The Silence (The Twilight Zone)

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“The Silence”
The Twilight Zone episode

Liam Sullivan in "The Silence"
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 61
Written by Rod Serling
Directed by Boris Sagal
Guest stars Franchot Tone : Archie Taylor
Liam Sullivan : Jamie Tennyson
Jonathan Harris : George Alfred
Cyril Delevanti : Franklin
Featured music uncredited (including a rarity: the Marius Constant Twilight Zone theme as incidental music; most of the rest is from Leonard Rosenman's score for "And When the Sky Was Opened")
Production no. 173-3658
Original airdate April 28, 1961
Episode chronology
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"The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "Shadow Play"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"The Silence" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

[edit] Opening Narration

“ The note that this man is carrying across a club room is in the form of a proposed wager, but it's the kind of wager that comes without precedent. It stands alone in the annals of bet-making as the strangest game of chance ever offered by one man to another. In just a moment, we'll see the terms of the wager and what young Mr. Tennyson does about it. And in the process, we'll witness all parties spin a wheel of chance in a very bizarre casino called the Twilight Zone. ”

[edit] Synopsis

Colonel Archie Taylor, a member of an exclusive club, bets another member, a young talkative man named Jamie Tennyson, half a million dollars that he can’t stay quiet for an entire year. He dislikes Tennyson's breeding and manners, saying, "Your voice has become intolerable to me. I sit here each night and the sound of it makes me wince." He knows the young man needs the money, because he talks about it so often.

The challenge is for Tennyson to be enclosed in a small room and be monitored by microphones to ensure that he doesn't speak. Any communication will be made in writing and any member may come to visit him. Tennyson agrees to the bet, but requests that Taylor have a check on deposit made in his name and a copy available for the members of the club to view. Taylor tells the young man his word will have to be good enough.

Archie is surprised at Tennyson's endurance, and after nine months, he offers the man $1,000 to leave immediately under the ruse of concern for the young man's welfare. When Tennyson refuses, The Colonel counters by bringing up questions about his wife. Tennyson had sent several notes to her, requesting she visit him, but received no response. Taylor then tries to incite the man's ire by commenting that he'd seen the young woman around town with other men. In spite of the continual gossip, and an offer of $5,000 to quit, Tennyson stays where he is.

On the evening the bet is to be finalized, Taylor admits to his friends that Tennyson is much stronger than they gave him credit for. Tennyson wins the bet, and all the members of the club congratulate him, but he can’t collect; Archie confesses he has long since gone bankrupt, and had been maintaining a charade before the other members.

Tennyson is distraught in victory, and furiously scribbles out a note. Colonel Taylor reads it aloud, "I knew I would not be able to keep my part of the bargain, so one year ago I had the nerves to my vocal cords severed." As he finishes speaking, Tennyson pulls open his collar to reveal the long scar across his throat.

[edit] Closing Narration

“ Mr. Jamie Tennyson, who almost won a bet, but who discovered somewhat belatedly that gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit, even with loaded dice, marked cards, or as in his case some severed vocal cords. For somewhere beyond him, a wheel was turned and his number came up black thirteen. If you don't believe it, ask the croupier, the very special one who handles roulette in the Twilight Zone. ”

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

This episode was an unusual entry in the series as it contains no supernatural or science fiction elements. Other such episodes include “Where Is Everybody?”, “The Shelter”, and “The Jeopardy Room”.

[edit] Discussion

The following is an excerpt of a lecture given by Rod Serling that was included as an extra on The Twilight Zone’s laserdisc release. It was transcribed by Matthew Cregg.

Serling: I mention storylines and you both indicated that it had been done, and I didn’t realize it. That’s a risk you run, often. Even the best read of us, not to be defensive about it, aren’t totally aware of all the classic literature and you’ll come up with a plot line which you think is altogether unique and your own. I once did a show on The Twilight Zone about a guy who makes a bet that he can keep quiet for a whole year. Now, I did not realize it at the time, but there was a short story called “The Bet” and I think a Chekhov short story, unless I’m mistaken-

Steve: That’s the one where he’s locked in the glass room at the Men’s Club.

Serling: That’s right. He constantly talks, and a fella says to him, “If you keep quiet and are willing to be under observation, so we know you don’t talk, and not say a word for one year, I’ll give you 50,000 pounds.” And he says, “Great.” Because he desperately needed the money. So they put him in this glass room. Do you recall this story?

Steve: [Nodding] Mmm-hmm.

Serling: And he doesn’t say a word. And there are two switches to this story. Number one, the year ends and he is let out of his glass room, and in truth, he has said not a word. But the guy who made the bet with him, despite the fact that he’s a member of the club, doesn’t have 50,000 pounds. He doesn’t have five pounds. And here is a guy who has remained silent for an entire year to win a bet and a guy can’t cover, can’t honor, his bet. Then the second switch is that our talkative one is so talkative, that he really didn’t believe that he could stay quiet, so he had his larynx cut, the soundbox. So you have the double irony there. Now if, for example, I pose the problem to you that there is a talkative one amongst us, and somebody makes a bet with him that he’ll remain silent for a year, can you fill up a story this way? What happens?

[Silence falls over the crowd]

Serling: The silence is absolutely.... [Laughs]

Steve: You can take it a lot of different ways.

Serling: Tell me one.

Steve: You could take it in terms of what the man then does do assuming that he’s not put in such a glass cage.

Serling: Go on.

Steve: Assuming that he then must fulfill his need to talk by other activities.

Serling: Go on. You’re coming close to Chekhov now, Steve.

Steve: You can take it through all kinds of very, very strong emotions. Very, very strong kinds of physical things. You could take it to his writings, you could take it to a certain kind of concentration of his own inner self, self analysis...

Serling: So what happens at the end of the year? No, follow the point. Can you tell me?

Steve: As I said, there are five or six different ways that you could do each of these.

Serling: Allo right, let’s say —I’m going to give you the Chekhov line now— there’s an altogether shallow, talkative, big-mouthed klutz, who makes this bet. In the Chekhov story, he goes in for the first time in his life, has a kind of enforced serenity, there’s nothing he can do because talking has always been this sort of forced measure, that’s all he can do properly. He begins to read. You recall this story, Doris? And after twelve months of reading the classic literature of our time, he comes out the most well-rounded, the most beautifully thoughtful, sensitive human being who ever lived. He knows Thoreau, he knows Socrates, he knows Moses, he knows the Word of God, he knows the ancients and of the angels, and he becomes an altogether incredibly well-rounded man. That’s the Chekhov story.

Art: There’s another way you could take that.

Serling: Go.

Art: Assuming that he accepted the bet, and then following him in the situations where we normally communicate our feeling by talking, in a love situation with a child, with friends and all of the emotions, and then scoring the fact that he’s having a very difficult time and is very articulate by action, by the actions of love or fatherhood, the languages of sign, and touch—

Serling: Without voice, he cannot do these things.

Art: -but finding at the end of the year he gets less, he brings this under control so that at the end of the year, when he’s about to win the bet, that doesn’t matter any more because he’s found that words aren’t a particularly—

Serling: That’s pretty reasonable.

Doris: I’m more cruel than that, because I would have him need that money desperately. He feels that the money would help him get his marriage on stable ground, have his children love him and all this sort of thing, but by the time he’s been quiet and hasn’t communicated with anybody for a year, everything’s fallen apart anyway, and the money won’t help him.

Art: That goes back to the old, you know, “My wife needs an operation,” or something.

Dave: Say, when he went in the room he felt he needed the money. When he came out, he no longer felt he needed the money at all.

Serling: Exactly the Chekhov line, Dave.

Dave: But as he walks out of the room, everybody will not talk to him. They just walk away and then he sees the hearse go by on the road.

Serling: [Nodding] Mmm-hmm. You went Chekhov one better.

[edit] References

  • Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition).

[edit] External links

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