Twilight Zone 1.3 Mr. Denton on Doomsday
The one where an old drunken washed up drunk (Dan Duryea) is being bullied by Martin Landau until fate intervenes. What rating would you give this?
shareEight. Great performance by Dan Duryea. Tension-filled climax. Poignant tale of redemption that may be a little too on the nose (Mr. Fate) but satisfies still. An allegory, I believe, for the arms race going on then between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
shareThe plot felt very influenced by Rio Bravo... that movie came out earlier that year and was a big success so it wouldn't be surprising if that were true. Martin Landau's hammy performance as the villain was great fun, he makes the greatest facial expressions. Mr. Fate's car reminded me a little of Christoph Waltz's set up in Django Unchained minus the tooth crossed with Professor Marvel from the Wizard of Oz. Makes sense about the cold war although I didn't really get that when I watched it. I've always thought of the arms race more in terms of two men locked in a bathroom with several hand grenades each. Seems our current President has learned nothing from these cautionary tales.
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According to Wikipedia the harmonica in the background is playing the Russian folksong "Stenka Razin."
If you think this episode resembles a movie made earlier wait until you get to "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine." So many people today cite Serling's innovativeness and while he certainly was ahead of his time in a lot of ways like Spielberg and Tarantino and other filmmakers of the modern age he wasn't above borrowing from other works (sometimes liberally) when it suited him.
If you want to watch something that seems to have heavily inspired "Twilight Zone", as well as the anthology format in general, I would encourage you to seek out 1945's "Dead of Night." The wraparound story is awesome and the ending is great too. The segments don't all work but the one with the ventriloquist is pretty unnerving to this day.
Thanks for the recommendation, I've heard good things about Dead of Night.
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