The Night of the Meek
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“The Night of the Meek” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
[edit] Details
- Episode number: 47
- Season: 2
- Original air date: December 23, 1960
- Writer: Rod Serling
- Director: Jack Smight
- Producer: Buck Houghton
- Director of photography: none [fourth of six episodes consecutively recorded on videotape—see "Episode notes"]
- Music: none credited
[edit] Cast
Starring
- Art Carney as Henry Corwin [only TZ appearance, but previously starred in Rod Serling's "The Velvet Alley" on Playhouse 90—see "Episode notes"]
- John Fiedler as Mr. Dundee (the department store manager) [first of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
- Robert P. Lieb as Flaherty (the officer who arrests Corwin)
- Val Avery as the Bartender (Bruce at "Jack's Place")
- Meg Wyllie as Sister Florence (who leads a rendition of "Joy to the World" at the Christmas service for homeless derelict men)
- Kay Cousins as Irate Mother (of young "Percival Smithers" who wants "a new front name")
- Burt Mustin as Old Man (Burt, who receives from Corwin a pipe and a smoking jacket) [first of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
unbilled
- Andrea Darvi: Little girl pleading for "a carriage, a dolly and a playhouse, and a job for my daddy"
- Jimmy Garrett: Little boy pleading for "a gun, a set of soldiers and a fort, and a big turkey pot Christmas dinner"
- Nan Peterson: Blonde in the bar, sitting next to the sleeping drunk, as Henry Corwin knocks on the window glass of the bar door [second of four TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
- Matthew McCue: One of the derelict men at Sister Florence's mission
- Larrain Gillespie: Young female elf waiting for "Santa Corwin"
[edit] Rod Serling's opening narration
As heavy snow begins to fall, a drunk and dejected Henry Corwin stumbles to a lamppost and half-falls at the curb. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for gifts and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob, the camera slowly pans to the right revealing, in the same shot, Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and a scarf, with the (in-studio artificial) snow settling on his hair and coat:
- "This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of 'The Night Before Christmas'. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found... in the Twilight Zone."
[edit] Plot synopsis
Henry Corwin, a department store Santa Claus, is fired on Christmas eve, after arriving drunk for work. He walks around, still in his Santa suit, until he sees a large, cloth garbage bag which turns out to have the ability of containing any item that's asked of it. Suffused with the spirit of Christmas, Corwin proceeds to pass gifts out to everyone. Officer Flaherty suspects the merchandise is stolen and takes him to the police station. Mr. Dundee, the man who fired him, arrives shortly afterwards, exclaiming, "Aha, here he is, and here we are, and there that is". Calling Corwin "a moth-eaten Robin Hood", Dundee reaches into the bag to display some of the "stolen merchandise" but all he manages to pull out are a couple of empty cans and a meowing stray cat. Released, Corwin takes the bag and gives Dundee his asked-for Christmas present, a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903.
He passes out gifts the rest of the night, until the bag is empty. Burt, an elderly derelict, points out that Corwin has taken no gift for himself. Corwin replies that his only wish is to do this every year. His wish is granted: In an alley he finds a young female elf, sleigh and four reindeer waiting to take him to his destiny as the eternal Santa Claus. Flaherty and Dundee, fortified with the brandy, confirm to each other that they have, indeed, just seen Henry Corwin, accompanied by the sound of sleigh bells, ascend into the night sky on Christmas eve.
[edit] Rod Serling's closing narration
- "A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There's a wondrous magic to Christmas and there's a special power reserved for little people. In short, there's nothing mightier than the meek."
[edit] Episode notes
By November 1960, The Twilight Zone's second season had already broadcast five episodes and finished filming sixteen. However, at a cost of about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. As a result, six consecutive episodes were videotaped and then transferred to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission. Total savings on editing and cinematography costs amounted to only about $30,000 for all six entries—not enough to justify the loss of depth of visual perspective, which made the shows look like stagebound live TV dramas, or even soap operas. The experiment was therefore deemed a failure and never attempted again.
Even though the six shows were recorded in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the fourth one, shown on December 23, 1960 as episode 11. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour", was seen on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; The second, "Static" was shown on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth", appeared on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fifth, "Twenty-Two" was seen on February 10, 1961 as episode 17; and the last one, "Long Distance Call" was transmitted on March 3, 1961 as episode 22.
- A character star, Art Carney was best known to TV viewers as "Ed Norton", Jackie Gleason's sidekick on Gleason's various shows during the 1950s and 60s. Despite Gleason's starring status, it was Carney who received the honors—six Emmies and a Best Actor Oscar, to Gleason's none. This was Carney's only TZ appearance, but nearly two years earlier, on January 22, 1959, he starred in Rod Serling's semi-autobiographical story, "The Velvet Alley", the eighth of ten Serling plays featured on Playhouse 90, the most prestigious of the many live drama anthology series from the Golden Age of Television. Carney's role, that of an aspiring writer who sells his first teleplay to a major TV drama series, paralleled Serling's own career. The name of Carney's Night of the Meek character, Henry Corwin, is a tribute to Serling's idol, legendary radio, television and film writer Norman Corwin whose lengthy career, in contrast to Serling's relatively brief 50-year lifetime, has spanned over seven decades. On May 3, 2006, Corwin celebrated his 96th birthday.
- Busy character actor John Fiedler performed in hundreds of radio shows, TV episodes and movies starting in the 1940s. Appearing on TV from its earliest days, he was one of the cadets in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet from 1951 to 1954, had regular roles in three series between 1973 and 1984 and did countless cartoon voices, including that of Piglet for Disney. His other TZ part was in the third season's penultimate episode, Cavender Is Coming, a sitcom pilot complete with a laugh track.
- A unique character actor, Burt Mustin was a retired car salesman who began acting in films and television in 1951 at the age of 67 and continued as a performer for the next twenty six years, dying three weeks short of his ninety-third birthday. Here, he's one of the derelict recipients of Henry Corwin's presents—in his other TZ appearance, he's one of the residents of the old-age home in third season's Kick the Can.
- Attractive blonde Nan Peterson played decorative bit parts in some twenty TV shows and four films during a five-year period between 1959 and 1964. She has virtually no dialogue in her four TZ appearances, which are spread from the beginning to the end of her brief acting career. Here, she is little more than an extra, sitting at the bar, next to a drunk whose sleeping face is in the foreground, turned towards the camera. In one of her first performances, she is seen near the merry-go-round in first season's memorable fifth episode Walking Distance. Her second TZ appearance is in the episode which was videotaped immediately before this one, The Whole Truth, where she and Jack Ging play a young married couple planning to buy one of Jack Carson's worthless used cars. Her final role was three years later, in February 1964's fifth season episode From Agnes—With Love, in which, as in here, she is unbilled in her part as a secretary.
- A stage musical based on this episode was written by lyricist/librettist Patrick Cook and composer Frederick Freyer. It has not been produced because of copyright issues.
[edit] Themes
A similar theme was explored in the episode I Dream of Genie. As Henry Corwin states to his boss, "Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles...I wish that the meek shall inherit the earth." He is the epitome of the true meaning of Christmas amid the crass commercialism and consumerism.
[edit] External links
- The Twilight Zone episode "The Night of the Meek" (1960)' at the Internet Movie Database
- TV.com episode page
