Speaker 1: A living man, A living man. I want to be
Speaker 1: a living man.
Speaker 2: In all, Tonight's Twilight Zone poses an unusual question, does
Speaker 2: a different kind of Twilight Zone call for a different
Speaker 2: kind of Twilight Zone podcast? Because how exactly am I
Speaker 2: supposed to present you with a selection of dialogue from
Speaker 2: an episode that barely has any dialogue at all? And
Speaker 2: how do I compare the work of a writer and
Speaker 2: director with their orther contributions to the series when they
Speaker 2: didn't actually make any Because this was never meant to
Speaker 2: be an episode of the Twilight Zone in the first place.
Speaker 2: Most episodes of the show stand alone as something uniquely
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone, and yes, a handful of them are adaptations
Speaker 2: of earlier works, but none of them arrived with quite
Speaker 2: the literary baggage of the story we're discussing tonight. In fact,
Speaker 2: one of the other anthology giants of that era, Alfred
Speaker 2: Hitchcock Presents, got there first, adapting this tale of full
Speaker 2: five years before Rod Sailing ever introduced it. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight,
Speaker 2: we're reminded that the twist that sudden Bend in the
Speaker 2: Road is older than the Twilight Zone itself. So let's
Speaker 2: step back in time and across a few borders, because
Speaker 2: there have been many occurrences at owl Creek Bridge, first
Speaker 2: printed on July thirteenth, eighteen ninety, written by Ambrose Biers
Speaker 2: and printed in the San Francisco Examiner. It's hard to
Speaker 2: imagine in this day and age that a story with
Speaker 2: such a long after life began its journey in the
Speaker 2: pages of a newspaper. But that's that's exactly how an
Speaker 2: occurrence at al Creek Bridge first entered the world. And
Speaker 2: when we peel back those pages and look a little deeper,
Speaker 2: it becomes clear that it isn't just the twist and
Speaker 2: the tale that makes Bias's story feel like a kind
Speaker 2: of proto Twilight Zone. It's also the man who wrote it.
Speaker 2: Ambrose Bius was born in eighteen forty two in a
Speaker 2: log cabin in Ohio, the tenth of thirteen children, all
Speaker 2: of them given names beginning with the letter A. His
Speaker 2: family was poor, but they valued books, and that early
Speaker 2: encouragement set him on the path to writing. At fifteen,
Speaker 2: he left home to work as a printer's devil at
Speaker 2: an abolitionist newspaper, sharpening both his craft and his political awareness.
Speaker 2: But it's what happened next that begins to draw the
Speaker 2: faced real parallels with rod Sailing. Because Ambrosebius's fiction is
Speaker 2: inseparable from his military service. When the American Civil War
Speaker 2: broke out, he enlisted at nineteen and spent the next
Speaker 2: four years in some of the conflict's most brutal campaigns.
Speaker 2: He served as a topographical engineer a map maker, which
Speaker 2: meant he was often at the front line sketching the
Speaker 2: landscape under fire. He witnessed horrors that reshaped him and
Speaker 2: suffered a severe head wound that nearly killed him. By
Speaker 2: the time the war ended, Bias had lost any patience
Speaker 2: for romantic notions of heroism. His writing became steeped in cynicism,
Speaker 2: the kind of cynicism aired through first hand experience of
Speaker 2: how quickly life can be over, and that worldview saturates
Speaker 2: his stories. D you writers painted war in noble colors,
Speaker 2: be a stripped at bear. In this particular story, his
Speaker 2: refusal to grant his protagonist a heroic escape, choosing instead
Speaker 2: to reveal a brutal, instantaneous death, is a direct expression
Speaker 2: of that post war disillusionment. It's the same unflinching honesty
Speaker 2: that would later define rod Sailing's own work. Two men
Speaker 2: decades apart, shaped by war into writers who could no
Speaker 2: longer look away from the truth. Now An Occurrence at
Speaker 2: Alcreek Bridge first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety, reaching a wide audience almost immediately. A year later,
Speaker 2: it was collected together with other stories in a collection
Speaker 2: called Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, And then as the
Speaker 2: years went on, it became one of the most anthologized
Speaker 2: works in American literature, a staple of classrooms, textbooks, and
Speaker 2: short story collections. So before we visit this story in
Speaker 2: a multitude of different forms, let's get a flavor of
Speaker 2: how Ambrose Biers originally wrote it. Peyton Farquhar, planter, patriot,
Speaker 2: and soon to be casualty of the American Civil War,
Speaker 2: stands on Alcreek Bridge, his wrists bound, a rope cinched
Speaker 2: around his neck, Union soldiers poised to hang him above
Speaker 2: the river below. And in this moment, where he has
Speaker 2: stood waiting for death, the world sharpens. His heartbeat ticks
Speaker 2: like a clock, sunlight flickers, and the man who once
Speaker 2: lived in comfort now finds himself balanced on a plank,
Speaker 2: one step from oblivion. But the path to this point
Speaker 2: began days earlier, when a weary soldier rode up to
Speaker 2: Farquhar's plantation, wearing the gray of the Confederacy. He spoke
Speaker 2: of Union troops repairing Alkrek Bridge and hinted carefully that
Speaker 2: a determined man might cripple the enemy with a single spark.
Speaker 2: What Farquhar didn't know was that this visitor was a
Speaker 2: Union scout in disguise, dangling temptation like bait. Farquhar, hungry
Speaker 2: for glory, took it, and that night he crept toward
Speaker 2: the bridge, but found only soldiers waiting for him. So,
Speaker 2: now stood on the bridge, the plank drops, the rope
Speaker 2: snaps tight, and suddenly he plunges into the river, breaking free,
Speaker 2: racing through the forest with a clarity that borders on
Speaker 2: the supernatural, He runs toward home, toward the vision of
Speaker 2: his wife waiting for him. He reaches for her, and
Speaker 2: the world collapses. Because Peyton Farquhar never escaped. His heroic
Speaker 2: flight was only the final frantic dream of a dying mind,
Speaker 2: and on Alcreek Bridge, in the last instant of his life,
Speaker 2: he discovered a truth that fits neatly into the fifth dimension.
Speaker 2: But what the short story has, and what the Twilight
Speaker 2: Zone version does not is a deeper insight into who
Speaker 2: Farquhah actually was. Bias makes it quite plain Farquhar was
Speaker 2: a wealthy Alabama planter, a slave owner, a secessionist, and
Speaker 2: a man who longed for the glory of war but
Speaker 2: never quite managed to join the fight. So this version
Speaker 2: of Farquhar isn't quite the tragic every man that some
Speaker 2: adaptations often present him. As he was a man undone
Speaker 2: by his own illusions. Now, this is a story that
Speaker 2: I personally have not been too familiar with, so I
Speaker 2: have scouted opinion on what it's really all about, and
Speaker 2: it seems that at the heart of the story, at
Speaker 2: its core, and a carnce at our creek bridge, is
Speaker 2: about self deception, the lies that we tell ourselves about
Speaker 2: who we are. Farquah imagines himself a hero destined for
Speaker 2: some noble act in war, but Beer shows us something
Speaker 2: far harsher, a man clinging to a fantasy of himself
Speaker 2: that never truly existed. His escape is that fantasy made real.
Speaker 2: For a heartbeat, the life he wished he'd lived, the
Speaker 2: courage he wished he'd had, and the ending he believed
Speaker 2: he deserved, and then Beas snaps us back to reality
Speaker 2: when he snaps Peyton Farquah's neck and reminds us that
Speaker 2: war doesn't honor our illusions, it cuts straight through them.
Speaker 2: So that's where it all began. But before we get
Speaker 2: to our ultimate destination, there are some other stops along
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 3: Suspence and the producer of radio is outstanding theater of thrills,
Speaker 3: the master of mystery and adventure, William and Robson.
Speaker 4: Every year, thousands of short stories roll out from a
Speaker 4: multitude of typewriters and march across the pages of our
Speaker 4: magazines and books toward well deserved oblivion. Few are memorable.
Speaker 4: Fewers still are classics. They passed the time and are
Speaker 4: forgotten even before the paper in which they are written
Speaker 4: is reduced to blackened ash. But occasionally a story has
Speaker 4: written that is a true classic, an unforgettable tale. Listen
Speaker 4: to such a one now, as Victor Joy stars in
Speaker 4: Ambrose Bierce's Weird and Wonderful Story of the Civil War.
Speaker 4: An Occurrence at Our Creek Bridge, a tale well calculated
Speaker 4: to keep you in.
Speaker 2: Suspense before they ever came to television. The thing that
Speaker 2: made an occurrence at our Creek Bridge. Such a natural
Speaker 2: fit for radio was its focus on what was happening
Speaker 2: inside Peyton Farquhar's mind. Ambrose Bius fills the story with
Speaker 2: heightened sounds, sharp sensory details, and that eerie slow motion
Speaker 2: quality of a man on the edge of death, and radio,
Speaker 2: especially in its golden age, had all the tools to
Speaker 2: be able to present that. Using voices, music, and sound effects,
Speaker 2: Producers could drop listeners straight into a character's head, so
Speaker 2: it's no surprise that the story became a favorite for
Speaker 2: anyone looking to deliver a tight psychological thriller. One of
Speaker 2: the first major adaptations aired on the Columbia Workshop back
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty six, so even that early on, it
Speaker 2: was clear that the story's suspense and that devastating twist
Speaker 2: worked beautifully when everything was carried by sound, no visuals,
Speaker 2: no special effects, just a listener's imagination doing the heavy lifting.
Speaker 2: But the real champion of this story on radio was
Speaker 2: writer and director William N. Robson, and he created a
Speaker 2: script that became the go to version for several years,
Speaker 2: and his first take aired on the adventure series Escape
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty seven with Harry Bartel as Peyton.
Speaker 5: Fark.
Speaker 2: Then the story migrated over to the legendary anthology series Suspense,
Speaker 2: which used Robson's script again and again, and at least
Speaker 2: three different productions went out over the years, featuring big
Speaker 2: names like Victor Jori in nineteen fifty six, Joseph Cotton
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty seven, and Vincent Price in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2: And if you listen back to the prelude to our
Speaker 2: creak Bridge episode that I put out last November, that's
Speaker 2: the version you can hear. So when a story gets
Speaker 2: five major network productions over more than two decades, clearly
Speaker 2: it's hit a nerve. However, there did need to be
Speaker 2: some changes made to make it fit on the radio. Now,
Speaker 2: internal dialogue is fine on the radio, and you can
Speaker 2: use things like a narrator, as the suspense version does,
Speaker 2: but it's still tough to have a radio play which
Speaker 2: is purely the internal, unspoken thoughts of one person. Now,
Speaker 2: if you think back to the Vincent Price version of
Speaker 2: the play, there are a couple of things of notes.
Speaker 2: First is the use of this.
Speaker 6: Music cue the nuts given again, I'll try once more.
Speaker 6: That does it? You must breathe when you come to
Speaker 6: the surface. You must breathe quickly for the heaven hanger,
Speaker 6: and they fail to drown you. You can't let them
Speaker 6: shoot you deep breath.
Speaker 7: You dive deeply, but above the ringing in your ears,
Speaker 7: you hear the volley of the rifles. As you rise
Speaker 7: towards the surface, you meet shining bits of metal, singularly flattened,
Speaker 7: the distorted and spent bullets oscillating slowly downward.
Speaker 3: Pasture.
Speaker 7: One catches in your collar and it feels uncomfortably warm.
Speaker 7: You snatch it out, and this great piece of yeke
Speaker 7: lib remande, of the gray uniform and the soldier who
Speaker 7: is responsible for you being here.
Speaker 2: Now, that piece of music is called time Suspense, and
Speaker 2: it's from Bernard Herman's set of musical cues called the
Speaker 2: outer Space Suite. And these short pieces of music are
Speaker 2: dotted throughout the Twilight Zone, but not just the Twilight Zone. Now.
Speaker 2: I do vaguely remember talking about these in the early
Speaker 2: days of the Twilight Zone podcast. But basically, the Outer
Speaker 2: Space Suite is Bernard Herman's way of creating a set
Speaker 2: of cues for CBS radio in the nineteen forties, music
Speaker 2: that evoked certain feelings but was also universal enough that
Speaker 2: it could be inserted into several different types of stories.
Speaker 2: They were mood pieces, and because Herman wrote these for
Speaker 2: the CBS Music Library, producers could use them whenever they
Speaker 2: needed that kind of eerie atmosphere, and they did constantly.
Speaker 2: So shows like The Twilight Zone reached for these cues
Speaker 2: again and again because they instantly created certain types of mood. So,
Speaker 2: in a strange way, the Outer Space Suite became a
Speaker 2: kind of unofficial soundtrack for this era of American science fiction.
Speaker 2: But the second thing of note about the radio version
Speaker 2: is that it features a character who wasn't in the
Speaker 2: original story.
Speaker 7: I thought you were dead?
Speaker 1: Who me did?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 7: You thought jeffro was dead. You knew he had consumption
Speaker 7: when you sold him. You knew it couldn't last long,
Speaker 7: and he wasn't earning his keep. His wife and his
Speaker 7: daughter carried on some at first, but after a while
Speaker 7: they calmed down, and last you heard, Jeffrow was dead.
Speaker 5: You thought I did moss back right? Well, don't you
Speaker 5: know what done happened to me? I'm free. I'm free
Speaker 5: at last. Yes, I'm free, and I expect pretty soon
Speaker 5: my woman and my little girl, when I come along
Speaker 5: and enjoin men how is there, Massquak, Why as they were?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes, indeed they both find Jeffroy Jeter. Don't
Speaker 7: I don't know how to say this, but I really
Speaker 7: was sorry about having to tell you. But there wasn't
Speaker 7: anything else.
Speaker 5: One understands, mass spok. Why don't you fear it? No mind?
Speaker 5: I don't forgive you long ago? Don't the Lord toss
Speaker 5: to forgive those who trespasses against us? And don't the
Speaker 5: Lord promise us we shall be free? Don't you worry
Speaker 5: none about it?
Speaker 6: Massock?
Speaker 5: Hey, Hannah, quite quiet, Chigar, I must raise it back
Speaker 5: in the breath.
Speaker 2: So in this radio version, Jestro is introduced, partly for
Speaker 2: practical reasons. Far Qua needs someone to talk to otherwise
Speaker 2: the adaptation becomes a mind talking to himself for.
Speaker 1: Half an hour.
Speaker 2: But Jethro's presence in the story does something far more revealing, too,
Speaker 2: because it builds upon what we learned in the original
Speaker 2: story about Farquhar and his allegiances, his ownership of slaves
Speaker 2: and a kind of fairther solidifies him as a man
Speaker 2: who's actually earned a bit of cosmic justice.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 2: Blowing up Owl Creek Bridge in wartime is one thing.
Speaker 2: It's brutal, but it's part of the machinery of conflict.
Speaker 2: But what's harder to stomach is the way that Farquhar
Speaker 2: treats Jethro. At first, he's genuinely pleased to see him,
Speaker 2: and then he casually drops this grotesque apology, Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: sorry for selling you Jethro delivered with the emotional weight
Speaker 2: of someone apologizing for misplacing a book, and through his
Speaker 2: own internal monol, we learn that he sold Jethro while
Speaker 2: still keeping his wife and child enslaved. One moment, he's
Speaker 2: grateful for Jethro's help, and the next he snaps back
Speaker 2: to the language of ownership, calling him insolent, And even
Speaker 2: after Jethro helps him, he still refers to him as
Speaker 2: a wall gathering black who talks crazy in his internal monologue,
Speaker 2: so we truly get to see the man beneath this
Speaker 2: romanticized fasad that he is set up for himself. What
Speaker 2: the radio version solidifies is that while Farquhar thinks himself
Speaker 2: as the hero of this story, he's actually the villain.
Speaker 2: But it also gives a hint as to the truth
Speaker 2: of what happened In the biggest story. Jethro was thought
Speaker 2: to have been dead so Farquhar. Seeing him gives us
Speaker 2: a strong suspicion that maybe he is too.
Speaker 3: He runs across the lawn, arms outstretched.
Speaker 7: Haeydon, my dear, your back, just as you promised you'll
Speaker 7: be for this moment.
Speaker 3: You have endured the agonies of this day.
Speaker 7: And where those agonies multiplied a thousand times, they would
Speaker 7: be small price for the benison of this breast, the
Speaker 7: sanctuary of these arms, the security of these lips. You
Speaker 7: stepped forward, the folge of wife and your embrace.
Speaker 10: The rope stretched tight sang like a bowstring. Peyton Farquhar
Speaker 10: was dead. His body with a broken neck, swung gently
Speaker 10: from side to side beneath the timbers of owl Creek Bridge.
Speaker 2: So as we stand on our creek bridge and look
Speaker 2: at yet another version of Peyton Farquhar hanging on it
Speaker 2: below us, let us look ahead to see whether the
Speaker 2: next version of him will fare any better.
Speaker 9: Good evening, and welcome to Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Please excuse
Speaker 9: me if I speak rapidly. I have a very short fuse.
Speaker 9: Tonight's Play is a period piece which takes place during
Speaker 9: the War between the States, when space travel was limited
Speaker 9: to this primitive means I shall be in orbit during
Speaker 9: the next minute, so I'm afraid I shall miss the commercial. However,
Speaker 9: my sponsor has arranged matters so that as I go
Speaker 9: through the sky, I shall spell out his product.
Speaker 1: He Figure Him Best.
Speaker 2: Broadcast on December twentieth, nineteen fifty nine. Written by Harold
Speaker 2: Swanton and based on the story by Ambrose Bears and
Speaker 2: directed by Robert Stephenson. In the same year that The
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone debuted, Alfred Hitchcock Presents was already in its
Speaker 2: fifth year, and episode fifteen of the fifth season was
Speaker 2: an adaptation of an occurrence at owl Creek Bridge, and
Speaker 2: while it might not be as critically lauded as its
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone counterpart, it is a solid and enjoyable piece
Speaker 2: of television. And behind the camera was Robert Stevenson, who
Speaker 2: would go on to direct a number of Disney hits
Speaker 2: which included Mary Poppins and Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. In
Speaker 2: front of the camera in the Peyton Farquar role was
Speaker 2: Ronald Howard. Not that Ronald Howard, no, this one. Was
Speaker 2: a British born actor who worked solidly through the forties
Speaker 2: to the seventies in film and television, and he was
Speaker 2: also joined by pre Twilight Zone James Cobairn. Now, in
Speaker 2: this version of the story, that are several things that
Speaker 2: I think are meant to soft from the character of
Speaker 2: Peyton farquhas somewhat from the previous versions. In this one.
Speaker 2: He is actually a widower whose pregnant wife died not
Speaker 2: too long ago, and we get the impression that he
Speaker 2: sets himself up for the mission to destroy our Creek
Speaker 2: Bridge because there's nothing a home for him anymore. He
Speaker 2: wants to do something to feel useful, important, that.
Speaker 8: Country's foreman with pedul troops. You told me so yourself.
Speaker 8: The answer much too great for me to let you
Speaker 8: take a risk. Sorried you did your part of Chiloh,
Speaker 8: and Melita needs you worse than we do, by the
Speaker 8: ways you know about this, Oh dear, you never let
Speaker 8: me explain.
Speaker 4: You didn't tell her.
Speaker 1: Don't you think you owe to her?
Speaker 8: Don't you think you oweered that much? But do you
Speaker 8: think you'll do in case? You're both taking wish you
Speaker 8: work takes off for maybe one ta What about Blizzy?
Speaker 1: What about that young one of you?
Speaker 8: Or she's carrying used to be her? Times almost here
Speaker 8: warre it. Time's come and gone. What do you mean
Speaker 8: she died a week ago? The baby too.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: I don't just see.
Speaker 1: I'll have to do something.
Speaker 8: I can't just live out the war in the empty house.
Speaker 8: I better take a riancy road.
Speaker 3: There's a trail that leads off it through the piney
Speaker 3: woods that.
Speaker 8: You want to be killed.
Speaker 1: Because you would be you know, and done.
Speaker 2: Like his Twilight Zone counterpart, in this version, Barqua isn't
Speaker 2: hanged until halfway through the episode, and we get the
Speaker 2: full backstory of how he ended up at Owl Creek.
Speaker 2: But when he is hanged and the rope breaks this
Speaker 2: time round again, he flees from the soldiers trying to
Speaker 2: shoot him. But instead of having him make towards home
Speaker 2: on his own, like in the original story and in
Speaker 2: the Twilight Zone version, he too meets up with someone else.
Speaker 2: This time he meets up with Josh. Now you'll remember
Speaker 2: in the radio version, far Koor meets up with Jethrow,
Speaker 2: a slave who he used to own.
Speaker 8: Josh, you're alive, Milburn down. We thought you went with
Speaker 8: any greet the six. Yes, Josh, you gotta hide me, Gosh, please,
Speaker 8: they're coming for me. They want to kill me. Men
Speaker 8: wanted to kill each other? That most nonsensical idea I
Speaker 8: ever heard of. Men wanted to kill all the time?
Speaker 11: What for?
Speaker 8: No gosh please, they're right over there. Nobody's gonna kill
Speaker 8: nobody if I get anything to say about it.
Speaker 1: You come along with me, mister Parker. Never mind, just
Speaker 1: follow me now.
Speaker 2: The Alfred Hitchcock version tiptoes around the prickly subject of
Speaker 2: slave ownership. There is a woman servant at the house
Speaker 2: who we think is probably a slave because of the
Speaker 2: time period, and we get the impression that Josh too
Speaker 2: was likely enslaved, but the episode never explicitly talks about
Speaker 2: these things again, maybe in a bid to make this
Speaker 2: version of Farquha a bit less harsh than the radio version. However,
Speaker 2: when Farquah does get home, we get that familiar scene
Speaker 2: where he sees his wife, but because we already know
Speaker 2: that his wife is dead, it more or less gives
Speaker 2: away the surprise that Farquha is dead too, So while
Speaker 2: this does warners of the twist, before we actually get
Speaker 2: to the twist, there is a really good moment where
Speaker 2: although Farquah is happy to see his wife, there's a
Speaker 2: moment of confusion. Then realization on his face that if
Speaker 2: he's here, then perhaps he too is dead. And then
Speaker 2: we cut to the noose tightening around his neck.
Speaker 8: And listen, all right, you put on that.
Speaker 2: So now, with three versions of Peyton Farquhar hanging on
Speaker 2: the bridge below us, let's take a step closer to
Speaker 2: our ultimate destination. First released in nineteen sixty one, based
Speaker 2: on a short story by Ambrose Biers and written and
Speaker 2: directed by Robert Enrico. So before we get into this version,
Speaker 2: I have to thank friend of the show Ben for
Speaker 2: providing me with a copy of the original film, and
Speaker 2: friend of the show Travis for providing me with copies
Speaker 2: of the music. And here we are. Before it ever
Speaker 2: became a Twilight Zone episode and a carernce at ou
Speaker 2: Creek Bridge had already lived a full life as a
Speaker 2: French short film. In nineteen sixty one, director Robert Enrico
Speaker 2: adapted the Ambrose Biist story as a standalone piece of
Speaker 2: French cinema titled La Riviere to hebou the al River.
Speaker 2: It wasn't made for television, and it certainly wasn't made
Speaker 2: with American audiences in mind. And it was actually one
Speaker 2: of a small trilogy of Ambrose bias stories that Enrico
Speaker 2: was exploring at the time. Now, the film itself is
Speaker 2: almost entirely wordless, and then Rico leans on natural sound,
Speaker 2: stark imagery, and long stretches of silence to pull us
Speaker 2: into Farquard's experience. It has that distinctly European early sixties sensibility, slow,
Speaker 2: poetic and unafraid to let the moment breathe. And before
Speaker 2: anybody at CBS ever saw it, the film had already
Speaker 2: won Award to Can and went on to win an
Speaker 2: Academy Award for Best Short Subject, and in France it
Speaker 2: was regarded as a serious piece of filmmaking, not a
Speaker 2: curiosity within a show like The Twilight Zone. And then
Speaker 2: Rico later grouped it with his other short Bias adaptations
Speaker 2: into a feature length anthology, which translates as in the
Speaker 2: Midst of Life, which only deepened its reputation as a
Speaker 2: work of quiet anti war reflex So by the time
Speaker 2: it eventually reached American television, it was already well celebrated
Speaker 2: in its own right. So the big question is how
Speaker 2: does the film version differ from the Twilight Zone version. Well,
Speaker 2: fasd off, it's slightly longer, at twenty six minutes and
Speaker 2: thirty eight seconds versus the Twilight Zone which comes in
Speaker 2: around twenty four to eighty five, which includes the opening
Speaker 2: and closing credits plus road sailings intro. But what that
Speaker 2: extra time amounts to on screen in the film version
Speaker 2: is probably what you would expect, longer scenes of far
Speaker 2: Quar running while escaping. But the biggest difference is that
Speaker 2: while the film is almost entirely wordless, it isn't completely wordless.
Speaker 2: In this version there is some internal dialogue from the
Speaker 2: far Quark character that doesn't make its way into the
Speaker 2: two Wirelight Zone version for obvious reasons. It's in French.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Thankfully, this episode of the Twilight Zone podcast really has
Speaker 2: been a team effort, and I have to thank my
Speaker 2: French correspondent Emmanuel for translating these for me. So, at
Speaker 2: five minutes and forty five seconds into the film, Peyton
Speaker 2: Farqua is standing on the bridge with a noose around
Speaker 2: his neck. Get quar Bison, How slowly it moves? What
Speaker 2: a lazy current. Then at seven forty nine, just as
Speaker 2: he is about to behind.
Speaker 12: She shall use set to cases or did I.
Speaker 2: If I could free up my hands, I might be
Speaker 2: able to free myself from the noose and jump into
Speaker 2: the river. By diving, I could escape the bullets, swim
Speaker 2: to the shore, reach the woods, flee. Then at twelve ten,
Speaker 2: after he is dropped from the bridge and is in
Speaker 2: the water and the soldiers are shooting.
Speaker 12: At him, chills rukerries, you agree, at Batikuria person.
Speaker 2: This eye is gray. I once read that gray eyes
Speaker 2: were particularly piercing. All elite soldiers have gray eyes. When
Speaker 2: you put Ambrose Biersa's original story side by side with
Speaker 2: Robert Enrico's French adaptation, what you really see are two
Speaker 2: artists approach the same idea from different angles, one through language,
Speaker 2: the other through pure image. Because Bis's story is sharp,
Speaker 2: it's ironic, and it dissects Peyton Farquhar on the page,
Speaker 2: he gives us a man who is not the hero
Speaker 2: that he imagines himself to be. We're told about his background,
Speaker 2: his pretensions, his romanticized view of the war. So Bis
Speaker 2: lets us inside Farquar's head, and that's where the story lives,
Speaker 2: in the gap between the man's fantasy and the cold
Speaker 2: reality waiting for him on the bridge. Enrico's film, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, strips almost all of that away. It
Speaker 2: is nearly wordless, and instead of irony, it gives us
Speaker 2: atmosphere instead of internal monologue. It gives us the physical world,
Speaker 2: the water, the tree, the sound of birds, the rhythm
Speaker 2: of footsteps on wooden planks. And where Baist tells us
Speaker 2: what Farquhar thinks of himself, Enrico simply shows us what
Speaker 2: he sees. The film is more of a sensory experience,
Speaker 2: a dream that you drift into without realizing it. And
Speaker 2: because it's so quiet, so visually hypnotic, the twist lands
Speaker 2: in a very different way, and it's not necessarily someone
Speaker 2: facing their cosmic justice like the original version of Peyton Farquhar.
Speaker 2: So tonally, these two pieces are very different Biasa's story
Speaker 2: has a clear anti romantic edge, a war veteran's disdain
Speaker 2: for the myths that people build around the war, whereas
Speaker 2: Enrico's film, I don't personally think carries that kind of
Speaker 2: a message. It's less about the Civil War specifically, and
Speaker 2: more about the fragility of life, the way that the
Speaker 2: mind reaches for beauty. In its final moments, the film
Speaker 2: doesn't judge Farquhar like the literary and radio versions do
Speaker 2: it simply observes him, and that is where the most
Speaker 2: striking difference lies. For me, Biers presents Farquhar as something
Speaker 2: close to a villain, a man blinded by ego entitlement
Speaker 2: and this romanticized view of conflict. The radio version pushes
Speaker 2: this even fairther, painting him as cruel and selfish, someone
Speaker 2: with little regard for the human lives that he buys
Speaker 2: and sells. But in Enrico's film and later in the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone, all of that political and moral context is
Speaker 2: stripped away. We're told not in of Farquhar as a
Speaker 2: slave owner. Now, if you know the history of the
Speaker 2: American Civil War, you might recognize the un uniforms of
Speaker 2: the soldiers who execute him, But beyond that, he's a
Speaker 2: blank slate.
Speaker 8: Who is he?
Speaker 2: What has he done? Is he guilty of something terrible
Speaker 2: or simply a man caught in the wrong place at
Speaker 2: the wrong time. So while both versions followed the same structure,
Speaker 2: the hanging, the escape, the final reveal, they're doing different things.
Speaker 2: Baist gives us a psychological critique of Farquar. Enrico gives
Speaker 2: us a poetic meditation. One is about the stories that
Speaker 2: we tell ourselves about who we are. The other is
Speaker 2: about the sensations that we cling to when the world
Speaker 2: is slipping away.
Speaker 7: What wat.
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: There are four versions of Peyton Farco are hanging below us,
Speaker 2: necessary casualties to ghettos, to our ultimate destination, the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 13: Tonight of presentation so special and unique that for the
Speaker 13: first time in the five years we've been presenting the
Speaker 13: Twilight Zone, we're offering a film shot in France by others.
Speaker 13: Winner of the Canned Film Festival in nineteen sixty two
Speaker 13: as well as other international awards. Here is a haunting
Speaker 13: study of the incredible from the past master of the Incredible,
Speaker 13: Ambrose Bierce. Here is the French production of an Occurrence
Speaker 13: at All Creek.
Speaker 2: Bridge, first broadcast on February twenty eight, nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: Written by Robert Enrico and based on a story by
Speaker 2: Ambrose Bias and directed by Robert Enrico. Now the most
Speaker 2: comprehensive telling about how this short French film became an
Speaker 2: episode of this iconic American television show. You need look
Speaker 2: no further than, of course, Unlocking the Door to a
Speaker 2: television classic by Martin Graham's Junior. And there are also
Speaker 2: some details in The Twilight Zone Companion by Mark Zickrey III.
Speaker 2: So as I previously mentioned, the original film was well received,
Speaker 2: and Martin Graham's junior quote some of the reviews in
Speaker 2: Unlocking the Door to a television classic. One reviewer called
Speaker 2: it stunning and a hallucinatory film, praising its dreamlike photography
Speaker 2: and its surreal recreation of Civil War imagery, and another
Speaker 2: critic marveled at its sensory detail. They said that the
Speaker 2: photography caresses the trees and the water with lovely effect.
Speaker 2: The soundtrack heightened the innocent cries of bairds and chaps
Speaker 2: of the cricket. In its original form, the film won
Speaker 2: first prize for Short Subjects at the nineteen sixty two
Speaker 2: cant Film Festival, and the following year it took home
Speaker 2: the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. And
Speaker 2: this is where Rod Sailing enters the picture. In April
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty three, Winsor Lewis of Kapagarev Productions wrote
Speaker 2: to Sailing inviting him to a private screening of the
Speaker 2: original French film. Sailing accepted, and after seeing it, he
Speaker 2: was immediately taken with what he'd watched In a letter
Speaker 2: back to Lewis, he called it one of the finest
Speaker 2: produced and directed items I've seen in a good long time,
Speaker 2: and this admiration led to Rod Sailing wanting the film
Speaker 2: for the Twilight Zone, which meant navigating the labyrinth of
Speaker 2: CBS budgets, writes, negotiations, and of course, the question of cost.
Speaker 14: Now.
Speaker 2: At first it seemed like the deal would be impossible.
Speaker 2: CBS wasn't willing to spend much, and Sailing reluctantly wrote
Speaker 2: that he had given up the whole affair, but with
Speaker 2: real regret because the network simply wouldn't pay what the
Speaker 2: distributors were asking. But then things shifted and a few
Speaker 2: weeks later Rod Sailing reached out again, this time with
Speaker 2: a concrete offer twenty thousand dollars for one network broadcast,
Speaker 2: with the option for a second airing to be renegotiated
Speaker 2: later on, and CBS authorized him to make the deal
Speaker 2: and the French producers agreed at thirty five milimeter print
Speaker 2: was shipped to MGM Studios, where William Frug, the show's
Speaker 2: producer at the time, screened it with CBS executives, and
Speaker 2: Frug later recalled his fierce reaction to the film to
Speaker 2: Mark Zickery and the Twilight Zone companion, and he says
Speaker 2: it was almost entirely silent. There were maybe half a
Speaker 2: dozen lines in it, and those one brief ballad in English.
Speaker 2: Of all things. CBS was very reluctant a French film
Speaker 2: on television. Who ever heard of such a thing? But
Speaker 2: I convinced them with that one airing, we immediately took
Speaker 2: care of the whole year's overage. It brought us out
Speaker 2: at the end of the year under budget, so an
Speaker 2: occurrnce at Alcreek Bridge didn't just become a Twilight Zone episode.
Speaker 2: It was the Twilight Zone episode that allowed the show
Speaker 2: to come in under budget in season five, and once
Speaker 2: the rights were secured, the French film was edited down
Speaker 2: to fit within the series timeslot, and CBS engineers tested
Speaker 2: the darker, more impressionistic scenes to make sure they would
Speaker 2: broadcast properly. Separate tracks of dialogue, music and effects were
Speaker 2: supplied by the French producers and the Twilight Zone team
Speaker 2: recut the film. They even altered the gunshot sounds to
Speaker 2: make them feel more like cannon fire, preserving the film's
Speaker 2: dreamlike tone.
Speaker 1: A living man, A living man, I want to Be
Speaker 1: a Living Man Now.
Speaker 2: One of the most striking and unusual aspects of the
Speaker 2: French film and the Twilight Zone episode, and something that
Speaker 2: sets it apart from all the other adaptations that we've
Speaker 2: looked at tonight is its music. Because this score wasn't
Speaker 2: farmed out to a studio composer. It was created by
Speaker 2: a gentleman called Henry Lena, who would later become a
Speaker 2: celebrated film editor and Mark Graham's junior quotes him in
Speaker 2: Unlocking the Door to a television classic. He says, when
Speaker 2: I was young, I studied music. With my background, I
Speaker 2: myself compose the music you hear in the short film.
Speaker 2: My music was in part the success of the film A.
Speaker 1: Living Man, A Living Man, I would be a living
Speaker 1: man now.
Speaker 2: One thing that is present in both versions. If you
Speaker 2: watch the scene where the soldiers are running on the bridge,
Speaker 2: you will see that actually the film is not in
Speaker 2: slow motion. The actors are just actually miming being in
Speaker 2: slow motion.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, it wouldn't be The Twilight Zone without Rod
Speaker 2: Sailing's introduction, and because of the very unique nature of
Speaker 2: this film, it wasn't the version of Rod Sailing that
Speaker 2: I often describe as being part of the fiction. This
Speaker 2: was Rod Sailing giving his respect and introducing the film
Speaker 2: to the American audience, and Martin Graham's junior in Unlocking
Speaker 2: the Door to a television classic, had an alternate opening
Speaker 2: narration by Rod Sailing or tread Tonight on the Twilight
Speaker 2: Zone a special event, a program made outside of the
Speaker 2: United States that seems to us to be so different,
Speaker 2: so effective, and so meaningful that we offer it to
Speaker 2: you now. And when the episode aired on February twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four, the critics were enthusiastic. Variety praised it
Speaker 2: as a fascinating and Dearie Ambrose bist tale that fits
Speaker 2: perfectly into the Twilight Zone format, and another reviewer noted
Speaker 2: that its unusual camera technique made it feel as though
Speaker 2: it had been filmed one hundred years ago.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Due to how the contract was written, CBS was only
Speaker 2: allowed to broadcasts the original airing and the single repeat,
Speaker 2: and after that the rights reverted to the French distributors,
Speaker 2: and when CBS later purchased the Twilight'sonne library, this episode
Speaker 2: was excluded from syndication and it became one of those
Speaker 2: lost episodes, ones that fans desperately want to get in
Speaker 2: their collection. Now, Thankfully, it seems that at some point
Speaker 2: some deal was made because the episode is included in
Speaker 2: the DVD and Blu Ray sets. But whether it's actually
Speaker 2: shown on American television anymore, you'll have to let me know.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: It's normally at this point where I'll let you know
Speaker 2: what I think of the episode, but I think because
Speaker 2: of the unique format of this episode of the Twilight
Speaker 2: Zone podcast, I'll save those thoughts for later on now.
Speaker 2: Undoubtedly there will be other versions of an accair in
Speaker 2: Satau Creek Bridge out there, but this was never meant
Speaker 2: to be a definitive list of all of them. It
Speaker 2: was more to cover the ones that are relevant to
Speaker 2: the Twilight Zone. So with that in mind, as one
Speaker 2: more vasion of Farquhar joins his or the cells below
Speaker 2: the bridge, that is still one more who is yet
Speaker 2: to step in to the hangman's noose.
Speaker 15: You have just witnessed a military execution. Death is a
Speaker 15: dignitary who, when he comes announced, is to be received
Speaker 15: with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar
Speaker 15: with him. This particular execution occurred on Owl Creek Bridge
Speaker 15: in northern Alabama during the War between the States. You
Speaker 15: might find it in the works of that past master
Speaker 15: of the incredible Ambrose Biers, but it's proper home is
Speaker 15: in the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone and our story
Speaker 15: an occurrence at owl Creek Bridge starring Christian Statty with
Speaker 15: Stacy Keatsch as your narrator.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be one of these deep dives if we
Speaker 2: didn't pay a visit to Twilight Zone Radio, the series
Speaker 2: that could be astonishingly imaginative when tackling the most difficult
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone stories to adapt. An ol Creek Bridge is
Speaker 2: certainly one of those. Now I won't linger too long here,
Speaker 2: but there are some fascinating choices in how the radio
Speaker 2: drama both pays tribute to the television version and expands
Speaker 2: the story to fill that forty five minute running time
Speaker 2: that these productions tend to have. So let's start with
Speaker 2: Peyton Farqua himself. After Bias's original story and the suspense
Speaker 2: radio version, the next few adaptations softened him considerably. By
Speaker 2: the time he reaches the Twilight Zone, most of the
Speaker 2: rougher edges have been sanded away. Gone is the more
Speaker 2: callous self mythologizing figure that Bias wrote, and for me
Speaker 2: at least, that shift dramatically reframes what the story is about.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: The Twilight Zone radio version steps back somewhat from that softening.
Speaker 2: It reintroduces the idea of who Farqua really was and
Speaker 2: what his position in this conflict actually meant, but it
Speaker 2: also acknowledges that life and death can be full of
Speaker 2: gray areas. For example, in this version, the soldier preparing
Speaker 2: to hang him seems to take a certain place pleasure
Speaker 2: in the act taunting him beforehand, and it's a moment
Speaker 2: that pushes Farqua into an exclamation that I'm sure you'll recognize.
Speaker 15: He gives a signal to the sergeant. The sergeant steps aside,
Speaker 15: the blank tilts, and down you go.
Speaker 14: No, never having been hanged myself, I can't give you
Speaker 14: any information on what your final moments on this earth.
Speaker 5: Might feel like.
Speaker 14: But I can't tell you I've seen more than a
Speaker 14: few of these, and I'm sorry to have to tell
Speaker 14: you it doesn't look any too pleasant.
Speaker 1: Anything to say about.
Speaker 16: That, well, well, I am a living man.
Speaker 14: How's that?
Speaker 1: Speak up, Peyton?
Speaker 14: If you got any famous last words, we should hear them. Otherwise,
Speaker 14: they won't be famous.
Speaker 11: I am a living man.
Speaker 14: Not for much longer, No, sir, not for much longer.
Speaker 2: It makes sense to restore some of those Harsher traits
Speaker 2: because radio simply can't replicate the dreamlike visual quality of
Speaker 2: the French film or the Twilight Zone episode. They tell
Speaker 2: us farc our sense as are heightened, but it just
Speaker 2: doesn't land the same way. So instead the drama leans
Speaker 2: into character and conflict. Unlike the old suspense version, this
Speaker 2: Farquhar doesn't make his imagine journey home alone.
Speaker 11: So how much further?
Speaker 16: What much further to?
Speaker 11: Where where am I your home? Mister Farquhar? How much further?
Speaker 17: A little, a little further? Just keep along this road.
Speaker 17: I'm sorry, I'm somewhat confused.
Speaker 11: Hardly surprising. You've just woken up, mister Farquhar.
Speaker 16: You know my name?
Speaker 11: Mmm, you're mister Peyton Farquhar.
Speaker 16: How do you know my name?
Speaker 11: You told me right after I found you on the
Speaker 11: bank of the river, the bank, the Southern bank. When
Speaker 11: I discovered you, you were digging your fingers into the sand,
Speaker 11: throwing it over yourself in handfuls, and almost blessing it.
Speaker 16: That doesn't sound like the sort of thing i'd do.
Speaker 11: You don't remember. No, well, it's what you did. You
Speaker 11: said it reminded you of diamonds, rubies, emeralds. I said
Speaker 11: that I got the impression there was nothing beautiful. You
Speaker 11: didn't think it resembled naturally. I was quite convinced at
Speaker 11: that moment that you were insane.
Speaker 17: No offense, sir, sounds like a very natural reaction. I
Speaker 17: would have come to the same conclusion.
Speaker 11: Well, sir, I've been from one end of this great
Speaker 11: land to the other, and I've met many madmen, but
Speaker 11: never a madman with such a poetic grasp of the language.
Speaker 11: That was when I knew you were just too interesting
Speaker 11: to leave where I found you.
Speaker 1: I do remember.
Speaker 16: I was so content there, more than I've ever been
Speaker 16: in my right then and there.
Speaker 17: I had no wish to perfect my escape. I was
Speaker 17: happy to remain in that enchant and spot until they
Speaker 17: recaptured me.
Speaker 11: Recaptured. Eh, you haven't mentioned that before. You're a man
Speaker 11: on the.
Speaker 17: Run, then forgive me, miss. I'm sorry, I don't seem
Speaker 17: to be able to recall your name.
Speaker 11: It'll come to.
Speaker 2: You this time. He isn't accompanied by an enslaved person,
Speaker 2: but he is joined by mysterious figure. And this figure
Speaker 2: gives off a hint of the devil as played by
Speaker 2: Sebastian Cabot in a nice place to visit. But he's
Speaker 2: actually something entirely new to this adaptation. But if you
Speaker 2: want to remain unspoiled about who he actually is, then
Speaker 2: skip ahead for a couple of minutes, because I'm about
Speaker 2: to reveal it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 16: This is it. We're here, this is the path to
Speaker 16: my home.
Speaker 11: Excellent, Well, I suppose this is where we part company,
Speaker 11: mister Farquhar. May I say, it's a rare pleasure.
Speaker 17: You are You wouldn't care to come in? I'm sure
Speaker 17: the servants could prepare you a meal.
Speaker 11: That won't be necessary, my friend, I have many miles
Speaker 11: still to travel, but your journey is almost at an end.
Speaker 16: Yes, well, goodbye, mister. I'm sorry.
Speaker 17: I thought I could recall your name, but it just
Speaker 17: escapes me.
Speaker 11: Call me Ambrose.
Speaker 16: I wish you well, Ambrose.
Speaker 12: And you, mister Peyton Farquhar, and you, as we discover,
Speaker 12: the mind calls himself Ambrose. And at first I wasn't
Speaker 12: quite sure how I felt about that, because it clearly
Speaker 12: isn't meant to be the historical ambrose Bi as maybe
Speaker 12: suggesting that this is the true event that he later
Speaker 12: wrote about, because how could it be. Farqua is already
Speaker 12: dead at this point, and everything that we're hearing is
Speaker 12: happening inside the collapsing theater of his mind. But the
Speaker 12: more I thought about it, the more I warmed to
Speaker 12: the idea and maybe got onto what they were actually doing.
Speaker 12: Because just as there is Rod sailing the man, there
Speaker 12: is also the Rod sailing, who is the presence within
Speaker 12: the Twilight Zone, the guide, the observer, the entity with
Speaker 12: one foot in reality and one foot in the fiction.
Speaker 12: And the way I see it, this.
Speaker 2: Version imagines an ambrose Bius who occupies a similar space,
Speaker 2: a kind of ambrose biis shaped echo in the Twilight Zone,
Speaker 2: And given how much Bias and Sailing shared in their lives,
Speaker 2: especially the way there war was shaped their writing, it
Speaker 2: feels kind of fitting that ambrose Bius occupies that place here.
Speaker 2: So overall, it's another strong entry into the Twilight Zone
Speaker 2: radio series, and it expands on the television episode, restoring
Speaker 2: some of the grit of the original story, and it
Speaker 2: gives us a version of al Creek Bridge that exists
Speaker 2: nowhere else. A hybrid part bis part sailing part something
Speaker 2: entirely of its own.
Speaker 1: Let me take you in. There's a whole world.
Speaker 16: Second, he's dead.
Speaker 5: Captain did work.
Speaker 16: That's the last execution for today.
Speaker 1: Get him down, you.
Speaker 7: Know, Levine. For a moment there, I thought that rope
Speaker 7: wasn't gonna hold.
Speaker 14: That's strong enough, and it did its job.
Speaker 11: Do you ever wonder what goes on inside a man's
Speaker 11: head in those last seconds before death?
Speaker 14: Like I said before clements, I don't give a damn,
Speaker 14: and neither said you.
Speaker 15: And the currents at out Creek Bridge in two forms,
Speaker 15: as it was dreamed and as it was.
Speaker 1: Lived and died.
Speaker 15: This is the stuff of fantasy, the threat of imagination,
Speaker 15: the ingredients of the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: As we stand on ol Creek Bridge with five versions
Speaker 2: of Peyton Farquhar swinging below us, it's been interesting to
Speaker 2: reflect on how they all got there. But I suppose
Speaker 2: what matters most, at least for us, is the place
Speaker 2: that this story holds in the legacy of the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: And that legacy feels especially poignant when you remember where
Speaker 2: we are in the show's history. This episode arrived in
Speaker 2: season five, a time when some of the old God
Speaker 2: of the show had moved on and new writers and
Speaker 2: directors were stepping in to fill the gaps. Rod Sailing himself,
Speaker 2: after carrying so much of the weight of the show
Speaker 2: on his shoulders, was beginning to feel those creative wells
Speaker 2: run a little dry. At the time, it was uncertain
Speaker 2: where The Twilight Zone would continue into a sixth season,
Speaker 2: but it was a possibility, and if it did, it
Speaker 2: would have to evolve. It would have to widen its scope,
Speaker 2: reach beyond the familiar stable of creators, and bring in
Speaker 2: voices who hadn't been part of the journey so far.
Speaker 2: And it actually documented in Unlocking the Doors to a
Speaker 2: television classic that had the Twilight Zone continued into season six,
Speaker 2: then Rod Sailing was considering using the other two Robert
Speaker 2: Enrico ambrose Bius adaptations as Twilight Zone episodes. Now, I
Speaker 2: should say here before we get any deeper, that as
Speaker 2: a British viewer, I come to this story without the
Speaker 2: same cultural weight that the American Civil War carries for
Speaker 2: many of you as listeners, and I tend to meet
Speaker 2: the story more on its surface, respond to the themes
Speaker 2: and the craft of it rather than the historical baggage
Speaker 2: behind it. I tend to take it as it lands
Speaker 2: on the page or the screen, and the meaning that
Speaker 2: I draw from it is shaped more by instinct rather
Speaker 2: than inherited historical context. So if my interpretations of this
Speaker 2: feel wildly off, then that's probably why. So going back
Speaker 2: to its legacy as part of the Twilight Zone, maybe
Speaker 2: Al Creek Bridge was simply a lucky acquisition, a cost
Speaker 2: saving measure that happened to fall into the lap of
Speaker 2: road sailing. But maybe it was also a signal I
Speaker 2: hint that if the show had carried on, it might
Speaker 2: have to grow in unexpected directions, that the borders of
Speaker 2: the Fifth Dimension were ready to stretch a little further.
Speaker 2: And with that comes something that we Twilight's own fans
Speaker 2: always seem to wrestle with change. In the too long
Speaker 2: stretch of time I've spent working on this episode, I've
Speaker 2: heard whispers of opinion drifting in from friends of the show,
Speaker 2: and we'll hear more from them in the next episode.
Speaker 2: But even in passing, I've noticed that reactions run the
Speaker 2: full spectrum, from outright dismissal to people who consider it
Speaker 2: a quiet classic, and I actually find myself sympathetic to
Speaker 2: both sides. While not fully settling in to either camp.
Speaker 2: I do have to admit that I don't feel the
Speaker 2: same affection for this piece that I do for a
Speaker 2: Beaumont or a Matheson, or a specially a road sailing episode.
Speaker 2: Because I've admired those writers from when this journey began.
Speaker 2: Admiration has only deepened as we've traveled together through the
Speaker 2: Fifth dimension. Their quaks, their rhythms, their fingerprints, They've become
Speaker 2: second nature to all of us, and we love them
Speaker 2: because there are is so when we're handled a story
Speaker 2: that was never meant to be a Twilight Zone with
Speaker 2: none of our usual creative family involved, that same affection
Speaker 2: just isn't there. So is it in my top twenty, No,
Speaker 2: it's not. Is it in my top one hundred? Well,
Speaker 2: I would need to sit down and make that list,
Speaker 2: but probably not, because the shared journey with its creators,
Speaker 2: the thing that binds us to so many episodes, just
Speaker 2: isn't part of this one. And yet there is a
Speaker 2: strange contradiction at the heart of that, because while it
Speaker 2: might sit low in my rankings, taken on its own terms,
Speaker 2: it is a remarkably high quality piece. It's beautiful to
Speaker 2: look at and with the politics of the original more
Speaker 2: or less slipped away, and by using almost no dialogue,
Speaker 2: it delivers to me at least a message that feels timeless,
Speaker 2: that we walk past the beauty of this world every
Speaker 2: day without seeing it, and only in our final moments
Speaker 2: do we realize how much of our time we've spent
Speaker 2: on the wrong things. The true treasures were the ones
Speaker 2: we overlooked, the small wonders, the quiet moments, the relationships
Speaker 2: we assumed would always be waiting for us. It may
Speaker 2: not have been born as a Twilight Zone, but the
Speaker 2: original story of al Creek Bridge is part of the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone. DNA Ambrose Biers like Sale was a writer
Speaker 2: forged in war, and while it might not necessarily have
Speaker 2: been the message that he wanted to convey in that
Speaker 2: original story, what the Twilight Zone version ends up being
Speaker 2: for me is a piece that says, why are we
Speaker 2: killing each other when the world is so full of beauty?
Speaker 2: So you can take that message, or you can take
Speaker 2: whatever message speaks to you, or you can enjoy it
Speaker 2: as a haunting, beautifully crafted piece of fiction with a
Speaker 2: twist in the tail, And really, what could be more
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone than that?
Speaker 13: An occurrence at our Creek Bridge in two forms, as
Speaker 13: it was dreamed and as it was.
Speaker 1: Lived and died.
Speaker 13: This is the stuff of fantasy, the threat of imagination,
Speaker 13: the ingredients of the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: My apologies to everyone that you have had to wait
Speaker 2: so long for this episod, but I've made my excuses
Speaker 2: many times, and I won't and I won't make them again.
Speaker 2: But hopefully this is a signal that we are going
Speaker 2: to be back on track. What us back on track?
Speaker 2: As this podcast tends to get so, as you know,
Speaker 2: I've now split off the feedback section into its own episode,
Speaker 2: and there is a lot of talk about this one,
Speaker 2: which you'll be hearing next time. But before we get
Speaker 2: to that, why don't we go over to Rod's Sailing
Speaker 2: to find out what's coming up next?
Speaker 13: And now, mister Serling, Twilight Zone regular Charles Bauw Mind
Speaker 13: brings us our next offering a tale of agent youth
Speaker 13: and a beautiful woman. Our star is and blythe our
Speaker 13: story Queen of the Nile. They say that beauty is
Speaker 13: only skin deep, and when a surface is scratched, what
Speaker 13: you might conceivably find underneath something.
Speaker 1: Quite apart from beauty.
Speaker 13: This is a rather intriguing basis of our next presentation
Speaker 13: on the Twilight Zone. Miss and blythe and Queen of
Speaker 13: the Nile