I Am the Night—Color Me Black

"I Am the Night—Color Me Black"
The Twilight Zone episode

Ivan Dixon as Reverend Anderson
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 146
Directed by Abner Biberman
Written by Rod Serling
Featured music Stock from "Where Is Everybody?" by Bernard Herrmann
Production code 2630
Original air date March 27, 1964
Guest stars

Michael Constantine: Sheriff Charlie Koch
Paul Fix: Colbey
George Lindsey: Deputy Pierce
Ivan Dixon: Reverend Anderson
Eve McVeagh: Ella
Terry Becker: Jagger

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List of Twilight Zone episodes

"I Am the Night—Color Me Black" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

Synopsis

Jagger is a man who is to be hanged after being wrongfully convicted of killing a bigot in self defense. On the day of his execution, the sun does not rise in the morning. There is also still some dispute as to whether or not Jagger is guilty. However, Jagger is hanged anyway, much to the delight of the town. The town Reverend steps in and says that the sky is black because of all the hatred in the world, namely the hatred surrounding Jagger's execution. The sky becomes even darker in the town. Later, a radio broadcast reveals the town is not the only place this disturbance has been seen in. The sky has turned dark in North Vietnam, a section of the Berlin Wall, Chicago, a street in Dallas, Birmingham, Alabama, and other places of hate around the world.

Production notes

Serling wrote this script primarily as his personal reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Indeed, mention is made in the story of "a street in Dallas, Texas" (where Kennedy was murdered as his motorcade traveled down Dallas's main street) as being enveloped by the strange darkness.

The episode is similar to "Many Many Monkeys", a script written for Twilight Zone by its producer, William Froug, but never shot. In that script an epidemic breaks out in which afflicted persons' eyes seal shut as folds of flesh grow over them. Though a nuclear explosion is initially blamed, one character proposes that it is a physical manifestation of hate that is blinding them. The network bought the script but then shelved it, possibly finding its subject matter too disturbing, but it was eventually produced in 1987, during the first revival of Twilight Zone (see "Many, Many Monkeys").

Years earlier, Serling had written a teleplay for Playhouse 90 called "A Town Turned To Dust", about the 1870 lynching of an innocent Mexican in a Southwestern town. This story was based on the Emmett Till case, and Serling had to deal with executive interference and network censors before the show could air.[1]

The date that this episode occurs on is May 25, 1964, even though there had not been legal public hanging at that time in the United States since 1936. (The last person hanged in the United States was Billy Bailey in 1996, and the punishment remains an option in two U.S. states: Washington and New Hampshire.)

References

  1. ^ Gould, Jack. "Prejudice Dissected", New York Times; Jun 20, 1958; pg. 47. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851–2006)

External links