Miniature (The Twilight Zone)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Twilight Zone Original series Season four (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) January 1963 – June 1963 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: In His Image The Thirty-Fathom Grave Valley of the Shadow He's Alive Mute Death Ship Jess-Belle Miniature Printer's Devil No Time Like the Past The Parallel I Dream of Genie The New Exhibit Of Late I Think of Cliffordville The Incredible World of Horace Ford On Thursday We Leave for Home Passage on the Lady Anne The Bard

“Miniature” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 110
Season: 4
Production code: 4862
Original air date: February 21, 1963
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Director: Walter Grauman
Producer: Herbert Hirschman
Director of photography: Robert W. Pittack
Music: Fred Steiner

[edit] Cast

Role	Actor
Charley Parkes	Robert Duvall
Mrs. Parkes	Pert Kelton
Myrna	Barbara Barrie
Dr. Wallman	William Windom
Guard	John McLiam
Diemel	Barney Phillips
The Doll	Claire Griswold

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Charley Parkes thinks he sees a figure in a museum dollhouse that comes alive. Charley returns the museum numerous times and gazes into the dollhouse. He keeps coming back and sees the doll in the house come alive.

Charley falls in love with the figure, a woman, but is institutionalized because of his belief that the figure of the woman (as well as a housekeeper and a man)is alive. He eventually is "rehabilitated" and is returned to the care of his mother.

On the evening of his return home, his mother, sister, brother-in-law and his former girlfriend plan to celebrate his release with him, but discover that he has snuck out of the house. They contact the psychiatrist who treated Charley in the hospital and surmise that he has returned to the museum and the dollhouse.

The family members, psychiatrist and museum guards search the museum but find nothing. Except for one guard, who glances into the dollhouse and sees Charley, now a miniature figure, finally together with his love in the dollhouse. The guard decides to never reveal what he witnessed.

[edit] Trivia

Because of a lawsuit, this episode was not included in the syndication package for The Twilight Zone. It was finally re-aired in 1984.
Another version has some scenes which have been colorized.
This story is very similar to "The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture", a short story by Edogawa Rampo. In Rampo's story a young man falls in love with a beautiful young rag picture doll. This man's younger brother shrinks him to the size of the doll by looking at him through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. The shrunken man then takes his place next to the beautiful doll in the rag picture. Tragically the man ages and becomes a very old man whereas the doll remains a beautiful young woman.