A Most Unusual Camera

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The Twilight Zone original series Season two (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1960 – Summer 1961 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: King Nine Will Not Return The Man in the Bottle Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room A Thing About Machines The Howling Man The Eye of the Beholder Nick of Time The Lateness of the Hour The Trouble With Templeton A Most Unusual Camera Night of the Meek Dust Back There The Whole Truth The Invaders A Penny for Your Thoughts Twenty-Two The Odyssey of Flight 33 Mr. Dingle, the Strong Static The Prime Mover Long Distance Call A Hundred Yards Over the Rim The Rip Van Winkle Caper The Silence Shadow Play The Mind and the Matter Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? The Obsolete Man

“A Most Unusual Camera” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 46
Season: 2
Original air date: December 16, 1960
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: John Rich

[edit] Cast

Fred Clark,
Jean Carson,
Adam Williams, and
Marcel Hillaire.

[edit] Rod Serling's opening narration

"A hotel suite, that in this instance serves as a den of crime. The aftermath of a rather minor event to be noted on a police blotter, an insurance claim, perhaps a 3-inch box on page 12 of the evening paper. Small addenda to be added to the list of the loot: a camera. A most unimposing addition to the flotsam and jetsam that it came with. Hardly worth mentioning really, because cameras are cameras. Some expensive, some purchasable at five-and-dime stores. But this camera, this one's unusual, because in just a moment we'll watch it inject itself into the destinies of three people. It happens to be a fact that the pictures that it takes can only be developed in The Twilight Zone. "

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Two thieves, Chester and Paula, rob a curios store; among the (otherwise worthless) loot is a strange camera. The pair come to realize that its pictures reveal the future, specifically five minutes ahead. After Paula’s escapee brother Woodward shows up, they decide to use the camera to take pictures at the racetrack. The trio win every time and leaving with a considerable sum.

Back at their hotel, the French waiter notices their unusual camera and mentions the curious inscription (hitherto missed by the trio): ten to an owner. The gang rush the waiter out of the room and determine that they now have only two pictures left. They disagree on how and when to use those remaining. In the tugging over the camera, a picture is wasted (revealing Paula recoiling in horror). The men fight each other and in their struggle, fall out the window to their deaths. Paula (after a curious show of mock remorse) takes a picture of the courtyard below the window and begins collecting the day's winnings before checking out. Before she can leave, the waiter returns and robs her. He then notes that her last picture shows more than two bodies in the courtyard. Paula trips out the window. Then, the waiter realizes there are in fact four corpses. He falls too, leaving the camera lying on the ground awaiting its next owner.