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The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank

2021-12-31T20:27:48Z

71.76.105.115: /* Plot */

{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]
| image =
| caption =
| season = 3
| episode = 23
| airdate = {{Start date|1962|02|23}}
| production = 4811
| director = [[Montgomery Pittman]]
| writer = [[Montgomery Pittman]]
| guests = [[James Best]] [[Sherry Jackson]] [[Edgar Buchanan]] [[Lance Fuller]] [[Dub Taylor]] [[Ralph Moody (actor)|Ralph Moody]] [[Ezelle Poule]] Helen Wallace [[Vickie Barnes]] [[Jon Lormer]] [[Jim Houghton|James Houghton]] [[William Fawcett (actor)|William Fawcett]]
| music = [[Tommy Morgan]]
| season_article = The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 3)
| episode_list = List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes
| prev = [[A Piano in the House]]
| next = [[To Serve Man (The Twilight Zone)|To Serve Man]]
}}

"'''The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank'''" is episode 88 of the [[American television]] anthology series ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''. It originally aired on February 23, 1962 on [[CBS]].

==Opening narration==
{{cquote|Time, the mid-twenties. Place, the Midwest, the southernmost section of the Midwest. We were just witnessing a funeral, a funeral that didn't come off exactly as planned, due to a slight fallout from the Twilight Zone.}}

==Plot==
In the mid-1920s in a small rural town in the "southernmost section of the Midwest," a man, Jeff Myrtlebank, returns to life at his own funeral, causing the grievers to flee the church. The townspeople believe that the man must be possessed by a [[haint]] (country people's pronunciation of haunt, meaning a ghost or demon), even though the town doctor declares it was more than likely a medical condition that imitated death; his heart stopped days prior after fighting [[influenza]]. Jeff seems normal enough, yet he has changed: he has suddenly become a hard worker with exceptional strength, yet consistently eats less since his return.

The townsfolk and doctor discuss it further, where the doctor reveals that Jeff's heart had completely stopped, and that he neither reacted to a pinprick nor fogged a mirror with his breath. Everyone seems as interested in what transpired during the days Jeff was dead as in how he came back to life.

When he goes to visit his girlfriend Comfort, he takes a bouquet of roses, but they are all dead by the time he gives them to her. Afraid, Comfort will not let him touch her after she sees them. As he leaves, her older brother confronts him and tells him to never come back, and they fight. Jeff defeats him readily, punching him in his jaw. This is the first time that Jeff has ever done so, after losing many past fights, and that gains Comfort's sympathy.

After the fight, the townsfolk gather and start saying they need to take care of this evil amongst them. Comfort races off to warn Jeff and to avow her love for him. He proposes to her, but before she can respond to his proposal, angry townspeople arrive to confront the demon they believe is possessing Jeff. They demand that he leave. He insists that Comfort answer his proposal first, and she tells him yes, and that she is willing to go anywhere to be with him. Jeff then makes an inspired speech in which he tells them that they are wrong and have nothing to fear from him. He also slyly threatens that if they are right, it might be in their best interests to be nice to him. They nervously accept the wisdom of this, and promise to attend Jeff and Comfort's wedding.

After the mob disperses, Comfort asks Jeff if he could really do the things he threatened them with, to which he replies that he was lying. As he speaks, he pulls out a pipe and a match, which lights by itself. When Comfort asks how he lit the match, he laughs and claims she is imagining things. He puts his arm around her shoulders to take her inside. As they walk toward the house, the fence gate closes behind them on its own.

==Closing narration==
{{cquote|Jeff and Comfort are still alive today, and their only son is a United States senator. He's noted as an uncommonly shrewd politician, and some believe he must have gotten his education in the Twilight Zone.}}

==Cast==
*[[James Best]] as Jeff Myrtlebank
*[[Sherry Jackson]] as Comfort Gatewood
*[[Edgar Buchanan]] as Doc Bolton
*[[Lance Fuller]] as Orgram Gatewood
*[[Dub Taylor]] as Mr. Peters
*[[Ralph Moody (actor)|Ralph Moody]] as Pa Myrtlebank
*[[Ezelle Poule]] as Ma Myrtlebank
*Helen Wallace as Ma Gatewood
*[[Vickie Barnes]] as Liz Myrtlebank
*[[Jon Lormer]] as Strauss
*[[Jim Houghton|James Houghton]] as Jerry
*[[William Fawcett (actor)|William Fawcett]] as Rev. Siddons

==References==
* {{cite book |last= DeVoe |first= Bill |date= 2008 |title= Trivia from The Twilight Zone |location= Albany, GA |publisher= Bear Manor Media |isbn= 978-1593931360 }}
* {{cite book |last= Grams |first= Martin |date= 2008 |title= The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic |location= Churchville, MD |publisher= OTR Publishing |isbn= 978-0970331090 }}

==External links==
*{{IMDb episode|0734653}}

{{The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, The}}
[[Category:1962 American television episodes]]
[[Category:The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 3) episodes]]
[[Category:Television episodes about funerals]]
[[Category:Fiction set in the 1920s]]
[[Category:Television episodes about resurrection]]

Valley of the Shadow

2021-12-31T13:58:03Z

71.76.105.115: /* Plot */

{{About|the episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''|the [[American Civil War]] project|The Valley of the Shadow}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]
| image =
| caption =
| season = 4
| episode = 3
| airdate = {{Start date|1963|01|17}}
| production = 4861
| writer = [[Charles Beaumont]]
| director = [[Perry Lafferty]]
| guests = [[Ed Nelson]]: Philip Redfield [[Natalie Trundy]]: Ellen Marshall [[David Opatoshu]]: Dorn [[Dabbs Greer]]: Evans [[Jacques Aubuchon]]: Connelly [[James Doohan]]: Johnson (role listed as "Father" in credits) [[Morgan Brittany]] (as "Suzanne Cupito"): Cissie Johnson (role listed as "Girl" in credits) [[Sandy Kenyon]]: Fredericks (role listed as "The Attendant" in credits) [[Henry Beckman]]: Townsperson [[Bart Burns]]: Townsperson King Calder: Townsperson Pat O'Hara: Townsperson
| music = Stock from [[A Hundred Yards Over the Rim]]
| season_article = The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 4)
| episode_list = List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes
| prev = [[The Thirty-Fathom Grave|The Thirty Fathom Grave]]
| next = [[He's Alive]]
}}

"'''Valley of the Shadow'''" is a 51-minute episode of the [[American television]] anthology series ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]''. In this episode, a reporter is held captive in a small town after he discovers its incredible secret.

==Opening narration==
{{cquote|You've seen them. Little towns, tucked away far from the main roads. You've seen them, but have you thought about them? What do the people in these places do? Why do they stay? Philip Redfield never thought about them. If his dog hadn't gone after that cat, he would have driven through Peaceful Valley and put it out of his mind forever. But he can't do that now, because whether he knows it or not his friend's shortcut has led him right into the capital of the Twilight Zone.}}

==Plot==
Reporter Philip Redfield gets lost while driving with his dog, Rollie, on unfamiliar back roads, and stops in Peaceful Valley, [[New Mexico]], seeking food, directions, and gasoline. The gas station attendant fills his tank but is curt and claims the only restaurant in town is closed. Rollie leaps out of the car to chase a little girl's cat up a tree. The girl uses a strange device to make the dog disappear. When Philip confronts the girl's father, he pretends to go looking for Rollie, then secretly uses the device to make the dog re-materialize.

Philip and his dog seek food at the town's hotel. Ellen, the proprietor, is as curt as the gas station attendant and insists they have no rooms available even though the keys to all the rooms are still on display at the [[check-in]] desk. Philip's suspicions are fully aroused by this time, but questioning Ellen about the residents' strange behavior gets him nowhere. He drives out of town only to run into an invisible wall which totals his car and kills Rollie. A band of Peaceful Valley residents are waiting at the scene and take him to the town elders while another resident brings Rollie back to life.

The town elders question Philip on why he came to Peaceful Valley and whether anyone knows where he is. They show him some of the technology they have, including a replicator which can produce any object given its molecular formula and a ray which can reverse any injury, including death. The elders refuse to share this technology, given to the town 104 years earlier by a scientist from an unknown planet, until "men learn the ways of peace." Philip rebukes them for decreeing themselves the sole people capable of using these extraterrestrial gifts responsibly, and for squandering technology that could be used to cure all illness and end hunger. The town elders insist that if they shared the technology it would be used for weapons, and tell Philip that due to his chance witnessing of the device used to make his dog disappear, he must either stay forever in Peaceful Valley or be executed to preserve the town's secrets.

Philip is now a prisoner in his new home, with an invisible wall placed to keep him from venturing beyond the yard. He becomes romantically involved with Ellen, and tries to make her realize her own lack of freedom, knowing that the town elders will not let any of Peaceful Valley's residents leave for fear they would reveal the town's secrets. Seemingly persuaded that he cannot reciprocate her love unless she sets him free, Ellen disables the invisible wall and offers to drive Phillip out of town. He arms himself by replicating a revolver and steals a book containing the equations that explain the town's technology, but sets off an alarm in the process. When the three town elders attempt to prevent his escape, he shoots them.

Once Philip and Ellen are outside the town limits, she shows him that the book is blank, then uses a device to de-materialize him. Ellen was a plant, Philip's entire escape a test. The elders, revived by the technology, claim his decision to create and use a gun confirms their belief that the people of Peaceful Valley are the only ones fit to use the alien technology. Ellen confesses her involvement was not entirely a deception, implying that her feelings for him were real. The elders "execute" Philip by rendering him unconscious, erasing his memories of Peaceful Valley, and returning him and his car to the gas station. When he wakes up, the attendant has just finished filling his tank. He asks for directions and drives out of town, experiencing a moment of [[déjà vu]] when he sees Ellen, who has tears in her eyes.

==Closing narration==
{{cquote|You've seen them. Little towns, tucked away far from the main roads. You've seen them, but have you thought about them? Have you wondered what the people do in such places, why they stay? Philip Redfield thinks about them now and he wonders, but only very late at night, when he's between wakefulness and sleep in the Twilight Zone.}}

==Production==
This is one of many ''Twilight Zone'' episodes that re-used props from MGM's 1956 film ''Forbidden Planet''. In this case the matter-transporting "dissemblers" used by the Peaceful Valley inhabitants originated as the C57-D crew communicators in ''Forbidden Planet''.

==Precursors==
The episode includes what are effectively mini-transporters (disassembling people's atoms and reassembling them elsewhere), replicators (creating a meal, for instance, out of a pattern) and a force field. One character uses a device which could equally well be a communicator or a cell phone. All this three years before the original [[Star Trek]]. James Doohan, quite coincidentally, plays a minor role in the episode.

The overall premise of a hidden civilization hiding futuristic technology until the world becomes peaceful also foreshadows Marvel's Black Panther comic book series (1966) by three years.

The premise of a man held captive in a small town and expected to assimilate was expanded on in [[The Prisoner]].

==References==
* DeVoe, Bill. (2008). ''Trivia from The Twilight Zone''. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media.
* Grams, Martin. (2008). ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic''. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing.

==External links==
* {{IMDb episode|id=0734688|episode=Valley of the Shadow}}

{{The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes}}

[[Category:The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 4) episodes]]
[[Category:1963 American television episodes]]
[[Category:Television episodes set in New Mexico]]
[[Category:Television shows written by Charles Beaumont]]