Twilight Zone Companion (51 page)

While all this was going on, Beaumonts wife was desperately trying to understand what was happening and treat it. Beaumonts son Chris explains, Because he worked very, very hard, we thought maybe it was just overwork, so we sent him to places where he could rest, hoping he would come back the man that we knew. When he didnt, it was very frustrating, because we thought each time we tried out one of these therapies that it would work. It was a great disappointment every time he would come home from whatever it was and he would be not only no better, he would be worse.

Bill Idelson, with whom Beaumont collaborated on Long Distance Call, takes up the story. I was in analysis at that time and I sent Beaumont there, because people thought it was an emotional thing. My analyst saw him and he said, T cant do anything for this man, because hes too illphysically ill.

Nolan: Finally, he went to UCLA for a battery of tests in about May of 64. The doctors diagnosed Beaumont as having one of two diseases: Alzheimers Disease or Picks Disease. Which one could only be discerned by an autopsy, but both had this much in common: they were degenerative diseases of the brain, popularly known as presenile dementia. The cause was unknown. The symptoms included acceleration of the aging process and a progressive loss of mental functions, including intellect, memory and coordination. Nolan recalls, They sent him home, saying, Theres absolutely no treatment for this disease. Its permanent and its terminal. Hell probably live from six months to three years with it. Hell decline and hell get where he cant stand up. He wont feel any pain. In fact, he wont even know this is happening.

Time had run out for Beaumont, at the age of thirty-five. The drinking had been merely an effort to cloud his mind to a point where he was unaware that his mind was clouded for other reasons, as yet unnamed, terrifying in their implication. By the time he was properly diagnosed, he was too far gone to understand the truth. Says John Tomerlin, I think it just kind of faded out on him.

The only time that he ever seemed to be aware of something dark and awful really happening to him, says William F. Nolan, was one night, late in 63, when John Tomerlin and I and Chuck went to Musso and Franks in Hollywood. We were going to have dinner and go to a movie. And I remember that night, he put his head in his hands and he said, I cant go to the movies, guys. We said, Whats wrong? He said, I just cant go to any more movies. I cant think about them. I cant follow them. I cant stay there and watch all that. I dont know whats wrong with me. And he just started to cry, and he said, I love you guys, but I just cant go to any more movies with you, and going to movies was one of the things that we all loved to do.

That was a very sad night. Driving home, we dropped him off, John and I, and we said, Shit, something is horribly wrong with Chuck, and I wish to God we knew what it was.

Charles Beaumont died February 22, 1967, at the age of thirty-eight. When he died, says his son Chris, he was physically a ninety-five-year-old man and looked ninety-five and was, in fact, ninety-five by every calendar except the one on your watch. Writer Brian Aldiss commented that Beaumont died in the old age of his youth. Says William F. Nolan, Like his character Walter Jameson, he just dusted away.

In early 1963, all of this was in the future. For now, there were only early, minor symptoms, and Beaumont needed a ghost writer for Twilight Zone.

Although it was against Writers Guild rules, Jerry Sohl agreed, splitting the money fifty-fifty with Beaumont. Over the next year or so, he wrote five Twilight Zone scripts, three of which were produced, teleplays for Route 66, Naked City, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, plus articles for Playboyall under Beaumonts name. It was ridiculous of me to do this, says Sohl, because he was just using me and I was not getting any pension money, I was not getting any health money, and it was perfectly dumb. On the other hand, I didnt have to deal with Bert Granet, I didnt have to deal with Rod Serling, I didnt have to do anything but write. What more could you ask? He was the one who went in and fought the battles, you see.

About The New Exhibit, Sohl says, One of the men in the script is the man that gave Chuck the idea for the script itself, Albert W. Hicks, the ax murderer. So we got to talking about, Well, supposing that someone had an exhibit wherein this murderer was, and he came alive and did all this and then went back to the exhibit after he had committed the murder. The police would never be able to find him. This is the way that our minds went. Then we decided to change that and make it that they were all murderers, this is the murderers exhibit. In other words, all this evolved.

Sohls script went before the cameras virtually unchanged, with no rewrites at all. This was the case with most of the scripts he ghosted. They went right in, and the reason is that Chuck Beaumont scripts were always so great that they didnt have to do anything.

During the shooting of The New Exhibit, Sohl visited the set. Here I am standing with Chuck Beaumont, he recalls, and John Brahm, the director, comes up, puts his arm around him with the script that / did and says, Chuck, youve done it again! And here I am, standing right next to Chuck, unable to say a word!

ON THURSDAY WE LEAVE FOR HOME (5/2/63)

Written by Rod Serling

Producer: Bert Granet

Director: Buzz Kulik

Director of Photography:George T. Clemens

Music: stock

Cast: William Benteen: James Whitmore Col. Sloane: Tim OConner Al: James Broderick George: Paul Langton Julie: Jo Helton Joan: Mercedes Shirley Jo Jo: Daniel Kulick Lt. Engle: Lew Gallo Hank: Russ Bender Colonist: Madge Kennedy Colonist: John Ward Colonist: Shirley OHara Colonist: Anthony Benson

This is William Benteen, who officiates on a disintegrating outpost in space. The people are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for a Millennium, a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear and what they found was a lonely, barren place whose only industry was survival. And this is what theyve done for three decades: survive; until the memory of the Earth they came from has become an indistinct and shadowed recollection of another time and another place. One month ago a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to pick them up and take them home. In just a moment well hear more of that ship, more of that home, and what it takes out of mind and body to reach it. This is the Twilight Zone.

The planet is a nightmare place of two suns, unending day and terrible meteor storms. Despair prevails among the 187 survivors of the original colony and suicide is not uncommon. Their thirty-year survival is attributable to one source: the iron leadership of Benteen, their self-appointed Captain. He has maintained order, told them tales of the wonders and beauties of Earth, and convinced them that rescue is imminent. Problems arise, however, when a rescue ship finally does arrive; Benteen has become so accustomed to absolute power over his people that he cannot relinquish command. When the survivors disobey his orders by pressing the crew of the rescue ship for stories of the Earth and then playing a baseball game with them, he begins to feel his power slipping.

He is determined that they all stay together on Earth, with him as their leader, but when he tells them of this they rebel. He becomes desperate; he tells them that Earth is not the paradise hed told of it is a hell and they will all die if they go there. They must stay here on the planet with him. Colonel Sloane, commander of the rescue ship, tells Benteen to let his people put it to a vote. Unanimously, they vote against Benteen. Raging, Benteen attacks the ship with a length of pipe. When he is pulled away, he angrily states that he intends to remain the rest of them can go or stay. As the ship prepares to depart, the crewmen search for Benteen but he hides from them, ignoring them when they say that if he doesnt leave now he will be stranded permanently. Deep in a cave, Benteen pretends that he is still surrounded by his people and recites again the litany of the glories of Earth. Suddenly, the meaning comes clear to him; for the first time, he actually remembers his home world. Frantically, he rushes outside, pleading not to be left behind. But it is too late: the ship is gone. Condemned by his own rigidity, Benteen is alone.

William Benteen, who had prerogatives: he could lead, he could direct, dictate, judge, legislate. It became a habit, then a pattern and finally a necessity. William Benteen, once a godnow a population of one.”

Serlings best effort on the hour-long shows came with On Thursday We Leave for Home, a science-fictional examination of the positive and negative uses of power.

Directed by Buzz Kulik, On Thursday We Leave for Home is a marvelous, engrossing story. As Benteen, James Whitmore is intelligent, gentle, commanding, andultimatelythoroughly blind and self-centered. His is an intense, riveting performance. In the beginning, before the arrival of the rescue ship, we see that Benteen actually is responsible for keeping the others alive, that were it not for him they would have given up long ago. Serlings writing is elegant and precise, and it is clear that he knows his character very well.

A marvelous example of Serlings writing comes following a meteor storm, as the colonists huddle in an enormous cavern. They are a wretched lot, hopeless and despairing. Then, gently, quietly, Benteen begins to tell them of the Earth, something he has done many, many times before. The one he is supposedly telling the story to is a little boy named Jo Jo (Daniel Kulick), but in reality hes speaking to them all:

benteen: … I was just a boy when we arrived here, I was fifteen years old, but I remember the Earth. I remember it as …a place of color. I remember, Jo Jo, that in the autumn … the leaves changed, turned different colors red, orange, gold. I remember streams of water that flowed down hillsides, and the water was sparkling and clear. I remember clouds in the sky, white, billowy things, floated like ships, like sails … And I remember night skies.

Night skies. Like endless black velvet, with stars, sometimes a moon hung as if suspended by wires, lit from inside.

jo jo: Whats night, Captain?

benteen: Night. Night is a quiet time, Jo Jo, when the Earth went to sleep. Kind of like a cover that it pulled over itself. Not like here, where we have the two suns always shining, always burning. It was darkness, Jo Jo, darkness that felt like a cool hand just brushed past tired eyes. And there was snow on winter nights. Gossamer stuff. It floated down and covered the Earth, made it all white, cool. And in the mornings we could go out and build a snowman, see our breath in the air, and it was good then, it was right.

jo jo: Captain, why did you leave there?

benteen: Well, we thought we could find another place like Earth, but with different beauties, Jo Jo, and we found this place. We thought we could escape war, we thought we couldwell, we thought that we could build an even better place. And it took us thirty years to find out that we left our home a billion miles away to be only visitors here, transients, cause you cant put down roots in this ground.

The most poignant moments in the episode comes at the end. As the rescue ship is taking off, Benteen is alone in the cavern. He pretends to be speaking to the colonists one by one, reciting again the old litany, assuming the roles of leader, guide, father confessor. As he reaches Jo Jo (pretends to reach Jo Jo, that is) he begins to rhapsodize about the Earth. At first, it is like before. Benteen has been so busy telling fairy stories and (when he didnt want them to leave) horror stories about the Earth, that he hadnt bothered to listen, hadnt really remembered. But suddenly, the reality of Earth, its beauty, its variety, hits home, and Benteen realizes the awful consequences of his decision to remain. Too late, he rushes out of the cave. Dont leave me here! he shouts. Dont leave me herel Suddenly, all the fury leaves him. All along, Benteen has been a man powered by rage; rage against the terrain and, when they turned against him, rage against the colonists. But now, his anger has run out. With a crushing softness, Benteen pleads, Please … I want to go home. The camera pulls up and back, revealing Benteen for what he is: a tiny and solitary figure in an uncaring landscape.

It was a shot that almost didnt come off. The set consisted of planetary terrain and a number of metal shacks in which the colonists live. Director of photography George T. Clemens recalls, Buzz said, Tomorrow well start with a really high camera. I said, Wait a minute. Lets get a ladder in here and see how this looks. When they did, they got a shocknone of the shacks had roofs! Sets normally dont have roofs, explains Clemens, because you have to put lights in there. So there was a hurry-up job at night to put tack and canvas over the tops of these shacks. We really had to do this overnight.

SEASONS END

In the spring of 1963, CBS renewed Twilight Zone for a fifth season, shortening it back to a half hour. The networks experiment had failed: Twilight Zone’s expanded size had not made for an expanded audience.

Our shows this season were too padded, Serling concluded at the end of the run. The bulk of our stories lacked the excitement and punch of the shorter dramas we intended when we started five years ago and kept to for a while. If you ask me, I think we had only one really effective show this season, On Thursday We Leave for Home. … Yes, I wrote it myself, but I overwrote it. I think the story was good despite what I did to it.

Objectively, Serlings assessment was too hard. There had been a number of fine hour-long episodes, among them On Thursday We Leave for Home, The Bard, Death Ship, In His Image, Jess-Belle, Miniature and The Incredible World of Horace Ford. The series had not disgraced itself.

But, clearly, by the end of the fourth season, the show was winding down. Increasingly over the next season, it would find itself trapped within its own cliches. After four years and 120 episodes, Twilight Zone was showing its age.

THE FIFTH SEASON:

WILLIAM FROUG