"The Howling Man": Campiest Episode Ever?
Mystery Science Theater 3000 would have a field day with this one.
shareThe Howling Man requires a great deal if disbelief suspension to work. I find it effective, as it appears to channel the mood of the Universal horrors of the Thirties, and with John Carradine on board no less! Aside from the stern H.M. Wynant the acting is mostly over the top, or fairly close. It's appeal lies less with the tale than the way it's told. The old Inner Sanctum radio series did a lot like this in the old days, and I find it mediocre and not at all frightening. Is there another TZ that plays like a classic horror? I can't think of any. Night Call is the closest, but that's more Val Lewton than Universal.
shareThe scariest part of "The Howling Man" is the last shot with the maid's hand on the doorknob. We dread what's behind that door, even though the episode's version of Beelzebub is about as frightening as a kitten. The brief glimpse of what's inside the closet we're afforded -- inky blackness that could harbor anything, a chair (perhaps symbolic of the Devil's reclaiming of his earthly throne once released) -- only sustains our dread. This is because while the rest of the episode hits you over the head with its Universal Horror vibe (not necessarily a bad thing since I count myself a fan of such fare) this stretch is far more suggestive; it asks the viewer to ruminate on what might be lurking in those shadows. And while there's limits to what a '60s TV show can do with a visual depiction of Ultimate Evil the mind can conjure whatever unspeakable horrors it wants.
shareYes, though on the other hand I find the episode's definition of evil (Evil?) to be somewhat unimaginative and too broad for my tastes. Although the point is made that even with the devil in a cage the world is far from idyllic, the nasty things that occur,--war, even if little wars, mass murders, injustices to be found just about everywhere--makes me question whether the evil in the world can be attributed to just one being: Satan. Robin Hughes was the right actor for the role, and yet his tale of how Brother Jerome captured him makes the old guy sound more like a prude than a holy man. The Howling Man is sort of a good, well, not fairy tale, devil tale, I guess, best not worth pondering too deeply. My reason for liking it, and this is probably true for most fans of the ep, has more to do with its style than substance. There's not a whole lot of food for thought in it.
shareI think they should have taken the route of the original short story and left it up to the viewer to decide whether or not The Howling Man really was the Devil. The style over substance route they preferred was fun and all but a subtler approach could have made all the difference between a decent episode, which is what "The Howling Man" is, and a work of art, which it could have been.
Have you read the short story by the way? It's predictably grand like most of Charles Beaumont's fiction was.
No, I haven't read the story, A.T. That sounds interesting. Quite frankly, subtlety was not The Twilight Zone's strong suit. Rod Serling seemed to prefer the hammer over your head approach. Just imagine, for instance, if the Time Enough At Last episode, with Burgess Meredith breaking his glasses at the end, would have played if it had been somewhat differently written, with the little bank clerk a bit more gregarious, eager to talk about his interests rather than just being a (as I've always seen it) boring, nerdy bookworm, and instead a man of some ideas who enjoyed sharing his thoughts with others rather than just locking himself away from the world.
With some tweaking and tuning, and also without the broken glasses, when he realized his fate at the end, post-apocalypse, it would have been a deeply emotional moment, one of shared despair when he realized that he has all the time in the world to read but no one to talk to about WHAT HE READS. This would also enable the viewer, especially the non- or anti-intellectual kind, to understand something about the difference between introverts and extroverts, which isn't that introverts dislike other people or don't care much for talk but rather that they're not "joiners", aren't much interested in clubs and group activities, but give them something to talk about and in their element they're quite chatty.
Sometimes Rod Serling's one dimensional approach to human nature really irritates the hell out of me. He was a plot and irony obsessed writer, not so interested in understanding human nature but exposing things like (deliberate upper case here) Hypocrisy, Greed, Intolerance and Cowardice,--just for starters--rather than exploring the nature of the characters he wrote about who, as he saw them, embodied these traits. He seemed to prefer setting his characters up, so to speak, rather than understanding who they are. But then he was a television writer, geared his material to "mass tastes". His artistry was of the limited kind, and he worked well within the narrow limits he set for himself.
Well that's a very interesting and insightful look at Rod Serling, the writer! He did set up the characters. So many of the TZ stories were the set up and the shock or twist ending.
He tended to focus on a character's one trait and it was usually a negative trait, i.e., greed, vanity, anger, selfishness. Then the person got his comeuppance. I thought he did quite well in the confines of thirty minutes, minus five minutes for commercials. A half hour program just doesn't allow for a deep exploration of a character.
I wouldn't exactly say that his artistry was "limited", but he was limited to the confines of thirty minute TV episodes. Have you ever seen some of his other work such as Requiem for a Heavyweight or Patterns? When he had the time, he wrote a great story. Rod Serling also had to deal with the censors and the sponsors. In one interview he said that he had to change the dialogue of a character who was "fording" a stream because the sponsor was a different car company (maybe Chevrolet). lol
A lot of TZ episodes were stories adapted from other writers and the directors had a hand in creating a visual story. After all, TV IS a visual medium. There is a visual shorthand for the audience to see the story in pictures.
I have "The Twilight Zone Companion" which examines each episode. The author of the screenplay for The Howling Man, Charles Beaumont, just wanted to show a cloven hoof at the end. But the director, Douglas Heyes, wanted a more dramatic visual, basically the character walking down the long corridor and as he passed each pillar he began to look more satanic. The final look was considered too melodramatic or campy. But when I was a little kid, it scared the spit out of me! lol
They achieved a much more subtle look with simple lighting as the prisoner is freed from his cell. He looks benevolent, but with the tiny shift of lighting, he looks evil.
The episode ended on a campy note. But I consider what has been said about Satan. His greatest weapon is that people do NOT believe that he exists. People look right in the face of evil and don't recognize him or they are seduced by his lies. The episode sets up the idea that the prisoner was just an innocent man held captive by a religious fanatic.
I grant you, it wasn't an in depth look at the subject. But it WAS television after all. My dad used to say that TV was written for "the lowest common denominator." Mass produced entertainment can't get too cerebral or it loses at least half of its audience, I'd say! lol
Again, I enjoyed your post, not trying to start an argument. I just think Rod Serling knew his audience and the medium he was writing for. Granted, a lot of his characters were one note. There just wasn't time for deep character study in a thirty minute format. Sometimes he took shortcuts to get to the big twist at the end.