The Twilight Zone (1959) s02e24 Episode Script
The Rip Van Winkle Caper
You're traveling through another dimension a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
That's the signpost up ahead.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
Good work, gentlemen.
Apples in the barrel.
Yeah, so far, but we ain't spent anything yet.
Yeah, you know brooks is right.
$1 million worth of gold bullion, and i'm still wearing coveralls, and i got $1.
20 in my pocket.
That's this year, senor decruz.
Today, this, but tomorrow tomorrow, gentlemen like croesus, midas and all rolled into one.
Man, you see that train engineer when he hit them brakes? He looked like he thought the world was coming to an end.
Why not? When i blow up tracks, i blow up tracks.
Point out a foundry for me, decruz, i'll forge you a medal.
Oh, come on, come on, look out, look out.
Get out of the way.
What's your trouble, brooks? May we get to business now? Let's get the carts and start unloading.
Come on, come on.
Down.
Oh, man, you're a heavy little thing.
Are there any more at home like you? All right, gentlemen, procedure as follows: The gold in the cave then mr.
Decruz will destroy the vehicles.
Okay, buddy boy, let's go.
Thepiece de resistancenow.
The real culmination.
Ultimate ingenuity.
It is one thing, gentlemen, to stop a train on its way from fort knox to los angeles and steal its cargo.
It's another thing to remain free to spend it.
And spend it we shall.
Yeah, but when? Don't you know, mr.
Decruz? I would have thought that this aspect of the plan would be particularly clear in your mind.
Maldito vidrio.
Rip van winkle.
That's what we are.
Four rip van winkles.
I'm not sure.
Whatare you not sure of, mr.
Decruz? Just lying down in one of these these glass caskets and getting put to sleep.
I like to know what i'm doing.
You know what you're doing- i've explained it very precisely to you.
All four of us will be placed in a state of suspended animation, and when we wake up, that's when we'll take our gold and enjoy it.
I say everybody takes his cut now and takes his own chances.
What you say, decruz- but that ain't what we agreed on.
We agreed we'd stash the gold here and then do whatever farwell tells us to do.
So far he ain't been wrong- not about anything.
The train, the gold gas he used to put a whole trainload of people to sleep- everything.
All we had to do was step over a lot of horizontal folks snoring.
Transfer a fortune like it was cotton candy.
Amen to that.
Amen to that, sure.
But how about to this? None of you mind being helpless and closed up in these? No, mr.
Decruz.
None of us mind.
How long, farwell? How long? I don't know exactly.
I can only surmise.
I would say that i would say approximately from today's date.
gentlemen, and we shall walk the earth again as rich men, however.
As extremely rich men.
Just like rip van winkle.
Introducing four experts in the questionable art of crime: Mr.
Farwell, expert on noxious gases, former professor with a doctorate in both chemistry and physics; mr.
Erbie, expert in mechanical engineering; mr.
Brooks, expert in the use of firearms and other weaponry; and mr.
Decruz, expert in demolition and various forms of destruction.
The time is now and the place is a mountain cave in death valley, u.
s.
a.
In just a moment these four men will utilize the services of a truck placed in cosmoline loaded with a hot heist, cooled off by a century of sleep and then take a drive into the twilight zone.
All right, gentlemen.
First of all, i want to know if you can hear me knock once on the side as i call your name.
Decruz? Brooks.
Erbie.
Now i'm going to give you, in chronology, precisely what will happen.
First, you are to check your airlocks located on your right.
See it there? The red arrow should be pointed toward "closed and locked.
" Now you are each to count ten, very slowly.
When you come to the end of the count, reach down with your left hand, there's a small green button there.
See it? You are to press this button.
You will hear a slight hissing sound.
This will be the gas being measured into the enclosures.
All right, gentlemen, check your airlocks first.
Now begin to count and on ten, release the gas.
Good night, gentlemen.
Pleasant dreams.
Good sleep.
I'll see you in the next century.
Next century.
It didn't work.
It didn't we don't have any beards, and our nails didn't grow.
Well, mr.
Farwell, with the big brain and all the answers, why didn't it work? It must have worked.
It was foolproof.
All the body functions stopped.
There wouldn't be any growth of beard or nails or anything else! I tell you, it worked.
Well, look.
The road's still there.
It hasn't changed.
It hasn't changed one bit! Carajo.
Mastermind, big brain.
Instead of a hundred years, maybe it's an hour, and so we're still hot.
And all that gold in there is just like a lot garbage to us now because everybody and his brother is going to be looking for it.
Erbie.
We forgot erbie.
This is what did it.
Must have fallen from the top of the cave, cracked the glass, the gas escaped.
Mr.
Erbie has proven my point, however, gentlemen.
He's definitely proven my point the hard way.
How how long would it take for such a thing to happen? A year, or a hundred years.
Chances are, mr.
Decruz, that we're now in the year 2061.
wow.
Okay.
Now the next step, huh? We load the gold into the truck and take it to the first city we get to, huh? And then we take it to a fence or melt it down ourselves in some way.
That's the deal, isn't it? Why is it, mr.
Decruz, that greedy men are the most dreamless, least imaginative, the stupidest? Now, listen to me, farwell for the first time in history we have taken a century and put it in our hip pocket.
We've taken a lease on life and outlived our stay.
We've had our cake but we're still going to eat.
That's quite an adventure out there, mr.
Decruz, though you're a little insensitive to it.
It's a world we've never seen before- a brand-new, exciting world that we are going to walk through.
But with gold, farwell.
With a million bucks worth of gold.
That's how we're going to walk through it.
Of course.
I wonder what kind of a world.
We all loaded up? All loaded.
Okay, let's pull out.
Brooks, you drive.
I'll hop in the back and make sure the gold doesn't fall off.
Well, aren't you the most thoughtful little thing that ever come down the pike? What's the matter? You stay in back and watch the gold, huh? Decruz, i wouldn't trust you with gold if it was filling in your own mother's tooth.
No, buddy boy, you drive.
I'll check the back.
Well, okay.
Okay, amigo.
Where's the water can? We might as well get that loaded.
Over there where we buried erbie.
Decruz! Mr.
Brooks had a very bad accident.
I keep underestimating you, mr.
Decruz.
Yeah, well, we'll do it my way now.
We'll pack as much as we can, put them in two knapsacks, and hit the road.
I can't think of any other alternative at the moment.
Hold it, decruz, hold it.
I've got to rest.
How we doing, farwell? The map said the map said 28 miles to the next town.
At this rate, we won't reach it till tomorrow afternoon.
At this rate, you'll never reach it.
There hasn't been a car, not a single car.
What if? "What if" what? What if there were a war? What if they dropped a bomb? What if this highway stretched to stretched to what? Stretched to nothing, mr.
Decruz? Stretched to nothing at all? Wouldn't it be the irony of all ironies- walk till our hearts burst carrying all this gold? There's a world left, farwell, and that proves it.
That means there's a town up ahead.
We're going to make it, buddy.
We're going to make it.
Come on.
Let's get going.
My canteen is gone.
I must have left it back on the road the last place we stopped.
I haven't any water.
Water? Oh, i believe there's some water around here you could drink.
Let's see, uh oh, here's some water.
One drink, one bar of gold.
That's the price.
You're out of your mind.
That's the price.
One drink, one bar of gold.
I keep underrating you, mr.
Decruz.
You're quite an entrepreneur.
Ain't it the truth.
One drink, one bar of gold.
That's the going rate today, mr.
Farwell.
It may change tomorrow- i haven't checked the market- but for today it's one for one.
Let's go, mr.
Farwell.
What's the matter? You pooped already? You had a good night's sleep, and we've only been on the road a couple hours.
Stop must stop.
Must have water, decruz.
Must have water.
Well, all right, farwell.
I got about a quarter of a canteen left.
Please, decruz.
Please, decruz.
Mr.
Farwell, the rate of exchange has gone up a little bit today.
It's two bars of gold for one swallow.
Water, please.
Mister mister this is gold here.
You can have it.
Drive me to town.
If you give me water gold it's real gold.
You can have it.
I'll give it to you.
I'll give it to you.
Poor old fella.
Poor old fella.
I wonder where you came from.
Who is it, george? What's the matter with him? Some old tramp.
That's what he was.
He's dead.
What's that? Gold- that's what he said it was.
He wanted to give it to me in exchange for a lift into town.
Gold? Now, what in the world would he be doing with this gold? I don't know, he was probably off his rocker.
Anybody walking in the desert this time of day would be off his rocker.
Can you imagine that? He offered this to me as if it was really worth something.
You know, wasn't it worth something once, george? I mean, didn't people use gold for money? Sure, about a hundred years or so ago, before they found a way of manufacturing it.
When we get back into town, we'll have the police come out and pick him up.
The last of four rip van winkles who all died precisely the way they lived: Chasing an idol across the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot sun as so much desert flotsam worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine to- tonight's lesson in the twilight zone.
Rod serling, creator ofthe twilight zone, will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, mr.
Serling.
There are all kinds of wagers and all kinds of odds, from the spin of a roulette wheel to a two dollar across the board at a racetrack.
But next week onthe twilight zone, with the aid of mr.
Franchot tone, we tell the story of possibly the strangest bet ever to occur in the annals of chance.
Our program is called "the silence.
" I hope we'll see you then.
Here's something that doesn't require any imagination- it's oasis.
If you just took this puff, you'd agree it's the softest taste of all.
Before we meet again, try oasis for the softest taste of all.
Be sure and watchgunsmoke, starring james arness, saturday nights over most of these same stations.
That's the signpost up ahead.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
Good work, gentlemen.
Apples in the barrel.
Yeah, so far, but we ain't spent anything yet.
Yeah, you know brooks is right.
$1 million worth of gold bullion, and i'm still wearing coveralls, and i got $1.
20 in my pocket.
That's this year, senor decruz.
Today, this, but tomorrow tomorrow, gentlemen like croesus, midas and all rolled into one.
Man, you see that train engineer when he hit them brakes? He looked like he thought the world was coming to an end.
Why not? When i blow up tracks, i blow up tracks.
Point out a foundry for me, decruz, i'll forge you a medal.
Oh, come on, come on, look out, look out.
Get out of the way.
What's your trouble, brooks? May we get to business now? Let's get the carts and start unloading.
Come on, come on.
Down.
Oh, man, you're a heavy little thing.
Are there any more at home like you? All right, gentlemen, procedure as follows: The gold in the cave then mr.
Decruz will destroy the vehicles.
Okay, buddy boy, let's go.
Thepiece de resistancenow.
The real culmination.
Ultimate ingenuity.
It is one thing, gentlemen, to stop a train on its way from fort knox to los angeles and steal its cargo.
It's another thing to remain free to spend it.
And spend it we shall.
Yeah, but when? Don't you know, mr.
Decruz? I would have thought that this aspect of the plan would be particularly clear in your mind.
Maldito vidrio.
Rip van winkle.
That's what we are.
Four rip van winkles.
I'm not sure.
Whatare you not sure of, mr.
Decruz? Just lying down in one of these these glass caskets and getting put to sleep.
I like to know what i'm doing.
You know what you're doing- i've explained it very precisely to you.
All four of us will be placed in a state of suspended animation, and when we wake up, that's when we'll take our gold and enjoy it.
I say everybody takes his cut now and takes his own chances.
What you say, decruz- but that ain't what we agreed on.
We agreed we'd stash the gold here and then do whatever farwell tells us to do.
So far he ain't been wrong- not about anything.
The train, the gold gas he used to put a whole trainload of people to sleep- everything.
All we had to do was step over a lot of horizontal folks snoring.
Transfer a fortune like it was cotton candy.
Amen to that.
Amen to that, sure.
But how about to this? None of you mind being helpless and closed up in these? No, mr.
Decruz.
None of us mind.
How long, farwell? How long? I don't know exactly.
I can only surmise.
I would say that i would say approximately from today's date.
gentlemen, and we shall walk the earth again as rich men, however.
As extremely rich men.
Just like rip van winkle.
Introducing four experts in the questionable art of crime: Mr.
Farwell, expert on noxious gases, former professor with a doctorate in both chemistry and physics; mr.
Erbie, expert in mechanical engineering; mr.
Brooks, expert in the use of firearms and other weaponry; and mr.
Decruz, expert in demolition and various forms of destruction.
The time is now and the place is a mountain cave in death valley, u.
s.
a.
In just a moment these four men will utilize the services of a truck placed in cosmoline loaded with a hot heist, cooled off by a century of sleep and then take a drive into the twilight zone.
All right, gentlemen.
First of all, i want to know if you can hear me knock once on the side as i call your name.
Decruz? Brooks.
Erbie.
Now i'm going to give you, in chronology, precisely what will happen.
First, you are to check your airlocks located on your right.
See it there? The red arrow should be pointed toward "closed and locked.
" Now you are each to count ten, very slowly.
When you come to the end of the count, reach down with your left hand, there's a small green button there.
See it? You are to press this button.
You will hear a slight hissing sound.
This will be the gas being measured into the enclosures.
All right, gentlemen, check your airlocks first.
Now begin to count and on ten, release the gas.
Good night, gentlemen.
Pleasant dreams.
Good sleep.
I'll see you in the next century.
Next century.
It didn't work.
It didn't we don't have any beards, and our nails didn't grow.
Well, mr.
Farwell, with the big brain and all the answers, why didn't it work? It must have worked.
It was foolproof.
All the body functions stopped.
There wouldn't be any growth of beard or nails or anything else! I tell you, it worked.
Well, look.
The road's still there.
It hasn't changed.
It hasn't changed one bit! Carajo.
Mastermind, big brain.
Instead of a hundred years, maybe it's an hour, and so we're still hot.
And all that gold in there is just like a lot garbage to us now because everybody and his brother is going to be looking for it.
Erbie.
We forgot erbie.
This is what did it.
Must have fallen from the top of the cave, cracked the glass, the gas escaped.
Mr.
Erbie has proven my point, however, gentlemen.
He's definitely proven my point the hard way.
How how long would it take for such a thing to happen? A year, or a hundred years.
Chances are, mr.
Decruz, that we're now in the year 2061.
wow.
Okay.
Now the next step, huh? We load the gold into the truck and take it to the first city we get to, huh? And then we take it to a fence or melt it down ourselves in some way.
That's the deal, isn't it? Why is it, mr.
Decruz, that greedy men are the most dreamless, least imaginative, the stupidest? Now, listen to me, farwell for the first time in history we have taken a century and put it in our hip pocket.
We've taken a lease on life and outlived our stay.
We've had our cake but we're still going to eat.
That's quite an adventure out there, mr.
Decruz, though you're a little insensitive to it.
It's a world we've never seen before- a brand-new, exciting world that we are going to walk through.
But with gold, farwell.
With a million bucks worth of gold.
That's how we're going to walk through it.
Of course.
I wonder what kind of a world.
We all loaded up? All loaded.
Okay, let's pull out.
Brooks, you drive.
I'll hop in the back and make sure the gold doesn't fall off.
Well, aren't you the most thoughtful little thing that ever come down the pike? What's the matter? You stay in back and watch the gold, huh? Decruz, i wouldn't trust you with gold if it was filling in your own mother's tooth.
No, buddy boy, you drive.
I'll check the back.
Well, okay.
Okay, amigo.
Where's the water can? We might as well get that loaded.
Over there where we buried erbie.
Decruz! Mr.
Brooks had a very bad accident.
I keep underestimating you, mr.
Decruz.
Yeah, well, we'll do it my way now.
We'll pack as much as we can, put them in two knapsacks, and hit the road.
I can't think of any other alternative at the moment.
Hold it, decruz, hold it.
I've got to rest.
How we doing, farwell? The map said the map said 28 miles to the next town.
At this rate, we won't reach it till tomorrow afternoon.
At this rate, you'll never reach it.
There hasn't been a car, not a single car.
What if? "What if" what? What if there were a war? What if they dropped a bomb? What if this highway stretched to stretched to what? Stretched to nothing, mr.
Decruz? Stretched to nothing at all? Wouldn't it be the irony of all ironies- walk till our hearts burst carrying all this gold? There's a world left, farwell, and that proves it.
That means there's a town up ahead.
We're going to make it, buddy.
We're going to make it.
Come on.
Let's get going.
My canteen is gone.
I must have left it back on the road the last place we stopped.
I haven't any water.
Water? Oh, i believe there's some water around here you could drink.
Let's see, uh oh, here's some water.
One drink, one bar of gold.
That's the price.
You're out of your mind.
That's the price.
One drink, one bar of gold.
I keep underrating you, mr.
Decruz.
You're quite an entrepreneur.
Ain't it the truth.
One drink, one bar of gold.
That's the going rate today, mr.
Farwell.
It may change tomorrow- i haven't checked the market- but for today it's one for one.
Let's go, mr.
Farwell.
What's the matter? You pooped already? You had a good night's sleep, and we've only been on the road a couple hours.
Stop must stop.
Must have water, decruz.
Must have water.
Well, all right, farwell.
I got about a quarter of a canteen left.
Please, decruz.
Please, decruz.
Mr.
Farwell, the rate of exchange has gone up a little bit today.
It's two bars of gold for one swallow.
Water, please.
Mister mister this is gold here.
You can have it.
Drive me to town.
If you give me water gold it's real gold.
You can have it.
I'll give it to you.
I'll give it to you.
Poor old fella.
Poor old fella.
I wonder where you came from.
Who is it, george? What's the matter with him? Some old tramp.
That's what he was.
He's dead.
What's that? Gold- that's what he said it was.
He wanted to give it to me in exchange for a lift into town.
Gold? Now, what in the world would he be doing with this gold? I don't know, he was probably off his rocker.
Anybody walking in the desert this time of day would be off his rocker.
Can you imagine that? He offered this to me as if it was really worth something.
You know, wasn't it worth something once, george? I mean, didn't people use gold for money? Sure, about a hundred years or so ago, before they found a way of manufacturing it.
When we get back into town, we'll have the police come out and pick him up.
The last of four rip van winkles who all died precisely the way they lived: Chasing an idol across the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot sun as so much desert flotsam worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine to- tonight's lesson in the twilight zone.
Rod serling, creator ofthe twilight zone, will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, mr.
Serling.
There are all kinds of wagers and all kinds of odds, from the spin of a roulette wheel to a two dollar across the board at a racetrack.
But next week onthe twilight zone, with the aid of mr.
Franchot tone, we tell the story of possibly the strangest bet ever to occur in the annals of chance.
Our program is called "the silence.
" I hope we'll see you then.
Here's something that doesn't require any imagination- it's oasis.
If you just took this puff, you'd agree it's the softest taste of all.
Before we meet again, try oasis for the softest taste of all.
Be sure and watchgunsmoke, starring james arness, saturday nights over most of these same stations.