The Chaser (The Twilight Zone)
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“The Chaser” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
[edit] Details
- Episode number: 31
- Season: 1
- Production code: 173-3636
- Original air date: May 13, 1960
- Writer: Robert Presnell, Jr. based on the story “The Chaser” by John Henry Collier, first presented (under the title “Duet For Two Actors”) as an episode of The Billy Rose Show in February 1951
- Director: Douglas Heyes
[edit] Cast
- Roger Shackleforth: George Grizzard
- Professor A. Daemon: John McIntire
- Leila: Patricia Barry
- Homburg: J. Pat O'Malley
[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Opening Narration
Mr. Roger Shackleforth. Age: youthful twenties. Occupation: being in love. Not just in love, but madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love, with a young woman named Leila who has a vague recollection of his face and even less than a passing interest. In a moment you’ll see a switch, because Mr. Roger Shackleforth, the young gentleman so much in love, will take a short but very meaningful journey into the Twilight Zone.
[edit] Story
Roger Shackleforth is desperately in love with Leila. He visits an old professor looking for advice on how to win her. The professor, after some resistance, sells Roger a love potion. After its administration, Leila falls madly in love with Roger. But soon, her love becomes stifling. So, Roger returns to the professor to buy his 'glove cleaner' (poison). When he gets home, he prepares a glass of poisoned champagne. Just as he is about to give her the glass, she tells him that she is pregnant, which shocks Roger into dropping the glass. He dazedly admits to himself that he couldn't have gone through with it anyway.
[edit] Closing Narration
Mr. Roger Shackleforth, who has discovered at this late date that love can be as sticky as a vat of molasses, as unpalatable as a hunk of spoiled yeast, and as all-consuming as a six-alarm fire in a bamboo and canvas tent. Case history of a lover boy who should never have entered the Twilight Zone.
[edit] Trivia
- The only episode of the first season not to be written by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont or Richard Matheson.
- Remade as an episode of the HBO adult-horror anthology series, Tales from the Crypt. That episode starred Andrew McCarthy and Mariel Hemingway.
- This episode is based on “Duet for Two Actors” by John Collier. “Duet for Two Actors” originally appeared on television on The Billy Rose Show in February 1951.
- “That was one of the great things about The Twilight Zone. I had total freedom. Sometimes I would think of an idea that make the episode more Twilight Zone-y [but] that would require some expense. I remember one episode, “The Chaser”, in which I devised a huge bookcase that must have doubled the budget, but they [Serling and producer Buck Houghton] never blinked an eye. They just said, ‘Okay, great!’ I didn't have to argue with anybody over the money—they’d argue about the money and let me have it! I knew that they were having problems with Jim Aubrey, but they kept them away from me. My responsibility was to get the job done.” —Douglas Heyes quoted in Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man.
[edit] References
- Sander, Gordon F.:Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
