The Twilight Zone (1959) s04e10 Episode Script

You unlock this door with the key of imagination.
Beyond it is another dimension- a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.
You've just crossed over into the twilight zone.
Harvey? What's the monitor picture now? Still distorted.
And we've got six or seven minutes left.
What guarantee do you have that you'll reach the point that you want to? No guarantee at all.
But if i fail, you simply mark off one man one insignificant human one frail, protesting member of the race.
If i do fail if i end up in hell or limbo, or the cemetery the responsibility is exclusively mine.
You can rest easy on this fact.
Feeling pretty secure, paul? You sound funereal, harvey.
Then i sound the way i feel.
I'm helping you because you asked me to as a friend, paul.
I can give you efficiency and dedication, but enthusiasm i can't dredge up even in the minutest degree.
No sense of adventure, no wonder at the unknown? There's some wonder, some inquisitiveness as to how a human being can place himself in such jeopardy not only with willingness, but with anticipation.
Jeopardy? The jeopardy i face comes in shadow.
Yours happens to be much more real.
But of the two, there's not much choice.
Did you drink milk this morning? What was the strontium 90 content? Has it occurred to you that the things you've been eating might be turning your bones into sawdust? Oh, harvey, speak to me of jeopardy if you will but don't make it sound as if i have an exclusive franchise on the calculated risk.
You and i share this dubious distinction with several million peers who inhabit the 20th century.
And you don't care for the 20th century.
I do not.
I will tell you succinctly how i classify the times.
We live in a cesspool, a septic tank a gigantic sewage complex in which runs the dregs, the filth the misery-laden slop of the race of men- his hatred, prejudices, passions, and violence.
And the keeper man.
He is a scientifically advanced monkey who walks upright, with eyes wide open into an abyss of his own making.
His bombs, fallout, poisons, radioactivity- everything he designs as an art for dying is his excuse for living.
No, we live in an exquisite bedlam an insanity.
Maybe all the more grotesque by the fact that we don't recognize it as insanity.
Did it ever occur to you that some these scientifically advanced monkeys make bombs as a simple expedient for survival? That across this planet there are other scientifically advanced monkeys who would pulverize us into dust if they thought they could do so with impunity? I don't need a lesson in current events.
I'm pretty well up on the times.
The freedom-loving monkeys make bombs while the aggressors make bombs.
But ultimately, somebody pushes a button and just as ultimately, this earth disappears.
And all of this, i suppose, is right and practical and expedient.
A few germs will rise up out of the rubble and wave microscopic flags of victory and shed a few microscopic tears for the race of men.
Harvey, are you content with this kind of status quo? Are you satisfied withthiskind of 20th century? You're in focus now, paul.
Press the button.
Press the button, my friend, send me back into time.
Exit one paul driscoll, a creature of the 20th century.
He puts to a test a complicated theorem of space-time continuum.
But he goes a step further, or tries to.
Shortly, he will seek out three moments of the past in a desperate attempt to alter the present- one of the odd and fanciful functions in a shadowland known as the twilight zone.
I regret that i kept you waiting.
I'm told that you speak english rather well.
Indeed.
I venture to say i speak it perhaps a bit better than you speak japanese.
I don't speak any japanese.
But the english i have to throw at you may be the most important you've heard in your life.
Sit down, mr.
, um driscoll, is it? A rather efficient police.
Much more intent on putting me in jail than in listening to me.
You happen to be an enemy alien, which is the reason why the reason why i was kept in a cell over six hours.
It also may be the reason you'll regret this arrest.
Go on.
What i was trying to tell them, and you now is that within an hour this city is going to be destroyed and upward of 60,000 to 70,000 human beings will be killed.
You don't get it, do you? You're going to be bombed out of existence! There are some things you could do about it.
Start an evacuation of women and children.
You can save a few thousand human lives.
I can? By whose say-so, mr.
Driscoll? Whodoyou represent? I don't represent anyone.
Let's say i represent the voice of history.
The voice of history.
That's quaint, mr.
Driscoll.
That's extremely quaint.
A new kind of bomb is going to be dropped here.
You're going to live through a nightmare beyond any kind of imagination.
A single aircraft, mr.
Driscoll? One lone b-29.
I rather think we can survive that.
I must take you to some higher authorities, mr.
Driscoll who will interrogate you at army headquarters.
If you'll be good enough to follow.
Listen this is not just a request.
It's in the nature of a prayer.
I will make an assumption you have some illness.
I won't put you up against the wall and shoot you.
I'll give you a chance to speak to other authorities.
If you get back to your country the face of the enemy is not devoid of some compassion.
You might remember this conversation.
And if you're still alive remember that the same thing could be said of your enemy.
He tried to save the people of hiroshima.
Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Yes? I am here to prepare your room, mein herr.
That won't be necessary.
But i have clean towels, sir, and soap.
Well, just a moment.
Guten tag.
Hello.
Ach, you have the loveliest room in the hotel, mein herr.
Yes.
Yes, it's a lovely view.
Oh, it's more than a view, much more than a view.
In just a moment you'll see history unfolding.
Do you know that this whole side of the hotel on every floor, has been rented, completely? Just because of ourfuhrer, just so they can see him.
Ha, down in the street it's a madhouse and this is the only place to watch from.
Yes, that's what they told me.
You're not german, mein herr? No, i'm not.
Then what are you instead? I'm an american.
Oh, excuse me.
An american? What do they think of ourfuhrer in america, and the new germany? We're quite neutral.
Neutral? You say neutral but you mean something else.
Der fuhrer! Do you hear that? That is our new germany.
That is something you'll never understand.
That, madam, is the old germany and that is something you'llnever understand.
Herr driscoll? Open up, please, immediately! Immediately, now, herr driscoll! Will you open up this door, immediately? Now, you said this is a matter of some urgency, mr.
, uh, mr? My name is driscoll, but that's not important.
Then perhaps you'd tell me, sir, what is important.
Unfortunately, i'm due on the bridge in just a few moments.
Captain, is there any way of altering the course? I beg your pardon.
The course, the present course the ship is taking, is there any way of altering it? Well, now, since my country is a belligerent and these waters are a zone of combat i think i would rather discuss this with higher authority before taking such a step.
Supposing i told you, captain, that if you hold this course for as long as perhaps five minutes this ship is going to be torpedoed.
Just who are you, mr.
Driscoll? You won't find me on the passenger list there.
My name isn't on it.
Yet you got aboard.
How? That doesn't matter, i did get aboard.
But i'm not sailing for my health.
I'm sailing for your health and that of your crew and passengers.
I happen to know that this ship is going to be torpedoed! Right here, right off old head of kinsale island.
May the 7th.
May the 7th? Yes, sir.
That's today.
You say youknowthis.
How do you know? If i told you, you'd probably say i was a lunatic.
I won't deny that.
But neither will i alter the course of this ship simply on the word of one man who seems strangely reticent to say anything beyond one single wild statement.
Say i am a lunatic, say everything i'm telling you is the product of a deranged mind.
How many minutes could you lose by altering course? That's not the point.
Thatis the point.
Otherwise, 1,100 people are going to drown.
I think that will be about enough, mr.
Driscoll.
If you happen to be one of the fortunate few remember, when that court of inquiry convenes that's enough, mr.
Driscoll.
I'll ask you to leave.
Captain, i'm not asking you to scuttle the ship i'm only asking you to alter course one single degree! Steward, steward.
Come in here, please.
Sir? Escort mr.
Driscoll out of my quarters, please.
Come along, if you would, sir.
Oh, captain, there's still time.
Mr.
Driscoll, there's still time to confine you to your cabin.
And mind you, sir, after i make inquiry as to how you got aboard, i may do that.
Well, go on, paul.
Then what? Then nothing.
Hiroshima, august 1945.
Attempt number one, failure number one.
Then august 1939, the hotel berlin another blow for law and order hitting nothing, and accomplishing just that.
And finally, thelusitania, of our entering the first world war.
Three tries, three misses.
Then you must know now, paul, that the past is inviolate.
Whatever has happened, must remain as having happened.
You can't change anything.
I believe you.
I believe it's not possible to alter the past and because of that, there isn't anything we can do about the present or the future.
Study of 19th century midwest america? Open that to page 90.
It talks about a place there called homeville, indiana.
There's a picture, shows how it looked in 1881.
Hmm, this is charming parasols, bicycles it's all very serene.
Apropos of what, paul? Apropos of the fact that i'm going back there.
I'm going back, not to change anything but to become a part of it.
A world of band concerts and summer nights on front porches.
A world that never heard of an atomic bomb world war, or germ warfare- that'swhere i'm going.
All right, but remember this, paul everything is cause and effect, everything.
You go back in time to this homeville and you inadvertently change one event, alter it minutely and you might start a chain reaction beyond anything that we can even imagine.
I'm going back there tolive not to change anything.
Now, harvey, how about it? All right, now, heaven help me.
And heaven help you, paul.
Well, what's your order, sir? I'll have a beer.
That'll be a nickel.
A nickel? That's the price tag.
You got a nickel? You from around here? No.
No, i'm from out of state.
Out of state, you say? Just passing through? No.
As a matter of fact, i was thinking of settling down here.
Just as i expected.
Boarding house across the square.
Ma chamberlain's place.
Real nice accommodations.
She runs a clean place.
Gonna stay there? For the present.
It begins.
Right away, it begins.
It's tomorrow.
It's tomorrow.
It's tomorrow that garfield what did you say? When what? Oh, nothing, i was just talking to myself.
Odd fellow real odd.
Maybe he just don't hold with president garfield.
Maybe he's a democrat.
President james abram garfield shot in a washington railway station, july 2, 1881.
Died september 19, 1881.
So be it.
Room comfortable? Yes, very, thank you.
Should be.
Best room in the house.
Northern afternoon sun, southern exposure.
The nicest view i've got.
Are you a traveling man, mr.
Driscoll? Oh, no, mrs.
Chamberlain, i'm not.
What is your business, mr.
Driscoll? Well, i'm a physicist.
Physicist? When i've got more time, explain that to me.
Well, now i must tell you the rest of the rules of the house.
No visitors upstairs after 8:30 p.
m.
Lady visitors downstairs in the parlor no gambling, no chewing, breakfast 8:30 sharp dinner at noon, supper at 6:00.
If you're late, you're out of luck.
Each week's bill, paid inadvance.
Abigail, i want you to meet the new boarder.
This is mr.
Driscoll, he's from the east.
This is miss abigail sloan.
She teaches school here in town.
Pleased to meet you.
Thank you.
Are you planing to stay for a time? I hope to.
Well, i hope you enjoy it.
Thank you.
Lovely girl, ain't she? And a moral girl, too.
I mean real moral.
Nuclear fallout indochina berlin wall what are you? I never heard of you.
It's summer, first of july.
Going to be a band concert in a couple of days lemonade, fireworks it's 1881, homeville, indiana.
And i'm home.
Twilight zonewill continue after station identification.
And i tell you, mrs.
Chamberlain that until this government of ours assumes its rightful place of responsibility in the world we will remain an isolated, terribly provincial static community of states.
You know what i say we should do about it? I'll tell you what we should do.
We should take the american fleet send it over to the orient and plant the american flag.
Then on down to australia then back across the pacific to south america planting the american flag as we go.
Planting her deep, planting her high, planting her proud.
You ought to run for office, mr.
Hanford.
Believe me, my dear lady, i've thought of it, but finance comes first.
It's the lifeblood of the nation.
And the bank needs me.
Mr.
Driscoll, what are your international views? I don't have any, mr.
Hanford.
Of course you do, man.
Everybody has to have views as to the destiny of our country.
Now, you take the case of the indian wars, five years ago.
All this silly conciliatory nonsense about giving the indians lands.
As if you could actually make savages understand treaties.
We should have had and 100,000 men and we should have swept across the plains destroying every redskin who faced us.
And then we should have planted the american flag deep, high, and proud! I think the country is tired of fighting.
I think we were bled dry by the war.
Anything we can get by treaty is the proper course to pursue.
Now, here, young lady i trust that this isn't the pap you spoon-feed to your students.
Treaties, indeed; peace, indeed.
Why, the virility of a nation is in direct proportion to its fighting qualities.
We'll live to see the day when this country fields an army of a million men sweeping everything i'm sorry, mrs.
Chamberlain, i, uh i get carried away.
You some kind of pacifist, are you, driscoll? No, i'm some kind of sick idiot who's seen too many young men die because of too many old men like you who fight their battles at dining room tables.
Oh, my goodness.
I take offense at that remark, mr.
Driscoll.
And i take offense at armchair warriors who don't know what a shrapnel wound feels like or what death smells like after three days in the sun or the look in a man's eyes when he's minus a leg and his blood is seeping out.
Mr.
Hanford, you have a great enthusiasm for planting the flag deep.
But you don't have a nodding acquaintance with what it's like to bury men in the same soil.
I'll not sit here and take talk like that.
No, no you'll go back to your bank and it'll be business as usual until dinnertime when you'll give us another vacuous speech about a country growing strong by filling its graveyards.
Well, you're in for some gratifying times, mr.
Hanford.
Believe me, there'll be a lot of graveyards for you to fill in cuba and in france then all over europe, and all over the pacific.
You can sit on the sidelines and wave your pennants because, according to your definition this country's going to get virile as the devil.
From san juan to inchon we'll show how red our blood is because we'll spill it.
There are two unfortunate aspects of this.
One is, that you won't have to spill any.
And the other is, you won't live long enough to know i'm right.
A violent man.
Mr.
Driscoll.
Mr.
Driscoll, i i well, have i sufficiently endeared myself to them in there? I've been living there for almost two years, mr.
Driscoll.
That means two years of mealtimes with mrs.
Chamberlain's homemade pies and mr.
Hanford's rhetoric.
I i lost a father and two brothers in the war.
All three of them died in one afternoon.
For the 12 years that my mother lived well, there was a funeral in our house every day.
She never stopped mourning them.
I, i think they died for something, but but tonight, for the first time, mr.
Driscoll i heard somebody make a, a point that-that there are things preferable to dying and patriotism doesn't have to come with pain.
It's very decent of you to tell me this, miss sloan.
Why don't you just call me abby? Abby.
My first name's paul.
Paul.
It fits.
Does it? Yes, it fits very well.
Do you know something? You look like a man in love.
Not with a woman with what, then? With a moment, a place.
What were those names you said san juan, inchon? Where are those places? When you said, "other graveyards, other wars" what did you mean by that? Oh, nothing.
Why do i get this feeling that you're on the outside looking in just, well, passing by, looking in.
Abby i don't want to be just passing by.
I want to come in.
I wish i wish i could come in.
Why can't you? Everything is possible everything.
Garfield it's finally happened.
Just came over the telegram president garfield's been shot! Paul how did you know that? You couldn't possibly have heard what they said.
How did you know that? Paul, what's the matter? Abby, you're wrong.
Not everything is possible.
I wish i could tell you, but i can't explain it.
You mean you and me.
Especiallyyou and me.
Why? Why? It's getting late, abby.
It's time for you to go in.
Good morning.
Good morning.
We missed you at breakfast.
Oh, the president was badly wounded.
Yes, so it says.
But there's hope here for his recovery.
I guess that's all that's left sometimes, isn't it? Just hope.
Abby, i'm sorry about last night.
I'm truly sorry.
I wish i could explain it to you, but i can't, i couldn't make you understand.
Oh, it-it's perfectly all right, really it is.
There's no harm done, no harm at all.
You've got to forgive schoolteachers- they're very impressionable.
They're inclined to well, they're inclined to read many things into a glance, a word a touch.
Well, i've got a very busy day today.
There's so much preparation for tomorrow, you know.
Parade at 9:00, speech at 11:00 games from noon till 5:00 picnic supper and then fireworks.
And, oh, of course- my children.
Your children? Yes.
you with their own rendition of "columbia, the gem of the ocean," sung in six different keys with interpretations.
Well, we're we're going to practice now and let me tell you something.
Trying to keep a school building in the middle of summer the day before the fourth of july, that that happens to be well, that happens to be quite a an accomplishment.
Who are you, paul driscoll, and where are you from? It doesn't make any difference, abby.
Doesn't it? All right, we'll leave it at that.
It doesn't make any difference.
And it follows, it doesn't make any difference that you held me and kissed me and howdy, mr.
Driscoll.
How are you? Flat.
Well, that's better.
Tomorrow's the big doings, you know.
Fourth of july concert.
Yes, i'm looking forward to that.
She does a good job with those kids.
Miss sloan.
Yes, so i've heard.
Awful pretty girl to be a schoolmarm.
So i've noticed.
I've noticed that you noticed.
Aw, doggone, i never had no schoolmarm looked like that when i was a kid.
All my schoolmarms looked like they came out of a pickle jar.
Ah, it's a funny little town, isn't it? Don't change.
You see pictures of it and everything's the same same buildings, even.
This schoolhouse, for example.
I'll bet it's 60 years old, as she stands there.
It'll probably stand till somebody pulls it down.
What? I was talking about that school building.
What did you say about it? It'll probably keep standing till that's what i was trying to remember.
The school building.
The school building.
Oh, my god.
My dear god.
"The site of the homeville national bank "was formerly occupied by a school building "built in 1823 and gutted by a fire which started "at approximately 2:00 in the afternoon of july 3, 1881 "seriously injuring 12 children, who were rehearsing "for the fourth of july celebration.
"The fire was caused by a kerosene lantern from a runaway wagon.
" I can't do anything.
I can't say anything.
Can't even warn anyone.
Everything has to happen the way it's supposed to happen.
Sorry, mr.
President, recover, you shall not.
You're to die on september the 19th of this year.
And you shall burn.
This afternoon at 2:00.
"Seriously injuring And i can't do anything about it.
I have to stand around and watch it happen.
I have to let it happen.
Children, children, back to rehearsal now.
Go on inside and join the others.
Go on.
Everything is cause and effect everything.
You go back in time to this this homeville and you inadvertently change one event alter it even minutely, you might start a chain reaction beyond anything that we could even imagine.
All right, neighbors, gather round here.
That's it, get close.
Give me your attention, you'll never be sorry.
Do you know what i'm doing? Do you perceive my activity? You, sir do you know the symbolism that professor eliot is using at this moment? Like diogenes, i'm looking for an honest man.
An honest man who'll try one sip of professor eliot's wonder medicine and tell me whether it's the finest medicine he's ever tasted.
Here it is, friends.
The most safe and efficient alternative and de-obstruent properties for the cure of scrofula, king's evil white swellings, indurate tumors, gout, scurvy.
It's guaranteed to immediately alter a depraved or impure state of the blood or body fluids.
Here, madam, thank you.
Will you have one, sir? There you are.
Here you are.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you very much.
How about you, my friend? Don't be in a hurry, my friend do me a favor, will you? What? Well oh, nothing, never mind.
Unhitch those horses.
What did you say? I can't tell you why.
Unhitch those horses.
What's your trouble? Dyspepsia, liver complaint? This is what you need, sir.
I need those horses unhitched.
Now, just a minute.
Listen, i can't argue with you anymore.
You've got to unhitch those horses.
This wagon mustn't move a foot from this spot.
Why mustn't it? You get out of here, you hear me? Walk away from here! Leave me and my horses be! Get away from my horses! You hear me? Get away! How did you know? You did, didn't you? Yes, i knew.
I knew there'd be a fire.
And i knew it would happen this afternoon, at 2:00.
But what i didn't know i didn't know that i would cause it.
I shouldn't have come here, i know that now.
It won't work.
I know that, too.
It can't work because i know too many things.
I know i know about too many tomorrows.
Tomorrows? Your history, abby.
You, and this town, and the people in it.
Everything about it, your history and i can't change you.
I can't even touch you.
Paul, why not? Because the past is inviolate.
The past is sacred.
It belongs to those of you who live in it.
It's not for interlopers for people who are just passing by, look in and wish they were a part of it.
Where are you going? I'm going back.
Back to where i came from.
Back where i belong.
I couldn't live in a world menaced by a bomb and i find out now that it doesn't make any difference if it's a world or 12 children burned in a fire.
Even so, i've found more than i expected because you were here.
I've overstayed my welcome.
Good-bye, abby.
Stay well.
Hello, harvey.
Back so soon? Well, as it happens, back a little late.
You changed something? I tried to.
And in doing it, i caused it.
And now, paul? Where do you go now? Here.
Here in the 20th century, where i belong.
That's what i've learned, harvey.
To leave the yesterdays alone do something do something about the tomorrows.
They're the ones that count, the tomorrows.
Tomorrows god let there be tomorrows.
Well.
Incident on a july afternoon, 1881.
A man named driscoll who came and went and, in the process, learned a simple lesson perhaps best said by a poet named lathberry, who wrote: "Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow "what are you weaving, labor and sorrow? "Look to your looms again, faster and faster "fly the great shuttles prepared by the master life's in the loom, room for it, room.
" Tonight's tale of clocks and calendars in the twilight zone.
Next ontwilight zone, we take a page out of a book on the space age, and we project just a couple of degrees as to what conceivably might happen to an astronaut if suddenly and inexplicably, in the middle of an orbit, he disappears.
Our story tells you how, why and where.
It stars steve forrest.
It's called "the parallel.
" Capcom, capcom, this is phebus ten.
I've lost contact with you.
I've lost radar here! I've lost radar! We don't have contact here, either.
Capcom, capcom, this is phebus ten.
What you just told me is fantastic.
I helped build that spacecraft.
I know it very well.
It's not the same one we sent off.
It's almost a twin to it, down to the very last nut and bolt, but it's simply not the same spacecraft.
Colonial gaines went up in one spacecraft, but he's obviously come back in another.