| "The Grave" | |||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||
Lee Marvin as Conny Miller |
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| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 72 |
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| Directed by | Montgomery Pittman | ||
| Written by | Montgomery Pittman | ||
| Production code | 3656 | ||
| Original air date | October 27, 1961 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Lee Marvin: Conny Miller |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||
"The Grave" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
The episode opens as outlaw Pinto Sykes is ambushed by the men of the town in the middle of the street. Some time later, gun-for-hire Conny Miller arrives in town, ready to kill Sykes and collect his pay. He goes to the saloon where the men who hired him are gathered and is angry to learn that they dispatched Sykes themselves. Uneasy because of Sykes's deathbed vow and leery of Miller, the men—none of whom, clearly, would have taken on Sykes man-to-man—dare Miller to make a midnight visit to the grave of Sykes, who, as he lay dying, had vowed to reach up and grab Miller if he ever came near his grave. Miller is told to stick a knife into the burial mound as proof that he visited the grave. Miller treks in the cold, windy darkness to the cemetery and, at midnight, kneels at the grave to plant the knife. As he attempts to rise, he suddenly falls back down....
The next day, the townsmen, accompanied by Sykes's elderly sister Ione, visit the cemetery in the safety of broad daylight. Miller lies dead atop Sykes's grave, with the knife through his coat, pinning him to the ground. One of the men says it is plain what happened: the wind blew Miller's coat over the grave, he stuck the knife through his coattail unknowingly, and as he stood up afterward, he mistook the pinned coat's resistance for the tug of Sykes, and he fell dead of a heart attack. Sykes's sister Ione reacts with scorn. From which direction was the wind blowing last night? she asks. "From the south," one of the men replies. Same as now? she asks. They agree that's so. As she stands in the spot where Miller would have stood before planting the knife, "Look at my cloak," she challenges them. "Is the wind blowing it across the grave?" It is not; as the wind blows, Ione's long cloak streams behind her, like that of the Grim Reaper. Ione laughs, chillingly.