The Night of the Meek

"The Night of the Meek"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 11
Directed by Jack Smight
Written by Rod Serling
Produced by Buck Houghton
Featured music None credited
Production code 173-3663
Original air date December 23, 1960
Guest appearance(s)

"The Night of the Meek" is episode 47 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on December 23, 1960 on CBS.

Introductory scene

As snow begins to fall, a drunk Henry Corwin, wearing his Santa Claus suit, stumbles and half-falls at a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob, the camera pans to Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf:

Plot

It is Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er-do-well, dressed in a baggy, worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on a sandwich and six drinks at Jack's Place, the neighborhood bar. Bruce, the bartender, throws him out after spotting Corwin reaching for the bottle.

Arriving an hour late for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, the drunk Corwin is fired by Mr. Dundee, the manager, acting on complaints from customers about his drunkenness. As Dundee orders him off the premises, Corwin says that he drinks because he lives in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is incapable of fulfilling his desired role as Santa. He declares that if he had just one wish granted him on Christmas Eve, he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth".

Still in his outfit, he returns to Jack's Place but is refused re-entry by Bruce. Stumbling into an alley, he hears sleigh bells and trips over a large burlap bag, filled with packages, which seems to have the ability to produce any item that's asked of it. Overjoyed at his sudden ability to fulfill dreams, Corwin proceeds to hand out gift-wrapped presents to passersby and then to derelict men attending Christmas Eve service at Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House". Irritated by the disruption and outraged by Corwin's offer to gift her with a new dress, Sister Florence hurries outside to fetch Officer Flaherty, who arrests Corwin for apparently stealing merchandise from his former place of employment. Flaherty contacts Mr. Dundee, who arrives at the police station and reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purported stolen goods, but instead pulls out a few empty cans and a cat. Dundee, angry at having his time wasted, throws accusations of incompetence at Flaherty and disbelief at Corwin's claim that the bag is supernatural. Dundee challenges him to produce a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903. Corwin reaches into the bag to hand Dundee his exact request. Leaving the precinct, he continues to distribute gifts for the remainder of the evening until the bag is empty.

As he exits from one of the tenement buildings, elderly Burt, whose desired pipe and smoking jacket had come from Corwin's bag at Sister Florence's service, points out that Corwin himself has not yet gotten a gift. This prompts Corwin to remark that if he had his choice of any gift at all, "I think I'd wish I could do this every year". Returning to the alley where the gift-laden garbage bag had presented itself, he encounters an elf sitting in a large sleigh hitched to four reindeer waiting for him.

Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly tipsy from sampling Corwin's brandy, look upward upon hearing the tinkle of bells and see Corwin, in Flaherty's words, "big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin' next to an elf", ascending into the night sky. Dundee invites Flaherty to accompany him home and share some hot coffee, with brandy poured in it, adding, "...and we'll thank God for miracles, Flaherty..."

Closing narration

The original narration, on December 23, 1960, ended with the words, "and a Merry Christmas, to each and all", but that phrase was deleted in the 1980s and is now excluded from reruns, VHS releases and the five-DVD set The Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition. The phrase is heard in the Blu-ray release of Season 2 as well as the version streamed by Netflix, but with noticeably different sound quality from the rest of Serling's narration.

Credits

Billed (in order of appearance)

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 subsequently kinescoped to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission and future syndicated rebroadcasts. 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 gave those shows an appearance akin to that of stagebound live TV dramas, or even daytime soap operas which, at the time, were quickly and cheaply produced live on one or two sets. The experiment was therefore deemed a failure and never attempted again.

Even though the six episodes 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 second-season 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", came on February 10, 1961 as episode 17; and the last one, "Long Distance Call", was transmitted on March 31, 1961 as episode 22.

Remake

See also

References

  1. ↑ Romano, Carlin, Inquirer book critic. "He Was So Outspoken About TV He Was Called Its Leading Critic in 1961. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2, 1993)"

Sources

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