A Thing About Machines
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| “A Thing About Machines” | |||||||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||||||
 Scene from "A Thing About Machines" |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 40 |
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| Written by | Rod Serling | ||||||
| Directed by | David Orrick McDearmon | ||||||
| Guest stars | Richard Haydn : Bartlett Finchley Barbara Stuart : Miss Rogers (secretary) Barney Phillips : TV repairman Jay Overholts : Intern Henry Beckman : Policeman Lew Brown : Telephone repairman Margarita Cordova : Girl |
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| Production no. | 173-3645 | ||||||
| Original airdate | October 28, 1960 | ||||||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||||||
"A Thing About Machines" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents |
[edit] Opening narration
| “ | This is Mr. Bartlett Finchley, age forty-eight, a practicing sophisticate who writes very special and very precious things for gourmet magazines and the like. He's a bachelor and a recluse with few friends, only devotees and adherents to the cause of tart sophistry. He has no interests save whatever current annoyances he can put his mind to. He has no purpose to his life, except the formulation of day-to-day opportunities to vent his wrath on mechanical contrivances of an age he abhors. In short, Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, born either too late or too early in the century, and who in just a moment will enter a realm where muscles and the will to fight back are not limited to human beings. Next stop for Mr. Bartlett Finchley: The Twilight Zone. | ” |
[edit] Synopsis
An ill-tempered writer who reviles and constantly abuses machines starts to think machines are conspiring against him. The people he tells about this write him off as paranoid, but eventually every machine in his house (including his car) turns on him. His typewriter types, "GET OUT OF HERE, FINCHLEY." The TV shows the same message, as does the phone. Finchley runs from the house to be confronted by his car. The car chases him to his pool and pushes him in. He sinks to the bottom and drowns. When the police pull him out of the water, they can not explain how he could sink to the bottom when he was not weighted down (normally, a body would float). They figure he may have had a heart attack.
[edit] Closing narration
| “ | Yes, it could just be. It could just be that Mr. Bartlett Finchley succumbed from a heart attack and a set of delusions. It could just be that he was tormented by an imagination as sharp as his wit and as pointed as his dislikes. But as perceived by those attending, this is one explanation that has left the premises with the deceased. Look for it filed under 'M' for machines in the Twilight Zone. | ” |
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
There is a display case in the exit hallway of the Tower Of Terror attraction at Disneyland that contains two items relating to this episode. One is a typewriter (with the GET OUT OF HERE FINCHLEY message); the card next to it reads "Almost Writes By Itself". There is also an electric razor; its card reads "Has A Long Cord - Can Follow You Everywhere".
