tony M o rdente). Gov. Lawrence K. H i l l m o n d (George MacReady),
Gov. H i l l mond (George Mac Ready) reaches for a fresh Invisible a s Planetta (Tony Mordente, s h i rtless) and Castle (Wi l l i a m O . Doug las, Jr.) wa it i n the backgro u n d .
You do not know these men . You may have looked at them , but you did not see them . They are newspapers blowing down a gutter on a windy n ight. For reasons both sociological and psychological these three have never joined or been invited to join society. They have never experienced love or friendship or formed any lasting or constructive relationship . But today, at last, they will become a part of something. They will belong . They will come a little bit closer to their unrealistic dreams of power and glory. TodayJinally, they will join the hu-J almost said the human race. And that would have been a halj� truth . For the race they are joining today is only halj�/1Uman . . .
Three mi sfits-the stony Luis Spai n , the twitchy and neurotic Genero Planetta, and an overeager joiner­ type named Castle-are delivered to an abandoned Army base as new recruits to the ranks of the Inv isibles, a ' subversive and i l legal ' underground composed of high-ranking men in government and industry who are possessed by alien parasites . Spain i s actually a n agent of the Government Intelligence Agency sent to infi ltrate the Invi sibles, whose plan i s t o infect other key power brokers with the scuttling,
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G e n . H i l l a ry J Cla rke ( N e i l H a m i lton), Ol iver Fa i r ( R i ch a rd Dawson), M rs Cla rke ( De e H a rtfo rd). Invisibles Recruiter (Walter B u rke). H e n ry Castle (Wi l l i a m o . D o u g l as, J r ), Atta c h m e nt Supervisor ['the Docto r ' ] (John Graham), GIA A g e n t J o h n n y ( C h ris Wa rfield). GIA Agent at Sforza Water & Power [Old M a n ] ( Len Lesser). Vo ice of GIA Chief (Vic Perri n ) . I n v i s i b l es R a d i o Vo ice ( R obert Johnson).
voracious, trilobite-like aliens. The corrupt lowlifes who carry out these ' attachments ' are inoculated against ' accidental infection ' by the indiscriminate parasite s . Once inoc u l ated, Spain i s assigned to Washington , DC, to infect an army general named Hillary J. Clarke. As cover, Spain becomes Clarke's new chauffeur with the endorsement of Clarke's effete aide, Oliver Fair, another Invisible who serves as Spain's chaperone for the mission. B ut Clarke is already an Invi s ible, and the mission is a setup intended to expose Spain as a double agent. The
The Recru iter's shadow on the door ma kes h i s ' fa i led attach ment' a pparent to S pa i n (Don Gordon) a n d Planetta ,
THf INVISIBlfS Invi sibles would very much l i ke to have an operative inside the GIA, and Clarke and Fair plan to use the parasite supplied to Spain on Spain himself as soon as his inoculation runs out. Spain escapes from Clarke's mansion but i s accidentall y run down by a car driven by Clarke's wife; his ankle is smashed i n the wheel­ wel l . Crippled and in terrible pain, he later manages to steal the car and drives to a power plant to seek out Planetta, whom he cultivated as an ally back at the indoctrination camp, and whose help he now needs to get back to GIA headquarters . Planetta' s ' primal target' as a new Invisible, however, turns out to be Spain himself, and having no stomach for the attachment procedure, Planetta unleashes a parasite and abandons Spain. Screaming for help, Spain tries vainly to crawl away as the Creature gains on him. Planetta has a last-minute change of heart and returns to pry the thing off Spain's back j ust as it begins to attach itself. A rescue party of police and GIA men arrives, and Planetta and the parasite perish in a hail of bullets. Spain is escorted to safety, and one GIA man notes that they've apprehended Oliver Fair, who is 'cooperating . ' You do not know these men . You may have looked at them , but you did not see them . They are the wind that blows newspapers down a guffer on a windy night . . . and sweeps the gutter clean .
A hard-hitting tale of America's power structure in the throes of corruption, 'The Invi s ibles ' focuses on subj ugation via both deception and force , pain thresholds , and the ugly ends to which human beings can be maneuvered. It renders the military-industrial complex as literally diseased, infected by a cancer­ cell-like extraterrestrial, but presses home the point that such a plague would not thrive without the vanity and greed of 'men in places so high, no one knows how high they are , ' as Gen . Clarke says in the episode. Wh ile the m i stru s t of top dog politicians (unfashionable while the USA was in the grip of John Kennedy' s chari sma) may be taken for routine cynicism today, it was a dramatic forethought by Joseph Stefano, who rates this Outer Limits as one of his favorites. 'Everyone is so good in it,' he said. 'The way Gerd shot it was disturbing; it's a tight, tense show, and even today, watching a scene by itself makes me uncomfortable. The effect i s one of overall , pervading evil . ' Stefano's original teleplay was passed without a
Gen . C l a rke (Neil H a m i ltan) gets the d rop on Spai n .
hitch b y A B C Standards and Practices. The fin ished film, however, brought an immediate phone call from network censor Dorothy B rown. ' I real l y felt compassion for her with that show, ' said Stefano. ' It unnerved and unsettled her. When she saw the rough cut, she said, 'I don't know what to do about this; thi s film bothers m e and I can't tel l y o u why, or what to cut . ' At that point, I knew I had her-its body was frightening to her. And I agreed, but I didn't think it was as disturbing as 'Corpus Earthling,' for which she asked me to make maybe six little cuts . ' Gerd Oswald cal l s B rown ' the real monster on Outer Limits! Some of the notes she wrote Joe were so ridiculous you j ust wouldn't believe it; objections to anything that might be too gory or spooky. Her superior at ABC was a guy named Adrian Sam ish, who was a total terror. Stefano threw him out of his office,
The Recruiter (Wa lter B u rke) preps a n other ' sick, nameless nucleu s . '
TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PAN ION once . ' Samish later became president of ABC i n the mid- 1 960s. ' We fought continual ly with the censors , ' said Stefano. 'I used to put things into scripts knowing they'd be taken out, j ust to save other things from cutting. Normal ly, we'd get three- and four-page lists of things that 'had to go. ' The signals were all crossed. I'd get a call from the network heads, saying, 'Let's have more monsters ; we love this; do more of that. ' Generally, it would be the very thing Dorothy B rown hadn't wanted me to do. And every time you get a letter from Continuity it still doesn't mean they' l l okay the show even if you make the changes . It's all 'subject to final viewing. ' My ace in the hole was to refuse to air the show. My objective became not to get caught and crushed between the censors and the network heads. So, I'd argue with Dorothy up to a certain point and then say, 'Well , then, let's j ust pull the show. ' Then all the phones would start ringing. As soon as everybody heard that, they'd get time-consciou s , and eventually the show would come back okay. They're weird people . ' Les l i e Stevens maintains that ABC's mis understand ing of Th e Outer Limits was a backhanded asset : ' We had a certain leeway because they never quite knew what the show was. Were they surer, we'd've had less room to get imaginative material in.' Thus, ABC's complaints about 'The Inv isibles' never really fructified, and we are left to enjoy Don Gordon's superb portrayal of Luis Spain, secret agent. 'Heroes die alone' is the credo by which Spain operates, and he is a loner, isolated in enemy territory, communicating impersonally, by tape recorder and telephone. The GIA insulates itself from infiltration by the Invisibles through the ' S pain-is-a-Ieper routine, ' and Stefano describes Spain in the script as a ' social disaffiliate. ' He is confounded by basically decent people-Planetta, Mrs . Clarke-who are too terrified of disrupting their status quo to help him when he needs assistance. When Planetta final ly relents, he dies instantly, just after the only constructive friendship Spain has established turns against him. 'I liked you ! ' Plan etta yel ls in betrayal , as he tosses a parasite at Spain . . . the hero who would have died alone, had Plan etta not come back to save him. 'The Invisibles ' treats us to some harrowing images of men pushed to the razor-edge of endurance. We see Hillmond and Clarke writhing and grimacing
S pa i n breaks h i s a n kle . . .
a s their Invisibles wrest control from within. The ' attachment procedure' is gruesome but not gri sly, and Planetta and Castle scream in fear as the wriggling symbiote is offered their naked backs. Castle becomes the victim of attachment (his inoc ulation fails), and we soon see on his face the debil itating effects of becoming a host. Spain undergoes the test application of a parasite to his back in sweaty, teeth-clenched, barely controlled si lence . For all his good intentions, Planetta is chopped apart by gunfire and, in a scene that ended up on the cutting room floor, Spain's GIA buddy, Johnny, is beaten to death by a rifle butt in the hands of an Invisibles sentry. Then there is Spain's smashed ankle; Don Gordon is painfully convincing to watch as he force-fits his shoe onto his foot as it swells, the agony ultimately causing him to pass out. In another shot dropped by Stefano from the script, Spain escapes by j umping from the second floor of the
. . . and crawls for his l i fe from a h u ng ry I nvisible.
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THf INVISIBlfS Clarke mansion and hobbl ing to the limousine on his injured foot. At the time the episode was being shot i n November of 1 96 3 , the trappings o f the secret agent genre were still new and the only non-British spy show on TV was a trifle called Espionage. James B ond was just penetrating the mass consciousness-the current Ian Fleming novel was On Her Majesty 's Secret Service , the latest film, From Russia, With Love (the novel had been a h ighly-publ i c i zed favorite of President Kennedy's). Secret agents did not come into the ir own unti l the advent of Th e Man From U.N.CL.E. in 1 964, w ith the following year being the boom period during which more spy shows were on the air than any year since. In 'The Invisibles' we get tantal izing glimpses of procedures that would later become de rigueur, even trite, as conventions of the spy genre : Spain's code number, 002 1 (which happens to be three times 007) ; the rigid method followed by Spain and Johnny for making reports on tape; the jargon used for various gambits l i ke the 'kid brother ploy, ' by which Spain tricks Planetta into revealing his location to the GIA. Referred to as the CIA throughout Stefano's script, the name of the reputation-conscious agency could only be invoked by permission, and thus the 'GIA' was born . The story somewhat resembles Robert Heinlein's 1 95 2 sc ience fiction novel The Puppet Masters, in which the United States i s invaded by large gray space slugs that attach to the human back, between the shou lder blades, making the v ictim into a hunchbacked zombie (l ike the Recruiter and Castle) . The protagonist is an investigator for a secret Federal agency. It i s possible that someone saw the novel , which has remained in print ever since its serialization in Galaxy magazine in 1 95 1 , during the early sift-throughs of publi shed science fiction at Villa di Stefano. It i s rumored that Heinlein disassociated himself from all fi lms based on his books following a plagiarism suit involving a feature film script written around The Puppet Masters, long before The Outer Limits ever came along . At any rate, the idea of parasitical aliens invading human bodies, as in ' Corpus Earthling,' was noth ing new. 'The Invisibles' benefits greatly from the veteran actors who play the v i l lainous rol e s . ' George MacReady was my man , ' said Gerd Oswald. 'He was in my first feature, A Kiss Before Dying, and was part of the 'Oswald Stock Company' as were Walter B urke
and John Hoyt . ' Tony Mordente, 'Action ' of West Side Story (then married to Chita Rivera), was cast by Stefano. Another Stefano favorite was Neil Hami lton , a leading man of silent fi lms soon to become famous in 1 965 as Commissioner Gordon on the Batman series. A pre- Ho g an 's Heroes Richard Dawson i s featured as the unctuous Oliver Fair, and a brief glimpse of the face that had been beh ind the Galaxy Being mask is provided by William O. Douglas, Jr.'s character bit as Castle-his only 'non-monster' role in The Outer Limits, though he had previously been seen in human form on Stoney Burke . In his teleplay, Stefano was uncharacteri stically specific about what an Invisible parasite looked l ike : It i s a dark, throbbing creature, about the size of a grown man's back, probably ten inches th ick. It is a patchwork of thorns and bri stles. Smal l , nervous p a w s protrude from its entire circumference. The paws are ti pped by a single saw-edged claw and are spaced about four i nches apart. At regular intervals, a large, glowing eye pops up out of the middle of the body, glares, and quickly withdraws out of s ight.
The mechanical monster cooked up by Project Unlimited is adequate to thi s description, resembling
Another pretty d i sg u sting a l i en parasite by Project U n l i m ited .
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TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PANION an ambulatory meatball sandwich ( indeed, the beasts are seen to be stored in what looks l ike a l arge food automat) or a football-sized crab louse. The big eyeball is there, all right, but the usual constrictions on time and money meant that it could not move, and it is therefore easily overlooked. The hungry roar it emits was the Tyrannosaurus Rex sound effect Projects used for Dinosaurus! in 1 960. ' 'The Invisibles' was very effective, I thought, ' said Oswald. ' Stefano remarked during the dailies that the scene with the handball thrown against the wall became unbearably suspensefu l for him. That was the mood I strove for-it's nervous and tense as opposed to 'O.B. LT. , ' which was low-key. ' The scene to which Oswald refers takes place ' under' the prologue, with an I n v i sibles sentry bouncing a ball against the outside wall of the barracks as the new recruits arrive. The background is barren and gray in the wet aftermath of recent rain. As Hillmond speaks ins ide, the ball continues thonking against the outside wal l , timed like the drops in a Chinese water torture. Unl ike the nefarious subterfuge seen in ' O . B .LT. , ' 'Nightmare , ' o r ' It Crawled Out o f the Woodwork, ' the ' Invisibles' plot is not safely fenced up within the confines of the military, or top-secret research labs. It has sifted down to the common people, u s ing the dregs of humanity as well as its leaders to achieve the final takeover. While the tenor of the times allowed Spain to be a clear-cut good guy merely by being a GIA agent, the show itself imparted a note of discomfiture to the TV viewer who, in 1 96 3 , was blissfully ignorant of governmental lying, cover-ups, and rampant domestic espionage, or of the true price paid when souls are traded for power.
O AY S TA R ' S R f V O l V I N G O O O R
I
'The Invisibles' marked the end of an Outer Limits era, much as the first season's golden age had been ushered in by the production of 'The Architects of Fear' in November, 1 96 3 , the per-show budget was slimmed to $ 1 20,000, and soon the shooting schedules would be shortened by an entire day per episode. Five key production positions also changed hands during this period. Lee Katzin , who had prepared 'The Invisibles , ' left The Outer Limits t o b e re-hired b y Leslie S tevens
In
for one of Daystar's in-work pilots, Stryker. He was replaced by Claude B inyon, Jr. In 1 969, Katzin realized his ambition to be a feature film director with the Glenn Ford western , Heaven With a Gun . Within a week of Katzin's departure, Casting Director John Erman also left The Outer Limits to pursue his directing muse. ' Fortunately, ' said Erman, Leslie was willing to let my assistant, Meryl Abeles, take over, and that was the beginning of a career in casting for her. ' I n November, Abeles brought in Lee Wenner to take her old position . Today known as Meryl O'Loughlin, she's still casting : 'The Outer Limits was a tough show to cast because there were no continuing characters , ' she noted in a 1 992 interview. ' Every single person was new every single week, and the parts were quite large, so you had to come up with two or three really phenomenal actors , then a whole body of smal l parts. That was the heart of things-to take a chance on a total unknown. ' Shortly after completing 'The Zanti M isfits, ' John Nickolaus departed to assume a full-time director of photography position on Th e Travels of Jaime McPheeters . For the next three months, Conrad Hall would shoot all the work Outer Limits had to offer. When H al l , in turn, left to work on feature films in early 1 964, Leslie Stevens brought in Kenneth Peach as the series' resident cinematographer. Lindsley Parsons , Jr. became the series' new Unit Production Manager when Leon Chooluck left to work for producer S amuel Bronson in Madrid, on the film The Fall of the Roman Empire . In January of 1 964, Parsons was also to leave. The cut-rate deal he had engineered in order for The Outer Limits to shoot on the MGM backlots came to the attention of MGM general manager Ray Clune. ' He came back from a vacation and wanted to know who in hel l made this deal , ' remembered Parsons. ' He figured I was too dangerous to leave on the 'outside,' so he made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and hired me. Taking over Parsons' duties was First AD Robert Justman, who remained in thi s capacity until the close of the first season. Among Daystar's replacement First ADs was a young man named Phil Rawlins, an ex­ rodeo rider and stuntman who had gotten his start the previous year, on Stoney Burke .
zzzzz
z z z z z Broadcast 27 J a n u a ry 1 9 64 Written by Meyer D o l i n s ky. Additi o n a l materi a l by Joseph Stefa no. Di rected by J o h n Brahm Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman Di rector of Photography: Conrad Hall CAST: Prof. Benedict 0 Fields ( P h i l l i p Abbott), Francesca Fields ( M a rsha H u nt). R e g i n a/Qu een Bee ( J o a n n a Frank), Dr. Howard Wa rren ( Booth Coleman), Vo ice of M r. Lund/Bee Vo ices ( R o b e rt Johnson).
The i n secti le gaze of Reg i n a (Joa n n a F ro n k) .
Human life strives ceaselessly to pel/ect itself, to gain ascendancy. But what of the lower forms of life ? Is it not possible that they, too , are conducting experiments , and are at this moment on the threshold of deadly success ?
In the garden of entomologist Ben Fields , a giant bee coruscates into a mass of sparkling lights which resolves into the unconscious form of an exotic, raven-haired young woman. No sooner does Ben send his wife Francesca into town to place a newspaper ad for a lab assistant than he discovers the ravishing girl, who, once revived, asks for the job. Her name is Regina, and unknown to Fields, she is actually the queen of a super-intelligent hive that has effected her transmutation so that she might mate with Fields and produce hybrid offspring. Neither Ben nor Francesca suspect anything, rationalizing that Regina's strange behav ior stems from foreign origin-until Francesca spots Regina in the garden at night, drawing pollen from the fl owers and metamorphosing into a human-sized bee ! After a meal the next day, Regina passes out from horrible internal pain after using a computer translator of Ben's to communicate with the hive. Her cramps tum out to be food poisoning, but the attending physician confides to Ben that ' she's the closest thing to a complete mutant I've ever seen, ' in terms of her body and blood composition. When
Francesca l ater catches Regina at the tran slator addressing her buzzing subjects, Regina unleashes the hive to sting her to death . Ben di scovers tapes of Regina's communications with the hive, and when Regina makes sexual overtures to Ben while wearing Francesca's old wedding veil , he delivers an impassioned speech on the sanctity of matrimony while backing her off the second floor balcony. Regina fall s over the rail with a scream , reverts to bee form , and flies away forever. When the yearning to gain ascendancy takes the form of a soulless , loveless struggle , the contest must end in unlovely defeat. For without love, drones can never be men , and men can only be drones.
'I commissioned 'ZZZZZ' because of Jo a nna Frank, ' said Joseph Stefano. I 'There was something about her face I thought would photograph beautifully, and so I had Meyer Dolinsky do the script. That business at the end with the wedding veil was mine; it worked even though there was nothing terribly original about the story. ' Wel l-versed in the needs of The Outer Limits, Dolinsky quickly executed a script to accommodate the demands of scheduling. Strictly speaking, revisions were not necessary, but the teleplay did not match up with Stefano's sensibi lities, and Dolinsky admitted that it was his least favorite episode. 'I wrote it from Francesca's point of v iew, ' Dolinsky said. 'The beekeeper fal ls i n love with Regina and rejects his own wife, before finding out at
THf OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION the last minute that the girl i s a bee . ' Ben then kills Regina (originally named Doris) with a pistol. ' 1 had a h igh degree of temptation going, with Ben hav ing the hots for this young chick. Stefano reversed all that. My own thinking was it was because he was married, and I wasn't. T did not agree with his ending; in fact, I tried to get him to cut it. It went on interm inably, thi s long, moral speech which 1 felt was unnecessary. 1 said, 'Hey, th is slows it down , and I don't believe i t ! ' Do l i nsky's script dealt i n matriarchal power, Stefano's, in simple fidelity. The former i s definitely the more daring scenario. Consider these lines, excised from the Fields' dinner table conversation : FRANCESCA : You mustn't enjoy being dom inated by women, darl ing. Their motives aren't always good for you. BEN : That's a risk a man has to take in a matriarchal society. . . You know it's only after I've checked her experience, and she's proved her merit, that I let a woman dom i nate me.
Joanna F ra n k, The Outer Lim its ' one·a nd-o n ly Bee G i r l . (Cou rtesy Joa n n a Fronk)
Later, Ben says of Regina's cleanup job in the lab, ' You're obv iously a very good housekeeper, ' adding, with a trace of regret, ' You'll no doubt make some fellow a meek and obedient wife . ' When Regina suggestively broaches the beauty of the mating ritual in bee society, Ben responds with : BEN : My fee l i ngs are no doubt colored by the fact that I'm a man, and would ipso jacto be a drone in a Bee Society, but I fee l they stunt their own soc ial development by adheri ng to such intractable customs and ph i l osoph ies. Amongst humans, an unw i l l i ngness to grow and change has caused some races to become extinct.
S uch a sentiment was clearly at odds w ith Stefano's more c u s tomary v iew of marriage as sacrosanct. Another theme that crops up i n h i s rev i sion is the idea that Regina is just too wrong, too different both biologically and ideologically, for the super-bees' plan of world conquest to succeed. He also pushed Ben and Francesca closer to his own age at the time (forty-one), and one scene remains in the broadcast version wherein the clearly fortyish Phillip Abbott talks about hav ing children 'before I'm 25 . ' Making Ben and Francesca older does permit for a brief compari son of Regina to thei r stil lborn daughter, but this reduces Ben's potential attraction to the bee-girl even more, and he never seems to be in any real danger of being seduced. H i s only reaction to a rather
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salacious di scourse on mating by Regina i s to go, ' Hmm . ' In the end, Regina buzzes away, presumably to pick another entomologist not so emphatically Catholic. At the end of both Dol insky's script and the Stefano redraft, she goes off the balcony frantically flapping her arms and is crushed to death when she hits the ground. The bees themselves also had more to do in the first script. 'They were commenting on our culture,' said Dolinsky, who got the idea for the insect language analyzer from an article in the May 3 1 st, 1 964 i ssue of Time magazine. '1 thought of Ben and the bees discussing thei r plans i ntentionally, but that was al l cut out, and Stefano went for thi s very wrong message at the end . ' The watered down version does have i t s moments, though , such as when Francesca describes why people fear insects : FRANCESCA: We talk more about our fears of the larger forms of an imals; we don't think it so cowardly to admi t fear of crazed panthers and giant v u ltures. But I think all of us are uneasy about those tiny th ings that crawl and fl y. You can't see what they're th inking. You can't look into their eyes . . .
She's watching Regina a s she says thi s , o f course, and the mutant counters that whi l e Francesca can be inoculated against bee stings, she cannot be
zzzzz immunized from their thoughts. Neither Regina nor the s uper-hive seem much of a menace. The food poisoning incident makes her appear too fragile for the plan of biological conquest, and the revelation that the bee stings were not what killed Francesca kills the threat of the hive instead-the script's intimation that the bees thought her to death is not enough. In place of the sinister business of Ben's seduction , and his death (which would come as a result of Regina's use of him as a drone) , we have Ben's ponderous declamation, which has the rabid overtones of a rel igious tract: 'Ours is such a beautifu l ritual, Regina,' he growls in grief 'It happens only once in a person's l ife. It should, anyway . . . and no one, nothing can uproot that memory. No sudden, senseless tragedy, no willful murderer can rip it out and desecrate it! ' The contrast between Francesca's barrenness and Regina's thick sensuality remains, and Stefano cast Joanna Frank after seeing Elia Kazan's A merica America . ' She had gotten literally cut out of it,' he said. ' She had maybe three scenes left. I had read her for 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' and didn't really like her for that . ' As he had with S ally Kellerman, Stefano saw possibilities in Frank's face, ' . . . with those strange, big-almond kind of eyes . ' Frank met Stefano at the home of Tony Mordente and Chita Rivera. ' We were out by the poo l , ' she said, ' and Joe Stefano came over the fence-literall y ! -to introduce himself, and everybody present wound up with parts in The Outer Limits. ' John B rahm directed ' ZZZZZ ' while i n h i s seventies. ' Like Robert Florey and Laslo Benedek, h e was in his twilight years, ' said Jack Poplin. A German emigre, Brahm is perhaps best remembered for his gaslight thrillers The Lodger and Hangover Square . His films i n the horror field included The Undying Monster (1 942) and The Mad Magician ( 1 954) with Vincent Price. His prodigious work in T ,- included A lfred Hitchcock Presents , 1 2 segments of Thriller, and more episodes of The Twilight Zone than any other director to work on that series . 'When I went into tele v i s i o n , it was for the money, ' said B rahm. ' Including Th e O u ter Limits , although it was something fresh, creative, and unusual . ' 'ZZZZZ' is a fragile narrative largely crushed under Brahm' s leaden hand. Joanna Frank fel t particularly abandoned and alienated on the set. ' I didn't get much direction, ' she said, 'except for once-the scene where I embrace the tree. ' This is the 'pollination' scene featuring Regina i n the garden. ' (Brahm) j ust said, 'Go with your feelings,' and I went crazy overplaying it. ' The transmogrification of Regina in the garden ,
before anything else happens, al lowed The Outer Limits one of its increasingly-rare 'teasers ' prior to the opening credits-not seen since ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork. ' To B rahm, 'ZZZZZ' was memorable for one reason onl y : ' D uring filming, President Kennedy was assassinated. ' This news came to the cast and crew on the next-to-Iast day of shooting . ' B y the time I got to the studio, it looked l ike nobody was going to be able to finish the day, ' said Stefano. ' Once they announced Kennedy was dead, I think it was about 1 1 : 30, I found that I really had to be the one to say we had to go on shooting and j u st not think about it. It would have been terribly demoralizing to j ust let everyone go home; you never would have been able to pick up again the next day. ' Joanna Frank recalled, ' For some strange reason, all I could think of was that the country was going to collapse and all the banks would fail . So when we broke for lunch, I rushed down to my bank, thinking everyone would be reacting the same way, and wound up in line behind Sally Kel lerman ! ' I n contrast, 'ZZZZZ' inspired some of the wildest shooting notes ever typed by Robert Justman : Re g i na ' You
swings
Can ' t
Love
wi th
Me '
hu c k l ebu c k out ons t age fresh into and bu sh f ew the
to
out the
her
of
a
wo r d s
make r s
of
Beebee
does
-
-
be e i ng
he
e f foes
Re g i na
b e e h i nd
reapp e a r s a
beegon i a
b e e g i n Ac t
f r om
our
B e eman ' s Foods .
in the
l e av i ng Ben
s i ng l e
ma t e r i a l ,
c over
You ' re
she
the g a t e ,
do
l e i tmot i f :
that
then
bee f o r e w e
short
B e e c hnu t
-
hou s e
t ake s -
with
Be e l i eve
IV,
a
spon s o r s , Gum
and
'
Prof. Fields (Ph i l l i p Abbott) tries to look up the d i fference between ' sensua l ' and ' sensuous . '
THf OUHR liMITS CO M PANION Frank's presence worked magic because it seems that everyone who remembers The Outer Limits, remembers her. In the Robert Coover novel The Universal Baseball Association , Inc . , 1. Henry Waugh , Prop . (Random House, 1 968), a simulated ball game is played by two pals named Lou and Henry. Between dice rol l s that determine base hits and strikeouts, Lou excitedly attempts to pry into the detail s of Henry's ' date' of the previous evening, and to recount the 'movie' he has recently seen : 'This guy was keeping bee s , trying to talk to them, when one day this girl comes to ask for a job as an assistant, sort of and he-that reminds me, that woman l ast n i ght, was i t , did everything . . . ?'
Reg i n a reports to her troops.
Justman shorthands Regina's attack on Francesca as ' B eeological warfare , ' detail ing the need for exactly '4, 1 97,327, 1 1 0 B EES . ' Two shots l ater, he details Ben's discussion with Dr. Warren as done as a musical duet, requesting '4, 1 97 ,327,112 BEES . ' 'ZZZZZ' was shot entirely o n a massive interior set, including the two-story mockup of Ben's house and the full garden, all built by Jack Poplin on KTTV's Stage #4. Conrad Hall used a ' sparkle-plenty' filter to lend Joanna Frank an otherworldly appearance, and devised the white spoke pattern seen in the iris of her eye. ' S ince her look was her performance, ' he said, 'her lack of acting ability was well-concealed. ' Regina' s v o l uptuousne s s , however, was not entirely the product of soft focus lenses. 'I've always been rather, how you say, well-endowed, ' said Frank. ' B ut for some reason I can't remember, I stuffed my bra full of nylon stockings for that show. There was a scene where I was lying on a table , and [Hall] complained that he couldn't see my face ! He said, 'Can you do something about your, uh, tits?' And I started pulling out stockings and going, 'How's this?' And then I'd puJl two more out . . . I remember the casting director saying to me, 'We were really thinking of a strawberry blonde for thi s . ' I had some thought that Regina had to be bigger than l ife, so between padding my bra and the false eyelashes , that was my conception of a bee. ' ' I thought the bee woman was extraordinary, ' said Meyer Dolinsky. 'I met Joanna Frank outside the Writer's Guild Theatre, and that look she had, 1 think she came by naturally. Whether she was talented or not was very hard to tell . S o much of talent is fortuitous, the parts you get, or how a director handles them . '
' We l l , sure, but she's just a B-girl , Lou . ' ' Ye s , well , I only meant, I mean , she seemed . . . .. He paused, took a drin k of beer. ' S o anyway, this girl comes and the w i fe sees someth ing pec u l iar about her right off. Sense of smell or somethi n g . ' ' Maybe s h e g o t a good l o o k a t h e r i n t h e can , ' Henry suggested sourly. Lou giggled, belched softly. real l y
was
possi b i lities.
a bee . . . .. 'But,
'That's right, if she
H i s m i n d purused the no,'
he
decided
all
eyes and teeth and so on, wel l , she'd probably got . . . everything else . . . o f course, m aybe not . ' ' M aybe n o t what ? ' ' We l l , t h e e y e s a n d teeth a n d a l l , that's kind of o n t h e outside, but t h e , you know, w h a t we were talking about, the other, that's m ore l ike on the i n s ide and that would be h arder to change over-' (Henry rol l s a home run, making it a 3-to-2 ball game . ) ' I haven't even got to the part where this girl fal l s o u t t h e w indow,' Lou s a i d disconsolately.
' You
should see that movie, Henry. '
' Every time 'ZZZZZ' i s shown on TV, I get at least four phone calls from friends , ' laughed Frank. 'And it's been what-2 1 years , now? In the supermarket, people look at me funny, then they come up and say, 'Aren't you the bee girl ? ' ' ' ZZZZZ' i s t h e o n e O u ter Limits t i t l e that t h e people i n terviewed for this book absol utely refused to pronounce for reasons of conversational sanity, preferring instead to call it 'The Bees . ' Therefore , a l l quotations referring to the title have been accordingly modified. The package art for the videotape release of this e p isode adds a mysterious extra 'z' to the title.
2 When a character exits i n a Justman breakdown, they 'effoe . ' I n a Katzin one t h e y ' ' f. o . ' ' Said Justman : ' T h e object w a s to b e a s dirty as possible without b e i n g dirty, y o u know. '
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in
seriousness, ' if she'd crossed over a n d g o t human
DON'T OPfN Till DOOMSOAY
Broadcast 20 J a n uary 1 9 64 Written by Joseph Stefa no D i rected by Gerd Oswa l d Assistant D i rector: Claude B i nyon, J r. Di rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST M rs M a ry K r y ( M i ri a m Hopkins). G a rd Hayden ( B u c k Taylor). Vivia Hayden/Balfo u r ( M e l i n d a Plowman). E m m ett Balfour (John Hoyt), J ustice of the Peace ( R usse l l Collins). J ustice's Wife ( N e l l i e B u rt). Ha rvey Kry ( David Frankh a m ) , Dr M o rdecai Spazman (Anthony J o a c h i m ) . Box Creature ( Fra n k Delfino), Vo ice of Box Creature ( R o b e rt J o h nson). Vo ice of Spazman (Vic Perri n )
Mrs . Kry (Mi riam Hopkins) entreats Balfour closer to her Doom Roo m .
The greatness of evil lies in its awful accuracy. Without that deadly talent for being in the right place at the right time, evil must suffer defeat. For unlike its opposite, good, evil is allowed no human fa ilings, no m iscalculations. Evil must be perfect. . . or depend upon the imperfections of others.
The year is 1 929, and somewhere on the outskirts of a town called Winterfield a wedding reception i s going full tilt at the newly-constructed mansion of young bridegroom Harvey Kry. A gift is delivered at the front door, and after confiding in his butler that he and the new Mrs . Kry are planning to sneak away, Harvey examines the gift, which bears a card i nscribed DON'T OPEN TILL DOOMSDAY. Lyi n g on a loveseat in the bridal suite where Harvey unwraps the box i s a newspaper bearing the headline, NOTED SCIENTIST DECLARES C OUNTRY INVADED FROM OUTER SPACE, with a picture of the man who just deli vered the gift-Dr. Mordecai Spazman, an ex-associ ate of Harvey's father, 'Daddy ' Kry. The gift i tself is a box with a lens-like eye hole, into which Harvey peers and sees an amorphous, monocular monster, an al ien who transports Harvey into the box and offers him freedom only if he will help it to reunite w i th others of i t s kind so they may ' b lend frequencies , ' forming a symphony of destruction whose purpose i s to annihilate the universe. Harvey
steadfastly refuses, and Mrs . Kry spends the next 35 years awaiting the return of her groom. To get him back, she needs someone else to replace him in the box . Enter two underage newlyweds, Gard and Vivia, who are directed to Mrs . Kry's house by the scheming wife of the local Justice of the Peace. Mrs. Kry, now slightly demented and still wearing her flapper gear, rents the pair her ' unused' bridal suite, dustily preserved exactly as i t was in 1 929, i ncluding the ' Doomsday ' box, stil l s i tting on a table-load of unopened wedding gifts. When Gard steps out to park his car, Vivia peeks i nto the box and is absorbed. Her father, ex-DA Emmett B al four, shows up i n Winterfield, and using bribery and 'big lawyer talk, ' learns the location of his errant daughter. When Vivia refuses to help the alien, Mrs. Kry tricks B alfour i nto the box, where Harvey (unaged in the box's timeless void) explains his predicament, and how he prevented Mrs. Kry from helping the alien by threatening to stop loving her. B alfour lies to the alien to free himself and Vivia. Gard gets Vivia clear of the house while the alien, realizing the deception, re-absorbs B alfour. Whi l e Gard and Vivia watch from a di stance, the alien ' uncreates' i tself, the house, and everyone inside. The gift card reading DON'T OPEN TILL DOOMSDAY stands untouched i n the ashes . Without that deadly talent for being in the right place at the right time, evil must suffer defeat. And with each defeat, Doomsday is postponed.. .for at least one more day.
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TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PANION
Vivia (Mel i nda Plowma n ) goes for the Mystery Box.
'There's a part of me that likes to scare people , ' noted Joseph Stefano. ' It's l ike tickling somebody, the imp of the perverse. You get very evil; you can't stop. And if you really let yourself go, there's a tremendous deviltry in it. A lot of The Outer Limits was done to scare, to tickle, to upset people. ' This handily sums u p ' Doomsday, ' i n which the man who wrote love songs earlier in his career turned his eye to the psychology of sex and ritual and composed a symphony of bizarre, disturbing images rooted in Freudian symbology. Janglingly discordant, almost nonsensical as a linear story, it is a tapestry of metaphor representing Stefano at his most eccentric and daringly experimental , as he translates the loss of virginity into a horror story. Rife with free-associations on marital fide lity, nuptial c u stom s , and sexual dementia, ' Doomsday ' i s almost the flip side of the repressed attitude that governed 'ZZZZZ . ' ' I was never really surprised b y what I could pull out of myself, ' said Stefano. ' I know myself well enough to have long s ince dealt w ith all my personal demons. I no longer hide from them . I think I tended to use, as a writer, things that came out of my sessions of anal y s i s ; things I wasn't terribly conscious of. Somebody on the series pointed out to me that all of
my scripts have staircases in them--even to thi s day, to the script I'm working on right now ' The staircase in Mrs . Kry's house winds straight up to a purgatorial l imbo of frozen time, where escape for Gard and Vivia (from Vivia's over-possessive father) could mean cosmic oblivion. Mrs Kry's forbidding mansion is both an externalization of her madness, like the House of Usher, and a boxes-within-boxes puzzle. The young lovers are drawn first into the Kry house, then the smaller box of the bridal suite, and finally the smallest box of all , where they find a squat monster who wants to wipe out the whole universe-a crystall ization of the generalized 'evil ' mentioned in the Control Voice speeches , as well as a literal devi l inhabiting Mrs . Kry's figurative Hell . The alien is a mad amalgam of phallic/vaginal symbology, the physical nexus for the sexual fears that pervade the scenario. The script also employs darkly purposeful plot twists that lead to narrative dead ends ... almost as though S tefano tossed in a few obscure or personal demons that remain inscrutable to the viewer. Small wonder, then, that TV viewers probably shared the confusion expressed by TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory : The way we understood it ( and mind you, a c h i l d was helping u s a l l the way ) , back sometime in the 1 920s a young couple is given a wedding present in a box marked DON'T OPEN TILL DOOMSDAY. The bridegroom picks up the box and, looking through a hole in the side, sees a l izard . The next thing you know he is imprisoned inside the box, with the lizard. This greatl y annoys the bride ( M iriam Hopkins), and she turns into a rec luse. She keeps the box i n the house, however, for forty years , with her husband inside sti l l in his wedding suit but growing older. Then appears on the scene a young married couple who want to rent a room . Miss Hopkins gives them the room with The Box, and the girl disappears inside. Next her father arri ves, and he disappears inside. It is now becoming very lonely for those left outside, so the lizard projects some of his boarders back outside, where the young bridegroom and the father have a horrible row. The lizard grabs back the father and the young honeymooners escape. Meanwhile, Miss Hopkins shows up all decked out in her wedding gown, ready to join her husband, who is still ins ide with the lizard. She begins to pound on the box violently and, as the boy carries the girl away in his arms to safety the whole house blows up.
DON'T OPfN Till DOOMSDAY One child we know told us the whole thing was symbolic. We asked him what of. 'Why, ' h e said, ' it's the story o f L izard Taylor. ' Anyway, his guess is as good as ours . '
Interpreted a s a sexual nightmare, the episode becomes a different animal altogether. 'It's one of the most overtly sexual shows of them all , ' said S tefano . ' Most o f i t is conscious and deliberate, b u t there certainly are a lot of undercurrents in my writing that I don't become aware of until after the fact. ' For one thing, the action i s precipitated b y not one, but three monsters , one for each 'box' in the puzzle. The first is the unseen Daddy Kry, a beastly man opposed to Harvey's marriage, as B alfour is opposed to Viv ia' s . His box is the mansion, which he built for Harvey, Jr. , as Mrs . Kry tells Vivia, because ' He wanted us under his roof where he could keep his cold, scientific eye on us. ' The newspaper in the bridal suite includes a sub-headline that is barel y readable: DR. MORDECAI S PAZMAN B RANDED ' COMIC STRIP FANATIC' B Y ACADEMY PRES IDENT HARVEY KRY SR., RESIGNATION DEMANDED. Spazman delivers living proof of the alien invasion for which Kry denounces him, trapped within a box that is the same kind of prison Kry intends the mansion to be for Harvey, Jr. We are told that the loss of his son broke Daddy Kry's heart, and so Spazman (pronounce it with a long a to get the pun) is avenged. The second monster is Mrs . Kry herself, who is holed up in a house haunted by the past, the ghost of her own bridal suite. Like her house, her 1 929 facade has been ill-maintained, and she has become a gross S imilarly, M iriam caricature of her former self. Hopkins, who had become carnal lust personified in her portrayal of Ivy the prostitute i n Rouben � amoulian's 1 932 version of D r. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( Itself the premier horror story of sexual stress), had p � t her glory days behind her by 1 96 3 . Melding cmema referents past and present, Gard remarks that Mrs . Kry's embalmed bridal suite ' looks like a movie theatre somebody forgot to tear down . ' Mrs . Kry is quite insane as a result of putting her loss of v irginity on hold for 35 years, and is by now determined to do anything necessary to complete her wedding night scenario, right down to pulling her decaying bridal gown out of mothballs for the climax. This introduces the motif of closing, or repeating cycles, and to this end S tefano imposes a consistent
duality on his characters . There are two sets of young newlyweds , and the extreme youth of both brides is noted. B oth pairs fight to come to terms with their imminent wedding night duties, and both are harassed by overbearing father figures. Emmett Balfour serves as a reincarnation of the hated Daddy Kry, and the measures Gard and Vivia take to elude him call to mind H arvey's expressed plan to escape with his 'flaming youth bride . ' During Harvey's gambit to procure his car, he is sucked into the box , and during Gard's effort to park his car so it is hidden from view Vivia is likewise absorbed. The Justice of the Peac and his hamster-faced wife represent what Harvey and Mrs . Kry might have aged to become, had their marriage proceeded along the usual mundane path. The Justice is thoroughly dominated by an old biddy who can't even stand up, the physical twin to Mrs . Kry's crippled emotional state (in the script, Stefano suggests that Mrs . Justice's infi rmity is 'not apparent; probably nonexistent' ) . She and Mrs . Kry function in tandem to trap the scared-as-bunnies newlyweds, and both women even use the same phrases-fI Let me steal a tiny minute , ' for example.2 Both are sexless, anti­ feminine, contrasting Vivia's fresh-faced innocence.
�
Gard (Buck Taylor) hangs tou g h with the Box Demon, trying to look sca red .
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TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION They are used u p and dissipated while Vivia i s positively embryonic, or, a s Mrs . Kry would say, ' inviolate. ' Vivia's name, the feminine configuration of the Latin vivus ( ' alive' ) puts her at the opposite pole from the obvious connotations of Mrs . Kry's name. Pleasingly, all the male characters get it up by the final act-that is, muster some backbone. Harvey, Jr. remains altruistic and willful throughout, and it seems that the other men ultimately draw strength from his resolve. He has seen his bride become corrupted and strident over the years, a broken woman by v irtue of her unbroken maidenhead. S ince the alien has cheated Harvey of his wedding night, H arvey in turn denies it its own kind of consummation. The Justice finally stands up to his wife, and advi ses Gard to do the same to Balfour. When he does, B alfour has a change of heart and sacrifices himself to save Vivia. These cumulative denials of evil build quickly toward the story's literal climax-the big bang in which Harvey, the al ien, and Mrs . Kry at last achieve some kind of release. 'The whole show, to me, was about frustration, about the fai lure to consummate whatever, ' said Stefano. 'Nobody is quite where they ought to be, or the way they ought to be, like the newlyweds who'd've not done what they should have. ' Seen i n this light, the blatancy o f the Thing i n the Box becomes the hub on which another aspect of the story turns. Harvey quite pointedly fal l s into the wrong box on his wedding night, after letting his curiosity get the best of him. He sees a nightmarish distortion of the sex act awaiting him, and screams in terror. Gard-or 'guard,' from his footballing past-is the embodiment of letter-sweatered post-high school v irility, and he has a long speech on this very topic. It seems he has done battle for the right to deflower Vivia and won-his nose was broken recently by a sexual rival for Vivia's attentions. He proves himself an eligible substitute for Harvey when he breaks the bridal suite's carefully preserved hymen by forcing open its stuck door with his ' strong, groomy shoulders . ' Mrs Kry intends him to complete this symbolic penetration by trading places with Harvey inside the Doomsday box. But Vivia accidentall y becomes a v irgin sacrifice, of sorts, to it, and when she, like Harvey, Jr. , chooses good over evil, the alien within decides enough is enough. S ince it cannot commingle with others of its kind either, it wipes everything out in an onanistic cosmic orgasm that consumes Mrs Kry not in an act of procreation, but
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o f ' uncreation. ' The episode's third monster i s the alien, a feculent blob composed of grotesquely mixed male and female components . In its physical manifestation, the show's sexual double entendre reaches almost comical heights. Here for real is a ' the ole one-eyed monster, ' replete with a stunted, penile ' head' interrupted by a wide v aginal mouth. Near its base are a pair of slash­ like openings that resemble an organi c version of a female electrical outlet. Two pendent, breast-like protuberances hang near the thing's right ' armpit. ' The stumpy, waving arms feature three sausage-thick fingers each-tridents, perhaps, for this devil that awaits the world in a small black box. Another consistency in the show is that nearly every line of dialogue carries a sexual alternate meaning (especially overt during the discussion of Gard's broken nose, and his command to Vivia to kiss it) . E lsewhere, ' Doomsday' is often like a cryptogram without a key. Stefano left open wide vistas of interpretation, making the show itself truly free­ associative. Though its tone is reminiscent of ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, ' it fits no formula seen in previous episodes. One similarity to the Outer Limits norm arrives late in the fourth act, when the alien butts i n with an explanatory speech: CREATURE : We came into you r universe, each of us in his own ship, each ship containing the non­ elements of the void from which we came. Our first target was this planet, Earth. We were to rejoin here to blend our frequencies, but I had no experience with time and space; I lost my way. I became separated from the others . You must take me to them. That is what you must do. They are u seless without me. I am the fundamental component. Mine is the lowest frequency in the complex vibration . . . HARVEY JR: The annihilating vibration. CREATURE : He wouldn't do it. B ut you will . . . won't you?
This speech is the point at which Leslie Stevens' hard science becomes Stefano's weird science . 'Their plan was to first blow up the Earth , and then the entire universe, ' Harvey Jr. says with an absolutely straight face . Although Stefano deleted a line giving an actual motive for this alien plot (' Your universe intrudes on our void. We saw the need to un-create it. ' ) , what the invaders gain by blowing up the universe, or why they must first come to Earth to do it, remain unclear. How
D O N ' T OPfN Till DOOMSDAY Dr Spazman chanced on the box containing such a being is also a big mystery. If he imprisoned the Creature within, how did he do it? Why wasn't Spazman beamed inside? Did he make a deal with the Creature to deliver the box into the hands of those against whom Spazman had a vendetta? I s the box the alien's actual craft? If so, what prevents it from flying away under its own power? Spazman and his own motivations are so vague they are left almost wholly on the level of such inference. More of Harvey Jr. 's lines, omitted from the teleplay, help a little bit: HARVEY: The man who found (the alien) tried to warn us. And my father branded him a madman. If spitefu l ness is madness, then he was mad ! He brought this . . . this horror here . . . as a wedding gift.
B ut otherwise, the ' science' in ' Doomsday ' might just as well be witchcraft, and when read at face value, the entire invasion/destruction scenario i s l aughably dumb and entirely unsupported. S tefano's interest was in a representation of absolute evil-thus , a being who wants to destroy everything-and the moral price exacted for defying it, or wanting to assist it. 'Connie Hall and I gave the film a soft look around the edges which gave it an aged, antique feeling , ' said
Balfour (Jo h n Hoyt) caught i n a n other studio pose between the Box a n d Mel inda Plowma n-sti l l i n her c ivvies p r i o r t o s u i t i n g u p i n wa rdrobe, hair and makeup as seen on Page 1 78 .
The ultimate party g i rl, Mrs . Kry (Mi r i a m Hopkins), fla ps.
Gerd Oswald. ' Composition and atmosphere are necessary in this kind of show. The setting was good and the macabre incidents were great, although the costume was a l ittle ridiculous . ' Another of Stefano's sources for the name 'Gard' was Oswald's own first name. The character of Justman, the butler (who has no lines) was his nod to The Outer Limits ' number one AD, Robert Justman. 'That was the big glob with the eye, right?' chuckled C l aude B inyon, Jr. ' That was Frankie Delfino, one of the 'taller' l ittle people, inside that suit . ' B inyon had worked his way up from the Broken A rrow TV series to feature work at Fox, and was brought onto The Outer Limits as 1 st AD by Lindsley Parsons, Jr. , his old military school buddy. For B inyon, ' Doomsday' was ' . . . wild. You know Joe Stefano saw all that stuff. He would never have any problem directing something he'd written, because he'd already 'filmed' the entire show on paper. That must be terrible, to edit your dreams and tighten them up. The Outer Limits must have been marvelous therapy for him. ' The Box Creature was constructed at Project Unlimited out of huge, wire-bound coils of foam rubber coated in drippings of wet foam latex, which held the chaotic mess together the way frozen chocolate holds a dipped ice cream cone intact. A fog effect was superimposed over the scenes of it slide­ scuttling about in the box, which were shot against black velvet to give the impression of an endless nothingness . Ralph Rodine supplied another of his trademark light rays for the disintegration method employed by the monster, this one with a revolving,
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
A factory-fresh Box Demon, ready for action .
(Cou rtesy Gary Gera n i )
sharp-edged 'highlight' to j azz it up. The Creature's voice utilizes a much-slowed-down version of the osci llation effect heard in 'The Mice , ' and John Elizalde added a pervasive basso ' moan' to most of the scenes involving the box , which helps give each of its subsequent appearances a subtly ominous edge. M iriam Hopkins was one of Stefano's heroines from the fi lms of the 1 93 0 s , big features l i ke Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise ( 1 932) and Becky Sharp ( 1 93 5 ) . Lindsley Parsons recalled, ' She came in because the material was interesting to her, and she was an old pro who had been given the opportunity to play something other than run-of-the-mill cops 'n' robbers stuff. She never wanted her key light to drop too low; she'd keep telling Conrad Hall to 'Get that one up; get that one up ! ' ' She had j u st finished her role in William Wyler's remake of Lillian Hellman's The Children 's Hour the same film Stefano had declined to script for Wyler in 1 96 1 . Hopkins also got to croon the only song lyrics Stefano would ever pen for The Outer Limits : 'Don 't let your baby wait no more / Doomsday is knockin ' at my door! ' Thi s theme, another motif titled ' Lonesome Time, ' and the Kry reception jazz (called 'The Daystar -
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Rag' by Roger Farris) were composed b y Robert Van Eps . One rumor that found its way around the set was that the 6 1 -year-old Hopkins ' became' the mad Mrs . Kry while preparing for her role. ' I got a call that Miriam didn't want to come down to the set , ' said B inyon. 'I had to go up to her apartment and convince her to come. She didn't feel l ike working that day. And there she was, with cold cream on her face, and it was one of those weird moments, like a bad dream, trying to convince this star who was fading in and out of the real world that it was very necessary for her to come to the set, because there were a lot of people depending on her. She was unhappy with her life, and I was afraid she might decide to end it all any moment. I really didn't know. B ut she was a lovely person, never angry at any point. She had those problems, and depressions, partly because she was once quite beautifu l , and it was hard for her to deal with the fact that those days were over for her. ' Of casting Hopkins, S tefano said, ' I usually had three names, and I'd go after the top name first. ' In case Hopkins turned him down, the next name on the Mrs. Kry list was Jayne Meadows. ' B ut I wanted Miriam first on that one. There were a lot of very good actors l ike her who weren't working, and I could never understand why. The Outer Limits was five or six days' work, and there was usually no reason for them not to do it. And we were able to get Miriam . '
M r. Amory was also quite confused b y 'The M i ce , ' and h i s d isdain for The Outer Limits accurately reflects t h e critical tenor of the times toward anything presented as 'sc ience fictional. ' 2
Stefano also uses Mrs. Justice to hearken back to Psych o , as she aims the newlyweds toward Mrs. Kry's house while clucking her tongue about 'those disreputable motel s on the highway ! '
TH[ BmmO SHIRO
TH[ B[ll[AO SHI[lU Broadcast 1 0 February 1 9 64 Written by Joseph Stefano Story by Stefano a n d Lou Morheim, loosely based on the short sto ry, 'The Lanson Scre e n , ' by Art h u r Leo Zagat. Developmental writing by Perry B a rry a n d M o rt Lewis. Di rected by John Brahm Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman Di rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST: R i c h a rd B e l l e ro, J r. ( M a rtin La n d a u ) , J u dith B e l l e ro ( S a l l y Kellerman), R i c h a rd B e l l ero, Sr. (Neil H a m i lton), M rs. D a m e (Ch ita Rivera), ' B ifrost' Alien (John Hoytl.
Jud ith Bel lero s m i rks at J u n ior a n d Senior from beh i n d the shield .
There is a passion in the h uman heart that is called aspiration . It flares with a noble flame , and by its light Man has traveled from the caves o{ darkness to the darkness of outer space . But when this passion becomes lust, when its flame is fanned hy greed and private h unger, then aspiration he comes ambition-by which sin the angels fell.
Inventor Richard Bellero's newest l aser device does nothing to impress his militant-pacifist father, who intends to pass over his son for the chailmanship of the Bellero Corporation. B ut the dev ice does acc idental ly intercept a being from a world that 'hovers just above the ceiling of your universe,' a radiant creature possessed of keen perceptions and gentle manneri sms. For Richard it demonstrates the impenetrable shielding device that enables it to travel between worlds; clearly, the device could become the ultimate defensive weapon. Richard's greedy wife Judith sees the shield as the means by which to win her husband the chairmanship from Bellero, Sr. , with whom she has been feuding hatefully for years. She shoots the alien, steals the device (a palm-button connected to a vein in the alien's wrist), and ditches the corpse in the wine cellar with the help of her sinister lady-in-waiting, Mrs . Dame. Then she demonstrates, to an astoni shed Senior, his son's ' B ellero Shield . '
Once surrounded by it, Judith proves impervious to bullets and R ichard's laser pistol , but her triumph curdles when she discovers she can't remove the shield, and her oxygen is going fast. The truth i s exposed and Senior goes to the basement t o v iew the alien. Enraged by h i s v ituperative remarks about Judith, Mrs . Dame clouts him, and he tumbles down the stairs to sprawl atop the 'dead' al ien, whose eyes suddenly snap open ! The mortally weakened being staggers back to the lab, sti ll trusting, still innocent of how i t has been used: 'When she borrowed the thing, she accidentally broke the vein. My fl uid i s like your blood-the prime ingredient. ' So saying, it uses some of its milky blood to free Judith, then dies, vanishing i n a dazzling burst of white light. A penitent Judith goes to her husband, but stops stock-still two feet short of him and begins rubbing her hands across a barrier that is no longer there while murmuring, 'Nothing will ever remove it. ' Her experience has left her broken and insane, not unlike Lady Macbeth, and a very pointed close-up reveal s a glowing smear of alien blood on the palm of her hand. When this passion called aspiration becomes lust, then aspiration degenera tes , hecomes I'ulgar ambition , by which sin the angels fell.
More a classical show than a classic one, 'The Bellero Shield' is a stylistic vertex for The Outer Limits . It combines Shakespeare with ancient mythology, pulp s c i ence fi ction , quas i - rel igious
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THf OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION
Richard ' s laser l i g h t sta bs u pward from the Bel lero m a nse . . .
overtones, and legitimate theatre v i a its ' perfect number' cast of five and the stagey, embroidered quality' of the performances. At times the dialogue seems hammy and intemperate, but since good theatre is not a reflection of the world, but a mirror distortion of it exaggerated for point-making purposes, the bigger-than-life nature of the players is fitting. The episode is a thematic bookend to 'The Galaxy Being, ' or perhaps the Stefano side of that S tevens coin : A starstruck scientist probes the heavens and accidental ly intercepts a radiant, innocent, inquisitive alien. Both men have self-centered wives who crave power (Carol Maxwell wants to control the output power of her husband's radio station; Judith wants the power of patrician over prole). In Stevens' story, the Galaxy Being asks what an hour is and gets a dry, scientific calculation based on Earth's orbit time; when
Jud ith (Sa l ly Kel lerman) d raws down and za ps a bottle of bubbly.
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. . . a n d i n tercepts ' a traveler. '
' B el lero ' ' s visitor asks Judith how long a minute is, her repl y is in poetic term s : 'It passes unnoticed when you're content. For the needy it can be a string of endless lifetimes . ' And like Stevens' misunderstood Galaxy Being, the alien 'monster' here i s far less monstrous than the human beings surrounding him. He is sympathetic , blind t o the emotional maneuvering that eventually destroys him, and with his ability to sense human feelings and decode language through eye contact, he is The Outer Limits ' most elegant visitor. While he is not supposed to be here, he nonetheless approaches the human strangers with a courtesy that, sadly, is never reciprocated. While not an obnoxious extraterrestrial invader, he is stil l doomed to pay heavily for his interaction with human beings . 1 While examining published science fiction on behalf of The Outer Limits, Lou Morheim found a novelette by Arthur Leo Zag at entitled 'The Lanson S c reen ' ( first publi shed in the December, 1 9 36 Thrilling Wonder Stories) . In the story, one Professor Henry Lanson invents ' a dimensionless shell through which energy cannot penetrate. ' A military liaison named Thompson sets up a demonstration in which Lanson w i l l throw his spherical screen around Manhattan in return for one mill ion dol l ars. ' If knowledge of thi s were universal , ' Thompson muses, 'there could be no more war. ' B ut during activation of his device, the obese Lanson fall s from a platform and crushes his sku l l . Manhattan is cut off from the rest of the world until the shield is finally dissolved in 1 997. It i s discovered that the impri soned city suffered a catastrophic fire that burned up all the oxygen within
THf BfllfRO SHlflO the domed shield. Morheim and Stefano brainstormed a story line retaining the ideas of the shield itself, and air running out inside of it (while trapped, Judith s ay s , 'Movements and words accomplish nothing, and only deplete the oxygen and the soul ' ) . Thomp s o n ' s pacifistic bent w a s carried over to t h e Bellero, S r. character. The story was given to writer Perry B arry, whose first draft proved unsatisfactory. The script and story were passed on to a second writer, Mort Lewis . 'Lewis' draft never materialized into a n acceptable script for the show, either, ' said Morheim. 'When Lou came back with the second writer, ' said Stefano, ' I remember saying, 'What I reall y want to do here is a ' haircut' of Macbeth, and I ' l l do it.' I saw it as a vehicle for S al l y Kellerman, as Lady Macbeth. ' He completed his teleplay four days after 'ZZZZZ' began filming. Apart from rendering the B ard into Outer Limits terms, Stefano injected significant jolts of Norse, Greek, and B iblical mythologies into the story, starting with Judith's evocation of the Bifrost, the 'Trembling Way ' that is a rainbow bridge leading from Asgard, abode of the Norse gods, to M idgard, the world of mortals. Judith calls the shield 'our B ifrost. . . to what for me would be heaven-power, far-flung holdings , undiminishable authority. ' The B ifrost is guarded b y Heimdal l , who, l ike the alien, is painfully perceptive (Heimdall can hear the sound of grass growing, and see the wool curl ing out from the flesh of sheep) . The Bellero name seems derived from the Greek story of Bellerophon, son of Poseidon, great grandson of Atlas. His greatest wish was to ride Pegasus, the winged horse, and with a golden bridle given to him by the gods, he tames the creature and embarks on many adventures (he is the man who slays the Chimera) . One day he decides that there is only one height left to conquer, and tries to fly over Mount Olympus . Zeus i s stunned by B e ll erophon's arrogance and l i terall y knocks h i m off h i s h i g h horse . Like Richard, Bellerophon 'roams the globe in sadness for the rest of his days . ' 2 The straightforward B iblical allusions are framed by the Control Voice speech on sinning angels. The alien is himself an angelic being who fall s to Earth from a place of light. He is murdered, entombed and resurrected to give of his blood in a sacrament-like act that frees Judith . Before seeing the visitor as a 'monster, ' Mrs . Dame calls it a ghost, fearing that it i s
R i c h a rd Bellero J r. (Marti n La ndau) rea l i zes the horri ble truth .
proof of life after death, and thus, her imminent damnation for previously murdering her ' human monster' of a husband. She asks if the alien is ' . . . something dead? That won't die?' Judith repl ies, 'No, it isn't a specter, Mrs . Dame. It's real . And it's alive. And it's ours . ' The top-notch cast were all veterans o f previous
f
The a l i e n (Jo h n Hoyt) , ensh ielded .
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
Note the sandbag sta b i l izing the Plexi-Glas, lower left.
Outer Limits episodes, save one. ' I put the Chita Rivera character in,' said Stefano. ' Without shoes. No one would've written that part but me. ' Originally, Rivera asked for the part of Judith, and not her barefoot confidant. We are introduced to the gypsy-like Mrs. Dame feet-first, as the camera follows her feline paces at floor level . She always seems to be l urking in the shadows, like a black-clad animus for the white-clad Judith, waiting to dispense advice on homicide and packing a snub-nosed revolver in her garter. Stefano's inspiration for these ' white ' and ' black' murderesses in cahoots (along with the business of disposing of pesky corpses) was drawn from the Henri-Georges Clouzot thri ller Les Diaboliques ( 1 95 5 ) , which would
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b e addressed o n a greater scale i n Stefano's script for his supernatural series pilot, The Unknown . S al l y Kellerman run s the ful l distance with the plum part o f Judith Bellero. Ambitious and manipulative, Judith infuses Richard with fal se emotional strength while twisting the psychological thumbscrews that keep her in control. There is a faint whiff of a lesbian rel ationship with Mrs . Dame that perhaps allows Judith to maintain a normal ( i . e . , mundane) wife­ husband role with Richard. She is a fighter, and down into her world slides a serene alien whose nonviolent honesty undoes her. Here is a being she cannot control , or, seemingly, kill , since she shoots it with both the laser and the revolver and it keeps coming back. We find Judith's worry about the madn e s s that w i l l eventual l y claim her presaged i n two bits of dialogue cut from the script. ' Mrs . Dame tell s me I see potentials that don't exist , ' she says. 'Perhaps I'm beginning to see other things that don't exist . ' And later, as she implores Richard to call Senior as a reliable witness to the alien's passage : 'Who'll believe we aren't three benighted idiots, three hallucinators?' The l ustiest, most archShakespearian line of the whole show goes to Neil Hamilton, in his dour portrayal of Senior. 'Great men are forgiven their murderous wives ! ' he says proudly, after Mrs. Dame tell s him about the dead alien. This is his l ast l ine before his own death. In spite of much loaded talk about anti-weapons , pacifism and hatred of war, both Bellero Junior and Senior are weakl ings­ Richard being dominated by Judith and at the mercy of a technology he does not really control, and Senior threatened by Judith, close to death, with few hole cards left to play. A passage of Judith's dialogue, deleted from the script, sums up Senior nicely: JUDITH : If y o u leave this house without going u p to your son, you ' l l be exposing yourse lf as a sanctimonious sham ! The world will know that
THf B HlfRO SHIHO
Jud ith smoothly cons the a l i e n visitor.
your 'dedication ' to peace and good is a mask to hide your petty, venegful , unforgiving nature !
This comes before she tell s him that Richard has ' invented a way for mankind to protect itself from mankind,' with the added punch of a deleted fillip: ' H i s invention will make war impotent and insane ! '­ which points out exactly what she thinks of Senior. Martin Landau, at this time, was still teaching acting classe s , and noted that after one of h i s performances , his class could dissect it the fol l owing day : ' I was in plain view of all of my students , ' he said. ' If my work didn't reflect the level of commitment and excellence that I insisted on from them, they'd have thought me a hypocrite, untalented and phony. They watched me l ike hawks . It made me practice what I preached, kept me on my toes. ' John Hoyt spec i fically recalled ' the awful discomfort of my makeup and costume. For two days I could see only with great difficulty, and it was impossible to eat or drink. My young son, who came on the set late, refused to believe (I) was his father. In distress , he kept asking, 'Where's my dad?' Though Richard and the alien appear victimized by the squabbling, ambitious personalities surrounding them, they are in fact driven by a selfishness of their own-the eager scientific curiosity that blinds them to more immediate hazard s . Their intentions are benevolent, though, with the alien's seraphic nature denoted by its gentle speech and radiant presence, which brings a spiritual ' light' to the gloomy Bellero manse. 'That was one of my favorite aliens, ' said Stefano. 'John Hoyt did a beautifu l job of that . ' Director John B rahm and Stefano wanted the
creature to glow as if i l luminated by an inner light. ' We did a lot of experimentation on that , ' said Gene Warren . ' We tried Scotchlite, a beaded front­ projection material invented at 3M. It reflects light, but the problem was that it has only a one-degree angle of reflection, so if [the camera] didn't hit it at that exact angle, the shimmer effect was lost . ' S ince both the alien and the camera had to move around a lot, Scotchlite was abandoned. 3 As an alternative, Conrad Hall used a blob of vaseline on a pane of glass, held in front of the camera and kept in l ine with Hoyt's movements. ' The light reflected through the vaseline and spread out in emanating ray s , ' said Hall. '1 was careful not to use too much vasel ine, so you don't realize that the creature alone i s out of focus . ' Hall called the task of aligning the glass with Hoyt's carefully programmed movements ' some of the most incredible technical problems I've ever dealt with . ' Richard's laser beam was animated in the opening shot depicting it probing skyward from the mansion. Once inside the l ab, we see that the device i s the teleporter appartus from ' The Mice' with a fl uorescent tube running from its bore and out of the skylight to supply the 'beam ' effect. The shield itself was a V-shaped pane of plexiglas upon which the handprints of the actors can frequently be seen, and which wobbles v i s ibly if someone moves past it too fast. The process of making the shield appear and disappear is accorded the usual measure of deep respect by Robert Justman, in his shooting notes for the episode : Creature pre s s e s the cyl i ndr i c a l obj e c t h e ho lds in h i s palm and h i s transparent shi e l d d i s appears before
J udith, R i c h a rd . . . but no s h i e l d .
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION Creature pre s s e s the cyl indr i c a l obj ect h e holds in hi s p a lm and his transparent shield disappears before our very eyes whi l e Henry Maak and other stalwart members of Local 80 sweat and strain a s they hoi s t away on the block and fal l , rai s ing the device up , up , up and away out of shot whi l s t all the t ime , the Creature stands stock- st i l l , moving nary a muscle nor bl inking eye , or : If transparent device is of suf f i c i ent l i ghtnes s of weight , Rapid Richard Rubin and hi s army of prop-men ( Ted Ros s ) rush in on little cat ' s ( Kat z ) feet and run quickly away with it , at which t ime Creature may relax and continue on with hi s choreography . And please don ' t forget to INSERT the cyl indrical obj ect . . .
Working with stronger material here than i n 'ZZZZZ, ' B rahm ' s direction i s more impressive. 'Through my background in the theatre , ' he said, 'I found the humanist approach was more important than the special effects of that show. I enj oyed dealing with human expressions, human emotions . ' While a broad success i n dramaturgical terms, 'The Bellero Shield' shunts aside the science aspect as never before-whenever a character i s about to i lluminate something technical, another character intrudes to shove the explanation into irrelevancy. When Richard offers the alien a quickie rundown on lasers, we cut to Judith and Mrs . Dame before he can say anythi n g meani ngfu l . S imilarly, the ali e n ' s departure deadline h a s something to d o with the parallax between Earth and somewhere else, but this revelation i s overridden by Judith, who interposes to tell Richard he is a fool. More than staying clear of scientific explanations, S tefano was now playfully batting them away. In 'The Bellero Shield, ' the play i s definitely the thing.
As the second edition of this book goes to press, there has ari sen cons iderab l e spec u l at i o n that t h e a l i e n sketches executed by B arney Hill, the world-famous UFO abductee, were heavily infl uenced by the design of the alien i n 'The B e l l ero Shield'-which aired shortly prior to H i l l ' s first experiences with theaputic hypnotic regression. 2
Bel lerophon i s coincidental l y the name used for the colony ship i n the fi l m Forbidden Planet, itself a 'haircut' of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
3
Thi s expensive technique was exhumed for fi l m i n g the glowing costumes worn by the denizens of the p l anet Krypton in the fi lm Superman ( 1 97 8 ) .
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T h e d a m n i n g evidence on J u d ith ' s palm i n t h e show ' s c l o s i ng shot.
G fTT I N G I N TO T H f U N K N O W N The completion of 'The Bellero Shield' in mid­ December, 1 963, was fol lowed by a short Christmas break in production, during which Stefano applied his energies to his last original script for The Outer Limits, 'The Forms of Things Unknown, ' titled again after Shakespeare. ABC President Tom Moore asked him to convert it into a pilot for a supernaturally-oriented suspense series, and by New Year's Day Stefano had completed two versions-a sc ience fiction one, intended as an Oute r Limits epi s ode, and The Unknown, an alternate take that was more the sort of densely-packed Gothic fever dream he felt he could really go all-out with. B y early 1 964, Moore was very interested in acquiring some of the audience Twilight Zone was pulling in for C B S , and l ater offered to buy that series when it was cancelled at the ri val network. The Unknown, as it turned out, was not what he was looking for. But The Unknown-both versions-gobbled up most of January, 1 964, and S tefano found hi s hands quite ful l . Normal Outer Limits segments were in production simultaneously, shows that he could spend little time supervi sing, or editing, due to the attention demanded by his magnum opus. The two episodes that filmed in the midst of The Unknown-'The Children of Spider County ' and 'The Mutant'-suffered from this piggy-back approach , and were additionall y handicapped by being done by 'leftover' elements of the Daystar crew not working on S tefano's two-way episode/pilot. S tefano's notorious twenty-hour workdays could be stretched no further. ' Ideal ly, if I ever do another series, I would not like to do a pilot at the same time,' he said. ' B ecause things do get away. '
THf CHllORfN O� sPlOm COUNTY
THE CHilDREN Of SPIDER COUNTY Broad cast 1 7 Fe bruary 1 9 64 Writte n by Anthony Lawrence Di rected by Leo n a rd Hom Assistant D i rector: Wilson Shyer Di rector of Photogaphy: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: Eth a n Wechsler ( Lee Kinsolvi n g ) . Aabel ( Kent Smith). J o h n Bartl ett (John M i lford), S h e riff Simon Stakefield (Crahan Dento n ) , Mr Bishop ( D a b b s G reer). Anna Bishop ( B e n nye G atteys). General ( R o b e rt Osterloh). M r Greenbane (Joe Perry). M i l itary Intelligence Offi cer ( R oy Engel). Aabel as E ros Creature (Wi l l i a m O. Douglas, J r.).
Aa bel, of E ros, g l a res.
In light of today 's growing anxieties, it has become more absolute that the wealth of a nation consists in the number of superior men that it harbors. It is therefore a matter of deep concern , and deeper consequence , when four of the most magnificent and promising young minds in the country suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth . . .
Ethan Wechsler, whose unusual mental abilities have earned him the label ' witch-boy' among the local hambones in rural Spider County, is being detained on a trumped-up murder charge until a weird, insectile alien shows up to rescue him from his police escort. Assuming the form of a c u l tured, white-haired gentleman , the alien hastens Ethan away to sanctuary. Meanwhile, the US Space Agency has noticed a peculiar pattern of disappearances among four of the nation's top scientists : All were born prematurely, within the same month, and in Spider County. Ethan is the fifth member of this group, having never left his birthplace. The alien, Aabel, explains that he is Ethan's missing father; that he and others came from a planet called Eros to interbreed with humans to produce male chi ldren, something no longer possible on that planet. He has come to take Ethan home, but Ethan resists the idea, having roots and a girfriend in Spider Counry. Aabel, who would rather destroy Ethan than abandon him to the 'dogs and desperation' on Earth, tries
vainly to convince him to make the trip voluntarily. When Ethan chooses to face the ' neat and legal ' justice of Earthmen, Aabel cannot bring himself to kill his son, who is the better half of himself, the 'dream part . ' Ethan is gifted with the abi lity to dream-the loss of which, Aabel claims , is responsible for the barrenness on Eros. Aabel leaves emptyhanded (the other four fatherless geniuses also stay behind) , and it is clear that the Space Agency plans to intercede on Ethan's behalf in the murder charge. The wealth of a nation , of a world, consists i n the n umber of superior men that it harbors , and often it seems that these men are too different, too dreaming. And often , because they are driven by powers and dreams strange to us, they are driven away by us. But are they really so different? Are they not, after all, held by the same things that hold us--by strong love , and soft hands ?
Unlike the smooth transition from script to film undergone by his previous Outer Limits tale, 'The Man Who Was Never B orn , ' Anthony Lawrence found h i s i ntended followup, ' The Children of Spider County, ' a story about the ostracization of the gifted, to be an experience fraught with problems . 'The Man Who Was Never Born' was from me,' Lawrence said, ' whereas 'Children' was blocked out in a sitting with Joe Stefano and Lou Morheim. We had difficulty pinning it down. It was a difficult story, and I had trouble with it. ' Having been involved with George Pal's proposed
1�O
TH f OUHR liM ITS mM PAN ION film of Olaf S tapledon's pioneering 1 936 novel, Odd John , Lawrence began with themes from that book. l ' It's one of my favorite storie s , ' he said, ' and I've always been intrigued by the 'superman' theory. ' Stapledon' s superman i s an intellectual ly superior being seeking a state of enlightenment and truth called 'the way of the spiri t . ' For the inhabitants of Eros in ' Children, ' this became a drive to recapture the lost 'dream part' of their makeup, and was summed up in another splendid Outer Limits alien speech delivered by Aabel, just prior to his obliteration of Anna's father, Mr. B i shop: AABEL: You cal l ed my speci al and gifted son a 'no­ good dreamer. ' In our world, on the planet Eros, it was the absence and abhorrence of dream ing that made men no good. They worked l ike insect slaves. They fought ev i l wars . They gathered lush riches and splendid pains, but they took no time out for dreaming, and dream ing became a lost art. And, as always happens, they began to die off. For all their riches, they began to die. No male child had been born in many years . The seed that spawns the male had retreated in sorrow, faded out of this dreamless race. The w i se ones thought it was the c l imate, so they sent five of us here to prove that in a more favorable c l imate, the males of Eros could again produce males. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps it was the c l imate that enabled us to produce sons . . . but I do not think so. I think it was because, whil e here, we onc e again caught th e fash ion of dreaming. [Ethan] and the others w i l l start a new race for Eros, a race of men who cannot help but dream, who have the dream machine in their human half, and call i t 'soul . '
I n the earliest draft o f the script, Aabel lauds the supremacy of the beings of Eros in a more fasci st manner, telling Ethan that by staying on Earth he will ' let go the reins of eternal superiority. ' More to the point is Aabel rationalization for killing, which was left in: AABEL: K i l l ? We are n o t k i l lers, Ethan . We d o not have the power to k i l l-only to destroy, suddenl y and totally. K i l l ers have the power to k i l l slowly and parti al ly. We do not k i l l , Ethan . We un-create.
Aabel runs Etha n ' s escort off the access road to MGM ' s Ta rza n Forest and ' u ncreates' Sheriff Sta kefield .
The number of fatherless geni uses was reduced to five from ten, and lost were many of the details of the prov incial , small-town h atred of them , which Lawrence expressed through the character of Sheriff
THf CHllURfN Of SPlOfR COUNTY Stakefield. Here i s the S heriff, arguing his case with Bartlett : STAKEFIELD : You don't know Wechsler. You people in Washington have only seen h i s records. You haven't watched him a s I have, all these years . BARTLETT: Witches seem to be an archaic concept in this day and age. STAKEFIELD: Pretending something doesn't exist is a worse kind of deceit. Look, Mr B artlett, we're not a backward people here. There are no cults here performing rites of ignorance, or groups who get release by un-dignifying the other fellow. When I tel l you there are things about Wechsler and those others you're looking for that are beyond human explanation, I tel l it to you as an enlightened man.
Like Dr Kellander in 'The Mice , ' Stakefield i s totally unaware o f his o w n short-sightedness, his prejudice and even ignorance. 2 A series of multiple revi sions pared away both good and bad aspects of the story. The first draft , for example, i s much more violent. Ethan is being detained for the murder of one Jonathan Stimpson, whose jaw he is said to have broken in three places before setting him afire. This established a recurring fire motif Lawrence intended as a keynote for each appearance Aabel makes in alien form. Ethan and the other Eros-spawned boys are supposed to have burned down the local schoolhouse at age eight, and Aabel i s seen 'bursting into flame' before running the sheriff s car off the road. All that i s left of the sheriffs are outlines of char on the upholstery. Mr. B i shop's original death scene was equally gruesome : Aabel raises his arms, begins to glow like a lit coal . B i shop freezes, hand outstretched; he staggers back, shocked. Suddenl y, out of the coal -l ike glow the monster form of Aabel appears . . . approaches B i shop, touches him. And Bishop bursts into flames, and is incinerated. Only a charred outline remains on the foyer floor.
Also deleted was an entirely gratuitous attack by Aabel on a Forest Service watchman , who gets fried just for being in Aabel's way. The revised Aabel is determined, authoritative, yet more humane, and even sl ightly mi sguided. Kent Smith's sharp Aryan countenance and deep, full-bodied voice lend his portrayal of Aabel a nobility that i s darkened by a tinge
Eth a n ( Lee K i n solving) pleads h i s case in a nicely-contrived Leonard Horn c a mera setu p .
o f dead earnestness . The first version o f the story concludes with Aabel simply wandering off into the woods, as detectives chase after him . The Stefano-inspired rewrite resolves the Aabel-Ethan relationship by permitting Aabel to admit defeat and go home. In a deleted line, B artlett, the Space Agency man, acknowledged Ethan's potential : 'That glorious breed of man your father was talking about-I think you might start it right here on Earth. ' Another plot point lost amid multiple generations of the story is the matter of the murder of Jonathan Stimpson-a frame-up perpetrated by Aabel to supply Ethan with an incentive to leave Earth j ust in case Eros did not sound l ike such a peachy place to live. Bartlett, in the televised version, i s a virtual nonentity, a man who chases after funny noises from the sky and always shows up too late to effect the preordained events in any way. Mr B ishop-Anna's father-is irritatingly inconsistent. Ethan pointedly relates how the Bishops never feared him, and took him on as a farm hand when everyone else in Spider County remained superstitiously afraid. S urely B ishop knows of Ethan's romantic involvement with Anna. Yet he goes gunning for Ethan repeatedly, mindlessly, without ever once asking this young man , whom he probably knows better than most people in town, whether he's innocent, or what his story might be. There remains a flabbiness to the drama, as well . No sense o f geography is imparted t o Ethan's flight from the lawmen ; the v iewer quickly gets the impression that Ethan , Aabel and Anna are going around in circles since they never seem to get too far
l�L
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
Ma keup a rtist F red P h i l l i ps s u i ts u p Wi l l i a m O . Doug las, J r. a s Aabel .
from town. Mr. B ishop never has any trouble finding the fugitives, though-he pops in, gets hypnotized by Aabel , pops out, then pops back i n long enough to get killed-he certainly has no trouble catching up with Ethan even though S takefield's posse needs Aabel's 'homing signal ' to find him. Aabel ducks in and out of Ethan's flight path without a clue to his location, either, and while there is an attempt to inform this father-son relationship with a sense of Ethan's dawning awareness of his own unique nature, the interminable cut-aways to the alien Aabel stomping through Tarzan Forest at MGM give the impression that the filmmakers j ust wanted to get on with the monster mOVie. ' That monster was merely gratuitous , ' said Lawrence, not surprisingly. ' It was added to please the network . ' The head, hands , and feet of the Eros Creature were another sculpting j ob by Wah Chang, who took his inspiration from the ' insect slaves' line and made Aabel's face an exoskeletal, bug-eyed thing with mandibles. The first time we see this creature
l�J
incongruously clad i n a suit and tie, it is a startling sight; thereafter, the immobile mask is intrusive and phony-looking. Its angular, armored face digs another plot-hole, to wit: If Aabel i s Ethan ' s dad, why can't Ethan transform into a manti s-faced alien? In 'The Man Who Was Never B orn , ' Andro used hypnotic suggestion to appear human ; it is never clear whether Aabel does this too, or actually changes h i s physical make-up. Andro suggested clothing along with his human guise; Aabel apparently brought his coat and tie with him from Eros. The much-revised teleplay proved too much to handle for one-time Outer Limits assistant director Wilson Shyer, and some action described in newer drafts never found its way into the shooting breakdown sheets, meaning that the production crew wasted time setting up scenes that were no longer part of the script. 'Wilson Shyer. . . did not work out , ' sighed veteran 1 st AD Robert Justman . Much of the show looks cheap or hurried, shot on-the-run with no leeway for the artful concealment of mistakes (like the l arge and obvious shadow of the camera truck speeding alongside Sheriff Stakefield's car) . S ince The Unknown was u sing up the KTTV soundstages , studio time for ' Children ' had to be booked elsewhere, and to reduce costs it was decided that all the show's interiors had to be filmed in a single day at S amuel Goldwyn Studios. There was j ust too much to shoot, so director Leonard Horn restructured some scenes to be done outdoors . . . and that got him in trouble with Joe Stefano. ' Leonard played what I thought was a very important scene between the father and son with them coming out of a barn, going in and out of doors, and c limbing a l adder. When I saw the dailies I was hysterical; I thought, how are we going to hear the dialogue when we're watching people running? It was all important stuff, and it was too late to go back and shoot it again , so I was very disturbed. In the script it was a straight scene of two people in a room; Leonard moved them out of that room. Now, I think there are times when you've got to see a close-up of a person saying something so it'll register, just to indicate its importance. Instead, you get the line while a car is running by. I see this today : A director will get bored,
THf CHllURfN Uf sPlUm COUNTY or scared he can't maintain interest in a scene where there is nothing to do except sit and watch actors act. So he makes the viewer into two people-one watching and one listening. And that's a conceit I detest. I think Leonard was afraid to play a scene between two people that ran for more than two pages , and that changed the show unproductively. ' Allan Balter, who was at this time rewriting the next show on the production roster, 'The Mutant, ' offered an alternate perspective on Horn's dilemma: 'Joe was overcome by the authority of being in the captain's chair, and laid down difficult rules, such as no script changes on the set without his app ro val-t hen he wasn't available when you wanted to follow his rules by clearing it with him. Lenny Horn i n particular ran afoul of this . ' Horn's changes were not wrong, but they were not what Stefano had envisioned. 'I fel t secure going in with Leonard , ' Stefano said, ' so I could pay more attention to The Unknown . On 'Spider County' I did miss the kinds of conferences I usually had . ' As o f ' Children, ' the look o f The Outer Limits also changed permanently as cinematographer Kenneth Peach signed on. Peach had been shooting The Long Hot Summer series at Fox when it was cancelled, and Stevens hired him to fil l in when Conrad Hall began working on The Unknown . Like Byron Haskin, Peach had developed process photography techniques in the 1 930s, and brought to The Outer Limits his expertise with in-camera optical tricks. With Peach, the visual identity of the show became more standardized and workmanlike, almost monochromatic. When supervised by a director like Gerd Oswald, Peach's work could appear ' arty ' enough; otherwise h e did not attempt t o emulate what Hall and Nickolaus had done before him. He had no time to be fancy-he was to shoot all the remaining first season episodes, and all the second season shows yet to come. His son, Kenneth, Jr. , became an assistant cameraman on The Outer Limits as wel l . 'In a two-shot, I preferred t o face the actor against the key light , ' said Peach. ' In standard lighting, all cameramen use that, with variations . I've always found TV difficult unless I used a reference l ight to throw off grays; I concentrate toward basic blacks and whites. I did strive to get whatever light effects or mood called for by the script. I l istened to suggestions, and my suggestions were always l istened to. I did my job and that was that . '
Described by Lawrence as ' Lincolnesque and loose-j ointed , ' Ethan was played by Lee Kinsolving, known at the time for his portrayals of alienated, rebellious teens in such films as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs ( 1 960) and The Explosive Generation ( 1 962) . Two weeks after ' Children ' finished shooting, Twilight Zone featured him as one of a trio of alien bikers in an episode called ' B lack Leather Jackets . ' Lawrence notes that ' I named the character after my son, Ethan, who was then just-born . My wife and I are writing together now and we've just named another character Ethan; I must've used that name a dozen times through the years . ' Even though the script was fine-tuned unto death, the episode rol led in on time and under budget. Leonard Horn was snapped up by Irwin Allen to direct several segments of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the show that repl aced The Outer Limits on Monday nights) , and would l ater berth at Mission : Impossible with Allan B alter. Despite the four-script deal Stefano had made with Lawrence after 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' this would be the writer's only other Outer Limits show. Lou Morheim asserts that 'We were very impressed with Tony, ' but Stefano adds: 'The problem was that Tony was busy fulfilling four-script deals on other shows , l ike Ben Casey, so he never brought anything else in to us. ' At this time, Lawrence was also working on the script for the Elvis Presley film, Roustabout. What did Lawrence think of his parting shot on The Outer Limits ? 'It was interesting, ' he said, 'but I wasn't terribly excited by it.'
After seeing David McCal l u m ' s performance in 'The S ixth Finger' Pal cast him as the lead i n the Odd John project . . . which, sadly, was never produced. 2
During the first act, B assett (one of the vanished geniuses) is noted as being a psychiatrist in the employ of something called ' the Hale Neo-Kinetics Institute . ' I wonder if he knew the flinty Dr. Kellander of 'The Mice' professionally-DJS
The Outer Lim its ' pervasive Space Agency emblem .
1�4
TH f OUHR liMITS CO MPANION
T H E M U TA N T Broad cast 16 M a rch 1 964 Written by A l l a n B a lter and Robert M i ntz. Story by Joseph Stefano and Jerome Thomas, based o n a treatm ent by E l l i s St. Joseph. Deve l o p mental writi n g by E l l i s St. Joseph, Victor Stol off, a n d Betty D. U l i us. D i rected by Alan Cros l a n d , J r. Assistant Di recto r: P h i l Rawli nS' D i rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: D r Evan Marshall [psychi atrist] ( Larry Pe n n e l l ) , Reese Fowler [bota n i st] (Warren Oates), J u l i e G riffith [biochem i st] ( B etsy J o n es-M oreland), D r Frederick R i n e r, M D (Wa lter B u rke), Prof. H e n ry LaCosta [meteorologist] ( H erman R u d i n ) , Lt. Peter C h a n d l e r [ b i o l o g i st] ( R o b e rt Sampson), Phillip ' G riff' Griffith [biochem i st] ( R i ch a rd De rr)
Reese Fowler (Warren Oates) feel s no pa in from the ra i n .
At this very moment, o u r horizon i s menaced by two explosive forces, both man -made . One is a deadly wonder; the other, wondrously alive . Both forces have compelled Man to reach out for worlds beyond his own , new worlds where he may find peace , and room to grow. This is the first of those new worlds. The United Nations of Earth have claimed it, and called it Annex One. It is almost identical to Earth , except that there is no night-sunlight is constant. Early reports from the small expeditionary team stationed on Annex One indicated that the ancient planet appeared suitable for colonization by Earth 's ave/flowing population . But the most recent reports have contained unspoken , oddly disturbing undercurrents , and the United Space Agency has decided to investigate . The man chosen : Dr. Evan Marshall, psychiatrist. When Dr. M arshal l ' s shuttle lands on Annex One, he is greeted by the outpost team , w h o a l l wear d e n s e ly-tinted g o g g l e s to protect their e y e s from t h e p l a n e t ' s fierce s un li g h t. Philip Griffith , leader of the team , h a s recently died and there rem a i n s
no
trace
of
his
c o rp s e .
D u ring
i ntrod u c t i o n s , botani s t R e e s e Fowler refu s e s to s h ake Marshall ' s hand , and with g o o d reason : The rad i o - i sotope
' ra i n s torm s '
on Annex One
have caused Reese to m utate into a bug-eyed, bald
s e m i - h u m an who can e x i s t without s l e e p , read m i n ds , and k i l l by touch . W h e n Griffith proposed to abandon Annex One a s u n i n h abitab l e , i t meant l e av ing R e e s e behind , and Reese touched h i m , c a u s ing
' th e
ato m s
of h i s
being
to e x p l o de . '
R e e s e h a s terrorized the c o l o n y i nto staying m u m and
remaining
on
Annex
One
to
keep
him
c o m p any. When h e r e a d s the m i n d of b i o l og i s t C han d l e r and fin d s an i n t e n t ion to s l i p M ar s h a l l a note rev e a ling the truth , he k i l l s Chandler. While attempting to treat R ee s e ' s conditio n , Dr Riner fin d s that d arkn e s s causes R e e s e i n t e n s e pain . S in c e there i s no night , a hidden c a v e p ro v i d e s the c o l oni s t s ' only refuge from R e e s e , and when Prof. LaCosta is k i l l e d there by a m u tant i n s e c t , J u l i e Griffith ' s s c ream s bring M arshall r u n n i n g to the s e c ret p l ac e . There , Riner tri e s to s e c rete the fact s on A n n e x One a n d R e e s e into M arshal l ' s mind v i a a
p o s t- h y p n o t i c
s uggestion ,
so
t h at
Reese,
thinking M ar s h a l l kno w s n o th i n g , w i l l a l l o w h i m t o return t o Earth . B ut the r u s e fai l s ; R i ner i s inj ured during o n e o f Ree s e ' s treatme n t s ,
and
s p i l l s the p l an before d y i n g . R e e s e l o c k s Marshall and
Julie
rai n storm ,
out then
of the chases
hut
prior to
them
to
an
the
i sotope
cave.
He
attem p t s to fol l o w them i n s i d e , fi x at i n g o n the single c andle flame that i s the o n l y l i ght s o urce there . He accidentall y s n u ffs out the c a n d l e , and h o w l s w ith pain as the dark n e s s s n u ffs
h im o u t .
THf MUTANT Th e forces of violence and the forces of nature compel Man to reach out toward new horizons, where peace and san ity may flourish , where there is room to grow. But before we run , should we not first make certain that we have don e all that can be done here to end madness, quiet the disturbers of peace, and make room for those who n eed so little to grow I n .? .
To e x p l ode
the
c liche
about
M utan t ' had many fathers and was
s u cc e s s ,
' The
not one .
' There was a time I c a l l e d the Hot Period , ' said S tefano . ' It was when I was crazy about a story
and fel t the writer c o u l d deliver a script
which we could put into production two weeks l ater.
Now, s uppose the first draft comes in and
needs work . It's still hot. If the second draft s t i l l needed change s , it w a s n ' t hot anymore . I w o u l d tel l Lou Morhe im, ' I hav e c anceled this s c r i p t in my mind . . . but see if you c an
ever get it to work . '
Meanwhi l e , I ' d g o home and write another script to fi l l the gap . ' After completing ' The S ixth Finger, ' writer E l l i s St. Joseph pitched two more ideas to S tefan o . O n e was a fragment concerning a c i v i l ization h e l d under martial law by a computer. T h e other was a 3 5 -page treatment set aboard a g igantic s ate llite i n deep spac e . ' It housed terrestrial life and contained an artificial s un , ' said St. Joseph .
A scientist at
the outpost has a freak encounter w ith an alien phenomenon that touches off h i s p sychological
Dr. Ri ner (Wa l ter B u rke) g reets Mars h a l l ( La rry Pennell) in front of the 'Man Who Was N ever Born ' spaces h i p shell with a new pa i n t job and seria l n u m bers, a s Julie (Betsy Jones·Moreland, left) a n d Reese (rig ht) look on . I f you were looking out the spaces h i p porthole, you ' d be facing Bronson Cave. said S tefano , ' You can take away anything you want and it s t i l l work s .
Th is was not a good script . '
The shuffled p ac k o f ideas was then handed to A l l an B alter and Robert M i n t z , co-writers of ' The H undred Days of the Dragon . ' ' The M utan t ' had been
assigned a Day star production n umber i n
June,
1 96 3 (while L e s l i e S te v e n s w a s finishing
' Controlled Experiment ' ) , b u t a final draft was not d e l i v e re d
until
M arch
8th,
1 9 64 .
commenced e x ac t l y one w e e k l ater.
' The Mutant , ' al l episodes remaining to be fi lmed for the season were a l l otted five shooting days instead
of s i x
( with
a
single
except i o n ,
G u e st s ' ) .
d i s i ntegration . He does not change phy s i c ally. ' A t the
end
of my
s to ry, '
St.
Joseph
said,
' th e
Earthlings a n d satel l i te are completely destroyed . ' Tho ugh the scenario was too e x p e n s i v e for even a genero u s
Outer Lim its b u d g e t , L o u Morheim
bo ught i t and a s s igned it to Jerome Thomas , who reworked the story with S tefano ' s input. By the time it s ifted down through the typewriters of Victor Stoloff and B etty U l i u s , the Hot Period was
over as far as S tefano was concerned. I
The i nterior panoramas of the s ate l l ite were rendered down to a more
simply-filmed fores t
w o r l d , t h e h undreds of c o l o n i s t s were reduced t o seven , a n d R e e s e Fowler's mental breakdown was changed to give
The Outer Limits the monster that
was e x pected of it. ' If you have a good script , '
S hooting
S tart i n g w ith
Reese fries the ato m s o f C h a n d ler (Robert S a m pson) .
'The
TH f ounR liMITS COM PANION REE S E : I d i d n ' t w a n t to c o m e up here . I n t h e deepe st, truest part o f m y m i n d , I d i d n ' t want to c o m e . B u t G r i ff was my friend, and J u l i e was my fri end . . . they w anted me to come w i th them, the way frie n d s al w ay s want fri ends when they go somewhere new, and exciti n g , and j u st a l i tt l e i n t i m i dati n g . And so I l et them persuade m e . A n d I was g l ad I d i d . I made more fri e n d s . I ' ve a l w a y s l i ked h av i n g l ots of fri e n d s . I wou l d have di ed for you-g l ad l y, for any one of you . B ut when you d i e for someone, it ought to be fast, s udden . I t s h o u l d n ' t be a l i ngeri ng death . It s h o u l d n ' t be l o n e l y, s h o u l d i t ? Maybe, before i t c o m e s-i f i t c o m e s­ one of my fri e n d s w i l l fi nd a way to prevent i t . One of you might. If you try ; if y o u ' re here to try. That ' s why you ought to be here, to try to prevent my death . Or, at l east, to bury me . . . if you can't.
Pre-Muta nt: Wa rren Oates i n h u m a n for m .
B eyond t h e mechan i c a l , ten - l i tt l e - I n d i a n s plot, there i s a h a lf-hearted attempt at subtext i nv o l v i n g t h e h u m an n e e d for n i ght, sleep, and dream s , al l o f w h i c h h a v e b e e n d e n i e d R e e s e , w i th the re s u l t that h i s ' dream s ' become the thoughts of his fel l o w c o l o n i sts, who all w a n t to k i l l h i m . Marshal l ' s hypnotic experience i s a k i n d of ' s l eep ' Reese cannot penetrate , and w h e n J u l i e awaken s h i m from
his
trance
dream i n g when
I
she
s ay s ,
' M aybe
you
were
s t u m b l e d upon you i n the fore s t . '
When Riner d i e s , h i s la s t words are , ' S leep . . .
O ri g i n al l y,
the
s t o ry
was
s t ru c t u red
c hron o l ogical l y to begin w i th Ree s e ' s m i shap . The broadc ast version features al l
events up to the
point of Griff s death as a fl ashback, told by Dr. Riner i n the cave, by candlelight.
Th i s i s another
q u i et , fi ne moment amidst the ru n n i n g aro u n d and m o n s ter m adn e s s , w i t h Riner's haunted expre s s i o n accenti ng h i s t a l e of w h at happened t o Reese once the
m e t al l i c
rai n
s tarted
to
fal l :
' He
fe l l
...
screamed . . . tore at h i s eyes . . . '
s l eep , ' as he repeats the hypnotic patter h e used on
U l t i m ately, the new, i mproved Reese i s too
M arshal l . When C h andler dies, Reese reads his
powerful a m o n s ter for any gambit by the c o l o n i sts
'It 's only going to be like n ight . . . a long night, to dream in. ' Thi s i s the c o n c l u sion of
thought that
the epi sode ' s best scene, a w eird l y s adi stic n umber i n w h i c h Reese u n v ei l s h i s deformity for the first time, then force s C h andler to eat the desperate note i ntended for M arshal l . A s ori g i nal l y wri tte n , Prof. LaC o sta d i e s from exposure to
the
i sotope-rai n
in
a fal l e n - to-ruin
to
succeed,
making
the
business
of the
cave
hideout i n cred i b l y contri ved, and Ree s e ' s death i n the
darkn e s s ,
while
an
e v o c at i v e
i m ag e ,
an
u n s ati sfy i n g conc l u s i o n to the story. I f any of the colon i sts had thought to l oc k
Reese
in
a dark
roo m , or bring along a pi stol to Annex One, the w h o l e m e s s w o u l d have been re sol ved in secon d s . The
sporadic
pote n c y
of
further d i ffu s e d by i t s brevi ty.
'The
M utan t '
is
Like ' S pecimen :
temple bu i l t by Annex One's earlier i n h ab i tants .
Unknow n , ' a b i t of stretch was req ui red for the
Th i s was c h anged to the c avern - s anctuary, w here
fi nal print, so the teaser u n dercuts the su spense of
he
is
k i l led
by
the
bite
of
an
ant
bro u g h t
unknow i n g l y a l o n g on t h e Earth s h i p ( there i s n o nati ve a n i m a l L i fe on A n n e x One)-an a n t that, l ike Ree se, has mutate d . Rather than tripping over LaCosta' s corp s e , Julie fi n d s him menaced by a recycled
Zanti
M i s fi t
( w ith
mandi b l e s ) ,
which
permi tted a more frantic Act Two break . Cut
from
the
script
was
a
poignant
and
fri ghte n i n g s p e e c h t h a t e x p a n d s Ree s e ' s h u m an dimen s i o n :
1�1
Rees e ' s bug-eyed ' reveal ' by serv i n g it up fi rst and foremost in a long ' h i dden n ote '
(two m i nute) repeat of the
scene the v i ewer w i l l
exactly ten m i n utes l ater.
see agai n
Another m i n ute was
bought w i th an elongated Control Vo i c e speech over standard
Outer Lim its stock footage-with
one excepti o n , a shot i n which surg i c a l l y garbed extras
whack
a
wet
Proj ect
U n l i m i ted
rubber
baby-and another 3 0 secon d s , by random footage drawn from the e p i s ode proper and sal ted i n unti l
THf MUTANT the Control Vo ice stops talkin g . ' That was shot about a block and a half away from m y o i d h o u s e on Tuxedo
Te rrac e ,
rec al led
B et s y
in
H o l l y w o od , '
J o ne s - More l a n d
in
1 99 3 , ' up in B ro n s o n C a n y o n , the cave where we shot Viking Women ( Roger Corman ' s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to th e Waters of th e Great Sea-Serpent [ 1 9 5 7 ] ) . The first night that w e were there , m y voice went hoar s e . my
voice
cav e .
I
from
screami n g
I lost in
that
had one hell of a time-it was
very c o l d and v ery dam p . It was v e ry difficult from then on to sound l ike anyth i n g but a frog ! ' 2 Jack
Pop l i n
bungalo w '
built
set
s o u n d stage
Unknown
the
on
' s p ace
the
j u st
v a c ated
(which
had
KTTV
Th e
by
moved
to
outdoor night shoots o n the MGM b ac k l o t ) . K e n n eth
At
the
s uggestion
P e ac h ,
' shiny
of
reflectors were laid over the
basic
pioneer
m o re
hutch
to
lend
it
J
b o ard ' a
futuristic look. Marshal l ' s shuttlecraft is the spaceship mockup from ' The Man Who Was Never B orn ' w ith a new paint j ob , and Proj e c t Unlimited did the ' i s otope rai n ' effect by sifting metal l i c dust through a high-intensity light-a technique later picked u p for use as the ' tran sporter' effect in Star Trek. Another i nteresting v i s u al tidbit
Wa rren Oates u nvei ls Reese i n all his telepath ic g lory.
is the presence of a box c learly labeled ' D ay s tar' seen
in several
shots beneath the cot of space
colonist
R obert
abort i v e
warn i n g
ac h i e v e d
a
C rampto n ' s
S am p s o n to
he
Marshall .
m e a s ure loony
as
of
scribbles S am p s o n
notoriety
as
b a c k - fro m - th e - d e ad
Stuart Gordo n ' s c l a s s i c
his l ater
B arbara dad
Re-An imator ( 1 9 8 5 ) .
in He
was cast in ' The Mutant' v i a S tefano ' s a s s i stant Tom Selden, who had directed him in ' Ca l l M e B
;
My Rightfu l Name . ' I n the midst of ' The M u tant , ' i t was S e l de n who, like S tefano , had a run-in with the w atchdogs at A B C .
' It came a t o n e of those moments when
we were having six crises at onc e , ' remembered Selden. ' You know-fiv e episodes cranking away, and we're trying to get the pilot
(The Unknown)
ready, and three effects aren ' t w orking , and that ' s w h e n a phone call c o m e s i n from one of the network coordin ators .
He shall remain nameles s .
Joe
wasn't
deadline
availab l e ;
he
was
cramming
for
a
and there w a s a person sitting in the
offi c e , j u st waiting to grab the pages from the typewriter and run them over to m i me o .
So I took
the c a l l from AB C . And all this asshole wanted to talk
abo u t
was
some
n e t w ork
trip
that
had
absolutely nothing to do with what was immediate and nece s s ary
at
that moment,
so
I m ade the
choice and told him e x actly what I thought :
'I'm
sorry, but I c a n ' t be bothered w i t h that right now. Goodbye . '
That
didn't
sit v ery
well
w i th the
network and I almost lost m y j ob over that one phone c al l . It was pretty tense for a few day s . B ut Joe wouldn't hear of it. '
During this cutback period on The Outer Limits , Stefano's team handled some procedural problems i n the most direct way imaginable. 'For instance, ' said Sel ? en, 'we were sending to the network scripts on whIch Joe had already done two levels of rewrite, and
TH f O UHR liMITS CO MPANION
Ri ner (Wa lter B u rke) goes to sleep . . . permanently.
all the pages they saw were white pages . They didn't understand why they weren't getting blue pages, or pink pages.3 What we were doing, of course, was saving time and money on mimeographing. Joe sent ABC the drafts he wanted to go with, and they couldn't handle that, and felt that in order to earn their pay they had to pick at something. (To ABC, the all-white scripts showed no evidence of having been rev ised at all . ) I don't recall who came up with the idea, but eventually we'd j ust divide the script up and mimeo some pages on white, some on pink, and some on blue, and send it in that way. Then ABC was happy; then they left us alone. ' ' 'The Mutant' was probably the worst show we did,' said Stefano. 'Just terrible. I didn't care for the cast on it, either. ' To be sure, Betsy Jones-Moreland and Larry Pennell are another Outer Limits Odd Couple that makes the show look l ike a dated 1 950s science fiction movie romance, but Walter B urke's performance
a s the bearded Dr. Riner is respectable, the supporting cast is strong, and Warren Oates (another Stoney Burke veteran and Daystar regular) is impressive despite the pitfalls of being a literal BEM, or Bug-Eyed Monster. The extreme makeup restricts him to using only his mouth expressions and voice to convincingly portray a man driven crazy by his nearly limitless power over his compamons . The mutant eyeballs were described b y the script as 'huge, oversized orbs criss-crossed with a network of ugly red veins, ' and they look l ike leftovers from the earliest conception of the makeup for 'The Sixth Finger, ' but are not. They were vacu-formed at Projects and delivered to Fred Phillips, who recalled, 'I'd first seen the fake eyes the night before shooting and thought, what the hell are we going to do with these ? ' He used mortician's Dumo Wax t o arch Oates' brows into the contours of his head, but the Bronson Canyon heat caused the wax to ' sweat . ' Melted droplets of it can frequently be seen on Oates' face. Phillips noted that 'I had to use a strong sealer to keep the eyes from popping off in the middle of a take' - which they did, many times, to the weary hilarity of cast and crew. ' l or one of the crew would always come up with these pet names for the ' bears , ' ' said Stefano. ' And the right one always stuck. B ecause of those eyes , Warren w a s for e v e r k n o w n as t h e Fried E g g M o n s te r. '
Among other things, Victor Stoloff co-wrote the Roger Corman low-budgeter She Gods of Shark Reel ( 1 95 6 , re leased 1 95 8 ) and Betty U l i u s l ater co-wrote the best of the Haight­ Ashbury era's LSD movies, Psych - O ut ( 1 96 8 ) . 2
A retrofitted Zanti g uest-cameos d u r i n g the cavern death of LaCosta .
199
The B ronson Cavern s l ocation i n Griffith Park c a n b e seen in v irtu a l l y every science fiction fi l m and TV show ever produced. To c i te two examples from h undreds, it i s the cave i n which the Venusian teepee monster hides in Corman's It Conquered the World ( 1 95 6 ) and the ' m i ne shaft' in which M i l e s and Becky hide from the Pod People in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (also 1 95 6 ) . If the science fiction genre is ever to have a shrine, it should be Bronson Cavern s-which are not actuall y cavern s , but tunne l s dri l led through the mountainside i n this former granite quarry. Scenes for everything from Lightning Bryce ( 1 9 1 9 ) to the Marlon Brando Julius Caesar ( 1 95 3 ) to The Searchers (also 1 95 6 ! ) to The Flintstones ( 1 994) have been shot there , v i rtually underneath the Hollywood sign . Visit it for free the next time you're in Los Ange l e s .
3 E a c h generation of script rev i sions i s d o n e on a n e w c o l o r o f paper to differentiate it from t h e l i ke-numbered pages in previous drafts.
SfWNO CHANCf
S[CONO CHANC[ Broadcast 2 M a rch 1 9 64 Written by ' Li n D a n e ' and Lou M o r h e i m Based on 'Joy R i d e , ' a t e le p la y by S o n y a Roberts Story by Sonya Roberts D i rected by Paul Sta n l ey Assistant D i rector: Claude B i nyon, J r. D i rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: Capt/Dr. Dave Crowe l l lOon Gordon), M a ra M atthews IJa net DeGore), Empyrian ISimon Oakland), Arjay Beasley IJohn McLiam), Sueann Beasley IAngela Cla rk), Buddy Lym a n IYa i e S u m m e rs), Donise Wa rd I M i msy Farmer), To mmy ' N e b s ' S h a d b u ry IArnold M e rritt)
This n i g h t watc h m a n should not c h ec k out the see m i n g ly i na ctive saucer . . . but he wi l l .
When fear i s too terrible , when reality i s too agonizing , we seek escape in manufactured danger, in the thrills and pleasures of pretending-in th e amusement parks of our unamusing world. Here , in frantic pretending , Man finds escape and temporary peace, and goes home tired enough to sleep a short, deep sleep . B u t what happens here when night comes ? When pretending ends, and reality begins?
Amusement park patrons given free passes to Joyland's spaceship ride unexpectedly find themselves aboard a real flying saucer, bound for a planet called Empyria and piloted by a pedantic alien prone to lofty speech-makin g . He has abducted this ' psycho­ organized' group of people ' with the least to lose' to colonize an Earth-type asteroid called Tythra, which is destined to collide with Empyria 8 2 years hence, and set in motion a billiard-ball chain of events that will result in Empyria coll iding with Earth. Together, the alien reasons, his race and Earthlings suited to Tythra's env ironment-the abductees-can work to prevent the catastrophe. But most of the passengers aren't too thri lled by the prospect of abandoning their lives on Earth . . . with one exception. Dave Crowel l , an unemployed astrophysicist who moonlights as the space ride's captain, is intrigued by the proposition, which causes the others to see him as their enemy.
When they try to kill him, the Empyrian intercedes . Crowell points o u t that most people don't want a new life , no matter how petty or empty their old life was, or a second chance to redress the failings of those old lives. If the Empyrian was to state his problem openly, Crowell says, he'd reap a whole shipload of will ing volunteers, not the ' discontented dreamers ' currently aboard. The Empyrian agrees, and reverses course to return the abductees to Earth. Doctor Crowell was right-they came. Not people in need of a second chance, but those who would give that chance to Earth , and to their children 's children . I ' I asked S imon Oakland if he would do an Outer Limits , ' said Joseph Stefano, 'and he said, 'Only if I c an play the mon ster. ' ' Stefano had suggested Oakland to Alfred Hitchcock for the part of the psychiatrist who appears in the final moments of Psycho, and though total ly unrecognizable except for his distinctive voice beneath the Empyrian makeup, Oakland delivers a sincere and moving performance. The vehicle for this performance, though , was shaky and superficial . 'ABC was looking for some kind of hype that would elevate our ratings , ' said Lou Morheim. 'They felt the way to do it was with monsters and simplistic stories. Some of our shows were extraordinary in concept; the level of imagination was very high-and ABC was afraid of them . ' ' Second Chance' was,
THf OUHR liM ITS mMPANION therefore, heavily geared toward what Morheim called 'the large, young, broad-based audience that would buy more simplistic material . ' The original script was Sonya Roberts' 'Joy Ride , ' and its basic plot is identical to that of the iron ically-titled rewrite done by Morheim . The difference was that Roberts provided pages of character development, sharply individualizing the abductees; while it approaches the silly plot in a manner intell igent enough to put off anyone seeking a mere hour's worth of monster shenanigans, it is written perceptively enough to be c lever rather than offensively smart. In 'Second Chance, ' for example, the Empyrian forces Arj ay B easley to buckle his safety belt by hypnotizing him with his all-purpose alien medallion. Here is how he does it in 'Joy Ride ' : EMPYRIAN: Would you b e good enough t o fasten your seat belt? BEAS LEY: Now, ain't no use in carryin' things that far ! EMPYRIAN: How can you enjoy a space ride if you won't pretend it's real? BEASLEY: I didn't say that ! I'll pretend it's for real . All of it except the belt. Why, heck, I 'll even pretend you 're for real ! EMPYR IAN: That's exactly what I was going to suggest. And if I'm a real space being, then I have to be armed with a real space weapon. BEAS LEY: One of them death rays ! EMPYRIAN: Splendid ! Now, let's say this space being-me-points his death ray at you (as he draws a slim weapon from his belt and aims) and says, 'I give you three seconds to fasten that be lt. . . ' BEASLEY (enjoying this hugely ) : O r i f T don't? EMPYRIAN (theatrically ) : Then I'll burn you to a cinder! BEAS LEY: A cinder ! (slaps his knee, laughing) I just knew you'd say that ! (He begins to buckle up , still laughing) I knew ! EMPYR IAN : Thank you for allowing me to spare your life ! BEASLEY (gasping with laughter) : Don't mention it! MARA (shaking her head) : Talk about a method actor. . .
'Second Chance' divides into equal parts bathetic soap opera and the galvanic stimuli of TV violence, with its sc ience fiction needs served by the hoariest cliches in the field-such as the obligatory meteor shower crisis, which pitches everyone around and
J a net De Gore and Don Gordon grab at controls.
changes nothing, or the man-sucked-out-the-airlock routine, which provides a j uicy death to hold the audience through the Act Two commercial break. Whi l e Roberts parodies such dram atic standbys , Morheim frequently fall s back o n them and uses them straight. In 'Second Chance, ' as the Empyrian walks around Joyland handing out free space ride tickets, he scares the wits out of whoever he encounters by appearing suddenly. When Crowell and Mara first spot him in 'Joy Ride , ' their reaction is not knee-jerk terror but growing awe as he saunters up in plain view wearing a sandwich board that reads G REETINGS EARTHMEN, I A M FROM THE PLANET EMPYRIA IN OUTER SPACE. Nobody screams.
' S econd Chance, ' on the other hand, is overloaded with feminine screaming-the kind intended to tell viewers that what they are seeing is a horror movie, instead of showing them . Morheim does acknowledge the thematic richnes s of Roberts' draft , but
SfCONU CHANCf conventionali zes the characters and shakes out most of the emotional depth. One place where this worked to advantage was a long speech by Crowell about his disinclination to work as an astrophysicist for the government. Morhei m condensed this down into a single pithy and amusing line: ' I wanted to go off somewhere alone, where I could u nravel the mysteries I preferred-the ones that mystify the heart, not the Defense Department ! ' 'Joy Ride ' ' s abductees are all young, v igorous, idiomatic American stereotypes : B uddy, Donise, and Tommy are the Football Hero, Prom Queen, and N umber One Gofer; the Beasleys , i l l i terate hillbilly newlyweds. The overt hint i s that each member of the group will additionally serve as excellent breeder stock during the long-term stay o n Tythra; Morheim eliminated thi s angle by changing the Beasleys to urban bum-outs in their l ate forties, w ith Arj ay becoming a Willy Loman caricature. I n the words of the Empyrian, Arjay has worn out his shoes, and h i s wife's soul, ' in search o f a nonexistent rainbow. ' Mara Matthews has chased just such a rainbow to Southern California, fated to live the c liche of the 'actress between j obs, ' meaning that the only work she can find apart from waitressing is to serve as Joyland's space stewardess. She notes that Crowell never follows the script he i s given for the space-ride spiel; she, in tum, ' acts' the only script available to her while drifting from one 'deathless passion' to another with transient lovers l ike her former English instructor. The Empyrian nails her with this assessment: EMPYRIAN : . . . And you, Miss Matthews, with dreams bigger than your talent, also. You've been fol l owing a will ' 0 the wisp, call ing yourself an actress because of your fear you were nothing otherwise . . .
Morheim makes Mara into an artist who cannot sell her paintings-curiously retaining the artistic aspect of the character while removing all her pretentiousness. In 'Joy Ride , ' young Tommy is indicted by the Empyrian along w ith the rest: ' Would you ever have learned that a man never stands deeper in shadow than when he attempts to crowd the l imelight of heroes?' In 'Second Chance, ' he exists solely for the purpose of getting sucked out the airlock. When B uddy tackles the Empyrian i n ' S econd Chanc e , ' his verve i s unplugged b y that all-purpose alien medallion. In 'Joy
Ride , ' the alien trasmutes into the image of B uddy's military father: B UDDY (incredulous ) : Dad . . . ? ' FATHER ' : Buddy-boy ! You look great, tiger ! Just great ! B UDDY: Dad . . . help me. ' FATHER ' : That's what fathers are for, son. B UDDY: I shouldn't have done it. But there didn't seem to be any other way. I had to cast a giant shadow. I had to keep people believing I was a God, and it took money. ' FATHER ' : You are a God, son. I've always said that. You have the stuff in you that makes you superior. B UDDY: A God who threw a football game . . . ? ' FATHER ' : You threw a game? I don't believe it. BUDDY: I did, Father. I couldn't do without the money. 'FATHER ' : No. This is a joke. There's only the God. My son's not an imposter ! B UDDY: He i s . And by next week everyone will know. The police have begun to investigate. And they're closing in. 'FATHER ' : My pride will never let me believe that. B UDDY (as h is hands tighten around his 'father 'Us neck) : Your pride ! Your pride ! 'FATHER ' : Son, you're hurting me. B UDDY (releasing him ) : How long must I beg love . . . and receive pride?
When B uddy breaks down and w ithdraws, he asks the Empyrian where his 'father' i s . 'In your mind,' says the alien. ' Where he always was . ' Meanwhile, Donise, angered that abduction by a space al ien has mussed her perfect plastic facade, complains: DONI SE : You c a n beat a joke t o death . I t stops being funny. I don't l ike this game anymore. I won't play. And I'm leaving. (Crowell restrains her, insisting they are in space . ) MARA : You've had your fun , Dave-now let's get back to the script. CROWELL: This is the script.
The germ of ' Second Chance' has nothing to do with k idnapping. I t has everythi n g to do with Disneyland. Roberts calls i t Jollyland, Morheim calls it Joyland, but the idea for thi s story could only have come from a person who had visited the Magic Kingdom, strapped themselves obediently in on the Flight to the Moon Ride (since updated to a journey to Mars, then eliminated altogether from the attractions in the Tomorrowl and facet of the park), and thought, What if this thing was to take off, I mean , really take
LOL
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION
The E m pyri a n ' s s h i p soars off i nto the cosmos.
off? Th is was j ust the sort of ' hook' that would appeal to Stefano, and the overlay of the second chance theme sealed the plot, as all the characters work at, or visit, the park to avoid confronting their fail ures , or the myths they've spun from their lives. ' People live in a prison of their own making,' Crowell observes in 'Joy Ride . ' 'And i f you offer them a key, they will only throw it away. ' Once the ' i llusion ' of the flying saucer becomes real , the group attempts to take control of their lives through acts of violence. The abduction theme harks back to 'A Feasibility Study, ' but the show real ly has more in common with 'The Mice , ' which also featured a lone alien o n a mission that is terminated because the aliens do not bother to ask for what they want. Like 'The Mice , ' ' S econd Chance' al so suffers from the 'dangling guard' syndrome : The first thing we see the Empyrians (in Roberts' script there are two) doing is vaporizing a night watchman, about whom no further mention i s made. The guard i s
only included in the story as the butt of some monster business , allowing the ' bear' to come on stage and do something monstrous right at the beginning of the show, even though this action completely contradicts the Empyrian ' s basical l y benevolent character. If nothing else, ' Second Chance' i s structured to be extremely commercial TV entertainment, and brings Leslie Stevens' ' consume or die' theory soaring back home to The Outer Limits . The business of assembling the abductees into the saucer absorbs an entire half-hour, and then Act Three crams so much action into fifteen minutes that the v iewer will presumably be too overwhelmed to ask questions . . . such as how the plywood-and-plastic Joyland fly i n g saucer could ever be made spaceworthy, not in a matter of hours , but years . And surely Empyrian technology could find an easier way to divert Tythra from its collision course than by coming all the way to Earth to seed the asteroid with human beings. It is better to savor Simon Oakland's performance as the Mr. Spock-like alien than to question the hazy and i llogical motives for his mi ssion, which are laid down in a typically grandiloquent Outer Limits soliloquy : EMPYRIAN : To me . . . to every member of my race, the dark airiness of the universe was once an endless, laneless thoroughfare, unrestricted and hannless. In some fanciful fl ight of evolution, we Empyrians, l ike the birds of your own world, were given the freedom to soar above our destinies. And, l ike the men of your world, we chose to discard the greater part of that freedom to confine ourselves to a single star-a planet we call Empyria. In some of us, the soaring freedom stil l lives, and must be employed to di stract disaster from the rest of us . . . I have been here a long time. I've studied the human spec imen. So m any long to soar. Great expend itures are directed toward the leaving of Earth . And yet, in all the minds I probed, I found not one genuine desire for total freedom . None of you, it seems, truly wants to leave this troubled star. And so, regretfully, abduction became necessary.
Apparently, most Empyrians are constitutionally incapable of migrating from their homeworld, thus
The entra nce t o t h e Space R i d e i n broad dayl ight.
103
(Opposite page, c lockwise from u p per left) : Wa h C h a n g ' s sketch of the E m pyrian Icou rtesy Wah Chong) ; S i m o n Oa kland i n 1 96 2 ; shot of the i n-work mask at Project U n l i m i ted Icourtesy Bob Burns) ; two shots of what the mask looked l i ke with the beak, a n d S i mon Oa kland, i n costu me, poses with s o m e s u r p l u s rad i o pa rts .
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TH E
OUTER
LI M ITS
TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PAN ION
Si mon Oakland ( Ll with M i m sy Fo rmer.
the i r need for Earth people to handle Tythra. Morheim dropped Roberts' idea that our atmosphere, and Tythra's, are poisonous to the Empyrians, who have sent one of the few with the ' soaring freedom ' on a suicide mission, with only six months to live and it is hoped, save all of Empyria. Thi s omission c � nfu � es the plot and makes the Empyri ans seem less noble. Roberts retal iated to the massive changes worked on her script by substituting her pseudonym, 'Lin Dane' ( subtract the capital letters) for the onscreen credit line. Paul Stanley, an ex- Sto n ey Burke director, made ' Second Chance' his Outer Limits debut via Leslie Stevens. Here his work is competent but flat; he would soon do more v i sually interesting material in 'The Guests . ' Don Gordon takes his l imited role as far as he can, and S imon Oakland has a grand time with the monster role he asked for and got. 'The logic behind human thought evades me , ' says the Empyrian , shaking his head. ' How could I be so wrong about people?' A veteran of Twilight Zone and one of TV's most familiar character faces (including a role as the ultimate monster skeptic, Tony Vincenzo, the long­ suffering editor of newshound Carl Kolchak on The Night Stalker) , Oakland here hides h i s face and credibly portrays a troubled and desperate alien. Unfortunately, Project Unlimited took a literal cue
from the ' soaring freedom ' speech, and the mask produced from a sketch by Wah Chang was an outrageous feathered contraption that was originally to have sported a beak ! The script was no help, describing the aliens only as slant-featured, stylized, not so much ugly as totally unearthly. Ugly was the right word for the mask. ' I had to rearrange the feathers and add a nose just so you could tel l it was a face,' said Fred Phillips. Oakland's performance is slightly sabotaged by this mask, and an i l l-fitting costume that makes his burly form look spindly-legged and top-heavy, l ike a pouter pigeon. 'That mask got joked about a lot,' remembered Gene Warren . ' We called it Chicken Little. ' The design was re-fit for a larger actor in a second season show, 'The Duplicate Man , ' in which a foot-long beak was added - showing how silly the idea looked in the first place. The actual Empyrian mask, with a shorter beak i n place of its nose, had a brief cameo in the Star Trek pilot 'The Cage ' in 1 966. Projects also provided the flying saucer shots, which look majestic as the ship soars away from Earth, and ridiculously cartoony a few moments later, when it ping-pongs around i n the grip of the meteor storm. For exterior views of the Space Ride, Projects superimposed their flying saucer model over locked­ down shots of the Griffith Park location. The park's famous carousel was u sed for the scene in which B uddy, Donise and Tommy first meet up with the Empyrian . At worst, ' Second Chance ' i s an unusual script made routine, a procedure that would be reversed with the fol l owing episode, ' Fun and Games . ' While ' S econd Chance' fails to convincingly answer the question of why aliens posse s s i ng a superior technology and a sensitive intellect would ever need human beings, ' Fun and Games ' prov ides the only answer that makes any sense : They need us for kicks. When broadcast, ' S econd Chance' feature d no closing Control Voice speec h . The l i nes quoted here are from Sonya Roberts' original script.
�UN AND GAMfS
fUN AND GAMfS Broad cast 3 0 M a rch 1 9 64 Written by Joseph Stefano Based on a Robert Specht teleplay titled ' N atural Selecti o n . ' Story credited to Robert Specht; teleplay to Robert Specht a n d Joseph Stefa n o . D i rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assistant D i rector: P h i l R a w l i n s Di rector of Photography: Ken n eth Peach CAST M i ke Benson ( N ick Adams), La u ra H a n ley ( N a ncy M a l o n e), Vo ice of Anderan 'Senator' ( R o b e rt J o h nson), M a l e Calco G a l axy Prim itive ( B i l l H a rt), Fe m a l e Prim itive ( C h a rles MacQua rry), Detective ( R ay Ke llogg), P o k e r Dealer ( R e a d Morgan). Sharpie [ t h e a s s a s s i n ] ( H a rvey Gard n e r), Sharpie's Vo ice (Vic Perri n ) , Po ker Pl ayers (Theodore M a rcuse. The Ca lco male com bata n t g i ves M i ke Benson the b i g mon ster foot.
There was a moment in time when those who were brilliant and powelj'ul also were playf'ul, and when they took recess from their exhausting and magnificent strides toward glory, they replenished their darker passions with fun and games. On the planet Earth , such games have been civilized, and drained of all but their last few drops of blood . . .
The Senator, a sporting alien representing the citizenry of a planet called Andera, abducts Mike Benson, an ex-boxer and small-time hood, and divorcee Laura Hanley, 'electroporting' them to an arena planet where they are to be pitted in battle against two hissing, ornithic primitives from the Calco Galaxy. The goal of this contest is surv ival; the stakes are the home planet of each team, with the world of the losers to be obliterated in a display lasting five years, for the further enj oyment of the Anderans. The male Calco creature takes an early lead by murdering its own partner to double its food supply. Mike and Laura learn some brutal truths about themselves in the thick of combat, and learn to function together instead of quarrel ing. When the opponent corners Mike on a footbridge spanning a bubbling river of lava, Laura retrieves its weapon, a sawtooth-bladed boomerang, and kills the creature. Mike slips and p lummets into the lava after it, but as the Senator points out, 'Survivors need survive only a split moment to be considered survivors-rule of the game. ' He returns
Charles H o rvath. Jack Perki ns. B u zz H e n ry).
Mike and Laura to Earth, intact and wiser, then sets about devising new diversions for his audience of Anderan thrill-seekers. The struggle for survival goes on , on all levels of existence. Surrounded by the vastness of the universe , Man tries to illuminate its pathways and make a place for himself in it. One day he will journey afar into its great darkness. Let us hope he hrings with h im th e h uman qualities of ji'iendliness , compassion , and love. And let us hope even more that in his future contest for existence, such qualities as these will be of profound and everlasting importance . '
Once Th e Unknown w a s completed, Joseph Stefano turned his attention to a script purchased in December of 1 963 . Written by Robert Specht, 'Natural Selection' opened with a shot of bacteria greedily devouring each other, and a Control Voice speech on survival of the fittest: Darwin 's theory of Natural Selection states that in the struggle for existence the unfit are eliminated. Only the fit survive. Survival, of course , depends on the ability of a living organism 10 adjust to a specific environment. And this battle for lile goes on throughout the universe . The universe peers at these events with cold indifference , for by itself if has no morals or sense of good and evil. It
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION remains for Man , therefore , to learn how to live in a world where the strong do not prey on the weak. He replaces jungle law with the law of reason . A n d s o he causes to rise up from the earth monuments to his own humanity . . .
One such mon ument i s the United Nations building, the workplace of computer expert Mike Adams, who walks through his office door and into a vortex of blackness where he meets Em, a powerfully­ built alien who informs him he is Specimen # 1 72, and is ready for 'testing. ' Mike meets Loris Harper, a medical missionary who has been Em's captive for two days, and together they fight off a flying jellyfish monster as their first test. When Em is sati sfied that the pair are hardy survivalists, he tells them that his homeworld i s equidistant between Earth and 'Andera,' one of which will have its population exterminated to make room for the spillover from Em's world. Mike and Lori s are to fight two Andrites on an arena planet, armed with pi stols that fire explosive charges . The male Andrite murders its partner, and Mike pretends to do l ikew ise to l ure it out of hiding. He trips a snare, i s gaffed b y a homemade spear, loses his pistol, and tumbles over the edge of a cliff. As he hangs onto the ledge, bleeding to death, the Andrite emerges to finish him off. Lori s grabs the fallen gun and shoots the Andrite in the chest. Later, Mike tells Em that perhaps his kind could colonize Earth peacefully: ' You're not that much different . ' Em says, ' Unfortunately, we are , ' as he reveals his true appearance-that of an intell igent ape . 'Could our people live side-by-side, Mr. Adams? Or would yours consider us a mistake of nature? Spare yourself the embarrassment. We will leave the answer to the future . '
Ni c k Ada m s a s M i ke Benso n .
201
T h e most you ' l l ever g e t t o see o f t h e Senator.
S tefano saw the shortcomings in 'Natural Selection ' right away. The Outer Limits had more than its share of Earth takeover plots. There were so many different aliens and visual tricks called for that costs would have been prohibitive, and Em's degeneration into his anthropoid stage was too much like the ending of ' The S i xth Finger. ' Among the dram atic deficiencies were the testing procedures Mike undergoes , which were too compl icated, redundant, or riddled with technical gibberish ('I have an almost perfect specimen ; variance of minus .003; 3/ 1 0 of 1 percent. ' ) . Stefano's revi sed plot imposed a bread-and-circus aspect on the humans versus mon sters contest; certainly the notion of aliens decadent enough to blow up the Earth ' l ike a firecracker in a black summer sky' just for chuckles is more refreshing than aliens who want to make us slaves , eat u s , or claim dibs on our real estate. The basic plot gimmick plot of both scripts-champions of two planets duke it out on a neutral world-is reminiscent of the Fredric B rown story, ' Arena,' first publi shed in the J une, 1 944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It may have inspired Specht, though Stefano had never read it. ' M y knowledge o f science fiction a t that time was The Martian Chronicles, ' said Stefano, ' so, frankly, you could have sneaked it by me. I don't know whether you'd've gotten it past Leslie or Lou . ' 'Arena' i s the story o f space j ockey Bob Carson, one of many human soldiers at the edge of the galaxy who engage an armada of hostile aliens known simply
fUN AND GAMfS as the Outsiders . In the thick of a scouter-ship dogfight, Carson blacks out and awakens naked on a world of blue sand, charged with the responsibility of battling an amorphous, red, blobl ike Outsider he cal l s the Roller. An ' Entity' w h o manifests o n l y a s a voice in Carson's head spe l l s out the rules of the engagement: ' You and your opponent here are pitted against one another, naked and unarmed, under conditions equall y unpleasant to you both. There is no time limit, for here there is no time. The surv ivor is the champion of the race. That race survives . '
Despite a wounds both critical and infected, Carson wins by impaling the Roller on a harpoon with a tip of chipped flint. He reawakens on his scouter, the climactic battle done, the Outsider fleet wiped out in mere seconds. He wonders if he dreamt his whole ordeal until he discovers the 'perfectly healed scars ' ev idencing the inj uries he received. The persistent assumption that 'Fun and Games' is derived from ' Arena' has more to do with the eventual Star Trek episode of that title than any actual similarity, except in the broadest sense of the plot.
B oth shows share with the short story the element of time displacement-when the contest is over, no time has elapsed since the original abduction. In the case of 'Fun and Game s , ' this means that the entire second act takes place in an alternate reality which has been erased and replaced by the close of the episode ! The Star Trek adaptation (by scenarist Gene Coon) credits the B rown story and duplicates many of its details, even down to the knifeblade of chipped stone and the military nature of the characters . The closest ' Fun and Games ' comes to B rown is in the tone of the short speech cited above. B ut since, thanks to hindsight, it does rather resemble a primordial, black-and-white version of the Star Trek ' Arena,' its association with the B rown story has followed (most TV episode guides miscredit the B rown story as Robert Specht's source material ) . In rewriting Specht's script, Stefano threw o u t the U.N. computer whiz and the medical missionary as protagonists, and substituted Mike Benson, an ex-pug who turn s up his nose at a second chance but turns out to be the tarnished hero type, and Laura Hanley, a scared fugitive from a less-than-sterling marriage . The l ine that points up the polarity of their relationship was altered by one of ABC censor Dorothy Brown's
THf OUUR liMITS �O M PANION infamous phone calls. Originally, the Senator says that Laura is ' relatively unspoiled, and will reap the rewards of innocence. You , Mr. Benson, are the net result of all the spoiling things in your world . . . ' As ' unspoiled' and ' innocence' struck B rown as being too sexual in nature, the words were changed to 'trusting' and 'faith' (and as Mark Twain wrote : 'Faith i s believing what you know ain't so' ) . The character o f the Senator i s Stefano's trump card. Coolly mocking, with a bemused humor that i s alternately crue l l y sarcastic, t h e n penetratingly insightfu l , the alien cackles like a B -movie villain, relishing an unshakable sense of his own superiority. He never rises from behind his control console, a black spider in an electronic web, who with ringmaster flourish directs attention by pointing his slim baton or twisting his control dials with fingers featuring curved mandarin fingernails of ebony (hedonistic culture, anyone? ) . He takes great pleasure in manipulating the conflict so it provides the maximum entertainment value for his Anderan audience. When the boomerang­ wielding alien i s about to kill Laura, the Senator freezes the time sequence in order to i nterrupt with some delightfully nasty recriminations :
Wa h Chang ' s sketch of the Caleo a l i e n . (Cou rtesy Bob Burns)
N a ncy Malone gets ready to r u m b l e .
SENATOR: Oh, I can't let you kill her just yet . She hasn't b e gu n to suffer! Mmm-ha-ha-ha! Miss Hanley? Wasn't it our understanding that you and Mr. Benson were a team? You've run away again , haven't you? Why have you run away from him . . . so that he can eat all the food, or so that he can do all the fighting? Your heart is a bottomless box of virtuous motives, isn't it? Whatever you do, you do for someone else 's good, don 't you? Your husband didn't want you to mother him, MISS Hanley, he wanted you to help him ! Ah-ha-ha-hah ! It hurts to admit that you're afraid you can't help someone , doesn 't it?
Likewise, he shrugs off Mike and Laura's hard­ won v ictory : ' Well, what's the difference who saves the human race? The dull fact is, it's been saved . ' The ' game' that begins the show is a tense hand of seven-card stud that results in Mike being framed for the murder of the Dealer. 'I'm very fond of that poker game, said Gerd Oswald. 'I felt I shot that very interestingly. ' To do it, he cut the center out of a large table and dropped in a camera with an I 8-millimeter wide-angle lens that imparts a fisheye effect to the v isage of each player as it pans in a slow, low-angled circle in the dark and smoky room. MGM's Tarzan Forest became a primordial alien jungle i n which Oswald and Kenneth Peach set up shots of Mike and Laura running with the sun behind them, trees between them and the camera, and smoke pots. The result is a halated silhouette effect that is dreamy and unreal . The ' l ava' effect was achieved through a simple combination of dry ice and charcoal . Oswald's almost total l ack of lighting in the Senator's chamber helps conceal the fact that the alien's head is
fUN AND GAMfS a recycled mask from 'Nightmare . ' The two ali en primitives were done by Projects from specifications in the Specht script (minus the beaks). One would reappear (without its bulging rubber eyes and with an added mane of hair) two years l ater in the Star Trek pi lot, 'The Cage . ' Stefano stretched Oswald's minimal footage in the editing room, creating his own sort of ' bottle show. ' Thanks to the plot, which keeps j umping back to the time of the Dealer's murder, Mike's panicked search for a hiding place in Laura's apartment building is seen three times, and many shots of the action on the arena planet are seen twice . Laura's hallway confab with the detective is rerun, without sound, on the Senator's monitor. If you look fast enough, you'll notice that when Laura is 'electroported' the second time, she's sti ll wearing her dress from the first trip. Not only is this materialization seen twice, it is also run backward to accomplish de-materialization. Other footage i s 'flopped' s o that right-to-left action reverses, and one shot of the Calco Galaxy alien consists of footage run in reverse for longer than 20 seconds without a break ! (Look for it when the Senator say s , ' B ut your opponents do have their advantages . . . ') Though the repeat shots are numerous and noticeable, the episode gallops right along. Nick Adams, as Mike, enthusiastically makes l ike B rando and epitomizes Th e O u ter Lim its ' brief romance with 'alienated youth' characters ( like Lee K insoiving in 'The Children of Spider County' and Geoffrey Home in 'The Guests ' ) . Adams, late of The Rebel series , got the part after it was turned down by Clu Gulager, Rip Tom , and George Segal, and his performance is aggressive and ful l-bodied. But the real star of the show is still the Senator, and the reason is Robert Johnson, who was called to post-dub all the alien's lines when the actor on the set did not perform to Stefano's expectations. 'It would have been one of the stand-ins , ' speculated Robert Justman . ' Possibly Charlie MacQuarry, who doubled in the Galaxy Being suit, or Charlie B idwell , or Whitey Christie, who was an extra, stuntman and cowboy I'd first gotten to know on Stoney Burke. One of those guys . ' I t i s easy t o imagine Johnson leaping from his accountant's desk at Daystar, to run upstairs every so often to tape dialogue. 'I remember sweating that show out,' he said, ' because it involved very long speeches, and I was totally surprised when I got it. I hurriedly read through the script the night before I was to do it, and had no idea of how the guy before me had read it. It was about twenty minutes of straight dialogue ! And since Joe had not been too happy with
Bill H a rt stri kes a pose with Scri pt S u pervisor Hope Mc La c h l i n on MGM Backlot #3 .
the first guy, he sat over my shoulder while I read. I tried to keep myself inside the kind of feeling he wanted, and I've always had a few reservations on whether I 'hit' the script Nick Adams and the others had already done . ' Johnson's rendering is sonorous and flamboyant, his derisive laughter gutsy and full-blown, and the alien speeches found in ' Fun and Games' are possibly the best of the entire series. ' I worked for straight scale i n those days,' said Johnson. ' $ 1 25 - $ 1 50 per dub. If they picked me up for a voice-over on a given day, look what it did to my salary ! ' Accordingly, Johnson was again called upon to stop crunching numbers when the very next episode required another hefty slice of monster oration. As with ' S econd Chanc e , ' 'Fun and Games' features no c l osing Control Voice narration .
The lines quoted are from
Robert Specht's original teleplay.
2W
TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION
Broadcast 2 3 M a rch 1 9 64 Writte n by D o n a l d S. Sa nford. Based on a teleplay by Charles Beau mont titled 'An Ord i n a ry Tow n ' Di rected by Paul Sta nley Assistant D i rector: Claude Binyon. J r. D i rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: Wade N o rton ( G eoffrey Horne). Theresa 'Tess' Ames ( Lu a n a Anders). Florida Patto n (Gloria Grahame). Eth el Lati m e r ( N e l l i e B u rt). Randall Lati mer (Va u g h n Taylor). D r. C. Ames ( B u rt M u stin). Vo ice of Brain Creature ( R o be rt J o h n s o n ) .
The timeless m a n se briefly m a n i fests a s a n a l ien bra i n . A big one.
( 'The Guests ' features narration. )
no
Control
Voice
After nearly running h i s j alopy over a n ancient old man on a country back road, drifter Wade Norton seeks help and comes upon a foreboding mansion occupied by a quartet of eccentrics: shady financier Randall Latimer; his shrewish, nagging wife, Ethel ; faded silent fi lm queen Florida Patton ; and Tess Ames, a young woman pictured inside a locket belonging to the old man . Once inside the house, Wade finds that the doors and windows have been replaced by smooth, blank walls-there i s no exit. He i s drawn upstairs by a pul sating alien brain in the attic, which lays bare his mind to dissect h i s emotional reactions to his predicament. The brain means to construct an equation using such human emotions as fear, anger, and despair as factors, with the product equaling the ultimate destiny of the human race. While all occupants but Tess seem content to remain test subj ects of the brain, Wade discovers they are not prisoners-each has a personal exit door, and i s capable of leaving any time they choose. They stay i nside the house because they do not age, and have remained chronologically arrested for all the years the brain has been calculating its seemingly irresolvable equation. Tess fall s in love with Wade and struggles to convince him to leave the house before he is trapped there by his own vanity, as the
others have been . She reveal s that the old man in the road was her 1 20-year-old father, and when Wade refu ses to leave because of hi s feelings for her ( ' There's nothing out there for me, either, ' he says), she u ses her own doorway to escape. In seconds she withers ( somewhat inexplicably) to dust. Wade remains inside, where the brain informs him that this new, hitherto undetected emotion-the love between Wade and Tess-i s the missing capacity that completes the equation and offers hope for humankind's survival . It commands him to leave . As Wade walks out into the sunlight, the brain vaporizes, consuming the house and the selfish, loveless people still within. It i s no accident that the gloomy, baroque quality that pervades 'The Guests ' is evocati ve of an epi sode
B u rt Mustin a s Dr. C. Ames, father of Tess.
THf GUmS of Thriller, which had been canceled about a year prior to the broadcast of thi s episode. The teleplay was by Donald S anford, who was commi ssioned by Lou Morheim on the strength of his Thriller work, which incl uded such classic episodes as 'The Incredible Dr. Markesan ' and 'The Cheaters . ' 1 The genesis of 'The Guests' is about as convol uted as a Thriller type mystery, as wel l . Stefano had been o n the lookout for story material with a heavier-than-usual emphasi s on the Gothic, to provide director Curti s Harrington with an Outer Limits vehicle (and perhaps i n anticipation of doing The Unknown as a regular series). He had been quite impressed with a nightmari sh piece of low-budget fi lmmaking done by Harrington i n 1 96 1 -Night Tide, an offbeat interpretation of the Lorelei myth-and invited the director to v i sit the Outer Limits set during the fi lming of ' Don't Open Till Doomsday. ' Fantasist Charle s Beaumont, who supplied Twilight Zone with many of its most memorable telepl ays, had pitched and sold to S tefano a script titled 'An Ordinary Town '-dated January 3, 1 964, at which time the writer was fast i n the grip of Alzheimer's Di sease (finally diagnosed in May of that year, he was gi ven three years at most to live). It i s possible that 'An Ordi nary Town' was written from a Beaumont outline, or completed by one of his many ghostwriters, which at the time included Richard Matheson (who approached Seeleg Lester, The Outer Limits ' second season story editor, seeking to write a script on Beaumont's behalf in order to help pay his friend's enormous medical costs), Jerry Sohl, John Tomerl in, William Nolan, Ray Russell, and Ocee Ritch. The storyline hews quite closely to that of an hour-long Twilight Zone Beaumont had written a year earl ier, 'Valley of the Shadow, ' in which a newspaper reporter becomes trapped in an i solated rural community that keeps the benefits of a miraculous technology (possibly brought by aliens) stringently to itself. 'An Ordi nary Tow n ' substitutes two protagoni sts and makes the alien influence a gigantic brain that controls the town ; the only thing carried over from Beaumont's script to S anford's is a shot of the alien brain sitting massively atop a hill where a mansion i s supposed to be.2 Except for thi s image, 'The Guests ' i s entirely Sanford's story (he asserted that when he sought a second season Outer Limits assignment, the B eaumont scri pt was again offered to him for revision by Seeleg
Geoffrey Horne a n d Gloria Gra h o m e .
Lester) .3 Like many Outer Limits shows, 'The Guests' adds a monster element to a story that does not real ly require it; unlike them, the gargoyle in residence at the mansion forms a subplot al most totally apart from the main story, a meditation on dreams and self-deception i n a house where time stands sti l l . The brain creature's quest for emotion-factors i s moti vated by scientific curiosity, making the al ien the seeker for a change, although an aggressive, obnox ious one, and making the house a sort of petri dish into which it has unfortunatel y collected the wrong i ngredients. Occasionally, the episode has difficulty bal ancing the two extremes-the musty, drawing room drama versus the quivering, gelatinous brain that chuckles like an Inquisitional torturer and belts out l ines like, 'Let me dissect i t ! Let me absorb i t ! Bring your brain here! ' B ut the swing between what goes on i n the attic and in the parlor i s rhythmic, pendular, i tself dreamlike. Dreams and illusions are the story's main concern. Latimer preserves the i l l u si on of his innocence on fraud charges by remaining in the house and not
TH f O UHR liMITS CO M PANION i s there's nothing heavy i n your noble heart to anchor it in reali ty. B ut you're scared, young man. You begi n to suspect you, don't you? You're not so sure you won't j ust plunk yourself right down here and dream a l i fe. And l ive a dream . . .
'Bring your brain here ! '
completing a 1 928 business trip that surely would have resulted in a guilty verdict. Ethel stays with him because, as she says, ' A wife's duty is to share her husband's life sentence. ' She really stays to needle the others with their pretensions. Florida Patton stays to preserve, or rather, embalm her lost stardom, and freeze in place the beauty that had begun to deteriorate in 1 93 5 . As for Tess, she explains , 'My father was a resigner. He saw this as a way of res igning from the human race. He asked me to stay, and 1 stayed because he needed me to. ' One o f the first things Wade says after entering the house is, 'I feel as if I'm having a bad dream , ' and this becomes the story's ostinato. When the brain creature ' anesthetizes ' Wade' s fear, he enters a state of dreamlike passivity, and the alien's pat explanation of its purpose sounds as insane as the tacit l unacy of nightmares. After his first brain-picking session, Wade asks, ' Have 1 lost my mind? ' The others agree enthusiastically, j ust as they did when he asked if he was having a bad dream-since to them, it's all the same thing. ' My husband thinks you and 1 and this fine actress are figments of his imagination, ' chirps Ethel. ' He expects to wake up one day and be right back where we were when this grisly dream started. We've been in this house since 1 928-no dream could last that long . ' When Wade takes her to task, she hits him with a hard dose of reality as well : ETHE L : Are w e de l i beratel y remaining here, compl aini ng , fighti n g , and clawing at each other's souls? Why should you care? You're not one of us; you're above us ! You're a special and gifted dreamer chasing a rainbow no one else bel ieves in, much less sees. The reason you drift
Wade's ' dream ' is Tes s : ' 1 looked at your picture in the watch case , ' he says, ' and 1 heard a pain in my heart that was the sweetest hurt in all the world. Is that when the dream began? This is a dream-isn't it? ' Tess urges Wade not to live this dream, saying, 'Go now, while your life can stil l be lived, while you're real . . . I'm an illusion. They're so easy to lose . ' Then she proves it by crumbling away to dust. It seems unlikely that she would disintegrate if her father was only 1 20 years old, unless she really is a figment of Wade's imagination, his literal dream girl . Then the brain sends him away, saying, 'Go out of this dream, Mr. Norton, ' before ' undreaming' the mansion, just as it undreamed the doors through which Wade enters . Apart from Robert Johnson ' s l u sty vocal performance for the brain creature, the best of 'The Guests' fine performances is that of Nellie B urt, a stage actress of long standing Stefano had also cast as Mrs . Justice in ' Don't Open Till Doomsday. ' She is perfect as the punishing Ethe l , and sometime s , perfectly beastly. ' Shut u p , Randall , ' s h e warns her husband, ' Or I'll be nice to you . ' Gloria Grahame is an eerily appropriate choice for Florida. An ingenue of the 1 940s , she won a S upporting Actress Oscar in 1 95 2 for her role in The Bad and the Beautiful. Geoffrey Horne is adequate as another of The Outer Limits ' Angry Young Men, and Luana Anders was cast through Curtis Harrington, who had used her in Night Tide . She'd also appeared in Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum ( 1 96 1 ) and an early Francis Ford Coppol a film, Dementia 13 ( 1 963). B ut H arrington was not to direct the episode. ' Curtis would have been fantastic, ' said Stefano. ' B ut Leslie still had a lot of directing commitments to people from Stoney Burke ; he owed Paul Stanley shows . He kept telling us we didn't have room; could we wait until next season? Paul Henreid was going to do a show for us; that fel l apart, too . ' Another Outer Limits directing hopeful at this time was Stefano's assistant, Tom Selden. Paul Stanley availed himself of some unusual techniques , proving he was no slouch with Gothic trappings, either. The 'corridor of lights ' in which Wade gets hopelessly lost was a small glass painting.
THf GUmS
Luana Anders awakes from a n other d ream to see Wad e .
'We literally 'built' that set with l ights , ' said Claude Binyon. ' We used a piece of glass about ten inches by six, representing a set that would have been about eighty by twenty feet. The corridors were painted on the glass. We had to film very carefully, because any camera motion would have caused our 'set' to shake all over ! Kenny Peach came up with the idea. ' Another cost-cutting measure was the reuse of the top portion of the costume from 'The Mice , ' oiled down and given the benefit of low-angled horror movie lighting for its new role as the pulsating brain creature . For the shot of the house dissolving, a Project Unlimited painting of an actual , hemispherical brain was superimposed over the mansion on the hill. Although 'The Guests' was written and delivered with fire-alarm speed, Don S anford recalled the series warmly. ' (It) was such a restriction-less working environment, a one-of-a-kind show, ' he said in a 1 992 interview. ' One of the reasons The Outer Limits was so unique was that once the ratings slipped a little, everyone took the 'magnifying glass' off them, and they went crazy with these on-the-edge stories, all the oddities they didn't dare try to slip by the network while the big guys were hovering over their shoulders . I still get letters from people about 'The Guests . ' They see all kinds of deep, subtle meanings . . . things I never intended or hinted. ' Sanford wrote no Control Voice speech. 'Usually, those were tacked onto the script , ' he said. 'They didn't do it with mine (because) I think they just forgot-that's how much of a rush they were in to get this thing in the can ! At the time, I really didn't think much of it, and pretty much forgot about it for awhile.
B ut to look back, I think there's some fine work going into it---especially the woman who played Ethel, Nellie B urt. She's so nasty and spiteful; a great performance . ' Years l ater, when both Stefano and Harrington were working for Universal Studios, Stefano would do some developmental writing on a film project for the director. ' It was the story of a man who invites a group of people to a weekend house party and blackmails them all, ' said Harrington. ' B ut all the things he b l ackmail s them for, nobody cares about today because there is so much more freedom now. The times made the story completely invalid. ' The title of the film? 'The Guests . ' O n the strength o f this teleplay, Don Sanford secured a two-story deal with Daystar, but his second Outer Limits treatment never appeared. 'They handed me a couple of stories they wanted me to adapt, ' said S anford, ' and I think I pitched a couple of my own ideas to them. But then the whole regime of the show changed and there were all new producers and casting agents . I was pretty booked up with other projects­ in those days you could do that, get a lot of work with just a good reputation and a solid resume-so it just never came about, me working for the show again. 'Damn shame, actually. '
Wade i n the l i m bo corridor. S anford scripted fifteen epi sodes of Thriller, some of which were directed by Laslo Benedek, John Brahm and Robert Florey, all of whom participated in The Outer Limits. 2
For the story of 'An Ordinary Tow n , ' see Appendix I I .
3
It gets even more curious. Frank Belknap Long, a poet, horror writer and confidant of H. P Lovecraft, claimed ( i n an i nterv i e w published in the January, 1 982, issue of Twiligh t Zon e Magazine) the episode is based on h i s short story, 'Guest
i n the House , ' although there i s no s i m i l arity between it and 'The Guests . '
[14
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
Broad cast 20 Apri l 1 964 Written and d i rected by Lesl i e Stevens Assistant Di rector: Phil Rawlins D i rector of Photography: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: D r. M a rs h a l l ( G e o rge M a cReady), Laurel M a rs h a l l ( S i g n e Hasso), D r. Paul Po l l a rd ( R o b e rt Fortier), Dr. Te rrel (John Duke), G riffi n ( R udy Solari), C o lli n s (Joseph Ruskin), Coulter (Wi l l a rd Sage), Arndis Po l l a rd (Allyson Ames), Offi c i a l ( P a u l Lukather), Ko n i g ( Leonard N i m oy)
A Radiation Guy crackles.
In recent years , n u clear physicists have discovered a strange world of sub-atomic particles , .fj-a gments of atoms smaller than the imagination can picture , .fj-agments of materials which do not obey the laws of gravity. Antimatter composed of inside-out material; shadow-matter that can penetrate ten miles of lead shielding. Hidden deep in the heart of strange new elements are secrets beyond h uman understanding-new powers , new dimensions, worlds within worlds , unknown . . .
A c l u ster o f intensely radioactive sub-atomic particles pul led fresh from the cyclotron by Dr. Marshall accidentally comes into contact with an isotope of Nobelium-23 8 , resulting in an emergency in the Broadridge nuclear plant's furnace reactor. The result is a seething, crackling magnesium glare that fills up the radiation suits of the furnace personnel , obliterating them . Marshall concludes that a dimensional hole has been torn open within the reactor, and the force-creatures that are seeping through and ' inflating' the suits of the dead workers plan to cause a chain reaction that will blow the doorway to their dimension wide open with an atomic explosion . One by one, Marshall's co-workers are overcome until Marshal l is left alone to fight not only the ever-growing chain of force creatures, but his own incipient uncertainty and cowardice. He tries to beat
the inevitable explosion with his slide rule and finds the equations won't solve because of the unpredictable properties of the sub-atomic particles. He impedes the progress of the creatures by dropping lead shields i nto their path, and calls a civil defense alert as Broadridge actually begins to glow with radiation. Using what he calls 'mathematical intuition, ' Marshall determines that since the creatures are trying to create a fission reaction, if he beats them to the nuclear punch with a fusion reaction it will seal the dimensional rip they intend to widen. According to his plan, a fusion reaction to the negative matter will implode, not explode, and 'if there's another dimension involved, there may be time-reversal effects ! ' Luckily enough for the world at large, all this turns out to be true, and when the detonation occurs , B roadridge and everything around it is consumed in atomic fire, then re-established as time reverses, the buildings un­ explode, and the mushroom cloud sucks back into itself, leaving the dimensional doorway closed, the creatures v anquished, and Marshall and his wife Laurel safe and alive. A s Man explores the secrets of the universe , strange and inscrutable powers await him . And whether these powers are to become forces of destruction or forces of construction will u ltimately depend upon simple but profound h uman qualities : Inspiration . Integrity. Courage.
'At the beginning of a series , you try to do your absolute best as a dramatist , ' said Leslie Stevens. ' B ut gradually, you become the fire department; you wind up writing bottle shows to bail the series out of trouble,
PROOUCTION ANO Of CAY Of STRANGf ffiRTlClfS because the trouble gets horrendous . You get so far into deficit that the front office kills you. You're scared, but you want to make a show happen, so you use every bit of your skill to do one that will be enormously inexpensive and still be as effective as you can possibly make it. And I hate working under that kind of pressure. That's happened to me on every series I've ever worked on, and that's reall y why I'm not doing series television anymore. ' A s long-winded and technically opaque a s its title, 'Production and Decay of S trange Particles' presents another of S tevens' lone scientists ( since all of his helpers are neutralized) battling impossible odds and his own fear of inadequacy to pull a scientific hat-trick that saves the world. The scared and fru s trated Marshall could easily be seen as S tevens, fighting to
A d a i sy c h a i n of rad ioactive cyclotron·oi d s expa nds its power base.
B ook on quantum physics run total ly berserk. The v iewer is drowned without a struggle from the moment that Griffin shou t s , ' (The atom ic weight i s ) somewhere over 25 6 ! Marshal l says some cosmic p artic l e s penetrated the shield-the gold foi l disappeared and a l ambda process set in ! ' Here I S Marshall , explaining the danger t o h i s own wife : MARSHALL: I know what's in there-something from another dimension, invading our space­ time continuum. Laure l , I did i t ! I pl aced the heavy elements in the cyclotron ; particles from out there , from quasi-stel l ar radio sources . . . bombarded it, spl i t a crack i n time and space. It' l l w iden and tear. Gravity w i l l coll apse. Radiation . Contagion. It'll bum us-burn us ' Marsha l l (George Mac Ready) does Scientific Stuff.
whip out a low-budget show while the c lock ticks relentlessly away, and ultimately succeeding, though at the expense of story values. Marshall's sole character trait is cowardice, which, to his credit, he overcomes . H i s fellow workers are a l l straw technicians who march duly into the firing line and get their suits filled up with crackl ing blue lightning. Laurel functions as Marshall's cheerleader, and Amdis (Stevens' then-wife , Allyson Ames) plays a stock-issue screaming female. 'That script was a desperation measure , ' said S tevens. 'It started out okay, but didn't go anywhere because I couldn't get a decent monster. ' What Stevens fell back upon was an attempt to dazzle his audience with a hive-mind of energy, a 'monster' produced by a vagary of science . . . but this i s defeated by the yards o f Space-Age-ese needed t o explain i t , dialogue that sounds l ike a Giant Golden
This confu sing exposition opens the door for some
Mars h a l l and La urel (Signe Ha sso) try to fig u re everyth ing out.
TH[ OUHR liMITS COM PANI O N
More atomic zom bies th reaten the sta b i l i ty of the free world .
scattergun theorizing about time-reversal , and extra­ dimensional intelligence. Such notions accumulate until the story its pushed to its own sort of critical mass. Perhaps the Control Voice i s correct when it proposes the whole thing i s beyond human lInderstanding, and s urely the v iewer's sympathies are with Marshall when he buries his head in his hands, crying, ' It's no use ! ' ' It was another case of trying to make something out of nothing, ' Stevens said. 'To do it with no money, to blast through in four or five days and hope for the best. ' Stevens' final verdict? ' I did the best I could o n the thing, but I don't think it was worth a damn. ' Like Marshal l's equation, ' Production and Decay' j u st would not solve. 'That was not an episode I would've bought if anyone but Leslie had come in with it,' said Joseph Stefano. 'I don't think even Lou would have shown it to me, because it j ust wasn't where we were. It was Leslie's show. ' The l umbering, Frankensteinian nature of the force beings, and the dark, ominous interiors of the Broadridge plant seem to be Stevens' homages to where Stefano was ' at'-namely, the Old Dark House approach. The struggle to tame the glowing nuclear menace (pI us the allegorical implications of controlling The Outer Limits itself) make the episode a close parallel to Stefano's own 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork. '
The show was successfully on-time and under budget. 'The only optical effect in the whole show was laying in some lightning, the same sort of little thing done in 'The Man With the Power, ' ' said S teven s . ' T h e radiation lights floating around on the set were j ust reflected from a dance hall mirror bal l , you know, a disco globe . ' Gene Warren of Project Unl imited filmed the electric chaos that was overlaid onto the face­ plates of each of the suits occupied by force creature s . Production Manager Robert J ustman called this show 'difficult, because we had no idea what the post-production effect was going to look like . ' Justman also started laughing during a scene in which George MacReady slapped together his 'trashcan nuke , ' and that caused its own sort of chain reaction on the set. ' George was making this atomic bomb in a cauldron, ' said Stevens. ' He's reaching with needle­ nosed pliers into thi s foaming pot, which is supposed to connect up to some atomic gadget. B obby (Justman) lost it, I got tickled, and I started laughing so hard I couldn't call 'cut,' so George j ust kept messing with this pot of chemical s , on and on, getting more and more desperate because we're not stopping him . . . because we're falling out o f our chairs with laughter ! 'The only thing that makes that show interesting is that it's the first and last time, that I know of, where footage of an atomic bomb explosion has been run forward and backwards . ' I
On a TV science-fiction show, at least, since the same trick had been prev iously used in the movie Kronos ( 1 95 7 ) .
THf SPfCIAl ONf
Broadcast 6 April 1 9 64 Written by Ol iver Crawford. Some material by Joseph Stefa n o . D i rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assistant Di recto r: Claude B i nyon. J r. D i rector of Photography: Ken n eth Peach CAST: M r. Zeno ( R i ch a rd Ney). Kenny Benj a m i n (Flip M a rk). Roy Benjamin ( M acdonald Carey). Agnes ' A g g i e ' B e nj a m i n ( M a rion Ross). M r. Te rrence ( Edward C. Platt). B i l l Tu rner (Jason Wingreen). Joe Hayden ( B u rt Freed)
Mr. Zeno (Richard Ney) c hokes on xenon-less a i r.
There is a belief that Man 's fullest potentials were sealed into him at the dawn of all life , and unfold themselves according to a carefully prepared timetable , to keep h im in harmony with his surroundings. This can mean that we are car­ rying , within us, now, the seed of not only the man of tomorrow, but the man beyond h im . The n ucleus of the atom , which has been dormant for millions of years , has been exploded, to explode the future man-the superior mG/�from within our germ cells , so as to bypass the intervening generations. An explosion requires a catalyst. And such a cat­ alyst can come from strange places , with dark and evil purpose . . I
conquest, as a prologue to invasion by his homeworld, Xenon , gifted children s upposedly being more mentall y malleable than adu l t s . When Roy's interference causes Zeno to hypnotize him into a suicide attempt, Kenny rigs the alien's climate-control machine to b leed xenon gas out of the local atmosphere , nearly suffocating Zeno, who withdraws in defeat. Kenny reveals he had been leading Zeno on by cooperating with the invasion effort, in order to learn how to use the machine to repel the Xenons. He plans to turn the machine over to the government, suggesting that they 'expand the principle so that it can repel a whole army at a time . ' The mold of a man stems from the mind of a child. Educators and emperors have known this from time immemorial. So have tyrants.
.
S ince young Kenny Benj amin is already enrolled i n a government-sponsored program to develop 'gifted' children , it's a pleasant s urprise to his parents when a private tutor named Mr. Zeno shows up to provide in-home instruction. But when Zeno clocks in after dark to school Kenny in such skills as controlling the cl imate , walking through solid wal l s , and cataloging elements that have yet to be discovered, Roy Benj amin gets suspicious . When he sees Zeno dematerialize in the corridor outside their apartment, he becomes fairly sure that the rude, patric ian tutor has noth ing to do w ith the educational enrichment program . Zeno's mi ssion on Earth is to indoctrinate intellectual ly precocious children in the logistics of
The not-so-subtle Earth takeover plot spearheaded in 'The Special One' by Mr. Zeno (whose austere, B ond Street manner suggests a Klaatu gone bad) is chancy and overcomplicated. He admits to Kenny that Xenons can only survive for 1 20 days in Earth's atmosphere, and the idea of governing Earth long­ distance using a handful of grownup kommandants leading an anny of child prodigies seems suicidally bad planning. Why doesn't Zeno hypnotize Kenny's parents to sleep to avoid detection during his midnight visits? Why doesn't Roy Benjamin press Kenny for details instead of allowing himself to be repeatedly shrugged off by his own 1 4-year-old son? Why would the Xenons be stupid enough to put a machine that can cause their downfall right into the hands of the enemy?
L1�
THf OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION Rather, the episode is an interesting one because it plants The Outer Limits right i nto the home of the typical 1 960s family, and the young Outer Limits v iewer of whom Stefano so often spoke became Kenny Benjamin-no longer reacting to the aliens he sees on TV, but interacting w ith them i n person. One reason the alien invas ion plot is so nonsensically cut and dried is that Mr. Zeno is intended to represent a threat-and the threat is really telev i sion itself. Being a guy from outer space local izes that threat to The Outer Limits, which was being transmitted into the average American home i n a fashion very simil ar to Zeno's method of material ization from electrically-charged th in air. ' At a time when pop anal y sts were bombarding parents with the question of whether TV was good for their children, 'The Special One' asks that question of The Outer Limits, and gets a negative reply : Mr. Zeno invades the Benj amin household and does his best to corrupt Kenny, but the boy's absorption of Zeno's lessons allows him to intelligently neutralize the threat that Zeno represents. In the end, the 'message' of 'The Speci al One' i s that watching The Outer Limits might actually d o your kid some good . . . which was what Stefano had been suggesting all along. In his terms, the series permitted children to cope w ith the unknown-monsters that scared them-through understandi n g . To Les l i e Stevens, thi s would translate a s coming t o terms with the unknown-that awesome, mysterious stuff out there-v i a curiosity and learning. The Benj am i n s are a determ inedly normal , damned-near ideal post-World War Two family: Aggie is a shining model of pre-fem i n i st housewifery ; Kenny's sole concerns are school and (what else?) Little League-which seems to be the only interest h i s father shares or c a n comprehend, s ince Kenny's homework i s all Greek to Dad. Roy i s a comfortably drab man, a breadwinner of the pipe-and-slippers school, whose concerns are limited to the evening newspaper and his own receding hairline . When the pointedly Aryan presence of Zeno (who looks like an SS oberleutnont in an Ivy League suit) causes Kenny to forsake basebal l , the 'All-American sport , ' Roy's ire is roused. The idea of Nazis from space i s gently introduced through Zeno' s program of world dom ination and youth indoctrination, and his speeches concerning Kenny's ' ultimate destiny. ' At the point Kenny beg i n s talking the s ame way to Roy, scriptwriter Oliver Crawford tips his hand by adding the descriptive l ine, ' One almost expects to have him finish with a 'Heil, Hitler' ! ' Crawford's inspiration for 'The Special One' was personal : 'In the early 1 960s , my son was placed in a high-aptitude 'cluster group' sponsored by NASA , ' he said. 'He was chosen from his peers as a child of h igh intelligence, and NASA worked him into a program of
Mr. Zeno moteriol izes in New York C i ty.
THf SPfClAl ONf advanced learning . ' Lou Morheim thought the idea of aliens recrui ting children as the future leaders of the planet was a natural for The Outer Limits and Stefano wrote the prologue, in which we see Zeno kill the father of another child prodigy. ' Stefano and Morheim changed my suburban location to an urban one, ' said Crawford, ' and the house to an apartment. ' Perhaps Stefano did this to accommodate Zeno's penchant for making uppity fathers jump out high-rise windows, since in Crawford's script, Zeno decl ares he will burn Roy to death with a shower of sparks that emit from his own skin: 'In thirty seconds, you will be little more than an ash , ' the tutor snarls . Zeno's defeat was originally more showy, as well-Kenny uses the cl imate control machine to chase him around the apartment with a heat beam, then freeze him, then imprison him in a cocoon of v apor from which he withdraws the xenon. In the episode, a superimposition of swirling feathers somewhat ridiculously depicts air without xenon gas. On the other hand, the Project Unlimited effect of Zeno' s material ization, in a snap-flash of lightning that 'builds ' his human form from the skeleton and organs outward, i s marvelous. Projects also supplied Zeno with a fake chest, for the insert shot reveal ing the 'gil l ' through which he actually respirates . ' I wasn't too involved in that show, ' said Stefano. ' I liked the story originally, but it did not come off the way I thought it would . ' It also ran short, so he added the prologue, and retarded Zeno's demise down to S am Peckinpah- style slow motion . This padding only handicaps the show's already l aborious pace. ' It reall y didn't belong in The Outer Limits , ' said Gerd Oswald. 'It was too pedestrian; not one of my favorites. I've only seen it once, and the most interesting thing in it is Richard Ney. ' 'Richard Ney was a broker who was very big i n the stock exchange, ' said Claude B inyon. ' He was always giving stock quotes to everyone on the set . ' As Mr. Zeno, he is imposing, quietly s i n i s ter, and arrogantly articulate. For years, Ney hosted a daily stock spotlight, The Ney Report, on the Cable News Network; he also authored the best-selling expose book The Wall Street Jungle (Grove Press, 1 970). Ney cuts loose with both barrels from page one, beginning his book this way : Most of us enter the i nvestment business for the same sanity-destroy i n g reasons a woman becomes a prostitute : it avoids the menace of hard work, is a group activity that requ ires l i ttle in the way of intel lect, and i s a practical means of making money for those w i th no spec ial talent for anything else.
illuminative read if you are fortunate enough to find a copy. Marion R o s s ' performance holds a peculiar resonance, since she would later become famous for playing essentially the same role on TV's saccharine Happy Days series. Flip Mark is droning and dull as Kenny, although, curiously, he had recently had a similar role, helping Ray Walston construct a cyclotron in an episode of My Favorite Martian . Macdonald Carey, of long film experience, is physically right for the role of Roy Benjamin. Roy seems constantly at sea, either confused or intimidated by events any normal parent might handle with a bit more dispatch. His status as a product of World War II i s evidenced by his utter trust in the government. As Mr. Zeno recites something called 'The Special Resources Act of 1 95 7 , ' Roy nods along attentively: MR ZENO : You ' ll recall that . . .the Congress voted to place the best m i nds of its citizens in the same preservation and fostering category as it places wildlife, natural resources, forests . . . The bright young mind of a boy or girl is certainly worth caring for, and nuturing. I mean , the whole future of our country may well be governed by how these m i nds mature . . .
In a sense, Zeno i s openly stating h i s whole plan to Roy, and Roy doesn't get it. When Roy's drinking pal Joe H ayden questions the util ity of the c l u ster program , Roy j ustifies i t by saying, 'The government's behind it. ' And i n the show's biggest scare, we learn that the climate control machine is to be turned over to the government-presumably the same government involved in the plots of ' O . B . I .T. ' and 'Nightmare ! ' One amusing touch, also TV-related, occurs when Zeno is welcomed into the apartment for the first time by Roy. The TV is on , and the Benjamins are watching a Leslie Stevens pilot called Mr. Kingston . 'The Special One' was the last show on which Stefano, Oswald, and B i nyon were to work together after doing The Unknown . S aid B inyon: 'We used to have these seances at Joe's house-me and my wife, and Gerd with whoever his wife was at the time, and Joe and Marilyn. We 'made contact' during the seances. I don't know who was spoofing who, but Joe really loved playing with people. For him, the whole world was therapy. ' When broadcast, 'The Special One' featured no opening Control Voice spee c h . The l i ne s quoted here are from Crawford's original script. 2
It i s probabl y overzealous to mention at this point that xenon gas i s an essential element to the function of a cathode ray
It doesn't let up, either, and is an engrossing and
tube-that i s , the picture tube of a TV set.
THf OUHR liM ITS COMPANI O N
Broadcast 2 7 Apri l 1 9 64 Writte n by Robert Towne Story by Towne. Lou i s Morheim. a n d Joseph Stefano O ri g i n a l title: 'The Seama ness Drug;' also 'The Drug ' Di rected by Gerd Oswa l d Assistant D i rector: P h i l R a w l i n s D i rector of Ph otogra phy: Ke n n eth Pea c h CAST: Louis Mace ( R o be rt Duva l l ). L e o n C h a m b e rs ( H oward Caine). Gen. Crawford ( H e n ry Brandonl. Dr Til lyard (Douglas H e n d e rson). Fi rst Alien (Wi l l i a m O'Connell I. Second A l i e n/Stunts ( D e a n Smithl. Agent with Pistol ( Roy Jensenl. Mexican G u itarist ( Roy Olvera). Loudspeaker Vo ice & Vo ice of Chopper P i l ot ( R o b e rt J o h n s o n l Wi l l i a m O'Connell a n d Dea n S m ith portray a l ien visitors from ' a warm yellow planet. '
The race of Man is known for its mutability. We can change our moods , our faces, our lives to suit whatever situation confron ts us. Adapt and survive . Even among the most changeable of living th ings , Man is quicksilver-more chameleon-like than the chameleon , determined to survive , no matter what the cost to others . . . or to himself
A flying saucer of unknown ongm has crash­ landed in a Cal ifornia canyon, and a patrol of soldiers sent to investigate it has been massacred. Assassin Lou is Mace emerges from deep cover in Mexico to accept the mi ssion of infi ltrating the spacecraft-a mission requ iring his literal ' al ienization ' at the hands of Dr. Ti llyard, who uses scrapings taken from beneath one of the dead soldiers' fingernails as a genetic template for altering Mace 'via supersonic sound . ' Once transformed, Mace enters the saucer, equipped with an audiovisual transceiver and a flimsy cover story that doesn't fool the real aliens for a second. They are dec idedly non-hostile, however; they killed the soldiers because ' they tried to k i l l us, ' and are hurrying to repair their malfunctioning ship and get away before the 'destructive society ' of Earth forces them to do more harm . . . or before the authorities real ize that the ship does not contain nuclear material , and shell it with artillery. Mace agrees to return with
the aliens to their home planet and i s released from their forcefield. B ut government man Chambers triggers a conditioned response in Mace using a prearranged emergency signal , which prompts Mace to grab a weapon, kill one of the beings, and chase the other out into the forest before he reali zes he is a perfect example of Earth's 'destructive soc iety, ' and relents . Instead of returning to his killer's existence on Earth, Mace chooses to help repair the ship and venture to the 'warm , yellow planet' from which the real aliens, a nonviolent race, hai l . The surviving alien is surprised, but happy for the companionship, and the government men willingly al low Mace to leave and embrace a new life . A man 's survival can take many shapes , and the shape in which a man finds his humanity is not always a human one.
Kill ing i s Lou i s Mace's personal art form , and we are fittingly introduced to thi s extraordinary man in the midst of an act of murder, as he distractedly smashes a fly with a swatter he will use a moment later to strangle an enemy agent. H i s detachment i s the same in both cases; like his medieval namesake, Mace is a weapon waiting to be used, and his case i s stated simply and eloquently : When CIA man Chambers, after witnessing the death of the enemy agent, offers Mace h i s unusual new assignment, Mace says nothing
THf CHAMHfON and holds up h i s empty killer's hands, palms up, as if to indicate 'this is al l , ' and at the same time offer the serv ice of those hands to Chambers . It never occurs to him to turn down the job, and while waiting on Dr. Ti l l y ard' s operating table for a n injection, he cl arifies his position to General Crawford :
;
MACE: I don't t h i nk you understand me, General . I'm not i nterested i n becom ing a hero. Nor d o I have an overdeveloped sense of duty. I'm doing th i s because I'm nothing more than an instrument for action. Mr. Chambers knows that, also. Between missions, I cease to exist. I am what I've done, and that's not alway s very pretty. But be ing ugly i s better than being nothing. I have no one, I care for no one, and I'm cared for by no one. So all I have i s what I can do.
The deception-of-appearance theme in 'The Chameleon ' is not limited to Mace's bizarre charade, for once under sedation he reveal s a submerged aspect of his true personal ity-one that wishes he could do ' one constructive thing . . . build something for a T h i s rea l ly is Robert Duva l l , pos i n g for the unit p hotog rapher. (Cou rtesy Bob Burns) change. ' H i s altered perspective on humankind is not filled with vengefulness for the to me was that he chooses to leave with the creatures, smal l prej udices of Earth; rather, his interaction with to go and live with them on another planet. All science the real aliens vests in him a sympathy unknown to his fiction that I can recall always did the reverse : Either kill ing-machine persona, even though his assassin's the aliens go home, or we kill them off because they're reflexes overcome the pull of his new genes long malevolent. Our position was always that our planet is enough for him to make the aliens pay for their the best pl ace to live, even if others may be more accidental contact with us-as did the Galaxy Being, intelligent or super-advanced. I decided to stand that and the Bifrost alien of 'The Bel lero Shield. ' thinking on its head . ' 'That story shattered the provincialism of the Scriptwriter Robert Towne had begun his career audience,' said Lou Morheim. 'And it's even more working for Roger Corman with The Last Woman on topical today-what happens to a 'compromised' CIA Earth ( 1 960) , in which Towne al so played the second agent with a mercenary attitude. What most appealed lead as ' Edward Wain,' a stage name he had also used
2Li
TH f O UHR liMITS CO M PANION cal l s off his military dogs against what must have been inviolable orders, and cannot bring himself to blitz the alien ship as it lifts off with Mace , because he senses that Chambers is right about Mace. Like 'The Bellero Shield, ' thi s story presents opt i m i st i c 'monsters ' whose personal ities transcend the man-in-the­ mask i l lusion. They smile, and evince a visceral trust in M ace. ' We want you to want to share our l ives , ' says one, with perfect candor. Towne's initial description of these creatures is colorful and specifi c :
The first we see of Lou i s Mace (Robert Duva l l ) .
while acting in Creature /rom the Haunted Sea ( 1 96 1 ) . He would later write the last of Corman's nuevo-Poe films, Tomb o/ Ligeia ( 1 964), a draft of Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, and Villa Rides ( 1 967 ) , before moving uphill to the successes of Chinatown ( 1 974), Shampoo ( 1 97 5 ) , and h i s own Personal Best ( 1 982). 'The Chameleon, ' perhaps unfortunately, is Towne's only Outer Limits script. It is v irtually ideal for the series, written cost-consciously for a small cast, featuring the req u i site monsters , but i n Stefano's ' sympathetic and sophisticated' mold; it offers an action-oriented plot buffered with subtexts examining the loss of identity and deception of appearance themes. According to M orheim, 'The reason that Towne did not do other episodes was because he was involved in so many other projects, many of a more personal nature. It took a long time to get that one script from him . ' I n 'The Chameleon,' humans are once again the aggressors, but they redeem themselves by being honorable and dec i s ive-as opposed, for example, to the venal and grasping specimens we see i n 'The Bel lero Shield, ' who destroy themselves with their aggressions. Dr. Ti llyard gives Mace every chance to refuse the inhuman proposition of the transformation. Chambers , the squirrely government man, concedes happiness for M ace's new future even though he's losing a crack agent, because he knows how bleak Mace's former exi stence was. And General Crawford
They are b u l ky, squat, w i th smal l unblinking eyes. The face is a fixed gri n­ smooth, cart i l aginous, with a mindless mal ice suggested by that fi xed slash of a gri n . Thei r bodies seem covered with something very l ike hair, but it's more bristle than mammal i an hair. The most humanoid feature about them is a wide belt they wear with some kind of l arge cl uster where the buckle would be . . . we see . . . the expressionless eyes, the smooth but hideously tessel lated skin of the face . . .
The Wah Chang designs omitted the hair, but incorporated widely-spaced, cat-l ike eyes that lend a guarded benevolence to the al iens' expressions. Stuntman Dean Smith , with only the sl itted 'forehead lines' of the mask to see through , does some incredibly energeti c running through the underbrush of the Griffith Park locations-another touch that helps erase the impression of a man in a monster suit, since such costumes generally hamper the v i s i on and restrict movements to more cautious choreography. As played
Spy-camero ' s eye-view of the a l ien wea pon (left) and ' s u n converter. '
TH[ �HAMmON by Smith, Wil l i am O'Connell, and leading man Robert Duval l , these aliens really grow on the viewer, and are a total success. One amusing idiosyncrasy of the script is that whenever Chambers or Crawford refer to the alien ship, they shy from cal ling it a flying saucer, tempering this term every time they use it by adding, ' . . . or whatever it i s , ' almost as if they won't admit it's real , or are self-conscious of the public craze for discos vo/antes i n the early 1 960s. 'The Chameleon' was the final Outer Lim its episode on the production roster, and filmed i n early Marc h , 1 964, while some trade F red P h i l l i ps touches u p Robert Duva l l outside Bronson Cave at the Griffith Park location . (Cou rtesy Fred papers were prematurely announcing the cancellation of the series. Others stood by its renewal . In Look magazine, the following September, Leslie S tevens promised that the new season would be 'wilder, woollier and more chilling . ' In a bit of in-j oke dialogue in ' The Chameleo n , ' the producer i s referenced a s the trigger-happy ' Colonel Steven s , ' the man General Crawford keeps ringing up on the hot l i ne . . . and putting on hold. Aired next-to-Iast in the first season l ineup, 'The Chameleon' was a safe distance from i t s conceptual antecedents , ' The Architects of Fear' and 'The S ixth Finger. ' Here, the ' al ienization' process of the first i s accomplished using the ' sonic chamber' o f the second. Another curious echo from ' Architect s ' is the use of actor Douglas Henderson as a doctor i n both shows; here it looks as though he's quit United Labs to go into private practice turning men into aliens ! In earlier drafts of the script, Dr. Til lyard alters Mace with an injection, as in 'The H undred Days of the Dragon. ' ' It was a compassionate story, very mov ing , ' said Stefano . ' The Chameleon' might also be considered the calm before the extremely stormy show that was to close out the first season.
P h i l l i ps)
Wi l l i a m O'Connell breaks for a n earthly lunch with the Daysta r crew. (Cou rtesy Bob Burns)
TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
TH [ fO A MS Of TH I N GS U N KNOWN Broadcast 4 M a y 1 9 64 Written by Joseph Stefano Pilot vers i o n title: 'The Un known . ' Working title: ' Lovers a n d M a d m e n ' D i rected by G e rd Oswa l d Assistant D i recto r: Claude Binyon, J r. D i rector of Photography: Conrad H a l l CAST Kassia Pa i n e (Vera M i les). C o l a s ( S i r C e d r i c H a rdwicke). Andre Pavan (Scott M a rlowe). To ne H o b a rt ( David McCa l l u m ). Leo n o ra Edmond ( B a rb a ra R u s h ) , O l d Fre n c h m a n (Wolf Barze l l e ) . Old Frenchwoman ( M a d e l i n e H o l mes). Yo u n g Frenchwo m a n ( G a b ri e l l e Rossi l l o n ) . W I T H Cl ive H a l l iday as Timothy R. Edmond ( i n deleted scene) ' Refi l l , please ? '
( 'The Forms of Things Unknown ' features no Con trol Voice narration. )
To free themselves from the domination of playboy blackmai ler Andre Pavan, his two mistresses-the scheming Kas s i a and the meek Leonora-poison him with ' a leaf from the Thanatos tree' and stash the corpse in the boot of Andre's Roll s Royce. Amid a sudden, pounding rainstorm o n the road to Aux- les-Bains, the trunk lid pops open and Leonora, panicked into thinking Andre is still alive, flees into the woods. Kassia pursues her, and they chance upon the warm sanctuary of a mansion presided over by Colas, a blind old man dressed in a houseboy's j acket. H i s guest at the house is the child­ like Tone Hobart, who ' tinkers with time' using a roomful of clocks, all connected to a central control shaft by a webwork of si lver wires. It is with thi s device he claims to have resurrected Andre from the dead, and when Kassia sneaks out to the car to bury him, she finds the trunk empty. S oon enough, Andre appears in the foyer grinning evilly and requesting a refill of the poison cocktai l that did him in. 'It was wrong to bring you back, ' Tone says of Andre, but Andre i s not about to oblige his desire to return him to death. Finding l i ttle to amuse him in the mansion, Page 2 2 6 (overleaf) : The si lver d an cin g fig u r i n e seen i n The Unknown. (photo by Marilyn Stefa no)
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Andre proceeds with his original plan to pay an extortion call on Leonora's wealthy father, taking Kassia and the car and leaving Leonora behind. Kassia has second thoughts (she can't bear to abandon Leonora), and j umps from the car; when Andre tries to run her down, the Roll s catapults over a verge and he is killed against the wheel . Inside the house, Tone tries to explain his time-til ter to an increasingly hysterical Leonora. He wants her to destroy it after he has used it to return to the ' safe, dead quiet of the past' from which he also came. Kassia arri ves back at the mansion and gets upstairs j u st in time to see Tone embrace the time-tilter's control shaft and vanish, proving that the device was real , and not the concoction of a l unatic's dreamy imagination.
The ' r i p-th roug h ' title des i g n for The Unknown.
(Cou rtesy Gerd Oswa ld)
THf fORMS Of THINGS UNKNOWN ' And then we came to clocks, and running around In lakes, and lots of tyings of bits of wire , ' David McCallum mused in his best Tone Hobart tone. 'That script seemed very Shakespearean; I didn't know there were two versions of the film, and I didn't see it at all for many years . ' 'That show was one o f Joe's bad dream s , ' said 1 st AD Claude B inyon. ' I don't know whether audiences can appreciate it as much as the people who made it; unless you understand Joe Stefano, it may not make any sense to you. It's a world unto him, wholly, and he tries to translate it into l ay terms so the rest of us can understand it. ' 'The Forms of Things Unknown ' is definitely a disorienting experience on first viewing; it doesn't run against the grain of normal TV fare so much as attack it outright. It is The Outer Limits ' most dreaml ike show-wispy and unclear, but crammed with arty compositions and startling images . Its stylistic inspirations run from Hamlet and A Midsummer Night 's Dream to Val Lewton, Les Diaboliques (as previously, in 'The Bellero Shield ' ) , and Stefano's own screenplay for Psycho. After reading the script, ABC rejected ' Form s ' cold; i t was j ust too different, too strange. Then network executive Edgar Scherick gave Stefano a surprise phone cal l . 'Out of the blue , ' said Stefano, 'they suddenly felt that they would like to try an un­ science fiction series, kind of scary, spooky, and mysterious. They asked me to take the script and do it for The Outer Limits, but to also do another version with no science fiction element, to give them an idea of what a series called The Unknown would look l ike. It real ly wasn't possible to shoot 'Forms' and j ust edit out the science fiction parts, so key scenes were written two ways to accommodate the changes. I wrote them as facing pages in the shooting script . ' The pilot teleplay for The Unknown was completed on New Year's Eve, 1 96 3 , eleven days after the script for 'Forms' was submitted. ' Adapting the second version was easy, ' said Stefano, 'because the science fiction really didn't belong there i n the first place. ' Stefano was enthused at the prospect o f using the Outer Limits crew to produce a show that focused on Gothic horror and s u spense, and intended The Unknown to be his debut as a director. ABC balked at the idea of Stefano becoming a ' triple hyphenate' l ike Leslie Stevens (writer-director-producer) , who had
I mages from the title seq uence to The Unknown .
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION suggested the idea to Stefano after reading the ' Form s ' script. ' I t w a s Joe's tum , ' said Steven s . ' I thought h e was ready for i t , and I fought for him . ' 'When a successfu l producer say s , 'Now I ' m going to direct,' the top-level executive reaction i s always 'Watch out-he's trying to do too much ! ' ' said Stefano. ' It's automatic. The report I got from the network was that a producer should not stop producing for six days j ust to direct a script. And I thought, bullshit, Leslie directed a lot of Stoney Burkes while he was producing it. ' B ut A B C was growing more i nterested i n disciplining Stevens and Stefano than i n indulging their individualistic tastes, and had begun to make noises about shifting Outer Lim its from its Monday evening slot at 7 : 30 P.M. PST (where it was opposite The NB C Monday Nigh t Mo vie and C B S ' s To Tell the Tru th and I 've G o t a Sec ret)-first to Wednesdays, against The Beve rly Hillbillies , then to a kiss-of-death berth on S aturday nights, against the popular Jackie Gleason Show. The firm negative response to the idea of Stefano becoming a director only fanned Stevens' fire . 'We thought, how dare they not let Joe direct,' said Stevens, who, with Dominic Frontiere, fired off a telegram of protest to AB C . ' We told them that Stefano had goddamn well better direct, or else we wouldn't deliver the next six O u ter Limits episodes. I almost ruined myself forever with the network by doing that. Incredible earthquakes went all over the place; the William Morris reps were coming in with ashen faces, saying, 'You just don't do stuff l ike that ! ' It meant lawsuits , and millions of dollars in production money at stake. To close down a show because a friend isn't allowed to direct-they' ll bum you with blowtorches if you try that too much. That's why networks don't like artists in control. A business manager never would have dreamed of opposing the establishment that way. At the time, we saw that they intended to tear the whole house apart if we weren't careful, so we backed down . ' ' If Leslie had told me h e was threatening to close up shop, I would've thought he was kidding, ' said Stefano. ' I would've laughed. H e can b e very frightening if you don't know and understand him, and it's very much l ike him that he'd go out on such a limb, just to insure I'd get my shot at directing. ABC was very threatened by what is, basically, his
v iable enthusiasm . ' Stefano bowed out of the conflict to avoid trouble, and Gerd Oswald was appointed to direct the show. 'I was not afraid to direct, ' said S tefano . ' B ut I was much more concerned with the overall Outer Limits series than I was with directing a single show. ' Daystar's first project for 1 964 was the ten-day shoot for both the ' Forms' and The Unknown versions, which commenced January 2nd, four days before 'The Children of Spider County ' began filming. There is a fear that is un like all other fears. It has a special, clammy chill, a deadly gift for inspiring deeper, darker dread. It is the fear of unentered rooms, of bends in lonely roads. It is the fear of the phone call in the middle of the n ight, of the stranger you recogn ize, perhaps from a n ightmare. It is th e fea r of the unexpected, the unfamiliar. It is the fear of THE UNKNO WN. . .
This i s the opening to The Unknown, rendered in appropriatel y sepulchral tones by the ' Unknown
THf fORMS Of THINGS UNKNOWN Voice , ' over a succession of bleak images described i n S tefan o ' s script a s 'slow, oily dissolves of scenes of lonely streets, deserted houses, dark and empty rooms, long twisting corridors, long staircases leading up to dark­ black landings, desolate backroad motels, quiet and malevolent-still lakes, etc. ' ' I had to read the script seven times and have the cast over to my house so I could explain it to each one of them, ' said Gerd Oswald. ' Joe and I had many ' shrink sessions,' so I could find out what was really on his mind when he wrote it. ' Stefano h arken s back to Psycho territory with his 'back­ road mote l ' reference, and by focusing on two women in flight. Like the ill-fated Marion Crane, who embezzles $40,000 and winds up at the B ates Motel, they have committed an i l legal act and chance upon a bizarre , remote refuge. Vera Miles, from Psycho, was cast as Kassia Paine by Stefano. In Les Diaboliques, the sadistic headmaster of a French boys' school is murdered by his meek, cowed wife, Christina, and his strong, forceful m i stre s s , Nicole, w h o trick him into Sir Cedric H a rdwicke in one of his last roles, a s Colas. drinking drugged whiskey, then drown him in a bathtub. His corpse is hidden in a white sheath dress matching Leonora's-a ' l ight' to disused swimming pool, and l ater, when the murky her ' dark . ' The central question of Les Diaboliques­ water in the pool is drained, the corpse has vanished. i s the v ictim reall y dead, or alive and seeking revenge?-is the hub on which the plot of 'Forms' In ' Form s , ' we have another pair of desperate murderesses, who spike the martini of their turn s , with the water/death symbology of the Clouzot tormentor/lover and cause his watery death in a l ake. film heavily emphasized in the eventful first half. Leonora, l ike Christina, is dark-haired and wears dark ' S uch tricks hath strong imagination, ' says Tone clothing; she is weak-willed, skittish, and thoroughly to the women, reciting Shakespeare. The lines he subj ugated by Andre . Kassia is willfu l , decisive, quotes are from a longish speech by Theseus in A Midsummer Nights Dream, from which Stefano drew resentful of Andre's domination (but c learly a match all three of his script titles, as well as some major for him) though attracted to his animal power and l ack thematic sentiments . In keeping with The seus' of scruples; she is blond, l ike Nicole, and wears a tight
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
Leonora and Kassia wade i n to serve Andre i n the i r 'fine sti letto heel s . '
observations, the characters in 'Form s ' are all lovers , poets, or madmen in multiform combinations . Colas, for example, appears to be a servant when he is i n fact master of the house, and Tone's caretaker. He is blind, and thus given to perceptive asides that seem beyond the grasp of the sighted characters. By choosing to look like a houseboy, he assigns himself a minor role in this drama, because all the major players are engulfed by madness, and he knows it. He is the rock around which all the turbulent happenstances and people swirl . Then there i s the matter of the twirling silver figurine in Colas' parlor. Tone and Leonora are both drawn to it, and mesmerized by the tiny dancer's perfect balance and endless pirouettes . While staring at
i t , their eyes become wide, unblinking, l i ghtly hypnotized. Leonora reveals the details of Andre's murder, and Tone becomes trancelike, which allows Andre to relieve him of a pistol with ease. The figure was a curio bought in Rio de Janeiro by Stefano; its base is formed by two silver coins, and it sits i n his office to this day. 'I told the prop man, if anything happens to this, don't tell me, ' recalled Stefano. 'Just leave town. ' Two more curious puzzle pieces are the French peasant funeral witnessed by Kassia and Leonora, and the clown-faced clock that sits on the parlor mantle­ the only clock in Colas' house that doesn't work. 'Why do you keep a useless clock? ' Leonora asks Tone, after comparing Andre's death-smile to that of a ' crushed clown'-a great, alliterative image, one thereafter
' Kassia wi l l pour, a n d Leonora w i l l serve . '
perpetuated b y repeated reference t o Andre a s a clown . . . but one that has no context since Stefano removed it from the already-dense story. In the original script, Tone's response to Leonora's question i s , 'Why do you keep useless memories ? ' Leonora tells him : LEONORA : My mother had taken my sister and I to B righton for the day, and she met a man on the boardwalk. He wanted her l ittle girls to l ike him, so he threw some ball s and won a c lown for us. Like any prize won on the boardwalk, it was cheap and very tawdry. My mother ran off, soon afterwards, and my father could never bear to look at that clown.
Andre quaffs h i s fata l Thanatos Tree cockta i l .
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The clown becomes Andre, the spoiler, when she recounts his murder. The visual image we see is of a young girl's legs, clad in ankle socks and Mary Jane
THf fORMS O� THINGS UNKNOWN
The never-broadcast c l i max of The Unknown : Leonora backs i nto the wi rework of the ti m e-ti lter, reco i l i n g from Ton e . Kassia enters and shoots Tone i n the back (extreme c lose-u p of the p i stol discharg i ng) . Tone g ra b s the centra l pole and s l u m ps to the floor, dea d . Colas enters, crosses the cham ber, and places his hand on Ton e ' s head . In the fi n a l ta blea u , the p i stol i s visible in Vera Miles' right h a n d . (Frame sequence cou rtesy Gerd Oswa ld)
shoes, pushing the pedals of a bicycle that crushes the clown doll's face . (In both versions of the film, we see a simple replay of Andre's death at the l ake. ) The peasant funeral is encountered while the women are on the road. Having j u st caused a death herself, Kassia stops the Rolls so that a young French widow and her parents may push her dead husband's casket past. The old Frenchman holds a baby. When Leonora re lates Andre ' s murder to Ton e , she experiences a nightmarish flashback to the funeral
procession-only now Kassia wears the cerements of the old woman , Leonora herself i s the widow, and her father, Timothy R . Edmond, carries the clown doll instead of a child. ' Leonora,' he says, 'If you didn't reall y kill him, the scandal will finish off my heart . ' T h i s scene w a s actually filmed by Oswald, but dropped by Stefano during editing. Also cut from the teleplay was a speech by Colas explaining Tone's American origins, along with this insight into Tone's derangement : 'A madman always
TH [ OUHR liMITS �OM PAN ION thinks of himself as a poet. That's the solatium the Dev il gives him, in return for what he gives the Devil . ' I n 'Form s , ' Tone's time-tilter actually does resurrect Andre ; in The Unknown, Andre's death is a sham, and Tone's device only works i n his mind. The notable differences between the two filmed versions do not occur until the last two acts, and most are simple adj ustments of dialogue accounting for Tone's insanity . . . or lack of same. Here is how Colas relates his discovery of Tone to the women, i n ' Form s ' : COLA S : H i s l i feless form had been hanging there nearl y a week. He had died for want of more than bodi l y sustenance. H i s time-tilting device had done it. Somehow, almost acc i dental l y, h i s gen ius had broken the fixed l a w s o f the science of time. His device caused the cycles of time to tilt.. .and he slid out of the dead past, and i nto a l ively present.
In The Unknown , the back-story different:
IS
o f m y soul t o peep through m y l ashes, and watch them shiver with guilt, just as it tickles me now to break your hold on unreal ity ! (he snatches the pistol from Tone and puts it to Tone 's temple) Shal l I do you thi s one smal l favor?
s l i ghtly
COLA S : He'd been hanging there nearly a week. He bel ieved his time-tilting device had done it. He sti l l bel ieves that. He i s convinced that he was dead during (his) comatose days, and that the cycles of time tilted, and slid him out of the dead past and into a l ively present.
In ' Forms,' as Leonora leaves , she thanks Colas for his hospital ity; in The Unknown, fittingly, she says, 'Thank you for your rationality . ' The Unknown also features a grand decl amation of Tone by Andre, following Andre's ' resurrection ' : ANDRE: D o y o u know what a madman y o u are? I detest the bl itheness of madme n ! Why are they so fortunate? Why don't they hurt the way the incurably sane hurt? Why doesn't real ity twist the i r v ital s? Who are you, m adman , that everyone should humor you so? You're not a curly-headed c h i l d ; your del u s i o n s are not games ! Your 'workshop' is not a nursery; it i s a fool ' s c l uttered m adhouse, a trash-heap of clocks, a cobweb of common household wire ! You stole m e out o f the walm l i ttle trunk o f m y car, and you propped m e against a cold, useless pole, and you actual l y bel ieve such solemn s i l l iness has brought me back from the dead? We l l , I was not dead ! There is no Thanatos tree ! I spun them a tale of it-and they bel ieved i t ! Do you bel ieve that I would allow myself to die at the hands of such inept, fancy murderers? But oh, the fun of pretending ! It tickled me to the pit
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'I detest the b l i theness of modmen . '
In ' Form s , ' Andre does l ikew i se with the gun, but say s , ' Would you be w i l ling to go back?' The gun makes an encore appearance i n The Unknown, mainly because Tone cannot vanish i nto a time-tilter that only works in his imagination. He forces the door on the clock room and advances on Leonora as if to choke her; he really only i ntends to keep her from harming the device. She recoils into the wire-work in terror as Kassia appears in the hallway behind them, with the gun she has removed from Andre's body i n the wrecked Rol l s . Kassia shoots Tone in the back. He slumps forward, grabs the pole of the time-tilter and sl ides to the floor, dead. 'I thought
' Yo u ' re not
0
cu rly.headed c h i ld ; you r delusions a re not games ! '
THf mRMS Of THINGS UNKNOWN he was trying to kill her, ' Kassia says ineffectually to Colas. The irony is now that Andre i s truly dead without the help of the women, who have nonetheless j ust precipitated a genuine murder. 'We played it very Hamlet-like, with me wearing the black pants and white shirt , ' said D av i d McCallum. The stark chiaroscuro i n The Unknown is a superb example of the use of the film frame as a compositional canvas . Many shots are divided fifty­ fifty between black and white values, as in one shot of Tone speaking to Kassia: His face i s i n shadow, hers, in light; she is front-lit, he is back-lit, and behind them is a white wall divided diagonall y by a slash of darknes s . Often the effect i s so subtle as to be subliminal ; other times, the artiness i s more obvious . Conrad Hall put in 2 4 hours a t a stretch , a s the episode neared completion, to make it what he called ' a catalogue o f Gothic effects . It was very hard, tiring work under adverse conditions . ' Much o f this was accompl ished i n the dead of night, in the cold of January, i n a freezing barrage of artificial rain and wind on the MGM backlot. Clad only in their tight, l ightweight dresses, Vera Miles and Barbara Rush were drenched to the core for the woodlands scenes ; you can see the chilly steam of condensation rising off them in almost every exterior shot. 'Those girls were real troupers, ' said Claude Binyon. 'I remember them s itting in the rain, eating ice cream sundaes brought by B arbara's husband. ' Stefano had been anxious t o use McCallum again ever since 'The Sixth Finger. ' ' David can read any line , ' he said. ' You take one look at his face , and hear his voice, and you know you're going to get away with murder ! ' The star casting coup, though, was S ir Cedric Hardwicke, originally Stefano's third choice for the Colas role after Peter Lorre and Joseph Schildkraut ­ both of whom died before any contract could be signed. 1964 was also to be the final year of Hardwicke's life . ' He used his inhaler on the set constantly, ' recalled B inyon. 'It never seemed to do any good. I was afraid he might die on us at any minute . ' 'In the beginning o f that show y o u see what must be the fastest zoom ever attempted, ' said Gerd Oswald of the shot where Leonora sees the trunk lid of the Rolls pop up in the rearview mirror. 'It skipped maybe sixty frames. For the shot where B arbara runs into the clock room at the end, we pulled B illy Fraker along on a furniture pad . ' B inyon recalls helping drag
David McCa l l u m poses with the ti m e-ti lter i n the episod e ' s most fa mous promoti o n a l shot.
cameraman Fraker down the length of the hallway. 'He was doing a hand-held Arriflex shot that looked l ike it was on a gear-head, ' he said. 'As we opened the door, he rolled over and did an upside-down point-of­ view shot of the time-tilter room-really torturous . ' This upstairs ' Caligari Hallway ' was a forced­ perspective construction of Jack Poplin's, with inward­ s l anting w al l s , a very h i gh ceiling, and naked lightbulbs strung at head-level at three-foot intervals. This terminates in a tiny room with a tiny skylight, containing, as described by Stefano, an iron pole, a web of 'rare magnetic wire , ' and 'clocks, clocks of every size and variety, so many that we cannot see the ceiling or any part of the walls. ' 'That was Chet B ayhi's baby, ' said Poplin. ' He spent hours on that set, tying each individual wire, which was just sash cord . ' 'That whole Val Lewton school o f filmaking-the shadow s on the w al l , the sounds-i s absolutely fantastic, ' said Stefano. ' And I knew what I was going for. To see this man , Andre, in a bathing suit, ordering
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TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
Leonora flounders a bout the u psta i rs h a l lway lead i n g to the ti me-ti lti ng
these two women to serve him his drink with their clothes on, and to see those two beautiful women wade into that dark water in their 'fine stiletto heels' . . . that's right out of the most sadistic s ide of me you're ever going to hear from ! ' ' It was an extraordinary and peculiar piece, ' said Leslie Stevens. ' B ut not a coherent thing for an ordinary audience to grab. It was perceived as being far too 'arty. ' ' ABC's rendezvous with The Unknown was a fi zzle, and, in the matter of S tefano-as-director, Stevens' retreat under fire had not placated them . ' We had to be disciplined, cut down, and pushed back into our place, ' noted Steven s . Whether or not The Outer Limits was pull ing its weight in the ratings race suddenly became a hot topic, as did the proposed time slot change. 'When a series i s a runaway hit, the network only sees the numbers and could care less about what happens on the show, ' said Richard Dorso, Stevens' United Artists l iaison. ' When a series flops, the obv ious occurs. B ut when a series is in-between, the network will take a long look at it to see what can be done to push those numbers up into a real success. The Outer Limits had close to a 30 share in those days. Although any show could stay on today with that percentage, things were different in 1 963 . ' I n fact, The Outer Limits closed out i t s first season with a 1 9.0 rating in an arena where a 1 6.0 (or better) was the baseline for renewal . It also garnered an
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Emmy award nomination ( b u t n o t a win) for Jack Poplin's bal iwick, Art Direction and Scenic Design, for the 1 963 -64 season . 'We were a 'bleeder,' ' said Stevens, ' a show that wasn't quite in the hit column but wasn't exactly a failure . There were people working a t ABC back then who were ham-fi sted and only interested in protecting their j obs . The show might have flouri shed under a benevolent regime. If Grant Tinker had been the head of ABC then , The Outer Limits would be on to thi s day. ' Meanwhile, Stefano steadfastly refused to continue as producer on the series if it was moved. 'I just didn't fancy putting in 1 8-hour days on a series that was doomed, ' he said. ' I mean, I love roo m . challenge and competition, but I also know where a wall is, and I'm not going to bang my head against it. 7 : 30 on Monday nights was ideal-the weekend was over and the kids and everybody else could dig in and watch the show. I certainly would have considered doing it on Wednesdays, but I was furious when they wanted to use it as ammunition against Jackie Gleason. I had really worked my ass off, and I knew that Jackie Gleason was not going to be brought down by The Outer Limits . ' Gerd Oswald noted that after A B C turned down The Unknown as a series, 'I suggested an 80-minute cut, to be shown theatrically in Europe, but ABC wouldn't let Stefano do that . ' Oswald achieved Tone's disappearance into the time-stream for the 'fallback' version, ' Form s , ' by adding a strategic dissolve just after Tone grabs the pole of the time-ti lter. ' Forms' aired as the final episode of The Outer Limits ' first season, but the Unknown Voice would never be heard in prime time. Dominic Frontiere's lavi sh original score and Wayne Fitzgerald's unique title design ( in which the credits succeed each other through ' rips' in the TV screen) would be reprised in 1 967 as the opening for another ABC science fiction series, Quinn Martin's The Invaders. 'ABC said, 'Come to New York; we'll talk about it, ' ' remembers S tefano. There was no room for haggling with the network at a time when he was (L-R) Vera Mi les, Barbara Rush, Sir Cedric H a rdwicke, and David McCa l l u m between takes on the set of The Unknown .
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
The fi nal shot o f The Unknown . Colas' han d i s sti l l visible o n Ton e ' s h ea d .
double-teaming The Un knownl'Fo rm s ' with his usual overload of production duties on regular Outer Limits episodes. ABC's idea of ' meeting him halfway ' was to ask, ' 'Well, will you meet us in Chicago , then?' And that struck me as so funny, because I was not against going to their offices; I j ust could not take time out to go to New York for meetings that were simply never going to amount to anything, because they'd made their decision already. They seemed to think there was some sort of power-play going on. I would have stayed with the show another year, at least, but I didn't want to put in more 20-hour days on a show that was stuck in the wrong time slot. I stuck to my gun s . ABC stuck to theirs-so I walked away. '
S teven s , meanwhile, had begun to v i e w the entire Outer Limits production machine as an airplane on which he was no longer the co-pilot, merely a passenger. 'And when that plane touched down in Chicago, I got off, ' he said. 'ABC figured the show wasn't going to get the numbers they wanted, and were willing to let it die. I think they wanted to throw it away. ' On top of this , his salvo of assorted new TV pilots had all been shot down, preventing him from becoming a 'mini-mogul ' like Quinn Martin , and jeopardizing Daystar's re-entry into the movie business. 'There were some pretty deadly piranhas at ABC , ' said Jack Poplin. ' Personally, I always thought that Leslie had gotten a little too arrogant for them , and the network brass decided they were going to squash h im . ' S tefano added that, ' There were people who wanted to get The Outer Limits totally away from Leslie, and once it was clear that I wasn't going to stay, a lot of stuff went down. It was l ike the show went up for grabs, and a lot of j ockeying was done. ' 'The artist sometimes puts art above anything,' said Steven s . ' And when he does that, he's not in the industry anymore . ' ' We were all reall y burned out by the end o f the first season, ' notes Stefano assistant Tom Selden. 'I'm rather glad Joe didn't go back for another year, because I don't think he could have. He put so much into the show that he got very i l l , j ust from exhaustion. And when it came time for the second season to start, we were all already b u s y doing other thin g s , new projects. ' One man who continued o n t o the new season was director B yron Haskin. ' The Outer Limits could have been one of the biggest hits on TV, if only it had had a l ittle impetus, ' he said. ' B u t I don't hold much credence for any network attitude, though. If you want the truth, they're all fucking idiots . Really ! How they can stay out of the way of bicycles, I have no idea . ' Murder, madness, a n d other lurking horrors are the raw certainties that await you in the depths of the Unknown. And no switch of time, no twist of plan can cancel your meeting with it. For some n ight, in some blind pan ic, you will venture into the world of dark reality. And on that night, you will keep your meeting with. . THE UNKNO WN. .
The fi nal shot of 'The Forms of T h i n g s U n known , ' after the l i g h t fade which conveniently h ides Ton e ' s presence i n the shot.
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C�an�in� t�e Guar� Man looks up at the stars , and dreams h is futile dream s . Child of th e un ivers e , h is toys are ignorance, h is games , fan tasy. Not even master of h is own fate , it is th e D evil 's Puppeteer who stretches h is fingers to answer th e question : What will happen next ?
-Control Voice epilogue from 'The Inheritors, ' by Seeleg Lester, Sam Neuman, and Ed Adamson
If you want to pinpoint the bridge between what has transpired on televi sion from the Golden Age to today, The O u ter Lim its is a good transition. It illustrated the problems of trying to do a creative show, while fitting creative things into some kind of budget. -Seeleg Lester
It has been suggested that Ben Brady and The Outer Limits did not work their way toward each other so much as collide. Some say that B rady's appointment as the new producer of The Outer Limits was a matter of calculated timing, or convenience. Still others suggest that it was part of a premeditated plot to show the door to the S tevens/S tefano regime before commencing the 1 964-65 prime time season. An i ndependent TV producer prior to becoming a programming v ice-president for ABC, B rady had been one of the executives who had given the green light to Please Stand By in 1 962. When The Outer Limits became a series, Brady said, ' I sat in creative control for ABC, and read and annotated every script, ' he said, 'as I did on other shows . It was strictly a supervisory position . ' He apprised Villa di S tefano of possible problems before the scripts went to the censors , and was of more or less dual status with Dorothy B rown's superior, Adrian S amish, with whom he worked under Elton Rule, A B C ' s president of West Coast programming. B rady did not have the power to override Continuity's objections regarding scripts . ' I was unable t o function creatively, ' h e said. ' And I was frustrated over creative aspects of shows I could not alter. Being unable to be a part of it wore me down. My des i re was to actually work o n the show s ; to implement changes . ' He had previously done this for four years straight, while producing Perry Mason at CB S . Like the ErIe Stanley Gardner character who almost never lost a court case, B rady began as a lawyer. His parents put him through l aw school in the 1 940s, and after about a year in professional practice
he decided to try writing for radio, building a name for himself by scripting such shows as Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons. In 1 95 1 , after entering the fledgl ing industry of telev i sion , he initiated a quarter-hour musical v ariety series for NBC (it preceded the network newscast) called Those Two , hosted by Pinky Lee and featuring orchestra music by Harry Lubin, whom B rady would bring into The Outer Limits to repl ace Dominic Frontiere . Red Skelton's first TV series was under B rady's guidance, as were early episodes of the Richard B oone western, Have Gun Will Travel. In 1 95 7 came the indefatigable Perry Mason , and CBS Executive Producer Gai l Patrick Johnson hired B rady to do the show based on his familiarity with the legal field. The series was a prestigious success for B rady, and represents his best work in the medium. While on hiatus in 1 960, he attempted a situation comedy called O h , Those Bells, starring a German comedy team , the Wiere B rothers , with former Three Stooges collaborator Jules White as executive producer. Thirteen episodes were filmed, and shelved until 1 962, when the show was critically annihilated as a fai led attempt to resurrect vaudeville on television. It was as an ABC executive that B rady first encountered Leslie Stevens, during the preparati on of Stoney B urke , and h i s first impress i on was that Daystar's head man was 'a real charmer. ' But the two would soon be at odds. During The Outer Limits, Stevens would frequently try to circumvent Brady's dictates by appealing directly to higher-ups in New York. ' You may have been able to gather some of his imperious overtones , ' said B rady. ' H e had the
CHANGING THf GUARD
Sam Wh ite (L) a n d Ben Brady (R) with Perry Mason executive prod ucer G a i l Patrick Jackson i n 1 96 1 .
impression that what he was doing was of enormous importance to ABC. He was terribly aggressive, and we just did not get along. It was only a matter of time before he was on his way out. ' Stevens, in tum, saw B rady's appointment to The Outer Limits as a case of the gargoyles taking over the cathedral : 'It was ABC, saying, ' If we can get one of our guys down in there, put some sensible people in control who can get this show done, then everything'll be all right . ' ' The program ' s ratings were not spectacular enough to j ustify ABC putting up with the Stevens regime at a time when they wanted to cut back the per-show budget even further, and were inclined to cancel the series outright. ' B ut it was so popul ar, ' said Brady, 'especially with kids and college audiences , and United Artists indicated they w o u l d l i k e t o continue it. ' A t the same time, ABC sti l l owed B rady the remainder of his contract as v ice-president, which Brady was willing to give up in order to get back into active producing. When Stefano vacated his position due to the timeslot dispute with ABC, Richard Dorso recommended B rady as a repl acement. UATV knew that Brady, a former executive, would be budget­ conscious, and agreed to renew their Outer Limits contracts if B rady was made the new producer. This decision allowed ABC to usefully discharge their contract with Brady, and permitted B rady to get out from behind his desk job. It was very convenient timing for everyone involved . . . except S tevens and Stefano.
' When B rady took over, ' said Stevens , 'I was both relieved and offended. It was a rel ief to finally wash my hands of the show, and to do that is being a very bad boy-the network expects you to stay and work with the new group. B ut I just didn't have the heart to. In the first place, I couldn't talk to Brady. He didn't know the first thing about science fiction, and it seemed, to me, to be terrible miscasting to put him anywhere near The Outer Limits . ' B rady was also party t o the decision t o change the show's timeslot. 'A good deal of the first year was a banner year in terms of art and product, ' he said. ' Stefano was a great writer. B ut there was a violent schism between what he wanted and what ABC wanted. The network won't let go of a man they are happy with, so if they truncated their relationship with Stefano, they must have been unhappy. ' It is clear that B rady was not a part of the circumstances surrounding Stefano's leavetaking; his quarrel was elsewhere : ' What caused me to be mostly unhappy was Stevens,' B rady said. ' I just didn't want him around. ' S tevens and S tefano moved on, retaining their ownership points in the series and leaving behind no prepared material for a new season . Stefano began work on The Haunted, his supernatural series pilot for CB S , and Stevens busied himself with what was to be Daystar' s final feature fil m , Incubus. Day star' s accounting department remained involved in budgeting the new season, and the craft union people signed to Daystar (the costumers , construction crew,
THf OUHR liMITS CO M PANION editors , etc . ) stayed on, a s did Fred Phillips, Project Unlimited, and most of the other below-the-line personnel. ' 1 didn't resent the new people,' said Fred Phillips. ' B ut I had in the first season people a sense of trust. Not so, in the second season. When I'd ask them for something, they'd frown on it even though I needed it, as though I was going to pocket their money or something . ' On the other hand, Vic Perrin , the Control Voice, noticed no difference between the old guard and the new : ' Ben B rady told me, 'Just keep on doing what you've been doing. ' ' Stevens received a copy o f every script, memo, and censorship notice, and several Daystar people tried to talk him into staying. 'I felt unwelcome , ' he said. 'And 1 could only mess things up worse by getting involved, and asserting authority, so I disengaged myself. The network put a stranger in our midst, in a position of authority, and that's enough to kill you as far as the creative group is concerned. ' As executive producer and creator of the series , Stevens kept track of The Outer Limits through Seeleg Lester and by occasional ly watching dai l i e s . Whenever a particularly cheap rubber monster puppet reared its head, Stevens noted, '(I would) do worse than cringe. I disown them. I say I had nothing to do with those shows whatsoever. I did my job very much by the numbers from then on-it was purely technical for me. ' Far from being an errand boy for ABC's creative mandates, Brady soon found himself beleaguered by the same fru strations that had hampered h i s predecessors . The budgets were cut down t o about $ 1 00,000 per episode. This means that new shows were budgeted at the level of ' Controlled Experiment, ' which had been a cost-cutting measure to begin with, during the first season. Gerd Oswald, a personal friend of Brady's from their work together on Perry Mason , noted, 'Whereas Stefano would say of an idea, 'Great, let's do it and I'll fight the network l ater,' B rady would say, 'I'd l ike to-but I can't. ' After Stefano was eased out by the network, scripts were not improved upon, as they had been during his regime. Scripts during the first season were far superior to those of the second. ' Having seen the series progress from Please Stand By to The Unknown , from Stevens' stainless steel technological showcase to S tefano's murky Gothic fever dreams, B rady's initial intent was to pull in the mass audience by seeking out, as teleplay fodder,
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' p u b l i s hed works by estab l i shed SCIence fiction writers , ' as he said. ' We looked for a marriage between intelligent science fiction and good, sound showmanship. ' This marriage turned out to be a rocky one, since the cutbacks in budgets required the chosen stories to command fairly low royalties. Sometimes the scripts from these stories required multiple rewrites to shoehorn them into an acceptable episode budget . . . but the process o f multiple revisions often ran the show over budget anyway. ' We were torn between the desire to find stories we could adapt, ' said Brady, ' and the i nsertion of quickly written originals that would enable us to survive until we found the next good published story. ' H i s hand was also forced by a telegram from ABC President Tom Moore's assistant, Alfred R. S chneider, which read in part, 'We want to see a monster early and often [in the show] . ' According to B rady, ' During the first year, audience appeal shot right up when a monster was used. ABC showed us graphs and charts indicating that the highest point of interest in any science fiction play occurred when a monster appeared, or a 'monstrous' situation of some kind. They made an issue of it, to the point where we could not proceed without considering a monster. The episodes with monsters struck some note of excitement in the audienc e , y e s , but they were artificially construed to carry that appeal . They were of lesser value . ' A t the beginning o f h i s tenure, Brady contracted several shows that had no obvious 'bear' at all , while other episodes emplaced them specifically to placate ABC . Still others had monsters thrust upon them. B rady's unfamiliarity with the show's milieu led him to interpret many of the new shows into a Perry Mason­ l ike whodunit format, or s uperimpose a murder mystery framework in which the plot is advanced via the question-and-answer method of a police procedural , with the characters receiving the explanations serving the function of filling the viewer in on the plot. ' B ehold Eck ! ' ' Expanding Human , ' and ' Counterweight' are prime examples o f this style, and 'I, Robot' would take The Outer Limits right into the dock. B rady's administrative expertise made his function more that of a l ine producer. He was rarely seen on the sets, and conveyed most of his edicts through subordinates . He did some writing , but deferred most script rev i sions to h i s new story department. B rady did go into the second season of The Outer
THf BRAOY BUN�H Limits with a game plan, but his attitude became polarized w ith that of A B C from the moment production began, despite the fact that his network liaison was Adrian S amish, who had taken over Brady's slot in Programming once B rady v acated it.
' Adrian and I used to meet at lunch to discuss The Outer Limits at great length , ' B rady said. ' We talked each other's l anguage, [and] I went into producing the show with great glee . '
T� e B r a � � B u n c � ' I met Ben in 1 95 7 , on Perry Mason , ' said Seeleg Lester. ' I came in as a writer, then became story editor, and when Ben left I became an associate producer. I n Perry Mason 's fifth season, I became a producer. Five years later, Ben called me from ABC. He was working in administration, but w anted to go back into producing, and there were two shows he could do. One was a mystery show of some kind, the other was The Outer Limits , and I told him that was the better of the two. We took it over, and I think we made it intriguing and a little more literate. ' A scenarist who had graduated from radio t o TV and would soon move on to feature films, Lester recognized the severe restrictions under which he was to operate : 'The 'minds' at the networks have to justify their salaries , so they formulate theories about 'what the public wants' and tum them into directives . ABC wanted monsters and they were always at our throats about it; it became a continuous battle between us. (Adrian) Samish, the ABC liaison, was an idiot. For the first five weeks, we were allowed our heads to buy stories , and I got in some men with some decent ideas. Along about the sixth week, ABC began insisting on a monster in every show, so I tried to make them as innocuous as possible, as an offshoot of the drama. We wanted to grab hold of the audience with unusual , imaginative material . The network j ust wanted to frighten people. ' Then came the new, reduced budgets. ' B en and I were always conscious of how l ittle money we had , ' Lester said, citing, a s items that vampirized funds, infl ating studio overhead and ' administrative supervisory costs '-this nebulosity being the per­ show percentage drawn by DaystarNilla di S tefano, the William Morris Agency's eternal 10 percent cut, and Brady's expense account. ] ' S tevens and S tefano had a much freer hand , ' claimed B rady. 'If their budgets looked like they were going out of control, ABC was willing to risk it on the chance the show would be 'big. ' In the second year, ABC killed me with
the budget. It was driving u s all crazy. ' The cutbacks forced fast shooting, fewer retakes, and less time to cover technical slips. Extravagant casting was avoided. Costly optical effects were l imited, for the most part, to the first few shows filmed, with Project Unlimited falling back on a number of hand-puppet-style ' bears , ' and ' stock shot' footage from 1950s science fiction films filling several gaps. 'The effects of the first season would have been impossible in the second, ' said Lester. 'We had to design scripts for cheapness, and find ways to do it all indoors, or with magic instead of production values. ' 'The one guy we thought the new group was so lucky to have was Seeleg, ' said Leslie Stevens. 'He
'r� 3 ,
Lloyd Nolan scopes Michael Ansara ' s Wa l k m a n of the future i n ' Soldier. '
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TH[ ounR liMITS COM PANION really cared; h e had both the drama and the science concepts. ' Lester, who was to work w ith Stevens ten years l ater on the Invisible Man series , noted in turn that 'Leslie is a victim of his own good nature. He has vision, ideas , concepts . . . and somebody always comes along and messes it up for him . ' Of Brady, Lester said, ' He was not an 'absentee producer' on Outer Limits. He's a good nuts-and-bolts man, with his fingers on all the physical costs of production. He wasn't active i n story content-I think that's why he wanted me. ' When Daystar disengaged and the soundstage deal with KTTV ceased to exist, 1 st AD Claude B inyon became the show' s new production manager after Robert Justman returned to his old AD duties. 'I went over to Paramount,' said Binyon, ' and said to Frank Caffey, the head of production, 'I've got a problem: I Ada m Link, mecha n ical m a n , ta kes the sta n d in ' I , Robot' with H oward da Si lva as h i s need a studio and I have no idea of how to defense attorney. go about getting one ! ' ' Caffey, a longtime could view the ongoing filming from this 'closet' in his friend of B inyon's father, had given Claude, Jr. , his first office . ' job in the industry. 'UATV scrutinized the deal we 'We were in a funny little comer at one end o f that made and said there was no way they could have studio,' said Brady's assistant, B . Ritchie Payne. 'To my bettered it. ' Binyon secured the use of 'Paramount knowledge, we were the only show shooting there. It Sunset,' a bowling alley-turned-soundstage on Sunset was where we did most of The Outer Limits because Boulevard, formerly owned by Warner Brothers. 'It locations cost so damned much money. It was a working smelled of years gone by, ' said B inyon. 'We had one office, not exactly plush. B inyon had the layout on the office I believe used to be Sam Warner's; it had a l ittle first floor. ' This was roughly equivalent to Daystar's portico that extended beyond the wall and looked right ground floor. On the second floor were editing down onto a large shooting stage, like a balcony, so Sam facilities, 'a l ittle half-assed screening room, ' according to Payne, and the offices of Brady, Lester, and associate producer Sam White. ' Seeleg was down the hall, in his 'darkroom,' ' said Payne. ' He had a fascinating work habit. He'd pull every shade in his office, and turn on his desk lamp throughout the day to work. He told me , 'I don't know why, Ritchie, but I just can't work in the daylight ! ' People used to wonder what the hell was going on down there. He was a learned man; I enjoyed talking to him. The apocryphal story about Ben's office was that it had once belonged to John Barrymore. It had the biggest god damned bathroom I'd ever seen. I remember saying to Ben, 'Now that I've visited this bathroom, I know why it's carpeted-this is probably where Barrymore made love ! ' ' 'We had a series of offices with interconnecting doors, ' said B inyon. ' We put a dart board at one end and threw darts through the rooms . B ob Justman and I had a kitty; you'd get three darts for a quarter and anybody who hit the bullseye would get the pot. We were lonely down there ! ' B inyon's principal task was Robert C u l p consults h i s pal mtop i n ' Demon With a G l a ss H a n d . '
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THf BRADY BUN�H deciding how to wisely spend the no-frills budgets . 'Claude used to break his butt trying to bring the damned shows in under budget, ' said Payne. In these matters , B inyon dealt not with Brady, but with S am White. ' S am had been an associate producer on Perry Mason , ' said Lester. ' He came in after we'd started on Outer Limits, and did what an 'ass-prod' does-odd j o b s , whatever Ben laid off on h i m . He w a s j u st an errand boy. ' B rady recalled White as ' a l i n e production type, who k n e w the workings of cameras and technical stuff, more like a production supervisor. ' Gerd Oswald shared Lester's unfavorable view of White : ' He seemed to be B rady's best and oldest friend, but he was actually his number one handicap, a sort of hatchet man . H i s taste was dreadfu l , and he persuaded Brady to use a bunch of writers that weren't of the caliber Stefano had had . ' White's brother, Jules, had done dozens of Three Stooges shorts at Columbia, and had brought B rady into O h , Those B ells . 'Well,' said B inyon, 'The Outer Limits was not the Three Stooges. We wound up with a M i ke La ne ( i n h i s a l ien getup from ' Keeper of the Purple Twi l i g h t ' ) u n-relaxes with a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland #2 6-the cover of which featu res a pai nting based on a fa m i l i a r face (below) .
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terrible U s and Them situation between the people left over from the first season and Ben, Sam White, and Seeleg. The year before, you could speak to Leslie and Joe; they were l ike family. Ben and I never had a whole lot to say to each other. ' Regarding S am White, Leslie S tevens noted, ' I n almost every studio y o u ' l l find a strong and often v ery political person who is a production expert. He takes budgets and translates them into lumber, generators, gasoline and overtime-usually with an iron hand. He is like a master sergeant in the Army, and no officer will mess with a master sergeant, and nobody below a master sergeant will mess with him, either. That was Sam White. He was crude, and tough, and I thought he would wreck the Daystar unit, but Daystar had come out of the maj ors and was able to survive him, and keep going, and not suffer very much. But it wasn't much jun , either. ' Recalling his experience i n David N . B ruskin's The White Brothers (Director's Guild of America Oral H istory Series, # 1 0 , S c arecrow Pre s s , 1 99 0 ) , White himself said, ' (Ben B rady) took over The Outer Limits after its first season and wanted me to come on the show and operate the same way I had on Perry Mason. I directed a lot of the second unit on the 1 7 Outer Limits episodes we made. It was frustrating as hell that I couldn't direct an entire segment. ' One factor insulating B rady from his crew was his habit of sending underlings to deliver his edicts. ' B en would often send me on such mission s , ' said Payne. ' And I thought, Ben, this is important, why don't you go? Later, S am White told me, 'When you deliver the message, it's softer. When Ben walks onto the set, everybody stops, and thinks, what the hell ' s happening now?' Though B rady was not dictatorial, this did contribute an atmosphere of tension to the new season. Another sticky situation was ABC's
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THf BRAOY BUNCH hostility toward the crewmembers carried over from the first season. One v ictim of this seasonal switchover was Casting Director Meryl Abeles, who was quickly and gracelessly fired. She was replaced by Harvey Clermont. Although B rady acknowledged that Dominic Frontiere's theme music was fine, Frontiere was a Daystar executive and confidant of Leslie Stevens. Rather than step into political quicksand, Brady called his old coworker Harry Lubin to provide new music for The Outer Limits. Brady himself ran afoul of the bias against Outer Limits first season veterans when it came to using his old friend, Gerd Oswald. 'I had directed some thirty Perry Masons for Ben,' said Oswald. A pesky sand-shark from ' T h e Invisible Enemy, ' t h e H a l lowe ' e n 1 964 episode. 'When he came onto The Outer Limits, both on S amish's shit l i st, and it took Brady four or he called me for dinner and said, 'I'm going to have five weeks before he could say, 'Well, I want Gerd, trouble using you for the first few shows,' because period, and I want B unn Haskin. ' ' Adrian Samish had said to him, 'Oswald? Forget it ! ' ' A more bearable go-between with A B C was the ' S amish was a fel l o w who could, quote, new production coordinator, Calvin Ward. 'Cal was command, ' said Payne. ' H e was one of those my representative,' said B rady. ' He made sure that ad schizophrenic network personalities who could be copy wasn't abused, and inserted commercials into the charming, generous, and wonderful one moment, and shows . ' According to Payne, Ward was 'a real gentle­ the next, s ir, be quite willing to conduct a personality man, a do-what-needed-to-be-done kind of fellow. He castration of you right in front of God and everybody. was quite good at mediating disputes. If Ben wanted to When he walked into the room, you got the general get a message across to Seeleg, very often Cal would impression that he was in charge of something. When you heard him speak, you got the impression he did not l ike to be disagreed with. When he was dissatisfied w ith costs or ratings, and called B e n , the conversation would be less than warm and understanding, and Ben would be i n a lousy mood for the next two day s . Samish was n o t a stupid man; he came out of Princeton, if I'm not mistaken. B ut he had a commercial personality quite different from his reg u l ar one . He produced half the shows at ABC but never wrote or directed one damned teleplay. ' ' S amish was of the opinion that 'Forms of Things Unknown' was a terrible show, ' said Oswald. ' Brady was forced to go a more prosaic, down-to­ earth route. (Byron) Haskin and I were The son and daughter of Brady assista n t B. Ritc h i e Payne pose for a candid shot with the ' m i ki e ' on the set of 'The Probe' in 1 964.
(Cou rtesy B . R itch i e Payne)
TH f OUHn liMITS CO MPANION g o in, sit down, have a cup o f coffee, and say, 'Gee, regarding this scene, I wonder if we couldn't change this . . . ' If a negative was supposed to be in to the lab, Cal would j ump in his car and deliver it. He was very capable at story conferences. Sometimes he'd sit in the comer for two or three sessions with nothing to say, then make one suggestion that everybody would buy. ' Of the crewmembers who worked both seasons , Jack Poplin noted: 'The first season w a s far more creative and esoteric than the second, which was much more commercial . Ben B rady is a capable man, but an executive, not a creator. He was doing what he was told and grinding them out. He was out of his depth, with the onus of the heavyweights who had preceded him . ' Robert Justman said, ' With Leslie and Joe both gone, the series degenerated into Monster of the Week . . . which is what ABC had wanted all along . ' ' I had n o problems with the new regime, ' said Elaine Michea, who relocated to Paramount S unset to budget the new shows. 'I was involved with Ben a little more than I had been i n the first season, and we got along beautifully. ' Byron Haskin's description of the season switch was typically apocalyptic: 'I had heard that Ben B rady was a fair-haired boy in the top, heavy circles, the rarefied air where the masochists and maiming pimps who operate networks work. They had a happy hand for Brady, who had j ust gotten fired from ABC, and was in limbo, when along came this network decision to switch producers, and BOOM ! We got the guy, and I didn't know who in hell he was. Outer Limits got into very fast company when it acquired B rady, who was known for lowering the boom on series that networks wanted to get rid of. He didn't impress me as too stupid a guy, and seemed to know a lot of the glib answers most producers seem to have for any questions. ' ' I must say that Seeleg Lester tried very hard , ' said Claude B inyon. ' B ut he w a s no Stefano. S am White worked hard, but he was from the old, three­ reeler Columbia school. They all had their positions in the industry, and performed well . But Ben's concept was to look first at the dollar, then at what we were trying to do. I don't think you should hinder a writer that way; I always say go for it and then try to figure out how to fit it into the budget. ' 'ABC obtruded too much, ' said Lester. 'The money Ben could have used for production was
curtailed. When they flubbed around with the time slot, the show became an orphan. We could not do the things we wanted to do, and it became very frustrating, especially for a producer who can't even control the stories . ' ' Brady and the second season were not aimed in any specific direction, because ABC was unclear as to what they wanted, ' said Gerd Oswald. 'They wanted the first season concept . . . yet they didn't. Although Ben had no real writing background, I recall both of us spending hours going over scripts line by line. He was very active. ' ' At that time, ABC had already instituted a study group to research the effects of programs on the audience, ' said B rady. 'Their success was carefully gauged after many years of this research; it didn't just start when Fred Silverman c limbed aboard. B ased on those surveys, I was interested in reaching the largest possible audience with The Outer Limits, and I think Seeleg was, too. ABC didn't just come over and say, 'Look-you do thi s . ' They can't talk to people of our stature that way. We don't function as automatons, we function by motivation, because we seek objectives. If you're seeking an objective and the research is there, you pursue it. We did whatever we could to avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel to appeal to the masses, but if it's proven they l ike something, you give it to them. If they l ike the Fonz, and you can't stomach the son-of-a-bitch, you stil l write for the Fonz. And week after week, I saw the audience appeal shoot up when we used monsters, and mind you, this was in the first season. AB C wanted the monsters . You don't agree with anyone but your employer, and if you didn't support their position , then I guess you could afford to leave. ' Production on second season episodes for The Outer Limits commenced on June 25 , 1 964 .
' I used to make out Brady' s expense accounts , ' said Brady aide B . Ritchie Payne. 'That was some of the greatest creativt;: writing I've ever done i n my l i fe . '
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S e a s o n Tw o On every series you look at, the production operation knows that out of sixteen episodes, say, four might be good ones. Five, if you're lucky. And most of the rest is run-of-the-m i l l . We know that a l o t o f the episodes w e d i d were not what we would have done, if we'd had more time. But any producer who's honest w i l l tel l you that i f h e has those four good shows that satisfy him . . . then he's in happy-land. -Ben B rady Th e O uter Lim its ' new ' season ' was more properly a half- season of only seventeen episodes. Of these, roughly half were derived from the sort of published science fiction B rady had originally favored as a story source. As had Stefano, Lester talked with science fiction authors who were, ultimately, not used. 'One of my favorites is A . E. Van Vogt, ' he said. 'We had lunch one day, but couldn't come up with a good dramatic story. I'd read some of Theodore Sturgeon's work and found it a little pontifical . I would've loved to have had Richard Matheson. In fact, he called one day on behalf of Charles Beaumont, and said, 'Can you get Beaumont an assignment? I 'll write it if I have to. ' But Beaumont was a horror writer, and what he submitted to us was just not usable. ' Along w i th the reduced budgets came a dimini shed sense of the fantastic . This is not to say that the new members of the production team were inadequate craftsmen, but when compared to the baroque opulence of Frontiere's music, or Hal l ' s camerawork, the equivalent contributions o f a Harry Lubin or a Kenneth Peach naturally sound and look more spare . An alternate perspective on the new season came from Harlan Ell ison, who had not been hired by Stefano, but who had sold scripts to the B rady regime : 'The first season , I thought, was garbage , the usual monster bulls hit. They were doing 'the bear on the beach,' in which you open with a bear on a beach, then you ask how the bear got on the beach. It was a lot of funny rubber masks, and basically silly ideas . Until B rady came in, there were no sc ience fiction writers working for the
show. In the second season , nobody paid any attention to what we were doing-everybody was skimming off the top and nothing was left for production . B ecause there was nothing left to be stolen , we were able to do scripts that were considerably more complex . We were a]]owed to experiment, because after Daystar and Villa di S tefano and everyone else had taken their cuts , nobody had an eye on us, and the ratings were already so low that no one gave a damn. And that's how the best stuff gets on-absolutely by accident. It slips through when no one's looking. ' The Control Voice speeches became part of the individual writers' assignments , although many were appended to finished scripts by Seeleg Lester. In place of the first season' s sometimes overblown moral message s , the new speeches became perfunctory bits of business, maddeningly alike in tone, which opted for pseudo-B iblical profundities and the timeworn sc ience -fiction-as -prophecy angle. On a blind read they are difficult to tell apart, and most of them pound the noble sentiment of Man 's Endless Th irst for Kn owledge into the ground l ike a tent peg. The introductory narration was also given a final pruning. No longer was the viewer required to 'sit quietly and. ' The edited speech used for most of the first season is heard in ' Soldier, ' 'Cold Hands , Warm Heart , ' 'The Invi sible Enemy, ' and ' B ehold Eck ! ' The rest of the second season shows used the final version , which , l ike the budgets , had been cut back to the barest minimum . Th ere
is
nothing
wrong
with
your
television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture . We are con trolling transm ission . For th e next hour, w e will con trol all that you see and hear.
Yo u a re
about to
experience th e awe and mystery wh ich reaches from th e inner m ind to THE
O UTER LIMITS .
COlO HANDS, WARM HrART
C O l D H A N D S , WA R M H E A R T Broadcast 2 6 September 1 9 64 Written by M i lton Kri ms Based on a D a n Ullman script titled 'Project Vu lcan' D i rected by Charles H a a s Assistant Di rector: Robert J u s t m a n D i rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: Brig. Gen. J effe rson B a rton (Wi l l i a m Shatner). Ann B a rton ( G e ra l d i n e Brooks). Gen. M atthew Claiborne ( Lloyd Go u gh ). D r. M i ke ( M a l a c h i Throne). Botany (James B. Sikki n g ) . M e d i c i n e ( D e a n H a rens). Construction ( Lawrence Monta i g n e ) . Electro n i cs ( H e nry Scott). 1 st Reporter ( J u l i e n N . B u rto n ) . 2nd Reporter ( Peter Madsen). Secu rity Chief ( H u g h Jensen). G u a rd ( Lo u E li a s ) . Ste a m Bath Atte n d a nt # 1 (Ray Kellogg). #2 ( Patrick R i l ey). Chairman (Tim H u ntley) Wi l l i a m Shatner emotes .
The most hrilliant planet i n o u r solar system is Venus, named for the goddess of love. It is closer to Earth than any other planet-twenty-eight million miles away. Until sometime in the last half of' the twentieth century it is still a planet shrouded in mystery, enveloped in a heavy hlanket of clouds and steam . Because its sLuface temperature was believed to be several times that of' Earth 's , it was not thought possible for Man to reach Venus and come back . . . until one day, somebody did it.
Project Vulcan is a planet-colonization program designed to culminate in a human settlement on Mars, and astronaut Jeff B arton ach ieves its first v ictory by successfully landing on Venus. Upon returning home he is unable to recall what transpired during a brief radio blackout, but his body temperature drops to ninety-one degrees and he begins to crave heat. When he passes out in a superheated steam room , he flashes back to the Venus mission and has a n ightmarish recollection of a plantl ike denizen of that world, an ethereal creature with glowing eyes, which peered through the porthole in Jeffs ship. He emerges from the steam room w ith scaly forearms and webbed fi ngers , h i s body now adapting to the Ven u s i an cl imate, but he i s determ ined to conceal h i s ongoing mutation until he can ram the remainder of the Project Vulcan package through channel s to the green-light
stage. When he accidentally sets his arms on fire trying to get w arm , h i s friend Dr. Mike alerts NASA specialists, who i solate Jeff in a pressure chamber at 200-plu s degrees and d iscover an extraterrestrial hemoglobin changing his metabolism. They crank up the heat and prolonged exposure exorc i ses the alien influence. B arton presents Project Vulcan to the brass-wearing gloves-and is approved. When he reenters the chamber for another treatment, he sweats-the first sign that his ugly transformation has been reversed. The eternal, never-ceasing search for knowledge often leads to dark and dangerous places . Sometimes it demands risks not only of those who are searching , but of others who love them . These , in their own special way, know that knowledge is never wasted, nor is love.
Dehuman ization is the immediate concern of ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart , ' the first episode fi lmed for the new season. Stol id hero-type Jeff Barton i s so obsessed with Project Vulcan that he sacrifices his own body to it, either ignoring h i s horrendous biological changes or requesting 'a p i l l ' to forestall them . Through at least four redrafts of the teleplay, thi s intelligent kernel idea was smothered in a mediocre and lazily-developed story that i s motionless and uninvolving.
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THf OUHR liMITS COM PAN ION
Ba rton ' s spacecraft enters the orbit of Ven u s .
' It was the first script I bought,' said Seeleg Lester of Dan Ull man's original teleplay. 'The focal point of the astronaut's physiological changes was his need for more heat. Later on, I had to rewrite it; that he became a mon ster w i th talons was j u s t A B C , wanti n g monsters . ' Ullman's story was similar t o early drafts of 'The Mutant,' and the first and heaviest revisions were done by Mi lton Krims, another Perry Mason alumnus brought in by Brady. Lester describes Krims as 'a
rather effete man who shouldn't have been doing science fiction ; he was a different kind of writer. He did every other Perry Mason . But I didn't appreciate his talent. ' Totally at sea with the oddball subject matter, Krims ultimately did what he knew best by condens i n g the script to a question -and-answer procedural, a static , talking-heads drama to which the 'bear' i s awkwardly tacked on. Instead of brilliant courtroom thrusts and parries, the heads were now reciting technological rigmarole, and in 'Cold Hands' we first hear Harry Lubin's hysterical musical ' sting, ' which was often tracked in at the end of an act to artifi c i al l y confer some weight or urgency to the sometimes soporifi c events onscreen . Hoping to speed past production setbacks by surrounding himself with old pal s, B rady brought in Charles Haas, a former Perry Mason director who had done such expl o i tation quickies as The Beat Generation and Platinum High School in the 1 950s. Unlike S am White, Haas got along well with the Outer Limits crew, although h i s episodes are among the least successfu l new ones. Robert Justman, I st AD for thi s and two other Haas shows, noted that, ' Haas was a nice man, but not a good director. ' Lester i nserted into the teleplay the aspect of B arton's private investigation into his own worsening condition. He checks the construction of his capsule for conditions that m i ght have led to h i s 'hallucination' o n Venus, and (in a deleted bit) checks the composition of his space food to see whether he might have gli mpsed something he ate. To his wife, Ann, he deli vers a speech that is supposed to encapsulate his character for u s : BARTON : You married a man, not a headl ine. A man with certain pec u l iarities. Even as a boy, he'd spend hours watching the l eaves fal l from the trees, studying how they fel l . H i s head was always up, looking at the birds. He even made himself a pair of wings and j u mped off the barn ; darn near broke h i s neck. That's how much he wanted to be a bird. So he became a bird . . . started flying higher and higher. August 6th, 1 95 6 , remember? Then one day he broke through the troposphere, into the stratosphere, and right then , for the first time, he understood the purpose of his l i fe. It was to lead the way to new worlds, new l i fe, new knowledge . That's the headline, Ann. That's Proj ect Vulcan.
The Ven u s i a n wafts etherea l ly a rou n d .
2�1
Then, before he can add, 'to boldly go where no man has gone before, ' he's off to the steam room.
COlO HANOS, WARM HrART Aggressively American, B arton finds himself subj ugated from within by an i n s i d i o u s invader who, if Jeff becomes an alien, will prevent the colonization of Mars by guys with the right stuff. Wi l l i am Shatner' s obsessive performance is the show's main point of interest, and one of his last TV roles prior to signing on as Star Trek's Captain K irk. Ironically, h i s fi rst TV space voyage is in furtherance of a project called 'Vulcan , ' after the Roman god of the forge. In earl ier drafts of ' Cold Hands,' it is called Project Colossus. S h atner' s memones of the episode were succinct : ' I remember webbed hands , a kind of excitement and a weird kind of story . . . it was all a strange bent and everybody approached it weirdly. And I remember how wonderful Connie Hall was . ' ! Geraldine Brooks returns to The Outer Limits as the wife of yet another man turning into an alien, but this time ( u n l ike ' Architects of Fear' ) she gets her husband back. Her characterization is limited to a strident and pathological wife l y devotion, culminating in an excruciating speech she makes to the heavens to indicate, ' He loves me better than you ! I'm his best world ! ' Gera l d i n e Brooks, having been widowed in 'Arc h i tects of Fear, ' finds herself m a rried to another The wispy plant creature done guy who turns i n to an a l ien in 'Cold Hands, Wa rm Heart. ' by Project Unlimited was featured came before, all those shows that dealt with the in early commercials for the program's new season extraterrestrial element of our imagination helped us along with clips from ' Soldier, ' ' Keeper of the Purple understand what works and what doesn't . ' Tw il ight, ' and 'Counterweight. ' It was a puppet, ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart' was rightly deemed filmed underwater in some shots, slow-motion in too weak to use as a season opener. Fortunately for others , to impart a dreamy, drifting quality to its Brady, the premiere show of The Outer Limits ' new movements. As a menace, it doesn't stand up to look and season would be ' S oldier, ' an episode that extended scrutiny, and we see far too much of it. The vindicated his theory regarding the use of published ti lting POV shots of outer space seen by B arton as he science fiction . blacks out were from Leslie Stevens' original end-title footage for Please Stand By, sans credits . ' Sc ience fi ction ' attaches' itself to o u r Even 'weirder, ' when you consider that Shatner's sole Outer imagination , ' said Shatner. ' I think w e were all Limits epi sode was shot by Kenneth Peac h . Shatner later worked with Hall and the Daystar crew on Les l i e Stevens' influenced by The Outer Limits , by everything that feature Incubus i n 1 965 ( see Page 3 1 9 ) .
THf OUHR liMITS COMPAN ION
SOlDIER Broad cast 1 9 Septe m b e r 1 9 64 (season p re m i e re ) Writte n by Harlan E l l i s o n Ada pted f r o m h i s s h o rt story. ' S o l d i e r. ' Some materi a l b y Seeleg lester. D i rected by G e rd Oswa ld Assistant D i rector: Wi l l i a m P. Owens Di rector of Photography: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: Qarlo Clobregnny ( M ichael Ansara). To m Ka g a n ( Lloyd Nolanl. Pa u l Ta n n e r (Ti m O'Connor). Abby Ka g a n ( Catherine Macleod). loren Kag a n ( R a l p h H a rt). To n i Kag a n (J i l l H i l l ). Doctor (Ted Sta nhope). The E n e m y (Alan Jaffe ). S g t . Be rry ( M a rlowe J e n s e n ) . O l d N ewsve ndor (Jaime Forsterl. Wo m a n ( M avis N e a l ) . H e l met Vo ices (Vic Perrin and Tim O'Connor) Qarlo (Michael Ansara) smokes ' em ' cos he ' s got ' em -- self-l ig hting cigs, that is, i n 'Soldier. ' (And they ' re m ild. )
Night comes too soon on the battlefield. For some men it comes permanently; their eyes never open to the light of day. But for this man , fighting this WGl; there is never total darkness. The spidery beams of light in the sky are the descendants of the modern laser beam--h e at rays that sear through tungsten steel and f7esh as though they were cheesecloth . And this soldier must go against those weapons. His name is Qarlo , and he is a footsoldier, the ultimate infantryman . Trained from birth by the State , he has never known love, or closeness , or warmth . He is gearedfor only one purpose: to kill the Enemy. And the Enemy waits for him . . .
O n a blasted, radioactive no-man's-land sometime after the year 3000, footsoldier Qarlo C10bregnny meets an enemy infantryman head-on in the middle of a crossfire of death beams. The energy propels both men backward in time to 1 964, with the Enemy stuck halfway between the present and the future . Qarlo's materialization causes immediate urban panic and he i s apprehended after disintegrating a police car with h i s energy rifle. Kagan , a philologist, i s summoned to dec ipher Qarlo's gibberish and realizes the soldier i s speaking permutated Engl ish. He and government l iaison Paul Tanner deduce Qarlo is from the future, and while Tanner runs i nterference against other
15J
agencies eager to get their hands on Qarlo, Kagan patiently establi shes a rapport w i th h i m . K agan convinces Tanner to allow Qarlo to experience ' normal l ife' by moving i n with Kagan's family, but Qarlo, craving his missing weapon , soon breaks into a gun shop and secures a hunting rifle. Kagan talks him out of the shop, without violence, but upon their return home, the Enemy (having successfu lly squirmed through the time warp) flames away Kagan's living room wall and attacks. Qarlo rushes him, the Enemy's rifle discharges , and both men of the future are v aporized. From the darkest of all pits , the soul of Man , come the darkest questions: Did the soldierfinally come to care for those he protected? Or was it just his instinct to kill ? Questions from the dark pit. But no answers. For answers lie in the future . Is it a future in which men are machines, born to kill, or is there timefor us ? Time. A ll the time in the world . . . but is that enough ?
When editor Hans S tefan S antesson bought ' S oldier' for the October, 1 95 7 , i ssue of Fantastic Universe S c i ence Fiction, he paid writer Harlan E l l ison $9 1 . Published as ' Soldier From Tomorrow, ' the tale dealt with a footsoldier of approximately eleven hundred years hence who i s accidental ly time­ warped from the thick of a skirm i sh with his ' Ruskie­ Chink' enemies to the present. Those who di scover
SOlOlfR him eventually put him behind a podium to outline the horrors of future warfare in gruesome detail , hoping this information might deter humankind from what seems an inevitable path to destruction. Qarlo's anti­ war lecture is actual1y included in one early draft of the teleplay (which describes him as looking ' as much out of place in a suit and tie as Mr C lean in a tuxedo ' ) . For adapting the story for The Outer Limits, Ellison was paid $5 000. ' Soldier' was his first-ever science fiction teleplay. After selling a story to Route 66 in 1 962, he had broken into scriptwriting doing episodes of Ripcord and Burke 's Law. 'I remember going into the Villa di Stefano offices and reall y pitching m y heart out , ' said Ellison. ' I wanted t o do The Outer Limits badly, because Twilight Zone was a goner at that point. ' I n Ellison's first draft teleplay, Qarlo materializes on a New York subway station platform and i s subdued by the pounding noise of an arriving train. He is tossed into a bul1pen full of winos and derelicts, at their mercy without his sound-baffled helmet. A goofy cop named Zimmerman inadvertently vaporizes a wall of the precinct house while toying with Qarlo's rifle , and a professor named Charney manages to come up with a way to return Qarlo to the future, in the classic tradition of scientific-sounding doubletalk : CHARNEY: We've been experimenting with the cross-polarization of laser beams . . . By utilizing the correct vector of a positively-charged and a negatively-charged laser beam with the correct refractive index of each, we can pinpoint h i m into any year we choose. It m a y be a s soon a s a week, or as much as a year. We have six thousand to the tenth power combinations of refractive index to rotate. But one of them w i l l prove out. We're certain.
Qarlo also experiences a mild attraction for Kagan's daughter, Toni : QARLO (suspiciously ) : What d o you want from me? TONI: What do I want from you? Oh, brother, how it saddens me to know men haven't changed a bit, even eighteen hundred years from now. QARLO: You're'a one more danger to me than Kagan. What do you want from me? TON I : Don't you trust anyone? Can't you even see we're trying to help you? Didn't you ever want to get near someone, to talk to someone? QARLO : That isn't possible. We can't c lose to each other; anyone can't. Thinkspeek comes best, not to touch.
Qarlo a n d T h e E n e m y (Alan Jaffe) g e t c a u g h t i n t h e crossfi re .
TON I : You don't know what you're missing, friend. And I thought this was the worst of all possible worlds, because nations can't get together. What a lousy, lonely life you must lead. QARLO : That's my world. It's fi ne.
In the treatment, she gives Qarlo his first kiss. The Enemy also has a lot more to do after breaking free of the time-lock. He marauds about the countryside, obliterating a plane in flight and blasting a radio tower to slag (because it interferes with the homing signal on Qarlo), wiping out an old man in the control shack. When he tracks Qarlo to Kagan's home, Qarlo reverts. 'His face becomes something terribly alien , ' the script notes. 'He is the ultimate killer now, as he was when we first saw him . The softness that has been in his face for most of the last scenes is gone. He BELLOWS IN FURY. ' He hurls a steaming pot of coffee, which the Enemy picks off while Qarlo runs the length of the dining-room table and springs. He strangles the Enemy and a spurt from the energy rifle kills but does not disintegrate him . All is silent, save for the Enemy's helmet on the floor: 'Kill . . . kill . . . kill . . . ' 'Ellison got as close as a TV writer can get to having complete control over his material , ' said B rady. 'He was truculent, and extremely difficult; he vanished all the time. It took him weeks and weeks to del iver a script, but once we got it, it would be pretty goddamned exciting. If we wanted to change it, he'd be dying to do it, and what are you going to do with such a talented writer-let someone else screw around with the dialogue?'
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TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION The second draft teleplay dispenses with most of the one-shot or superfluous characters , and makes the most of a calculatedly small number of speci al effect shot s . The flood of back ground on . Qarlo i s condensed, and the Kagan famIly recedes i n importance. At the end of thi s draft, Qarlo and the Enemy zap out of exi stence. I S ince most of Qarl o ' s i nterac t i o n w i th Kagan ' s fam i l y was removed from Act Four by Seeleg Lester, who substituted the scene where Qarlo robs the gun shop, the 'questions from the dark l? it' asked by the Control Voice became somethmg of a non sequitur. ' H arlan could pitch the ideas , but he couldn't get the script in on time , ' said Lester. ' He thought the concept of ' Soldier' was novel and earth­ shattering, and the whole thing was just about thi s guy who becomes an automaton and �ollows orders . The production company was entItled to one rewrite . If we wanted any more , we'd have to pay Harlan some more, and when I turned in the second draft, Ben would have shot me if I'd called Harlan back. It still needed work ! ' Lester inserted the gun shop scene to try and impart a sense of action, the l ack of which had j u st murde :ed ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart . ' B ut the assumption Qarlo would know how to operate a conventional rifle i s a much larger leap o f logic than expecting a modern-day pol iceman to know how to work a fl intlock. Further, a cop notes that Qarlo ' went right through a steel door l ike it wasn't there '-a pretty spectacular feat, considering he doesn't have h i s d i s i ntegrator. And if he ripped the door off with his bare hands, why didn't he do l ikewise
Qarlo i n d u lges i n some celestia l ca rtog ra phy for Kagan's benefit.
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Ta n ner (Ti m O'Con nor) a n d Kaga n (Lloyd Nolan) watch Qarlo through the cei l i ng of the padded cel l .
to t h e door of the padded cel l? Finally, the entire digressive scene moves the story nowhere, since . Qarlo is scooped up before any V iolence occurs . ' I n TV they don't understand subtleties of character, ' said Elli son . ' When a script runs long, or has production problem s , the first th ings cut are the scenes that deepen characterization. Those changes tore the gut out o f that s � ow. T� at' s why, . for me, it's a less attractIve or mterestmg show than 'Demon With a Glass Hand. ' One of the things that p i s sed me off was Qarlo ' s serial number, which for some inexpl icable reason was changed to serial letters , which is stupid. You can't have an army with serial letters because there are fewer c o m b i n at i o n s , but they d i d that because they thought they were being very . modern , very futuri sti c . And I had nothI �� to say about it, because by then I was off wntmg 'Demon . ' ' Michael Ansara's performance a s Qarlo i s startling . His mien i s h � lting, predato �y; he . reflects a volatile confusIOn of fear, cunosIty, and barely tethered v i olence that m �ke � each of Kagan ' s attempts at communi cation a scene of touch-and-go tension . ' I have a lot of fan s who sti l l love that show and th ink it's one of the better episodes of Th e Outer Limits , ' Ansara recal led. 'Not because I'm in it but because it was well-written , well done a� d very unusual . . . ! still get fan letters from that . ' 'Michael and I go a long way back, to when he was playing Cochi se on B roken
SOlOlfR A rrow , '
said C laude B inyon (in fact, Qarlo's ' Enemy ' was played by Alan Jaffe , who was Ansara's stand- i n and stunt double on Broken A rrow) . ' ' Soldier' was a good show. It's the old samurai story, with a time warp . ' The rest of the cast, unfortunately, is not up to the level of Ansara's singular work. Kagan's family, edited down to a few lines per member, is plain and forgettab l e . As Tanner, Tim O'Connor has a few sharp, snappy l in e s , but fai l s to characterize beyond them. The casting of feature actor Lloyd Nolan was an attempt to emulate the ' star casting ' seen in the first season, and the $5 000 paid to Nolan was more than any other actor received for a single O u ter Limits episode (with the exception of Cliff Robertson, for the first season pilot) . As Kagan, Nolan is dunning and monotonou s , and shouts most of his lines without inflection because he is working from cue cards. ' H i s l ines sound stilted because he' s reading them , ' said Ellison. ' H e was deaf. And n o one knew it. ' 'Lloyd Nolan was a big star when I was a kid, ' said Ansara. ' (He) was terrific to work with. He was very hard of hearing, but he had one of those hearing aids that '------' was set in the ear so you couldn't Michael Ansara I S Qarlo see it. ' Gerd O s wald ' s direction i s taut, and the visual gimmicks a s abundant a s The O u ter Limits' new parameters allowed. The scene in which the Enemy burns down Kagan's living room wall from the outside is a real show-stopper. To create Qarlo's ' w ar zone , ' the Paramount Sun set stage was converted into a fogbound valley of skeletal trees and battle debris . ' It was gigantic; the size of three stages put together, ' said Oswald. ' We had a sky cyclorama running all the way around it, and a horizon l ine of mountains in front of that, in diminished perspective . We filled it up w ith the fog machine. It was a no-man's-land, very flexible and changing, to contrast with Kagan ' s family l ife, which w a s very stable, as opposed t o the uncertainties o f the future world. It w a s open and dark, and I wanted to contrast that with the
C lobreg n ny !
(Cou rtesy Gary Gero n i a n d Foto Fa ntasies)
blinding brightness of Qarlo's closed-in padded cell. ' ' Today you'd say it's archaic and old,' said Ansara. ' With the new computer stuff, you could reall y do something with a set l ike that. B ut it was still good for the period-it was inspiring ! ' Oswald added, ' We did the hall way shot (as Qarlo leaves with Kagan for home) right there in the studio corridor-yo u c an see S u n set B oulevard through the open door at the end. The gun shop sequence we shot on the actual Paramount lot, on New York Street. ' S o ldier' i s my favorite second season episode . ' I t is also the only show besides 'Tourist Attraction ' to use the Control Voice as a narrative l i nking dev i c e , when the Enemy is trapped
THf OUHR liM ITS m M PANION
H'R, '�
SHOO,TlNG SCRIPT REVIEW
,A�erican, Broadcasting Company CONTINUIT'( ACCEPTANCE
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WESTERN DIVISION
. , Dorothy'Brown, Dire<:toc
H O L LYWO O D
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' Messrs stevei:lBj Brad1', te.ter
. PItOGRAM TlTI.... E_-'O:.:O:.:: l'= ER. ::::.LlMIT ..,: S --_-'--_
SHOOTUNG DATE u� '�
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EPISODE TITLL I!.
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. The above indicated shooting script, ,received this d ate, has been revi�wed by ABC Continuity Acceptance. The followin g commentS are made in conform�ce with cur ren t A BC and NAB prog ram an d advertising , policies. . .
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Kindly forward such ,�evisi�ns ' as ar� necessary and please nO.le that written approval for revised pages not be fortbcoming imless ' ihe new pages contain material unacceptable to ABC Continuity Acceptance.
will .
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review is applicable only to . the shooting script � submitted; A separate . issued �poo vie�ing the film. Kindly advise m.e at such time as this epIsode is
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first trta! scr.eemng.
COM..Mfu'ITS
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script. t.he -radiation burna that mar hi. faew· must not. be too repulsive • .' Pl.ge 5. '0 2.3- As you �!lre advised in the OUTLINE REV:IEW - keep t.:.8 screams to a iiin1nn:m in d .b . through-out the entire epiaoda • . Page 8, se .35- Delete the .directions re.ferring to ·a toilet with no seat ' . Pago 9, 8C 36- DERELICTS -. keep smo ldng t o mi nimum necessary' £ or stoI7 purposes . GIRI.I& . MAGAZINES mhst be acceptable graphic ally - with fictitious titlas . 00 43- deletG or 8ubstitut3 for ·change your underwear- � Paga 1 0, so 43- Re-vrite the llne II . . . that. l2.e.e:p=bcep ld..ocl ' . Page 1 1 ��0 4� 1 st COP ' s line ' • • • assassinate one o f the candida�sJ w e got electior � . .' coming soon, Y ' ��nowll is untimely'• . Pl·sase substitute . Page 1.3, s051 - Usual caution �6 use of 1dentifipJble cammcr� airl10ea steck tootago. Page '24, se 66-PICTURE BOOK - US9 !1ctitioua title . ._ . Page 25, sc 67-De1ete IID8lIIQ1I � and 'Dammit ll • ( If' d amm e eooo, pp 17 80 57 - 11l damn YPll, - D.lSLET& Page 29, Be 73-No commercial wand ot gum package. Page .32, 80 77-Delet& 'helluva· . Page 41 . so S2:..The 'oamp follower - .Toy-girlft is good - but unacoeptable • . Page SO,. so91 -Since the death of the OLD MAll 10 not a gtoI7 point - let hlJlI. fall as His ;ieath .. result of 80methl.ng hitting hlm - fainting - fright. - etc . . . 1s not necessary. at him - pleaso perf� ]Sie S5� 8c99- Bleeding - deep furrowe wh ere claws have ripped . . this in your usual good taste . Page 63' 8c1.1 6-QARW ' s death - scream - ,advise your dubbing edito:'1l to keep this down in d . b w'ilg(; 1,
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On yo ur U8e of the ' FB I - ot!l.er than the phone cal:.. in 80 48, 1'01 do as being a.n FBI agent. Please keep it thi8 W'8:3' as i'urthe7 1de�ti1'.1.cat.ion lIQuld require :.&'»1 clearsnce�
1dent1f7 anyone O¢I
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lc::luu;c.n, lIellvdl. Gsmson, ' fU.
ABC Sta n d a rds & Practices advisement memo re: ' Soldier. ' F rom the persona l files of the a uthor, H a r l a n E l l ison . (U sed by a rra ngement with, and permission of the a uthor and the K i l i m a n j a ro Corporation)
SOlOlfR Above : O o r l o confabs with Macbeth the cot (R) wh i l e the Koga n brood looks on (from left) : Lloyd Nolan, Catheri ne Mac leod , J i l l H i l l , R o l p h H a rt. Below: Oarlo ' s futu ristic wri stwatc h .
halfway through the time vortex : Time is fluid. The waters offorever close - and passage may not be completed. The present and the future are for a moment un ited. And the Enemy, half­ today, half- tomorrow, is locked between . . . Qarlo's peculiar helmet was stashed in the prop closet at Paramount for a decade or so, then resurfaced as Robin Williams' alien headgear on Mork and Mindy. ' ( The Outer Limits) was considered a very intellectual , very intelligent serie s , ' said Michael Ansara, ' and this was a good show to do. I loved doing it . ' While ' S oldier' ' s c limax i s dynamic and effective, the final image of Ellison's earlier draft is quietly unsettling. As the two corpses lie on Kagan's living room floor covered by body tarps, the camera closes in on Qarlo's shrouded form : CAMERA HAS COME D O WN to an EXTREME CLOSEUP of Qarlo 's hand. It is a fist. Even in death , he is ready to fight.
I nterested readers may exami ne this draft alongside the original story text i n the E l lison collection, From t h e L a n d of Fear ( B e lmont, 1 96 7 ) .
Top : T h e Enemy (Al a n Joffe) bla sts through i n to the Kogan living roo m . Below: O a r l o a n d t h e E n e m y cease t o exist.
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
THf INVISIBlf fNfMY Broadcast 31 Octo b e r 1 964 Writte n by J erry Sohl Based o n h i s s h o rt sto ry, 'The I n v i s i b l e Enemy .' Alternate title: 'The Ye llow Sand .' Some material by Byron Haskin, Seeleg Lester, and Ben B rady D i rected by Byron Haskin Assistant D i recto r: Robert Justman D i rector of Photogra phy: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: Maj. C h a rles ' Lucky' M erritt (Adam West). Ca pt. Jack Buckley ( R udy Solari). Capt. Paul Lazzari ( Peter M a rko). Capt. Fra n k Johnson ( R o be rt DoQu i ) . G e n . Winston (Joe M a ross). Capt. Fred Thomas ( M ike M i kler), Col. H a l Da nvers (Chris Alca ide). M r Jerome (Ted K n i g ht). Lt. James Bowman (Anthony Coste l l o ) . Tec h n i c i a n (James Ta rtan). Ma j . Merritt (Ad a m West) comes face-to-snout with one of those Martian sandsharks.
In the vast immensities of cosmic space, bold adventurers streak their way to join battle with strange enemies on strange worlds-the alien , the unknown , perhaps even the invisible , armed only with Man 's earthbound knowledge . . . The four-man M-2 probe lands successfully on Mars with a m i s sion to uncover the fate that befell the two men aboard the M - 1 , three years earlier. According to monitor tapes , they were gobbled up by an unknown antagonist shortly after venturing out of their spacecraft, and back on Earth a twilight computer nicknamed 'Ti l l i e ' suggests, based on the evidence, that a ghost got them ! The first M-2 man to investigate the M- l wreckage, Lazzari , vanishes with a scream within minutes of landing; now the computer rather more intelligently opines that the Martian killer i s invis ible. During a more cautiously-mounted sortie, Capt. B uckley discovers diamonds l ittering the landscape, and his excitement causes him to momentarily lose s ight of h i s spotter, Capt. Johnson, who quickly becomes v ictim number four. When Buckley later sneaks out to collect more diamonds, he learns that the ' in v i s ible ' enemy is an enormous dragon that emerges from beneath the Marti an surface : ' Living i n the sand
like a shark in the ocean ! ' M i s s ion commander Merritt, the only other M - 2 crewman left, doggedly tries to drag B uckley back to the ship, but instead gets marooned on a rock escarpment in the middle of the sand-sea, with the 'tide' rising and a hungry monster nearby. Using a blood­ soaked garrison belt as a lure, B uckley fakes the creature out, and Merritt runs to safety while B uckley obliterates the dragon w ith a nuclear­ tipped bazooka shell . S i x more very miffed creature s poke up thei r head s , roaring, but B uckley and Merritt make it back to the M-2 intact. . . and w ith a substantial haul of gemstones . Battle joined. Casua lties ? Yes . Resolution : Victory, of a sort. A painful step Fom the crib of destiny. On another day, a Fiend, perhaps , instead of a deadly peril-part of the saga of the space pzoneers . Perhaps the best example o f h o w B e n Brady's story-to-telefilm edict did not work, and in sharp contrast to the successfu l rendering of ' Soldier, ' was ' The Inv i s ible Enemy, ' based on a story by Twilight Zone scenarist Jerry Sohl . 'There was nothing to i t , ' said B yron Haskin , who directed the show as his first assignment of the second season. ' They handed me thi s dog with no cast
THf INVISIBlf fNfMY
Ma i . Merritt receives data slips from C a pt. Lazza ri (Peter Ma rko) .
inside a forcefield, the ship's computer suggests ' invisible bird s ' are responsible. Twenty-nine more men are killed and a lone survivor, Lazzari , i s found in the desert. The final transmission from h i s unit: 'No ! No ! They're coming out of the ground ! ' Lazzari kills himself by bashing his brain s out against a bulkhead, and the remaining crewmen gather to give h i m a military burial . The computer advises against it-Lazzari ' s corpse is bloody, and blood i s what seems to provoke each attack . A l l i s o n , a c i v i l i an c omputer expert, protests and is locked into the Nesbitt by Warrick, the stiff- starched m ission commander. Allison watches helplessly as the entire funeral party i s eaten by ' l arge, heavy, porpoise-l ike creatures
and no script, just lousy. Of course we had to shoot it; they had it on the schedule, and it was coming l ike a railroad train down the track, and you've gotta get out there, start firing, and do the fucking thing in four day s . God ! ' ' It was Ja ws, actually, on Mars , ' said Sohl. ' B ut the way it came off on Oute r Lim its was ludicrous because you saw the monster right off the bat. In the story, you didn't know what was killing those people until the very end. ' As published i n the September, 1 95 5 issue of Imag inative ' Tales , 'The Invisible Enemy ' takes place on the fourth planet of a faraway star, where the 50-man warship Nesb itt touches down to investigate a string of van ished vessel s . After a ten-man expeditionary force i s consumed from Buckley (Rudy Solari) on the fu l l sized Martia n sand·shore set.
Capt. Johnson (Robert DoQ ui) on shark watc h .
. . . swimming Up out of the sand as if it were water. ' S ohl delivered a completed first draft on May 1 1 th , 1 964 . 'There are two ways to maintain m y s tery and s uspense , ' noted S eeleg Lester. ' One i s to have an 'open' story, where the situation is already known and you, the audience, come along to see how it works out. The 'closed' story shows you things happening which you do not understand, which you have to examine and figure out, like a puzzle. What ABC and B rady said to me was to change 'The Invisible Enemy' to an 'open' story. ' Also, the monster did not appear soon enough to please the network, so Lester embarked on his first rewrite of the script. 'I set up an absolute cover for every action that took
TH[ OUHR liMITS COMPAN ION
Gene Wa rren, Wa h C h a n g and Ti m Baar (L-R) review a prod uction pa i nting for the Martia n sa nd-sea a t Proi ect U n l i m ited . (All photos on this poge cou rtesy Bob Bu rns)
place, ' he said. ' I had cameras going all the time, and still they couldn't figure out what was making the crewmen disappear. ' ' Lester tried to get me to write a script incorporating the camera i n scenes underneath the sands of Mars , ' said Sohl. 'We wasted a lot of time over that. ' At the end of Sohl's draft, General Winston delivers a windy and stoically noble speech to the survivors of the mission :
GEN. WINSTON: I feel the loss of li fe i s what we have to pay for progress; therefore, I ask you not to grieve for the men you knew so wel l . . .the two who died to make possible new horizons and new worlds. Be proud for them i nstead. The nation and the world is proud of you. Good-bye.
' Eventually, ' said B en B rady, ' the script was passed around to the point where it became manhandled . It was not good and needed a lot of extra penc i l work. Even I wrote some of it, which was the last thing I wanted to do . ' He rewrote the final act into what he termed 'a calm fourth quarter, ' then turned the script over to B yron Haskin. ' Haskin saved what c o u l d be salvaged. ' ' Th e script w a s bad beyond reas o n , ' c o untered B yron Haski n . ' Totally without cohesion. I f I ' d gone ahead and directed it as originally written, the show would not have been aired. I had to sit up all night and rewrite i t . After 28 hours at the typewriter, I tore it apart and brought it up to a fi ne mediocre . Only a disorganized production team could let something so terrible survive long enough to warrant a full production j ob . ' A diver/sa ndshark operator prepa res to s u bmerge on the ta n k set at Proiects, assi sted by Just why the sand- sharks cannot a tec h n i c i a n and a th i rd u n i d entified helper in the fa r background, blowing smoke. N ote pluck Merritt off his tiny spur of rock the sandshark pu ppet in lower right of fra m e . A wider view of th i s setup can be seen on is never clear, especially when we've Page 1 5 8 .
THf INVISIBlf fNfMY already seen the creature's elongated crab claws and the torn-apart shell of the M-l. The monster roars constantl y (the same sound effect used in 'The Invisibles ' ) , yet i s never heard on the radios monitoring the men as they die . The final draft e l i m inates the S o h l/Lester idea of remote cameras, which would have saved the M-2 crew a lot of grief. In Sohl's script the sand is exactly like the ocean, with an abundance of other life forms and flora; in the fil m we wonder what the creatures must eat normally, since they are so responsive to human blood and there is nothing else around except for rocks , sand, and diamonds . S ince the sandshark was added in postproduction, Haskin w a s frustrated n o t only as a director, but as an effects technician : 'I never shot anything that approximated the effect they put in later, beyond my contro l . You had to have a picture of what the different elements would look l ike, otherwise it ended it looking l ike shit ! ' ' It was probabl y the most challenging effect we did for The Outer Limits , ' said Gene Warren , speaking of t h e ' s an d ocean ' built both i n miniature and a s a full-sized set. At Project Unlimited, finely-ground cork was spread atop a tankful of water five feet deep . During the first tests, Wah Chang's hand-puppet sandshark head was manipulated from beneath the surface by Paul Pattee , who maneuvered according to a code tapped out on the side of the tank by Tim B aar. ' You want to know what Pau l ' s 'scuba suit' consi sted of? ' l aughed Paul LeB aro n . ' We hooked a tube into the air compressor of a spray gun and fed him oxygen through a paint-gun hose ! ' (Real diving equipment was brought in for the actual shoot. ) Mattes and rear proj ection imparted enormous size to the monsters when they were 'married' to the footage of actors on the ful l -sized Martian set (similar to the set used in 'Moonstone ' ) l aid out on a 6500-square foot stage at Paramount. ' One of the biggest (miniature) sets we ever had was that sand-ocean, ' said Warren . The problematic script and special effects combined to push ' The Invisible Enemy' into an unusually long post-production--cost-wise, the show is the 'Tourist Attraction' of the second season. Principal photography had been completed in July, but the miniature sand-shark footage was not shot until S eptember, at which time a man named B ob B um s showed up at
Th ree u l tra-rare vi ews of t h e sandshark i n a c t i o n on t h e m i n iature set d u r i n g shooti n g . The bowls in the background are fu l l of g round cork to replen i s h the su rface. (Cou rtesy Bob Burnsl
TH[ OUHR liM ITS COM PAN ION
' B uckley, get back to you r veh i c l e ! ' Ada m West confronts tense p u p pet danger.
Project Unl imited to film the faci lity for a proposed short documentary feature on local Los Angeles TV. The short was never produced, but the 1 6- m i l l i meter footage shot under B u rn s ' superv ision featured the Projects crew a t work on the effects for both ' The Invi s ible Enemy ' and ' Wolf 3 5 9 , ' and is the source for many of the Projects shots featured in this book. I To depict the M-2 landing near the M-I wreck, the opening shot of the 1 95 8 thriller It! The Terror From B eyond Space was spliced in. Coincidentally, It! also deals with a murderous Martian monster, and was shot by Kenneth Peach. Haskin later used Adam West in one of his last features , Robinson Crusoe on Mars, i n 1 964. ' He was an adequate actor capable of small role s , ' said Haskin . ' It w a s the supporting cast on 'Enemy' that was poorly chosen-that was often the case during the second season show s . ' West i s amusing a s a weary space-dog for whom this new frontier is mostly a bore, and Rudy Solari injects some smart-as sed verve into his part as B uckley (he i s strongly reminiscent of Chino Rivera in 'The Mice ' ) . Otherwise, we have another group of duty-bound space dogfaces thrilling us with their rigid, procedural approach to conquering the frontiers of space. The M-2 computer spits out little receipts detailing atmospheric data, which Buckley slaps into Merritt's waiting hand l ike a nurse smacking tongs into a doctor's grasp during
263
surgery. Winston and Danvers are t w o o f the most unappealing bulldogs ever devi sed for The Outer Limits ; all the orders they bark toward Mars are e i ther excruiciatingly obviou s , redundant, or ignored. A very superficial examination of men of different ranks caught in crisis and inviting court­ martial is lost because it comes from officers who are not even talking head s-merely talking uniforms . B u t nothing cripples a show so much a s the producer, story editor, director, and writer all hating it. ' We tried to make that show attracti � e , ' said Brady. ' B ut i t came o u t all wrong; w e J ust couldn't lick it. ' Haskin maintained, 'It wouldn't have mattered if you'd've put the goddamned invasion of Normandy in it-it was stiLL a dog ! ' ' The 'inv i s ible enemy' was not so invisible , and so the suspense was shot right off' said Sohl. ' O n the other hand, people tell me it was a good show, so who can tell? Lester thought the fault was mine, and told me that while he'd buy more stories from me, they did not want me writing the scripts . I have nothing against any of the people on the show-on l y that they exhibited the syndrome so many TV people do when they d i scover s c i ence fiction : They think i t ' s an invention of their own and don't pay attention to what anyone who has followed it over the years can tell them. If The Outer Limits stirs the imagination of youngsters the way Science and Invention boggled their minds back in the 1 920s, then it i s certainly a positive thing, even though we might carp about how it was put together. ' The very next show on the production schedule was based on another S ohl story. ' What surprised the hell out of m e , ' said Lester, ' was that Jerry wrote a book called The Lemon Eaters which I read and l iked, after we did The Outer Limits. It was much, much better written than the teleplay he did for us . '
I
Bob B urns' partnership w i th another famous low-budget s p e c i a l e ffects i n n o v ator, Paul B l ai s de l l , is adequately chronicled i n Paul B laisdell, Monster Maker by Randy Palmer ( McFarland, 1 997 ) . In fact, B urns h imself assi sted B laisdell on the set of I t ' The Terror From B eyond Space, constantly re­ gluing Ray ' Crash' Corrigan back into h i s i l l -fitted Martian costume. B urns' own astonishing collection of monster movie artifacts and memorab i l i a i s the subject of a series of Sci-Fi Channel documentary shorts titled Bob 's Basement.
COUNHRWflGHT
COUNTfRWflGHl Broadcast 2 6 December 1 9 64 Written by M i lton Krims Based o n the s h o rt story by J e rry Sohl D i rected by Paul Sta nley Assistant D i rector: William P. Owens D i rector of Photography: Kenn eth Peach CAST: Joe Dix ( M ichael Constantine), D r Alicia H e n d rix (Jacq u e l i n e Scott), Keith E l l i s ( La rry Wa rd), M i chael Lint ( C h a rles R a d i l ac), Margaret O ' H a ra [stewa rdess] ( S h a ry M a rs h a l l ) , Dr Matthew James (Cra h a n Denton), Ca pt. H a rvey Branson (Ste phen Joyce), Prof. Henry Craif (Sandy Ke nyon), Anth eon Vo ice a n d S u rface Control Vo ice ( R o b e rt J o h n s o n ) .
An Antheon a l ien ' s idea of a pretty sca ry plant creature (the fu l l-sized maquette used on-set during shooti ng) .
The great unknown : Limitless heavens crowded with sparking mysteries . challenging Man 's curiosity. But the h eavens are not oceans. Man cannot push a boat into its currents and set sail for the next horizon . The heavens are a mystery only science can solve . as it penetrates the unknown .
Weblor One is a 26 1 -day colonization flight to a planet cal led Antheon , and to prove themselves constitutionall y capable o f making the trip, s i x candidates must endure a simulation run, l ocked up inside a spaceship mockup that travels the length of a desert tunnel-without pressing the 'panic button' that ends the test and disqual ifies them for the first of the actual interp lanetary voyages. Various weird occurrences, from meteor storms to physical attacks, are presumed staged by the ship's crew, but some of the m ishaps are overseen by a stowaway smear of l ight that works to turn the passeng::rs against one another. Prof. Craif, an ecologist, reveals that he engineered some of the crises from a control panel secreted by his bunk, but says some of the other ominous happenings were totall y unplanned. Frightened, he
goes for the panic button, but is prevented from pushing it by l oudmouthed engineer Joe Dix , who stands to make m i l lions off construction contracts on Antheon. The li ght occupies a plant specimen brought aboard by botanist M ichael Lint, turning it into a human-sized monster that warns the self-destructive humans away from Antheon : ' You' l l destroy us, too, if we let you. We w i l l not allow thi s . ' Then i t forces Dix himself t o press the panic button. Panic button pressed. Passengers returned. One side always in the sunlight. the other a lways in darkn ess ; the known and the unknown . Frightening to each other only when they are both unknown . . . and misunderstood. 'Sure , I 'm a Nilly, and I 've died seven times . . . ' First published in the November, 1 959 issue of Worlds of If, Jerry Sohl's ' Counterweight' traces the activities of Harrel Critten, a ' N i l l y '-a scapegoat placed intentionally aboard a long-term space colony fl ight. 'It was my job . ' Critten says, ' to see [the passengers] directed none of their
A forked tongue of m a levolent a l ien l i g h t, on the prowl .
L�4
TH f OUHR liM ITS �OM PANION venom against each other o r the crew, only toward me . ' Known t o the passengers and crew only a s a n interloper called Red Mask, he maintains an atmosphere of terrorism that keeps the cooped-up colonists from killing each other. 'We are a theme, with variations, in the endless stretches of deep space , objects of hatred and -contempt, professional heels , dying once a trip when the time is ripe, antidote to boredom , and we 'll ply our trade , our little tragedies, on a thousand ships bringing humanity to new worlds . ' ' I l iked the idea of it being a test flight , ' said Seeleg Lester, 'and the v iewer not knowing, until afterward, Jhat they were sti l l on Earth . But I would've held that back, used it as the cl imax. I nstead of exp.Loring that concept, Milton Krims went off into a stupid mystery . . . ' Like the Empyrian delving into the psyches of his abducted passengers i n 'Second Chance ' (also direcl�d by
Dr. Lint (Cha rles Radi lac) tends his plants.
Paul Stanley ), the Antheon being extracts simi lar skeletons from the mental closets of the Weblor One partic ipants, and late in the fi nal act it cuts loose a speech reminiscent of the al iens heard in the first season . Progressive or i nteresting ideas crop up in the teleplay, such as the 'hook' of isolation training and the passing mention made of ecology (who else was talking about that on TV in 1 964 ? ) , but they are either dropped or developed too languidly to impact the plot with any force. As a result, 'Counterweight' is barren , talky, and i l logical . The inner fears or doubts of the passengers are terribly obscure, except for A l icia Hendrix's frustrated sexual ity, which is too forced and obvious. The script describes her necklace-twirling change of face as being 'like Shirley MacLaine in IRMA LA DO UCE . . . more like Mae West. ' When she spi l l s such glop as, ' I must work to forget the children I've never borne,' the only surprise is that no one tries to strangle her. The panic button, the psychological
Joe Dix (Michael Consta nti ne) plays it coo l . Space stewa rdess Miss O ' H a ra (Shary Mars h a l l , BG) rema i n s u n i m pressed .
fallback of the story, seems none too scientific, since it di squalifies the whole compliment of passengers regardless of who pushes it or why. The closing Control Voice speech makes no sense whatsoever. With the isolation training/simulation run angle laid bare upfront, and the plot twist of one of the passengers being a ' ringer' reduced to a background detail , Krims' ' mystery ' consists of waiting through three long acts to find out what the alien light-ball is up to. The only performances providing rel ief from this tedium are M ichael Constantine's loudmouthed and abrasive Joe Dix (who steal s the show from his catatonic fellow guinea pigs), and Larry Ward's predictably cynical reporter, who only deal s with the ho­ hum facts (and establ i shes a lesser confl ict, with Dix, of inte l l ectual versus bl ue-col l ar). Dix fanc ies h i m self a pioneer, a survivor. ' I n this movie, we're the heroes,' he says. ' We know it ain't real . What do we gotta be scared
.
A l i c i a Hendrix Uacquel i n e Scott) d i sports herself before E l l i s ( La rry Wa rd) , D i x , a n d C r a i f (Sandy Kenyon) .
COUNHRWflGHT of? ' He has a c lever speech deal ing with belief in such 'movies ' as unreal ity: DIX: Look, nobody's gonna push that button unless they blow their top, right? This whole deal , for real , is j ust l ike a movie, see? Now, you take the hero-everybody's out to k i l l h im-the bad guys, the floods, blizzards. Even in those kooky horror p icture s , the most awfu l mon sters . They're all after his blood or something. But i s the hero scared? No. Why? 'Cos he knows it ain't for real !
,. '
Dix's talk of monsters is presumably where the Antheon creature gets the inspiration to turn into something that would appeal to ABC in ' bear' term s . Of the fanged, glowi ng-eyed plant bogey that addresses the passengers in Robert Johnson's voice, Gene Warren said, ' We had a ful l ­ scale one about six feet tal l , motivated by wires, and a small model that Jim Danforth had to animate . ' The brief shots of the plant uprooting and kill ing another plant, and crawl ing out onto the floor of the ship, were The Outer Limits ' first use of stop-motion animation since 'The Zanti Misfits . ' 'The plant creature was n o t my design,' asserted Danforth. ' And it's quite difficult to animate a puppet you don't find aesthetically pleasing, espec ial l y when you must concentrate on it for hours at a time . ' First AD Wi ll iam P. Owens recalled that 'the larger plant creature was pul led on wires , ' and Claude B inyon said that the whirling l ight pattern denoting the presence of the creature ' was j ust a matte B il l Hansard cut out and moved around the stage in front of a l ight source . ' The spaceship set resembles a c l umsy compromise between a commercial jetliner and a trailer park's central meeting room (compare it, for example, to the similarly­ intended set used in 'Second Chance' ) . Great pains are taken to inject science fiction gimmicks to the prosaic story, but they remain appendages-just l ike the monster. There's even an encore of the go-nowhere meteor shower crisis from 'Second Chance . ' The restriction of storage area compels the group to eat bland paste from tubes, with the proper aroma supplied by a selection of spraycans, yet these Space Age m,eal s are served on a conventional dining room table with a fu ll china service. The book and music libraries are too conventional and cumbersome for a ship that can only afford six passengers a sleeping space the size of a closet. One curious piece of fi lm i s a lengthy boarding seq uence (one mi nute, 25 seconds), designed to introduce us to each character as they c heck in for the flight. It i s seen at the end of the episode, under a wail ing Harry Lubin motif with no dialogue, with an individual ' showcase' credit for
Two views of the plant creature a n i mated by J i m Danforth ; (top) as it attacks a fel low vegeta ble, a n d (below) a s it emerges from the ta nk, beg i n n i ng to g row.
each actor. Thi s was done for no other epi sode . This footage was dropped during editing, then hurriedly reinserted into the script as last-minute rev i sion pages to form the credit sequence when the spec ial effects came in short. The quick shot of the needle-nosed spaceship hissing through the void was taken from the George Pal fl im When Worlds Collide ( 1 95 1 ) . A brief glimmer of first season grandeur comes when the alien upbraids the human s : ' You are children who stil l believe i n mon sters ! ' B u t , a s B e n B rady said, ' 'Counterwe ight' was another v ictim of budgetary limitation s . ' ' It w a s a depressing th ing,' said Jerry Sohl o f pitching stories to The Outer Limits. '1 even offered them the TV rights to my novel Costigan 's Needle , which, to my rel ief, they did not take. As a result of 'The Invis ible Enemy,' 'Counterweight' was corrupted. I could not stand to watch it when it appeared, and have not, to th is date , seen the finished product. '
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PAN ION
BEHOlD ECK! Broadcast 3 October 1 9 64 Writte n by J o h n M a ntley Story by W i l l i a m R . Cox, based o n the novel Flatland by Edwin Abbott O r i g i n a l title: 'The R e l u ctant M o n ster' D i rected by Byron Haskin Assistant Di rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: D r J a m e s Sto ne ( Peter Li nd H ayes), Eliza beth D u n n (Joan Freeman), D r Bernard Ston e ( Parley Baer), Del. Ll. R u nyon ( D o u g l a s H e n d e rson), Sgl. J a ckson (Jack Wilson), M i ss W i l l et ( M a rcel Herbert), George Wilkinson (Sammy Reese), F i re Chief Rogers (Ta g g a rt Casey), G rayson ( Pa u l Sorenson), TV Newscaster ( R i ch a rd G itti ngs), Eck ( Lo u Elias), Eck's Vo ice a n d R a d i o Announcer Vo ice ( R o bert J o h n s o n ) Behold Eck, after h i s elecktrification .
Since the first living thing gazed upward through the darkness , Man has seldom been content merely to be born , to endure , and to die . With a curious fervor he has struggled to unlock the mysteries ol creation and of the world in which he lives. Sometimes he has won . Sometimes he has lost. And sometimes, in the tumbling torrents of space and time, he has brief glimpses of a world he never even dreams . . .
' Eck' i s a four-eyed, four-armed, cartoonish alien from a two-dimensional world who after fal ling to Earth through a dimensional tear, annot transpose Earth' s ' alien' perspective into 2-D to find his way back out. Instead, he doggedly vandal izes optometric labs all over New York, and attacks anyone wearing Prescription 1 09 glasses, which are made from a meteoric quartz that renders him v i s ible. One of the trashed labs belongs to Dr. James S tone , who spots Eck before getting the special lenses slapped from his face . After theorizing the existence o f a 2-D creature, Stone makes friends w ith Eck, who wants only to repair the dimensional tear so none of us plop suddenly into his world. Since Eck can pass through any earthly solid (as long as he turns sideways first) , he also accidentally glides through a 37 -story office building, shearing it in half at the nineteenth floor ' so cleanly that it has not yet
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toppled. ' When Eck goes after a welder also wearing Prescription 1 09 , it i s discovered that Eck can be repel led by fire. Eck ' loan s ' Stone one of his eyes so Stone can fabricate a corrective lens­ from ordinary glass-so Eck can rel ocate the interdimensional rift . A TV news report on the halved building catches Eck's attention , and, thinking the newscaster i s a fellow 2-D being, Eck m akes contact with the TV in a shower of sparks that 'electrify ' him and render him vi sible to ordinary sight. Stone's m i l i tant brother Bernard leads the p o l i c e to Stone ' s lab, which they incinerate with a flamethrower when they spot Eck's characteri stic glow in the next room . Once they depart, Eck reveal s he 'transferred some of (his) energy' to a statue in the room , hence the diversionary glow. ' Ec k , you're wonderfu l ! ' gushes Miss Dunn , Stone' s assistant, who was savvy enough to stash the special monocular lens S tone m ade for Eck. The two bid their al ien pal adieu and good luck . . . but Eck can't take the len s w ith him, since it won't pass through wal l s as he can. S tone and Miss Dunn agree to meet Eck at the location of the tear, where he can util i ze it at l ast and grateful l y escape this inhospitable plane. Paradoxically, Man 's endless search for knowledge has offen plundered his courage and warped his vision, so that he has faced the
BfHOlO fCK!
Peter Lind Hayes as Dr. Ja mes Stone.
unknown with terror rather than awe, and probed the darkness with a scream rather than a light. Yet there have always been men who have touched the texture of tomorrow with understanding and courage. Through these men , we may yet touch the stars .
'The second season was panics-ville; everybody knew the show was croaking , ' said director B yron Haskin. Following the aversive experience of 'The Invisible Enemy, ' he decided he wanted out of The Outer Limits. ' Lou Morheim had moved into a power seat at MGM, and told the executives there that I had the touch to bring some subtlety to programs like Mr. Novak and Dr. Kildare, which were very mechanical shows with no sentiment. Now, to me, this meant joining the 'inner circle' of directors who did all the TV. B ut Sam White told me I couldn't go because we had a show to do-this silly damned thing called
The ca rtoon hole left by E c k ' s escape from the weld i n g shop.
'Behold Eck ! ' 1 I only did it because White and Ben B rady wouldn't let me out of my Outer Limits contract. I t was an alleged comedy that was j ust a bomb . They l aid that script in my hands ; I got one sniff of it and damn near fainted. Most of it I either rewrote or made up on the set. Peter Lind Hayes was able to do light comedy, but that script didn't even give him a chance . ' According t o Seeleg Lester, Haskin's disaffection for the new shows was reflected in his lackadaisical direction : 'As soon as Haskin started to direct, it looked bad. When I tried to straighten out something in a script, he'd tell me, 'What the hell : Take your money and run'-that's the kind of director he was . ' Lester drew the core idea o f ' B ehold Eck ! ' from the Edwin Abbott novel Flatland, first published in 1 8 84. ' It had no relation to our story other than the
The skyscra per victi m i zed by Eck's i n a dverta nt passage.
idea of a two-dimensional world,' he said. ' B ill Cox talked it over with me until I sparked to something. ' Cox wove a lighthearted comedy treatment around the 2-D concept, which was assigned to John Mantley, then a very successful scriptwriter. 'John had a portion of some island in the Caribbean, ' said Lester, 'and used this assignment to buy another little piece of it. Before he could retire there, he got caught up in producing Gunsl11 0ke and became too successful . ' When a monster had t o b e added t o the stew, Lester created one. ' It was a frightened monster, doing terrible things just because it was not aware of what it was doing. ' Much o f the intended comedy in the show was to derive from Eck's understated and apologetic nature. 'I'm sorry to have caused so much difficulty, ' he says after Dr. Stone reels off a page of dense gook about
THf OUHR liMITS COMPAN I O N optical coefficients and apl anatic surface s so complicated that even Eck doesn't fathom it. It's meant to be funny, but the show has neither the flair for wit nor the subtlety of delivery that distinguishes light comedy. The direction is weak and the script is padded and boring, and the fact that Eck is a l iteral 'four-eyes' who needs glasses is another joke easily missed. S ince Eck is essentially faceless, there is l ittle latitude for him to emote , and s ince he is too obv iously a superimposed special effect ( a la the Galaxy Being), it is impossible for the onscreen principals to play off him in terms of comedy timing-and difficult for the TV viewer to relate to him as a character, since he is so flashy and cartoon-l ike. The two Eck suits were full -body affairs in black velvet, filmed against a black background. The first featured the white ' l ightning bolt' outline of Eck, and the second was decorated with glittering triangles of metal that imparted a sparkling effect to the creature once he hits the TV and becomes visible. While unusual and eye-catching, these suits are nothing l ike the creature described in Mantley's script: There are long, overpoweri n g l y m u s c u l ar hands and arms attached to a short body. The head is huge, with four eyes. The face i s rather sad- looking, set on a body with no neck. The legs and thighs are huge and muscular . . . and reach almost to the chest.
'That was my oid buddy Lou Elias playing Eck , ' said Cl aude Binyon. ' I m e t him on a picture called Enemy Mine, on which I was the 2nd AD. He played a German sailor. He was an excellent stunt man . ' Peter Lind Hayes was a n acquaintance o f Ben Brady's who flew out from New York City to appear in the episode. Hayes was a familiar and popular face to TV viewers throughout the 1 950s, from The Peter Hayes Show ( 1 950-5 1 ) to The Sto,.k Club. A frequent talk-show host, he occas ionally guest-hosted The Ton ight Show in 1 96 2 . Moviegoers may also remember Hayes as the father in the fantasy film The 5000 Fingers of Dr T ( 1 95 3 ) . ' After a couple of days' shooting, Peter became very insecure and wanted to see the dail ies , ' said B . Ritchie Payne. ' B en's rule was that no actor could see them, because they'd want to reshoot everyth ing. After they had a heartfelt conversation, Ben said, 'All right, Peter, rU let you see the rushes, but you must understand that I make the dec ision as to whether we reshoot, and you know that
Makeup a rtist Ha rry Thomas with both ' Ec k ' costu mes-' before' E c k ' s encounter w i t h t h e T V ( o n floor) a n d ' a fter ' ( o n wa l l) .
with our damned budget w e can't do that . ' 'Behold Eck ! ' i s a dramatic fiasco that had no place on The Oute,. Limits, and it is difficult to imagine it as anything but dreadful tedium for the adult viewer. 'It was supposed to be light, with a good-hearted monster,' noted Brady. 'It was a very cute idea that was hard to control. Haskin did the best he could with it.' 'In that particular show, you can see where the production values were not what they should have been, ' said Lester. 'I would've loved to see that building actually being sliced in half! We were going to have the creature slice through an aqueduct, pouring water over the whole city. Those would be the things that would have made the show memorable. '
There i s n o comma i n the title for this episode, even though the v i deo box features one.
WOlf JJ�
WO lf 3 5 � Broadcast 7 November 1 9 64 Written by Seeleg Lester Based o n 'Gre e n h o use,' a story treatment by R i c h a rd La n dau D i rected by L a s lo Benedek Assistant D i rector: Wi l l i a m P. Owe n s Di rector of Photography: Ken neth Peach
CAST: J o n athan Meridith ( Patrick O ' N e a l ) . Eth e l Merid ith (Sara Shane). Phillip Exeter D u n d e e ( B e n Wri g ht), Peter J e l l icoe ( Peter Haske l l ) . J a m e s Custer ( Da b n ey C o l e m a n )
Merid ith (Patrick O ' Neal) sleeps w h i l e the Plag creeps .
Outward stretches the quest for truth . Stars without end. Timeless infinities. A billion , billion galaxies. Man 's imagination reaches out and out, while hetimes the farthest reaches of knowledge are found in the smallest places . . .
' Dundee Planet' i s a n ecologically synthesized sample of a world i n the Wol f 359 star system, implanted i n to an e n v ironmentall y-regu l ated ' greenhouse' in the desert l ab of Prof. Jonathan Meridith . ! One second equals eleven days in the miniature Dundee world; Meridith i ntroduces human DNA into the ecosystem, and he and assistant Peter J e l l icoe settle back t o observe the proc e s s of evolution with their microscopes and time-delay cameras . Dundee Planet begins to p arallel the most negative aspects of Earth' s development at high speed, and also exudes a malignant, wraithlike entity that seems to dominate the goings-on i n the c apsule world. It i s also able to proj ect itself outside the greenhouse to terrorize Meridith, who sends h i s wife Ethel packing and fires Jellicoe to spare them from the creature's sinister influence. Jellicoe returns (with financial backer D undee) and unknowingly saves Meridith when the bright headlights of his c ar banish the attacking creature. Meridith obsessively drives them away agai n . When D undee Planet catches up to Earth's nuclear age and Meridith i s about to witness and record what he believes to be the fate awaiting
our world as well , the entity attacks again. Thi s time he is saved by Ethel, who return s in time to smash the greenhouse glass, killing D undee Planet and forcing the creature t o w i thdraw M eredith ' s recom­ mendation : Only evil awaits on the real Dundee P l anet, and our spacemen should not be sent there. There is a theory that Earth and sun and galaxy and all the known universes are only a dust mote on some policeman 's uniform in some g igantic superworld. Couldn 't we be under some superm icroscop e , right now ?
Seeleg Lester's first ful l script for the second season intelligently danced around budgetary and l ocation restrictions i nstead of succumbing to them. It supplied a monster to please ABC while casting it i n the metaphorical role of anti-God, and was informed throughout w ith an inquiring sense of wonder . . . even if some of the questions it raised remained unanswered . ' Dick Landau came in w ith a story idea about a far-off planet that had the same evolutionary 'plan' as Earth' said Lester. ' I made the other planet without a God, completely evil; then that evil comes out of the greenhouse. I u sed the monster for the purposes of the story rather than making the story s ubservient to the monster. ' Richard Landau had co-written a number of science fiction fil m s during the 1 950s, ranging from good ( Th e Creep ing Unknown [ 1 956] , with Val Guest, based on Nigel Kneale's The Quatermass
110
THf OUHR liM ITS �OM PANION the w o rl d - i n - m i croc o s m subgenre of stories that dates all the way back to 1 85 8 and a l ittle-known successor t o Edgar Allan Poe n amed Fitz-James O ' B rien, who wrote a short story titled ' The Diamond Lens '­ which l en s , of course, reveals a miniature world hidden from normal v iew. I n te l l i gent micro-beings living in accelerated time turned up in R . F. S tarzl's ' Out of the Sub Universe' in 1 92 8 , and ' Fe ssenden' s World' ( 1 9 3 7 ) , by Edmund H amilton, further refined the concept, as did the novel Edge of Tim e by Donald Wollheim (writing as David Grinne l l ) . S in c e B e n B rady c o n firmed that h e employed a staff of readers to s i ft through publ i shed science fiction , the core idea could have come from nearly anywhere. ' It wasn't all that easy to find stories , ' said Wa h Chang ' s orig i n a l sketch for the Plag . (Cou rtesy Wa h C h o n g ) B rady. Experiment) to stodgy (Spaceways [ 1 95 3 ] , with Paul ' One thing not exploited in the film was the idea Tabori , adapted from a radio play by Charle s Eric of watching evolution proceed at breakneck speed Maine) to silly (Frankenstein 1 9 70 [ 1 95 8 ] , w i th due to the miniaturization, ' said Lester. 'I w anted to George Worthing Yates, based on a story by Aubrey show p ictures every so often, depicting the birth of S chenck and Charle s A. Mose s ) . It may reasonably c i v i lization, the time of Moses and the Persian s , the be deduced from his credits that Landau worked best Renaissance, the 1 9th Century, and thence to the on the concept leve l , and in collaboration . present. ' The only high speed photo we actually see In Landau' s treatment, the paral lel chain of (as Meridith shows it to Ethe l ) is a shot of the evolution on Dundee Planet produces a humanlike sandshark from ' The Invisible Enemy, ' here doing civil ization overlorded, in effect, by the Devil instead stand-in work as a Dundee Pl anet dinosaur. 'There of his mythological opposite number. Thi s entity, was never any real intent to try to depict Earth's called a Plag , cheats scientist Jonathan Wragg (later future , ' said Lester. ' We wanted to keep i t a mystery. ' Meridith ' ) out of his bid to become D undee Planet's resident god . Lester's revision added the aspect of accelerated time (originally the greenhouse was to contain a recreation of the entire planet Mars , in extreme miniature ) . The ABC censors returned this draft as ' too hOITibl e , ' and he softened it with another rewrite . One twist he added was the gestalt formed by the Plag among Jonathan, Ethe l , and Jellicoe-a group empathy which sends the l atter two to rescue Jonathan not by convenient happenstance , but because of the psychic link they share (much l ike the one Yvette shares with her husband in 'Architects of Fear' ) . ' S ome of Theodore Sturgeon' s w ork dwelt on that theme, ' said Lester. ' Like ' B aby Makes Three'-a central entity uniting many different types of people ' . ' Wolf 3 5 9 ' i s also quite similar t o S turgeon's Merid ith shows a recycled sandshark p hoto to his wife, Ethel (Sara S h a ne) . ' M i crocosmic God, ' probably the most popular of
Besides, what could w e show? ' In a n earlier draft , Meridith welds shut a tiny hatch on the microcosmic world so the entity is sealed within-at least, i n theory-until its force becomes strong enough to monopolize Meridith ' s attention ( and eventually dominate h i s mind) from behind the glass. Meridith sets a devil's deal for himself when he pushes everyone else clear of the evil i nfluence-he remai n s , sacrificing himself i n order that h e might witness the future o f Earth, and thus its fate, as i t is played out o n Dundee Planet. S peculating that he will not survive, he leaves his trusty tape recorder running, to l ater be found as proof, perhaps to deter humanity from its p arallel path to oblivion. S ince this battle of wills might have been difficult to portray, it was l argely abandoned. Dundee Planet is ' hermetically sealed' from the start. ' Wolf 3 5 9 ' places i t s human drama i n microcosm a s well b y isolating Meredith' s ranch house/laboratory i n the desert. Jack Popl i n and H arry Redmond s uggested the tiny p lanetary sample using little more than a sheet of glass and a cloud of fog , into which Meridith gazes using his v arious lense s . Apropos of B rady's and Lester's desire to bring The Outer Limits down to Earth, the Meridiths are a married couple whose security, stability, and viewer­ identification are wrapped up in the accouterments of middle class life : S teaks on the gril l , a spacious and fash ionable home, and a m artini mentality that cons iders the best things i n l i fe , accord i n g to Jonathan, to be ' bright lights, champagne, dre s s shops, diamonds, m i n k coats, yachts , Monte C arl o . ' Like the determinedly ' normal' marriages depicted in 'Cold Hands, Warm Heart' and ' Soldier, ' the romantic rel at i o n s h i p s supplied a s c h aracter background throughout the second season are mundane, almost realistic. I n the first season, such rel ationships barely existed unless they served a specific turn of plot, as i n ' Architect s ' or ' Don't Open Til l Doomsday. ' While it is difficult to imagine Ian and Eva Frazer of ' The B orderland' doing something as ordinary as watching TV, it i s easy to imagine the Merediths putting up their feet to catch The Outer Limits or P erry Mason . While the first season' s by-rote love interests res ulted in a l arge number of sore-thumb O u ter L imits Odd Couples, standardized husband-wife teams l ike the Merediths fit right into the second. These vital mid-Sixties types, w ith their cigarettes and five o'clock cocktai l s ,
Wa h C h a n g watches B i l l Brace operate the Plag puppet at Project U n l i m i ted . Popsicle stick extensions a re ta ped to the ends of Brace ' s fingers . (Cou rtesy Bob Burns)
in
TH f OUHR liM ITS CO MPAN ION
Jell icoe (Peter Haskell) a n d Merid ith a t the m i c roscope .
were believably bourgeois.2 The Plag itself i s deadly and s low-moving, first manifesting as an amorphous, transparent white mass that ' bloom s ' open l ike a flower to unveil an evil l ittle mouthless face-sort of a distant cousin to the Galaxy Being by way of ' O . B . I . T ' ' s Helosian . It was a puppet of thin, flexible rubber. ' I t was a 'hand­ mask' for two hands , ' said Wah Chang, ' w ith a head which was actuall y where y o u r thumbs stuck through. ' (Perhaps ' Plag' was a condensation of Platex Glove, which i s what i t looks like . ) Finger extensions lend the webbed petals a skeletal, bat-like appearance, and the puppet i s filmed to good effect against black velvet through a number of diffusion filters that lend it a ghostly aura. We see a bit too much of it, and wonder why Meridith doesn't simply run away (as Jellicoe doe s , early in the show) . The creature remains in the background for the most part
The Plag entity a s it tra nscends the barrier of the m i n i-world .
until the finale, and the effect was more s ubtle than anything yet seen in the new season. 'It was so difficult to get something that would be reali stic i nstead of j u st being another gargoyl e , ' said Lester. ' I t h o u g h t ' Wo l f 3 5 9 , ' for a l l the restrictions of our production, c ame off very wel l . '
'Wolf 359' i s also c i ted a s a coordinate in a third-season episode of Star Trek : The Next Generation titled 'The Best of B oth World s . ' 2
And director L a s l o B enedek found a n o v e l w a y to circumvent the censor's rule of thumb requ i ring even m arried couples to sleep i n twin beds on TV at that time. He pushed the beds to within a foot of each other and shot the bedroom very darkly,
Sara S h a n e breaks on through and t h e evi l Wolf 3 5 9 atmosphere whooshes out.
so the viewer can j ust barely perceive the gap separating them . It looks l i ke Jonathan and Ethel are sharing a queensize .
KHP[R O f TH[ PURPl[ TWIliGHT
KffPfA O f TH f PU A Plf TWI liGHT Broadcast 5 December 1 9 64 Written by M i lton Krims Based o n a teleplay by Ste p h e n Lord D i rected by C h a rles H a a s Assistant D i rector: Robert J ustm a n D i rector of Photogra phy: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: Prof. Eric P l u m m e r (Warren Stevens). Ikar [ i n human forml ( R o b e rt We bber). J a n et La n e ( G a i l Ko be). Fra n k l i n Karl i n (Curt Conway). David Hunt ( Edward C Platt). Ikar [in a l i en forml ( M i ke La n e ) . Alien Soldier # 1 (Hugh Langtry). A l i e n S o ld i e r #2 ( G e n e Wiley). Alien Soldier #3 ( Leroy E l l i s ) . Stu nt Ikar [ h u m a n l ( Fred Stromsoe). Stunt Eric ( F red Krone) 'You g a i n noth ing by suicide . ' Ikar plays backseat headsh ri n ker.
There is no limit to the extension of the curious mind. It reaches to the end of the imagination , then beyond into the mysteries of dreams, hoping always to con vert even the dreams into reality,for the greater well-being of all mankind . . .
The nagging lack o f two crucial equations needed to complete an antimagnetic disintegrator nearly drives scientist Eric Plummer to kill himself, until a dome-headed alien appears in the back seat of his car and tells him, ' You gain nothing by suicide . ' Eric's unstable emotions are hampering his research, and back at his lab the alien converts to human form, introduces himself as Ikar, and offers a swap : Eric's emotions for the two equations. After the fin ished disintegrator is demonstrated, Eric's financial backer, Hunt, is overjoyed, but his colleague, Karlin, calls it 'diabolical' and swears to axe the project. Ikar shows up with three hulking alien soldiers and ' take s ' . Karlin's mind, rendering h i m harmless. B ut Ikar's newly acquired emotions cause him to reveal to Eric's girlfriend Janet that he is the advance scout of an invasion force that requires a disintegrator so l arge that ' we needed someone to build it for us here on Earth. ' Ikar's race is rigidly logical ; h e finds his plan of assuming human emotions in an attempt to comprehend our disorganized and illogical society backfiring, by giving him feelings about the invasion plan. The soldiers realize Ikar is getting out of hand
and order him back to their home planet. He defies them and escapes to the lab, where he admits that he duped Eric out of his emotions, and gives them back. When the soldiers arrive, Ikar disintegrates two of them before he is killed; Eric uses the model disintegrator to kill the third. Then , his regained compassion causing him to realize Karlin was right, he vaporizes the support machinery and smashes the disintegrator pistol to j unk. The curious mind cannot be chained. It is a Fee mind, endlessly searching for the greater ji-eedom that must eventually make every living being joylully complete within h imself therefore at peace with himsell and his neighbors.
The monsters were back, full force, in 'Keeper of the Purple Twilight , ' a wild potpourri of science fiction stereotypes including a neurotic mad scientist, extraterrestrial invasion, alien storm troopers , a death ray, and a terminally logical, pointy-eared offworlder fall i n g v ictim to chaotic Earthl ing emotions-a gimmick out of which Star Trek would make a big deal a few years later. The over-plotted scenario runs long on momentum and, l ike the i rrational humans in the show, short on logic. (OV E R LEAF) : A g lorious Outer Limits gatefold of a l i ens from ' Keeper of the Purple Twi l i g h t . ' (L.R) : M i ke La ne as Ikar, and H u g h La ngtry a n d G e n e Wi ley as a l ien soldiers. (Courtesy Gary Gera n i and Foto Fa ntasies)
214
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANI O N
Ikar deprives Eric of h i s emotions i n exchange for math h e l p .
Stephen Lord, the only writer to work both seasons of The Outer Limits, did the original draft of ' Keeper, ' as part of a multiple-script contract. ' I t was so butchered I cannot recall much about it, ' he said. 'It was more of an intellectual melodrama, which was mutilated by a hack and overloaded with monsters . Ben Brady had little feeling for cerebral entertainment. Seeleg Lester was around, too, rewriting anything and everything. ' But Lester had nothing to do with the ' Keeper' rewrite, and Ben B rady was enthusiastic about the original story. 'The idea was beautifu l , ' said B rady. 'To have an alien pick up human emotions. All I can tell you about Stephen Lord is that he w ished to christ he could whip it, but he j ust couldn't pin it to the mat. Everything he tried was no good. ' The focus of Lord's script was Ikar's difficulty with the human emotions that tum him against his own invasion plan . There was
I kar gets uncreated by a soldier's d i s i n tegration bea m .
211
no dome-headed alter-ego, n o r alien troops. ' I had nothing to do with 'Keeper, ' ' said Seeleg Lester, who was busy writing 'The Inheritors ' at the time. ' B en passed it on to Milton Krims, and I did not intrude on the rewrite . ' Of the revision, he added, ' Monsters coming to destroy the world is j unk. What was there to attract you, to stimulate the imagination? Nothing. ' ' Krims made i t a j oke, a worthless Saturday­ matinee kind of thing, ' said Lord, who sent Brady a six-foot funeral wreath when the show aired. The card on the floral arrangement read : MAY THE KEEPER OF THE PURPLE TWILIGHT REST IN PIECES . ' I thought it was very funny, ' said B . Ritchie Payne. 'I put the wreath up in the office, then had to take it down because Ben came in and didn 't think it was funny-he was darned mad ! ' Nevertheless, there are some striking images in ' Keeper. ' The scene in which Ikar gets his first taste of Earth-style fried chicken by gobbling up a large piece, bones and all , is memorably odd. A scene in which Eric gets a j agged h unk of glass embedded in his forearm i s s urprisingly explicit (overall , we see much more blood in the second season shows). And the sudden materialization of the alien bully-boys, in broad daylight in an open field, is fantastic in a pulp­ thriller sense. In comparison to the spare or barren set decoration in previous B rady regime shows, Eric's workshop and lab are convincingly and interestingly cluttered. The seriocomic interchanges between Ikar and Janet, held over from Lord's script, are still entertaining : IKAR: I want only that love which belongs to Eric Plummer. JANET (certain she is dealing with a lunatic ) : Oh . . . well , I 'v e . . . uh, given that away. To others . IKAR: Why? JANET: B ecause that's what love i s for. IKAR: Then we must get it back. Now. JANET: No. That's impossible. (groping for an answer) The others are asleep. That's true. Now, all good people are asleep and dreaming. IKAR (scowling) : Then I w i l l come back in the morning.
There i s the slimmest hint that Ikar is rekindling Eric's dammed-up love life by proxy, and it scares the hell out of him: 'I don't want to feel what's happening to me ! ' he protests. But these attempted subtleties are quickly lost in the circus of illogic and pointless
KffPfR Of THf PURPlf TWIliGHT ( 1 95 8 ) , Ikar i s probably The Outer Limits ' single most recognizable monster image from a second season show. Warren Stevens (Forbidden Planet's ' Doc Ostro w ' ) essays the one-note role of Eric in the mani c/hysterical style of William Shatner. He would soon play an Ikar-l ike role as an emotionless alien in the Star Trek epi sode, ' B y Any Other Name. ' Gail Kobe is earnest and energetic in the unfortunate role of Janet, who must faint conveniently whenever Ikar shows u p and whose worst crime i s the outrageous dress she is compelled to wear during the latter acts. As a couple, Eric and Janet could easily be the happy-hour neighbors of the Meridiths from 'Wolf 3 5 9 . ' Robert Webber is admirably uncom­ fortable, stoic , and stuck-up as Ikar. B ut 'You have broken away from the planeta ry bra i n . ' Alien strong·arm men come to read the the struggle of the cast against the riot act to a truant I ka r. material i s still clear. Once 'Keeper' was completed, the running around that fills up the rest of the episode. budget axe fell again, chopping away another $ 1 0,000 Charles Haas' direction is so unimaginative, devoid of from each remaining episode . All those monsters had soul, and detached from the action that it is almost cost money, and ' Keeper' would not amplify The nihil istic-as though Ikar were behind the camera Outer Limits ' sagging ratings against Jackie Gleason . instead of in front of it, doing his damnedest to make When asked about it in retrospect, Ben Brady's first the characters wooden, the dialogue monotonous, and reaction was, 'What the hell was 'Keeper of the Purple to shoot potentially attractive scenes in an expedient, Twilight?' Did / do that?' pedestrian, suspenseless fashion. A catalogue of the episode's plot-holes could easily fill another book . . . but all the hardware and space invaders undeniably invest in the show a certain degree of sheer fun . 'We needed tall actors to play the soldiers , ' said Claude Binyon, ' so we recruited Gene Wiley and Leroy Ellis from the LA Lakers . ' Another was Hugh Langtry, a member of Lowell Thomas' Outer Limits construction crew (under Jack Poplin) who had played the Chromoite in 'The Mice . ' The two different mask designs by Wah Chang evoke the best and most outlandish monsters of the previous season. The exertions required of the alien soldiers as they chase Ikar all over Bronson Canyon make the football pads they wore a bit obvious, but they're still a startling sight to behold because there are so many of them-in ' Keeper, ' the TV screen is l iterally filled with monsters . Ikar in alien form was used extensively in promotional 8x l Os for the new season. Portrayed by Famous Monsters fa ns Pa u l ( Ll a n d La rry Brooks d u r i n g an a utog ra ph 6'5 ' Mike Lane, a former football player and wrestler session with Ikar for the Apri l, 1 965 issue of sister publ ication Monster who appeared as the Monster in Frankenstein 1 9 70 World.
ICou rtesy Forrest J . Ackermon)
Ll�
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION
[ X PA N U I N G H U M A N Broadcast 10 October 1 964 Writte n by Fra n c i s Cockre l l Di rected by Gerd Oswa ld Assistant D i rector: William P. Owens Di rector of Photography: Kenneth Peach CAST: D r. Roy C li nton (Skip H o m e i er), D r. Peter Wayne ( Keith Andes). Del. Lt. Branch (James D o o h a n ) , Dean F l i nt (Va u g h n Taylor), Lee Mo rrow ( Peter D u ryea). D r. H e n ry Akada (Aki Aleong). M rs M erri l l ( M ary G regory). Susan Wayne ( B a rb a ra Wilkin). Coro n e r Le l a n d (Jason Wingreen). M a rk Lake ( R o b e rt Doyle), Del. Sgt. Alger (Troy M e lton ) . Receptio n i st (Shi rley O ' H a ra), Elevator Operator (Bill CortI, H a rt B e l l a i re (Sherwood Keith ) . N i g h t Watch m a n ( O w e n McG ivney) Dr. Roy C l i nton (Skip Homeier) cockta i l s u p a m a ster race potion for fel low consciousness-expander Dr. Peter Wayne (Keith Andes) .
As far back as men have recorded their history, veils have been lowered to disclose a vast new reality--rents in the fabric of Man 's awareness. And somewhere , in the endless search of the curious mind, lies the next vision , the next key to his infinite capacity. . .
Soon after the murder o f a night w atchman a t a univers i ty l ab devoted to researc h i n g ' C E substances' (consciousness-expanding drugs), one of the instructors is found c li n i c a l l y dead i n h i s apartment. . .but sits u p o n the slab during h i s own autopsy, alive and piqued. Mr. Bellaire, a corporate magnate who plans to cut off funding for the CE l ab because of the bad p u b l i c i t y of the murder investigation, i s himself killed by the same hulking specter that l iterally crushed the breath from the night watchman' s lungs. Dr. C linton, head of the CE program, reveals to Dr. Wayne that the mystery killer is his own CE-altered ego--a schizoid Mr. Hyde persona w ith i nflated m u s c u l ature, superhuman strength and learning skil l s , and a disappointingly predictable fas c i s t crav i n g t o rule the world, populating it w ith similarly ' expanded' humans while consigning all contrary parties to death c amp s . The normal C linton i s unaware of t h e dictates of h i s expanded form d u e to self- imposed hypnotic blocks that permit the Hyde version to function freely and
use the Jekyl l version as convenient alibi material. Now it's time to recruit Wayne, but Wayne resists the pitch and Clinton must force him to imbibe the CE m ixture . When B ranch , a thoroughly befuddled investigating cop, stumbles in at the wrong moment, he shoots C linton, who catches the slugs with a smile and wills his body not to bleed. C linton attempts to escape past a police cordon by holding Wayne by the scruff of the neck and keeping B ranch at gunpoint, but his C E dose wears off and his wounds begin to gush blood. When C linton fal l s to the ground in death, the vials in his pocket containing the chemical mix are destroyed. Then Wayne tel l s B ranch: ' You'd better get me to a hospital-thi s drug i s starting to take effect. ' Some success , some failure , but either way the gnawing h u nger to know is never sated, and the road to the unknown continues to be dark and strange.
' With B rady, I'd ask for certain scripts, or time off until a script I w anted c ame along , ' said Gerd Oswald. ' O n some shows , l ike 'Expanding Human,' I got stuck; i t was my turn and that was the only script ready. It's a case of saying you'll try to do your best with a story . . . and then you c an't come up with much . ' ' I didn't take that story, either, ' said S eeleg Lester. 'I have a very hazy memory of it; it sounds l ike a real quickie . '
fXIfNOING HUMAN The episode perpetuates the D ragnet syndrome seen in most second season shows : Characters stand around interminably, asking questions and droning answers , while a twil ight policeman (in this case James Doohan, later Star Trek 's ' S cotty ' ) vainly struggles to figure out the obvious. Unlike ' Keeper of the Purp l e Tw i l ight , ' it does n ' t even offer the diversion of funky rubber monsters, just a mild rehash of the Jekyll-vs. -Hyde theme that obscure s , for the most part , the more intriguing business of awareness­ enhanc ing chemical s-touchy business indeed, in the early 1 960s . ' That sure was ahead of its time, wasn't it? ' noted actor Keith Andes in a 1 995 i nterview. Francis Cockrell had written many cause-and­ effect mysteries for A lfred Hitchcock Presents (some in collaboration with his wife Eustace), and l ater adapted a Robert Sheckley short story, ' Th e Watchbird , ' w h i c h was never filmed d u e to the show's cancellation. 1 The teleplay for ' Expanding Human ' reads well, but does not play well . Dr. Clinton is essential l y ridiculous, and h i s fool ish explanation of the kill ings to Lt. B ranch (he points out convenient newspaper s q u i b s o n w eird occurrences that just m ight be CE-related) telegraphs the fact he is the culprit very early on. Most of his rhapsodizing on the wonders of h i s expanded outlook sounds like verbose filler, and his C E pitch inelegant when compared with the explanation of the process by Dr. Akada, who trips out, 'dies , ' then w akes up in the morgue. AKADA: Perhaps v i s ions a re involved. B ut i t becomes a question of whether what we see in everyday life is 'real ity' ... or whether real ity i s
C l i nton strongarms Peter a n d Lt. Branch (ja mes Dooh a n ) .
Akada (Aki Aleong) wakes u p as his a u topsy is a bout to commence.
actual ly our vastly i mproved perception, and these so-called ' v isions . ' Let's say you see a leaf, fal ling. In expanded consciousness, I see al l leaves falling, in time past, in time to come; I see not only thei r origin, but their. . .ever-changing, never-ending role i n everything.
While Oswald's staging of the l aboratory break-in is the c l o se s t th i s e p i s ode comes to the dark, atmospheric quality of his first season work, the balance of the show i s trapped in Cl inton's boring, b as i c , barren apartment c o u rtyard-the furthest remove yet from normal O u ter Limits territory, almost l iterall y dragging the series into the daylight. One backhanded advantage of this almost forced conventionality is that several episodes-notably this one and ' B ehold Eck ! ' -prov ide excellent incidental travelogues of 1 964 Hollywood, never straying very far from the Sunset B oulevard map grid which engirded KTTV studi o s , Paramount, and Project Unlimited. The exterior of Hart Bellaire's skyscraper is a bank building which still stands at Sunset and Vine, the ' university' at which Clinton teaches is LA City College, and another nearby schoo l , fom1erly Le Conte Junior High, pops up in ' The Inheritors . ' Few such real-world benchmarks intruded upon the first season shows . Even w ith this blander material, Oswald's work is never less than assured, time-conscious and capable; many O u ter Limits crew-people assessed him as a good technician and journeyman director. In his book The A merican Cinema, Andrew S arri s would later note :
TH [ OUHR liM ITS COM PANION as a good idea, but our budget k i l led it. Gerd did well w i th it, but there was just no way to develop i t i m aginat i v e l y. ' ' My recol lection , ' said Keith Ande s , 'is that Skip and
w e re
I
re l ated
somehow, which i s funny because we were frequently m i staken for each other. One of u s-I think it was h im-took this drug and turned
into
mon ster.
this
kind of
I was the good
guy who tried to intercept and help h i m . That's about all I can tel l you. I thought the series was i nteresting; Rod Serling did the same kind of provocative stuff. ' ' Sk i p H omeier was an excel lent actor who wasn't being
Peter reacts to Roy ' s a l tered state .
Gerd Oswald has shown an adm i rable consistency, both sty listical ly and thematical ly, for a director in his obscure position . A fluency of camera movement is control led by s liding turns and harsh stops befitting a cinema of bitter ambiguity. Oswald's success in imposing a personal sty le on shooting schedules ranging from five to seven days should serve as an object lesson to young directors who complain that they lack the time to get their fi lms 'j ust right. '
employed
re g u l ar l y , '
very
remem bered
Payne. 'He was a nice m an who had a beautiful voice, and
he
needed
the
w o rk . '
H om e i e r
is
another
unfortun ate victim of a procedural story l ine fl atter th an the EEG of a bean sprout. ' S kip was a tragic m an , ' said C laude B inyon. Forever identified as being a Naz i , s i n c e he p l ayed t h e kid who turned in h i s parents in
Tomorrow the World. '
Thi s 1 944 fi l m , done when
Homeier was fi fteen , cemented a l i fetime pattern of typecasting that reached its l owest ebb with a Star Trek epi sode about Nazis in space c a l l e d ' Pattern s of Force . '
'Gerd was a workhorse, always through at s i x
' Expanding H um an ' was a n equal l y l o w ebb for
o'c l ock , ' s a i d B . Ritchie Payne. ' T h e n he'd come up,
The Outer Limits, and is unrelentingly dreary. ' It's one
and we'd break out the J & B and d i s c u s s how the
of those shows you wo uld not want to spend a lonely
shoot ing went, and how things were going to go
evening looking at , ' said Payne philosophical l y. ' S ome
tomorrow. Gerd was always fin i shed-by God-by the
shows you would sooner forget, because you knew
l ast day of the shooting schedule . ' First A D Wil l i am
when you m ade it, it wasn't right, and you j u st didn't
Owens rec a l led O s w ald as ' the short , redheaded fel l o w
have the time or money to fi x i t , and so you let it go.
who would t a p t h e c amera w ith his s w agger stick . '
Those s h o w s j ust p a s s my mind with , oh , my god! '
With ' Expanding H u m an , ' O swald had a fight on h i s hands even though the teleplay was ( i t should be stressed) not bad l y writte n . 'The manner i n which we did a great many interiors---c h ri st ! ' l amented Ben B rady. ' We'd grab w h atever we could and throw it i n front of t h e c amera as cheaply as we could, and a lot of
A synopsis of Cockre l l 's script for 'The Watchbird' can be
things l ooked ridic u l o u s . 'Expanding H u m an ' started out
found in Appendix II.
181
DfMDN WITH A GlASS HAND
OEMON WITH A GlASS HANO Broadcast 1 7 Octo ber 1 9 64 Written by H a r l a n E l l i s o n D i rected by B y r o n Haskin Assistant D i rector: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: M r Tre nt/Voice of the H a n d ( R o b e rt Culp), Consuelo B i ros (Arl i n e M a rtel), Arch (Abra h a m Sofaer), Breech (Steve H a rris), Battle ( Rex H o l m a n ) , Budge ( R o b e rt Forti er), Kyben/Stunt Arch (Wa l l y Rose), Du rn/Stunt Budge ( B i l l H a rt), Kyben/Stunt Battle ( Fred Krone), Stunt Tre nt ( D e a n Smith)
Trent (Robert C u l p ) , a m a n with a m i ssio n .
Through a l l the legends of ancient peoples­ Assyrian, Babylonian , Sumerian , Semitic-runs the saga of the Eternal Man , the one who never dies, called by various names in various times, but historically known as Gilgamesh , the one who has never tasted death .. . fhe hero who strides through the centuries . . .
Circa 2964, Earth i s conquered i n 1 9 days by an alien race cal led the Kyben . The world's entire population vani shes overnight, after loosing retaliation in the form of a radioactive plague that will render the Earth uninhabitable by the invaders . The agent of humankind's salvation is a vigorous , enigmatic, white­ clad man named Trent, who escapes into the past1 964-through a Kyben ' time mirror. ' He possesses a prosthetic computer hand that 'holds all knowledge, ' but the Kyben have three lobes (glass fingers) o f the dev ice, and they chase Trent into the past because they need the completed hand to tell them where the seventy bill ion people of Earth have hidden, and how to defeat the plague. Trent, in turn , needs the lobes to enable the glass hand to reveal more of his own identity and purpose, which are blanks to him. Using a 'force bubbl e , ' the Kyben seal Trent within the confines of a dilapidated office building, where he finds an unwitting al ly in Consuelo B iros , a garment worker also trapped inside. Together they commence kill ing aliens and collecting glass fingers . When the
computer coolly advises Trent that his best course of action is to permit the Kyben to kill him, he complies without hesitation . . . and Consuelo later obeys the hand's directions for bringing Trent miraculously back to life. He then tracks dawn the remaining Kyben and destroys the time mirror so that no more aliens will follow. Just when things begin to look romantic, the now-complete hand informs Trent that he is a robot built to look l ike a man , that the seventy bill ion refugees are transcribed onto a wire inside of him, and his job is to wait 1 200 years, then release humankind back into its own era after the plague has exterminated the Kyben. A shocked Consuelo quickly makes tracks for home while Trent, total ly alone , begins his long wait. Like the Eternal Man of Babylonian legend, like Gilgamesh , one thousand plus two hundred years stretches before Trent. Without love. Without friendship . A lone; neither man nor machine, waiting. Waiting for the day he will be called to free th e h umans who gave h im mobility. Movement, but not life .
Winner of the Writer's G u i l d Award for Outstanding Script in the category of Televi sion Anthology for the 1 964-65 season , ' Demon With a Glass Hand' was a definite high point for the Ben B rady regime. It featured no rubber monsters and is arguably Harlan Ellison's best-realized sc ience fiction teleplay to date. ' I think that 'Demon' certainly was the best show of our season, ' said Brady, ' while 'The Inheritors' was the most ambitiou s . ' Byron Haskin,
THf OUHR liMITS COMPANION who parted company with The Outer Limits after directing this epi sode, agreed: ' B y far, 'Demon' was the finest show of the second season, ' he said. ' 1 was amazed that it c ame through, considering our budget . . .or lack of a budget. ' Fo ll owing ' S ol dier, ' E l l i son had become enmeshed in no fewer than 1 7 rewrites of ' Mealtime,' a script for Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that aired as 'The Price of Doom . ' Concurrently, he was expanding a novelette begun in 1 95 7 , 'The Queer File , ' to novel-length under the new title, ' Obituary for an Instant. ' 'I couldn't do both projects at the same time , ' he said. ' My thinking about the latter half of the novel was misty and incomplete, only directional , not spec ific. So 1 turned the disadvantage of not being able to work on my book to my advantage by writing a mental memo to myself in the form of the TV script for 'Demon With a Glass Hand,' which outl ined the rest of the book for m e . ' The treatment done by Ellison in June, 1 964, opens with Breech , one of the Kyben kamikaze assassins, trussed up amid the gears inside an old clock tower. When midnight strikes, the clockworks will grind him apart unless he answers the questions posed by the Trent character, here named Mr. Fish. The Kyben cat-and-mouse with Fish through the sewers , alleys, and deserted bui ldings of an unnamed city. In a closed down penny arcade on an amusement pier, Fish is shot in the heart and his ally Jody Morell is taken hostage . Fish's body is removed to safety by Big Betty Salamagordo, a 3 00-pound fat woman , and her gnomelike lover, Pi nook. He wakens from death unharmed, inside a tattoo parlor. Fish's glass hand
T h e epi sode ' s moody open i n g shot.
directs him to raid the Kyben stronghold, an abandoned caboose on a railroad siding outside the city, where he saves Jody and destroys the Time M i rror. He kil l s all the Kyben save for their commander. The now-complete glass hand shows Fish how to 'translate ' a guinea pig into a piece of wire, to prove its story about the hiding place of Earth's people. When Jody sees the whirring robot machinery in Fish's chest, she flees into the night. The story closes on Fi sh, as he types one-handed : My curse is my humanity. They made me not man, not machine, but someth ing in between, and I am alone, forever alone. To l i ve out all my days, and all the days of unborn generations, walking this planet l i ke a shadow. I walk among you now . . . and I dare not even ask for your pity. My m i ssion is to remain alive, for 20,000 years . And all I fear is that when my m i ssion is ended, in that future sti ll unborn , they w i l l not bless me with death. After 20,000 years of lone l i ness, al l I can beg of them , those b i l l ions I carry in my heart-coils, is that they turn me off . . . let me sleep . . . let me sleep . . .
The chase aspect was enthusiastically sold b y the treatment as 'a deep, long-winded run a la Hitchcock. ' The first draft teleplay locked down all the character names, and perm itted the Control Voice to expound a bit more on the subject of Gilgamesh. Following the line, 'the hero who strides through the centuries , ' it was to have continued :
'Terrified, tra pped, fera l ; ' B reech (Steve H a rris) p repa res to d i e .
During the excavations at Ninevah , capitol city of the Assyrian kings , stone tablets were unearthed that re-told this ancient legend. The eleventh
OfMON WITH A GlASS HANO
Trent meets Consuelo (Arl i n e Ma rtel) .
tablet ol the series referred to the Flood, a tale that paralleled the story of the Flood in the book ol Genesis . . . How for from the truth is the myth of Gilgamesh ? Has such an eternal man ever roamed the Earth ? Is such a man at large now? We urge you to bear this legend in mind as the incredible story of a certain Mr Trent unfolds .
Justman's sol ution was to point Elli son toward a Los Angeles architectural landmark known as the B radbury Building, suggesting that the chase action of ' Demon ' run ' vertically,' rather than 'horizontally. ' ' A l l I had t o do, ' Elli son explained, ' was figure out a way to keep the characters in a contained space . It was a very important lesson to me: You could make the action more intense by enclosing it, and providing no escape. ' Called the 'Seeleg B uilding' i n one Ellison draft, the B radbury was, according to history, inspired by a work of science fiction and designed with the help of a ghost, its construction being commissioned by mining
'Originally, I wrote 'Demon' as a cross-country chase, my homage to North by Northwest, ' said El lison . 'The amazing thing, to me, was that no one objected to the complexities of the story until the network got involved, and then it was stuff like, 'Will the viewer understand these people are from the future?' The real problem with the plot was physical ; it was a chase in a linear fashion . ' ' I t called for many short scenes t o be filmed all over Los Angeles County, ' recalled Justman in the book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story (Pocket B ooks, 1 996, co- authored with Herbert F. Solow). 'It would have taken several days out of our tight shooting schedule just to account for the many 'moves' for the crew and equipment, thereby leaving insufficient time to actually shoot the show . . . I explained the situation to Ellison and apprised him, 'We can't afford to make this episode, Harlan. The front office wants to j unk the show, but I convinced them to hold off because I've got an idea about how you can salvage it. ' Uti l i ty Kyben sta nd by as Budge (Robert Fortier) comes throu g h the Ti me Mi rror and steps i nto a face-off with Battle (Rex H o l ma n ) . Note the re-use of 'The Borderla nd ' ' s Power Pylons
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
The top floor of the Brad b u ry B u i l d i ng today, with a view of the glass
and real estate tycoon Lewi s B radbury in 1 892. After vetoing a disappointing blueprint by architect S umner Hunt, Bradbury engaged one of Hunt's draftsmen, George H . Wyman, who accepted the j ob after receiving the message, Take the Bradbury Building . It will make you famous, from his brother Mark-who had been dead for six years ! The advice came during one of Wyman's sessions with a planchette board. His design was heavily influenced by the Edward Bellamy book Looking Backward ( 1 8 8 7 ) which described a typical commercial building in the Utopian civilization of the year 2000 as a 'vast hall full of l ight . ' ' The landmark bui lding features a wealth of ornamental ironwork, Mexican t i l e floors , Belgian m arble staircases and a glass roof that floods the five-story atrium with daylight. ' J drove Harlan down there to see if he could rewrite around the locat i on , ' said J u stman. 'Otherwise, the show would have been too expensive to make. I was familiar with the building because I'd worked there in 1 950, on Joe Losey's remake of M. ' The baroque edifice i s seen in countless TV shows, fi lms and commerc i al s , from 7 7 Sunset Strip to Banyon to Blade Runner to the ' New York' publishing office interiors of Wolf ' I came to think of that building as a character in the script, ' said Ellison, ' and 1 very consciously made it a climb-through hell, bottom to top. 1 walked it from
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the basement to the water tower. In the film, when Trent enters the bui lding, you have no idea how he got in; all you see is dripping water. B ut he comes in through the sewer, and winds up going through the window on the very top floor. ' The first revi s ion also included a rooftop shootout near the water tower, l ater omitted. ' You know the scene where Culp races the elevator? 1 did that, to see if it could be done . ' Accordingly, Ellison's script notes the time it took to dash down the stairs from the top floor as seventeen seconds. ' I found the only way you could beat that damned elevator to the ground floor was to j ump from the first floor landing , ' he said. 'I did it­ and l anded on my left leg so hard 1 fractured m y ankle . ' Robert Culp's stuntman , Dean S m ith (a former Olympic runner with a time of 1 9 .4 in the cei l i ng a n d elevators . l OO-yard dash, last seen sprinting his heart out as an alien in 'The Chameleon ' ) duplicated this j ump for the film . . . and hurt both his ankles upon touchdown. ' That was probably the most physically difficult thing 1 ever did in my life , ' remembered Robert Culp. 'I would go home with shin splints every night . ' ' Demon ' ' s revi sion pages bear dates for nearly every day of August, 1 964. Much dialogue and business was stripped away, altered, or condensed. But first, See leg Lester needed a completed draft. ' Ben got after me and told me to goose Harlan or take the script away from him , ' Lester said. ' We're talking six, eight, ten weeks' delay. Ben said, 'Cut him off! ' because nobody could reach him. Harlan would call and say, 'I'll bring it in tomonow. . . ' then there was nothing for another week . ' B rady noted, ' I had t o periodical ly toss Harlan on his ass because he was so enatic. If he didn't want to work, then I'd be wasting my time that day; if we worked, nobody did it better. How can you live with a genius? All you can do i s sit around and wait for him to gen e . ' Here, for example, i s Trent from the original script, waxing sadistic over Breech : TRENT: Where are they? BREEC H : I'd rather die than tel l . TRENT: I can oblige.
OfMON WITH A GlASS HANO B REEC H : You wouldn't do it with me just tied here . . . watching you. TRENT: I would do anything. Spiders, rats, worm s . S e e m e , B reech. K n o w that I'd d o i t . B REEC H : Wi l l y o u l e t me l ive? TRENT: A cripple, if you don't talk . A crawling, legless cripple . . . B REECH: What kind o f monster are you? TRENT (soft, confused) : I . . . don't know . . .
Earl ier, B reech i s more specific in h i s description of what happens when the medall ions are removed and the time-j umpers are sent back to the future : 'Their hearts are burst. They must die horribly, all twisted and soft l ike paste . . . it would make you cry. ' By far the most significant change was in the character that originated as Jody Morell and became Consuelo Losada, described by Ellison as follows:
becomes a positive version of what Arnold Schwarzenegger plays in The Terminator as a negative version. He has to keep existing because he's pretty much indestructible, until it gets time for him to unload h i s knowledge . ' Culp credited the episode's enduring pop u l arity to ' the odd credibil ity and concentrated character arc of Trent, (and) a cohesive, tight continuity to the mystery of who he was . The concept of the glass hand and fingers, which is j ust weird enough, but simple enough so you could get your mind around it and go with the story. And the end, which was very wistful and kind of touching. ' ' We called it 'Demon w ith a Glass Hand' t o give ABC a monster, said Ellison. ' Our monster was in the title, a demon, as in a Fury. I worked closely enough w ith B en and Seeleg that they would say, 'Who do you
Late thirties, Mexican, lo ne ly . She i s not beautifu l , b ut i s arresting a s a peasant woman in an Orozco painting is arresting, exhibiting those features of national ity and personal strength that tel l us this i s a woman who had to get dirt under her nail s to get along in the world . . . thi s i s not a young girl, but a mature woman who has had to work to stay alive, and then been forced to wonder if it was worth the trouble. B ut there is an intell i gence in her face. Sh e i s no peon. S h e thinks. 'I had written her into the script as a black woman,' Ellison said. 'The network said she couldn't be black. 'Why not?' I said, and they answered, 'Because it's relevant! We did relevance last year and it didn't work ! ' So I said, 'How about making her a Puerto Rican?' 'NO! ' Finally, she wound up as some sort of nameless Middle European, and they gave her a blonde wig. But Arl ine Martel played it as a Chicana. ' 'The Consuelo character was endlessly rewritten , ' said Robert Culp, ' t o bow t o the pressure t o make her less overtly ethnic . ' Her last name was changed to the racially ambiguous ' B iro s ' by Lester, who said, 'Harlan had some kind of message he wanted to get out through thi s Mexican girl , as though his most prosaic thoughts were these i l l uminations from on high, and he exhibited a lot of grief when thi s wasn't brought out in flaming colors . It was ridiculou s ! The script was not about the girl . It was a perfectly beautiful chase. I thought the concept of the show was j ust stunning . ' ' (Trent) i .; a time warrior, ' said Culp. ' He
Consu leo ha stens the d e m i se of Durn (Bill H a rt) by ya nking off the med a l l ion which a n c h ors him i n ti m e . Note the double exposure on Arl ine Marte l ' s face due to the optical d i ssolve by which the d i s i nteg ration wo s ach ieved . ( B E LOW) Trent d i scovers Kyben leftovers in Consuleo ' s sleeping grasp. ��..�---,���------�
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TH f O UHR liM ITS COM PAN ION
' C o m m a n d i n g and demonic, ' Arc h , the Kyben tea m leader (Abra h a m Sofaer) g l a res tri u m p h a ntly at Trent.
see?' for a part. We'd look through the Player's Directory and if they agreed, I'd write a part for a spec ific actor. ' ' E l l i son wrote the Trent part for me , ' acknowledged Robert Culp, ' and wouldn't hear of anyone else play ing i t . ' In his final Outer Limits role, Culp imbues Trent w ith a fel ine grace and a Fury-l ike inel uctabil ity that deeply etches the mythic stature of thi s fascinating being into the v iewer's mind from the first few frames of film. 'I thought Culp was hot,' said Ell i son. ' B ut I'd never met him. The first night of shooting at the Bradbury, I walked up to the third floor, which was pitch-dark. And there, s itting in a l ittle cul­ de-sac, was Culp, reading a book on pre-Colombi an art. That knocked me out, since most of the actors I'd met before were dips, purely non compos mentis. And Culp and I have been friends ever since. To thi s day he still wants to make 'Demon' as a feature film . . . but so much time has passed that he no longer wants to star in it. Now he wants to direct it. ' 'The night we started the shoot , ' said Culp, 'Harlan Ell i son came on the set, i ntroduced himself to me, and announced i n a very loud voice that he had written th is (show) specially for me. I fell in love w ith thi s guy the second I heard him talk. He was a total outlaw and looked like he was on something - but he wasn't on anyth i n g , never had bee n . It's the endorphins that work overtime in Harlan . ' 'Ellison was nuts ! ' grinned B yron Haskin. 'We met so I could interpret what he had written, because it was pretty wild and didn't look workable to me on paper in terms of finding a continuity from shot to shot. It was 'doubletalk' writing; he and I argued about it, and I got edgy and chased him out of my office. But
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we later became friends . Out at the Bradbury, we had to wait until it was dark and we were sleepy before we could shoot. We had to eat at a nearby beanery, and the gastric problems developed by the whole crew caused quite a stench during the longer setups. One night we surprised a pair of thieves who were burglarizing an office there - I guess they didn't foresee a camera crew showing up ! ' ' Byron was l ike S anta Claus, without the beard, ' said Culp. 'The sweet, cherubic, s l y l ittle elf-but one who knew absolutely what he was doing and where to put the camera. He also knew how to get the very best there was to get out of a story in science fiction term s . ' Whereas his previous work for Brady held no charm for Haskin, ' Demon ' clearly inspired him and paired him again with Robert Culp, whom he had directed i n ' Archi tects of Fear. ' ' Byron was one of the exceptional directors of science fiction,' said Brady. 'He also worked closely with the company I appointed to do the optical effects the second year, Van Der Veer. He was always around to help w ith ideas and technical things. Once 'Demon' got to the Bradbury Building, B yron was responsible for everything you saw. ' One of Haskin's ideas was to shoot much of the show using peripheral , rather than direct l ighting, and Kenneth Peach realized the film's sharp, stark look. Gene Warren recalled, ' We built the glass hand at Projects out of pl astic , with a tape recorder dev ice in it, and a lot of gadgets to make it look computerized. We shot a closeup of the 'works' and superimposed it over Culp's chest (for the shot reveal ing Trent as a robot) . ' ' Once the rough cut returned from the lab, I arranged for Harlan to see it,' said B . Ritchie Payne. 'Th i s was before the sound effects and so on were inserted. He was very upset, and wanted his name taken off the film. I told Ben, 'Well, boss, you've got another problem today . . . ' ' I wasn't given a chance to integrate some of the changes so they'd make sense, ' said Ellison . 'There's one shot I've always felt [it] should have. When Trent is told there's a force bubble up, in the fi lm he takes this for granted. In the script, be rushes for the door and tries to get out. And why the black circles around the Kyben's eyes? Some of them look like human be i n g s ; some of them look l i ke weirdos with cheesecloth over their faces . ' A secretary's typo caused the Control Voice to read ' Sumerian ' as 'Sumerican ' in the prologue. ' Oh, it's i n the script all right,' said Ellison . ' B ut it's not i n my script . ' '
DfMON WITH A GlASS HAND Arline Martel was cast as the racially ambiguous Consuelo, and Ellison noted, ' Most of the buildup of the feel ings of romance between (Trent and Consuelo) was left out. And now, that one scene looks silly she suddenly blurts out 'I think I'm falling in love with you' to Trent, and everybody laughs. ' Herewith, some o f the missing 'buildup , ' from a scene which follows Consuela's killing of Durn: TRENT:
There's no time for you to indul ge yourself.
Do you think I haven't bled a h undred times for what I've done? B ut it won't end, it has no end, t i l l I know, till t h e y s t o p trying to k i l l me, I don't know,
1 have no answers. B ut whatever it is, it can't be . . .
killing, d o you think I like it? 1 c an't stand i t but ] have to - can you understand? C O N S U E L O : Trent, please.
Shh, be at ease.
can't stand to see you . . .
whispers)
Don't.
I
(she hreaks off, then
] - I think I'm fal l in g i n love w i th y o u .
TRENT: D o n ' t s a y that. CONS UELO : I've said it. TRENT:
It's insane, and you can't.
1 don't want it; I
can't. I don't want you to fal l in love with me. Not me . . . I can't handle i t . C O N S U E L O : N o o n e c an ever real l y handle it. TRENT: Less me than most. CONSUELO:
Love is insane.
I married a man once
because 1 was lonely, afraid. old and I want to
I'm thirty-five years
belong to someone
delighted. ' Another person watching was Leslie Stevens. ' We'd get literally envious, and say it was an unj ust world, when somebody l ike B rady could pull off a show like that , ' he said. 'All I can say is, when it worked, our reaction (at Daystar) was a combination of gladness, because the show was 'ours' in a way ; envy at their bringing it off, and absolute astonishment that they could bring it off. In other words, all the bad human response you could ask for in one package, we had . ' ' I f we hadn't gotten 'Demon' early o n , I ' m sure ABC would have opted not to do it,' said Brady. ' I would've l iked to have opened the second season with that show. ' ' I would rate 'Demon' pretty high in terms of fidel ity to what I wrote, said Ellison. 'And it's one of the most remarkable pieces of acting I've ever seen from Culp . ' Years later, the episode would win an award at the Trieste Film Festival . As for what befalls Trent i n the novel version of the ' Demon' saga, the author would only say, ' When the book comes out, you'll know. . . '
. . . There's little
enough happiness in life for anyone . We learn to be insane, to grab what few moments come our way, cheap, sordid, whatever they are .
A few
moments
now, it's better than not having any moments ever ! I want mine, I've waited, I'm due, I want mine now ! TRENT: I can't think about that. CONS U EL O : about it.
Wyman was also the maternal grandfather of science fiction super-fan Forrest J. Ackerman .
I d o n ' t want you to think I want you to make love to
me . TRENT: That isn't the way it i s . C O N S U EL O : Yes , it i s , right now. TRENT:
Not for long .
B y morning w e'l l
both probabl y be dead. C O N S U E L O : Then I ' l l have tonight.
'Once the editors worked on it and the effects were in, it turned out just fine, ' said Payne. 'Culp gave it some class upfront, and Ellison cannot write a dull story. After we broadcast it, I picked up our office phone and the caller said, 'Hello, my name i s Ray B radbury, and I want to compliment you on ' Demon With a Glass Hand,' which I saw last night.' I said, ' I can't imagine recelvmg a comp l i ment from anyone we could appreciate more than you . ' At first, Ben thought the call was a phony, then was
Trent and Consuelo, one finger short of revelati o n .
THf OUHR liM ITS CO M PANION
Oemon Wit� a Brass Ban� In making music for The Outer Limits ' second season, Harry Lubin h ad to rel y on a smaller orchestra than that used by Dominic Frontiere. The result was a drier, more ' brittle' set of stock cues for the series , offset by a heavy reliance on electronic keyboard instruments, prime among them the Ondes Martenot. Lubin's music is by and l arge more tonal than Frontiere's scoring, centering around definite hannonic ' poles , ' often using consonant chords with a dissonant note or pattern played around them . Or a simple accompan iment to the orchestra i s set up, then a s l ow - m o v i n g , spooky­ sounding theme i s added, or played solo. This can and does have the power to produce a haunting i s o l ated, more soundscape, but a comparison of the ' scary ' cues composed in this way for ' Co l d Hands , Warm Heart , ' 'Counterweight' and ' Keeper of the Purp l e Twilight' reveals a monotony to much of Lubin's workaday musIC. Lubin also rec y c led two main cues from his fam o u s score for One Step B eyond for The O u te r Limits , the first being the title music. The end H a rry Lu b i n i n 1 960 . titles are played by a ful l orchestra; the opening titles employ a theremin to produce a high, wailing theme that grew into one of The O u ter Limits most­ remembered cues. The second retrofitted cue i s a foreboding l ittle number heard during Alicia Hendrix ' s 'I'm a woman ' scene in ' C ounterweight. ' Under the Control Voice opener, Lubin salts in music both simple and effective, consisting of high, sustained string chords w ith a harp figure slowly moving up and down against three m uted trumpets which interm ittently play a c l uster of three notes, which produces a ' shimmering' effect. I n earlier episodes of the season such as ' Cold H ands, Wann Heart , ' the title has added v ibraphone and harp arpeggios, much l i ke those first used by Frontiere. The incredible rel i ance o n shock chords
composed of screaming brass against a full orchestra for fadeout c u e s i s unfo rtunate, c ontradicting Frontiere's more e legant use of simi lar cues during the first season. In ' I , Robot, ' every act seems to close w ith these chord s , which quickly become redundant and grating. Another annoying cue is a short, declamatory brass fanfare, followed by a two­ note beating given by timpan i and saxophone , and wrapped by a trombone chord - this is heard throughout the season, notably at the beginning of Act One of ' Keeper of the Purple Twi light . ' O n e standout stock c u e is found i n ' Th e I n v i s ible Enem y ' - violins play high harmonic c l usters around harp g l i ssandi while a low clarinet and c ontra-bassoon play a j um p y, s c u rry i n g , staccato motif (it usually earmarks the appearance s of the sand sharks) . This cue is heavily B e rnard indebted to Herrmann's ' Giant Crab' cue from Mysterious Island. ' e n v i ronment The chamber' sequence in ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart' i s notable for its use of two electronic (ondes and i n s truments theremi n ) , p l ay i n g i n octaves over a dirge-l ike accompaniment of strings, horns and clarinets, over which the violins s ustain a single pitch (G) . When the score for this show attempts to rally, some of the ' cheapne s s ' of the sound is due to the fact that many composers h ad to force-fit music designed for l arger o rchestras into smaller, chamber-orchestra s ized groups , a scenario in which the shrunken string section can't p o s s i b l y balance the brass and woodwinds. In ' Wolf 3 5 9 , ' Lubin leans heav i l y on the O n e Step B eyond cues played by theremin and ondes, sometimes i n octaves. Later, the theme from 'Cold Hands, Wann Heart' is appended - always played 'distantly ' and with a lot of reverb , usually while the effects track features h o w ling wind. While an obvious effect to keynote the appearance of the Plag
DfMON WITH A BRASS BAND creature, it i s still an evocative one. All the ondes one might ever wish to hear is found in ' C ounterweight. ' The whirling l i ghtball version of the al ien i s spotlit by an ondes solo whenever it appears; l ater, the extended ' cast p arade' features an extended ondes solo over a rather rich string accompaniement. The glissandi of the ondes can be heard here over a very wide range; most interesting is the final note , which breaks up and sl ides in opposite directions simultaneously. A most beloved low-budget ' horror' sound i s found i n ' Cry o f S i lenc e ' - the electronic organ, played in minor seconds (a very dissonant interval) with theremin and brass shock chords, and tons of
' Look what my hands look l i ke . ' Robert Duva l l , Donald H a rron a n d Suza nne C u pito i n ' T h e I n h eritors . '
vibrato. For 'The Inheritors , ' a s incere , sentimental story, Lubin provided sincere, sentimental music. The main theme associated with and representing the children is interestingly varied throughout. When B al l ard meets Minerva's mother, it is played by a solo English horn over impre s s ionistic, whole-tone harmonies by the strings. When Lt. Minns meets Danny Masters , strings and muted trumpets play a stiffer version of the theme in parallel chords, augmented with a single chime note (D, the theme almost always being played in D-maj or) . B etween phrases of the theme, woodwinds and horns repeat a dominant A 7 th chord - a very classically-conceived sound. Later, the kids' theme transforms into a more sinister cue, and is ultimately distorted into the
chilling 'crippled kids' march , ' a heavy, plodding b a s s fig ure w ith a h igh v i o l i n tremolo, muted trumpets and two piccolos playing an accented version of the theme in thirds, cast in whole-tone scale mode. When Minns explains The Project, a tentative clarinet duet is punctuated with pizzicato violin and fl ute chords, then the Eng l i sh horn version of the theme, and finally a w arm, tonal version played by the strings in intervals of a sixth (very consonant), and flute and oboe in octaves. The french horns sound the theme in parallel triads (chords containing three notes) , over a s ustained violin tremolo in A, detailed by occasional harp - very moving and ' nostalgic' in fee l . T h e masterpiece in a season with few musical highlights i s Lubin's score to ' Demon With a Glass Hand , ' apparently the sort of score Lubin was capable of producing when not under pressure to fulfi l l the basically simplistic needs of TV music. The high, ' rippling' chords most evocative of this episode are played by an electric organ using a harpsichord-like stop, and often a timpani ostinato provides the only bas s . There are also l urking, quiet timpani solos as well as forcefu l , declarative ones. Trent and B reech' s dialogue in Act One i s surrounded by a simple cue played by two bassoons in octaves the 'bare bone s ' feel of this music i s paradoxically its greatest appeal . When Trent enters the Dixon B u i lding, it i s an electric piano that takes over to play the dissonant, arpeggiated chords. In Act Four, most notably during the elevator chase, the piano is distantly m iked and heavily reverbed, lending it a peculiar tonal qual ity that suggests either the piano was an old upright, or a metal rod of some sort was laid across the strings of a grand piano to produce this odd, unique sound. In ' Demon , ' the solo ondes functions as a de facto ' love theme ' for Trent and Consuelo. It i s Lubin's recycled ' sc ary ' theme , here used t o greatest advantage. Occasionall y, its final five notes repeat, first down an octave, then two. Ironi c a l l y, i t is a strange combi nation of Frontiere ' s music w ith Lubin's that denotes the average O u ter Limits v iewer's memory of the show. Everyone remembers the Frontiere ' sting , ' but ask them to hum the O uter Limits music and nine times out of ten you'll hear an a capella rendition of Harry Lubin's theremin title theme for One Step Beyond.
TH [ OUHR liMITS �O MPANION
C AY O f S I l[ N C [ Broadcast 24 Octo ber 1 9 64 Written by Robert C. D e n n i s Based on story materi a l by Lo u i s C h a r b o n n e a u O r i g i n a l t i t l e : ' M i nd O v e r M atter' D i rected by Charles H a a s Assistant D i recto r: Wi l l i a m P. Owens D i rector of Photography: Ke n n eth Peach. CAST: Andy Thorne (Eddie Albert). Karen Thorne (June Havoc). Lamont (Arth u r H u n n i cutt). Stu nt Ka ren ( H el e n Thu rsto n ) . Stunt Lamont ( R i ch a rd Farnsworth).
Andy Thorne (Eddie Al bert) tries to rescue h i s wife Karen (J une H avoc) from a m a l i g nant tu m bleweed .
In the not-distant future , the sound of Man will invade those unknown depths of space which as yet we cannot even imagine. In h is own world there are no places left beyond the reach of h is voice . His neighbor is no longer just next door, but anywhere at the end of a wire . And it all began when preh istoric man discovered the art of communication . . .
Checking u p o n some out-of-the-way real estate, Andy Thorne runs his convertible into a boulder blocking a remote country road. His wife Karen gets out of the car and promptly falls ass over teakettle down a hillside, twisting her ankle. They are cut off from their car by a gang of apparently sentient tumbleweeds that locomote sans wind, and explode instead of burning, as Andy learns when he ignites a few. After nightfal l , the couple is rescued by a torch­ bearing rustic named Lamont, who saw a meteor fall to Earth two weeks previously. After that, the weeds started capturing his livestock. When the three attempt to escape Lamont's farmhouse together, they are cut off by a new threat-a bouncing invasion wedge of sinister bullfrogs. A similar gambit the next morning is foiled by mobile boulders, one of which crushes Lamont. Andy improbably surmises that an alien intell igence is clumsily trying to make contact-any contact-long-distance, by animating what it thinks to
191
be representative Earth life-forms. Just then , Lamont's corpse shuffles back to the farmhouse, but like the weed s , the frogs and the rocks, he cannot communicate. Rigor mortis has frozen his larynx , and he scrawl s only a few patternless symbols before locking up completely. Eagerly, Andy hypnotizes himself, leav ing a list of questions for Karen to ask should the alien force wise up ad possess his body for a while . . . but all it does, through Andy, is lament its own failure : ' Consciousness does exist on this strange pebble in the drift of space, but its nature remains a mystery. ' Then it gives up for good and goes away. 'And the light shineth in the darkness , and the darkness comprehended it not. ' The sound of Man probes the dimensionless range of space, seeking an answer. But if' it comes, will he hear ? Will he listen ? Will he comprehen d ?
Usually remembered with derision as The Outer Limits ' ' monster tumbleweed ' epi sode , ' Cry of S ilence' is actually a intelligently-founded story that marked the debut of scriptwriter Robert Dennis. 'That was a good case of our manipulating a meaty story around a scant budget, ' said B rady. 'Bob Dennis brought that one in when I was reall y stuck for a script. He wrote it in four days ! ' S ince p u l p sc ience fiction writer Louis Charbonneau never authored a story called ' Mind Over M atter, ' it can only be surmised at this late date that his name was among those handed to scriptwriter M ilton Krims by B rady, via his staff of readers . 'Ben
CRY O� SllfNCf started the story with Krims, who couldn't solve i t , ' notes Seeleg Lester. B . Ritchie Payne recall s director Charles Haas' first reading of the Krims teleplay : 'After every fifth page Charlie would look up at me and say, 'We're gonna shoot thi s ? And this ? ' I said, 'Stop bitching, Charlie-we've got Eddie Albert, and we've got Gypsy Rose Lee's s ister, what more do you need?' And Haas said, 'We need a good story-and thi s ain't it ! ' ' ' I recall B ob Dennis with great affection, ' said Lester. ' He'd been a very prolifi c pulp writer, and had begun TV work with a series called China Smith in 1 95 2 . It was quite well-written, so when I went to work on Perry Mason, I called on Bob. He always seemed to do two great acts, then peter out in the third, as though he'd lost his enthusiasm . ' Payne added that ' Dennis was the fastest writer I'd ever seen ; to watch him pitch, you'd think he was selling insurance . He was also our 'script doctor. ' Cal Ward used to say, 'He ain't great, but goddamn, he's fast. ' ' There are n o frogs o r tumbleweeds in the Krims script, which substitutes an invisible force as the culprit. Lester insi sted to Dennis that the story ' s essence lay in the al ien force getting into the first moving thing i t finds . 'I feel i t was the best of the fom Outer Limits scripts I did, ' said Dennis . 'The only real change I made was adding the scenes where the stones attack. ' This l i nks the plot directly to that of Charbonneau ' s Corpus Ea rthling ( more alien­ control led rocks), and provides the show's one credible threat. One virtue of 'Cry of S ilence ' i s that i t keeps its characters in motion, in compari son with the static, petrified quality of shows like ' B ehold Eck ! ' or ' Expanding Human . ' Whi l e Andy ' s off-the-cuff theori zing i s a bit wi ld, even with Lamont's cryptic j ournal to guide him, the j ournal itself provides for some nicely eerie reci tations:
Zombified Lo mont scrawls a l ien sym bols i n h i s notebook .
When Lamont (played by the gangly Arthur Hunnicutt, who made a career out of such hayseed roles) comes stumping back to the farmhouse, not breathing, h i s eyes glazed over in death, the scene i s properly menacing even though Haas d i d nothing to heighten the sense of i mpending danger. 'That poor m an , ' said June Havoc . 'They put things in his eyes to make them look milky. He could only keep them on a short time, and was in such pain that tears were running down h i s face. ' The stunt man standing in for Hunnicutt when Lamont gets pasted by the avalanche was Richard Farnsworth, the 1 984 Academy Award nominee for The Gray Fox. The lame direction leaves the actors largely to thei r own devices . Eddie Albert energetically conveys
ANDY ( reading) : Seventh day : The Lord rested after Creation, but here there is no rest. Now I am certain that there is a mal ignant intelligence behind the weeds. No, not behind them. In them. Where it comes from or what it wants, I cannot fathom. Perhaps if I could reason clearly .. .! might understand . . . but my grip on sanity grows weaker by the day .. .
As soon as Andy notes, ' I don't think it was mali gnant , ' a huge boulder hurl s itself i nto the farmhouse, shaking the whole building.
A n d y awakes a fter h i s fa i led attempt at c h a n n e l i n g .
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION both wild curiosity about the alien force , and inte l l i gent fury at its fumbled attempts at contact. ' Why doesn't it try to communicate instead of playing a lot of stupid tricks?' Andy shouts, shaking his fist at the sky. 'A t least act logical! ' While his wife is repulsed by the frogs, Andy is fascinated : ' I want to find out what makes it go ! ' Enmeshed in their predicament and looking for a way to reassure his wife, Albert, as Andy, utters what is possibly the most ironic l ine of his TV career: 'I'll give up the idea of Ii v ing on a farm ! ' As written by Denn i s , Karen Thorne is nervous and tightly-wired, but June Havoc overinflates the part to out-and-out bugeyed h ysteria, coming unhinged every time a tumbleweed twitches or a frog croaks. We begin to wonder how someone as sharp and methodical as Andy Thorne could have married such a shrieking basket case . On the day the frog attacks were to be filmed, a Humane S oc iety representative showed up at Paramount's Stage #7 with three large burlap bags of live frogs. ' Knowing something awful was going to happen , 1 said, 'What have you got i n the bag?' ' remembered Havoc . 'They June H avoc, Eddie Al bert, and a back-from-the-dead Arth u r H u n n icutt. said, 'We're going to throw these at you,' and 1 said, 'Real frogs ? ' ' She approached the the back o f the camera dolly, and lined u p down the animal supervisor and said, 'I don't want to be the set, throwing these things at my face . 'They were wet heavy in this case, but 1 can't run through these frogs. because they'd just come out of a tub of water, and had I'd squash a couple, and if they throw them, they' l l hurt to shine. B ut they were fake frogs . . . so 1 made it. ' them, and if you're standing by watching, it'll be too Fairly static shots of live frogs are intercut with the late-I'll step on them and they' l l be dead . ' fakes being hurled at Havoc and Eddie Albert, and the Gene Warren said, ' We had t o g o out t o the frog Projects frogs were used for one gag where a gang of farm to get these gunny sacks ful l of frogs, and the frogs leaps in unison across the frame. Filmed from frogs didn't want to j ump around on the set when the two different angles, the shot is so giddily weird it's hot shooting lights were on. ' This, presumably, was almost striking. why they were going to be thrown. But as soon as they ' B en B rady had to pay the bill for those rubber got out of the bag, they hopped for cover. ' Within two frogs , ' said B . Ritchie Payne. 'June Havoc threw a minutes-bingo, not a frog in sight , ' said H avoc . ' S o party for the cast after the show was filmed, thanking the special effects department came up with fake frogs everyone-her own party. Ben didn't pay for that . ' that were this big, and beautiful. There were men on
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I. ROBOT
Broad cast 1 4 November 1 9 64 Writte n by Robert C. D e n n i s Based o n ' I , Robot, ' by ' Ea n d o B i n d e r ' ( psuedonym of Earl a n d Otto B i nder) D i rected by Leon Benson Assistant Di rector: W i l l i a m P. Owens D i rector of Photography: Kenn eth Peach CAST: Thurman Cutler ( H oward d a Silva), J u dson E l l i s ( Leonard N i moy), Nina L i n k ( M a r i a n n a H i l l), Adam Link (Read Morgan), DA Thomas Coyle ( Fo rd R a i n ey), Fred ( R o b e rt Sorrells), Judge ( Ken Drake), Prof. Hebbel (John H oyt), Sheriff Barclay (Hugh Sanders), Prof. Charles ' Do c ' Link ( Peter B rocco), Evie (Christi ne Matchett), M rs M a c R a e ( M a ry J ackson), Truck Driver (John H u dkins), A d a m ' s Vo ice (John Caper, J r. ) Ada m and N i n a L i n k (Read Morg a n a n d Mari a n n a H i l l ) .
God looked upon his world a n d called i t good, but Man was not content. He looked for ways to make it better and built machines to do the work. But in vain we build the world, unless the builder also grows.
breaks his bonds in order to toss the l ittle girl with the broken arm out of the path of an oncoming truck . . . and gets bashed to scrap metal in the process. Cutler notes sardonically that ' that terrible monster won't ever harm anybody again. '
A crochety, misanthropic defense attorney named Thurman Cutler is coaxed out of retirement to take on a s ingular case : The defense of a robot, Adam Link, against the charge that it willfully murdered its creator, Dr. Charles Link. Testimony reveals that once Adam was activated, he began a trial-and­ error process of learning much like that of a human child, which suggests that some of his later acts , construed as v iolent, were merely a matter of the mechanical man not understanding his own strength (such as when Adam breaks the arm of a little girl while pulling her from a stream) or misunderstanding sometimes opaque human thoughts and emotions . But the defense i s never fully able t o recover from the revelation that Adam read the novel Frankenstein while absorbing all the books in Doc Link's l ibrary, and the innocent robot is u l ti m atel y pronounced guilty even though Doc Link's death was accidental. Before Adam can be hauled away to be dismantled as a menace, he Ole ' Doc ' Li n k (Peter
Out of every disaster, a little progress is made . Man will build more robots , and learn how to make them better. And, given enough time, he may learn how to do the same for himself
B rocco) ti n kers away on h i s mec h a n ical m a n .
TH [ O UHR liMITS COM PANION ' I , Robot, ' the first of the ' Adam Link' stories, was published in the January, 1 93 9 issue of Amazing Stories under the collaborative byline of ' Eando B inder'-E-and-O standing for brothers Earl and Otto. Earl gave up writing i n 1 940 and Otto produced most of the Adam Link stories that were to follow in Amaz i n g--eleven in all , up to ' Adam Link Saves the World' in April, 1 942. The stories were of special historic note because they were told from the point of view of the main character, a humanoid robot named Adam Link­ 'Adam ' because he is the first of his kind, and 'Link' after his creator, though he i s also a sort of Missing Link between machine and human being. In the stories, Adam is more human in appearance. In the original ' I , Robot, ' he is found guilty of Dr. Link's murder, but is later granted a gubernatorial pardon and goes into business as Adam Link, Inc. The Binder tales were also an enduring staple of comic magazines, from EC's adaptation of ' I , Robot' for Weird Science-Fantasy #27 in 1 95 5 , to Warren Magazine's version of the same story for Creepy #2 i n 1 965 . Many o f the subsequent tales, with titles such as 'The Trial of Adam Link , ' 'Adam Link's Vengeance,' and ' Adam Link, Robot Detecti v e , ' were also frequently adapted. 'I remember writing to the B i nders to buy the rights,' said Seeleg Lester. 'They were so pleased that they said, 'We've written a dozen Adam Link stories, and you can take any of the ideas from any of the other stories and incorporate them into your show. ' That was
C i rc u m sta ntial evidence? Ada m Lin k accidenta l ly looks g u i lty as hel l .
C utler (Howard da S i lva) a n d E l l i s ( Leonard N i moy) swa p barbed witti c i s m s .
very nice of them, and it was one of our better shows because we tried to bring in a serious theme. ' I t also planted The Outer Limits unabashedly into the Perry Mason courtroom setting so famil iar to B rady and most of his crew. The legal fencing is fun to witness and has the timbre of authenticity, but the promise of the first act-dealing with a robot whose very strangeness scares the hell out of the people trying it for murder-is obscured by the pedestrian business of bringing on witnesses for the prosecution. 'It was somewhat conventional , ' said Lester. ' B ut 1 think we gave it an unusual slant. When 1 told ABC the story, I'll never forget Adrian S am i sh saying, 'Who the hell cares about a pile of tin?' And when the thing finally played on TV, I got a l ump in my throat watching that pile of tin throw himself in front of a truck to save that l ittle girl . ' Robert Dennis delivered his adaptation of ' I , Robot' the day after completing revisions o n ' Cry of S i lence, ' and noted, ' I recal l reading tear sheets of the story from an old pulp magazine . ' Dennis created the Thurman Cutler character, greatly expanded a nameless newspaperman mentioned in passing in the B inder story into Judson Ellis, and changed Doc Link's surviving relative from nephew Thomas (originally, the lawyer who defends Adam) to niece Nina. Cutler's wisecracking banter with the smart­ assed cynic, Ellis, and old-warhorse rivalry with DA Coyle are straight out of Inherit the Wind, and Howard da Silva and Leonard Nimoy chomp wholeheartedly into Dennis' engagingly sharp
I. ROBOT dialogue : ELLIS (as Cutler enters City Hall) : A Daniel, come to j udgement. Yea, a Daniel. . . CUTLE R : Little Judd Ellis, isn't it? The young man of great promise - and all of i t broken . ELLIS : You're sti l l a t i t , h u h , Cutler? Wel l , for once we're gonna be on the same team . And, brother, you'll need m e ! CUTLE R : It seems I didn't retire a minute t o o soon. With the Herald behind me, I'd be ruined !
Cutler's resentment of the town's backwoods hypocri sy, and his need to grandstand, seem to foredoom Adam, until he and Ellis redeem themselves in the last act by evincing a deeper understanding of the true meaning of the trial . When Ellis rightly accuses, 'All you wanted was another shot at Coyle and B arclay and that whole crowd of entrenched stupidity, ' Cutler responds: CUTLE R : Entrenched stupidity, that's n o t h a l f bad. But tel l me something. I s that confined to small towns, or do you find it in big cities, too? ELLIS : S ure. But we have a better class of stupidity.
Omitted from the show was Cutler's comeback to this, and Ellis' followup:
CUTLE R : You've never forgiven this town for not appreciating you. ELLIS : I don't need their appreciation - nor yours, either !
Everyone else in the show is defined in terms of rough-hewn cliches. Nina Link is decorative (Ellis' i mpromptu courtship of her was dropped) . The denizens of the town are all kissin' cousins to the hicks in ' The Children of Spider County. ' Doc Link, seen in numerous flashbacks, is an eccentric -but-Iovable bachelor scientist, a suspected misogynist, quaintly grumpy and absent-minded. Dennis' script and the performances breathe as much life into this scenario as possible, but it is sti l l a bringdown from what ' O . B .LT. ' had already achieved in a similar setting. No one at Project, Unlimited would take credit for the cumbersome robot suit worn by Read Morgan, although Gene Warren recall s it as ' already available,' possibly from the prop c loset at Paramount. The gaffer's tape holding it together is vi sible in many shots. ' Leon B enson was another Perry Mason director, ' said Lester. ' He did a good job on 'J, Robot,' but really struggled with it because of the budget . ' This was Benson's only Outer Limits assignment. As of 'I, Robot, ' The Outer Limits itself went on trial. On the second day of shooting, September 1 9 , 1 964, the new season premiered with ' S oldier' in the Saturday evening time slot against Jackie Gleason . Variety's ' Daku ' wrote : 'Limits will have to come up with better stuff than it did on its debut to make it any kind of a race. It was, on the whole, unsatisfactory fare. ' Gleason's season bow stole away most of the audience for ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart' the following week, and at this time ABC's monster-mania peaked, as ' I , Robot' wrapped and all eyes turned to the next show scheduled for production - a two-parter without a single monster in sight.
L9�
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
TH E I N H E R ITO R S
Ballard (Robert Duva l l ) a n d Agent Harris (Donald H a rron) u p a g a i nst ' Re n a l d o ' s Barrier. ' Part One broadcast 2 1 November 1 9 64 Part Two broadcast 2 8 November 1 9 64
ADDITIONAL PART TWO CAST: M i n e rva Gordon (Suzanne Cupito). Agent Grainger (Jon Cedar). M rs S u b i ron (Jan Shutan). N u rse at C h i l d re n ' s Hospital (Paulie Clark). M iss Steen (Joanne Stewart). D a n i e l
Written by Seeleg Lester and Sam N e u m a n Story by Lester a n d N e u m a n . f r o m a n idea by Ed Adamson Scri pted as 'The H u i Ta n Proj ect ' a n d 'The Pied P i p e r Proj ect' Di rected by James G o ldsto ne Assistant Di recto r: Robert Justman D i rector of Photography: Ke n n eth Peach CAST: Adam B a l l a rd ( R o b e rt Duva l l ). Lt. P h i l l i p J M i n n s (Steve I n hat). Ray ' Art ' H a rris ( D o n a l d H a rro n ) . Sgt. James Conover ( Ivan Dixon). PFC Francis H a d l ey ( Dee Po l l a ck). Pvt. Robert R e n a l d o (James FraWley). AID Capt. Ngo Nwa (James S h i geta). Secretary of Science R a n d o l p h E. Branch (Ted DeCors i a ) . Prof. Andrew Wh itsett (Wi l l i a m Wi nterso le). Surgeon ( R o b e rt J Nelson). Oriental So l d i e r (Yoneo I g u c h i ) . Steelmaking Shop Super ( L e o n Aski n ) . M r Jessup ( R o b e rt Cind er). N u rse ( Linda Hutchins). Hospital M P (Sy Prescott). E . F. Larkin (Dabbs Greer). Johnny S u b i ron (Kim H e ctor).
191
N ewton M a sters ( David B r a d y ) . Boy w i t h B a l l ( C h a rles Herbert) ALSO WITH: John H a rd i n g . M i c h a e l Petit. Earl Brown. H . Faber. M . Finochio. G . Estes.
In the troubled places of the world, the Devil 's Hunter finds rare gam e . For man -made savagery is only the instrument for a secret terror stirring Fom its dark place of ambush . . .
After catching a bullet i n the brain in Vietnam, Lt. Minns becomes of special interest to Department of Science investigator Adam B allard. His EEG now shows a dual brain-wave pattern exactly l ike those of three other similarly wounded soldiers who ' should've died and didn't. ' The alien patterns in all four EEGs
THf INHfRlTORS match, and B allard finds that the bullets that wounded the four were smelted from a meteorite, the ore of which, when magnified, reveals a honeycomb effect reminiscent of the configuration of the human RNA factor. While recuperating, Minns develops a skyrocketing IQ and a new interest in high finance­ just as Sgt. Conover, before him, appl ied his 200-plus IQ to metallurgy, PFC Hadley to biochemi stry, and Pvt. Renaldo , to phy s i c s . Soon enough, Minns hypnotizes his nurses and guards and simply walks out of the hospital . . . and onto Wal l Street, where he generates a fast $400,000 on the stock market and sends funds to each of the other three men. B allard traces Hadley to Wichita and finds his workshop, where research on inert gases and ducting systems i s proceeding. Hadley himself h a s v an ished u p the Amazon, looking for rare herbs. B allard next misses Conover in Stockholm, but discovers his vehicular design, which employs an alloy lighter than wood but stronger than steel. In Tokyo, he catches up with Renaldo, who demonstrates his newly-completed anti­ gravity drive. It becomes clear that while the intruder brain governs the actions of the quartet, it does not interfere with their attitudes. 'If you need to know, suddenly you learn ! ' an angu ished Renaldo tell s Ballard. ' I f you need money, suddenly you get money. Anything to finish the Project. But if you want to get it off your back . . . you can't do that. You do what's inside your head, no m atter how your i n sides are busting ! 'And the next thing B allard knows, it's two weeks later and he is in Indianapolis ! Federal agent Harris locates Minns' apartment headquarters and stakes dozens of G-men around it. While he and Ballard wait to ambush Minns, Minns initiates the next step of the unfathomable plan : He contacts children, promising to take them 'far away ... on a starship. '
The dual bra i nwave pattern i n d i cating the a l ien presence.
Minns evades the trap using ' Renaldo's Barrier, ' an impenetrable force-field developed from the anti­ gravity device. Unable to stop or touch him, Ballard and Harris converge on Wichita, where the other three men are constructing a starship from their combined research. Minns arrives with a station wagon-load of children : The blind Minerva, the deaf-mute Danny Masters, leukemi a victim Johnny S ubiron, and others crippled or retarded. An enraged but helpless B allard watches Minns guide the tru sting kids into the ship; his protests, plus the vocalized self-doubts of the other soldiers, prompt Minns to announce that the four of them will accompany the children into space-of their own free will. Then, with words 'that come without my knowledge , ' Minns relates the story of a benevolent race of humans on a faraway planet. Rendered incapable of procreation, they dispatched a galactic SOS long ago, in the form of meteors filled with their RNA factor, in the hope that 'a course would follow much like thi s course has followed with u s . ' Ballard says no one h a s the right to kidnap helpless
Man looks up a t the stars , and dreams his futile dreams . Child of the universe , his toys are ignorance , his games , fantasy. Not even master of his own fate , it is the Devil 's Puppeteer who stretches his fingers to answer the question : What will happen next? PART TWO
The Earth , tumbling grain of sand in the darkness of unending space , plays host to a strange and awful guest, unsought, uninvited, possessor of fearsome power purveyor of dark deed, a relentless traveler on the road to its mysterious goal . . .
Renaldo W a mes F rawley) , Had ley ( Dee Pol lock) and Conover (Ivan Dixon) have their dou bts a bout the Project.
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION Lester's work time following the completion of ' Wolf 3 5 9 . ' It was an all-consuming 'Project, ' like that undertaken b y L t . Minns. ' S am Neuman came into my office , ' said Lester, 'and said, 'Seeleg, I need some money, and I've got an idea for one of those Outer Limits shows. B ut I 've j ust got the opening; I don't know anything else.' His idea was that a bunch of doctors are watching an encephalograph during an operation, and suddenl y two brainwave patterns appear on the screen. One doctor says, 'some entity has entered the brain of that man . ' Sam and I entered into weeks of discussion on how to use that, and finally came up with a concept. ' After the Vietnamese province where the alien meteor is first found, the story was originally titled 'The Hui Tan Project . ' ' S am was al so from Perry Mason , ' Ben Ballard exa m i nes the ore i n the meteor crater-the place o f ' the g reat fire i n the B rady noted, ' and h e was always better at sky. ' generating ideas than working them out. This was children, and Minns surprises him by admitting him a very appealing idea. ' The story is sti ll recognizable and Harri s into the spacecraft, where Hadley's ' air as a B rady regime plot - a step-by-step accumulation conditioning' (his synthesis of the alien planet' s of facts by Ballard, who solves the mystery. B ut here atmosphere) has reversed the children's afflictions. the gimmick, instead of a conventional monster, was Minns points out that these children are 'the hopeless the unconventional ending, a resolution that was ones, the ones who never had anything on Earth . They sentimental without being cloying. ' Ed Adamson will inherit a bright new world of wonder and wanted to sell me a story about a Pied Piper figure who greatnes s . ' Ballard is overwhelmed beyond objection, l ures away a lot of children, ' said Lester. 'So I and the three other soldiers happily agree to go to the incorporated that idea into the story. ' Accordingly, Part stars with the kids . Two was titled 'The Pied Piper Project, ' while in­ work. B ut as S am Neuman related, 'Seeleg inserted The Inheritors are on their way. In a universe of the character of the scientific investigator, to use the billions of stars , there are places of love and script as a possible series pilot, and that took the whole happiness . On this Earth , in this spot, magic show away from the Pied Piper message. ' Lester's settled for a moment. Wonder touched a few lives, and a few odd pieces fell smoothly into the jigsaw of Creation .
' I loved 'The Inheritors, ' ' said director James Goldstone. 'It was a marvelous statement on the politics of misunderstanding in the world. Mankind's assumption is that anything not totally understood is, by definition, bad; the suspicion of the B obby Duvall character i s that the Project has to be malevolent. It's real drama, and a valuable story to be told. What I liked best about it was that it used science fiction as the jumping-off point: What if there was this place that needed people, where the physical constituency was such that bl ighted children could he healthy, and repopul ate the world in a positive way ? ' 'The Inheritors ' absorbed nearly a l l o f Seeleg
J a mes S h i g eta g uest-sta rs as Ca pt. Ngo Nwa .
THf INHfRlTORS
Bol lard, Prof. Whitsett (Wi l l i a m Wi ntersole) a n d the Secreto ry of Science (Ted de Corsia) d i scuss the ' honeycom bed sym m etry' of the mystery ore.
redraft of the entire 1 1 9-page script absorbed most of September, 1 964. ' S eeleg got bogged down starting with The Invi sible Enemy,' and never reall y recovered his pace, ' said Brady. ' He worked on the first draft o f ' The Inheritors' for nearly ten weeks , and we just couldn't afford that. These things had to come out faster, and that's why I brought in Milton Krims and B ob Dennis. Seeleg labored over every script and got way behind. We had been the best of friends until The Outer Limits brought us to some very harsh scenes, and that's a recollection that's rather unhappy. ' Brady aide B . Ritchie Payne recalled, ' I came in one day and Seeleg's secretary, Maggie Lutwen, was crying . She was typing the script, and she said, 'Ritchie, thi s is the most beautifu l thing I've ever read ! ' I told her that yes, b y god, i t had gotten t o me, too. Ben had to fight very hard to get New York to even aI/ow him to do a two-parter. ' 'We had the goddamndest trouble with ABC because they didn't understand the story, ' said Lester. 'I told Ben we should put it in work as a two-parter, that we could fight for it, and that if ABC wanted monsters we could put them in the other shows . Adrian Samish fought me on many, many points in the story, and then, when Ben called me into his office to talk with Samish about the script, S amish said, 'You know, this could make a damned good story-let's not fuck it up ! ' ' While the Lester/Neuman script concludes Part One by suggesting the mild telepathy by which Minns
B o l l a rd a n d the Swed i s h Stee l m a ker (Leon Ask i n ) ponder Conover's new a l loy.
selects the children (Johnny S ubiron runs to greet him as ' Lieutenant' even though Minns is not in uniform) , ABC wanted to e n d with agents raiding Minns' apartment, guns flashing. While Neuman considered the four soldiers to be the leads, Lester gives the story from B allard' s point of view. 'The script was better than the finished film,' said Neuman , whose narrative opened chronologically in Vietnam and included such scenes as Hadley expressing his extreme alienation to Minns, upon their first meeting in an airport : HADLEY: I've needed to talk like thi s . I've needed someone to talk to. I've been so isolated-first in my workshop i n the hangar, now just finishing in B razil-but I've had the feeling that you know what's going on with me and the others .
' I d o n ' t feel any sma rter . . . '
JOO
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION 'There was also a scene where a young girl falls in love with Hadley, ' said Neuman, ' and he realizes he must tell her it cannot be. He doesn't even know why himself. B ut that was emotional ; it got discarded. ' Most adjustments were wrought b y Lester. I n the film, when B allard is asked if the strange goings-on might have an innocent explanation, his response is a flat no. Here i s what he says in Lester's earlier draft:
Conover (Ivan Dixon) prays : ' I I is good . . . i s n ' l it, God ? '
M INNS : N o . I don't. HADLEY: I'd l i ke to know what's behind it al l . What we're doing. Why we're doing i t . Why I was picked out l ike thi s . You know how much schooling I've had? Two years of high school. Wh y me? M INNS : I don't think you were p icked out, any more than I was picked out. We j ust happened. Me a financial gen ius-that's pretty funny. I never had more than $50 to my name until some back pay accumulated. I don't know any more about this ' project' than you do, or B aldano, or Conover. I HADLEY: At least you know their names. M I NNS : I knew them only at the moment I had to arrange for those bank drafts. Not before I went to the bank. After I went there . Like now. I had no idea in mind to meet you at this plane. And only now I know why . . . ���-.-�.-�----------�
B ALLARD: Innocent? I hope so. B ut then, why did those three men disappear? Do you disappear when you're doing something innocent? How can we know what they may be up to when they've got that ' i nvader brain' in their heads? What if they aren't innocent? What if they're enemy-inspired, or a mutant of some kind, or ­ I hesitate to say it because it sounds so theatrical
'Th i s is m olive power l i ke noth i n g you 've ever seen ! ' Renaldo prepa res 10 defy g ravity.
- but, what if those men are now joined in some dark venture, bent on some e v i l purpose, controlled by some malevolent extraterrestrial influence? M aybe they are innocent, sir, and maybe not . . . but I think we ought to find out, and fast !
' When you've done a story you think i s extraordinarily good, then see the film, I don't think the writer is ever satisfied fully,' noted Lester. 'The sharp limit to production costs made the spaceship look like some carnival thing. The menace didn't come out as much as I would have l iked. But I think what did come through was the emotional qual ity, and the surprise of the ending. ' The Lieutenant and Da n ny Ma sters (David Brady) .
J01
THf INHfRlTORS
I: t
'As the world has seen , there i s no limit to how much money you could spend on a science fiction show, ' said James Goldstone, who found in 'The Inheritors' the right script to mark his return to The Outer Limits. ' I certainly recall everyone feel i ng it was a very spec ial show even though we did it inexpensively. That's why I wanted Bobby Justman with me when I did the second Star Trek pilot; he had an understanding of how to get the most onscreen, on schedule. I have a memory of the question of how to get that plywood starship to go up into the air at the end of 'The Inheritors . ' We couldn't do it optically, and didn't have the time or money to shoot it any other way, so Ken Peach and I j ust dollied the camera back until we were off the stage, then tilted up to the sky. That was my solution to that insoluble problem . There are many TV shows I feel angry about, or apologetic . But you can tell Seeleg for me that I have nothing but good feelings about 'The Inheritors . ' I was proud of it, and it stood me in good stead . ' Goldstone surely gives a lift t o a n episode that would have been flattened by a lesser director. The globe-trotting nature of the plot is convincingly conveyed despite the microscopic budget, as the plot takes us, more or less convincingly, from Wall Street to Stockholm to Tokyo. One subtle motif of the narrative is that the closer Ballard drives to his objective, the further he i s pushed back. He j ust misses Hadley, i s ducked by Conover, and when he finally corners Renaldo in the flesh, he loses two weeks. Goldstone has a soft spot for society's outcasts-the soldiers and the children-and the gentle way in which they are filmed undercuts the sense of menace that is supposed to follow Minns around. Since he never really seems threatening or ev i l , Ballard looks a bit monomaniacal in his relentless pursuit. He is the hero figure by default, devoted to the erasure of evi l , and he turns out to be dead wrong in h i s assessment o f Minns' purpose. When h e slams nose­ first into Renaldo's B arrier, he shouts, 'I hope you rot, Minns! ' Once he is admitted past the barrier, he is speechless with surprise, and this lends the ending much of its impact. H igh marks are due the entire cast, which Goldstone rehearsed for two days before shooting. 'Steve Inhat's role i s the part in that show, ' he noted. Robert Duvall's performance as B allard lends the character some compassion. James Frawley (later director of The Muppet Movie) is a terrific Renaldo-
M i n n s gets i neffectu a l ly bla sted b y the two H a rris ' F BS ' men w h o were otherwise cut out of the videota pe release.
bearlike, mad as hell at being pushed around by the intruder brain , yet powerful and sympathetic. It i s difficult t o believe that the mad-dog Fed, Harris, is played by an actor with Shakespearean training. ' Donald H arron i s enormously talented , ' said Goldstone. 'He had performed at Stratford on Avon; he (also had) his own talk show in Canada.' Ben B rady's son David appears as young Danny Masters, and S u zanne Cupito, seen prev i o u s l y as an insufferable brat in several Twilight Zones ( and today known as Morgan B rittany) , has a more touching turn as the blind Minerva, saying, ' Look what my hands look l ike , ' to a flabbergasted B allard. When 'The Inheritors ' was released on videotape in 1 98 7 , it was blurbed as The Outer Limits ' only 'feature-length ' episode. To achieve the seamless feel
' Lieutena nt, you ' re crying . ' Mi nerva G. (Suza n n e C u pito) feels the tea rs on M i n n s ' face.
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TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
M i n n s and some of the I n heritors .
of a mov ie running one hour and 3 8 minutes, the closing credits and Control Voice speech for Part One and the opening credits and Control Voice speech for Part Two were deleted, in order to cover a direct cut between Minns entering his building (at the conclusion of Part One) and M inns entering his apartment (at the beginning of Part Two). Since the closing credits for Part Two constitute the only end titles used, the supporting actor credits from the end of Part One are also missing. One scene running nearly two minutes was cut entirely-B allard and Harris enter Minns' apartment and discuss Minns with FB S man Grainger and another agent (the two who futilely blast Minns when he leaves).2 The men exit to their posts and Ballard checks the apartment; it has already been thoroughly searched, the phone, tapped. He discovers Minns' notepad and begi n s to copy the cryptic abbreviations which he and Harri s later decode. Harri s notices B allard's hands are shaking and B allard admits
B a l l a rd a n d H a rris c o m e through t h e Ba rrier.
that he i s ' scared to death . ' Then Minns enters . Lester's i ntention to use 'The Inheritors ' as a series pilot actually dates back to h i s tenure on Perry Mason . ' I developed two series ideas for C B S , ' he said. ' One of them was a mystery series, set in the Caribbean , called Jamaica Ginger. The other was Century 2 1 , for which I got someone at RandCorp to give me a decade-by-decade prognosis of life in the US, leading up to the year 2000. I wanted to have a Secretary of Science character in the President's Cabinet, and he and his assi stant would investigate things of a scientific nature. For example: Someone discovers a drug that will prolong life to 1 80 years. Who's going to use it? How do you apportion it? It might become the object of theft or murder. That problem would go to the Secretary of Science. I used that character in The Inheritors , ' and got my ownership of him written into the contract. B ut CBS wouldn't do the series. They had no imagination. And all the things that RandCorp guy predicted in 1 962 have been coming to pass ever s ince . ' ' B aldano' was the Renaldo character's name i n a l l early drafts of the telepl ay. 2
The scene runs one minute, 47 seconds. It was not incl uded because M i n n s had already been shown entering the building, (even though there i s a perfect place earl ier in the sequence of Part One where the scene could have dropped in). The video version nonetheless includes the Part Two montage recapping the events of Part One . Technically, this cut plus the omission of the two bridging Control Voice speeches makes 'The Inheri tors' the only Outer Limits epi sode that is i ncomplete in its commercial release . Puri sts are adv ised to keep an eye out
The sta rsh i p i n the episod e ' s closing shot.
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for syndication broadcast of the epi sodes in their original two­ parter format.
THf OUpmAH MAN
T H E D U P l i C AT E M A N Broadcast 19 December 1 9 64 Written by Robert C. D e n n i s B a s e d on ' G o o d n i g ht, M r J a m e s ' by Clifford S i m a k Di rected by Gerd Oswa ld Assista nt D i rector: Gregg Peters Di rector of Photography: Ken n eth Peach CAST: H e n d e rson J a m e s I J a mes I I I R o n Randell), Capt. Karl Em met ISean McClory), La u ra J a m e s IConstance Towers), Megasoid I M i ke Lane), Zoo Guide IAlan G iffo rd), M u rdock I Konstantin Shayne), Po lic em an IJ effrey Stone), B a s i l Jerichau ISteven Ge a ry), M iss Thorson I lvy Bethune), Pedestri a n IJonathan Hole), Stu nt E m met l G eorge Roboth a m ) , Stunt J a mes IGeorge Pa u l ) . Henderson Ja mes confronts h i s own i l legal clone.
Since the first day that Man stared up at the stars and saw other worlds , there has been no more haunting question than this : What will we find there ? Will there be other creatures, and will they be like us ? Or when that ancient dream comes true, will it turn into a nightmare ? Will wejlnd, on some distant, frozen planet, an alien life of unimaginable horror? The year is 2025 , and renowned acade m i c Henderson James has smuggled to Earth an alien Megasoid-highly dangerous, i llegal to possess, and, i n the words o f space smuggler Capt. Emmet, ' always thinking about killing, unless it's i n its reproductive cycle' . . . which this one is. When it escapes (to hide out amid the stuffed extraterrestrials i n a nearby space zoo ) , James cannot summon t h e courage t o track it down and kill it, and so has a clone of himself i llegally made for the purpose. Strict deadl ines govern the minting of such ' d u p l i c ate s , ' which are destroyed before v e s t i g i al memory renders them i n d i s t i ng u i s h ab l e from their original s . J ames' bootleg duplicate botches h i s m i s s ion at the zoo, and the pregnant Megasoid gets away. A shred of memory leads J ames I I to Emmet's home. When Emmet panics and tries to phone the police, James II bl udgeons him and fi nds h i s way to ' h i s ' h o m e , accumulating more of Henderson James' memories every step of the way. When he confronts James' wife, Laura, she sees in him a younger version of her h usband, before he was consumed by ambition and obsessed by h i s study of the Megasoid. The real Jame s , meanwhile, has gone to
bribe Emmet i n t o murdering J ames II once t h e clone's task i s accomplished. While Emmet waits in ambush at James' home, he i s slaughtered by the Megasoid. J ames meets his duplicate, and the hard truth of seeing a more compas sionate version of himself gives him the courage needed to kill the alien, since he real izes Laura would be happier with J ames I I . B oth of them hunt the Megasoid, and James shoots the monster as it tears J ames II apart . Then he d i scovers t h at J am e s I I was dying all along ... from a timed-release poison in h i s bl oodstream , a prec aution pro v i ded by B as i l Jerichau , the c lone bootlegger. A less cynical Henderson James is now reconciled with his wife .
I n a l l the universe, c a n there be creatures more strange than the species called Man ? He creates and destroys ; he fum bles and makes mistakes. But the thing which distinguishes him is the ability to learn from h is mistakes . C l i fford S imak's ' Goodnight, Mr. Jame s , ' first publi shed i n the Marc h , 1 95 1 is sue of Galaxy, begins and ends with the ' duplicate ' of Henderson J ames , who awakes on a street of an unnamed city (m uch l ike Trent in ' Demon With a Glass Hand ' ) with a mi ssion to kill an alien called a Puudly. The alien, using telepathy, fi l l s in some blanks about the c l on e ' s origin before he exterminates it. He then decides to try to talk the real Henderson James into letting him live, perhaps after some p lastic surgery to differentiate them . Through a fluke of timing, he arrives at J ames' house after the gardener, whose job is to murder the clone, kills the real James instead. As the duplicate prepares to settle into
TH f O UHR liMITS CO M PANION (Facing page) The best Megasoid photo i n a l l of Outer Lim it5 land.
James' life and routines, he takes a phone call from Allen, the clone bootlegger, who adv i ses him of the poi son : 'Like a time bomb. No antidote for it even if he found out somehow. ' The duplicate say s , ' It was good of you to let me know. ' Allen responds, 'Glad to. Goodnight, Mr. Jame s . ' 'The Duplicate Man' is both Robert Dennis' most successful story adaptation, and his best O u ter Limits teleplay. 'The Simak story real ly didn't incorporate the creature in the sense of a subplot , ' said Denn i s , 'and I recall altering it to bring the monster back, mostly for the network . ' Denni s invented the term Megasoid, gave James a disenchanted wife, and named the background characters flamboyantly (a trademark of his script work). No reason is given as to why the Megasoid, noted as being a creature of extreme intelligence, wants to kill everyth ing that isn't a Megasoid, but as Seeleg Lester put it, 'The story real ly wasn't about this alien on the loose. It had human interest, and logical reasons for the plot turns. ' Dennis interprets Jame s , who is never glimpsed i n the S imak story, as an acq uisitive, s e l f-centere d , stat u s ­ conscious academ ic. The duplicate yearns to feel and l i v e , w h i l e h i s original h a s become robotic and unemotional , and the show's best scenes depict the duplicate's accumu l ation of the real James' memories, and the feelings awakened in the c lone by Laura, who l aments the fact her husband doe s n ' t l o v e her enough to s q u i re her to social obligations, or drifts around tragically, a second-season dri n k i n her hand. Th i s s u b-theme (Jam e s ' re s ­ ponsibil ities) extends t o the drunken B as i l Jerichau and Capt. Emmet ( w h o was mauled smug gl i n g Jame s ' Megasoid to Earth) , w h o upbraid James for his cowardice and will ingness to let others take risks-the character trait that leads him to have the duplicate created. Apart from ' S o l d i er ' ' ' s war zone scene s , 'The Duplicate M an ' i s a rare attempt to redress 1 960s people and places for the future . H e re we see primitive videophones that chime i nstead of ring, automobiles with louvers and turbine engines, a drinking fountain activ ated by a ray of l i ght, and a world to which the importation of Megasoids has been prohibited ' since 1 9 8 6 , ' as Emmet say s . -
The Zoo Guide (Ala n Gifford) wa lks students o f the future ( i n proto Star Trek ga rb) th rou g h the exh i b i ts of the I mwarf a n d Puud ly. The Puudly was constructed of pa rts left over from The Black Scorpion 's title monster.
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' I dressed everyone a little b i t differently from c ustom , ' said Gerd Oswald. 'No one wore a knot in their tie , the fountain idea was mine, the cars were odd, and the
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION story didn't dwell o n the monster. ' Scouting futuristic­ looking locations led Claude B inyon to an elaborate, toadstool-shaped Hollywood H i l l s res idence known as the Chemosphere House, which was used as the home of Capt. Emmet, and was accessed by a funicular. I
'The problem with that story was that it was too big for an hour show, ' said Lester. ' A lot of things had to be explained that were essential to the story, but not to the drama of which man is th e rig h t man ? ' One example i s the complex set o f regulations overlaid o n the duplication process, which was moved from the beginning of the show to the middle, probably for the benefit of pacing. As in ' Expanding Human , ' academi a is in for another beating here, through the depiction of James as an amoral obsessive, and Jerichau (one of the men who originated
C a pt. E m met (Sea n McC lory) flashes back t o h i s d i sfig u ring Megasoid encounter.
the dupl ication process) as an obsolete alcoholic holding
silly-looking; when the creature i s not speaking in perfect
forth from a cobweb-festooned l ab . The Megasoid i s the most ridiculous-looking ' bear' ever conceived for Th e O uter Limits .
S tuntman Mike
Lane slouches about wearing a floppy velour monster suit with a long tai l , and the ' S econd Chance' mask, sloppi ly modified with a bulging forehead and a foot­ long beak . It has claws that are overs ized, formless, and
(though phlegmatic) English, it snarl s v i a a dubbed-in dog's growl . Oswald struggles to keep the creature in the shadow s to conceal its overwhelming inadequacy ( Lane's T- shirt c an be seen poking out of the suit), and perhaps too l ittle time was invested in this getup due to the other aliens Project Unl imited had to whip up for the brief zoo scene. Lane had actually met Gerd Oswald years earlier in Rome, and once he commenced 'The Duplicate Man , ' he prompt l y dubbed h i s Megasoid s u i t ' The B i g Chicken . ' S igning o n for 'The Duplicate Man' was 1 st AD Gregg Peters . 'He was probably one of the best ADs that ever worked for m e , ' noted Oswald. 'A great personality. He knew what he was doing and could adapt himself to whomever he worked with . ' Some unannounced extra characters appear in one
shot of the Chemosphere
House's ascending tram-car- namely, the whole camera crew, whose shadows are seen j umping around on the h i l l s ide i n the lower right of frame as the car goes up. Thi s was typical of the technical slips c aused in part by the hurried pace of the second season . In ' Cry of S i lenc e , ' avalanche scenes were shot through a pane of protective glass that also betray s the ghostly reflection of a crew hand wearing a cowboy hat, moving along the top of the h i l l . ' B oom shots '-a v i s ible microphone or its shadow intruding on the frame-became prolific, and repeated u s age of props , notably the 'pressure chamber' from 'Cold Hands, Warm Heart , ' were almost comical . As Jack Poplin said, ' If it was b i g e n o u g h to fi l l a ho l e , w e'd u s e i t again and a g ai n . '
Highlighted in the fi lm Body Double ( 1 984), the Chemosphere
David Payne (son of Ben Brady assi sta nt B. R i tc h i e Payne) clowns with the Megasoid getup on the set in 1 964. (Cou rtesy B . R i tc h i e Payne)
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House was designed by John Lautner and built in 1 960. It is also referenced in architecture books as the Pedestal House, Toadstool House, and the Malin House.
THf BRAIN Of COlONH BARHAM
TH[ BRAIN Of COlON[l BARHAM Broadcast 2 J a n u a ry 1 9 6 5 Wrinen by Robert C. De n n i s . Story by Sidney Ellis. O r i g i n a l title: 'The B ra i n of D o n a l d Duncan.' Di rected by C h a rles Haas Assista nt D i rector: Robert Justman Di rector of Photography: Ke n neth Peach CAST: Maj. D o u g l a s McKinnon ( G rant Wi l l i a m s). Col. Alec Barham (Anthony Eisley). J e n n ifer Barham ( E l iza beth Perry). Gen. D a n i e l Petit ( D o u g l a s Ken n edy). D r Leo H a u s n e r ( M artin Kosleck), Dr R a h m (Wesley Addy). Maj. Locke ( Peter H a n s e n ) . Ed Ni c h o ls (Paul Lukather). G u a rd ( R o be rt Chadwick), Stunt N i chols ( G e o rg e Roboth a m ) . Col . Barha m ' s bra i n (left) a n d Ma j . Mac K i n n o n (Gra nt Wi l l iams) .
With the world growing more crowded, the great powers strive to conquer other planets . The race is on. The interplanetary sea has been charted; the first caravelle of space is being constructed. Who will get there first? Who will be the new Columbus?
S ince robot solar system probes c annot deal w ith unexpected crises in space, Dr. Hausner proposes installing a living human brain as a 'component' that can resourcefully resolve random factors . He finds a perfect volunteer in term inal leukemia victim Alec B arham, an irate and hot-headed astronaut more than willing to abandon his wife Jennifer to the sympathies of project psychiatrist McKinnon. Once B arham's brain is removed and hooked up to computer and life­ support equipment, i t begins to generate new brain matter and supply its own power. McKinnon quickly diagnoses it as paranoiac . Angry at Jennifer (for not visiting), and McKinnon (for obstructing the project) , the brain uses bolts of electricity to zombify technician Nichols into assaulting Jennifer, and Dr. Rahm into emptying a pistol at McKinnon. When the brain traps McKinnon and Jennifer in its room, Gen. Petit ventures to an outside balcony w ith a sniper's rifle and puts a bullet through the bubbling brain j ar. McKinnon's final verdict: 'Col. B arham died on the operating table . '
Progress goes o n . One experiment fails, but even out of failure valuable lessons are learned. A way will be found, someday, somehow. It always is.
After Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one of the most often-reprised themes in science fiction for film and TV is the one originated by Curt S iodmak i n Donovan 's Brain ( 1 94 3 ) . If The Outer Limits must have a brain-in-a-tank episode, it might as w e l l be ' B arham , ' which at least stands some marginally interesting characters up against the all­ too-stock plotline. 'I took my original idea to Ben B rady, ' said S i dney E l l i s . 'He requested a ful l script and I delivered it, and B rady turned around and handed it to B ob Dennis, who changed all the characters' names, and rewrote i t to be played mostly i n one room. The story remained basically the same, and a friend later pointed out the similarities to Donovan 's Brain to me. ' The intramural conflicts among the l arge cast of principals is u lt imatel y more engaging than the pound of hamburger the audience expects to see floating in an aquarium by the third act. Dr. Rahm, for example, calls McKinnon a j uvenile and a charlatan, for daring to suggest the ground-breaking operation might not be a healthy thing. When McKinnon diagnoses B arham's disembodied brain as having delusions of grandeur,
THf O UH' liMITS COM PANION B ARHAM : Then take Dr. Rahm. He sees it as good, common sense. I was going to die anyway; why not gamble? McKINNON: Weren't there three blind men? B ARHAM : Hausner. To him, it's intellectual curiosity. I think he envies me. (sarcastically) You ' re not taking notes, Major . . . McKINNON : Let m e get below the surface . . . B ARHAM : You see? You're the only one with eyes, and still you can't see the obvious. You keep looking in dusty corners .
Gen . Petit (Doug las Kennedy) , Dr. H a usner (Ma rti n Kosleck) , Dr. Ra h m (Wesley Addy) a n d Ma j . Mac K i n non watc h Barham try to beat a computer.
Additionally, General Petit has the race for space against the Russians on the brain, while B arham's wife Jennifer i s oddly moralistic about her emasculated husband, an admitted philanderer who strives to be as emotionally cruel to her as possible. When she expresses her sorrow at his condition, B arham can
Rahm wryly returns, ' Delusions, Maj or? Colonel B arham has achieved grandeur. ' And B arham himself assesses each of his ministrators , in a c lever scene w ith McKinnon : BARHAM: Maj or, do you remember the old fable about the blind men trying to describe an elephant by the part they were touching? McKINNON : Yes . Does it apply here? BARHAM: General Petit is a blind man. He thinks I volunteered out of patriotis m , dedication to the serv ice. McKINNON : That's a soldier's v iewpoint.
Barham (Anthony E i sley) - sti l l with bra i n - d i sc u sses b l i n d men and elephants with Mac K i n non .
MacKinnon (left) tries to ta l k sense to Barh a m ' s d i sem bod ied bra i n (rig ht) .
only think of himself, in rage : ' Why me? Why do I have to die, with the world ful l of useless slobs?' Despite McKinnon ' s repeated and well-grounded w arnings that B arham is unfit for this duty, the team persists in ignoring the facts for the good of the project. As B arham say s , they really don 't see the obvious. When Dr. Rahm shuffles off on his B arham mission of remote-controlled assassination, Jennifer spots him and notes that he looks the same way Nichols did just prior to attacking her. Major Locke shrugs and say s , ' He's a scientist, Mrs . B arham-they walk around in a daze most of the time . ' T h e fuzzy-headed scientist i s n o t the only bromide Dennis invokes. Like 'I, Robot , ' the show
THf BRAIN Of COlONH BARHAM i n the episode : 'I made a dome to go on top of a three-gallon j ar and drilled holes to run in all the tubing and wires and stuff. We got a calf' s brain from a slaughterhouse and stuck it in there . I still have that j ar out in my garage. ' ' B arham' marked the end o f First AD Robert Justman's long association with The Outer L imits. Nearly 25 years later, he spoke to a fanzine interviewer regarding his departure as supervising producer from Star Trek : Th e Next Generation after only one season, his comments holding a peculiar resonance:
Barha m ' s Bra i n (fa r right) u n leashes a power b o l t at Jenn i fer ( E l iza beth Perry) .
takes the position that amalgams of m an and machine are somehow wrong, and the show's editorial position is l ittle better than that time-honored sci-fi party l ine of the 1 950s: There are Things Man Was Not Meant to KnowlDo . Dennis' inspiration for changing the title of the show seems truly spur of the moment, s ince B arham Boulevard was a street passed by many a writer on his way to Paramount (use of the name ' Donald Duncan' posed legal problems). Considering the limitations and inevitability of the tired story line, the parts are well-played, Grant Wil liams, star of the 1 95 7 classic The Incredible Shrinking Man , here resurfaces after a four-year stint on Hawaiian Eye . Martin Kosleck, a stalwart of many 1 940s monster melodramas, plays the monomaniacal and Nazi-like Hausner, a role perhaps epitomized by his similar part in The Flesh Eaters ( 1 964) . ' Barham ' also spotlights a peculiar trend which dogged both seasons of The Outer Limits. Here, the scientists are preparing to send a probe to Mars (guided by B arham's brain), prior to sending a manned mission. In ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart , ' we've already gone to Venus and are poised to go to Mars ; no probe is needed. In 'The Invi s ible Enemy, ' we went to Mars three years earlier, and in ' Counterweight' and ' The Duplicate Man , ' we are already capable of traveling outside the solar system. These c ontradi ctory messages extend even to the Control Voice speeches, which tell us in ' B arham' that 'the interplanetary sea has been charted, ' while earlier, in ' Counterweight , ' w e are told that 'the heavens are n o t oceans. ' Paul Lebaron recalled building the brain tank seen
I left for a very simple reason-I was tired. Once you solve the mystery of w hether you c an make something v iable or not, the thril l is gone. Second seasons have always been difficult for me because there aren't many new worlds to conquer. I've reached the time in my life where I don't have to work that hard. It plays havoc w ith my personal life and and my health. The first season (of the original Star Trek) nearl y put both Gene Roddenberry and mysel f away. We both had break­ downs, physical and emotional. You can only run for a certain number of months on 20-hour workdays; after a while you come unglued. First seasons are tough; it's an enormous creative effort and you have a time schedule. That clock ticks inexorably and there are many deadlines to make, and if you miss one then everything else fall s out o f line.
The week ' B arham ' went before the cameras, Ben B rady tried to toss ABC one of the monsters they were demanding in ' B ehold Eck ! '-the third show broadcast. ' After that third week , ' said B rady, 'I had a c lear sense that the ship was sinking. There was no rating. Today, if a show doesn't do well in three weeks, it's off the air in three weeks . B ack then, it took as long as a season to get canceled. ABC gave us all kinds of reasons not having to do with ratings as to why they w anted to kill The Outer Limits. The bottom l ine is that there are no abstruse reasons why. If there's no rating, the sponsors leave ! ' With two shows yet to be filmed to take the series to the halfway point in the season, as Gerd Oswald said, ' A B C pulled the plugs . '
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TH[ O UHR liMITS COM PANION
THE PREMONITION Broadcast 9 J a n u a ry 1 96 5 Written by I b M e l c h i o r a n d S a m Roeca Story by Sam Roeca. O ri g i n a l title: ' G ordian Knot' D i rected by Gerd Oswa l d Assistant Di rector: Gregg Peters D i rector of Photogra phy: Ke n neth Peach CAST: Jim D a rcy ( D ewey M a rt i n ) . Linda Da rcy ( M a ry M u rphy), G e n . ' Baldy' Baldwin (Wi l l i a m Bramley). M atron ( D o rothy Green), Janie D a rcy (Emma Tyson), Gate Sentry ( Coby Denton), Li m b o Being ( Kay Kuter).
J i m Da rcy (Dewey Marti n) at the controls of h i s experi menta l a i rc raft.
On the fabulous spawning grounds of Man 's ever- increasing knowledge of science and technology, ancient, half-forgotten legends seemingly have no place. Except one: The legend of the Gordian Knot, a knot so intricate and convoluted that no man could untie it. For there are problems so perplexing that they are seemingly impossible to solve , when Man ventures to the outer limits of his experience . . . Te st pilot Darcy i s putting an experimental X- I S type craft through high speed maneuvers when he loses control and abruptly finds himself on the ground, his
ship cracked in half in the desert.
Nearby, his wife Linda has rammed her car into a b ou lder w h i le looking up to see h i s j et. The couple . fmd that apart from the jet, the car and themselves, al l objects and creature s seem immovably frozen . They return to the air base on foot and deduce that they have been displaced backward i n time a few minutes v i a their simultaneous acc ident s , and that the people around them are actually moving, with imperceptible slowne s s . Time i s gradually catching up
w i th
them-and
the
moment
of
D arc y ' s
malfunction. They discover their daughter Janie w i l l b e run over by a n improperly parked truck a t the same momen� , and a shimmering ' Limbo Being' . weanng a S U i t and tie conveniently informs them that they must each be i n their p l aces (the jet, the
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car) at the moment time re-synchronize s , or they ' l l be stuck forever. . . which makes it impossible t o save Jani e , until D arcy uses a splinter of metal from h i s jet a n d all of t h e seatbelts from L i n d a ' s car to r i g a contriv ance that w i l l yank back the h and brake of the truck
as
the
front w h e e l turn s .
They
re i n s t a l l
thems � lves on schedule, avoiding t h e L i m bo B e i ng by usmg flares to hold it a t bay, a n d w h e n time catches up all three tragedies are averted. Man is forever solving th e most perp lexing problems as he ventures ever furth er into th e unknown . B u t where are the outer lim its of h is ingenuity ? Will he ever encounter a problem , a Gordian Kn ot, which he cannot u ltimately c u t ?
H i stori c a l l y,
the
c o n v o l uted
knot
tied
by
Gordiu s , k i n g of Phyrigia, could only b e untied b y t h e future ruler of A s i a . W h e n Alexander t h e Great who consi dered himself king-to-be, w as confounde
d
by the intri c acies of the knot, he hacked it apart with his sword . In ' The Premonition , ' Darcy unties his personal Gordian Knot fair and square ; he doesn't ' c u t ' i t , as the Control Voice suggests . ' The Premonition' i s perhaps the single Outer
Limits episode most misremembered as a Twilight
Zon e . It expands what might have been a taut half­ hour into an hour that is flabby with redundanc ies and padding. The problem set up for the Darcys to unrave l i s interesting, but the Janie subplot (which
THf PRfMONITION COURIER : What's he after? Altitude? Speed? You'd think M ach Six would be enough for them. S ENTRY: Something to do with high­ velocity d i rectional changes, l i ke making a 90-degree turn when you're going several times the speed of sound. COURIER : You kiddin'? Push him right through his seat. S ENTRY: They got some kind of new gravity shield for the contour chair. It's part of the test. COURIER : I could use one of them ! I can hardly m ake a 30 mile an hour turn without sliding out of this heap. See you around. ' See you around' was right. Even the tu m bleweed s a ren ' t movi ng i n Jim Darcy ' s frozen world of i n-between ti m e .
time
shooting
commenced
B y the
on
' The
Premonition , ' ABC had decided to consign
reinforces the ' fam i l y ' subtext running through the
The Outer Lim its to its own l imbo as of mid­
second season) i s irritatingly heavy-handed, and the
January, dead i n the middle of the 1 964-65 season .
total l y extraneous ' L imbo B e i n g ' waltzes into the
'This w a s the last show
I did, ' said Gerd Oswald.
story just long enough to tel l the Darcys everything
' Don Gordon had original ly been cast as the lead, but
they need to know to escape, which runs contrary to
he got sick the night before the first day of shooting,
the problem-solving theme .
and we scrambled around trying to find a replacement.
' Ib Melchior brought in the idea for that show, '
At four o'clock in the morning, we found Dewey
said Seeleg Lester. ' H i s 'times l ip ' was a concept left
Martin. I
over from The Time Travelers , a fil m h e' d done that
cancelled , and the pressure was real ly on s ince we'd
year. He also showed me his script for Robinson
already lost a day by replacing Gordon.
Then we found out the show had been Martin
S am Roeca
l iterally l earned his l ines the moment before we shot
did the final script, and that show i l lu s trates how I
them , and getting him through was a struggle. And I'm
managed to combine a monster and a dramatic
not a big fan of Ib Melchior in the first place.
situation. You
Guest, the overseer from United Artists, told me we
Crusoe On Mars , which intrigued me.
didn't need that creature trapped
between two worl d s , but I brought i t i n because A B C needed somethin g . I m ade the 'horror' of i t the situation , rather than m aking the monster itself horrible. You fee l kind of sorry for its predicament . ' ' I b , as you know, i s a science fiction fre ak , ' said Ben Brady. ' H e did the most science fictiony stories I ' d ever heard of. I l iked that episode a lot. ' Some viewers faul t 'The Premonition ' in the m i staken belief that Darcy uses the seatb e l t from the
truck, which i s itself frozen i n time, to s av e J an i e . Just h o w immob il e everything i s was punched home a bit harder in the script. When Darcy tries to shove a field radar man, he impales his hand on the m an ' s frozen-in-time crew c u t . B l ood seeps from t h e fifty tiny holes the absolutely rigid h airs m ake in Darc y ' s pal m . Another e x c i s e d mISSIon:
scene e x p l a i n s
D arc y ' s The Li m bo Being ( Kay Kuter) .
Don
THf OUHR liM ITS COMPANION
The Limboid i s repel led by Darcy ' s use of a road flare . . . conven iently, si nce they a re never seen together i n the sa me shot. had to bring that show i n on schedule even if we hadn't
B rady
shot the ending yet. '
w i l d l y-they'd actua l l y gotten me this Japanese girl ,
The epi sode' s exteriors were shot at Palos Verdes
and
his
w i fe . And
Guest
s i g n a l l ed me
and she was waiting i n my office ! '
Air Force B ase. 'We got that X- I S mockup from
' M ay I t e l l you the s tory ? ' remembered C l aude
Pal mdale, ' said B . Ritchie Payne. 'The Air Force
B inyon, w i th a chuckl e . ' We couldn't give that poor
v iewed our use of their mockup as promotion for the
girl
away !
You
see,
D av e
Lesser
was
our
armed forces. Most of the time, unless you wanted the
tran sportation captain , and a beautifu l man . When I
enti re Seventh Fleet, they were very accommodating . '
hired h i m , I said, 'How much money do you want to
Though poorly developed, the show ' s time-out­
be paid so you're not gonna take anything?' He gave
of-kilter theme is engaging, and as i n much science
me a price, and I said, 'Okay-that' s your salary,
fi cti o n ,
the
idea
o verri d e s
s i g n i fi c a n t
here are the key s ; you 're in charge of everything ! '
characterization . T h e concept of frozen t i m e as a n
D ave would put h i s l i fe on the l i n e for you, and
i ntermedi ate
whenever you had a dirty j o b that needed to be done,
dimension
also
any
app e a l s
to
the
imagination (and was c learly one of Melchior's fav orite
springboard s ) ,
but
the
suspension
you would say, 'Uh, Dave, I've got a problem .. . '
of
' Dave was the one who went out and came back
disbelief is wounded by the severe p addin g . We see
w i th this . . . er, very attractive Oriental girl .
doubles for the Darcys running hand-i n -hand, back
driving a green C adi llac. We were all down on the
She was
and forth between the airbase and the crash site, no
set,
fewer than four time s . The camera l ingers overlong
fin i shing on time, and in walks Gerd's wife , with
on
and
B e n B rady and his wife . And Gerd goe s , ' Get RID
Space Age-ese countdowns in both real time and
of her ! ' and left for dinner. And no one else on the
sti l l photograp h s ,
non-moving tab l e au s ,
slow motion . ' The Premonition ' ' s strangest s tory has to do
ready
to
'present'
set would take the girl !
Gerd w i th
his
' g i ft ' for
It was all heavy, macho­
i mage stuff, I gues s ; no one w anted her for free .
with the u l ti matum delivered to Oswald by Don
Eventuall y, Dave paid her.
Guest. 'We had to shut down on Monday evening , '
l ater, but I don ' t know how true that i s . '
He s a i d h e ' c o l l ected'
Oswald recalled. ' Monday afternoon rol l ed around and there they were, asking if I ' d fin i s h on time . I told them I thought I could. And they told me that if I did, I could have anything I wanted and United Artists would pick up the tab . S o I said, 'We l l , I ' v e never s l e p t w i t h a Japanese broad . ' I s a i d that
No stranger to science fiction, Martin had p l ayed pi votal roles
facetiously, of cours e ; I was indulging i n a l i felong
i n The Th ing from A n other Wo rld in 1 95 1 , and in the well­
fantasy. I fin i shed the show on time, and at six
known Twilight Zone epi sode about a space probe that crash­
o'clock met my wife for a dinner date with Ben
l ands i n an earthly desert, 'I S hot an Arrow into the Air. '
THf rROBf
TH[ PAOB[ Broadcast 16 J a n u a ry 1 9 6 5 Written by Seeleg Lester. Story idea by Sam N e u m a n . Di rected by Fe l i x Fe ist Ass istant D i rector: R u sty M e e k Di rectors of Photogra p h y : Ke n n eth P e a c h a n d F r e d Koenekamp CAST: J efferson R o m e ( M a rk Richman). Coberly ( R o n H ayes). Amanda Fra n k ( Peggy Ann G a rn e r). Dexter (Wi l l i a m Steve ns). B e e m a n (Wi l l i a m Boyett). R a d i o E n g i n e e r ( R i ch a rd Tretter). ' M i k i e ' (Janos Prohaska)
Itmerary (presumed to be Venus) with them trapped inside. The l ight-beam protects them from the m ikie and herds them out, while summoning a rescue ship in the outside world. From the ship's deck, the group watches the probe ascend, then explode. It seems the aliens have heeded Amanda's warn ing about extraterrestrial contamination. 'They'll be back, ' she says hopefully, looking up at the sky. ' I'd l ike to think we 'd be as smart. Compassionate. Human . '
J e f fe r s o n R o m e ( M o r k R i c h m a n ) wre s t l e s a n a l i e n t o n g u e .
The persistence of Man 's curiosity led him into new worlds . Without conquering his own , he invaded the sub-world of the microscope, and the outer-world of space . It is said turnabout is fair play . . . but is it?
En route to Tokyo, pilot Coberly decides to fly into a squal l and winds up ditching his plane in the eye of a hurricane. His passenger, Amanda, and crew awake minus Beeman, the copilot, in their life raft on a fogbound ' sea' that turns out to be a floor of solid plastic ! Nearby is a large cylinder that first emits a fou l mist that dries their clothing, then light-beams that carve off a chunk of their raft and suck it in. Through an overwhelming degree of supposition and on-target bl ind conjecture, they determine they are trapped inside of a gigantic , completely automated, Voyager-like alien space probe . . . and that the amorph o u s , sofa- sized s ilver glob menacing them i s a mutated, overgrown stowaway microbe - the 'mikie . ' Poking around, they di scover oversized l ab facilities, where the piece of raft and the local seawater are being analyzed, and a rudimentary control room featuring alien hieroglyphic s . U sing the equipment that sends telemetry back to the home planet, Amanda begs for their release as the probe prepares to lift off for the next planet on its
A few days , a week, a month . . . Will the Earth be visited by a stranger from the universe ? A warm , compassionate stranger, to tell us of wonders beyond imagination , of life beyond compre­ hension , of secrets from the treasurehouse of stars ?
(L-R) Bee m a n (Wi l l i a m Boyett) a n d Coberly (Ron Hayes) .
J14
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PAN ION
Coberly, Amanda, Rome a n d Dexter rea l i ze they a re not afloat.
'The Probe' is the ultimate Outer Limits ' bottle show ' . Almost devoid of production values, it was written at the eleventh hour by Seeleg Lester and i s a bit of a minor miracle in terms of his dedication to getting something onto the shooting stages and into the can. 'We were tight all the way, ' said Ben B rady. ' We fought ABC all the way. At the end of the season, Seeleg and I did one show designed to cost nothing­ it was just people floating around in a vacuum. We did it for something l ike $70,000 when our average budget was $ 1 20,000 . ' ' Once again, S am Neuman needed money, ' said Lester. ' He brought in the idea; I paid him the story fee and gave him story credit . ' Neuman recalled. ' I had a group of four with one girl, flying over the ocean
Rome enters the Ana log Roo m .
J15
during t h e w ar. During a terrible thunderstorm , l ightning h i t s their plane and they fall into the sea. They wonder why they're not s inking and it turns out they're on a gigantic space probe. ' 'It wasn't that w e couldn't understand the al iens , ' said Lester. 'It w a s that they could understand us-a reverse on the theme of 'Cry of Silence. ' Finally, they understand what we're trying to tell them, and they destroy the probe so that no harm will come to Earth. S am White could never understand what the hel l that show as about, but I thought it had moments of good drama. ' The show i s also a reverse on 'Wolf 359 '-thi s time it i s Earth, under a n alien microscope . This approach was popul ar with science fiction writers who
Coberly i s subjected to flash freezi n g
had been inspired by the early models depicting the structure of the atom, which resembled miniature solar systems. We l ater learned that atoms don't really look l ike that, but the concept prompted a great deal of fiction about microscopic worlds-within-worlds; one of the oldest being Ray Cummings' 'The Girl in the Golden Atom ' ( 1 9 1 9) . The main problem with 'The Probe' ' s believability is that once the people get inside the probe, they begin making wild and extreme assumptions, all of which are right on target 1 00 percent of the time. The procedural Q&A approach of the second season is evident, but this time the folks giving the answers really have no idea of what they're talking about. Pointing and squinting, Jefferson Rome rattles off the following: ROME: That piece of raft back there i s being exam ined; i t i s , in bits and pieces, being subjected to a variety of tests. And l ike I said, the
THf PAOBf i nformation is being sent along to thi s ' analog room . ' Here, it i s decoded and classified and sent along to its destination . . . [the probe] l anded here on Earth , just by chance, in the eye of a hurricane, scooping us up and depositing us . . . where, d i d you ask? Under a m icroscope. Right on the other s ide of thi s hollow center shaft. And those l i ght-beam s that operate in so many ways, that activate all these tests, are to examine, to scrutinize us, to probe our world. I think . . . we're ins ide a g iganti c space probe of some alien c i v i l ization, and thi s whole p l astic flooring i s the base of a m icroscope i n s ide this hunk of machinery !
The likelihood of all thi s being true i s inj ured further by the show's obvious cheapness. The sets for 'The Probe ' are mostly naked soundstages , with
A h u n g ry ' m i ki e ' Wa nos Prohaska) chows down on Coberly.
movable sections of blue wall impregnated with glitter serving as the probe's interior. The shots of Coberly's toy plane pitching about in the rain are done with a hose and a hand-held model. Janos Prohaska took a final 'monster tum' as the 'mikie' inside what had to be one of the most uncomfortable costumes ever devised-a bloblike smattering of silver-painted l atex (it looks l ike a giant Luminoid scab) operated from a car mechanic's flat dolly. It is so formless it never seems very threatening. Felix Feist was brought in to complete The Outer Limits ' final show. 'Feist had been suggested to me by an agent who sold me a bill of goods at the time , ' said Brady, ' so I used h i m . ' He had directed The D eluge for Merian Cooper and Ernest S choedsack of King Kong fame in 1 93 3 , and various features through 1 95 5 . 'He was a marvelous man, and fell in love w ith 'The
The p icture is slig htly better than i n 1 9 8 6 , but t h e set i s sti l l cheesy: Coberly, Rome and Amanda confront the big c h e m i stry set (and there ' s t h a t ' Borderla n d ' pylon a g a i n i n the backgrou nd) .
Probe, ' ' said Lester. Fei s t died in 1 965 , shortly fol lowing the only network broadcast of 'The Probe. ' S ince Robert Justman walked off The Outer Limits following 'The B rain of Colonel B arham , ' a 1 st AD also outside the series, Rusty Meek, was brought in to assist Feist. Mark R ichman, who starred in The Outer Limits ' first regular episode, ' The B orderland,' fittingly appears in its last. He offered another perspective on Jefferson Rome's laborious speechifying: ' I had to bust my neck to learn a lot of dialogue-I had these long, lingering closeups where I had to go on and on, and it was a hell of a lot of work . ' O n top o f that was a medical drawback: 'We think we're at sea on the raft , ' R ichman recal led, ' and thi s heavy fog c lears and we find we're inside a giant space probe. That was shot on a soundstage, and in order to
JIB
TH f OUHR liM ITS CO M PAN ION
Alien lig ht-bea m s d ry, then d issect the l i fe raft.
do the fog, the temperature on the set was kept at l ike 55 (degrees), maybe 5 2 , and we were all freezing our asses off! Peggy Ann Garner got sick, I got sick, all the actors got sick. And we had to be sprayed before each take with water, to show that we had been hit by the ocean . So we were really very ill. We stuck it out, and we al l had bronchitis-they were doctoring us on the set. . . 1 was not hospitalized, but I was in bed for a week after that show. ' Besides being pre-tubercular and at the mercy of a plot too aware of its own need to fill time, there was also the obvious matter that this was to be the final curtain for The Outer Limits. 'I got that feeling, too , ' Richman said. 'They j ust wanted t o finish u p , not that there was a lack of effort on anybody's part . '
Ja nos Prohaska as the ' m i kie . '
A lamenta ble spaces h i p , right before it blows u p .
' I grew u p with Ron Haye s , ' said Claude Binyon. ' He later became a tree surgeon. Peggy Ann Gamer came out of oblivion for this show, too. It was all pretty terrible. The people were trying, of course, doing their best, but I don't think anyone was interested anymore. B y this point, everyone was leaving. ' ' Good, bad, o r indifferent, i t doesn't matter, ' said B rady. 'As a producer, it never bothers me that the network will give you a hundred-and-one reasons why they're dissatisfied with a show. They are only capable of being dissatisfied by one thing, and it's childish to think otherwise. If the show needs a 22 share of the rating and it's only pulling an 1 8 , it ain't about to stay on the air. The bottom line I finally got from ABC was, was the show paying for itself? No. Each week we didn't get that rating up was another nail in the coffin, and anything else you might hear i s poppycock. Just before we went out of production, I showed ABC a room full of letters from viewers, and I told them. 'You can still get on with this show. ' No chance. ' 'The shortsightedness o f A B C was extraordinary, ' said Lester. ' We remember lots of people wouldn't go out on dates on Saturday nights because they wanted to see The Outer Limits. They were intrigued by the imagination , and by a different story every week . ' 'The Probe' was broadcast only once. The following week The Outer Limits was replaced by The King Family, ABC's cheapest show, at $60,000 per hour, which finished out the season . And as they say in bad science fiction movies, that was the end . . . . . _ or WAS IT?
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION
B fYO N U TH f O UTfR li M ITS D iverting as all of these series may have been , none of them compete with The Outer Limits, a programme produced between 1 963-65 by scriptwriter Joseph Stefano and containing the best science fiction ever to be presented on television. III-fated and misunderstood, this series was read i ly accepted by the visua l l y oriented 'teenage audience when it wa s ru n in early t im e sl ot s on American televi s ion, but when increasing soph istication forced programming at a l ater time, adults found its odd p lots and unconventional narrative styl e impossible to comprehend, and it folded abruptly. But in its brief l ife The Outer Limits gave televi sion some of its finest moments ... ( it) was not a perfect series, but for consistency of imagination it had few equals . . . the result is something of which both science fiction and television should be proud. -John B axter, Science Fiction in the Cinema (Tantivy Press, London, 1 970)
A year or so following the cancellation of The Outer Limits, Lou Morheim, working as a story editor on The Big Valley, found himself in the curious , role­ reversed position of assigning a teleplay to his old boss , Leslie S tevens. Shortly after The Outer Limits closed down, Daystar became inert as a production entity. According to Stevens , Daystar was 'constantly ramming into the wall by losing money on deals . It didn't have any competitive strength at all other than its talent-and that's not much help if you don't have the deal-makers . ' I n 1 969, Stevens completed h i s first published book, EST: The Steersman 's Handbook. Not related to the pop-psych of Werner Erhard, 'EST' stands for 'Electronic-Social Transformation, ' or the integration of technology with mystical or spiritual disciplines and philosophies. Its aim was to help evolve the New Age Stevens was constantly promoting. The book was published by Noel Young's Capricorn Press under the byline L. Clark Stevens . 'That was to establish my credibility, ' noted Stevens. ' If the Movement people knew about my background as a succes sfu l TV producer, they wouldn't have trusted me. They would have thought I was hyping them . ' Per S tevens, ' steersmen' were those rare individuals gifted with ' simulsense'-a broad, comprehensive, forward-thinking outlook permitting them to point the way for the rest of society. One admirer of Stevens' approach was R. B uckminster Fuller. The Whole Earth Catalog l isted the book as 'essential, ' and B antam B ooks published a mass­ market edition in 1 97 1 , the same year that Leslie Stevens Productions, Inc . , was christened. Stevens also threw in with some fellow steersmen to purchase a former Titan missile base near Lincoln, California.
31�
Renamed 'Earthside , ' the base was intended as an ecological showplace, to aid in infusing Movement thinking into politics , and try to avert the trends toward rampant pollution and impending ecological catastrophe. Daystar's final feature project was undeniably its strangest-Incubus, produced in 1 965 and never released theatrically, although i t has attained underground classic status in France. All of the dialogue in the film is spoken in subtitled Esperanto, the artificial l anguage invented by Polish oculist L.L. Zamenhof, intended as a ' universal tongue' by being based as far as possible on words common to all the chief European languages . Starring William Shatner, Ann Atmar and Eloise Hart, Incubus spins the ambiguous tale of Good and Evil battling for the soul of a young woman in a mythical land called Nomen Tuum. 'At the time of Incubus, we were doing nothing, actually, ' remem­ bered Elaine M ichea. ' We shot it out at Big Sur with a very small crew; a lot of our old friends came up to work on it. ' Conrad Hall shot it, Dominic Frontiere wrote the music, Richard B rockway edited it, and it featured as supporting players Outer Limits alumni Robert Fortier and Allyson Ames. Incubus was surrounded by tragedies : Atmar committed suicide short l y fol l owing completion of the fil m , and , according to Michea, 'Milos Milos, who played the Dev i l , was the man who got involved with Mickey Rooney's wife . He killed her, then blew his own head off. ' ' I have to admit that the bottom fell out for me, financially and career-wise, a year or two after The Outer Limits folded,' said Leslie Stevens. ' I was broke and out of it. We hung together in morale and
BfYONO THf OUHR lIMIlS creativity long enough to turn out something, though. ' I n 1 968, Stevens s igned up with Universal Studios under a term contract to develop and l ine­ produce TV pilots; two of his first being It Takes a Thief and The Name of the Game. He also worked on The Virginian during this period, when it was still called The Men From Shiloh , as well as McCloud and the first six episodes of Raymond B urr's post­ Perry Mason cop show, Ironside. In 1 97 3 , for Warner B ros . , he created Search , a science fiction­ flavored affair involving an elite team of i nternational trouble­ shooters, spies with sensory implants linking them to a vast computer web overlorded by scientist B urgess Meredith. ' It was a halfway thing i n terms of science fiction , ' said S teve n s . 'The first episodes worked out well , but again, once deterior­ ation sets in on these things, you can't keep them going. ' At the request of then­ president Frank Price, S tevens returned to Universal after scripting a Movie of the Week, Fer-de-Lance ( 1 974) , in which a crippled submarine stuck on the ocean floor is infested by a cargo of poisonous snakes. Lesl i e Steven s i n the m i d- 1 9 8 0s, He helped develop four more series for Universal : Invisible Man ( 1 97 5 ) , starring David McCallum, and its spinoff, Gemini Man ( 1 976), Battlestar Galactica ( 1 97 8 ) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century ( 1 979). The latter two series also spawned feature fil m versions. Stonestreet, a police drama starring B arbara Eden, was also Stevens' work. 'Tve done six or eight series since The Outer Limits , ' said Stevens. ' You'll notice no one has said I'm a frightening creature who will close a show because a friend isn't allowed to direct . . . ' Stevens also batted c leanup o n a number o f feature
looking forward to the futu re .
(Cou rtesy Leslie Stevens)
films during the 1 980s, with and without credit, notably A Change of Seasons ( 1 982), Sahara ( 1 98 3 ) , B olero ( 1 984) , Sheena ( 1 984-Stevens received story credit), an unfilmed sequel titled Citizen Joe (a fol lowup to Joe [ 1 970] , which starred Peter Boyle), and Return to the Blue Lagoon ( 1 99 1 ) . He also kept up writing for the stage with Babe Ruth and Partridge in a Pear Tree, the l atter performed in Washington DC in 1 98 1 and starring James Mason. 1 986 found Stevens heading up a new company, in partnership with his old comrade Dominic Frontiere, Empress Productions-a
TH[ OUHR liM ITS COM PAN ION
Leslie Stevens with fel lows h i p award w i n ner La u rence I . Massaron i n 1 99 1 .
Zorro ( 1 974) , Who Is the Black Dahlia ? ( 1 97 5 ) , The Young Pioneers ( 1 976), Dark Mirror ( 1 984) and China Hand ( 1 98 7 ) . In 1 965 , B en B rady moved back to CB S to produce the ill-fated revival of Rawhide . 'Up through Perry Mason I had been quite successfu l as an independent producer, ' said B rady. ' (Then) I found myself on the other side, frustrated by budget s , working on a series where everyone was in a stew, tormented by either money or the need to get ratings points . That's a terrible situation. It kills me when you do a series that can't supply the ratings, and you know it has enormous possibilities. ' As a favor to CBS head Mike Dann, B rady stepped into a producership on The
typically involute Stevens acronym for Enterprises in Media Eroduction, Recordings, and Entertainment for s.tage and s.creen. Stevens' most recent project as writer/director was Three Kinds of Heat ( 1 987), also known as Fireworks, starring Robert Ginty of the Exterminator films. In 1 99 1 , Stevens inaugurated the Leslie S tevens Fellowship for Television Writing : 'To encourage the development of new writers , four Quarterly Fellowships are awarded which consist of financial incentive plus serious consideration in the professional markets . . . proof that new talent can and w i l l be recognized. ' Submissions-sometimes numbering over a thousand samples , nationwide-were screened by a panel of readers, with final j udgment alotted to Stevens. Each winner appeared with S tevens in a full­ page ad in Variety . Winter Quarter 1 99 1 w inner Robin Riordan went on to write teleplays for The Wonder Years and Sibs. Dom inic Frontiere continued composing the scores for a wide variety of feature films, including Billie ( 1 965 ) , Hang 'Em High ( 1 967), Popi ( 1 969 ) , Chisum ( 1 970), Bm'quero ( 1 970), The Train Robbers ( 1 97 3 ) , Freebie and the Bean ( 1 974) , Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold ( 1 97 5 ) , Brannigan ( 1 97 5 ) , Gumball Rally ( 1 9 7 6 ) , The Stu n t M a n ( 1 97 8 ) , Dejiance ( 1 9 8 0 ) , Modern Problems ( 1 9 8 1 ) , The Aviator, and The Color of Night ( 1 994) . Besides The Rat Patrol and The Invaders, his subsequent TV work included Massacre Harbor ( 1 969 ) , The Lost Flight ( 1 969) , Haunts of the Very Rich ( 1 97 2 ) , The Mark of The monster costu m e from ' Behold Eck ! ' priced to move at the Project U n l i m ited a uction .
311
BfYONO THf OUHR liMITS
The Galaxy Being head piece in its fi n a l days. All the g lycerin a n d spray paint caused the rubber to d issolve over a span of yea rs, until it fi n a l ly melted away to black goo shortly a fter these photos were ta ken . (Cou rtesy Bob Burns)
Wild Wild West another ' network overseer' position. West creator Sean Garrison threatened to sue CB S if they sent any of 'their' people to work on the show, so after a few days Brady found himself shuttled over to the Rawhide revival, which lasted one season. 'It just didn't go,' said B rady. 'I was very unhappy. I don't know; maybe I was fin ished in the industry already. Concurrently, I was approached by Cal State University at Northridge, and they offered me a ful l professorship and tenure . ' Brady became department head of the fil m and screen writing curriculum, and during one semester invited Lou Morheim to teach a few classes there. Seeleg Lester commented, ' I think Ben i s happy there. He's a charming man, and he's pontificating­ that's what he likes to do best . ' Lester worked with Leslie Stevens on the Invisible Man series , and later contributed to the program at first called Ghost Story, then Circle of Fear. In 1 969 he did a horror feature, A Change of Mind, plotted around the brain of a white district attorney transplanted into the -
body of a dead black man. Also produced, but receiving extremely l i m i ted release, was Th e Reincarnate ( 1 97 1 ) , which dealt with the Faustian theme of a young sculptor tempted by an occult figure and instructed to abandon his love to do art for art's sake. ' Now, how can you tell that story and make it interesting? ' Lester shrugged. In the late 1 970s Lester returned to TV for full­ time story editing and scriptwriting work on Hawaii Five-D. By 1 986 he had turned his hand to novel wntmg. ' I have left televi sion and am bound to publish a book,' he said. ' It's taken me a l ittle bit of time to get into fiction. The difference between it and dramatic writing i s so diverse, abrupt and disparate that I find myself writing dramatically. It's difficult to make the change, but it's coming . ' Before retiring from the film industry i n 1 968, B yron Haskin directed the noteworthy Robinson Crusoe on Mars ( 1 964) and one final film for George Pal , The Power ( 1 967 ) . B etween those he assisted in production and special effects capacities for a new
TH f O UH' liMITS COM PANION 1 98 5 - 8 6 TV season by directing two segments of the revived Twilight Zone series for CB S : The first of these was 'The B eacon' and, as part of a three­ segment Christmas show, an Alan B rennert adaptation of Arthur C . Clarke's 'The S tar, ' first published i n Infinity Science Fiction i n 1 95 5 . In an interview in Filmfax Magazine, Oswald spoke to Dennis Fischer about 'The Star' : ' It's going to be a controversial show because it's about a man of the cloth (Fritz Weaver) who, because of what he sees, starts to disbelieve in God. (A group) is on a Red Cross type of ship; they visit this burned-out planet and ask themselves why it happened. These people never h ad any wars , had beautifu l music, exemplary art and were the purest, non-warlike people. Why did this happen to them? Was their planet u sed as a toy for God to light up the star over Bethlehem, so that the three wise men could find the child in the stable? It's a serious question. Maybe He wanted this generation to expire to lead the way to another generation of people. The whole episode runs only about 1 0- 1 2 minutes, but I think it's going to be very effective. ' Gerd Oswald died i n 1 989. 'The Dom i n i c Frontiere i n 1 9 8 8 . (Cou rtesy Dom i n i c F rontiere) Star' was his final project. Many Outer Limits alumni moved to permanent series with the unlikely working title ' Wagon Train to positions on the nascent Star Trek, most notably the Stars ' . . . better known as Star Trek. Haskin died in Robert Justman, Claude B inyon, Jr. , makeup artist 1 984, during production of the original edition of this Fred Phillips, and effects maestro Wah Chang. 'Star book. Trek was in fact an outgrowth of The Outer Limits,' Gerd Oswald's subsequent projects included two episodes for Star Trek, 'The Conscience of the King' and 'The Alternative Factor. ' In 1 965 he directed Agent for H.A R .M. (starring Mark Richman), and in 1 969 wrote, produced and directed 80 Steps to Jona h , a contemporary Pied Piper story. His other features include Bunny O 'Hare ( 1 97 1 ), To the B itter End ( 1 976), The House on Garibaldi Street ( 1 978)-a documentary-style film about the capture of Adolf Eichmann-and Spokes ( 1 979), an Itali an feature set in the world of international bicycle racing, for which he also co-wrote the screenplay. Project U n l i m i ted ' s A I I-U-C a n-Eat Ta b l e ' 0 I c h thyosa u r Oswald re-entered anthology territory during the F l i ppers.
J2J
(Cou rtesy Bob Burns)
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(L.R) Forrest Ackerman a n d Ja mes Wa rren (ed itor a n d publ isher of the u b i q u itous Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazi ne) pose with an enth usiastic fa n and a station wagon·load of booty from the Project U n l i m ited a u ction : a Megasoid suit from 'The D u p l i cate Ma n , ' the headpiece from the C h romoite costu me used in 'The Mice' and 'The G uests , ' and the ' M i k i e ' from 'The Probe . ' (Cou rtesy Forrest J. Ac kerman)
said Stefano aide Tom Selden. As S tephen E . Whitfield observed i n h i s book The Making of Star Trek (Ballantine, 1 968), Roddenberry was producing The Lieutenant, a series he had created, for MGM when the studio asked him for an idea for a new series pilot In April of 1 964, Roddenberry signed a three­ year contract to produce TV pilots for Desilu on the basis of his newly-conceived format for Star Trek. 'Gene Roddenberry watched our dailies all the time, ' continued Selden, ' and took a lot of phone cal l s from o u r screening room. He w a s spurring his imagination, and checking on the i ncredible quali ty control we had. I wondered why he was there, but he was there, more often than not, during the time he was coming up with Star Trek. ' 1 996 saw the publ ication of Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, written by Herbert E Solow and Robert Justman, a detailed memoir of their work on the series.
Justman makes frequent mention of The Outer Limits as the source of many of the ideas and personnel that went into Star Trek 's two pilot fi lms, devoting specific anecdotes to hi s work with Fred Phi l l ips, director James Goldstone, Robert Johnson, and Wah Chang and the Proj ects gang. First recommended to Gene Roddenberry as associ ate producer by James Goldstone during the shooting of 'The Inheritors, ' Justman initially declined the position. B yron Haskin got it. Producer Herb Solow then phoned Leslie S tevens and secured Justman on 'loan-out' from Daystar to serve as First AD on the pilot, which got Justman out of having to do Incubus in Esperanto for S tevens. Justman wryly noted that the irascible Byron Haskin did not get along with Roddenberry, so when NBC requested a second Star Trek pilot, Justman s igned on for good. In 1 970, 'Natural Selection' scenari st Robert
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A d i sassemb led P u u d ly from 'The Dupl icate Ma n ' . . . a n d/or the recyc led body of The Black Scorp ion a t the Proj ect U n l i m ited a uction . I n t h e backg rou n d can b e seen props from Jack the Giant Killer a n d Moster of the World, as wel l as G e n e Wa rre n ' s parking space.
Specht adapted James Gunn's novel The Immortals ( 1 962) into a series pilot. The Immortal -the series­ lasted one season, and briefly involved associ ate producer Gregg Peters and developmental writer Dan Ullman . The music was by Dominic Frontiere. Several other Oute r Limits crewmembers regrouped in the mid- 1 970s to do the series pilot for The Man From Atlantis Robert Justman produced, Lee Katzin directed, Jack Poplin designed the sets, and Gene Warren provided the model effects . Some of Katzin's feature credits as director include Heaven With a Gun ( 1 969), Whatever Happened to Aunt A lice ? ( 1 969), The Phynx ( 1 970), Le Mans ( 1 97 1 ), The Salzburg Connection ( 1 972) and World Gone Wild ( 1 988). Project Unlimited dissolved i n the mid- 1 960s and auctioned off most of its Outer Limits i nventory. Conrad Hall and William Fraker went on to amass a crowd of Academy Awards for thei r cinematography. Hall's first solo feature was Morituri ( 1 965), starring Marlon Brando ; thi s led to In Cold Blood ( 1 967) and -
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ( 1 969), for which he won his first Oscar. Fraker shot Games for director Curti s Harrington in 1 966, and his subsequent features included The President 's Analyst ( 1 967 ) , Bullitt ( 1 968), Polanski's Rosemary 's Baby ( 1 96 8 ) , and he began directing features with Monte Walsh ( 1 970) and A Reflection of Fear ( 1 972). From these beginnings both Fraker and Hall have risen to the top of their field, as did sound man John Caper, Jr. , who mixed the award-winning soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in 1 97 7 . When Gene Roddenberry walked o ff Star Trek in 1 96 8 due to a contract di spute, he offered the producership of the show's thi rd season to Joseph S tefano, who turned it down after screening a few episodes. B y his own count, S tefano turned down producing ' at least four other seri e s ' in the wake of The Outer Limits, including another Roddenberry pilot, The Questor Tapes.
THf HAUNHO
T�e G�ost of Sierra �e Co�ra Supernaturally or otherwise, we're all haunted. Anyone who has lived this past century, this last week, cannot escape being haunted. For some of us, it's a mass haunting, an all-pervading specter of guilt, or futi lity, or alienation, that we suffer collectively. For others, the haunting is more private, more terrible, for the ghosts are ours alone, and we recognize them. Sometimes it takes so little to free ourselves of our own ghosts . And if my believing in another man's haunting helps to free him, does it really matter whether science calls his agony hallucinatory. . . or real?
-Nelson Orion question that it was gorgeous music . ' The Haunted stars Martin Landau as Nelson Orion, an arc h itect cum psychic investigator. ' A s an architect,' Orion says, 'I have always specialized in the restoration of old, forsaken houses. In some of these, I have seen and heard things no one has ever proven-or disproven. ' Orion is summoned t o the Henry Mandour estate by Mandour's young wife, Vivia (Diane B aker) , to determine whether the phone calls Mandour receives from his late first wife represent a bonafide haunting, or a hoax. It turns out to be both-the calls are engineered by the sinister Mandour housekeeper, Paulina (Dame Judith Anderson), who is actually Vivia's mother, and desires to drive the Mandour patriarch mad in order to inherit his wealth and holdings . But Paulina's past misdeeds rebound on her in the form of a hurricane-like supernatural force, the ghost of a schoolteacher Paulina once drove insane with hallucinogens and buried alive. When Orion exposes Paulina, she tries to murder him and the force intervenes, causing her to plunge a dagger into herself. Vivia flees the house in one of the Mandour limousines, but the specter of Paulina then appears, and compels her daughter to catapult the car off the nearest cliff. The small cast was rounded out by other Outer Lim its vets, including Leonard S tone (from ' Architects of Fear') and Nellie B urt (from ' Don't Open Til l Doomsday' and 'The Guest s ' ) . Stefano took over the director's chair on The Haunted-becoming a triple-hyphenate at last­ when the original director, B ob Stephens, bowed out. 'His analyst died,' Claude B inyon related. ' He became literally unglued. It was l ike he'd just lost his entire family in an accident, and when he came apart, Joe stepped i n to direct. As a director, Joe Stefa no i n t h e d i recto r 's c h a i r at la st, for The Haunted. F red P h i l l i ps a d j u sts Joe was terrifically organized; he knew exactly In 1 964, Stefano wrote and directed a supernatural series pilot in color for CB S , 'The Ghost of S ierra de Cobra,' for a proposed series, The Haunted, which to this day is seen-rarely, sporadically-on Canadian TV. ' It was released everywhere but i n America as a feature, ' Stefano noted. Stefano utilized many of his favorite Outer Limits crew people to realize The Haunted, among them Conrad Hall, William Fraker, Fred Phillips, Claude B inyon, Jr. , and Dominic Frontiere. ' Dominic was supposed to do a whole new score , ' said Stefano, ' and he came over one night and played a symphonic thing that sounded l ike a million other things I'd heard. I said, 'Dom-why are you changing it; what you've written is fantastic, and that's what I want. ' He wouldn't do any more music, so I had John Elizalde put in the music from The Unknown . There's no
Dame J u d ith Anderso n ' s makeup.
(Cou rtesy Claude B i nyon, Jr. )
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THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION what he wanted and exerted a tremendous amount of self control. I'm sure it was a very trying experience for him, but I believe he felt quite rewarded by it. At time s , Joe had problems with people who did not immediately comprehend what he wanted. It's not that he does not accept a 'lesser' intelligence-he j ust hates to repeat himself constantly. ' The next blow to The Haunted came from CB S , which d i s l iked John B arrymore Jr' s performance as the elder Mandour. 'They felt he was too much his own 'identity' and not enough of the character's , ' B i nyon continued. ' We put in a young kid named Tom S imcox, and re-shot minimal footage to replace B arrymore with h i m . In over-the-shoulder angles of Barrymore, we dubbed in S imcox's voice. Tony DiMarco did a brilliant job of editing, and when we finished we had ten to twelve reels. CBS wanted it cut down to six reel s , giving us a bit less than a day and a half to cut it down. We were in the editing room for thirty hours straight. I remember, during the final hour, Tony DiMarco's eyes j ust closed-they swelled shut ! Joe was exhausted. And I took the fil m over to Hunt Stromberg at CBS and ran it for him i n his office. Right in the middle of the film, Hunt pulled out a handkerchief and cried. He said it was the most beautiful piece of film he'd ever seen. ' Scheduled t o g o u p against NBC's Bonanza, The Haunted was never to become a series. When Jim Aubrey was fired as head of CB S , his replacement wiped the s l ate of all shows originated by Aubrey and Stromberg except for Nelson Orion (Ma rti n La ndau) a n d a n other of Stefa n o ' s 'Vivia ' s (Diane Ba ker) . (Cou rtesy Claude Binyon, Jr. ) one-The Wild Wild West. Stefano had already prepared a second longer version o f it a s a CB S TV-movie . . . b u t that deal storyline for The Haunted, titled ' Child Prodigy. ' fel l apart . ' Stefano related, 'It had to do with a concert pianist who becomes haunted by herself as a child. She People who call themselves unbe l ievers often becomes unable to play because this 'child' keeps remind me of Madame Pompadour's famous remark: ' I don't believe i n ghosts . . . but I'm slamming down the lid of the piano. As Orion solves afraid of them ! ' the mystery, it is revealed that she had a twin sister -Nelson Orion, agai n who had gotten kil led when the Nazis stormed Vienna. She had passed her musical gift on to her twin, who Stefano's Outer Limits script for 'The Cats' was now has no recollection of a sister. The whole thing finally interpolated into a feature film for Universal , was underlaid with a lot of twin symbology-twin first titled Wylie, then Eye of the Cat ( 1 969) . 'There's telegrams, two separate plane crashes , a hokey seance a big difference between the feature version and what run by a woman named Madame Gemini. I later did a they show on television, which is awfu l , ' said Stefano.
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THf HAUNTfU Then S tefano adapted the Rochel l e Owens play Futz for the screen . ' You couldn't really do a literal translation of the play, ' said Stefano, 'so I came up with the idea of a town that does the play as a yearly ritual-they close down, you can't get i n , you can't b u y gas-and in the middle o f it, there's this disturbing play about a man who loves a pig. I did it because I wanted to work w ith Tom O'Horgan, who had j ust done Hair and was the king of Broadway at that time . ' Futz was released in 1 97 1 . He wrote the story upon which the p ilot for the m i litantly non-vi olent adventure series, The Magician ( 1 97 3 ) , was based, and h i s subsequent output of made-for-TV movies (then known as the MOW, or Movie of the Week format) i n c luded Revenge ( 1 97 1 ) , w ith Shelley Winters , D eath of Innocence ( 1 97 1 ) , Home for the Holidays ( 1 972), Live Again Die Again ( 1 974-using cryogen ics as a plot basis), A loha Means Goodbye ( 1 974), and Snowbeast, a kind of Night Stalker treatment of the B i gfoot legend that became ABC's highest-rated MOW of the 1 976-77 season . Stefano also invested several years in the completion of his first novel , Lycanthrope, Dame J u d ith Anderson a s Pa u l i n a , a n other of Stefa n o ' s s i n i ster see m i n g housekeepers, and the devel opmental peregrinations in The Haunted. (Cou rtesy Claude Bi nyo n , Jr. ) normal for any Hollywood professionalEscort, or an eleventh-hour page-one rewrite of the such as a big-budget science fiction project titled horror film The Kindred ( 1 987). In 1 990 Stefano picked up the producing reins on the second season of the Swamp Thing series as well as writing three episodes of thi s comic-book spinoff. 1 990 also brought Stefano back to the Bates Motel for Psycho IV: The Beginning , produced for the Showtime Network and directed by monster movie maestro Mick Garris. Psycho IV finally brings us up to date on Norman's troubled childhood, featuring Anthony Perkins in his final screen turn as Norman, relating the story of Henry Thomas as his younger self, under the manic-depressive heel of Mother-Olivia Hussey as Norma B ates. Psycho IV outpaced by far either of the theatrical sequels done to the original, and one of the most unsettling sights of all is presented as we see the B ates manse in period for the first time­ freshly painted canary yellow ! One of Stefano's most personal projects , Two Bits, Nellie Bu rt. was finally completed to critical acclaim in 1 995 . (Cou rtesy Claude B i nyo n , Jr. )
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION come u p from the inside of a cyclotron; a particle coming from the interior of reality, so to speak:. They just come to find out what Earth is, to collect samples of our flora and fauna the same way we collected rock samples on the Moon. In doing so, they progress up the Tree of Life and discover that humankind represents that tree's top level. But to them , humankind is the worst possible development, l ike a dangerous viru s . They declare Earth to be a cull; this particular planet and space i s not to be countenanced. And the trick of the movie i s that the whole thing's a test. The visitors discover they can't j udge our worthiness by testing human individual s ; they must test us en masse. They decide the only way to make such a test is to observe humankind's reactions to various media . . . and the movie you're watching is that test. It's a recursive movie ! ' The atmosphere for the production of an Outer Limits feature was encouraging. MGM/UA and Stevens each owned a third of the original show. The remaining third was owned by Stefano, who, with Gerd Oswald, had also recently pitched MGM/UA an Outer Limits movie idea. 'The basic idea was an enlargement of The Unknown , ' said Oswald. 'About a guy who is 'tinkering with time' in an isolated mansion. Joe Stefa no with severa l d ra fts of his first nove l , Lycanthrope, i n his home office in Several people are stranded there overnight, and 1 985. (Photo: JSF) he uses them as guinea pigs, sending them into an alternate dimension, another time-zone, in order to Starring Robert D e Niro, the story centers on one retrieve someone he loves, who has been lost there. young boy in South Philadelphia of the 1 930s, and his He's 'evil' only in the sense that the people can't come quest to procure a quarter to attend the cinema ... which back once he has sent them there. Finally, out of will sound quite familiar to anyone who has read the desperate love for the person he has lost, he has to go Enter Joe Stefano section of this book. in himself. ' Both Leslie Stevens and Joseph S tefano had MGM/UA was interested in the idea as a Movie­ maintained an active interest in an Outer Limits revival of-the-Week; Stefano stood by his wish to do it as a ever since cancellation of the original series. In the feature and moved it to Paramount, where five years early 1 970s, Stevens tested a series concept called The earlier he had worked on a film project involving an Other Side , essential ly a carbon copy of The Outer experimental, ' audience participation ' approach. 'It Limits, which did not blossom. In 1 98 3 , MGM, now was a scary script, about fear, ' said Stefano. 'The idea affiliated with United Artists as an entertainment was that you could feel 'leftover fear,' fear that people conglomerate, approached Stevens with the question, had felt watching horror movies, in the theatre you've 'Jf you were to do a feature film for us called The just walked into. The movie opens in your theatre. Outer Limits , what would it be about? ' You see a shot of the auditorium you've just entered­ ' I spun them my 'Earth Tapes' thing , ' said Stevens. which meant special footage would have to have been ' In a nutshell, Earth is visited by an expedition of shot for each theatre in which the movie was to play. beings not from outer space , but inner space. Beings
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Two views of Wa h C h o n g ' s ca rved-wood ' ma ster Zanti ' as it a p pea rs today. The fi s h i n g l i ne which ro n out the rea r end, when p u l led, caused the head to turn in a s i ng le move (to spare t im e for stop-motion a n i mation of other movements) . (Photo: DJS; cou rtesy Bob Burnsl
We were experimenting with an occasion i n the theatre; it would still be too hard to do. ' It was this concept Stefano salvaged for his Outer Limits pitch at Paramount. Gerd Oswald explained, ' We would open by showing a film in black and white, very suspenseful, where someone gets chased and ultimately stabbed, a la Psycho. On the screen, the blood fades through from black and white to dark red, then, voom! The film breaks, runs through the projector, and the screen goes black. In the pitch-dark theatre, you now hear the sounds of chains locking up the theatre doors, then a voice says, 'Don 't be alarmed. You cannot leave the theatre . We have locked the doors and taken over the proj ection booth . Please remain in your seats. ' Then the real story commences, with the time-tinkerer. ' Then Twilight Zon e : The Movie opened on June 24th, 1 982 . . . whereupon the Outer Limits feature suffered a swift death by disinterest. ' We had gotten tremendous interest, ' said Oswald, ' until Twilight Zone didn't make enough money to suit Paramount. Two weeks later, we found out S tevens had his project over at MGMNA. ' With their own Outer Limits mov ie scuttled by c ircumstances beyond their control, S tefano and Oswald were reluctant to involve themselves i n the Stevens venture back at MGMNA-the studio they had j ust turned down. The 'Earth Tapes ' version of the feature was quietly killed
by the threat of litigation . 'After the show was canceled, Joe and I sort of went our separate way s , ' said Stevens. ' We saw each other social l y about once a year. And when MGMNA wanted to do an Outer Limits movie, the guy who spoke to me about it turned around and also spoke with S tefano-so Joe didn't find out about the project from me, but from someone else. I was j ust as guilty as he was of not getting back in touch as soon as the idea was first entertained. ' Then, l ate i n 1 984, a ' back-door pilot' for a proposed revival of A lfred Hitchcock Presents aired on NBC. It was a two-hour show comprised entirely of remakes of four old episode s , with the original Hitchcock intros computer-colored. The pilot scored an admirably high rating, and the resultant series-al l remakes-was done in the half-hour format for the 1 985-86 TV season. S uddenly ABC, at the barrel­ bottom of the ratings, without a show to compete with the anthology seri e s on both riv al networks­ Hitchcock and Amazing Stories at NBC, and the revi v al of Th e Twilight Zon e at CB S-became interested in j ourneying to The Outer Limits one more time. Stefano credited the then-new, then-young group of executives at MGM, people who literal ly grew up
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TH f OUHR liM ITS �O M PANION watching The Outer Limits, for 'making i t happen, ' since one contingent which did not seem particularly interested was United Artists. Formed in 1 9 1 9 by Charl ie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith, legends all, the manifesto of this unison of artists was to confer more control over the production and distribution of motion pictures to the creators themselves. Give control to artists? As Robert Lord (a writer and producer who was later to join forces similarly with Humphrey Bogart in forming Santana Productions) said at the time, 'The lunatics have taken over the asylum . ' Following the corporate merger with MGM, the lifel ine for what remained of the old United Artists became completely dependent upon a French bank. The champion of the Outer Limits revival at ABC was named Chad Hoffman, the man who helped strike a deal for a two-hour pilot, copying the gameform of the Hitchcock revival, with Stefano and Stevens working together. ABC wanted a pilot composed of three stories; Stevens and Stefano insisted on two - one story each. Network executives screened ten original Outer Limits episodes, selecting five as the best remake fodder. From these, Stevens picked his own 'Controlled Experiment' to update and revise, while Stefano chose 'Fun and Games.' ' I wanted to do 'Don't Open Til l Doomsday,' ' Stefano noted, 'but you couldn't keep Mrs Kry in the 1 920s . For the story to take place in the Eighties, you'd have to move her up to the mid- 1 940s . ' He retrofitted the 'Fun and Games' plotline to accommodate combat between a single alien antagonist and a human female warrior. The combine-script for the new pilot was completed in the Fal l of 1 98 5 , by which time both Amazing Stories and Twilight Zone had drawn such dismal ratings at NBC and CBS, respectively, that ABC began to rethink the idea of tossing another anthology show into what was now a bare arena. Stefano's heavy load of writing commitments prevented him from actively producing the pilot, and at one point Stevens stepped in to redraft the entire script, at which point remaking 'Fun and Games' was rethought - it would be replaced with an original story, the first brand-new Outer Limits script in 22 years . All proved for naught when, once again, Chad Hoffman succumbed to a regime change at ABC, and the whole project went out with the bath water of the old guard.
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In the ensumg years , The Outer Limits came dangerously close to being rem ade , revived, resuscitated and reworked numerous times. Ideas for many popular modern science fiction films derive recognizably from 'old' Outer Limits episodes. In 1 98 5 , ' O . B . I .T. ' was planned as a stage production at Harvard University. In the mid- 1 980s, writer/producer Tracy Torme (creator of Sliders) set his sights on a feature-length update of 'Nightmare' with the blessing of Joe Stefano - another project that went south due to the Marching Chinese nature of studio child-executives. Mark Victor (co-scripter of Poltergeist and co-producer of Sleepwalkers) proposed a feature version to Leslie Stevens at the same time Lewis Chesler, producer of the HBO series The Hitchiker, wanted to midwife a cable reincarnation - which was set up at United Artists Television, then promptly tanked because of Victor's interest in doing the same property as a feature ! At the time, Stevens said, 'This is a property that has so much going for it that I'm certain it's going to get done, sooner or later. '
BACK1
BACK TH ROUGH TIM[1
Soon after the 'Earth Tapes ' proposal was killed, 'The Galaxy Being' was broadcast during the wee hours of a Saturday morning on KTTV, Los Angeles' Channel I I -then Metromedia, presently Fox TV, and once upon a time, the original home of The Outer Limits ' studio production. For years, reruns of the series had been a stalwart of KTTV filler programming rarely scheduled regularly, always severely edited, hanging tenuously on like some fuzzy transmission from a faraway planet, or images in black and white pulled from the dim past of the 1 960s by some televisual time machine. 'That The Outer Limits has run for an unbroken length of time in the thirty 'major markets' in the United States is phenomenal , ' said Leslie Stevens. ' From the pieces of paper that say where it has been syndicated, it expands rather than contracts. A specialized audience has found it. And it keeps growing, until final ly, now, it does have something approaching the mass audience . ' Prior t o uninterrupted broadcasts o n cable and the permanence of videotape and laserdisc, The Outer Limits became so respectable that it rated uninterrupted broadcast on PB S affiliates throughout the 1 980s. As Richard Dorso noted, 'The Outer Limits will run time
BfYONO THf OUHR lIMIlS
The ' reun ited ' C h romoite costu me, at the Project U n l i m ited a uction i n 1 96 6 .
and time again . It always will, because there's always a new audience for i t . ' Overall, the consensus o f the Outer Limits group­ both seasons-was very much the same view expressed by film historian John Baxter. ' I j ust loved doing a series with original concepts,' said Seeleg Lester. 'It was a great opportunity for creative talent. Today, science fiction has become a genre on its own , and The Outer Limits helped it to mature . ' B . Ritchie Payne , assi stant t o second season producer Ben Brady, remained proud of the stories even though he did not care that much for the science fiction genre. 'Today, ' he said, 'a Spielberg or a Lucas would look at the show and say, 'My god, what an amateur effort ! ' Well, at the time, we didn't think it was so damned amate uri sh ! ' Payne c learly reflects the community feeling surrounding the people who participated in The Outer Limits-a kind of 'sweat equity' quite different from the hypey, merchandise­ oriented, snake-pit approach used routinely in TV as the year 2000 nears . 'Another one of the problems with TV today, ' said Vic Perrin, the Control Voice, 'is the same problem now facing professional sports: The stakes have gotten too damned high. There's too much money involved, and you have to protect your own little interest. It's too hyperthyroidaUy professional , and there's no longer any team spirit at all . ' 'Anthological series are still the best kind,' said Ben Brady. ' You're not forcing a series of dramatic ideas to fit into a mold; you're building a mold to accommodate the ideas . One form is sloshy; the other, artistic . ' ' It's a constant source of pleasure to me that the show is still running, ' said Seeleg Lester. ' In today's field, if you have a one-hour show, you've got a couple of executive producers, and four or five intermediate producers, and story editors , and writers on staff, and associate producers . In the days of The Outer Limits, we had one story editor, and we never threw anything away. We did everything ourselves ! ' 'When I went to New York in 1 97 5 , ' said Joe Stefano , of attending h i s first science fiction convention, ' it blew my mind to meet people in their late teens and early twenties who not only knew The Outer Limits, but knew things like the original titles of shows I'd changed ! They knew more about the show than I did. I heard of someone paying $65 at an auction for a Xerox of an Outer Limits script-I was floored ! I remember running into Leslie around that time, and we j ust kind of looked at each other, like, what's going on here ? I real ly can't tell you how rewarding it is to have people interested in the show. I would never in a million years think of doing a show like The Outer Limits because people would admire me twenty, thirty years later for it-you know what 1 mean?'
JJL
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
S e e t � e S e r i e s : R e a � t � e B o o l( In 1 97 8 , the Western Division S ales Manager of United Artists syndication noted that the company planned to withdraw The Outer Limits from TV syndication by 1 98 3 . The usual reasons had not changed : Too slim a package at 49 episodes, black and white, no continuing characters . Too dated, was this antique TV show. Paradoxical ly, 1 977 had been a boom year for Outer Limits documentation. Overviews appeared in both Starlog (#4, March) and Famous Monsters of Filmland (# 1 33- 1 34, April/May) magazllle s . The series rated a whole chapter in Fantastic Television (Harmony Books), by Gary Gerani (who had al so authored the Starlog piece, with episode guide), with Paul Schulman . In ] 977 - 7 8 the first two volumes of The Outer Limits: An Illustrated Review were produced as ' fa n z i n e s ' ( a m a t e u r publications) by a Cleveland named Ted enthusiast Rypel, who addressed his subject matter with a refreshingly grown-up writing style. Due to lack of financing (the most prevelant bugaboo of fanzine production) the Review never completed its proj ected four­ volume ru n , but it begat a subsequent fanzine targeting younger readers, Steve S treeter's Outer Limits Newsletter, which ran six issues (plus one 'half-issue' pamphlet) from 1 97 8 through 1 98 3 . U p through the middle 1 97 0 s , reference books o f any worth o n sci-fi and horror TV and film were few . . . and lonely. Most were
hacked out as picture books, garnished with shallow, erroneous or hastily-written commentary. The 'FM kids , ' that aptly-christened generation of fan s who grew up on Famous Monsters, were maturing, and in the process becoming more critical, yet there was a paucity of informed books on their genres of interest. Not only were such books not to be had, but neither was the market willing to risk them . The books that did appear and endure, such as Carlos Clarens' An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (Paragon, 1 967) or John B axter' s Science Cinema the in Fiction (Tantivy/Barnes, 1 970), were basic texts done for minuscule advances; their pri mary focus was to reintroduce aficionados to films and TV shows not likely to be seen again outside of sci-fi conventions or a late-night TV luck-out. The critical approach of these seminal books was, of nee essity, broad; they functioned c o u r s e w o rk . as b a s i c Unavailability of most of the films they referenced led to more than a few errors of memory b y t h e i r various authors but such i m p e r fe c t books were better than no books at all . Then the FM kids of the 1 960s (cultural teratologist David 1. Skal called them 'monster boomers' in his essential book­ length study The Monster Show [Norton, 1 993]) crashed headlong into the information explosion of the
(Overleaf) : One of Jerry Uelsm a n n ' s photomontages, used as a promotional i mage by Showti me Networks.
The first edition of the Compan ion adorned MGM/UA ' s earl iest videocassette releases; the i mage a bove was the obverse of a m a i l­ in d i scount coupon .
JJ�
SH THf SfRlfS; RfAO THf BOOK 1 970s. Star Wars helped a lot of new movie books get publ ished - many of these containing detailed histories and new analytical slants i n addition to the pictorial
M agazine has seen fit to chri sten ' the dawn of video
spreads designed to j u stify the Lucasfi l m cover
time'-that i s , pre- 1 9 8 0 .
Twilight Zone ,
and fewer people had access to
syndication rerun s duri ng the era Video Wa tchdog
photos i ntended to help the books mov e .
The Outer Limits: The Official Compan ion was
T h e result? Today you c a n find a complete book
publi shed by B erkley Pub l i shing Group as an Ace
on nearly every 1 960s TV show ever made, from
trade paperback i n December,
The Beverly Hillbillies to I Love Lucy to The Wild
'official , ' i n the middl e of that cu mbersome title,
Wild West to . . . well , you know by now where thi s i s
wound up costing B erkley a cool $2000 per syllable.
leading.
1 986.
The word
Predictab l y, the course of fates c u l m i n ating in
Choose any facet, from Val Lewton to David
thi s
book's
fi rst
edition
was
long,
sord i d ,
Cronenberg , from Jack Arnold mon ster movies to
madde n i n g ,
Godzi l l a movies, and chances are that you ' l l find an
additional book all by itself. A long book. A bo ring
entire book (more l i kely, several books on varying
book.
arc a n e ,
and
wou l d
fi l l
an
entire
altitudes of diction and comprehen s ivity) on your
H i stori ans or tri v i a l i sts may be i n terested to
topic . Today, the phenomenon i s self-perpetuating ;
learn that the gameform of the first edition was
1 5 years earlier, it seemed that one needed all kinds
based
of reasons and justifications for tac k l i n g
influence of Zicree' s :
l i m i ted
or
ob s c ure
s u bj ect
m atter,
to
such
j u s t i fy
profe s s ional publication and national distribution . Until
December,
1 982,
when
M arc
on
Bill
three other books, Warre n ' s
Keep
after the obv i o u s
Wa tch ing
the
Skies
( McFarland & C o . , 1 9 8 2 [ Vol . 1 ] and 1 9 8 6 [ Vo l . 2 ] ) ,
S c ott
for i t s u ser-friendly, subj ective approach and de­
Zi cree ' s The Twilight Zone Compan ion galloped
emphasi s on the techno-babble of spec i al effects
along and changed the rule s . Here was a television
(which continues to plague most so-called fi lm
show that was undeniably a cult mainstay, and
writi n g ,
pl enty of readers were w i l l i n g to plunk down ten
structure, context, craft or virtually anything else
bucks to delve deeper into the Zone than they'd ever
worthwhile - especially
gone before .
genre ) .
S even pri ntings l ater, it was Marc Zicree who
to
the
Eugene Pau l ' s
detri ment
of
s tory,
c h aracter,
in the science fiction
The Hungry Eye
( B a l l antine,
sugge sted that now the time might be right for a
1 962) : More obscure, but abso l ute l y indi spensable,
s i m i l ar book on his ' other favorite TV show, ' The
a
Outer Limits . The seri e s was more obscure than The
workin g s , trends, and the executi ve games o f power
blow-by-blow
l a y - of-the - l an d
detai l i ng TV ' s
Outer Lim its fa nzi nes, featuring (L-R) Joe Rutt ' s evocative penc i l led covers for Vol u mes 1 and 2 of Ted Rypel ' s The Outer Lim its: An Illustrated Review, and Gary D u m m ' s Ebonite cover for issue # 1 of Steve Streete r ' s Outer Lim its Newsletter.
TH f OUHR liM ITS COM PANION and musical desks played a t C B S in the early 7- v t:.' �i!i r-y ., 11 - !) � ';I 'Yj t: � tI ; Q '=' '' (1)H�
1 960s.
It
is
compe l l i n g reading
which
demonstrates how the medium has grown while pointing out how l i ttle it has changed (For Th rille r buffs , there is also a whole chapter of on-set reportage covering the filming of the episode, ' Papa B e nj ami n ' ) . The A m e rican
last
and
weirdest
Porn o g raph i c
is
Sinema:
Films
and
the
Peop le Who Make Them by Kenneth Turan
and S tephen F. Zito ( Prager, 1 974) .
This i s
a n unintended c l a s s i c of cinema literature, steeped i n the then-pre sent furor over Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones while the
entire adul t fil m indu stry was unknowingly on the cusp of being invaded, overcome, and changed forever by the medium of videotape. Moreover, i t was (and still i s ) one of the most seamless and readable blends of research w ith interviews ever accompl ished.
(Clockwise from u pper left) The Theta n (from 'Arc h i tects of Fea r'- note the ' h u m a n ized ' leg structure) and the Galaxy Being g uest-bow i n Ultra-G, a p i ctu re book with record d i s k prod uced in Japan in 1 96 6 . One ca ption (not visible here) reads: ' B EM coming down now! Mon sters wa l k on the movie and TV. ' F rom the 'Great Encyc loped ia of Mon sters ' as p u b l i shed in the Apri l , 1 967 issue of Bokura­ Magazine, Ichthyosa urus Merc u r i u s gets rowdy (from ' Tourist Attraction ' ) a n d the ' Mikie gobbles onwa rd (from 'The Probe ' ) .
...
(Cou rtesy Ta keshi Yoneda a n d Danny Soracco)
u (]) t!. o
( 121 )
JJl
( 7 L;
t . ' �.
t:�iii
ry ? �
RUN THAT BACK
H [ Y, R U N T H AT 8 A � I{
B y 1 9 8 5 , MGM/UA Home Video (the sole remaining branch of what was previously known as United Artists Syndication i n 1 982) was preparing to release Outer Limits episodes in home videotape editions. For a brief period, the company considered issuing two episodes per tape as ' double features . ' Finally, instead o f puzzling out which shows had the most buyer appeal, they went ahead and released the first three episodes (in syndication order), 'The Galaxy Being , ' 'The Hundred Days of the Dragon, ' and 'The Man With the Power. ' One of the people working for the first publicity company (of four) to handle promotion of the new tapes was Amy B arbash, daughter of Bob B arbash, one of Leslie S tevens' original Six B right Young Men. 'The Galaxy Being' videotape featured an added bonus: an extra scene of almost one minute and twenty seconds, wherein Lee Phil i p s sound-checks the repl acement deej ay at KXKVI - a scene that had not, for years, appeared in most syndication prints of the episode. The debut tapes hit the market i n March, 1 987, along with a color giveaway poster of the Galaxy Being. When a few more episodes became available, MGMIUA offered buyers a one­ time deal : Buy six episodes ( 'The Galaxy Being , ' ' Nightmare , ' 'The Zanti Misfits, ' 'The Forms of Things Unknown , ' the two­ part 'The Inheritors, ' and 'The Man With the Power') and the tape of ' Keeper of the Purple Twilight' could be obtained as a freebie. There was even a toll-free phone number to cal l for ordering. A few releases later, thi s offer was reiterated, only now one had to purchase eleven episodes to get a twelfth as a 'gimme . ' Outer Limits tapes were also offered for a brief time through the CBS Video Library, in 1 990. By August, 1 98 8 , MGMIUA had settled into a comfortable pattern of six releases per year - two groups of three new episodes each. 'Marilyn, my wife, called them one Th ree generations of video boxes for 'The Galaxy Being , ' 1 9 8 7·97.
JJ�
TH[ OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
Ad for a typ ica l Tu rner Network Television Outer Lim its Marathon .
Warm Heart . ' O n July 27th, 1 99 1 , Turner Network Television offered up the first of its many ' Outer Limits M aratho n s , ' loosely p atterned after the Twiligh t Zone marathons that had become a mainstay of Fourth of July and Thanksgiving programming for KTLA, Los Angeles' Channel S . Nine epi sodes were featured back-to-back, seasoned w i th special bumpers , commercial s , and interview bites with the likes of Leslie Stevens, Joseph S tefano, Martin Landau, Robert Culp, and, through the sub sequent Marathons, many others who worked on or appeared in the episodes. Actor Dabney Coleman received a long-overdue credit in 1 990 when, as a guest on The A rsenio Hall Show, he was subj ected to a clip of the prologue to ' S pecimen : Unknown, ' the episode for which he had recei ved no onscreen billing. The v i deocassette release, nonetheless, trumpets Dabney Coleman IN 'Specimen: Unknown ; ' apparently M GMIUA thought his name
day, ' remembered Joseph S tefano, ' and said, 'I see the tapes are out; why haven't you sent us any?' A couple of days later a woman from United Artists called and said, 'We've sent you nine of the cassettes because you were so creative with the show ; you produced it and all , right? But we really don't feel we can send you any more for free. We will give them to you at cost ! ' ' Most o f the background notes and episode synopses found on the video box copy for Outer Limits tapes will seem oddly familiar to anyone who has read this book. Check out the observations, cast lists, and choices of word or phrase. During a 1 989 radio interview done by Joe S tefano on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, one of the box copywri ters actuall y phoned in, l i ve . . . and refused to identify himself. The final grouping of 1 2 episodes was released to videotape in late 1 99 1 . Presently, all 49 episodes are commercially available, and the transfers are high-contrast, their 'crystal clarity ' more obvious than ever before. Prior to the final videotape issue, MGMIUA also repackaged eight episodes into a boxed laserdisc set with an FOR ONLY $19. 95* illustrated booklet. At that time, the disc set contained the only two episodes unavailable on The Galaxy Being comes face-to-snout with the MGM l ion in a sel l-sheet for the tape-' The Chameleon ' and 'Cold Hands , Outer Lim its videota pes, 1 9 8 7 .
THE OUTER LIMITS
JJ9
lHf R AVA G f S O� TlM f AND lA SH
(Cloc kwise from u pper left) : Andro from 'The Man Who Was Never Born ' a n d the C h romoite from 'The Mice, ' a s scu l pted by makeup o rtist Greg N icotero for D i mensional Desig n s ; the Golden E ra Min iatu res ' S ixth F i nger' model-the fi rst Outer Lim its kit to be l i censed and issued in vi nyl-a nd Lunor Models E bo n i te kit from ' N i g htmare, ' featu ring the m od u l a r ' la boratory' backdrop.
would provide more ' celebrity bank' than that of Richard Jaeckel. The world finally got a look at the face of Outer Limits voice man Robert Johnson-Daystar accountant by day, alien/monster dubber by n ight­ courtesy of an Enterta inment Ton ight segment covering his work on the revived Mission: Impossible series in 1 99 3 . In mid- 1 992 a second boxed set o f l aserdiscs was released, and it i s reasonable to assume that eventually the entire catalogue will become available in thi s pristine format. I Another boom unanticipated by the progenitors of The Outer Limits was the resin model kit revolution of the 1 980s. ' Garage kits '-so called because they are frequently unlicensed, sculpted and home-cast i n extremely l imited editions by private enthusiasts­ invaded the sensibilities of monster model collectors with a vengeance. Just as home v ideo had to dig deeper into the film vaults once the popular, high­ visibility titles had played out, so were kit-builders and kit-makers eventually drawn to the resources of The Outer Limits for fresh monster miniatures once the
340
THf OUHR liMITS CO M PANION
A selection of Outer Lim its mon sters from D i mensional Des i g n s (sc u l pted by C h r i s C h o i n u n less noted ; from top left) : A Calco Galaxy a l ien from ' F un and Games, ' the Helosian from ' O . B . I .T. , ' the E bon ite I n terrogator from ' N i g htmare, ' a Lu m i noid from ' A Fea s i b i l ity Study, ' the Box Demon from ' Do n ' t Open Ti l l Doomsday' (by John Garc i a ) , the Ven u s i a n from ' Cold Hands, Wa rm Hea rt, ' the E m pyrian from ' Second C h a nce, ' possessed plant from 'Counterweig ht' (by Ta kes h i Yoneda ) , I ka r and one of the Alien Sold iers from ' Keeper of the Purple Twi l i g h t, ' Reg i na from ' ZZZZZ' (by Ta kes h i Yoneda) and the Theta n from 'The Arc h i tects of Fea r. ' (Cou rtesy Danny Saracco a n d Dimensional Designsl
J41
lH[ R AVA H S Of TlM [ ANO lA SH initial repertoire (primarily drawn from 1 950s sci-fi and horror flicks) had been done to death. For example, Zanti Misfi t reproductions of variant quality and accuracy have long been in circulation i n Los Angeles; ever since the Project Unlimited auction in the mid- 1 960s, in fact . Many original Zan tis (including blown-apart casualties from the climactic Act Four battle) were in private collections, and anyone who had ten minutes to cast a mold from their original soon found themselves the proprietor of a whole army of second-generation Zantis . I n 1 98 8 a company called Golden Era Miniatures, Inc . , issued what was to be the first in a line of Outer Limits model kits in vinyl-David McCallum as Gwyllm Griffiths from 'The Sixth Finger, ' complete with an illustrated box. Terry Webb's invaluable guidebook The Garage Kit that A te My Wallet l i sts a resin-cas t Thetan from ' Architects of Fear' as far back a s 1 9 9 0 , and then, the S I nce explosion in Outer L i m i ts k i t s o f a l l k i n d s i s s o multidirectional as to make accurate enumeration of them all impossible ...or, better yet, somebody else's job. In the early 1 990s a company called Lunar Models produced a series of ten Outer Limits kits in smaller-than-usual scale (each figure was only a few inches tall ) with a modul ar l ab/spaceship backdrop for appropriate creature s , such as those from ' The Chameleon . ' or 'The Galaxy Being . ' I n 1 997 , the official license for MGM-sanctioned Outer Limits model kits was secured by Danny Soracco's Dimensional Designs, which demonstrated the longest­ rangmg and broadest commitment to representing the series in miniature yet seen. By late 1 997, 1 9 kits had been prepared-most in 1 /6th scale except for the Megasoid from ' The
'The S i xth Toe '-a ' s u per deform ' m i n iature scul pted b y Mike Parks of Mad La bs. Opposite col u m n : Jessie Horsti n g ' s logo design for Los Angeles ' Outer L i m its Bookstore; cover a rt for the Cult TV Com ic.
Duplicate Man ' (sculpted by Takeshi Yoneda; 1 I8th scale) and the Zanti Regent Commander (sculpted by Jeff S argeant; 1 1 1 [life-sized] scale)-with 1 0 additional kits in the planning and sculpting phases. Even allowing for duplication ( i . e . , two kits representing the two different al iens in ' Keeper of the Purple Twilight ' ) , this means that more than half the episodes have already been covered.2 In 1 99 1 , The Outer Limits became part of Los Angeles' determined effort to have a subway, when the L. A. County Transportation Commission sponsored a 1 1 O-foot long mural for one of the stations as part of its ' Art for Rail Transit' program . Titled The Movies: Fantasies, the 220 individually hand-painted tiles by artist Joyce Kozloff depicted various science fiction, horror and fantasy subj ects .. .including one tile of the Box Demon, from ' Don't Open Till Doomsday. ' You can see it for yourself if you stop by the 7th Street Metro Center S tation for the B l ue Line . In 1 992, Rankin S tudios and Zone Productions of Berlin, New Jersey i ssued Cult TV # 1 , a comic book deigning to illustrate the production of The Outer Limits, wholly based on the text of thi s book­ unattributed-and incorporating four limited-edition Outer Limits trading cards rendered by Joe Dunn. In 1 993, GNP/Crescendo Records released the first volume in a proposed trilogy of Outer Limits CDs featuring Dominic Frontiere's unforgettable music for the show. Highlighted in the first volume are the scores from 'The Man Who Was Never Born , ' 'The Hundred Days of the Dragon, ' and 'Nightmare , ' along with a sampler of
342
TH[ OUHA liM ITS COMPANION was released, j u s t as sonic aggres sors Voivod also called their l atest album the same thi n g . B y 1 996, even p h at-bottomed, b a s s -heavy ' booty rap ' h ad j oined u p , with a c o mp i l ation CD titled The Outer
Limits of A udio Fidelity-which employs sound samples from the second season Control Voice open i n g , ' The Zanti M i sfits , ' and ' The Probe , ' on two tracks entitled ' D a Outer Limits . '
The Outer Limits al so infl uenced legendary rock i c o n
J i m M orri s o n
of The
Doors ,
who
incorporated the opening title sequence i nto his Proj ec t
1 70
Works h o p
fi l m
during
his
matriculation a t UCLA i n 1 965 . The student fil m , w h i c h h ad no script a n d no title, opened ' with J i m takin g a huge h i t from a p ipefu l l of gras s and throw i n g
his
h e a d b a ck , '
a c c o rd i n g
to
Jerry
Hopkin s and D anny S ug arman in their 1 9 80 book
No One Here Gets Out A live ( Warner B ooks, (L-R) The Outer Lim its C D sou ndtrock ( 1 993 ) , the th i rd vol u m e of Outer Lim its novelizations, and the fi rst ' Young Ad u lt' novel ization, of 'The Zanti Mi sfits ' (both 1 997) . music and sound effects tracks, plus Vic Perrin's Control Voice bumpers . The transfers and new mixes from Frontiere' s original tapes are crisp and clean, and the debut di sc is a dream come true for fans who have waited literal decades to hear these scores on an albu m .
J oe S tefano contributed l i ner notes
on
Frontiere , and the synopses for the topic episodes came from the first edition of thi s book (one of the few places the text was actual l y used by permis sion) . Fitti ngly, the CD and cassette j ackets were rendered i n b l ack and white. Album
producer
Neil
Norman
noted,
' Dominic ' s Outer Limits music helped propel my entire c areer path
tow ard
science
fiction
and
electroni c m u s ic , ' and for many years the only avai l able recorded versi o n of the Outer Limits main title theme was on Norman' s own albu m , Greatest
Science Fiction Hits, Vol. I ( 1 97 8 ) . The Outer Lim its h a s also proven a n i rre s i stable title
to
a
wide
v ariety
particularly the Japane s e :
of In
other
m u s i c i an s ,
1 9 8 5 a Japanese
electronic violin- based group called Outer Limits released its M i sty Moon albu m , and i n 1 9 89 the rocking a l l -girl combo S how- Ya titled their l atest release likew i s e .
I n 1 99 1 a North C aro l i n a group
self-titled their debut albu m O uter L i mits . I n 1 993 the first volume i n a seri e s of i ndependent-l ab e l C D s amplers w i t h t h e overall title The Outer Limits
J4J
1 9 80) .
' Then the c amera cut to the wiggly test
p attern used as a title logo on the Outer Limits televi si o n show . . . the final shot was of the televi sion set being turned off, with the picture fading to a
lHf R AVA H S Of TlM f ANO lA SH white l i n e and then to a dot and then to d arknes s . ' Morri son filmed the shot right off h i s o w n TV, and was graded a ' complimentary D' for his effort. According to James Riordan and Jerry Prochinsky in Break On Through: The Life and Death of Jim
Mo rrison
( M o rrow,
essentially
a work print. . . ( a n d the
1 99 1 ) ,
' th e
fi l m
was
only copy)
appears to have been l o s t in the U C LA Archives . ' Thi s l atter book al so notes that M orri s o n u se d to hang out at the Phone B ooth, on S u n set. Music legend Frank Zappa al s o i n voked The
Outer Limits when a b i zarre Rainbow Theatre pre­ concert
sound
check
fou n d
its
w ay
onto
the
Playground Psychotics album u n der the fitting title ' Zanti S eren ade . ' Concurrent with the p u b l i c ation of the first edition of this book, The Oute r Limits was inducted i nto the Museum of Tel e v i s i o n and B ro adcasting in New York C i ty. I n December of 1 994, the M u s e u m spon sored a one-hour speci a l , Science Fiction : A
Journey into the Unknown, hosted by Leonard
Ill S SHOWllML fOlKS
Nimoy and Will i am S h atner. The show opens and closes w ith C ontrol Voice a u g me ntations to its credit sequences , and writers S cott G o l dstein and M ary Walker take great p ai n s to credit The Oute r
Lim i ts a s
a p r o g e n i t o r o f The X-Files- w i th
parallel c l ip s from ' The Galaxy B eing ' and an X­
Files
segment
titled
' L i ttle
Green
Men'
emphasizing the l i neage. It also features exten s i v e excerpts from ' The G a l a x y B ei n g ' and ' I , Robot' amid quick clips from many other epi s odes .
The
i nfluence of the show w a s s ummed u p by a sound byte from N imoy pointing out that The Outer
Limits
' routinely
tested the res o l v e of human
n ature again s t alien true grit . ' As the 20th Centu ry drew to a close and the Millennial serpent gobbled ever-more of its own tail , The Outer Limits became the recipient of much s i m i l ar documentary attentio n .
As a decade, the
1 990s seemed more obsessed w ith record i n g the past in excru c i ating detail than ever before . S o , the obvious questi o n arose agai n :
What
about a new vers i o n of The Outer Limits ?
A s o f December, 1 995, four boxed sets encompassing 2 8 epi sodes were avail able. 2 Contact Dimensional Designs / 1 845 Stockton S treet / San
There are boundaries we should not cross . . . Showtime Networks promo Do not move. Please stay where you are. Do not attempt to change the channel. We are still in control of your television set. We invite you to enter a brave new world, but enter at your own risk, and you will see that it is fear, not space, which is the final frontier, as we take you beyond THE O UTER LIMITS.
Promo announcement March 25th, 1 99 5 .
Writing i n the June 2nd, 1 994 i s sue of The Hollywood Reporter, S cott Hettrick cut right to the chase in a front page piece titled, Don 't Adjust TV: 'Limits ' Revived. 'MGM Worldwide Television Group will produce a two-hour movie and 20 one-hour episodes of a new version of the 1 960s TV series The Outer Limits for the S howtime pay cable network , ' Hettrick revealed. 'For several months, MGM spokespersons had played it loose, hinting at but not confirming rumors of a revival for what they called 'the i ncreasingly competitive first-run action hour genre . ' Advertisements featured photo-montages b y Jerry Uelsmann, most of which can be found in his 1 992
Francisco, CA 94 1 3 3 for catalogue.
J44
THf OUHR liMITS �OM PANION transmission,' so to speak, were responsible for two recent science fiction effort s : Lifepod and Space Rangers . ' The former was a 1 993 Fox Network movie, the latter, a short-lived TV series. Partnered with Trilogy, MGM/UA , and Showtime Networks in this venture was the Canadian production company Atlantis Films, credited with the syndicated Twilight Zone revival, the TekWar TV-movies, Ray B radbury Th eatre , and Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House. In an interview done for Showtime prior to the debut of the new series, Richard Lewi s noted : ' I think, first of al l , that Outer Limits is an incred i b l e t i t l e ; everybody has an in stant recognition to (sic) the show . . . so we've taken that title, and taken the spirit of that show, which was very terrifying for its times (sic), and a lot of it translates today. '
Jerry Uelsma n n photomontage a d a rt.
collection, Photo Synthesis (University of Florida Press). In charge of thi s new incarnation of the series were the executives of Trilogy Entertainment, a combine formed by producers Penray Densham , Richard Lewis (not the comedian) and John Watson, which had been res p onsible for such features as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ( 1 99 1 ), Backdrajf ( 1 99 1 ) and Blown Away ( 1 994) . Said Lewi s , ' We're based a t MGM/UA Pictures (sic), and we're primarily feature film producers . Frank Mancuso, who is chairman of the studio, asked us, aware that we were producing the sci-fi film Tank Girl for him, if we would be i nterested in doing The Outer Limits, and we said absol utely. ' 'Neither Stevens nor Stefano have creative control over the new O uter Limits , ' reported Sheldon Teitelbaum i n the April , 1 995 i ssue of Sci-Fi Universe Magazine, 'although Stefano has been retained as a reader and consultan t . Those who 'control the
:Vhen asked if h � had a favorite 'old episode , ' LeWI S demurred, notlllg that the original series had been done ' i n the Fiftie s . ' The 'new' Outer Limits w a s promptly syndicated to the Fox Network (ironically, the present-day home of the former KTTV facilities), which would broadcast sli � htly truncated .versions of the epi sodes following their debut screenlll g s on Showtime. The need for a syndication package of proper heft al so nudged along the deci sion by MGM/UA to order two seasons upfront, for a total of 44 show s . Thi s package proved so bookable in syndication sell-through that the order was quickly doubled. Out of a plethora of potential pilots, it was decided that an adaptation of the George R. R. Martin story ' S andkings' would be the flagship for the new version of the series . Talking u p the project i n Starlog S F Explorer Magazine, visual effects superv i sor John Gajdecki said, 'I think i t w i l l be a great episode. It was rewritten a lot, right up to shooting. I mean, I've never seen so many revisions on a script. There were so many (script page) colors ! ' Manny (Dr Giggles) Coto, co-executive producer and script consultant, added, ' It's really our version of 'The Zanti Misfi t s . ' ' . 'In my humble opinion , ' said Lewi s , 'there is n o difference between 'Sandkings' and Backdrajf. ' Ultimatel y, the pilot's men u o f exec utive associate, and co-producers ran longer than th � cast . . . yet nowhere to be seen in that credit roll was the name of Leslie Stevens, creator and founder of the original . People Magazin e promptly dismi ssed ' S andkings ' as ' nothing earth-shattering . ' Like the 'new' Woodstock, the ' new' Outer
lH[ R AVA H S Of llM[ AND lA SH Limits benefited from excellent marketing, something that had always eluded the original series. It was both well-sold and pre-sold. Each episode, including titles, clocked in at around 44 minutes, and was delivered with commercial black-outs and act breaks already emplaced for eventual syndication (it premiered on the Fox Network, in September 1 995). The scant nudity or naughty dialogue in some episodes (to make it more cable-worthy in first-run) were shot to be excised l ater, without a trace, depending on the needs of subsequent markets . Several episodes were 'clip shows ' which recycled footage from previous episodes . This ' ability to keep the downside risks to a minimum, ' according to John Dempsey in Variety (June 24-30, 1 996), caused Showtime to sign up for an ' unusual l y long, four-year, 8 8 -episode commit­ ment. . . (with) MGM, which commands a worldwide distribution pipeline that it wants to keep flowing with product . ' To b e sure, this version o f Outer Limits was a slam-dunk - as a packaged, high-concept sale. Creatively, one of the most critical caveats to any attempt at a new, retrofitted, or updated Outer Limits i s the extent t o which the o l d o n e h a s been strip-mined, conceptual ly vampirized, and annexed outright in the ensuing three decades . Despite CGI and the steroidal boom in makeup and effects technology, the ghost of an Outer Limits alien can be seen l ingering in every movie monster manufactured today, in endeavors mega-budget to bargain basement. Some of the series' monsters were designed and fabricated by KNB EFX Group, itself a modern-day descendant of Proj ect Unlimited, where fans of the original series labor over creations whose inspirational l ineage al so traces back to the Outer Limits of their childhood. Later the assignment was taken over by Steve Johnson's XFX company. For the most part, the Showtime series disdained the 'bear' approach, ' unless you consider a super-virus to be a monster, ' in the words of another of Trilogy's production entities. Exotic creatures are a rarity, and the default setting for the series seems to be science-fictional threats, critters or machines which cannot be seen clearly, such as the nanobots in 'The New Breed. ' S ome other weird 'guest threats' have included a kil ler accountant ( ' Living Hel l ' ) and a killer teddy bear ( 'Under the B ed ' ) . Trilogy's updated Control Voice speech, read by actor Kevin Conway, went like this : There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We will control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single
image to crystal clarity, and beyond.
We can
shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive.
We will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to THE O UTER LIMITS.
Writing in the LA Weekly, Arion Berger made some wry observations regarding the new, 'improved' Control Voice in an article titled ' Incredibly Tame S tories: Probing The Outer Limits of Slick ' :
The old Outer Limits flouri shed the l ast time serious people were thinking about science, technology, and what i t means to be human . . . B u t now (the Control Voi ce) sounds contemptuous. ' We can deluge you with a thousand channel s . . . we will control all that you see and hear' - fine, i f we're in for the thoughtfu l , brain-stretching ride of the old show. Thi s narration seems to come not from al i e n s or demons, beings whose thought processes and experiences differ from ours, but from ric h , greedy old men . It's the programmer's credo - mind control, dissemi­ nation of handsome garbage , product placement, Q ratings, twist endings.
One echo of the original series was Leonard Nimoy's agreement to appear in a remake of 'I, Robot, ' to be directed by his son, Adam . The flacks of Entertainment Tonight j udged the Nimoy-times-two combo worthy of a five-minute info-bite : 'This is not a case of nepotism; Adam Ni moy is not a first-time director, ' stressed B ob Goen in a segment aired 2 1 July 1 995 . ' He ' s done Sta r Trek: The Next Generation . ' The original ' I , Robot' posits: If a device appears and behaves human-like in enough respects, is it in fact entitled to human rights, even if it has read Frankenstein ? Adam Link, the robot, is pronounced guilty even though his murder of his creator was accidental , and the evidence, strictly circumstantial . In the remake, Adam Link is guilty - we learn in the first two minutes of the show that he did it- and everything else derives from a subplot about 'military app l i c ation s ' remini scent of the ' Mr. R . I . N . G . ' episode of Kolchak: The Nigh t Stalker. I 'The people responsible for the Showtime Limits have replaced the first one's intuitive probing of abnormal psychology with an attitude of mild pessimism, ' wrote San Francisco Examiner columnist B ob S tephens . 'At its best, the artistry of (the original) Limits i s a consequence of following exploratory
346
THf OUHR liMITS COMPANION instincts, not the result of a capitulation t o a cautious, systematic approac h . ' For the most part, Leslie Steven s ' obses sed seekers and Joe S tefano's mad dreamers had been replaced with more conventional , 40-something yuppies, hyper-concerned parents and just normal folks. In an interv iew for TV G u ide, yet another of the show ' s platoon of 'co-executive producers , ' noted, 'The message, which is very often the message of science fiction, i s 'Don't play God . ' When man plays God, things go wrong . ' I n one o f the earl iest S howtime promos for the revi sed serie s , the Control Voice griml y informs u s that ' there are boundaries we should not cross . ' Thi s punitive tone was echoed in several of the fi rst Control Vo ice e p i l og ue s to air, which d i s c ouraged encroac h m e n t upon ' powers traditional l y reserved for the Almighty ' and the dangers of ' forfeit(ing) our very soul s . ' Richard Lewis noted : ' People are afraid of what is going to happen. The whole sort of religious fervor that seem s to be going on in the country in the sense of family . . . we're not really prepared for that, psychologically. I think that ' s one of the reasons Outer Limits w i l l work for u s because we're dealing with es sential moral issues . . . our goal is to raise those issues and inject our own sense of morality. If you do things wrong from what your parents are tel l ing you, you're going to be scared to death ; terrible things are going to happen to you. S o we make fi lms about that, setting the sort of mores of the time s . And if you do take that step into areas you know are wrong, there ' s going to b e puni shment, and I think that i s the way society work s . (We) reinforce the sense of community, and the right set of rules to l ive by. ' To i l lu strate the point, Lewis suggested the idea for 'The Conversion , ' which he called 'My D inner With Andre . . . ah , with an alien . . . a C l arence , l ike from It's a Wondelful Life, and they have a very strange encounter. It's a real simple story, but I think it's a good parabl e that works . ' When posed with the question o f ' religious correctne s s ' holding sway over his version of The Outer Limits, Penray Densham stated: ' I a m n o t a t all a deep-seated Chri stian , not that I have objections to people being that . I am a universal ist in my approach to
J41
rel i g i o n and ab s o l u t e l y opposed to dogma. I think rel igion is a valuable thing when it's used to help enhance mankind and I am horrified when I find it used to cause wars and fight ( s i c ) . I have no affi l i ation . But I have a strong humanistic streak . . . ' Chri stian agenda or no, it was beg inning to l ook l ike ' Man' s Endless Thirst for Knowledge ' (the original show's second season bottom line) had been replaced by the punchline of Edward D. Wood, Jr's B ride of the Monster: 'He Tampered i n God's Domai n . ' It's not that re l i g i o u s c o n v i c t i o n s disqualify anyone from doing a decent j ob on a television show (they don ' t ) ; rather, the 'new' Outer Limits i s probably as good an example as any of what an anthological television series l ooks l ike in the 1 990s . Merchandising schemes were quickly deployed, and by early 1 996 plans had been announced for Outer Limits tie-in 'j unior novelization s , ' comic book s , trading cards, posters , Hal l owe'en masks and makeup kits, T- shirt s , cap s , bomber jackets and other apparel , and an interactive CD-ROM (an announced toy line was never produced) . Most unexpected of all was The O u ter Limits : Flight of Fear, a rol lercoaster designed by Paramount Parks and franchi sed to amu s e m e n t parks in R i c h m o n d , Virg i n i a and C i n c i n n at i , O h i o , which ' e n c l o s e ( s ) riders in c om p l ete darkne s s as they e x perience m u l t i p l e invers i o n s a n d sp ec i a l effec t s on a my steri o u s j ourney themed after t h e Outer Limits te levision seri es' . . . according to a pre s s release . Production on the Showtime series commenced i n Vancouver, Canada, where it promptly fe l l victim to another kind of creative deficienc y : The preferred pick- of-the - l i tter indige n o u s techn i c i an s , ac ting talent, and l ocations tended to gravitate toward an already-establi shed rival seri es, The X-Files, also shot on the cheap in Canada. The second ' season ' of the Showtime series prem iered on Janu ary 1 4th, 1 996, with ' Resurrection , ' an Adam-and-Eve story that inverted the premise of ' I , Robot' as a human named Cain is persecuted by a world of androids. B y the third-season premiere ( 1 9 January 1 997 ) ,
The Outer Limits had definitely entered The Twilight Zone when critic Joan Van Tas sel noted in Variety how succes sfully the two newest epi sodes evoked . . . Rod Serling. Writer ' s
And
Guild
of
Showtime series as
Written By, the j ournal o f the Ameri c a ,
m arket- l i sted
the
' Twilight Zone meets The X-
lHf R AVA G f S Of llM f ANO lA SH Files' - a thumbnail i ntended to apprise prospective scenarists of the nature of the program . One
of
these
was
Joe
S tefano, who had refused to write
teleplays
for
the
resurrected series until offered the opportunity to retool
'A
Feasibility S tudy ' a s a gimmick epi sode
i ntended
to
reu n i te
several surviving cast members from
the
ori g i nal
seri e s .
Unfortunately, t h e ' C anadian content' rul e prevailed, and so only David McCal lum was able to appear for the filmi ng i n l ate April and early M ay of 1 99 7 . 2 In an interview conducted by Marsha Scarbrough for the May, 1 997 issue of
Written By,
S tefano pointed out, ' S uccess today is j udged less on art than on the bankbook, so art i s taking a backseat in an odd and painfu l way.
I t makes it tough for all
writers urge
because
doe s n ' t
someone
the
want
else's
creative to
have
baby.
It's
amazing that anybody i s writing anything
ori g i n al
at
all
anymore . ' A t the debut screening of ' S andkings, ' held by MGM at Director ' s
the
H o l l ywood,
Guild
in
c inematographer
Conrad Hal l , one of the original seri e s '
most
distingu i s hed
alumni, asked thi s writer, ' Do
Several monsters a n d robots a s wrought b y K N B EFX Grou p .
(Cou rtesy K N B E F X Group)
you think they might do any i n black and white ? '
Robert C . Dennis receives n o credit o n the remake, even
Leslie S tevens finally scored a recurring show
though i t was him, and not the B i nders, who created the
credit in the ninth show of the debut season, when he
characters of Nina Link ( ' M i n a ' in the remake) and Thurman
was
Cutler. the l atter role being played by Nimoy in the new
l i s ted
as
' Program
C o n s u l tant'
just
after
version.
Stefano's card for ' Executive Consultant, ' during the end credits . 3 O n J u n e 7 t h , 1 997, HBO Networks premiered a ri val series, a Tales From the Crypt spinoff titled Perversions of Scien c e , commercials for which promi sed a j ourney 'from outer space . . . to the inner
2 The rul e i s designed to provide e m p l oyment situ ations favoring native workers and talent when US -based shows shoot i n Canada. 3
As
of
the
August,
1 99 8
broadcast
of
the
epi sode
mind' - a complete one-eighty turnabout from
' S arcophagous , ' Leslie Stevens ' name was removed from the
Stevens' original Control Voice text for
credits for the S howtime series.
Please Stand
By (see Page 8 ) .
J48
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION
T�e last Anal�sis, Dear frien�s More than thirty years after its cancellation, The Outer Limits - the original - i s still going strong on Turner Network Television, on rental and retail videotape, on laserdisc, and reassuringly enough, in old-fashioned TV syndication. TNT began featuring two episodes back-to-back in a S aturday evening slot in July, 1 995 j ust as the Showtime version was being bumped from its Friday night berth ( with S unday reruns the same week) to the first of many strategic new timeslots . The fourth and l atest 'volume' of laserdiscs featuring the original Outer Limits shows was released about the same time, and by this point its staying power seems a moot issue. Showtime primed its new series w ith a I S -minute special titled Beyond the Outer Limits . Produced by Deborah Goodwin and written by Susan O'Meara, the show devotes a good fifty percent of its screen time to the original series , and showcases interview excerpts with Joseph Stefano, Conrad Hal l , David McCallum, Robert Culp and William Shatner . . . in addition to many visuals that came courtesy of the first edition of this book. In September, 1 996, MGM Worldwide Television came up with an hour-long ' infomercial ' titled The Outer Limits Phenomenon , presented in a talkshow format and hosted by M i ke Rowe and Eleanor Mondale. Produced for IN·FINN·ITY Productions by Erin Perry, the on-camera interviewees included Cliff Robertson, Ed Asner, S ally Kellerman and Leonard Nimoy (an interview taped with Shirley Knight was not used). The show pitched book-club- style -
J4�
subscriptions to a boxed , eight-tape set of the Showtime episodes, with a free copy of 'The Galaxy Being' as a perk, and offered a toll-free ordering number to call for instantaneous gratification (ironically, the offer was ' not available in Canada' ) . In the background o f the prop-laden set, the entire run of original-series v ideocassettes is visible on a shelf . . . just above a copy o f the first edition o f this book. Perhaps the best thing about the latter-day series also titled The Outer Limits i s that the franchise more or less demands that new methods be evolved to continuously sell the original series . Concurrent with the infomercial , eight of the classic episodes were re­ released in colorful new packaging; presumably the rest of the run shall follow. Prima Publishing released the first three volumes of Outer Limits novelizations in 1 996-97 , incorporating the long-ago original short stories for ' Soldier' and ' I , Robot, ' and fiction adaptations of ' It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, ' ' The Sixth Finger, ' ' A Feasibility Study, ' and 'The Forms of Things Unknow n . ' In September, 1 997, Tor B ooks released a ' YA ' (young adult) novelization of 'The Zanti Misfits , ' written by John Peel , in which the Ben Garth and Lisa Lawrence characters are retooled into teenagers . Concurrently with the production of this edition of The Outer Limits Companion , DuoCards of Saddle Brook, New Jersey released a new set of 8 1 trading cards incoporating most of the rare color shots still extant from the series, including as a subset several reproductions of the 1 964 Topps cards, plus 'episode
TH f lAST ANAlYSIS
Covers for the fi rst two vol u mes of Outer Limits laserd iscs.
guide' cards. The new card series was creatively overseen by Gary Gerani. The Outer Limits i s also very much alive in cyberspace. Web pages and sites devoted to the 1 96365 series have popped up all over the Internet. All the average citizen has to do is enter outer limits into any search engine, and the magical sine-waves will appear on the screen of h i s or her home computer-a technological fast-forward that would certainly amuse Leslie Stevens . Common user or domain names on the web include ' Ebonite , ' ' Empyrian , ' ' Megasoid , ' ' MrZeno,' and 'ControIVox. ' And i n the June 28-July 4, 1 997 issue o f TV Guide, 'The Zanti Misfits' was l isted in a piece enumerating 'The 1 00 Greatest (TV) Episodes of All Time. ' ' Remember, ' said Stevens (in 1 990) , ' it's almost 25 years old now, and this was series television. William Shakespeare wrote some 36 play s , and of
those, only s i x o r eight are worth a damn. And when you work your way down through the bad stuff he did, you begin to realize that to produce important drama, week after week, for a population that isn't very literate to begin with-that' s nothing short of a miracle. Television eats up, per week, lots and lots of hours . One season i s like the entire Renaissance from 1 450 to 1 600. So, the fact that our show had two or three near­ masterpieces i s about right, I think. Our show dared to venture into the most extreme aspects of human experience. The Outer Limits will survive, despite its stiltedness, as an example of genuinely imaginative reality. ' 'I'm very gratefu l , ' Joe Stefano observed in 1 989. ' I feel now that The Outer Limits is probably the thing I would point to at the end of my life and say that's what I'd l ike everybody to remember, more than anything else . '
3�O
THf O UHR li MITS COM PANION
A��en�ix I:
T�e Can ons of Please Stan� B� BY J OSfPH STffANO
PLEASE STAND B Y is a one-hour, dramatic television series whose dramas are woven upon the imaginative and inventive loom of Science Fiction. As with all creative machines, the end-product, the final filmable fabric that emerges from our S cience Fiction loom will depend on the thread fed into it. Theme is the thread. If you believe in something, if you are angry or disturbed about something, or exasperated with joy or shaken with worry about something, be it Conformi ty, or Discrimination, or Politics, or Censorship, be it Patriotism, or Capital Punishment, or D i s armament, or Man' s Inaccessibil ity to M a n , or F a me , or Famine, or Moral/Physical S l avery, or Addiction, or Mass-culture, or Fanaticism or Isolationism, or Peace-if you believe in your need to state your belief you have the thread. All the rest is craft and art and intellect. A high literary style encompassing the bold use of poetic imagery and stunning language i s entirely fitting and not unnatural to the S cience Fiction form . The very awesome and wondrous nature of Science, especially when
fused with imaginative and inventive Fiction, would seem to beg and perhaps inspire high-level thinking and writing.
TH[ CANONS THfMf Out of the issues and the human conditions of this our time, out of the north- and south-seeking poles of human impulses and behaviors , out of the world AS WE KNOW IT come the themes which are the warp and woof of our dramas. That these themes must be dramatized within the almost boundless framework of the Sc ience Fiction form is secondary to the basic laws and necessities and purposes of sound dramatic entertainment: a theme worthy of the tel l ing is honey to any tongue, be it the l anguage of Ben Casey, of the Defenders, or of Stoney B urke. A theme must be born of the conceiver's faith or fury or desperation or groin-pain, not of a particular series' framework.
STO RY R f OU I R f M f N TS
..
The Galaxy Being sta n d s by. (Page 3 5 1 [overlea � ) : 'Thay you love Theta n ! ' 'Arch itects o f Fear. '
3�3
Robert C u l p h a l fway to a l i e n i n
A . Bearing out the first Canon, which is Theme, each play must reveal something of the inner life of Man. For all the great complexity of modem scientific apparatus and knowledge, feasible and palatable and identifiable Drama begins and ends in the human heart and soul and mind. B. Whatever is Fictional, or invented, in a play must have a basis in Scientific knowledge as it is available to us today - no matter how small or theoretical or improbable that basis. All that is required to support a dramatic notion is for a Technical Advisor to say, 'If such a thing were to occur, it would seem to us, today, that its genesis would have to form in such-and-such a situation under such-and-such a set of circumstances. ' C . There must be terror. The viewer must know the delicious and consciously desired element of terror. Enlightenment, Education,
THf CANONS Of PlfASf STANO BY Provocation, and Soul-moving are the end-game of all Drama, but to these must be added, for the purposes of PLEASE STAND B Y, the experience of terror. It must, however, be TOLERABLE TERROR . It must remain i n the realm of fiction, of unreality. When the play is ended, when the Control Voice has returned to the v iewer the use of his television set, the viewer, that w i l l ing v ictim of the terror, must be able to rel ax and know self-amusement and realize that what he feared during the tel ling of the story could not materialize and need not be feared should he walk out of his house and stroll a night street. D. Each play must have a ' B EAR . ' The B EAR i s that one splendid, staggering, shuddering effect that induces awe or wonder or tolerable terror or even merely conversation and argument. E . The mad magic of SOUND must be employed as often and as artfully as i s feasible. The ear must never be treated as step-brother to the eye. F. The v iewer w i l l follow and care about and at times even identify with a ' monster' or an embodied 'element' or a strange and unworldly 'creature , ' but this identification cannot be sustained if the v iewer i s asked to view monsters and creatures and elements exclusively. Somewhere the v iewer must see himself; and while he may see himself or a part of himself in a monster, he w i l l resist and lose i nterest unless we provide h i m w ith a real and human and recognizable hero-figure (or nonhero figure, as the case may be) . Therefore, each play must deal with S cience Fiction in relation to, or against, or to the improvement or detriment of the race that inhabits our own earth. G. There must be no apology, no smirk; each drama, no matter how wordless or timeless, must be spoken w ith all the seriousness and sincerity and suspension-of-disbelief that a caring and inte l ligent parent employs i n the spinning of a magic-wonderful tale to a child at bedtime. Humor and wit are honorable; the tongue in the cheek is most often condescending and gratuitous. When the tongue is in the cheek it is almost impossible to speak in anything but a garbled, fool i sh fashion.
earth. In thi s area we are dealing with mystery and fear and puzzlement and faith, and it would be both unwise and distastefu l to invent a ' someplace ' in the Universe where ' someone ' has a l l the answers-espec i a l l y if those ' answers ' are negative or tend to shatter so precious a thing as human faith . G. A l l the ordinary taboos set up in the interest of taste and morality.
S U M M A RY With a theme deeply-felt, a style carefully wrought, characters and basic s ituations that are hard-real and identifiable - w ith these, all that can be said can be said with the exciting, imaginative, Universe-wide framework of Science Fiction. No idea, no message or statement or plea is beyond the scope of such a framework. The research required to set a particular story in the setting of Science Fiction is not greater nor harder to attain than that research which is necessary to set the same theme in a hospital or a court of law or the dusty chutes of a rodeo. All that i s required of PLEASE STAND B Y is the theme. And the craft and art and inte llect.
TA B O O S A. Pure fantasy, that is, dramatizations of incidents which do not or can not have a basis in scientific fact. B . The Supernatural. C . Satire (unless it i s couched in the most supremely artfu l dramaturgical term s ) . D . Dramas i n which no human, a s we know humans, appears or i s of concern or moment. E . Dramas which take place in their entirety on another planet and which involve only 'creatures' or 'beings' of another planet to the total exclusion of earth people. F. Religious and moral concepts which arbi trarily and arrogantly oppose those concepts held by the peoples of the
Mark R i c h m a n g ives Joe Stefa no a h a n d on the set of 'The Borderla nd . '
3�4
THf OUHR liM ITS COM PANION
T H f O UH R l i M ITS THAT N fH R W f R [ : UNfllMfD fPISOHS GILB ERT HINDS , who cal l s her ' a boil that needs
l I TT l f M OT H R O f A l l T H f WO R l D
lancing . . . a blood clot i n thi s state' s heart . ' B ut not even Hinds dares to oppose the impregnable, down-home
Story # 1 5 Written by Richard Newman , from a story by Joseph Stefano and Lou Morhei m .
'mother image ' that makes the incumbent governor so popular with the grassroots voters. When Mother learns S nider is in town, she dispatches McGee and two goons
Revised by Stefano 8/5/63
to beat him up. Two policemen stand watching nearby,
It is customary in these Un ited States to refer to
doing nothing. The beating is also witnessed from a
the house in which a Governor resides as the
distance by Dr. Perry and his fiancee, S U S AN PALMER.
Governor's Mansion . it need not be a mansion ,
' B eat them up, ' he nods to himself. ' Run them out of
any more than th e current tenant need be fit to
town on the night train . That's the procedure at this
go vern . in this state , th e Governor's Mansion is
stage . ' He i s disgusted, yet powerless to stop what is
m o re
happening.
comm o n ly
refe rred
to
as
'Mo th e r 's
Mother inv ites Hinds to tea and tries to break him
House . ' The press- and others who must, or do , or pretend to respect her--call her Madame
down psychologically. I n the midst of their verbal
Governor. Th e people, those who kn ow and love
fencing, Snider bursts in, battered and bleeding, and
her who run to her with all their n eeds and
McGee drags him off (presumably to a hospital ) until
hurts and wish es , call her 'Mother ' . . .
Hinds leaves. After calling Snider a ' hatchet-handed newspaperman , ' she laugh s , 'I was right. I don't need to
An emergency call brings DR. EDWARD PERRY
be afraid of you . Incidentall y, we do have a good hospital
running to the aid of Mother, whose right-hand man,
in thi s town . ' Snider finds the door locked . 'I hope it has
TITU S McGEE, ushers him to her office. From behind
a comfortable morgu e , ' he say s .
the c losed door, weird, chaotic electronic noises emit.
Mother unscrew s h e r left hand, reveal ing a battery of
Perry enters and DR WEAVER asks him anxiously, 'Did
tiny capsule m i ssiles. S nider ducks and dodges these as
you bring it? ' Perry ' s response is, ' Please.
she fires them, finally diving through the French doors
Let's stop
now. We were going to study the people of this state­
and escaping to Perry' s research lab. Susan has helped
not destroy them ! ' In the i nner office, Mother is flinging
Perry w ith his little conscience problem, and Perry agrees
herself madly about, wrecking the room in the powerful
to tell S nider the whole story after they've rendezvoused
grip of some berserk fit.
at Hinds' mansion.
The doctors subdue her, then
Perry removes Mother's head, popping off the wig
Mother gets there ahead of them and begins hunting
portion to reveal a blinking computer brai n . He replaces
Hinds . ' ' I ' l l find you, and I'll punish you , ' she coos. She
a fai led component. Mother i s well agai n .
comers Hinds i n the attic and is about to blast him when
The
s o c i al
' e xperiment'
We aver' s
group
is
H inds u nscrews his left wri st and blows Mother into a
conducting on Mother's constituency h a s t o do w i t h the
smoking pile of robotic debri s ! ' Forgive me,' Hinds says
psychology of tyranny. ' Why do people allow dictators to
as Perry, Snider, and Susan burst in. ' Destruction is such
dictate? ' says Weaver. ' Why do they seem to want to be
a poor ans wer. '
under someone's thumb? Without even knowing it, they' l l
malfunction, j u st l ike Mother did earlier. Perry removes
tell u s . They l o v e that woman ! S h e ' s composed o f every
one of Hinds' brain components to subdue him. 'They
Then Hinds suffers a seizurelike
vile, tricky, magic, murderous trait ever found festering
were perfect, ' the scientist l aments. ' Into her, we put
in a real tyrant. And they love that woman ! ' Perry
every evi l , even evil charm . In him, the opposite-good,
protests that they've let Mother get too powerfu l .
all of it, even the harmfu l good, the weak good. We
Reporter M U RRAY S N I D E R i s summoned t o expose Mother by her current gubernatorial opponent,
w anted to see w h y e v i l always tri umph s , i n the
THf OUHR liMITS THAT NfVfR WfRf beginning. We wanted to learn why the triumph of good always comes after so much horror has been done. ' ' When you study the peopl e , you have t o study them
Monsters, Demons of the Deep. He should, at least, suspect the possibility of travelers other than himself. . .
fairly, ' Snider says, examining the component. ' You VICTOR HARDIN and ERNIE DRUON, field
have to give them a person to react to . '
geologists for Regency Petroleum , wreck their truck i n Then again, perhaps they did study them fairly. Perhaps they did give the people a person to react to. A robot, after all, is nothing more-and nothing less - than the person who makes it.
t h e Nevada desert w h e n they swerve to avoid a deer o n an isolated backroad. Ernie suffers a severe concussion that blurs his vision ; he swears that an odd cloud formation in the sky looks j ust l i ke a gigantic brain . Vic seeks help on foot, and road signs lead him to the postc ard-perfec t town of S andb ar, where DARB Y S ANDERS , an attractive waitress at the local cafe, helps him find DR. SAM RUDIN. But when Ernie looks at Rudin, he sees a nightmare creature with a skul l - l i ke head whose upper half is exposed, pul sating brain matter ! Rudin sedates him, explaining that Ernie's concussion i s causing hallucinations, a n d Ernie i s taken t o convalesce at the home of MR. & MRS . ANDRUS . S andbar and its people are epitomizations of the backwoods/hometown s tereotype :
Rudin
is
gray-haired,
ruddy-cheeked,
penguin-bodied ; Darby i s the fresh-faced, sexy country l as s ; the Andruses are rustic yet kindly, l aconic yet sympatheti c - as though they'd stepped right out of a Norman Rockwell painti n g . A n d S andbar isn't on a n y map of the area. While Vic chats up Darby at the c afe, Ernie wakens and is confronted by three of the brai n-creatures, who enter his room by walking through the walls and
AN O R O I N A RY TOWN
resolving into the forms of Rudin and the Andruses. Rudin introduces himself as an emissary from the planet
S tory #40 Written
B andarus and explai n s , ' The brain operates on electrical by
Charl e s
B eaumont
ghostwri tten) . S ubmi ssion draft : 1 /3/64 .
(possibly
impulses . . . the blow you received merely shifted your
See section on
'wavelength , ' so to speak, and made i t possible for you to
'The Guests . ' Space is an ocean,
'tune i n ' on u s . ' we a re told.
A new,
uncha rted sea where Man may venture, an Element to be explored and conquered. Peering out from his tiny island, Man sees the fringes­ a mere, few hundred million light-years-and challengingly beyond his reach, the glitter of distant shores. And so he builds small, fragile ships to sail the 'coastal waters ' of his galaxy, th inking them peaceful, thinking himself alone . . . forgetting that in every place he has ever looked before, he has found life . . . not thinking that this sea, too, may teem with forms as yet
The B andarusians are shoppi ng for a world to which they can relocate when their sun supernovas.
Andrus
notes that E arth i s ' ideal . . . a true paradi se of the spheres, which, we have been shocked to learn , you have made rather poor use of . . . should we decide to colonize, the present inhabitants could not be allowed to remai n . ' When Ernie asks if they plan t o k i l l everyone, Rudin says, ' You're already dead - you died shortly after we brought you here . ' The enormous brain he thought he saw is real , and S andbar and all its bucolic inhabitants are the brain's thought proj ections. Since Ernie is within the brai n ' s sphere of energy, he is sti l l outwardly ' al i ve . ' The
undreamed. Yet he should remember that for
aliens need to ' c atch and hold' a human being for study,
ages past, sailors have whispered of Serpents,
to complete their survey, and since Ernie is dead, they settle for Vic .
356
THf O UHR liMITS COMPANION Vic natural ly assumes Ernie's earnest story o f alien
PA R T O N f
invaders is more fal lout from his v iolent knock on the head . ' At least do thi s , ' Ernie implore s . ' When you get
Five years ago they had a revolution down
out of here , start looking around, closely, at everything.
here . It was a moral success. From it came
Somewhere , they're bound to have m ade a mistake . '
good for all. Th e new Government is a young
When Vic tries t o call the home office in S an Francisco
one. It is composed of noble and naive men . It
he i s told that the phone lines were downed by a storm .
ca lls itself 'Th e Com itia , ' which , in ancient
He sends a telegram , but has no way of knowing the
Rom e , was an assembly of citizens for electing
telegraph l i nes terminate at the edge of town. Darby
officials , passing laws , and so forth , and th e
diverts his attention with a picnic and a phony return
first th ing
telegram from Regency Petroleum, then sedates him,
Pagan a regime
it did upon was
ousting
the Mondo
to revive such ancient
using a needle-l ike extrusion from her B andarusian
customs as
finger.
Sensible Joy. B u t these inn ovations bespoke an
When Vic wakes up on the S anders' sofa, he does not
Compassion
a n d Equality and
esthetic rather than a rea listic approach to the
real ize the aliens have spent all n ight examining him, and
i n delicate
art
of
g o v e rn m e n t .
D isastro u s
Ernie tries to get him to take his nonexistent pulse. When
m istakes were b o u n d t o be made . Th e worst of
Rudin prevents thi s , Vic insists on transferring Ernie to a
these was the decision to allow th e escape of the
hospital outs ide S andbar. S urpri singly, Rudin agrees to
dictato/� Mondo Pagana , and h is wife , Stella .
this and Vic leaves . Ernie guesses that , based on their scrutiny of Vic , the B andarusians have decided the invasion i s on, and very shortly their wrecked truck w i l l be found w i t h t w o corpses inside it. He smashes a water pitcher over Rudin's gelatinous head and steals his c ar. The further Ernie speeds from S andbar, the weaker and more zombiatic he becomes , but he manages to reach a small rural airfield and make off with a light plane. Vic and Darby catch up, too late . As Ernie heel s the plane over and dives straight toward the brainlike cloud, he says to himself, ' You may not know it, Vic , but thi s doesn't c o s t me a thing ! ' As t h e plane strikes t h e brain­ cloud and explodes, Vic sees Darby dissolve waveringly into her true B andarusian form , then evaporate entirely, 'forgotten , ' as is everything else, by the alien brain. For ages past,
sailors h a v e wh isp e red of
Th e Paganas have lived these five exile years in a h igh villa that overlooks the G u lf of Mexico . . .
The Pagana regime was one o f astonishing poverty and deprivation, but Stell a Pagana was known as 'the Star of Love ' and considered a saint. ' Once a month , ' notes elderly revo lutionary J U A N PRUDENCIA, ' she would drive through in her limous ine and smile the hunger pains away. ' The country's new leader, J uan's nephew RICARDO DEL RIO, took an empty hospital built as a publicity gesture by Stella Pagana and staffed and equipped it. He has given the people homes , jobs, voting privileges . . . but has found the exiled Stella to be deified. The people respect the new order. They adm ire Ricardo and are gratefu l . ' B ut they do not love u s , ' he say s . 'They love their Star of Love. They mourn her absence , they say her prayers , they apotheosize her
Serpents , Monsters , Demons of the D eep . Today
memory. '
there is a new sea to be explored, and Man will
where they would welcome her back - and with her,
need new names for what h e finds living in it.
poverty, chao s , and tyranny. Juan calls it a ' national
For tra velers . . . other than h imself
death-w i sh . ' Exposing Mondo Pagana's corrupt regime
The populace has idol ized her to the point
was not enough. 'He i s a mannequin ! ' Ricardo says. ' Nothing ! She i s the dev il -thing ! '
SMAll WONHR I PA R T S O N f A N O T W O ) Story # 1 7 , Production # S F 8 and S F 9 . Written b y Joseph Stefano. Part One submi ssion draft : 5/3 1 /63 . Part Two submission draft : 6/ 1 8/63 .
To circumvent the seeming inevitabi l i ty of the Pagan a s '
return ,
R i c ardo
dec ides
Stel l a
must
be
assassinated. But the Pagana v i l l a is an impregnable fortres s . Juan then surpri ses Ricardo and his associates, MARTINI and ARTURO MOLLO, by showing them a cat no bigger than a square inch, and suggesting that an operative of similarly miniature stature could eas i l y get within range of Stella, ' l ike a dev il doll . ' When they all ask Juan where he got the tiny cat, he smiles, ' I have been
3�1
THf O UHR liM ITS THAT NfVfR WfRf to America. And I have seen the future . ' The four m e n fly t o the U . S . t o meet D R . JOHN STRAB , head of the Advanced Concepts D i v i sion of the
Stella
Pagan a
soaks
in
a
huge
Roman
tub,
surrounded by jewels and opulence. B eyond that, guards ,
Dearborn Aircraft Corporation. They show him films
cameras , dogs, guns, the trappings of top security. Stella
documenting the cruelty and excesses of the Pagana
taunts her barefoot servant, S ARAMELA, acc using her
regime and explain their problem . S trab is sympatheti c ,
of reading the day's mail and of a dal l i ance with her
but t r i e s to w arn t h e m aw ay. For one thing, h i s
husband, Mondo. Soon the girl is terrified and in tears ,
miniaturization technique has never been tried on a
singing a rhyme to her ' S tar of Love ' that was once a
human subject; for another, the effect i s irreversible. He
kind of national hymn to Stella.
is repul sed by the idea of murder. But after much coerc ion and moral agony, he concedes and allows Ricardo to enter the chamber he has called the Magnetic Domain . Thanks t o what Strab cal l s the ' offset' - ' the difference between the value or condition you want, and what
you
actual l y
get'
R i c ardo
vanishes.
Thunderstruck, the others prepare to leave i n defeat when Mario claims he c an see Ricardo - but he i s much tinier than anticipated ; S trab must use a magnifying glass to pick him out, and he nearly drowns i n a tear shed by his uncle. ' He i s the size of a speck of dust , ' says S trab . ' S mal ler. A microbe . ' S trab suddenly sees a solution that does not involve killing: Using a miniaturized PA device ( s i nce normal speech would shatter Ricardo ' s eardrums) , he proposes that Ricardo i s now small enough to enter Stella's brain via the ear canal and use an electrode to obliterate the 'center of hostility' i n her brain. ' Through the ear to the brain , ' m u s e s S trab . 'Through the brain to . . . madness . '
' I am only having my pleasure , ' Stella laughs, with
sweet v iciousness. There are many styles and breeds of p leasure . Some of these are silly a n d sick. Some are solem n , very serio u s . Some are very dangerous . These are th e men who are going to destroy the usefu ln ess , and th e sickn ess , of Stella Pagana. Th e one with the air of command is Dr. John Stra b , a scientist, an inven tor, a doer of th e impossible .
Th e
o th ers a re
leaders
of the
Comitia , that noble government which must p revent th e Paganas ' return
to power.
The
leader of these leaders is Ricardo Del R io . . .
'He i s too small t o k i l l her, ' Strab says o f the newly­ reduced Ricardo . ' B ut he i s j u st the right size to cure her. 1 would rather be a conspirator in making an evil woman
good, than in making a l i v e woman dead . ' U s ing a l arge , detai led m ap o f the human brain , Strab o u t l i n e s R i c ardo ' s strategy. He m u s t penetrate the cerebral cortex, find his way to the Amygdaloid Nucleus,
PA R T T W O
an oval area encompas sing the range of human emotions,
Five years ago , this villa o n Dead Man 's Bay, an inlet of the G u lf of Mexico , was leased sig h t unseen b y t h e form er dictator, Mondo Pagana , and h is w(fe Stella . They have lost their own
and destroy the portion ' between six and nine o'clock' by burning i t away w i th a needle filled with Cobalt 60. He w i l l breathe using a micro-m i n i aturi zed Momsen Lung. The group decides to mail Ric ardo to Stella, inside
coun try in a short revolution that was long
an envelope containing 'the kind of g i ft a child would
o verdu e .
send a saint , ' a small diamond ring. While tucked away
Like most exiles , th ey had n o fear of
the people in whose coun try th ey had taken
in the envelope, Ricardo is nearly boiled alive by spilled
p o litical asylum .
coffee, and almost stamped flat by a postal cancel l ing
Nor
w o u ld it have
been
n ecessary to fear th eir own people , for th ey had been ousted by a group of young men who called th emselves the 'Com itia , ' and whose concern was more with the making of bread than with spilling the blood of the past. B u t w h e n t h e defeated h a v e dreams of a triumphant return to powel� and when these dreams are supported by wea lth and influence and other po litical
e n c o u ra g em e n ts ,
the
safe ty
and
protection of life and limb become not only a n ecessity, but a mania . . .
machine. The miniaturized c at gets loose in S trab's l ab and steps into a floor-mounted electrical socket, screeching as it is shocked. B u t then it begins to grow back to its normal size. Mollo is elated; they now knew how to return Ricardo to normal once h i s mission is completed. S trab is horrified: ' A mere 220 volts of electricity, ' he say s . 'The human brain is al ive with i t ! He'll be hit from all sides. He'll start to grow ins ide her brai n ! ' The envelope bearing Ricardo i s almost eaten by a
THf O UHR liMITS COMPANION dog before it i s delivered to the Pagan a villa. Stella opens it while at her dressing table, and Ricardo rides aboard one of her earrings as she puts it on. The sound vibrations of her conversation with Saramela nearly shake him off his precarious perch on her outer ear, so he runs inside her head. Ricardo steps through a rip in Stella's tympanic membrane, her eardrum, and begins a journey across the delicate bonework of the ear ossicals. The Eustachian tube yawns beneath him like a bottomless chasm. When Stella tilts her head, he is swung v iolently around. He seeks shelter in the l ittle vestibule of the Fenestra Ovale. Then he ventures dawn the coil s of the Scala Vestibule, through the Ductis Cochlearis to the Internal Spiral Sulcus, fol lowing the bunched cables of spiral ganglion to the swamplike S ubarachnoid space, which is ankle­ deep in water and choked with seaweed-like filaments. As he picks his way along the labyrinth of the Sylvian Fissure, he damages a few neurons and i s buffeted by electrical discharges . Thi s causes Stella to experience sudden and unexplained memories of her mother, who died while foraging for food in the hill country after suffering mysterious pains in her head. Ricardo arrives at the Hippocampal Gyrus at the base of S tella's brain and sees the mammilary bodies, the ' s treet sign' that leads him to his target, the Amygdaloid Nucleus . He thrusts his radioactive needle home in the area designated by Strab. Stella screams and staggers about. DR. SOMON, her physician, attempts to help her, but when she regains her feet there i s a c uriously radiant expression on her face . When Mondo asks her what i s wrong, she says, softly, 'So much. In all the world there i s so much wrong. Hunger there is, and beating, and such suffering as must make God cry. ' S orrow overwhelms her. 'We do not see that the stars are His tears, wept to remind us, and to light our long nights. ' With rising passion, now she says, ' We must, we must use the starlight, the tear- light, we must see by it. See the suffering, and end it. See the beatings, and stop them. See the hungry, and feed them. Yes ! ' As she dashes up the stairs, Ricardo i s knocked from one end of the Sylv ian F i s s u re to the other, causing electri c al explosions all the way. He i s beginning to grow. Stella madly sweeps all of her jewelry into a box. She plucks off her earrings last, unaware that Ricardo has made it out and is now visible clinging to one of them, and drops them in. Juan Prudencia is captured
outside the villa gate, having been recognized as one of the Comitia, and is disarmed and dragged before S tella by the guards. 'The day we were permitted to flee, you argued you wanted Ricardo Del Rio to kill me, ' Stella says. ' You had no pity? ' ' I had no room for it,' says Juan. 'My fear was too big . ' Stella hands him the box crammed with priceless jewels - and Ricardo. 'The Comitia loves my people still? You will give this to them? Take [the jewels] back where they belong. ' Juan leaves, bewildered but happy, momentarily forgetting what Dr. Strab had told Ricardo back at the lab: 'If you are successfu l . . . if your people must have someone to worship and obey, they couldn't get anything closer to a saint than the woman Stella Pagana will be. '
T H f C AT S Story # 1 9 Written b y Joseph Stefano Submission draft 6/3/63 Since time began , privacy has seemed to exist only to be invaded. Countries and cities, homes and hearts, minds , dreams , all have suffered invasion by strangers - alien and hostile strangers. Often , these invasions were made openly, with stated inten t and revealed weapon . Sometimes, the invader realized the need to adopt the disguise of innocence. When the intent was the most hostile , most pernicious, the invader adopted innocent disguise . . .
THf OUHR liMITS THAT NfVfR WfRf A cat crosses the porch of Hock House and pauses to look up at the sky, where it sees ' smal l , circular, glowing objects drifting downward toward the Earth. ' These lights surround the cat, who puts u p a fight but i s quickly engulfed, pervaded, and penetrated by the lights. Once possessed, the cat enters Hock House through a pet door, and we see a CLOSEUP of its left eye, which glows. Within the glow i s seen the face of the alien invader. SUZANNAH HOCK is an elderly invalid, 'a stick of an old woman with skin l ike a stale yellow raisin, ' who holds forth from her bedroom, which i s also inhabited by more than fifty cats, all named for exotic locales. The possessed cat, Egypt, enters and Suzannah beckons it closer: ' Let me smell where you've been . ' The other cats crouch and hiss i n terror a s Egypt passes. When Suzannah sees the alien presence in the cat's eye, she reacts in shock and is i mmediately paralyzed. A FLOOD of glowing lights FLOWS up the staircase and POSSESSES all the other cats in the room. Suzannah's nephew ANTHONY, 'a tall , s lender boy of 25 with a kind of haunted beauty, ' tends the cats while his aunt remains paralyzed. When Tony enters the bedroom, the cats menacingly surround him but he is spared by the unexpected arrival of elder brother HUGO ' 30, disastrously handsome, built in the manner of the gods . ' Hugo has returned home after a long absence. ' Yo u never wrote to me, ' he says, ' so I asked a friend to come down and see what time was doing to my only living relatives . ' Hugo hungers to inherit a quarter-million dollars once S uzannah dies . ' I have a ticklish idea, ' Hugo tell s Tony. ' Let's go upstairs and put a pillow over her face. ' DR. GRASS arrives. S uzannah i s frozen, yet her pulse and heartbeat are normal . ' When I was a child, ' Tony reveals, ' she would pretend heart attacks, and I would stay in line . ' Dr. Grass notes that S uzannah's odd paralysis i s ' the second such case in the last hour. ' Hugo learns that Suzannah's w i l l makes her cats her heirs, with a stipend for Tony that l asts only as long as he cares for the animals . One o f the cats stalks Hugo into the parlour, cornering him. He gasps as if suffocating, glimpses the alien invader in the cat's eye, and, his terror complete and all-encompassing, runs i nto the cellar of the house. On the edge of town, retired Gleanor's Wood police chief MICHAEL STREEN sees a weird sight indeed: What looks like a bloodhound manhunt i s -
actuall y local troopers rounding u p all the dogs i n town, and Streen's o w n dog has vanished. By the time an ambu lance arrives at Hock House, Dr. Grass is on the phone regarding ' an epidemic' of seeming heart attacks and strokes which has broken out all over town. Hugo, who suffers from severe ailurophobia (fear of cats) is stil l holed up in the cellar. Tony i s aware of Hugo's fear; another of his reasons for refusing to evict the cats from the house i s that it permits a reversal of power from older brother to younger. R O S E GRACE, Hugo's l over and ' friend, ' nicknamed ' Evening Rose ' by Hugo for a song on S uzannah ' s player piano, arrives, and Tony i s compelled t o leave briefly to tend h i s j ob brokering securities, due to pressure from hi s boss in town and the fact that so many people have fallen ' i l l . ' Rose coaxes Hugo out of the cell ar. Upstairs, Suzannah i s n o w seen t o occupy a n oxygen tent, and the attendant left by Dr. Grass, NURSE NOLL, has fallen under the influence of the cats and is paralyzed as well standing up. The town i s now curiously deserted, and devoid of dogs. New police chief HARRIMAN FOSTMAN and Sergeant MAGGIO field cal l s at the station as more stroke-like symptoms fel l townspeople. When Dr. Gras s c al l s to report h i s housekeeper has been ' stricken, ' that a cat was present, and that he doesn't own a cat, a policeman silently allows a cat into the station, where it eavesdrops on the call and quickly exits. As the cat creeps down the street, we see 'in every doorway it passes, in every window, a cat. ' From the securities office, Tony Hock uses binoculars to watch the cat outside while he takes a stock quote by phone from a ' Mr. Justman . ' At Hock House, Rose suggests to Hugo that Tony lied about the will. ' Wills break hard, ' she says. ' It's wiser to get them rewritten. By the hand that wrote them . Hugo, I want you to go upstairs and sit by her bed. Close. Your hand on hers . When she wakes up, she'll see you. She'll think she's awakened in Paradise. She'll forgive you, Hugo, and fal l in love with you al l over again. She'll look at that unbelievable face of yours and she'll forget all about those disgusting cats of hers . And her lawyer will be here in a flash, drawing up the kind of will young heiresses promi se chauffeurs . ' As Hugo starts upstairs, a cat (the eavesdropping one) rips the screen and enters the kitchen. Fearful that
3�O
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION Hugo will see the cat, Rose takes i t into the cell ar, where it attacks her. Tony arrives home j ust in time to hear Rose scream , and finds Hugo barricading the cellar door. The police arrive, including Fostman and Streen. Fostman ventures into the cellar alone and sees Rose, dead. He picks up the cat and winks at his officer, SINNIS, at the head of the stairs . When Fostman comes up, we can see that his left eye i s glowing. The trumped-up verdict: Rose died o f fright. Streen doubts it and i s told by Fostman to mind his own business. Fostman gri l l s Hugo about S uzannah and learns that, years ago, Hugo skipped town with $ 1 0-20,000 of her money and has only returned, with Rose, to murder Suzannah and claim the estate as heir. During thi s , Streen sneaks up to Rosannah's room and sees S uzannah and Nurse Nol l , both paralyzed. Streen hides when Fostman enters and gives Nurse Noll the glowing eyeball treatment, full force. Noll thrashes around as if speared, then goes dormant while Fostman programs her with instructions to shut off S uzannah's oxygen . S uzannah DIES and Streen has witnessed it all . The ambulance meant for S uzannah has stopped short of Hock House, its mission aborted by cats which hypnotize the attendants and an officer, WILKIN S , who notices them . In town, a car careens o u t o f control and smashes a fire hydrant. A man is frozen at the wheel, another cat beside him. The cat j umps out and SCREECHES when the gushing water touches it. A STATE TROOPER motorcycles into town and glares with di sdain at the ruptured hydrant. His left eye i s glowing. At Hock House, Tony reveals to Fostman why he has remained in town with his aunt: 'My mother left us here one day and never came back. Then (Hugo) left. I was afraid Aunt Sue would do the same . ' 'Tony never learned that the only way t o beat that fear is to leave before you're left , ' says Hugo, in half­ explanation as to why he absconded with S uzannah's money. Meanwhile, S innis and other possessed officers are searching for Streen. ' I'd hate for him to slip out of town, ' says Fostman . B reathless, weary and deeply frightened, Streen's fl ight has led him to a frame house in the woods where all the town's dogs are locked up, guarded by an officer named RALP H , who was ordered by Maggio, who was ordered by Fostman, to keep the dogs secure . Streen punches Ralph right in
J61
the eye. 'What got into you ! ' bl urts a surpri sed - but not possessed - Ralph. 'I had to make sure nothing had gotten into you, ' says Streen . The men depart the area j ust as several cats close in. 'I don't think there's any need to wait for Lt. S inni s , ' decides Fostman . He orders Noll to retrieve the cat from the cellar. ' It isn't going any place just yet, ' Fostman tell s Tony and Hugo. ' First thi s town, then the others. You aren't a very good host, are you, Anthony? They'll teach you to be. They taught me. I had the dogs locked up for them . They didn't l ike our dogs at all . Can't teach dogs. B ut they can teach us. Just as they taught the cats. The cats were a very wise way station, weren't they? S o harmless, so innocent. Real trustworthy. No one would run from a cat, would they? Out of heaven-knows-where, into the cats . . . out of the cats, into u s . ' Noll returns with the cat and Fostman directs, 'Give that one to Hugo . ' Hugo's fright boils over and h e bolts. Tony i s able to pitch hot coffee into Fostman's face, and follows. The cat tails them , eye glowing, into the woods, where Hugo inadvertantly frees all the dogs from the frame house while searching for a place to hide. When Tony catches up, Hugo implores him to keep running, to get clear, to escape. 'It's your tum to run now, ' he concludes. Tony runs as Hugo meets the cat face-to-face, crawling toward it on hands and knees and entreating it with sweet dementia: ' Pretty kitty . . . ' H ugo grabs the possessed cat and kills it. In town , the dogs tear through the main street and some cats flee while other freeze in panic. Fostman and Noll are cornered by the dogs; we ZOOM IN to see the alien presence in Fostman's eye 'terrified and screaming soundlessly' as the dogs attack . On a back road o u t o f town, Streen and Ralph spot Tony running down the m iddle of the road. Ralph stops his patrol car and the men stare down Tony from a distance . Is Tony safe? Streen makes his difficult decision, ordering Ralph to drive on. Tony stares helplessly as the patrol car leaves him behind. Then the car stops again . Streen says, 'If I'm wrong, Ralph, it's 40 miles to the next town. And we can't get there a moment too soon. B ut we can't leave him behind. Can we? ' Ralph volunteers to ' go look at' Tony but Streen overrides him and goes out instead. Streen and Tony come face to face . They watch each other's eye for a long, agonizing moment. Then Streen grabs Tony's arm and the two men race back to
THf O UHR liMITS THAT NfVfR WfRf the patrol c ar. They j ump in and the c ar zooms away to w arn the rest of the worl d . (Stefano's conclusion about the threat young v iewers may have perceived in household pets [Page 80] i s an unfortunate truth, but had 'The Cats ' been fi lmed, it would doubtless be a minor television c l assic today, referenced as 'the one where the cats are aliens . ' It i s curiously easy t o cast i n the m ind's eye : Tony is essentially Scott Marlowe from 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, ' and Hugo is also Scott Marlowe from 'The Form s of Things Unknow n . ' Kent S mith could have played either Streen or Fostman, and Nellie B urt could have essayed S uzannah, with the Rose Grace role going to any number of The Outer Limits ' female day players . The conflict between older and younger brothers i s also fam i l i ar from 'Woodwork' [again we have two brothers deprived of their parents] , and the opening sequence i s a neat i nvers ion of the prologue to ' A Feasibility S tUdy. ' Ful l y half the show is confined to S uzannah's bleak house with its mausoleum-like bedroom and creepy 'Bellero S h i e l d ' c e l l ar, and the si gnature ' Stefano staircases ' are much in evidence i n the script. Rose's offscreen death [the Act Three capper] owes a lot to Val Lewton in that Tony stares down into the basement and we see, 'over h is shoulder. on the wall below, the enormous shadow of a cat. A n d silence . ' S trong influences later codified into 'The Invisibles' are also apparent, with the less upbeat ending of this story m ore akin to the original concl usion of Invasion of the Body Snatchers [ before the more hopefu l cod i c i l in the psych iatrist's office was tacked onto that fil m ] . Tonally, it i s easy t o see how the sensibilities that conceived 'The Cats' l ater infonned the paran o i a quotient of ' Corpus E arth l i n g , ' another show frightening enough t o make Stefano repeatedly emphasize that perhaps it should not have been broadcast. The reader is also referred to the film Eye of the Cat [ 1 969 ] , which Stefano has described a s this script with the science fictional elements rinsed out.)
THf llNfMAN Story idea by Leslie Stevens Work ing title of a ' bottle sho w ' that was never needed. A telephone l i neman dies when l i ghtning strikes him atop the enonnous steel superstructure of a power tower. His consciousness transfers into the endless network of wire s , giving h i m a 'body' that e xtends almost
everywhere , and peopl e start hearing h i m on thei r home phones. ' I t was just an outline , ' said Stevens . 'It was ready to do if I had to. '
UNTITlfO A story treatment b y Joseph S tefano and Lou Morhei m . A n astronaut who i s lost i n Earth orbit for ten days, then recovered. According to Leon Chooluck, either the man ' s brain i s removed and replaced with a computer of alien ori g i n , or an alien telemetry dev ice i s inserted into the astronaut' s brain to relay Earth data back to the homeworld . I n one scene, the astronaut's wife sees him remove a portion of his scalp to get at the device. ABC v etoed t h is episode on behalf of NASA, feel i n g that i t w o u l d l ook bad for a n astronaut to g e t l o s t ' out there . '
T H [ WAT C H B I R O S tory #5 8 , Production #SF 3 7 Wri tten by Fran c i s Cockrel l B ased o n t h e short story by Robert Sheckley In a Cal i forni a town called Seaside, DR LEE PERRY demonstrates to c i ty manager FRANK DENNY and Pol i c e Chief B ATES a device Perry has d ubbed the ' Watch b i rd ' - a beach bal l - s iz ed UFO that acts automat i cal l y to p re v e n t h u m an aggre s s i o n , u s i n g thread l i ke h e at beam s that harm l e s s l y m i cro-shock potential perpetrators. The Watchbird prevents Denny from pointing a pistol at Perry - zap ! - and Perry further shows that the B i rd w i l l not perm i t h i m to slap or kick Denny in return . The B ird could police any populac e within a fiv e - m i l e radi u s , and Perry has already approached the city fathers of Seaside to sanction a test­ run of h i s i nvention, since he has no faith i n the endless w h e el - g r i n d i n g and patent theft attendant to m o s t governmental participation. ' Don't you see? ' says Perry. ' I want to do something w ith electroni c s that helps Man l i v e in peace and happiness - not j ust sends him farther into space, or faster, or makes h i m more comfortable, or deadly. ' The officials dec l i n e , feel i n g that the Watchbird i s ' too unpredictab l e . ' Perry's son JEFF suggests that Perry program the B i rd 'ju s t for u s , ' meaning the Perry fami l y. Jeff s u l terior motive i s to defuse l ocal school bully B ERNIE WELCH. Perry accedes , because he believes the res u l tant word-of- mouth w i l l v i ndicate h i m .
THf O UHR liMITS COM PANION The next day, Bernie the bully gets zapped, but Jeff
Perry affixes a mirror t o the Falcon t o reflect back the
suffe rs a ski nned elbow because the B ird i s not
B ird' s beams.
programmed to handle B ern ie throwing rocks . The B i rd's
Perry's family reunites safely.
'experience acc u m u l ator, ' how ever, will store th i s
B oth units are incinerated in mid-air and
In the aftermath , a Fed named HARVEY PERKINS
behav ior for future reference. When friendly D R PIKE
shows up to cut a deal with Perry for his revol utionary
attempts to adm ini ster a tetanus booster shot to Jeff, the
Watchbird propel l ant and the science beh ind the B ird in
needle is prevented from piercing Jeff s skin by the B ird,
general . He promi ses Perry a remote desert lab for ample
which interprets this as a hostile act. And when Frank
testing, and plenty of financial aid to ease the ' rather
Denny is 'protected' from a clap on the shoulder from h i s
appalling number of damage suits' brought as a result of
pal B R UCE, Denny real izes that Perry has t h e B i rd ' u p , '
the Watchbird's maiden flight.
contrary t o h i s wishes. ' You can't go around interfering in peoples' lives ! ' the Chief fumes at Perry, even though the B ird i s programmed to permit t h e use of guns b y t h e police. Perry refuses the Chiefs order to ground the B ird. Pol ice
(In a 1 9 87 interview, Robert Sheckley said, 'I asked to be written off the project after the producers said, 'How do we depict a Watchbird?' which, in my story, was a big bronze thing with a 1 5 -foot wingspan . ' )
snipers attempt to shoot it down, but, as Perry notes, ' i n
UNTITlfO
a n y conflict o f program m i n g , t h e Watchbird ' s self­ protective c irc uits override all other (directives) . ' The
A Robert Dennis original written for the second
B ird , for example, would prevent parents from spanking
A l l sorts o f moral conflicts become apparent.
season. The protagoni st is a boy living on a farm in the
their kids . . . but could that not ultimately be a good thing,
rural Midwest. Outcast and ignored, h i s on l y friend, a l ittle
forc ing the use of some less v iolent form of discipline?
girl , moves with her fam ily to Cal iforn ia. He is alone until
Perry theorizes that the short-term nuisance of being
one night, he sees a shooting star crash down into a nearby
restrained from such violent impulses as a race could
field. He discovers the remains of an alien probe , sent to
eventual ly lead to the elimination of aggression, itself.
Earth on a trial basi s with a cargo of various samples of
Things seem rosier until the B ird prevents Denny
animal life native to the other p l anet. The boy saves the
from swinging a bat during a softball game with his two
bizarre-looking creatures, harboring and nouri shing them.
sons. Driving home, Denny is forced to hit the brakes to
The animals reciprocate his affection and become his pets.
avoid a collision, causing his boys to knock into the
The local hicks get wind of the boy's little zoo and vent
dashboard . . . and now, the Watchbird won't let anyone use
their paranoia by killing all the creatures. A school teacher
the brakes in their c ars !
tries to comfort the boy by tel l ing him, 'At l east th is
Perry agrees to ground the B ird before more people
mean s we're not alone . ' The story was vetoed by Ben
are victimized by its m i sguided benevolence. He rigs a
B rady because it depicted the farmers s l aughtering the
remote-controlled rifle to shoot it down.
alien animal s .
The B ird
focuses on the rifle and causes the c artridge inside to expl ode before it can be fi red.
When the B ird aborts a
potential riot of over 200 people, Perry tel l s the Chief that 200 more c itizens now will not be able to use the brakes in their cars . wired with explosives and a proximity fuse.
B ut if the
B ird fires on the Fal con , the Falcon will explode. It needs some sort of shielding in order to get close enough to the Watchbird to destroy it. PeITY's daughter KIT attempts to alert the media and several more casualties are l ogged thanks to Watchbird­ Perry must get the Falcon aloft
before his mother-in-law arri ves by plane, with his wife ­ another potenti a l l y catastrophic 'no brakes' scenario.
J6J
B . Ritchie Payne recalled an idea submitted by Ol iver Crawford for the second season : ' It was j u st a
Perry dev ises a ' falcon ' - a prototype Watchbird
rel ated interventions.
UNTITlfO
thing, about the s tar s g oi n g out in he a ve n . '
beautiful
B ROAOCAST & SYNDI CATION SCH fOU lfS
B R O A D C A S T & S Y N D I C AT I O N S C H f D U l f S FIRST SEASON
PRODUCTION
B ROADCAST I SYNDICATION
Please Stand By 3- 1 4 December 1 962
'The Galaxy Being' 16 September 1 963
'The B orderland' 22-29 May 1 963
'The Hundred Days of the Dragon 23 September 1 963
'The Human Factor' 3 1 May- lO June 1 963
'The Architects of Fear' 30 September 1 963
'Tourist Attraction' 1 1 - 1 9 June 1 963
' The Man With the Power' 7 October 1 963
'The Architects of Fear' 19-26 June 1 963
'The Sixth Finger' 1 4 October 1 963
' Control led Experiment' 27 June-2 July 1 963
'The Man Who Was Never B orn' 28 October 1 963
'The Hundred Days of the Dragon 3- 1 1 July 1 963
' O . B .LT. ' 4 November 1 963
'The Man With the Power' 29 July-3 August 1 963
'The Human Factor' 1 1 November 1 963
'A Feasibility Study' 5 - 1 2 August 1 963
' Corpus Earthling' 1 8 November 1 963
'Specimen : Unknown' 1 2-20 August 1 963
' Nightmare' 2 December 1 963
'The Sixth Finger' 20-27 August 1 963
'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' 9 December 1 963
'The Man Who Was Never B orn' 27 Aug-4 Sept 1 963
'The B orderland' 1 6 December 1 963
' Moonstone' 5 - 1 2 September 1 963
'Tourist Attraction' 23 December 1 963
3�4
TH f OUHR liMITS COM PANION PRODUCTION
BROADCAST I S YNDICATION
' O . B . ! T. ' 1 3 -20 Sept 1 963 ( series premieres 1 6 Sept)
'The Zanti Misfits' 30 December 1 963
'Nightmare ' 23-30 Sept 1 963
'The Mice' 6 January 1 964
'Corpus Earthling' 1 -8 October 1 963
' Controlled Experiment' 1 3 January 1 964
'The Zanti M i sfits' 9- 1 7 October 1 963
' Don't Open Til l Doomsday ' 20 January 1 964
'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' 1 8-2S October 1 963
'ZZZZZ' 27 January 1 964
'The Mice' 28 Oct-S Nov 1 963
'The Invisibles' 3 February 1 964
'The Invi sibles' 6- 1 4 November 1 963
'The Bellero Shield' 10 February 1 964
'ZZZZZ' I S Nov-S Dec 1 963
'The Children of Spider County' 1 7 February 1 964
' Don't Open Till Doomsday' 26 Nov-S Dec 1 963
' Specimen : Unknown' 24 February 1 964
'The Bel lero Shield' 6- 1 6 December 1 963
' S econd Chance ' 2 March 1 964
The Unknown (pilot) 2-2 1 January 1 964
' Moonstone' 9 March 1 964
'The Children of Spider County ' 6- 1 3 January 1 964
'The Mutant ' 1 6 March 1 964
'The Mutant' I S -2 1 January 1 964
'The Guests' 23 March 1 964
' Second Chance' 22-28 January 1 964
'Fun and Games ' 30 March 1 964
' Fun and Games ' 30 Jan-6 Feb 1 964
'The Speci al One ' 6 Apri l 1 964
8 ROAO�AST & SYNOI�ATlON S�HmUlfS PRODUCTION
B ROADCAST I S YNDICATION
'The Guests' 6- 1 3 February 1 964
'A Feasibility Study ' 1 3 April 1 964
'Production and Decay of Strange Particles' 1 9-25 February 1 964
' Production and Decay of Strange Particles ' 20 April 1 964
'The Special One' 26 Feb-4 March 1 964
'The Chameleon' 27 April 1 964
'The Chameleon' 5- 1 1 March 1 964
'The Forms of Things Unknown' 4 May 1 964 SEC OND SEASON
'Cold Hands, Warm Heart' 25 June-2 July 1 964
' Soldier' 1 9 September 1 964
' Soldier' 3- 1 0 July 1 964
' Cold Hands, Warm Heart' 26 September 1 964
' 'The Invisible Enemy' 1 3 -20 July 1 964
' B ehold Eck ! ' 3 October 1 964
'Counterweight' 2 1 -27 July 1 964
' Expanding Human ' 1 0 October 1 964
'Behold Eck ! ' 2 8 July-4 August 1 964
' Demon With a Glass Hand' 1 7 October 1 964
'Wolf 3 5 9 ' 5 - 1 2 August 1 964
' Cry of Silence ' 24 October 1 964
' Keeper of the Purple Twilight' 1 3 -20 August 1 964
'The Invisible Enemy' 3 1 October 1 964
' Expanding Human' 2 1 -28 August 1 964
' Wolf 3 5 9 ' 7 November 1 964
' Demon With a Glass Hand' 3 1 August -7 Sept 1 964
' I , Robot' 1 4 November 1 964
'Cry of Silence' 1 0- 1 7 September 1 964
'The Inheritors ' Part One 2 1 November 1 964
' I , Robot' 1 8-25 September 1 964 ( series premieres 1 9 September)
'The Inheritors ' Part Two 28 November 1 964
TH [ O UH' liMITS COM PANION PRODUCTION
'The Inheritors ' (Two-part episode) 28 September - 1 3 October 1 964
B ROADCAST I SYNDICATION ' Keeper of the Purple Twi light' 5 December 1 964 'The Duplicate Man ' 1 9 December 1 964
'The Duplicate Man ' 1 5 -22 October 1 964
' Counterweight' 26 December 1 964
'The Brain of Colonel B arham' 23-30 October 1 964
'The B rain of Colonel B arham ' 2 January 1 965
'The Premonition' 2-9 November 1 964
'The Premonition' 9 January 1 965
'The Probe' 1 0- 1 6 November 1 964
'The Probe' 1 6 January 1 965
FIRST SEASON PRE-EMPTIONS AND RERUNS 2 1 October 1 963 25 November 1 1 May 1 964 1 8 May 25 May 1 June 8 June 1 5 June 22 June 29 June 6 July 1 3 July 20 July 27 July 3 August 10 August 1 7 August 24 August 3 1 August 7 September 1 964
pre-empted pre-empted ' S pecimen : Unknown ' 'The S ixth Finger' 'The Man Who Was Never B orn ' ' Moonstone' ' O . B . I .T. ' 'Nightmare ' 'Corpu s Earthling' 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' 'The Human Factor' pre-empted 'The Special One' 'ZZZZZ' 'Fun and Games ' 'The Chameleon' 'The Special One' (again ! ) pre-empted 'The Architects of Fear' 'The Man With the Power'
SECOND SEASON PRE-EMPTIONS AND RERUNS 1 2 December 1 964
pre-empted
(There were no second season reruns due to mid season cancellation)
3�1
STO NfY BURKf & UAYSTAR PllUTS
STO N fY B U R K f & UAYSTAR Pi lOTS For all intents, the Stoney Burke crew was the foundation of the soon-to-be Outer Limits main crew, and the casts and guest stars of most shows a ' first contact' for a lot of actors who wound up on the latter series a year or so afterward. The notable ones are underscored. The dates l isted are for the premiere of each episode on network TV.
Art D irector: Jack Popli n Film Editor: Richard H . B rockway (this credit was l ater eliminated) Sound Effects Editor: Arthur J. Cornall Makeup Artist: Fred B. Phi l l ips Sound Mixer: Jay Ashworth Set Decoration: Lyle B . Rei fsnider (later: Chester B ayhi) Properties: Richard M . Rubin Key Grip : Henry Maak Lighting Technician : L loyd L . Garnel l Superv i s ing F i l m Editor: R ichard H . B rockway Assistant D irector: Lindsley Parsons, Jf. Lee H. Katzi n (later: Robert H . Justman) Music Superv i sor: John E lizalde Music Coord inator: Roger Farris Audio Superv i sor: Clem Portman Technical Advisor: Lex Connel l y (later: Casey Tibbs) Additional credits on some shows
STO N f Y B U R K f ! 1 � 6 Z·6 3 1 Produced by Leslie S tevens for ABC Television. A Daystar/United Artists Television Production REGULAR CAST: S toney B urke (Jack Lord), E.J. Stocker (Bruce Dem) , Yes Painter (Warren Oates), Cody B ri stol (Robert Dowdell) , Red (Bill Hart) . SEMI-REGULAR: Cal Bristol (George Mitchell). CREW Associate ProducerlMusical D irector: Dominic Frontiere (later thi s credit was changed to : Music by Dominic Frontiere, Production Executive) Production Coordinator: Elaine Michea Production Manager: Leon Chooluck (later: Lindsley Parsons. Jf. ) Production S uperv i sor: B ob B arbash Assistant to the Producer: John Erman Director of Photography : Ted McCord, A . S . C . (later: Conrad Hall) Camera Operator: Richard B atcheller (on p ilot only) Assistant Cameraman : Bert Easton (on p ilot only) Script S upervi sor: Pat M i l ler (on p ilot only)
The Associ ate Producer credi t ' rotated' among the Six B right Young Men from episode to episode - John Erman, Ralph Riskin, Bob B arbash, John Elizalde, Ron S i lverman, and A l l an B a l ter - and subsequently included Jack Poplin. Production Associ ate : Clark Stefan. Rodeo Production by Casey Tibb s , ' Champion of Champions' Rodeos, Inc . Western C lothes Provided by Mayfair of Beverly Hills.
fPISOHS 1 . ' The Contender' (premiere broadcast 1 October
1 962.) Written and Directed by Leslie Stevens Director of Photography : Ted McCord CAST: Royce Hamilton (Phil ip Abbott), Erlie Bristol (Kate Manx [Stevens' second wife ] ) , Clay Bristol (Clay B enton Reid), Cleo Ann (Ruby Lee). WITH : B artlett Robinson. S toney suffers a setback when he draws Megaton, the meanest bronc in the rodeo. On the comeback trail , he reconciles with Yes Painter and hooks up for the first time with EJ. S tocker and Cody Bristol .
TH f OUHR liMITS COMPANION 2 . ' Fight Night' ( 8 October 1 962) Written and Directed by Leslie S tevens. Director of Photography: Ted McCord. CAST: Wi ll ard ( A l an B unce ) , Dawes (Edgar Buchanan) . WITH : Claudia B ryar, Leonard N imoy, Bill Zuckert , Paul B irch . With the rodeo ready t o move t o Cade City, a pair of thugs beat up Cody and warn that there is only room in Cade City for one 'big event' that night. 3. ' C hild of Luxu ry ' ( 1 5 October 1 962)
Written and Directed by Leslie Stevens. Director of Photography : Ted McCord.
Clyde Lambert says he wants Stoney to put on a rodeo, and offers to renovate an old stadium for the event. But a group of young stock-car drivers, who have been using the arena for auto races, claim that Lambert and the town council are just out to get them . 6 . ' A Matter of Pride' ( 5 November 1 962) Written and directed by Leslie Stevens. Director of Photography: Ted McCord. CAST: Dayton Hill (Ben Piazza) , Reese Ludlow (William Windom) , Penn H udson (Conrad Janis), Meryle Hill (Jena Engstrom) , Flora Hill (Virginia Christine) , Dean Guttman (Robert B rubaker), Ruth Coles (Edith Atwater), Attendant (Henry Scott) .
CAST: S utton Meade (Ina B al i n ) , Terry Meade (Eduard Franz), Charley Fitch (Judson Laire), Mr. Exeter (Charles Carlson ) , Doctor ( Stan B erman ) . WITH : Dee J. Thompson.
When Miller Hill i s killed in a bull-riding accident, Stoney gets involved in the conflict between Miller's headstrong family and the town council, which wants to shut down the rodeo.
Wealthy young S utton Meade, accustomed to getting whatever she wants , starts a war against Stoney when he won't j ump through her hoops.
7. ' Sidewinder' ( 1 2 November 1 962) Written and directed by Leslie Stevens . Director of Photography: Ted McCord.
4. ' Point of Honor' (22 October 1 962)
CAST: Joe Gullion (Edward Binns), Morgan J ulian (Mark Miller), B uckley (Strother Martin), Maxine ( Helen Gurley B rown) , Cele Cowan (Gail Kobe), Mr. Holland (David White ) , Loreen J u l i an ( S h i rley O'Hara) .
Written and directed by Leslie Stevens. Director of Photography : Ted McCord. CAST: Soames Hewitt ( Scott Marlowe), Lee Ann Hewitt (Patricia Breslin), Dell Tindall ( [Harry] Dean Stanton) , Rex Donally (Ben Johnson). WITH : Lew Brown, Ian Wolfe , Bill Mulliken, Casey Tibbs. Local boy Soames signs up to ride a B rahma at the rodeo, but Stoney and E.J. stop him when they notice he's drunk. Insulted, Soames sets out with a pistol to demand satisfaction. 5. ' The Mob Riders' (29 October 1 962) Written and directed by Leslie Stevens . Director of Photography : Conrad Hall. CAST: Tack Reynolds ( Michael Park s ) , C l yde Lambert (Gene Lyons), B ud S utter (Bill Gunn), Frank Hughes (Ford Rainey) , Arlette Hughes (Denise Alexander) . WITH: Kim Hamilton, Curt Conway, John Duke.
Stoney's set to bust a bronc named S idewinder, but the bronc does all the busting - crashing through a safety fence and into the audience. A spectator is i nj ured and Stoney is slapped with a lawsuit. 8. ' The Scavenger' ( 1 9 November 1 962) Written and Directed by Leslie Stevens . Director of Photography : Conrad Hall. CAST: Voit (John Kellogg) , Frank Foley (Paul Comi), S uzan Foley ( Shirley B allard) , Trooper (Roy Glenn), Derelict ( 'Enoch Gate s , ' an incognito stage name for Leslie Stevens' pal James Mason ! ) . The police arrest Yes , who admits he got garage owner Howard Foley drunk, but not to rob him-and certainly not to kill him !
STONfY BURH & OAYSTAR PilOTS 9 . ' S pin a Golden Web ' (26 November 1 962) Directed by Robert B utler Written by Phi l ip Saltzman Director of Photography : Conrad Hall CAST: Roy Hazelton (Robert Webber) , M av i s (Salome Jens), Bruce Austin (John Anderson), Lyle S weet (Ken Lynch), B ert (James Callahan ) , B etty Austin (Mary Munday). Stoney and B urt are tied for first place in the saddle bronc event. Two spectators, l and investors Roy Hazelton and Lyle S weet, are so interested in the match that they make a l ittle wager. 1 0. ' The Wanderer' (3 December 1 962) Written by Milton Geiger. CAST: Larry Dawson (Albert S almi ) , Leora Dawson (Jacqueline Scott), Dr Laird (Milton Selzer) . Expectant mother Leora Dawson collapses on the rodeo grounds and tells Stoney she will not go to a hospital . She insists her husband be present when their child is born. 1 1 . ' Five by Eight by Eight' ( 1 0 December 1 962) Written by Palmer Thompson Directed by Tom Gries . Director o f Photography: Conrad Hal l . CAST: N i c k Marti n (Ed Nelson ) , Joyce Carrol (Bennye Gatteys), Warden Harper (William Schallert), Capt. Bender (Joseph Perry) , Cookie (Garry Walberg), M r Carrol l (John McLiam ) , Mrs . Carrol l ( M ary Jackson) . WITH: Arthur Malet. Nick Martin's prison cell i s five by eight by eight, but he intends to reach the w ide open spaces very soon when the rodeo comes to entertain the convicts. A friend on Nick's on the outside has planted a gun in Stoney's gear. 1 2 . ' B andwagon ' ( 1 7 December 1 962) Written by Meyer Dolinsky. Directed by Laslo Benedek. Director of Photography: Conrad Hal l .
Grayson (Mariette Hartley), Leo (Len Lesser) , Paul Grayson (James Bell), Walter (Warren Stevens), Betty Jo Wil son (Joan Chambers) , Meryl (Jean Carson) . Stoney gets o n the political bandwagon when Senator Lockridge, an old family friend, asks him to make a few informal c ampaign speeches . Life aboard Lockridge's political bandwagon prompts Stoney to investigate the S en ator's methods of serv ing the people. 1 3 . ' Cousin Eunice ' (24 December 1 962) Written by B ob B arbash. Directed by Tom Gries . Director o f Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: Eunice S tocker ( Cloris Leachman ) , S hep Winters (Jim Davis), Desk Clerk (John Newton) , Francine ( J o Marie Ward) . E.J.'s ornery cousin Eunice (a far cry from a ' l ady ' ) suddenly demands that he help her become one o f the rodeo's glamorous female trick riders . 1 4. ' Gold Plated Maverick ' (7 January 1 963) Written by S . S . Schweitzer Directed by William Graham. D irector of Photography: Conrad Hal l . CAST: David Latimer ( Michael Anderson, Jr. ) , Byron Latimer (John Larch), Whitey Kilgore (Joe Maross), Hilda Pollard (Maxine Stuart), Dr Telford (S. John Launer) , Joey Kilgore (B uck Taylor) , Sue Merwin (Frances Karath) . WITH : Rock Walker. Wealthy B yron Latimer needs someone else's help to tame his headstrong teenage son David, and he thinks S toney is the man for the job. 1 5 . ' Death Rides a Pale Horse' ( 1 4 January 1 963) Written by Frank L . Moss. Directed by Tom Gries. Director of Photography: Conrad Hal l . CAST: Mal Torrence (Steve Cochran ) , Linda Carson (Geraldine B rooks), Flatbush (Dyan Cannon) , Doc Sterling (Ken Petterson) , Miss Prescott (Sara Taft), Rusty (James Mahoney) .
CAST: Senator Tom Lockridge (Larry Gates), Laura
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TH [ O UUR liMITS COMPANION Mal Torrance i s one bronc rider who wants t o stand i n the way of Stoney's advance toward the championship. But S toney does not realize that Mal i s actuall y emotionally disturbed. 1 6. ' The King of the Hill' ( 2 1 January 1 963) Written by John Falvo. Directed by Tom Gries . Director o f Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: Zack Mundorf (John Dehner), Ellen (Leora Dana), B urlington (Ted De Corsia) . WITH: Hugh Sanders, Allyson Ames, Phil Chambers, Dave Weaver. Former bronc rider Zack M undorf and his wife Ellen invite Stoney for a visit to their home. Zack is i n a boyish mood and wants to Indian-wrestle - but Stoney realizes Zack means to prove he is a champion to more than j ust childhood games .
Young rodeo performer Doyle Yates has a terrible fear of Libby Ferris - he claims she's a j inx and that her propensity for bringing bad l uck caused his brother's ' accidental' death. 20. ' Web of Fear ' ( 1 8 February 1 963) Written by Ed Adamson. Directed by Laslo B enedek. Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: Harry C l ark ( C arro l l O 'Connor) , Loren Schuyler (Jeanne Cooper) , Sheriff B ixton (Ted De Corsia) . WITH : John Milford, Hal Needham, Wayne Tucker. Ves thinks a series of accidents which have befallen S toney are not accidental. When Stoney starts getting threatening phone cal l s , it becomes clear someone is stalking him.
1 7 . ' A Matter o f Percentage ' (28 January 1 963) Written by William Link & Richard Levinson. Directed by William Graham. Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l .
2 1 . ' Point of Entry' (4 March 1 963) Written by Leslie Stevens D irected by Leonard Horn Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l .
WITH : Harry Marsh (Jack Weston ) , Paula (Elizabeth MacRae), S am Margold (Robert Emhardt) , Polo (Vitto Scotti) . WITH : Conlan Carter, William Fawcett.
CAST: L t . L u i s Escalon (Cesare Danova) , Lt. Joe Cardiff (Wi l liam Smith), Erna B remen (Antoinette B ower) , Graff Erlich ( Stefan Gierasch) . WITH : Ben Wright. Rudy Solari, Henry Delgado.
Two gamblers bet heavily on Stoney' s match with a bronc buster. But one of them privately asks Stoney to throw the match. (4 February 1 963) Written by B ob B arbash. Directed by John Erman . Director o f Photography : Conrad Hal l .
1 8 . ' Image o f Glory'
CAST: S am Hagen ( Simon Oakland), Connie (Carol Rossen), Jess Hagen (Richard Evans), Doctor (Dabbs Greer) . Sam Hagen wants his son Jess to win the rodeo's All­ Around Cowboy title at all costs, but S toney knows that the boy has seriously i nj ured his knee. 1 9. ' Cat ' s Eyes ' ( 1 1 February 1 963) Written by Philip S altzman . Directed by Laslo B enedek. Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: Libby Ferris (Fay Spain) , Doyle Yates (Robert Doyle), Nurse (Breena Howard), Nurse (Kathleen O'Malle y ) , Gene Yates ( Wi l l i am Phipp s ) , Intern (William B ush) . WITH: Henry Hunter.
Crossing the border to visit Mexico, Stoney provides an alibi for the lovely Erna B remen, who has been arrested for the assassination of a mysterious European visitor. Now all he has to do is convince the police that he's telling the truth. 22. ' To C atch the Kaiser ' ( 1 1 March 1 963) Written by Phillip S altzman D irected by Tom Gries Director of Photography : Conrad Hall CAST: Eileen Fowler (Diana Hyland) , Foster Fowler B ing Russe l l , S teve (John Anderson) . WITH : Pearlman, Don LeMond. Stoney receives two offers to catch the Kaiser, a wild stallion that crippled champion horsewoman Eileen Fowler. Eileen wants the stallion captured, but her father will double S toney's fee - if the horse is destroyed. 23. ' Joby' ( 1 8 March 1 963) Directed by John Erman Written by Philip S altzman D irector of Photography : Conrad Hal l . WITH : Joby Pierce (Robert Duval l ) , Mark (James
Jl1
STON [y 8URKf & OAYSTAR PilOTS Patterson) , Chief Ramsey (Frank Overton) . Joyce Van Patten, John Karlen, David Kent.
WITH :
Cowboy � oby Pierce heroically stops a robbery at the rodeo offlce, but when newsmen arrive, Joby appeals to Stoney because he doesn't want his name in the papers . 24. ' Forget No More ' (25 March 1 963) CAST: Stacy Morgan (Laura Devon ) , Tom Lambert (William Sargent). Stacy Morgan follows the rodeo wherever it goes i n search o f her father, even though she w a s a witness t o h i s death several years earlier. ( 1 April 1 963) Written by Donn Mullally Directed by Laslo Benedek Director of Photography : Conrad Hall
Ves and the boys celebrate Stoney's birthday at a club called Kelly's Place, where Kelly, half-owner and singing star of the bistro, tells Stoney her troubles. 28. ' Kincai d ' (22 April 1 963) Written by B ob B arbash. D irected by Leonard Horn. Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: S g t . Andy Kincaid (Dick Clark) , Diane B anner ( S arah Marshall), Frankie S ommers (David Macklin), Lip � David Winters) . WITH : Gerald Trump, Craig C urtis. S � cial ite Diane B anner wants youth worker Andy . . Kmcald to get hls boys to sell charity tickets to the rodeo, but Andy says it is up to the boys to decide .
25 . ' C olor Him Lucky '
CAST: B rad C u l l man (Lin McCarthy) , Dennis (Charles Robinson), Ed Mitchner (Judson Pratt) , Dr. Douglas Hale (Robert Cornthwaite). WITH : Frank B ehrens , Tom Palmer, Casey Tibb s , Constance Sawyer, Ned Wynn. B rad Cullman is found innocent of a crime for which he's serv ing a prison term . After his release he returns to the rodeo as a bronc-buster, but city officials disapprove of the ex-convict. 26. ' The Weapons Man ' ( 8 April 1 963) Written and directed by Leslie Stevens Director of Photography : Conrad Hal l . CAST: Mark Vickers ( J . D . Cannon) , Matt Elder / S umaru Kosaka (Henry S ilva) , Margo Tecas (Pilar Seurat) , James Webster (William Douglas, Jr. ) , Zen Master (Philip Ahn), Lt. Bolan (James McCallion ) . WITH : Paul Dubov, Frank d e Kova. At the rodeo archery exhibit, a government official is fatally wounded by a stray arrow from the bow of an Indian named Matt Elder, who claims it was all an accident. Mark Vickers , an authority on the use of weapons , launches an investigation. 27. ' Kelly ' s Place' ( 1 5 April 1 963). WITH : Kelly (Elizabeth Allen), Vince Patterson (Joe Maross), B artender (Vic Werber) , Gita (Joan Staley ) .
29. ' A Girl Named A m y '
(29 April 1 963)
CAST: Amy (June Harding) , Ross (Chris Robinson), Dave Jenson (Donald Woods). Stoney gladly accepts an invitation from his friend Dave Jenson to j udge a college rodeo. 30. ' Tigress by the Tai l ' (6 May 1 963) CAST: Donna Weston (Elizabeth Ashley ) , Kapp (Edward A s ner) , Cowboy (Lex Connel l y ) , Jack Rollins (Harry Carey Jr. ) . Following the death o f her father, Donna Weston assumes an attitude of reckless abandon which Stoney attributes to grief. 3 1 . ' The Test' ( 1 3 May 1 963) CAST: Jamison (James Coburn ) , Davey (Richard Eyer) , Dr. Manning (Ivan Dixon). After he is trampled by a wild horse, Stoney cannot move his legs, but doctors can find no medical reason for the paralysis. 3 2 . ' The Journey '
(20 May 1 963)
CAST: Redmond (Mark Richman ) , Charlie (Harry S woger) . Stoney's inj ured hand takes him off the rodeo circuit but Mr. Redmond offers him a chance to earn som � money by sending him to purchase horse stock destined for the slaughterhouse
THf OUHR liMITS COM PANION D AY S TA R P i l O T S f O R 1 � 6 3 · 6 4 H A S O N M R . K I N G STO N Written, produced, and directed by Leslie Stevens, with music by Dominic Frontiere. Peter Graves was Me Kingston, the executive officer of the USS Atlanti s , with Walter Pidgeon as the Captain. The pilot, titled 'Trouble in Paradise , ' guest-starred Ina Balin.
THf WfAPONS MAN I A . K . A . M A R K V I C K f R S , M A SH R O f WfAPONSI Produced as an episode of Stoney Burke (see #26) .
KINCAID Produced as an episode of Stoney Burke ( see #28 ) .
B O R H R PAT R O l I A . K . A . B O R H R TOW N I Produced as the ' Point of Entry ' episode of Stoney Burke (see #2 1 ) .
TA C K R f Y N O l D S Produced, as 'The Mob Riders ' episode of Stoney Burke (see #5 ) .
313
fNO CRfOlTS
The executive staff at Daystar Productions was comprised of the following people:
TITLE
SECOND SEASON
FIRST SEASON
Executive Producer
Leslie Stevens
Leslie Stevens
Executive Vice-President
Dominic Frontiere
Dominic Frontiere
Jerry Fischer
Jerry Fischer
Production Coordinator
Elaine Michea
Elaine Michea
VP: Publicity
Allan Balter
*
VP: Administration
Ron Silverman
Ron Silverman
Ralph Riskin
Ralph Riskin
Business Operations Mgr; Vice-PresidentfTreasurer
VP: New Projects; Production Executive Assistant to Mr. Stevens
Lloyd Haines
ADDITIONAL DAYSTAR STAFF: Constantine Sinkevitch, Sudie DeSimone, Lynda Hamblin, Byron Meyers.
Mr. Stevens' Secretary
Mona Skager
Bonnie Bloom
Mr. Frontiere's Sec'y
Pamela Tarpey
Pamela Tarpey
Mr. Fischer's Sec'y
Ynez Rich
Ynez Rich
Producer
Joseph Stefano
Ben Brady
Associate Producer/Story
Louis Morheim
Seeleg Lester
Leon Chooluck
Sam W hite
*
William Koenig
Production Supervisor
Lindsley Parsons, Jr.
Claude Binyon, Jr.
Art Director
Jack Poplin
Jack Poplin
Editor Associate Producer/ Supervising Producer Supervising Producer/ Associate Editor
J14
TH [ OUHn liMITS COMPANION TITLE Casting
FIRST SEASON John Erman/
SECOND SEASON Meryl Abeles/
Meryl Abeles Ist AD
Robert H. Justman/
Harvey Claremont Robert H. Justman/ William P. Owens
Lee H. Katzin/ Claude Binyon, Jr. Alternate 1st AD
Gregg Peters/
Rusty Meek
Wilson Shyer 2nd AD
Tom Schmidt
James Benjamin
Production Sec'y
Jeanne Lund
Jeanne Lund
Script Supervisor
Hope McLaughlin
Hope McLaughlin
Supervising Film Editor
Richard Brockway
Richard Brockway
Film Editors
Tony DiMarco/
Tony DiMarco/ Fred Baretta
Fred Baretta Sound Effects Editor
Jack Cornall
Jack Cornall
Commercial Integration
Ed Knize
Ed Knize
Negative Cutter
Helen Wright
Helen Wright
Music Supervisor
Dominic Frontiere
Harry Lubin
Music Coordinator
John Elizalde
John Caper, Jr.
Music Copyist
Roger A. Farris
*
1st Cameraman
Conrad Hall/
Kenneth Peach, Sr.
John Nickolaus/ Kenneth Peach, Sr. 1st Assistant Cameraman
Kenneth Peach, Jr
Gerald W. Finnerman
Camera Operator
William Fraker
Seymour J. Hoffberg
2nd Asst. Cameraman
Tom Laughridge
Herb Pearl
Gaffer
Lloyd L.Garnell
Lloyd L. Garnell
Best Boy
Norman McClay
Norman McClay
Key Grip
Henry Maak
Henry Maak
2nd Co. Grip
*
Jack Boyd
Set Designer
Tracy R. Bousman
Tracy R. Bousman
J15
fNO CRfOlTS TITLE
FIRST SEASON
SECOND SEASON
Construction Foreman
Lowell Thomas
Lowell Thomas
Set Decorator
Chester Bayhi
Chester Bayhi
Lead Man
Gerald Kobold
Gerald Kobold
Property Master
Richard M. Rubin
Richard M. Rubin
2nd Prop Man
Ted Ross
Karl Brainard
Harry Redmond, Jr.!
Pat Dinga
Special Effects
Thol Simonsen/ James Welker Special Photographic Effects
M. B. Paul! Larry Butler/
Frank Van Der Veer/ Project Unlimited
Project Unlimited Sound Mixer
Jay Ashworth
Jay Ashworth
Sound Recorder
Ray Barons
Richard D. Cook
Sound Boom Man
Don M. Valentine
Jerry Kosloff
Sound Cable Man
Charles Knight
Charles Knight
Men's Costumer
Forrest T. Butler
Forrest T. Butler
Women's Costumer
Sabine Manela
Sabine Manela
Asst. Costumer
Michael Butler
Michael Butler
Makeup Artist
Fred B. Phillips
Fred B. Phillips
Hairdresser
Gertrude Reade
Gertrude Reade
Craft Serviceman
Frank Finochio
Frank Finochio
Transportation Captain
Dave Lesser
Dave Lesser
First Aid
John Ward
John Ward
Greensman
Harold Becker
Harold Becker
Painter
Robert Stephen
Robert Stephen
DAYSTAR OFFICE STAFF Switchboard
Maryann Nadeau
Receptionist
Karen Warner
Messenger
Arthur Fisher
THf OUHR liMITS COMffiNION CASTING DEPART MENT Meryl Abeles was John Erman's assistant. After Erman left and Abeles was promoted, her assistant was Lee Wenner. In the second season, Harvey Claremont was assisted by his wife. ACCOUNTING DEPART MENT Production Accountant: Robert C. Johnson Elaine Michea's Secretary: Cathern Robinson Staff: Robert Knoechel, Gertrude Pohle, Marge Townsend VILLA DI STEFANO Assistant to the Producer
Tom Selden
Mr. Stefano's Secretary
Barbara Williams
Mr. Morheim's Secretary
Eleanor Tyrell OTHER FIRST SEASON CREW
Camera Assistant
John Harris
Draperies
Allen Price
Assistant Grips
Hilton Anderson, Warren Ryan
Asst. Set Decoration
Waaren Welch
Transportation Pool
Bob Alpert Jerry Cipperley Harold 'Ham' Miller
Construction Crew
William H. Sheriff Peter Bal Hendrik Wyands Lonnie Stewart Chris Ebsen Hugh Langtry Richard Rankin George Puleo Walter Machado Origene Leduc
Electrical Dept.
James Barber Al Ronzo Richard Brietmeir George Breslaw Joseph W harton Frank McCane Ralph McCarthy Robert McCarthy
Asst. Film Editors
Ray Daniels (stock shots) Robert Daniels (stock shots) William Keith
Jl1
fNO CRfOlTS OTHER SECOND SEASON The following credits were listed for the second season only: Extra Talent: Casting
Hollywood Casting (Bob Cochrane)
Catering
Michaelson's
ABC- TV Representatives
David Heilwell
ABC-TV Publicty Rep
Fran McCall
UAT V Representatives
Howard Gottfried
Mitch Gamson
R. Don Guest Dixon Dern Mr. Brady's Secretary
B. Ritchie Payne
Mr. White's Secretary
Colleen Dent
Mr. Lester's Secretary
Margaret Lutwen
Mr. Lester's Assistant
Calvin Ward
StereolProcess Projection
Bill Hansard
(optical effects) Board of Education
Florence Springer
American Humane Society
Harold Melniker
The Plant Manager at 'Paramount Sunset' was Howard Davis. Consolidated Film Industries was the film processing lab used for both seasons. During the second season, two additional lab accounts were established at DuPont and Eastman. Script mimeographing services were the responsibility of Ed Leavitt throughout both seasons.
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In�ex Thi s is a general Index. Underscored page numbers indicate photographs. Produced epi sodes and their pilot counterparts are highlighted by their broadcast titles i n bold. A s noted on the legal page, it i s with great regret that we announce the demise of Page 1 86 , a victim of the Great Layout Wars . 42nd Street (musical ) : 3 1 77 Sunset Strip (series) : 285
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80 Steps to Jonah (fi l m ) : 323 2001: A Space Odyssey (fi l m ) : 94 5000 Fingers of Dr.
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The (fi l m ) : 269
A Aabel (Eros Creature ) : 1 90, ill , 1 93 Abbott, Edwi n : 267 , 268 Abbott, Phi llip: 48, 1 7 3 , 1 74, ill Abeles, Mery l : 1 72, 246 Ackerman, Forrest J . : 2 8 8 , 324 Adams, Edie: 1 22 Adams, Lillian: 1 26 Adams, Nick: 3 1 , 206, 207 , 2 1 0 Adamson, Ed : 23 9, 297 , 299 Addy, Wesley : 308, 309 Adlux Trans-Light Scree n : 23 , 50 A dventures of Superman, The (series) : 22 Agent for H. A . R . M. (film) : 3 23 A lamo, The (film) : 2 1 Albert, Eddie : 29 1 , 292, 293 Alcaide, Chri s : 25 9 Aleong, Aki : 74, 75, 279, 280 Alexander the Great : 3 1 1 A �fred Hitchcock Presents (revival) : 3 3 0 A�fred Hitchcock Presents (serie s ) : 1 75 , 280 Alisi, Art : 5 3 A ll in the Family (series) : 25 Allen, Corey: 1 4 Allen, Irwin: 1 94 Allen, Steve: 1 8 A loha Means Goodbye (fi l m ) : 328 A mazing Stories (magazine) : 1 1 , 295 Amazing Stories (seri e s ) : 3 3 0 America, America (fi l m ) : 1 75 A merican Cinema, The (book) : 280-28 1 A merican Masterpieces (series) : 25 , 26 Ames, Allyson: 8, 27 , 3 5 , 1 5 3 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 6, 3 1 9 Amory, Cleveland: 1 7 8-79 Anders, Luana: 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 Anderson , (Dame) Judith : 326, 328 Anderson , John : 1 26, 1 27 , ill , 1 32 Andes, Keith : 279, 280, 28 1 Andro (from 'The Man Who Was Never B orn') : 1 04, 1 05 , 1 06 , 1 07 , 1 08 , 1 1 0, 1 1 1 , ill , 13 7 , 1 5 3 , 1 93 , 340 Anna of Brooklyn (screenplay ) : see Fast and Sexy Ansara, Michae l : 25 3, 254, 25 5, 256, 25 8
(Left): A transformed Robert Duvall perches atop his flying saucer­ 'or whatever it is' - in Bronson Canyon for liThe Chameleon.'
ANTENA (polling system) : 1 9 Anthony, Joseph : 1 0 Antonio, Marco: 5 7 ' A rchitects o f Fear, The ' (episode ) : 42, 47, 62, 63, 64-70, 1 22, 1 28 , 1 34, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6, 1 3 8 , 1 4 1 , 1 5 7, 1 72, 224, 252, 272, 287, 326, 342 'Arena' (story ) : 207-208 Arnold, Jack: 3 3 6 A round the World i n 8 0 Days (fi l m ) : 8 9 A rsenio Ha ll Show, The (series) : 3 3 9 'Art for R a i l Tran sit' program : 342 Ashworth, Jay : 23 Askin, Leon : 297 , 300 A sner, Ed: 1 60, 1 62, 1 63 , 349 Astounding Science Fiction (magazine): 1 1 , 207 A tlan tis, the Lost Continent (fi l m ) : 1 5 3 Atmar, Ann: 3 1 9 A ttack of the Crab Monsters (fi l m ) : 94 A ttack! (fi l m ) : 22 Atwater, B arry : 1 40, 1 41, 1 42, 1 43 Aubrey, J i m : 327 Aviator, The (fi l m ) : 32 1 'Award' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Axelrod, George: 1 1
B aar, Tim : 1 54, 1 5 7 , 26 1 Babe Ruth (play ) : 320
'B aby Makes Three' (story ) : 27 1 Bad and the Beautiful, The (fi l m ) : 2 1 3 B aer, Parley : 267 B aker, Diane: 326, 327 B aldwin, Peter: 9 1 B al lerina Figurine (from 'The Forms of Things Unknown') : 23 1 , 233 B allinger, B il l S . : 1 64, 1 65 B alter, A llen : 11, 1 9, 20, 40, 4 1 , 74, 7 5 , 1 94, 1 95 , 1 96 B ankhead, Tallulah : 1 0 Banyon (seri e s ) : 285 B arbash, Amy: 3 3 8 B arbash, B ob : 1 9 , 3 3 8 B arclay, J i m : 7 7 B aretta, Fred: 23 , 5 9 B arham B oulevard (in LA) : 22, 3 1 0 Barquero (fi l m ) : 32 1 B arry, Perry : 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 B arrymore, John Jr: 327 B arrymore, Joh n : 243 B arrymore, Lione l : 1 44
J8�
TH[ OUHR liM ITS COMPANION B arzelle, Wol f: 227 B ast, Wil liam : 1 1 2, 1 1 4 B atanides, Arthur: 9 1 , 94 Batman (serie s ) : 1 7 1 Battlestar: Galactica (serie s ) : 320 B axter, Alan: 1 1 7 B axter, John: 3 1 9 , 3 32, 3 3 5 Bayhi, Chester: 24, 234 Beast from 20, 000 Fathoms, The (fil m ) : 42 Bea t Generation, The (fil m ) : 25 1 Beaumont, Charles: 80, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 249, 3 5 6 Becky Sharp (fil m ) : 1 82 Bee Girl (from 'ZZZZZ'): ill, 1 74 ' Behold Eck! ' (episode ) : 24 1 , 249 , 267-69, 280, 292, 3 1 0 Bell amy, Edward : 285 ' Bellero Shield, The' (episode) : 56, 87, 1 5 3 , 1 8 389, 222, 223 , 228 Bellerophon: 1 85 Ben Ca sey (series ) : 1 94 Benedek, Laslo : 5 7 , 60, 77, 79, 1 75 , 2 1 4, 270, 27 3 Bene veds, Robert: ill Ben ny, Jack: 1 8 Benson, Leon: 294 , 296 Bergen, Edgar: 1 8 Berger, Arion : 346 Bethune, Ivy : 304 Beverly Hillbillies, The (serie s ) : 4, 229, 3 3 6 Beyond Control (series title ) : 42, 8 2 Beyond the Outer Limits (documentary): 349 Biberman, Abner: 53, 54 Bidwe l l , Charles: 2 1 0 Bier, Fred: 77 Bifrost Alien (from 'The Bellero Shield') : 1 5 3, 1 84, 1 85 , 1 8 7, 1 8 8 Big Kl1Ife, The (film ) : 22 Big Valley, The (series) : 3 1 9 Bigfoot: 328 Billie (film ) : 32 1 Binder, Eando (Earl -and-Otto) : 294-95 Binyon, C l aude Jr: 1 3 , 22, 23 , 1 40, 1 44, 1 5 9, 1 66, 1 72, 1 77 , 1 8 1 , 1 82, 200, 2 1 1 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 8 , 220, 227 , 228, 243 , 244, 247 , 25 5 , 266, 269, 27 8 , 28 1 , 307 , 3 1 3 , 3 1 7 , 323 , 326 Birds, The (fil m ) : 32 Bisse l l , Whit: 1 26 Biviano, Joseph : 1 8 Bix by, Bil l : 23 Black Orchid, The (film ) : 30-32, 5 1 Black Scorpion, The (fil m ) : 54 B l ackmer, Sidney : 74, 75, 76 Blade Runner (fil m ) : 285 B l air, Janet: 5 7 , 59, 60, 6 1 Blaisde ll, Paul : 73 B l och, Robert: 32 Bloomer Girl (musical): II B lue Ribbon Crew : 1 9 see also B al ter, Al len; B arbash, B ob; Chooluck, Leon; Erman, John; Riskin, Ralph; Silverman, Ron Blue Room Productions : 1 46 Board Game (licensed from The Outer Limits ) : ill Body Double (fi l m ) : 307 Bogart, Humphrey : 3 3 1
3�1
B okar, Hal : 64 Bokura-Magazin e (magazine) : 3 3 7 Bolero (fil m ) : 320 Bonanza (serie s ) : 4, 327
B ond, Jame s : 1 7 1 B onestell, Chesl e y : 50, 1 1 3 , 1 1 5 B oomerang, S awtooth- B l aded (from 'Fun and Games') : 208, 209 Border Patrol (pilot, aka 'Point of Entry') : 1 6 ' Borderland, The ' (episode ) : 47, 48-52, 5 5 , 6 1 , 6 3 , 1 22, 1 3 6 , 272, 3 1 6 B orsten, Orin : 1 40, 1 4 1 Boss, May : 8 Bouseman, Tracey : 24 Box Demon (from 'Don't Open Till Doom sday') : ill, 1 77 , 1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 82 B oyett, Wil liam : 3 1 4 B oyle, Peter: 320 B race, B il l : 1 04, 124, 1 5 7 , 272 B radbury B uilding (in LA): 284, 285 , 287 B radbury, Lewis : 285 B radbury, Ray : 42, 80, 288 B rady, Ben: 239, 240-49, 25 1 , 252, 25 4, 25 9, 260, 26 1 , 263 , 266 , 268 , 269, 27 1 , 272, 277 , 27 8 , 279, 282, 285 , 28 7 , 28 8 , 29 1 , 293 , 295 , 299 , 300, 308, 3 1 0, 3 1 2, 3 1 3 , 3 1 5 , 3 1 7 , 32 1 -22. B rady, David : }ill , 302, 303 B rahm, John: xiii, 1 7 3 , 1 75 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 , 2 1 4 B rain Creature (from 'The Guests') : 2 1 1 , 2 1 2 ' Brain of Colonel Barham, The' (episode ) : 308310 'B rain of Donald Duncan, The' (teleplay ) : see 'The B rain of Colonel B arham' 'B rainless Glob, The' (trading card): 1 24 B ramley, Wil liam : 3 1 1 B randon, Henry : 22 1 B randt, Martin : 1 26 Brannigan (fil m ) : 32 1 Break On Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison (book) : 344
B reck, Peter: 1 1 7 , 1 20 B rennert, Alan : 323 Bride of the Monster (fil m ) : 347 B ridges, Lloyd: 3 1 B rittany, Morgan : see Cupito, Suzanne B rocco, Peter: 294, 295 B rockway, Richard : 23 , 3 1 9 B rodkin , Herb : 30 Broening, Ly man : 62 Broken A rrow (serie s ) : 1 8 1 , 25 5 B ronson Canyon, Cave, or Caverns (in LA ) : 1 52, 1 96, 1 9 8 , 1 99, 278 B ronson, Samue l : 1 72 B rooks, Geraldine: 64, 66, 250, 252 B rown, Dorothy : 86, 87, 99, 239, 1 69, 1 70 B rown, Earl : 297 B rown, Fredric : 207-208 B rown, Len : 1 24 B rubaker, Robert: 74 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (serie s ) : 320 B u g-Eyed Mutant (from 'The Mutant'): see Fowler, Reese Bullfight (pl ay ) : 1 1
INOfX Bullitt (fil m ) : 2 1 , 325
Bunker, Walter: 1 44 Bunny O'Hare (fil m): 323 Burke's Law (serie s ) : 254 Burke , Wal ter: xiii, 1 68 , 1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 95 , 1 96, 1 99 Burman, Ellis : 3 7 Burns, B o b : xiv, 262-63 B urr, Raymond : 320 Burson, Polly: 8 Burt, Nel lie : 1 77 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 4, 326, 328 Burton, Ju lien N: 250 Bush, Wil liam : 64 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (fil m ) : 2 1 , 325 Butler, Forrest: 23 Butler, Larry : 73 Butler-Glouner (FX) : 24, 1 5 5
Caffey, Frank: 243 Caine , Howard : 22 1 Calco Galaxy Alien (from 'Fun and Games') : 206, 208, 209, 2 1 0 'Caligari Hall way': 234 Call Me By My Rightfu l Name (play ) : 42, 1 9 8 Camden, Joan: 74 Canons of Please Stand By, The : 42, 84, 3 5 3-54 Caper, John Jr: 23 , 1 3 5 , 294, 325 Capricorn Pre s s : 3 1 9 Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (fi l m ) : 223 Carey, Macdonald: 2 1 8 , 220 Carroll, Leo G: 1 20 Casey, Taggert : 267 Caste lnuovo-Tedesco, Mario : 1 8 Castle of Frankenstein ( magazine ) : 1 23 Catching, Bil l : 8 'Cats, The' (teleplay ) : 80, 327-28, 3 5 9-62 Cavanaugh, James P: 32 Cavandish, Constance: 96 Cedar, John: 297 Censorship : of 'Architects of Fear' 70 of 'Feasibility Study' 86-88 of 'Fun and Games' 208-209 of 'Invisibles' 1 69-70 of 'Sixth Finger' 1 0 1 - 1 03 of 'Soldier' 25 7 Century 2 J (series idea): 303 Chadwick, Robert: 308 Chambers, John: 99, 1 00, 1 02, 1 08 ' C hameleon, The ' (episode) : 22 1 -24, 28 5 , 3 3 9 , 342, 3 7 9 Champagne Complex, The (play ) : II, 30 Chan, Eugene : 74 Chand ler, Karen: 29 Chaney, Lon (Sr) : 20 Chang, Wah Ming : 5 5 , 5 8 , 59, 6 3 , 67, 1 20, 1 3 1 , 1 52, 1 5 3 , 121, 1 56, 1 5 7 , 1 5 9, 1 93 , 203 , 209 , 223 , 26 1 , 262, 272, 27 3 , 27 8 , 323 , 324 Change of Mind, A (fil m ) : 322
Change of Seasons, A (film): 320 Chaplin, Charlie : 3 3 1 Charbonneau, Louis : 1 40, 1 4 1 , 29 1 , 292 'Charley's Aunt' (teleplay): II Chemosphere House (in LA): 307 Chesler, Lewis : 3 3 1 Chicken Little (mask from 'Second Chance'): 204, 205 'Child Prodigy' (teleplay): 327 'Children of S pider County, The' (episode): 1 89, 1 90-94, 2 1 0, 296 Children's Hour, The (film): 1 82 Chill Charlie (from 'The Human Factor'): 44, 54, 5 5 , 5 6 , 6 1 , 6 3 , 12}, 1 24 Chin a Hand (fil m ) : 32 1 China Smith (serie s ) : 292 Chin ato wn (film): 223 Chisum (fil m ) : 32 1 Chooluck, Leon: 1 9 , 22, 62, 1 1 3 , 1 5 3 , 1 72, 359 Chri stie, Allen 'Whitey': lli, 2 1 0 Chromoite (from 'The Mice'): 1 5 5 , 1 56, 1 64, 1 65, 1 66, 1 67 , 324, 332, 340 Cinder, Robert: 297 Citizen Joe (script) : 320 Clambake (film): 23 Cl ark, Angela: 200 Clark, Pau lie : 297 Cl arke, Arth ur C: 80, 323 Cleopatra (fil m ) : 1 46 Cleopatra Jon es and the Temple of Gold (fil m): 32 1 Clermont, Harvey: 246 Clobregnny, Qarl o : see 'Soldier' Cl une , Ray : 1 72 Cobb, Lee J : 3 1 Cockrel l , Francis : 279, 3 5 9 Cohn, Harry : 5 6 ' Cold Hands, Warm Heart ' (episode): 249, 25052, 25 5 , 272, 289, 296, 307, 3 1 0, 3 39, J1l Cold Night's Death, A (film): 54 Coleman, B ooth : 1 7 3 Coleman, Dabney : 9 1 , 92, 9 3 , 1 64, 270, 3 3 9 Col lins , Russel l : 1 77 Col mens , Edward : 5 7 Color of Night, The (film): 32 1 Colossus, Project: see Project V u lcan Colu mbia Workshop (radio): 1 44 Comic B ooks (licensed from The Outer Limits): 1 24-
m
Comm itteeman, The (teleplay ) : 3 1 Conquest of Space (fil m): 43, 63
Considine , John: 78, 1 04, 1 05 , 1 1 0 Consolidated Film Industries, Inc. (FX): 24 Constantine, Michae l : 264, 265 'Consume or Die' theory : 24-26, 203 Contempl ative Energy Plant : see 'A Feasibility Study' Contino, Dick: 1 8 Control Voi ce speech variants : 7 , 42-43, 79, 249, 346, 348 ' Controlled Experiment ' (episode): 7 1 -7 3 , 88, 1 3 6, 1 96, 24 1 , 3 3 1 Conway, Curt : 1 1 2, ill , 274 Conway, Kevin: 346 Cool Hand Luke (fil m ) : 2 1
THf OUHR liM ITS COMPANION Coon, Gene : 208 Cooper, Glady s : 48 Cooper, Merian C: 3 1 6 Coover, Robert : 1 76 Coppola, Francis Ford : 2 1 3 Corey, Jeff: 1 1 7 , 1 1 8, 1 20 Corman, Roger: 2 1 3 , 222, 223 Cornal l , Arthur J : 23 'Corpus Earthling' (episode ) : 1 3 9 , 1 40-44, 1 5 5 , 1 7 1 , 292 Cort, B i l l : 279 Costello, Anthony: 25 9 Costigan's Needle (book ) : 266 Cotten, Joseph : ill , 1 22 'Counterweight' (epi sode ) : 24 1 , 252, 264-66 , 289 , 290, 3 1 0 , 34 1 Cox, Wi lliam R : 267 , 268 Crampton, B arbara: 1 98 Crawford , Joan : 20 Crawford, Ol iver: 2 1 8 , 2 1 9 , 220 Creature from the Black Lagoon (fi lm ) : 5 8 Creature ji-om the Haunted Sea (film ) : 223 Creeping Unknown, The (fi l m ) : 270 Creepy (magazi ne) : 295 Critters 2: The Main Course (fi lm ) : 1 52 Crone, Fred: 77 Cronenberg, David: 3 3 6 Crosland, Alan J r : 1 64, 1 67 , 1 95 Crosland, Alan : 62, 1 67 'Cry of Si lence' (episode ) : 290, 29 1 -9 3 , 307 , 3 1 5 'Crystal Clarity' planet : 3 1 8 Culp, Robert : 4 , 2 7 , 64, 66, 68, 1 40, 1 4 1 , 1 42, 1 43 , 243 , 282, 283, 284, 285 , 286 , 287 , 28 8 , 290, 3 3 9 ,
ill Cult TV (comic ) : 342
Cummings, Ray : 3 1 5 Cupito, Suzanne : 297, 3 02, 303 Curtis, Tony: 3 1
Q Da S i lva, Howard : 243 , 294, 295 Dah l , Roald: I Daily Variety (periodical ) : 1 9 , 5 6 , 1 20, 296 , 32 1 , 346 Dane, Lin : see Roberts, Sonya Danforth, Jim : 67, 1 5 6, 1 5 7 , 266 Dann, Mike : 32 1 Darfler, Gene: 1 60, 1 62 Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The (film ) : 1 94 Dark Mirror (fi l m ) : 3 2 1 Dark Victory (film ) : 20 Darw in (ape from 'The S ixth Finger') : 98 Davis , B ette : 20 Davis , Walt: 9 1 , 95 Dawson , Richard: 1 68 Day of the Triffids, The (film ) : 67 , 92 Day the Earth Stood Still , The (film ) : 3 5 , 1 3 3
J�J
Daystar Productions : foundation of: 1 3 -24 logo : 1 4, 1 5 , 82, 1 9 8 personnel change s : 1 72, 1 94, 240-47 'Daystar Rag, The' (song ) : 1 82 De Corsia, Ted : 1 60 , 297 , 300 De Niro, Robert : 3 29 De S anti s , Joe : 5 3 De Sica, Vittorio : 3 0 Death o f a Salesman (film ) : 60 Deep Throat (fi l m ) : 3 3 7 Deering, Olive : 1 48 , ill Defenders, The (serie s ) : 1 Defiance (fi l m ) : 3 2 1 DeGore, Janet: 200, 20 1 Delfino, Frank: 1 77 , 1 8 1 Delgado, Henry : 5 7 Delgado, Marcel : 1 1 6 , 1 5 7 Delgado, Victor: 1 54, 1 5 7 Deluge, The (fi lm ) : 3 1 6 Dementia 13 (film ) : 2 1 3 'Demon With A Glass Hand' (episode ) : :1: , 248 , 25 5 , 282-8 8 , 290, 304 Dempsey, John : 346 Dennis, Robert C: x i i i , 29 1 -96, 299 , 304, 305 , 308, 348 Denton , Coby: 3 1 1 Denton , Crahan : 1 90 , 121, 264 Dem, B ruce: 1 5 , 1 48 , 1 49, 1 50, 1 5 1 , 1 52 Derr, Richard : 1 95 DeSales, Franci s : 1 64 DeSousa, Noel : 4 8 , 5 7 Destination Moon (fi lm ) : 1 , 63 Detectives , The (series) : 3 1 Devil in Miss Jones, The (fi l m ) : 3 3 7 Diabolique (fi l m ; a l s o L e s Diaboliques) : 1 87 , 228 , 230 'Diamond Lens , The' (story ) : 27 1 DiMarco, Ton y : 22, 8 8 , 3 27 Dimensional Design s : 342 Dinga, Pat : 23 Dinosaurus! (fi lm ) : 1 5 3 , 1 72 Dirty Harry (film ) : 60 Disneyland : 202 Dixon, Ivan : 5 3 , 297 , 298, 3 0 1 , 303 Doctors , The (series) : 22 Dog Food Can S paceship (from 'Arch itects of Fear') : 68 Dolinsky, Meyer: xiii, 64-66, 90, 1 1 5 - 1 20, 1 7 3 , 1 74, 1 76 Dom Fron tiere Plays the Classics (album ) : 1 8 'Don't Open Till Doomsday' (episode): 1 24, 1 3 8 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 5 , 1 77-82, 2 1 2, 2 1 3 , 272, 326, 3 3 1 , 34 1 , 342 Donovan's Brain (fi l m ) : 308 Doohan , James: 279 , 280 Doors, The (band) : 343 DoQu i , Robert : 25 9 , 260 ..
INOfX Dorso, Richard : 1 5 , 26, 3 8 - 3 9 , 23 5 , 240, 3 3 1 -3 2 Douglas, Jerry : 5 7 Douglas, William 0., J r : 8 , 1 6 , 3 6 , 3 7 , 3 8 , 5 3 , 5 5 , 5 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 24, 1 68 , 1 7 1 , 1 90 , 1 93 Doyle, Robert : 96, 279 Dr. Christian (radio) : 1 44 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( 1 93 2 fil m ) : 1 79 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (book) : 308 Dr. Kildare (series) : 268
Escort (script) : 328
Dr. Strangelove or: How 1 Learned to Stop Worrying
Eye of the Cat (fi l m ; aka Wylie) : 327
Esperanto (language) : 3 1 9 , 324 EST: The Steersman's Handbook (by Stevens) : 1 4,
319 Estes, G : 297 'Expanding Human' (episode ) : 24 1 , 279-8 1 , 292,
307 Explosive Generation, The (film) : 1 94
Extermi nator, The (film serie s ) : 3 2 1
and Love the Bomb (fi l m ) : 5 5 Dragnet (radio show ) : 1 45
Drake, Ken : 294 'Drug, The' (teleplay ) : see 'The Chameleon' 'Due l , The' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Duke, John : 2 1 5 Duncan, Davi d : 5 3 , 54, 5 5 Dunn, Joe : 342 Duo Cards : 349 'Duplicate Man, The' (episode ) : 205 , 3 04-307, 3 1 0, 324, 342 Duryea, Peter: 279 Duvall , Robert : 22 1 , 222, 223 , 224, 297, 299, 300, 30 1 , 302, 303 Dwan, Allen: 62
E 'Earth Tapes' (concept) : 329-3 3 1 'Earthside' (facility ) : 3 1 9 East of Eden (film) : 20 Eastwood, C l int: 60 Ebon (planet) : ill 'Ebon Struck First' (teleplay ) : see 'Nightmare' Ebonite (from 'Nightmare') : i, 1 26 , 1 27 , 1 28 , 1 29, 1 30, 1 31, 1 32, 1 5 3, 340, 34 1 , 3 5 0 E c k (from 'Behold Eck ! ') : 3 2 1 Eden, B arbara: 320 Edge of Time (book) : 27 1 Eisley, Anthony : 308, 309 Elias, Lou : 250, 267 , 269 Elizalde, John: 11, 1 8 , 20, 23 , 3 8 , 60, 7 3 , 1 3 3 , 1 34 , 1 3 5 , 1 45 , 1 52, 1 82 El lerbee, Harry : 77 Ellis, Leroy : 276, 27 8 Ellis, S idney : 308 Ellison, Harlan : 40, 249 , 25 3 - 5 8 , 282- 8 8 Emery, John : 1 0 Empress Production s : 3 20 Empyrian (from 'Second Chance') : 1 5 3, 204, 205 , 350 Enemy Mine (fi l m ) : 269 Enforcer, The (fi lm ) : 60 'Envoy, The' (teleplay) : 1 86 Engel , Roy : 1 90 Entertainment Tonight (serie s ) : 340, 346 Erman, John : 2, 1 3 , 1 7 , 1 9 , 20, 22, 56, 67, 78, 99, 1 1 0, 1 26 , 1 30, 1 3 1 , 1 32, 1 72 Escape (radio ) : 1 44
Faber, H : 297 Face Masher (from 'Hundred Days of the Dragon') : 75 Fairbanks, Douglas : 3 3 1 Fall of the Roman Empire (fi l m ) : 1 72 Famous Monsters of Film/and (magazine) : 1 23 , 244, 27 8 , 324 , 3 3 5 Fantastic Television (book ) : 3 3 5 Fantastic Universe Science Fiction (magazine) : 25 3 Farmer, Mimsy: 200, 205 Farnsworth, Richard : 29 1 , 292 Farris , Roger: 1 7 , 70, 1 3 3 , 1 34, 1 3 7 Fast and Sexy (fi l m ) : 3 0 ' Feasibility Study, A ' (episode ) : 3 , 80, 8 2 , 83-8 8 , 90, 9 5 , 1 46 , 1 5 8 , 203 , 349, remake : 349 Feist, Feli x : 3 1 4, 3 1 6 Fellowship for Television Writing, Leslie Stevens: 321 Fer-De-Lance (fi l m ) : 3 20 'Fessenden's World' (story ) : 27 1 Finochio, M : 297 Fischer, Gerry : 1 8 - 1 9 , 2 1 Fitzgerald, Wayne : 235 Flatland (book) : 267 , 268 Fleming, Ian : 1 7 1 Flesh Eaters, The (fi l m ) : 3 1 0 Florentine Gardens : 1 44 Florey, Robert: 1 1 2, 1 75 Flower Drum Song (fi lm ) : 1 3 1 'Flower Maker, The' (teleplay ) : 30 Foch, Nina: 4 8 , 50, 5 1 , 1 22 Forbidden Planet (fi l m ) : 7 8 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 4, 1 89 Ford Startime (series) : 3 1 Forester, Ronald : 1 64 'Forms of Things Unknown, The' (episode; see also The Unknown): 1 3 8 , 1 3 9 , 226 , 227 -23 7 , 246 , 3 3 8 , 349 Forrest, Michae l : 1 60, ill Forster, Jaime: 25 3 Fortier, Robert : 7 1 , 7 3 , 2 1 5 , 282, 28 3 , 319 Four Star Playh ouse (series ) : 1 1 Fowler, Reese: 3, 1 95 , 1 96, 1 97, 1 98, 396 Fraker, Wil l i am : 2 1 -22, 1 43 , 1 44, 3 25 , 326 Frank, Joanna: 1 7 3 , 1 74 , 1 75 , 1 76 Frankenstein (book and fil m ) : 308, 294, 346 Frankenstein 1970 (fi l m ) : 27 1 , 27 8
THf OUHR liM ITS COMPANION Frankham, David : 1 26 , 1 30, ill , 1 77 Franz, Eduard : ill , 1 22 Fraw ley, James: 8 , 297, 298, 301, 303 Freebie and the Bean (film) : 321 Freed, B u rt Freeman , Joan : 267 Frentzen, Jeffrey : xiv Fried Egg Monster: 1 99 (also see B ug-Eyed M utant) Frogs Possessed by A l ien s : see 'Cry of S i l ence' From Earth to the Moon (film ) : 63 From Russia, With Love (film ) : 1 7 1 From the Land of Fear (book ) : 25 8 Frontiere, Dominic : 1 7, 1 8, 1 9, 23 , 3 3 , 40, 60, 70, 76, 1 20, 1 3 3, 1 34, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 , 1 3 7, 1 3 8 , 1 3 9 , 229, 320, 323, 326, 342-43 Fugitil'e, The (series) : 25, 26 , 22 Fu l ler, R. B uckminster: 3 1 9 'Fun and Games' (episode) : 3 , 1 47 , 205 , 206-2 1 0, 33 1 Fut: (film): 328
Gal axy (magazine ) : 304 'Galaxy Being, The' (episode): 4, 20, 25 , 3 9 , 40,
43, 47 , 49, 5 1 , 52, 70, 76, 84, 1 20, 1 2 1 , 1 22, 1 23 , 1 32, 1 5 3 , 1 7 1 , 1 84, 222, 269 , 27 3 , 322, 3 3 7 , 3 3 8 , 3 3 9 , 349-50 (see also Please Stan d By) 'Game for Alternate Mondays, A' (teleplay ) : 3 1 Games (film): 325 Gannon, Glenn : 83 Garne l l , Lloyd: 2 1 Garner, David : 1 40 Garner, Harvey : 206 Garner, Peggy Ann : 3 1 4, 3 1 5 , 3 1 6, 3 1 7 Garre lega, Martin : 5 7 Garris, Mick: 1 52, 328 Garrison, Sean : 322 Gatteys, Bennye: 1 90 Geary, Steven : 304 Ge l ler, Bruce : 1 47 Gemini Man (series): 320 General Electric Theatre (serie s ) : 3 1 Georgia, Georgia (film): 1 67 Gerani, Gary : 3 3 5 , 350 'Ghost of Sierra de Cobra, The': 326 (see also The Hallnted) Ghost Story (series, aka Circle of Fear): 322
Gifford, Alan: 304, 305 Gilbert, Joanne : 1 1 7, 1 20 Ginty, Robert: 32 1 'Girl in the Go lden Atom, The' (story): 3 1 5 Girosi, Marce l l o : 30 Gittings, Richard : 74, 267 Gleason , Jackie (al so The Jackie Gleason Show): 235, 27 8 , 296 Glouner, Richard : 2 1 GNP/Crescendo Record s : v i , xiv, 1 3 9 , 342-43 Golden Era Miniatures, Inc . (GEMI) : 342 Gol denson , Leonard : 25 , 3 8-39 Go ldsmith, Jerry : 1 3 3 Go ldstein, Scott : 344
Goldstone, James : 96, 9 8 , 99, 297 , 299 , 30 1 -302, 324 'Goodnight, Mr. James' (story): 304 Goodwin, Deborah : 349 'Gordian Knot' (teleplay; see 'The Premonition') Gordius (King of Phyrigia) : 3 1 1 Gordon, Don : 1 68, 1 70 , 200, 20 1 , 205 , 3 1 2 Gough, Lloyd : 25 0 Graham , John : 1 68 Grahame, Gloria: 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 2 1 3 Gray Fox, The (film ) : 292 Great Gatsby, The (book) : 1 06 Greatest Story Ever Told, The (film ) : 7 8 , 99, 1 1 0 Green, Dorothy : 3 1 1 'Greenhouse' (teleplay; see 'Wolf 35 9') Greer, Dabbs: 1 90, 297 Gregory, Mary : 279 Griffith Park (in LA): 205 , 223 (see also B ronson Caverns) Griffith, D . w.: 3 3 1 Grippians (from 'Moon stone') : ill, 1 1 3, 1 1 4, ill, 1 1 6 , 1 46 Gross, S au l : 77 Guardino, Harry : 53, 54, 5 5 'Guest i n the House, A' (story ) : 2 1 4 Guest, Don : 3 1 2 Guest, Val : 270-7 1 ' Guests, The' (episode ) : 1 47 , 1 96, 205 , 2 1 1 - 1 4, 324, 325 , 3 5 6 Gulager, C l u : 2 1 0 Gumball Rally (film ) : 32 1 Gunn, B il l : 1 26 , 1 30, 1 3 1 Gunn, Jame s : 325 Gunsmoke (series): 1 , 25 , (radio series): 1 45 -46 H
Haas , Charl e s : 25 0, 25 1 , 274, 27 8 , 29 1 , 292, 308 Hall, Conrad : vii, 20, 2 1 , 22, 24, 53, 54, 64, 70, 74, 7 7 , 79, 9 1 , 1 04, 1 08 , Ill, 1 1 7 , 1 1 8, 1 3 0, 1 3 7 , 1 40, 1 42, 1 44, 1 59 , 1 64, 1 67 , 1 72, 1 7 3 , 1 76 , 1 77 , 1 8 1 , 1 82, 1 94, 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 , 228 , 249 , 252, 3 1 9 , 325 , 326, 348, 349 Hal l , James Norman : 20 Halliday, Cl ive : 227 H amilton , Chuck: 1 1 7 Hamilton, Edward : 27 1 H amilton, Neil : xiii, 76, 1 68 , 1 69 , 1 7 1 , 1 8 3 , 1 87 Hamlet (play) : 228 Hamm, A I : 1 52, 1 5 7 Han g 'Em High (film) : 3 2 1 Han gover Square (film): 1 7 5 Hansard, B il l : 266 Hansen, Peter: 308 Harden, S asha: 1 26 , 1 27, 1 30 Harding, John : 297 Hardwicke , Sir Cedric : 1 25 , 227, 230, 232, 234, 236 Harens, Dean : 250 Harrington , Curtis : 2 1 2- 1 4, 325 Harris, Steve : 282
INUfX Harron, Donald: 297 , 302 Hart, B i l l : 1 5 , 2 1 , 5 7 , 1 48 , 206 , 2 1 0, 282, 286 Hart, Eloise : 3 1 9 Hart, Ralph : 25 3 , 25 8 Hartford, Dee : 1 68 Harvey, Don : 8 Haskell, Peter: 270, 27 3 Haskin, B yron : x i i i , 23 , 50, 52, 5 5 , 5 8 , 62-63 , 64, 65 , 67 , 68, 70, 7 3 , 74, 7 5 , 7 8 , 80, 8 3 , 8 7 , 8 8 , 9 5 , 99, 1 30, 1 4 3 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 7 , 1 94, 23 7 , 246 , 247 , 25 9 , 26 1 , 262, 263 , 267 , 268 , 282, 287, 3 22, 3 24 Hasso, S igne: 2 1 5 , 2 1 6 Hatfield, Hurd : 1 1 Haunted, The (pilot) : 240, 326-327 Haunts of the Very Rich (fi lm ) : 3 2 1 Hausdorfs Theorems: 4 8 Have Gun, Will Travel (series) : 239 Havoc , June : 29 1 , 292, 293 Hawaii Five-O (series) : 3 22 Hawaiian Eye (series) : 3 1 0 Haworth , J i l l : 2, 46, 78, 96, 98, 99, 1 03 Hayes, Peter Lind: 267 , 268 , 269 Hayes, Ron : 3 1 4, 3 1 5 , 3 1 6, 3 1 7 Haynes , Lloyd: 22 Hayward, Chuck: 96 'Heartbeat' (song ) : 29 Heaven With A Gun (fi lm ) : 1 72, 325 Hector, Kim : 303 Heidt, Horace: 1 8 Heimdall (Norse god) : 1 8 5 Heinlein, Robert : 1 7 1 Held, Karl : 1 04, 1 06, 3 5 6 Helosian (alien from 'O . B .LT.') : 1 1 9, 1 20, 34 1 Henderson, Douglas : 64, 65 , 22 1 , 224, 267 Henreid, Pau l : 2 1 3 Henry, B uzz: 206 Henson , Jim: 1 5 7 Herbert, Charles : 297 Herbert, Marcel : 267 Hero's Island (film ) : 1 4, 2 1 -23 , 1 46 Herrmann , B ernard : 1 3 3 , 289 Hettrick, Scott: 344 Higgins, Michae l : 1 64 H i l l , B arney: 1 89 H i l l , J i l l : 25 3 , 25 8 H i l l , Marianna: 294 Hitchcock, Alfred : 32, 5 6 , 80, 200, 283 (see also Alfred Hitchcock Presents)
'Hitler's Secret' (teleplay ) : 3 1 Hoffman, Chad : 3 3 1 Hogan's Heroes (series): 1 5 7 , 1 7 1 Hole, Jonathan : 3 04 Hol land, Tom : 1 5 7 Hollywood Reporter, The (trade paper) : 4 3 , 344 Hollywood, Daniel : 30 Holman, Rex : 282, 283
Holmes Madeline: 227 Holmes, Sherlock: 1 46 Home/or the Holidays (film): 328
Homeier, Skip: 279, 280, 281 Hong, Jame s : 74 Hopki n s , Jerry : 343 Hopkins, Miriam : 1 77 , 1 79 , 18..1, 1 82 Horn, Leonard : 1 04 , J 07 , 1 08 , 1 48 , 1 5 1 , J 90, 1 9 3-94 Horne, Geoffrey : 2 1 0, 2 1 2, 2 1 4 Horner, Harry : 22 Horsting, Jessie : 342 Horvath, Charl e s : 206 House on Garibaldi Street, The (film): 323 Hoyt, Joh n : x i i i , 1 7 1 , 1 77 , ill , 1 8 3 , 1 85 , 1 87, 1 8 8 , 294 Hud (film): 3 1 Hudkins, John : 294 'Hu i Tan Project, The' (teleplay): 299 (see also 'The Inheritors') 'Human Factor, The' (epi sode): 47, 5 3 -56, 59, 6 1 , 1 35, 1 36 'Hundred Day s of the Dragon, The' (epi sode): 47, 74-76, 8 7 , 1 34, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 , 1 96 , 224, 3 3 8 , 342 Hungry Eye, The (book ) : 3 3 6 Hunnicutt, Arthur: 29 1 , 292, 293 Hunt, Marsha: 1 7 3 Hunt, Sumner: 285 Huntley, Tim : 250 Husing, Ted : 1 46 Hussey, Olivia: 328 Hutchins, Linda: 7 J , 297
! I Love L ucy (series) : 3 3 6 I've G o t a Secret (gameshow): 228
'I, Robot' (epi sode): 24 1 , 289, 294-96, 309, 346,
347 , 349 'I, Robot' (story ) : 294 Ichthyosaurus Mercurius (from 'Tourist Attraction'):
57, 59, 60, 1 23, 323, 3 3 7 Iguchi , Yoneo : 297 Ikar (alien) : 4 , 244, 34 1 (see also 'Keeper of the Purple Tw ilight') Imaginative Tales (magazine): 260 Immortal, The (series) : 325 Immortals, The (novel): 325 Imwarf (alien) : 305 (see also 'The Duplicate Man') In Cold Blood (film ) : 2 1 , 325 In-Finn-Ity Productions : 349 Incredible Shrinkin g Man , The (film): 3 1 0 'Incredibly Tame Stories : Probing The Outer L imits of S l ick' (article) : 346 Incubus (fi l m ) : 240, 3 1 9 , 324 Indictment: The McMartin Trial (film): 1 1 0 Infinity Science Fiction (magazine): 323
TH[ OUHR liM ITS COMPANION rnhat, Steve : 297, 300, 30 I , 302, 303 Inherit the Win d (fi lm ) : 1 8 , 1 03
'Inheritors, The' (two-part episode ) :
280, 290, 297-303 , 324, 3 3 8 edited 'feature' version : 302-303 Inside Star Trek: The Real Story (book) : 284, 3 24 Invaders, The (series) : 2 3 5 , 3 2 1 Invasion of the Saucer Men (fi l m ) : 7 3 Invi sible (alien ) : 1 68, 1 69, 1 70, 1 7 1 (see also 'The Invisibles') 'Invisible Enemy, The' (episode ) : 1 5 8 , 249 , 2596 3 , 27 1 , 289, 299, 3 1 0 Invisible Invaders (film) : 7 3 , 1 57 Invisible Man , The (serie s ) : 243 , 320, 322 'Invisibles, The' (episode ) : l38, 1 5 5 , 1 68-72, 262 'Invitation to a Gunfighter' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Ironside (serie s ) : 320 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork' (episode ) : 79, 1 22, 1 49 , 1 60-63 , 1 72 , 1 75 , 1 80 , 2 1 7 , 349 It Takes a Thief (series ) : 320 It! The Terror From Beyon d Space (fi l m ) : 263 It's a Wondoful Life (fi l m ) : 87, 347 It's Your Move (musical ) : 29
l Jack the Giant Killer (fi lm ) : 1 5 3 , 1 54
Jackson, Mary : 294 Jaeckel, Richard : x i i i , 9 1 , 9 3 , 3 3 9 Jaffe, Alan : 2 5 3 , 254, 2 5 5 , 258 Jamaica Ginger (series proposal ) : 303 Jaws (fi l m ) : 1 5 7 , 260 Jens , S alome : 1 40, ill , 1 42 , 1 43 Jensen, Hugh : 250 Jensen, Marlowe: 1 04, 253 Jensen , Roy : 22 1 Jigsaw Puzzles (licensed from The Outer Limits): 1 24- 1 25 Joachim, Anthon y : 1 77 Joe (fi lm ) : 320 Johns , Glyn i s : 3 1 Johnson, Gail Patrick: 2 3 9 , 240 Johnson, Lex : 1 48 Johnson, Robert Cleveland : 2 1 , 9 1 , 1 40, 1 44, 1461 47 , 1 48 , 1 60, 1 64, 1 68 , 1 7 3 , 1 77 , 206, 2 1 0, 2 1 1 , 22 1 , 264, 266, 267 , 324, 340 Johnson, Russe l l : 9 1 , 9 3 , 94 Johnson, Steve : 346 Jones, B arry : 48, 52 Jones-Moreland, B etsy : 1 95 , 1 96 , 1 98 , 1 99 Jordan, Matty : 5 3 , 5 5 Journey t o the 7th Plan et (film ) : 1 5 3 , 1 54 'Joy Ride' (teleplay ) : 200, 20 1 , 202, 203 (see also 'Second Chance') Joyce, Stephen : 264 Judgement at Nuremberg (teleplay ) : 3 1 Justman, Robert H : 8 , 1 3 , 22, 3 8 , 40, 4 8 , 5 7 , 5 9 , 7 1 , 7 3 , 79, 8 3 , 8 5 , 9 1 , 9 3 , 96, 99, 1 00, 1 1 2 , 1 26 , 1 30, 1 47 , 1 48 , 1 5 1 , 1 64, 1 7 2 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 5 , 1 76 , 1 8 1 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 , 1 9 3 , 2 1 7 , 243 , 247 , 250, 25 1 , 259, 267 , 274, 282, 284, 297, 30 1 , 308, 3 1 6 , 3 2 3 , 324, 325
3�1
Kates , B ernard : 1 26 , 1 27 Katzi n , Lee H : 20, 22-24, 5 3 , 54, 64, 67, 7 3 , 74, 76, 7 7 , 79, 9 1 , 1 04, 1 08 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 7 , 1 62 , 1 63 , 1 72, 325 Kaufman, Douglas : xiv Kazan, Elia: 1 7 5 Keep Watching the Skies, Vol s . 1 -2 (book ) : 3 3 6 'Keeper o f the Purple Twilight' (episode ) : 4, 1 1 0, 1 5 5 , 252, 274-7 8 , 280, 289, 3 3 8 , 34 1 , 342 Keith, Sherwood : 279 Kel lerman, Sally: 5 3 , 5 5 , 5 6 , 5 9 , 1 7 5 , 1 8 3 , 1 84, 1 87 , 349 Kel lison, Phi l : 1 54, 1 5 7 Kellogg, John : 9 1 Kellogg, Ray : 206, 250 Kennedy, Douglas : 3 0 8 , 309 Kennedy, John F : 76, 1 77 , 1 7 5 Kent, Pau l : 77 Kenyon, S andy : 264, 265 'Kincaid,' (pilot) : 1 6 Kindred, The (film ) : 3 2 8 King Family, The (serie s ) : 3 1 7 King Kong (fi l m ) : 1 5 7 , 3 1 6 Kinsolving, Lee : 1 90, 1 92 , 1 94, 2 1 0 Kiss Before Dying, A (fi l m ) : 1 7 1 Kiss Me Deadly (fi l m ) : 22 KNB EFX Group (FX) : xiv, 346, 348 Kneale , Nige l : 27 1 Knight, Shirley : 47, 1 04, 1 05 , 1 06 , 1 08 , 1 09, 1 1 0, ill , 349 Knight, Ted : 259 Kobe , Gai l : 9 1 , 94, 274 Koenekamp, Fred: 3 1 4 Kolchak, Carl : 205 Kolchak: The Night Stalker (series): 205 , 346 Kosleck, Martin: 308, 309, 3 1 0 Kozloff, Joyce: 342 KPFK-FM (radio ) : 3 3 9 Kraft Television Theatre (serie s ) : 1 1 Kri m s , Milton : 250, 25 1 , 264, 265 , 274, 275 , 277 , 29 1 , 299 Krone, Fred: 274, 282 Kronos (fi l m ) : 2 1 7 KTLA Channel 5 (in LA ) : 3 3 9 Kurt Von negut's Monkey House (series): 345 Kuter, Kay : 3 1 1 , 3 1 2, 3 1 3
L LA County Dept. of Transportation : 342 LA Weekly (periodical) : 346 Lambert, Pau l : 77 Lamden, Joan : 1 60 Lancaster, Stuart : 5 7 Landau , Martin: 1 04, 1 05 , 1 07 , 1 08 , 1 09, 1 1 0, Ill, 1 8 3 , 1 85 , 1 8 8 , 326, 3 2 7 , 3 3 9 Landau, Richard : 270 Lane, M ike : 4, 274, 275, 2 7 8 , 304, 307 Langley, Jane : 5 3
INOfX Langtry, Hugh : 1 5 6, 1 64, 1 66 , 274, 278 ' Lan son Screen , The ' ( story ) : 1 8 3 - 84 Lantz, Walter: 1 46 Laserdi scs, Outer Limits epi sodes on: 3 3 9 , 349, 3 5 0 Last Tra in t o Babylon (book) : 3 2 Last Woman o n Earth, The (fi l m ) : 222 Laughton, Charles : 1 44-45 Lawrence, Anthony: 1 04, 1 05 , 1 1 0, 1 90, 1 9 1 , 1 92, 1 93 , 1 94 Lawrence, Ethan : 1 94 Le Mans (film) : 325 LeB aron, Paul: 59, 1 5 2, 1 54, 1 5 6 , 1 59 , 262, 3 1 0 Lee, ' Gypsy' Rose : 292 Left-Handed Gun, The (fi l m ) : 1 2 Lemon Eaters, The (book) : 263 Leopard Man, The (fi l m ) : 59 Leslie Stevens Productions : 3 1 9 Lesser, Dave : 3 1 3 Lesser, Len : 1 68 Lester, Seeleg: 2 1 2, 239, 24 1 , 242, 243 , 245 , 247 , 249, 25 3 , 2 5 5 , 259, 262, 263, 268, 269, 270-7 3 , 277, 279, 2 8 5 , 286, 292, 295 , 297, 299, 300, 30 1 , 302, 303 , 3 1 2- 1 3 , 3 1 4, 3 1 5 , 3 1 7 , 322, 3 3 2 Lewis, Jerry : 1 22 Lewis, Mort : 1 83 Lewton, Val : 54, 228, 234, 3 3 6 Lieutenant, The (series ) : 324 Lil ly, John : 58 Limbo B e i n g : 3 1 1 , 3 1 2, 3 1 3 ( s e e also ' The Premonition ' ) 'Lineman, The' (story outline ) : 3 5 9 Link, Adam (series o f short stories) : 295 Link, Adam : 243, 294, 295, 296, 346 ' Little Mother of All the World' (teleplay ) : 80, 3 5 5 56 Live Aga in, Die Again (fi l m ) : 3 2 8 Lloyd Bridges Show, The (seri e s ) : 3 1 Lodger, The (fi l m ) : 1 75 Long Hot Summer, The (fi l m ) : 3 1 Long Hot Summer, The (seri e s ) : 1 94 Long, Frank B elknap : 2 1 4 Loo, Richard, 74 Look (magazine) : 224 Looking Backward (book) : 285 Loos, Ann : 77 Lord, Jack: l}, 1 9 Lord, Robert : 3 3 1 Lord, Stephen : 9 1 , 92, 274, 277 Loren, Sophia: 30 Lorre, Peter: 234 Lost Country, The (script) : 3 1 (see also Wild in the Country) Lost Flight, The (film) : 3 2 1
Love, Phyllis : 83, 85 ' Lovers and Madmen ' (teleplay ) : see ' The Forms of Things Unknown' Lovers, The (play ) : 1 1 Lubin , Harry : 1 3 3 , 246, 249 , 25 1 , 266, 289-90
Lubitsch, Ernst: 1 82 Lukather, Pau l : 2 1 5 , 308 Luminoid(s) (aliens from ' A Feasibil ity Study ' ) : 1. 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 1 23 , 1 46, 1 5 8 , 3 1 6, 34 1 Luna, B arbara: 1 60 Lunar Mode l s : 342 Lycanthrope (nove l ) : 3 2 8 , 329 M M (fi l m; 1 95 0 remake ) : 285
Maak, Henry : 24 ' M achine for Chuparosa, A ' (screenplay ) : 3 1 MacQueen, Steve : 1 7 Mad Labs Mode l s : 342 Mad Magician, The (fi l m ) : 1 75 ' M ade in Japan ' (teleplay ) : 30-3 1 Madsen, Peter: 8 , 250 Magician, The (pilot) : 328 Magnificent Seven, The (fi l m ) : 42 Maine, Charles Eri c : 27 1 Making of Sta r Trek, The (book ) : 3 24 Malone, Nancy : 206, 209 M amoulian, Rouben: 1 79 Man From A tlantis, The (pilot) : 325 M a n F ro m u. N.c. L. £. , The (series) : 99, 1 20, 1 7 1 ' Man W h o Was Never Born, The ' (episode ) : 47, 72, 1 04- 1 1 1 , 1 13 , 1 1 5 , 1 3 8 , 1 44, 1 5 3 , 1 75 , 1 90, 1 93 , 1 98 , 340, 342 ' Man W ith the Power, The' (episode ) : 77- 80, 95 , 1 22 , 1 6 1 , 2 1 7 , 3 3 8 Manchu rian Candidate, The (film) : 7 5 Manela, S abine: 2 3 Mann, Lisa: 1 26 Mantley, Joh n : 267, 268 Manx, Kate : 1 2, 1 4 ' M arathon' showings o f The Outer Limits : xiv, 339 M arceau, Marcel: 37 Marcuse, Theodore : 206 Mark of Zorro, The (fi l m ) : 3 2 1 Mark Vickers, Master of Weapons (pilot, aka 'The Weapons M an ' ) : 1 6 M ark, Flip : 2 1 8 , 220 M arko, Peter: 259, 260 Marley, John : 77 Marlowe, Nora: 96 Marlowe, S cott : 3 1 , 1 60, 227, 23 1, 233 Marmer, Lea: 1 60 Mamie (book and fil m ) : 32-33 M aross, Joe: 259 Ma rriage-Go-Round, The (fi l m ) : 1 2, 1 4, 30 Ma rriage - Go-Round, The (play ) : 1 2 Mars A ttacks (trading cards) : 1 24 M arshall , Shary : 264, 265 M artel, Arline : :1, 282, 2 84, 286, 288 Ma rtian Ch ronicles, The (book) : 207 M artin , Dean : 1 8 M artin, Dewey : 3 1 1. 3 1 2, 3 1 3 M artin, George R . R . : 345
3��
TH[ ounA l i M ITS COMPAN ION
389
Mask of Terror (screenplay ) : 1 4
Montaigne, Lawrence: 250
Mason, Jame s : 1 4, 320 Masquerade (radio) : 1 44 Massacre Harbor (film) : 3 2 1 Massaron, Laurence I : ill Master Builder, The (play ) : 5 6 Master of the World (fi l m ) : 1 5 3 Matchett, Christine: 294 Matheson, Richard: 2 1 2, 249 Mattey, B o b : 1 5 7 Maxwel l , Frank: 77 Mayor of the Town (radi o ) : 1 44 McCarthy, Norb u : 3 1 Meadows , Jayne : 1 82 ' Mealti m e ' (telepl ay) : 2 8 3 Mechanical Rat, The (play ) : 1 0 Meek, Rusty : 3 1 4, 3 1 6 Meeker, Ralph: xiii, 5 7 , 5 9 , 6 0 , 6 1 Meet Me in Las Vegas (film) : 1 8 Megasoid (alien ) : 305 , 306, 307, 3 24, 342, 350 (see also 'The Duplicate M an ' ) MeIchoir, Ib: 3 1 1 , 3 1 2, 3 1 3 'Mel nick's Fol l y ' : 26-27 Melnick, Danie l : 26-27, 3 3 , 3 5 , 40, 42, 46, 5 1 , 5 2 Melton, Troy: 279 Men Into Space ( series) : 1 , 92, 92, 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 Mercer, Ray (of Ray Mercer & C o . , [FX] ) : 24, 1 5 5 , 1 57 Mercury Theatre Players : 1 0, l 3 Meredith, B urges s : 1 0, 3 20 Merri l l , Gary : 5 3 , 54, 59, 6 1 Merritt, Arnold: 200 Merriwe l l , Frank (character) : 26 Metropolis (fi l m ) : 63 ' Mice, The ' (episode ) : 1 3 3 , l34, 1 5 5 , 1 5 6, 1 64-67, 1 8 1 , 1 82, 1 8 8 , 1 92, 1 94, 203 , 2 1 4, 3 24, 3 3 2 Michea, Elaine: 1 7-20, 2 1 , 2 3 , 6 1 , 1 46, 247 , 3 1 9 'Microcosmic God' (story ) : 27 1 Midsummer Night's Dream, A (play) : 228 Mighty Joe Young (film) : 1 5 2 Mikie (alien ) : 246, 3 1 6, 3 1 7, 3 3 7 Mikler, Mike : 1 48 , 2 5 9 Miles, Vera: 2 2 7 , 2 3 0 , 23 1, 2 3 2 , 233, 234, 236 Milford, John : 1 90 Milos, Milos: 3 1 9 Milton B radley (game company) : 1 24 ' Mind Over Matter' (see ' Cry of Silence ' ) Minow, Newton: 8 6 Mintz, Robert : 74, 7 5 , 1 95 , 1 96 ' M i s s Adoni s ' ( p l ant creature) see ' S pecimen : Unknown ' Mission : Impossible (series) : 7 5 , 1 44, 1 47 , 1 94, 1 94 Modern Problems (film) : 3 2 1 Mondale, Eleanor: 349 Monster of the Month Club: 1 24 Monster on the Campus (film) : 54 Monster Show, The (book) : 335 Monster World ( magazine) : 278
Monte Walsh (film) : 325
' Moonstone ' (episode ) : 60, 1 07 , llO, 1 1 2- 1 6, 1 27 ,
1 46 Moore, Tom : 2 5 , 3 8-39, 24 1 Mordente, Ton y : 1 68 , 1 75 Morgan, Read: 206, 294 Morheim, Lou : 4 1 -43, 5 5 , 65 , 80-82, 90, 92, 1 1 3 , 1 64, 1 8 3-8 5 , 1 90, 1 94, 1 96, 200-202, 207 , 2 1 2 , 220-23 , 268, 3 1 9, 322, 3 5 5 , 3 5 9 Morick, D a v e : 1 54, 1 5 7 Morituri (fi l m ) : 325 Mork and Mindy (series ) : 258 Morri l l , Priscilla: 7 7 , 78, 3 5 9 Morrison, Jim: 343-44 Morrison, She l l y : 5 7 Morse, B arry : 11, 72, 7 3 Moses, Charles A : 27 1 Moss, Frank L: 20 Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons (radio): 239 Mr. Kingston (pilot fil m ) : 1 6, 1 7 , 24, 220 Mr. Novak ( series ) : 3 2 , 268 Mulhare, Edward: xiii, 96, 97 Munsters, The (series) : 1 20 Muppe t Movie, The (fi l m ) : 302 M urphy, M ary : 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 Museum of Televi sion and B road-casting: 344 Mustin, B urt: ill ' Mutant, The ' (episode ) : 3 , 60, 1 67 , 1 89 , 1 94, 1 9599, 250 Mysterious Island (fi l m ) : 289
N Naked Edge, The (fi l m ) : 3 2 Name of the Game, The (series): 3 2 0
National Lead Compan y : 1 46 'Natural S election ' (teleplay ) : 206-208, 3 24 (see also 'Fun and Game s ' ) NBC Monday Night Movie, The (series): 228 Neal, Mavi s : 8 , 253 Nelson, Ed: 1 26 , 1 27, 1 29 , 1 3 0, l 3 1 Nelson, Robert J : 297 Neppo1itano, Johnny : 94 Neuman, Sam: 239, 297, 299-30 1 , 3 1 4, 3 1 5 New Breed, The (pilot) : 23 New York Jazz Society : 3 0 Newman, Alfred : 1 8 , 1 3 3 Newman, Richard : 3 5 5 Newsweek (magazine) : 1 4 Ney Report, The (series) : 220 Ney, Richard: 2 1 8-220 Nickolaus, John : 8 , 2 1 , 4 8 , 5 7 , 7 1 , 79, 8 3 , 96, 1 12, 1 13 , 1 1 5 , 1 26 , 1 3 0, 1 48 , 1 5 1 , 1 67 , 1 94 Nicol, Alex : 1 1 2 , ill Nicotero, Gregory J : xiv Night Stalker, The (fi l m ) : 1 43 , 3 2 8
INO[X Night Tide (fi l m ) : 2 1 2- 1 3
Outer Lim its Phenomenon, The (infomercial ) : 349
' Nightmare ' (episode ) : 80, 1 26-32, 1 3 3 , 1 34, 1 3 7 ,
Outer Limits: An Illustrated Review, The (fanzine ) :
1 3 8 , 3 3 1 , 3 3 8 , 342, 1 46 , 1 5 3 , 1 72 , 2 1 0, 220 Nimoy, Adam : 346 Nimoy, LeonMd: 294, 295 , 344, 346, 348, 349, 2 1 5 No One Here Gets Out A live (book) : 343 Nolan, Lloyd: 253, 255, 256, 25 8 Nolan, Wil liam F: 2 1 2 Norman, Nei l : xiv, 343 North By Northwest (fi l m ) : 284 Northwest Passage ( series ) : 22 Novelizations ( licensed from The Outer Limits): 343, 344, 349 Novello, Jay : 57
O'Brien, Fitz-Jame s : 27 1 O'Brien, Wil l i s : 1 5 7 O'Conne l l , Wil l iam: 2 2 1, 224 O'Conner, Tim : 1 1 2, ill , 2 5 3 , 2 5 5 , 256 O'Connor, Carrol : TI-7 3 O'Hara, Pat : 7 7 O'Hara, Shirley : 5 3 , 2 7 9 O'Meara, Susan : 349 O'Neal , Patrick: 270, 27 1 ' O.B.LT. ' (episode ) : 1 1 7 - 1 20, 1 28 , 1 72 , 220, 2 7 3 , 296, 3 3 1 , 34 1 Oakland, Simon : xiii, 200-204, 205 Oates, Warren : xiii, }, 1 4, 1 1 0, 1 95 , 1 96, 1 97, 1 98 , 1 99 , 379 ' Obituary for an Instant' (story ) : see ' The Queer Fi l e ' Odd John (book) : 1 9 1 , 1 94 Oh, Those Bells (serie s ) : 239, 244 O lvera, Roy : 22 1 On Her Majesty's Secret Service (book) : 1 7 1 ' Onafets , ' also ' Onaphets ' : 1 3 3 , 1 34, 1 3 6 , 1 3 8 Ondes Martenot: 289 ' One Dream' (song) : 29-30 One Man's Family (radio) : 1 44 One Step Beyond (series) : 22, 289 Opatoshu, David: 83, 85 ' Ordinary Town, An' (telepl ay ) : 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 2 1 4, 3 5 657 Osterloh, Robert : 1 90 Oswald, Gerd : 3 1 , 89-90, 9 1 -2, 94, 1 1 7- 1 1 9 , 1 2 1 , 1 40- 1 4 3 , 1 44, 1 5 9 , 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 63 , 1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 7 2, 1 77 , 1 8 1 , 1 94, 206, 209 , 2 1 0, 2 1 8 , 220, 22 1 , 228-29, 230, 232, 2 3 5 , 24 1 , 244, 245 , 247 , 2 5 3 , 256, 279, 280, 307 , 3 1 0-3 1 2 , 3 2 3 , 329 Oswald, Richard : 3 1 Other Side, The (series concept) : 329 ' Out of the Sub Universe' (story ) : 27 1 Outer Lim its (bands and albums ) : 343 Outer Limits B ookstore : 342 Outer Lim its Newsletter, The (fanzine) : 3 3 5 - 3 3 6 Outer Lim its of A udio Fidelity, The (album ) : 343
335-336 Outer Limits: Flight of Fea r, The (ro l lercoaster) : 347 Oute r Limits: The Official Companion, The (book) :
vi-xiii, 3 3 5 - 3 3 7 , 349 Owens, Wil liam P : 2 5 3 , 264, 266, 270, 279, 28 1 , 29 1 , 294
r Pagan Festival (album) : 1 8
Pal , David: 1 5 7 Pal, George : 54, 6 3 , 1 1 1 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 9, 1 90, 1 94 Palmer, Tom : 1 60 Palos Verdes Air Force B ase: 3 1 3 Parks, Mike : 342 Parsons , Lindsley Jr: 1 6, 20, 24, 59, 6 1 , 67 , 1 72, 1 8 1 , 1 82 Partridge in a Pear Tree (play ) : 320 Pattee, Pau l : 69, 1 3 1 , 262, 1 5 7 Pau l , Eugene : 3 3 6 Pau l , George : 3 04 Pau l , M . B . : 2 3 , 50, 1 54, 1 5 9 Payne, B . Ritchie: 243 , 245 , 269, 277, 28 1 , 287-288, 292-29 3 , 299-300, 3 3 2 Peach, Kenneth (son ) : 1 94 Peach, Kenneth : 1 72, 1 90, 1 94, 1 95 , 1 9 8 , 200, 206, 209, 2 1 1 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 8 , 22 1 , 249 , 250, 252, 25 3 , 259, 263 , 264, 267, 270, 274, 279, 282, 287, 29 1 , 294, 297, 30 1 , 304, 3 0 8 , 3 1 1 , 3 1 4 Peel, John : 349 Pelling, George : 96 Pennel l , Larry : 1 95 , 1 96 , 1 99 People (magazine ) : 345 Perkins, Anthon y : 3 1 , 328 Perkins, Jack: 206 Perna, Dave: 5 3 , 5 5 Perrin , Rita: xiii Perrin , Vic : xiii, xiv, 5 3 , 74, 1 1 2, 1 44-45 , 1 46, 1 47, 1 48 , 1 68 , 1 77 , 206, 24 1 , 25 3 , 3 3 2 , 342 Perry Mason ( series ) : 1 , 1 1 8 , 239, 24 1 , 242, 245 , 246, 25 1 , 272, 292, 296, 299, 303, 320, 32 1 Perry, Elizabeth : 308, 3 1 0 Perry, Erin : 349 Perry, Joe: 1 90 Personal Best (fi l m ) : 223 Perssons, Ben: 1 1 0 Perversions of Science (series) : 348 Peters, Gregg : 304, 3 07 , 3 1 1 Petit, Michae l : 297 Philco TV Playhouse (series) : 1 2 Philips, Lee : 8 , 27, 3 5 , 3 6 , 3 3 8 Phi l l ips, Fred B : xiii, 2 0 , 2 3 , 3 7 - 3 8 , 68, 7 6 , 9 9 , 1 08 , 1 3 1 , 1 3 2, 1 5 9, 1 93 , 1 99 , 205 , 224, 240, 24 1 , 3 2 3 , 324, 326 Phone B ooth, The (bar) : 22, 344 Photo Synthesis (book) : 345 Phynx, The (fi l m ) : 325
TH[ OUHR l i M ITS CO M PANI ON Pickford, M ary : 3 3 1 Pickwick Papers, The ( musical adaptation) : 29
' Pied Piper Proj ect, The ' (teleplay ) : 299 (see also 'The Inheritors ' ) Pierce, Jack: 6 8 Pine, Phillip: 74, 75, 76 Pink Jungle, The (play ) : 1 2 Pinson, Allen : 8 Plag (alien) : see ' Wolf 3 5 9 ' Planet o f the Apes (film) : 99 Plant Monster s : see ' S pecimen : Unknow n , ' 'Counterweight' Platinum High School (film) : 25 1 Platt, Edward C : 7 7 , 2 1 8 , 274 Playhouse 90 (series) : 1 , 30 Please Stand By (pilot) : 7, 25, 26, 27, 32, 3 3 -40, 42, 1 22, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6, 1 45 , 239, 24 1 , 252, see also ' The Galaxy B eing' Pleasence, Donal d : 77, 7 8 , 79 Plowman, Melinda: 1 77 , 1 7 8, 1 8 1 Poe, Edgar Allen: 27 1 Pollack, Dee: 297, 298, 303 Popi (film) : 3 2 1 Poplin, Jack: 2 1 , 22, 24, 60, 8 8 , 94, 1 07 , 1 08 , 1 1 4, 1 1 5 , 1 29 , 1 5 9 , 1 75 , 1 76 , 234, 2 3 5 , 2 3 7 , 247 , 272, 278, 325 ' Portrait of a Murderer' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Post, Don: 1 5 8 Powell, Edward : 1 3 6 Power, The (film) : 50, 6 3 , 322 Preminger, Otto : 3 2 ' Premonition, The' (episode ) : 3 1 1 -3 1 3 Prescott, S y : 297 President's Analyst, The (film) : 325 ' Price of Doom, The ' (teleplay ) : see ' Mealtime ' Price, Frank: 320 Price, Vincent: 1 75 Preisner, Jack: 1 37 Prima Publishing : 349 Private Property (fi l m ) : 1 2 , 1 4, 1 9 ' Probe, The ' (episode ) : 3 1 4- 1 7 , 3 24, 3 3 7 Prochinsky, Jerry : 344 Producer's Showcase (seri es ) : 1 1 ' Production and Decay of S trange Partic l e s ' (episode ) : 1 5 3 , 2 1 5 - 1 7 Prohaska, Janos: 64, 67, 69, 96, 98, 1 00, 1 5 5 , 1 57 , 3 1 4, 3 1 6, 3 1 7 Proj ect Unlimited (also ' Proj ects , ' FX) : 2 3 , 50, 5 8 , 5 9 , 6 3 , 69, 7 3 , 8 7 , 94, 1 08 , 1 1 6, 1 43 , 1 5 3-59, 1 8 1 , 1 97 , 1 9 8 , 1 99 , 205 , 2 1 0, 2 1 4, 2 1 7 , 240, 242, 252, 26 1 , 262, 293 , 307 , 3 24, 3 2 5 , 342, 346 Psycho (film) : vi, 28, 32, 39, 80, 1 82 , 200, 228, 230, 330 Psycho IV: The Beginning (film) : 3 2 8 Puddly (alien) : s e e ' The Duplicate M a n ' Puffed Wheat ( spores) : 94 Puglia, Frank: 8 3 Puppet Masters, The (book) : 1 7 1
391
Q Qarl o : see Clobregnny, Qarlo Quate rmass Xperiment, The (film) : 27 1 ' Queer File, The ' (novel ette ) : 283 Questor Tapes, The (pilot) : 325 Q u i e t A m e rican, The (book) : 32 Quinn-Martin Productions : 1 3 , 1 6, 2 3 , 26, 2 3 5 , 237
R Radilac, Charl e s : 264, 265 Raine, Jack: 1 04, 1 1 1 Rainey, Ford: 294 Ramsey, Ruth : 1 2, 30 RandCorp : 303 Randell, Ron : 3 04 Rapchak, Lawrence: xiv, see also 76, 1 3 3 -39, 289-90 Rat Patrol, The (series) : 3 2 1 Ravell, Francis: 5 7 Rawhide (series) : 1 , 3 2 1 , 322 Rawlins, Phi l : 1 72, 1 95 , 206, 2 1 5 , 22 1 Ray Bradbury Theatre ( series) : 345 Raymond, Gary : 78, 99 Reanimator (fi l m ) : 1 98 Rebel, The ( series) : 2 1 0 Red Planet Mars (film) : 22 Redmond, H arry : 27 1 Reese, Sam: 1 1 7 , 267 Reflection of Fear, A (film) : 325 Refo rm School Girl (film) : 56 Regina: see B ee Girl Reincarnate, The (film) : 3 2 2 ' Reluctant Monster, The ' (teleplay ) : s e e ' B ehold E ck ! ' Remsen, B ert : 74 Renard, Ken : 1 40 Rennick, Nanc y : 74 Resin Kits (based on Outer Lim its subjects ) : 340, 341. 342 Retu rn to the Blue Lagoon (fi l m ) : 3 20 Revenge (fi l m ) : 3 2 8 ' Revival s ' of The Outer Limits : 3 29-3 3 1 Reynolds, Gene: 4 8 , 5 0 Rhodes , H ari : 1 1 2, 1 1 6 Rich Man, Poor Man ( serie s ) : 60 Richards, Pau l : ill , 1 22 Richman, M ark: 48, 49, 5 0, 3 1 4, 3 1 5 , 3 1 6, 3 1 7, 354 Riesner, Dean : 57, 5 8 Riley, Patrick: 250 Riordan, Jame s : 344 Riordan, Robin: 3 2 1 Ripcord (series ) : 254 Riskin, Ralph : 1 7 , 1 9 Ritc h : Ocee : 2 1 2 Rivera, Chita: 1 65 , 1 75 , 1 8 3 , 1 87 Robert E. S herwood Award : 3 1 Robert, M ark : 74 Roberts, Sonya (aka 'Lin Dane ' ) : 200-203 , 205 Robertson, Cliff: 8 , 2 7 , 3 4 , 3 5 , 3 6 , 3 8 , 43, 6 1 , 1 22, 256, 349
INOfX Robinson Crusoe on Mars (film) : 6 3 , 263, 3 1 2, 322
Robotham, George : 5 7 , 3 04, 308 R o d Serling's The Twilight Zon e Magazine: vi, xiii,
214 Roddenberry, Gene : 3 24, 325 ' Rodeo, U . S . A . ' (Stoney Burke pilot, retitled ' The Contender' ) : 1 5 - 1 6 Rodine, Ralph : xiii, 1 5 2, 1 5 6 , 1 5 7 , 1 59 , 1 8 1 Roeca, S am : 3 1 1 - 1 2 Roman , Ruth : 1 1 2, 1 1 4 Romance (radio) : 1 44 Rooney, Mickey : 3 1 9 Rose, Wall y : 282 Rosema ry's Baby (film) : 2 1 , 325 Rosenthal , Jean : 1 0 Ross, Don: 1 64 Ross, Jerome : 77 Ross, Marion: 2 1 8 , 220 Rossillon, Gabriell e : 227 Roustabout (film) : 1 94 Rowe, Mike : 349 Rubin, ' Rapid' Richard: 20, 92 Rudin, Herman : 1 95 Rush, B arbara: 227, 23 1. 232, 234, 235, 236, Ruskin, Joseph : 2 1 5 Russell , Ray : 2 1 2 Russian A ssignmen t (book) : 1 1 Ryder, Alfred : 48 Ryota (poet) : 1 28 Rypel , Ted C : 3 3 5 - 3 3 6
S Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, The (film) : 1 98 Sage, Willard : 5 7 , 1 26, 2 1 5 Sahara (film) : 320 S ahlin, Don : 1 54, 1 57 Saints and Sinners (series) : 3 1 Salzburg Con nection, The (film) : 325 S amish, Adrian : 1 69-70, 239, 242, 246, 295 , 3 00 S ampson, Robert: 1 95 , 1 96, 1 9 8 San Francisco Examiner, The (periodical) : 347 S and Shark : see ' The Invisible Enemy ; ' also 1 5 8 , 246 S anders, Hugh : 294 ' S andkings ' (story ) : 345 S ands, Diana: 1 64, 1 65 , 1 67 S anford, Donald S : 2 1 1 -2 1 4 S antesson, Hans S tefan : 2 5 3 S argeant, Jeff: 342 S argent, AI : 1 3 1 S arris, Andrew: 280 Saturday Night Fever (film) : 325 Scarbrough, Marsha: 348 Schenck, Aubrey: 27 1 Scherick, Edgar: 40, 228 Schildkraut, Joseph : 234 Schneeman, Charles: 1 22 Schneider, Alfred R : 24 1
S choedsack, Ernest: 3 1 6 S chram, Chuck: 37 Schwarzenegger, Arnold: 286 Sci-Fi Universe (magazine) : 345 Science Fiction in t h e Cinema (book) : 3 1 9 , 335 Science Fiction Theatre (series ) : 1 -2 Sc ience
Fictio n : A
Jo u rn ey
into
the
Unknown
(documentary) : 344 S cott, H enry : 74, 250 S cott, Jacqueline: 8 , 34, 3 6 , 2 6 4 , 265 Screaming Skull, The (film) : 1 1 4 ' S eaman e s s Drug, The' (teleplay ) : see ' The Chameleon ' Search (pilot and series) : 320 ' Second Chance ' (episode ) : 200-205 , 2 1 0, 265, 266, 307 , 34 1 ' S econd Man, The ' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Security Picture s : 1 8 ' S eeleg B uilding ' : see ' Demon With a Glass Hand' Segal, George: 2 1 0 Selden, Tom : 1 3 , 3 3 , 4 1 , 42, 43, 8 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 5 5 , 1 9 899, 2 1 3 , 237, 324 Selznick, Louis J : 62 Senator (alien) : see ' Fu n and Games' S eriing, Rod: 1 -3 , 34, 6 1 , 28 1 Shakespeare, Wil liam : 1 3 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 , 350 Shampoo (film): 223 Shane, S ara: 270, 27 1 , 273 Shatner, William: 250, 252, 3 1 9 , 344, 349 Shaw, George B ernard : 97 Shayne, Konstantin : 1 1 7 , 304 S hearing, George: 1 8 S heckley, Robert : 280, 3 5 9 , 3 60 Sheen, M arti n : 1 26 , 1 29 , 1 30, ill Sheena (film) : 320 Sheriff John (series): 1 6 S higeta, James : 1 26 , 1 30, 1 3 2, 297, 299 Showtime Network s : 344- 348 Shutan, Jan : 297 S hyer, Wilson : 1 90, 1 93 Sickner, Roy : 8 S ikking, James B : 250 Silo, John : 5 7 S i l v a , H enry : 5 7 , 5 8 , 5 9 , 1 64, 1 65 , 1 67 Silverberg, Robert: 73 Silverman , Fred: 247 Silverman, Ron : 11, 1 9 S imak, Clifford D : 304 Simcox, Tom : 327 Simon, Robert F : xiii, 1 48 S imonson, Thol ' S i ' : 23 Sims, George : 1 48 ' S imulsense ' : 3 1 9 Sinema: A m e rican
Pornograph ic Films and the
People Who Make Them (book) : 3 3 7
Siodmak, Curt: 3 0 8 Six Wives of Hen ry Vlll, The (PB S series): 26
3�L
THf O UHn liM ITS CO M PANI ON ' S ixth Finger, The' (episode ) : 2, 46, 79, 9 5 , 96-
1 03 , 1 08 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 3 , 1 5 7 , 1 59 , 1 62 , 1 96 , 207 , 224, 340, 342, 349 ' S i xth Toe , The ' ( model kit) : 342 Skal , David J : 3 3 5 - 3 3 6 Sky fighters (pilot) : 23 Slatkin, Feli x : 1 8 Sloan, B l anding: 1 54, 1 5 5, 1 5 7 ' S mall Wonder' (two-part teleplay ) : 80, 3 5 7 - 5 9 Smith, Dean : 22 1 , 223, 224, 282, 285 S mith, Dick: 1 Smith, Harold: 23 S mith, Kent: x i i i , 1 60, 1 90, 1 92 Sno wbeast (fi l m ) : 3 2 8 S ofaer, Abraham: x i i i , 282, 2 8 4 S o h l , Jerry : 2 1 2 , 259, 260, 26 1 , 263 , 264-66 Solar Productions : 1 7 Solari, Rudy : 2 1 5 , 259, 260, 263 ' Soldier' (episode ) : 5 8 , 252, 253-59, 272, 2 8 3 , 296, 305 , 349 ' S oldier From TomolTow' (story ) : 253-54 Solow, Herbert F: 284, 3 24 Soracco, Danny: 342 Sorenson, Pau l : 267 Sorrells, Robert : 294 Soterian (alien ) : see 'The Mice' Sound Monster (by Stevens) : 46 Sound of Music, The (film) : 20, 85 ' S ource of Information' (teleplay ) : 3 1 Space ways (fi l m ) : 27 1 Specht, Robert: 206- 1 0, 3 24-25 ' S pecial One, The ' (episode) : 2 1 8-20 Special Resources Act of 1 95 7 , The : 220 ' Specimen : Unknown ' (episode ) : 90, 9 1 -95, 1 07 , 1 1 3 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 9 , 1 27 , 1 44, 1 97 , 3 3 9 Spies, Adri an: 3 1 Spokes (fi l m ) : 323 Spy Who Came i n From the Cold, The (film) : 3 1 St. Clair, Malcolm : 62 St. Joseph, Ell i s : 96, 98, 99, I O J , 1 02, 1 95 , 1 96 Stader, Pau l : 5 7 , 5 9 , 1 26 Standish, B urt : 26 Stanhope , Ted : 253 Stanley, Pau l : 264-65 , 200, 205 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 Stapledon , Olaf: 1 9 1 Star Trek (series ) : 1 , 42, 6 3 , 7 3 , 1 54, 1 9 8 , 208, 2 1 0, 252, 274, 280- 8 1 , 3 0 1 , 3 1 0, 323 -25 Star Trek: The Next Generation (series) : 273, 3 1 0, 346 Star Wars (film) : 3 3 6 Starlog (magazine) : 1 1 9, 3 3 5 Starlog SF Explorer (magazine) : 345 Starzl, R. F.: 27 1 ' S teersmen ' : 3 1 9 Stefano, Dominic (father of Joe) : 28 Stefano, Dominic (son of Joe ) : x i v, 3 1 , 1 22, 1 3 2
393
S tefano, Joseph : X, xiii, 3 , 7 , 1 0, 20, 2 3 , 27-29, 30-34, 3 8 - 3 9 , 40, 4 1 -43 , 46, 5 1 , 52, 54-56, 58, 60-Ql, 62, 6 3 , 65 , 67, 6 8 , 70, 7 5 , 76, 80-8 1 , 82, 96, 1 05 , 1 07 , 1 1 2, 1 1 3 , 1 1 6, 1 1 8 , 1 22, 1 25 , 1 40, 1 42, 1 47 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 6 , 1 67 , 1 72-75, 1 90-96, 1 9 8 , 1 99, 200, 203 , 206, 207-2 1 4, 2 1 7 , 2 1 9 , 220, 224, 2394 1 , 247 , 249 , 3 1 9, 3 24-26, 327-29, 330-32, 3 3 8 39, 343 , 345 , 348-50, 3 5 3 , 3 5 4 , 3 5 5 , 357-59 see also episodes written b y : 'The B el lero Shield , ' ' The Cats , ' ' Don't O p e n T i l l Doomsday, ' ' A Feasibility Study, ' ' T h e Invisible s , ' 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork , ' ' Little Mother of All the Worl d , ' ' N i ghtmare , ' The Unkn o w n /' The Forms of Things Unknown , ' 'The Zanti M isfits ' see also scenes written for: ' Architects of Fear' ( 6 5 ) , ' The C h i l dren of S p ider County' ( 1 92 ) , ' Fun and Games' (207-20 8 ) , ' The Mice' ( 1 64-65 ) , 'Moonstone, ' ' The Mutant' ( 1 97-98), ' The S ixth Finger' (98-99), ' The S pecial One' (220), ' S pecimen : Unknown' (94), ' ZZZZZ ' ( 1 74) see also ' S tefano's Story Factory ' : 80-82 S tefano, Josephina: 28 S tefano, Marilyn : x i i i , 30, 3 1 , 40-4 1 , 1 3 2, 220, 3 3 8 S tefano, Peter: 2 8 Stephens, B ob (director) : 326 Stephens, B ob : 347 Stern, Roger: 5 7 Stevens, L . Clark (psuedonym ) : 1 4 , 3 1 9 Stevens , Leslie Cl ark II: 9- 1 1 Stevens , Leslie Clark III: X, 3 , 7-2, lQ, 1 1 , .12-12, 2024, 25-27, 29-30, 3 2 , 3 3 , 34-43, 46, 54, 5 8 , 6062, 65 , 76, 80, 84, 86, 92, 9 5 , 1 1 2, 1 1 6, 1 24-25, 1 30- 1 3 1 , 1 34, 1 3 8 , 1 3 9 , 1 45 -47, 1 6 1 , 1 72, 1 80, 1 84, 203 , 205 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 9, 220, 224, 228, 229, 235, 237, 239, 240-4 1 , 243 , 245 -47 , 2 8 8 , 3 1 9, 3 20, 3 2 1 , 324, 3 29-3 1 , 3 3 9 , 345 , 348, 350 see also e p i sodes written/directed by : ' The B orderland, ' ' Controlled Experiment, ' Please Stan d By/' The Galaxy B eing , ' ' Production and Decay of Strange Particles' see also scenes written for ' S pecimen: Unknown' ( 9 3 ) and ' The Man With the Power' (78-79) Stevens , Leslie Clark: 9 S tevens , Nellie: 9- 1 1 Stevens , Wanen : 274, 277 S tevens, Wil l i am : 8 , 3 1 4 S tewart, Joanne: 297 Stockwell, Dean : 3 1 Stoloff, Victor: 1 95 , 1 96 , 1 99 Stone, Jeffrey : 304 Stone, Leonard : 64, 65, 326 Stonestreet (series) : 3 20 Stoney Burke (Daystar series) : 1 5 , 1 8 , 1 9 , 2 1 , 26, 27, 33, 3 6 , 40, 65 , 73, 76, 79, 1 3 0, 1 3 5 , 1 3 8 , 1 5 2, 1 7 1 , 1 72, 1 99 , 205 , 2 1 0, 2 1 3 , 229, 2 3 9 ; s e e a l s o Appendix IV
IND[X Story of Polly Stone, The (radio) : 1 44 S treeter, Steven : 3 3 5 - 3 3 6 S trom, Diane: 77 S tromberg, Hunt: 3 27 Stromsoe, Fred: 274 Stryke r (pilot film) : 1 6, 1 72 Stuart, Maxine : 1 04 Studs Lanigan (film) : 1 8 Stunt Man , The (fi l m ) : 3 2 1 Sturgeon, Theodore : 249, 27 1 Sugarman, Danny : 343 Sulli van, Ed: 1 8 ' Sumericans ' : 287 S ummers , Yale: 200 Sunset Boulevard (film): 89 Super High-Frequency Laser Voice, The : 7 3 Superman (film): 1 89 Swamp Th ing (series) : 3 2 8
I Tabori , Pau l : 27 1 Tales from the Crypt ( series) : 348 Tales of Tomorrow (seri es ) : 1
Tanner, Clay : 64 Tartan, Jame s : 259 Tata, Joey : 1 48 Taylor, B uck: 1 77 , 1 79 Taylor, Vaughn : 2 1 1 , 279 Teitelbaum, Sheldon : 345 Tempest, The (play ) : 1 89 Ten Thousand Bedrooms (film) : 1 8 Term inator, The (film) : 286 Thanatos Tree: see ' The Forms of Things Unknown ' Theatre A rts (magazine) : 9, 1 1 Theremin (in strument) : 1 3 3 , 289-90 Theremin, Leon : 1 3 3 Thetan (alien ) : see ' Architects of Fear, ' also i v, 12..L 1 22, 1 24, 1 5 5, 337, 34 1 Thetan-ette (little alien ) : 66 Th in Man, The (series ) : 22 Th ing from A nother Wo rld, The (film) : 3 9 , 54, 1 3 3 , 313 Th ing That Couldn ' t Die, The (film) : 54 Thomas, Harry 1 00, 269 Thomas, Henry : 3 2 8 Thomas, Jerome: 1 95 , 1 96 Thomas, Lowel l : 24, 278 Those Two (series ) : 239 Three Kinds of Heat (aka Fireworks; fil m ) : 3 2 1 Three Stooges, The : 244, 245 Th riller (seri e s ) : 4, 32, 2 1 2 , 2 1 4, 3 3 7 Th rilling Wonder Stories (magazine) : 1 84 Throne, Malachai : 250 Thurston, Helen : 29 1 Time (magazine) : 1 0, 1 2 Time Machine, The (film): 3 8 , 54
Time Travelers, The (fi l m ) : 3 1 2 Tinker, Grant: 235 To Tell t h e Tru th (gameshow ) : 228 To the Bitter End (fi l m ) : 323 Tolan, Michael : 1 48 tom thumb (film) : 1 5 3 Tomb of Ligeia (fi l m ) : 223 Tomorrow the World (fi l m ) : 2 8 1 Topps, Inc. (trading c ard compan y ) : 1 23-24, 349 Torme, Trac y : 3 3 1 Tom , Rip : 2 1 0 ' Tourist Attraction ' (episode ) : 3 9 , 57-62, 63, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 , 1 3 8 , 256, 262 Toumeur, Jacques: 54 Towers , Constance: 3 04 Towne, Robert: 90, 22 1 -23 Townes, Harry : 1 1 7 Trading Cards (from The Outer Limits ) : 1 22, 1 23-24, 3 50-5 1 Tra in Robbers, The (film) : 3 2 1 Travels of Ja ime McPheeters, The (seri e s ) : 1 67 , 1 7 1 Treasure of the Sie rra Madre (fi l m ) : 20, 2 1 ' Trembling Way, ' The : 1 85 Trouble in Paradise (film) : 1 0, 42, 1 82 347 , 350 Truj illo, Raphae l : 58 Tumbleweed Monster: see ' Cry of S i lence' Turan , Kenneth : 3 3 7 Tuttle, William: 37 Tuxedo Terrace (in LA) : 1 9 8 TV Gu ide (magazine) : 1 7 8 Twain, M ark : 1 05 , 209 Twilight Zone Compan ion, The (book) : 3 3 6 Twilight Zone, The ( 1 9 8 5 series) : 3 2 3 , 330, 3 3 1 , 345 Twilight Zone, The (series) : 1 - 3 , 3 7 , 62, 80, 95, 1 1 0, 1 1 1 , 1 7 5 , 1 89 , 1 94, 205 , 2 1 2, 254, 259, 302, 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 , 3 3 9 , 348 Twilight Zone: The Movie (fi l m ) : 330 Two Bits (film) : 328 Two-Part Episode of The Outer Limits: see 'The Inheri tors ' Tyburn, Gene: 1 64 Tyson, Emma: 3 1 1
11 Uelsmann, Jerry (photomontages by) : 3 3 3, 343, 345 Ulius, B etty D . : 1 95 , 1 96, 1 99 Ullman, D an : 250-5 1 Ultra - Q (magazine) : 3 3 7 Undying Monster, The (fi l m ) : 1 75 Un iversal Baseball A ssoc. , Inc. , 1. Hen ry Waugh, Prop. , The (book ) : 1 76 Unknown Voice, The : 229, 237 Unknown, The (pilot) : 3 5 , 1 67 , 1 87 , 1 89, 1 93 , 1 94, 1 9 8 , 206, 2 1 2, 227-237, 24 1 , 326, 329, see also ' The Forms of Things Unknow n ' Un touchables, The (series) : 1 4, 46, 1 1 9
394
TH[ ounn liM ITS C O M PAN I O N When Worlds Collide (fi lm ) : 6 3 , 266
y Vacuum Cleaner Monster: see 'It Crawled Out of the Woodwork ' Van Der Veer Photo Effects (FX) : 287 Van Der Veer, Frank: 1 5 9 Van Eps, Robert: 1 8 , 60, 1 3 6, 1 3 8 Van Patten, Joyce: 8 3 , 8 8 Van Vogt, A . E . : 249 Vasquez Rocks (location) : 1 5 2 Venusian: see 'Cold Hands, Warm Heart' Victor, Mark : 3 3 1 Video Watchdog (magazine) : 3 3 6 Videotape, Outer Lim its epi sodes on: 302-303 , 3 3 5 , 3 3 8 - 3 9 , 349 Vidor, King: 30 Vi lla di Stefano : formation of, 40-43 , 65 logo, 43 Villa Rides (fi l m ) : 223 ' Violent Heart, The ' (teleplay ) : 1 1 Virginian, The (series) : 320 Vorkapich, Slavko : 2 1 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (series) : 42, 1 94, 2 8 3 Vulcan, Proj ect: s e e ' C o l d Hands, Warm Heart' W
' Wain, Edward ' : see Towne, Robert Walker, Mary : 344 Walker, Rock: 95 Wall Street Jungle, The (book) : 220 Walsh, Raoul: 62 Wanamaker, Sam: 83 Wa r of the Wo rlds, The (film) : 50, 6 3 , 70 Ward, Calvin : 246, 292 Ward, Larry, 264, 265 Warfield, Chri s : 1 68 Warner, Sam : 243 Warren Magazines : see Creepy, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Monster Wo rld
Warren, B i l l : 3 3 6 Warren, Gene: xiv, 59, 6 3 , 67 , 1 1 6, 1 54- 1 5 8 , 1 59 , 1 66, 1 8 8 , 205 , 2 1 7 , 26 1 , 262, 266, 287, 293 , 325 Warren, Jame s : 3 24 ' Watchbird, The ' (teleplay ) : 280, Way Out (series) : 1 -2 ' Weapons Man, The ' (pilot) : 3 6 Weaver, Fritz: 323 Webb, Jack: 1 45 Webber, Robert : xiii, 274, 277 Websites (relevant to The Outer Limits ) : ix, 350 Weird Scien ce-Fan tasy (comic) : 295 Welles, Orson : 1 0, 1 3 Wenner, Lee : 1 7 2 West, Adam : 259, 260, 263 What's New ? : 1 22 Whatever Happened to A u n t A lice ? (fi l m ) : 325
3�5
White Brothers, The (book ) : 245 White, S am : 239, 240, 243-45 , 247 , 25 1 , 268 Whitfield, S tephen E . : 3 24 Whitlock, Albert: 1 5 6 Whitney, Grace Lee : 7 1 , 72, 7 3 Who i s the Black Dahlia ? (fi l m ) : 32 1 Whole Earth Catalog, The (book) : 3 1 9 Wild in the Country (film) : 3 1 Wild One, The (film) : 60 Wild Wild West, The ( series) : 3 2 1 -22, 327, 3 3 6 Wiley, Gene: 276, 278 Wilkin, B arbara: 279 Williams, B arbara: 42 Williams, Grant: xiii, 308, 309, 3 1 0 Williams, Robin : 2 5 8 Wil son, Jack: 267 Wingreen , Jason : 1 1 7 , 2 1 8 , 279 Winters, Shell y : 1 44 Wintersole, William : 297, 300 Wolf (fi l m ) : 285 ' Wolf 359' (episode ) : 1 46 , 263, 270- 7 3 , 289, 299, 315 Wolfson , Martin: 64, 65 Wollheim, Donald: 27 1 Wondeiful World of the Brothers Grimm, The (film) : 153 Wood, Edward D . , Jr. : 347 Wood, Jack: 23 Woodpecker, Woody : 1 46 Woolman, Claude : 1 48, 1 49 Workman, Linsay: 1 1 7 World Gone Wild (fi l m ) : 325 Worlds of If (magazine) : 264 Wright, B e n : 8 3 , 8 5 , 1 1 2, 1 1 6 , 1 26 , 1 45 -46, 270 Written By (magazine ) : 348 Wyatt, AI: 96 Wyatt, Jane: 1 44 Wyler, Wil l i am : 3 2 , 1 82 Wyman, George H . : 285
X X-Files, The (seri e s ) : 344, 347, 348
XFX (FX ) : 346
x Yagi , Jame s : 74 Yates , George Worthing: 27 1 ' Yellow S and, The ' (story ) : see ' The Invisible Enemy ' Yoneda, Takeshi : 342 Yordan, Phi lip: 1 8 ' Young Juggler, The ' (teleplay ) : 3 1 Young Lions, The (fi l m ) : 1 8 Young Pioneers, The (pilot) : 3 2 1 Young, Noel : 3 1 9
Z.
Zagat, Arthur Le o : 1 83 , 1 84 Zamenhof, L.L. : 3 1 9 ZampeIi n i , Cynthi a: 1 52 ' Zanti Misfits, The ' (epl:soQ.
52, 1 72, 266, 330, 338, 3 Zanti (s) (al i en[s] ) : see 'The 1 97 , 1 99, 342 'Zanti ' (alien from Critters 2 ) : 'Zanti Serenade ' (song ) : 344 Zanuck, Danyl F. : 89, 90 Zappa, Frank: 344 Zeno, Mr. (alien) : see 'The Spec ial One' Zicree, Marc Scott: 3 3 6 Zi mmer, Lee : 64 Zito, S tephen F. : 3 3 7 ' ZZZZZ ' (episode ) : 1 3 8 , 1 7 3-76, 1 77 , 1 85 , 1 8 8