The Twilight Zone (1959) s05e07 Episode Script
The Old Man in the Cave
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.
Been to the cave, jason? Did you see goldsmith? Did he talk to the old man? Goldsmith's still up there.
He said to tell you he's getting a message from the old man.
He'll bring it down with him in a few minutes.
Is he asking about this food? It's all pre-bomb, all of it.
It's safe as anything.
Why do we have to keep waiting for the old man? Why don't we just take our chances with it? We already took chances.
The old man told us not to plant on the north acreage; that it was poisonous.
This is what came up.
Did these grow, evie, or did somebody leave them to us in a will? They were the best.
The best?! Hate to see the worst! I don't think we ought to eat those, evie.
I say we just better bury them with honors.
That's what goldsmith went to the cave for- to ask the old man what land we should try this time.
The old man, indeed.
Who knows where he gets his omniscient knowledge, but evie's right.
He knows about land.
Remember those tomatoes that came up? You remember he sent a message to goldsmith, telling usnotto plant them? Oh they were monstrous.
Like rotten watermelons.
They tasted but, jason, all of this stuff's pre-bomb.
I just know it.
Let's wait for goldsmith.
See what the old man has to say.
What about the food? Wait till goldsmith gets back from the cave.
Wait till he has a chance to ask the old man.
I'm surprised at you, all of you.
Man doesn't live by bread or canned food alone, or freak carrots, or mutated tomatoes.
But do me a favor, will you? Don't ask me what hedoeslive by.
In this tenth illustrious year after the bomb, i wouldn't be able to tell you.
Announcement! I have an announcement.
We've just had communication from the old man in the cave.
There's an 80% possibility of rain tomorrow.
The wind's from the northeast.
This means that there will likely be a very high radioactive count in the precipitation.
Now place all rain barrels upside down, and keep all water troughs covered.
As to the canned goods there, the old man says that they're contaminated and should be destroyed.
What you're looking at is a legacy that man left to himself.
A decade previous, he pushed his buttons and a nightmarish moment later woke up to find that he had set the clock back a thousand years.
His engines, his medicines, his science were buried in a mass tomb covered over by the biggest gravedigger of them all- a bomb.
And this is the earth, ten years later, a fragment of what was once a whole, a remnant of what was once a race.
The year is 1974, and this is the twilight zone.
Do you have anyone in charge? I'm in charge.
Do you have a name? Goldsmith.
Hmm.
This place- does it have a name? And if it does major? If it does, father, we'd like to hear it.
Uh who are you? Major french is my name.
Central states commander.
We're being sent around to organize.
Organize? Yes, that's what i said.
Now, how many people do you have here? We haven't counted lately.
What about food? There's sufficient.
Hmm.
You grow your own? Some.
We have a supply of prewar canned goods left over.
We'll need some quarters.
Harber, have a look around.
Douglas, you stay with the jeep.
Furman stay with me.
Major, uh, what do you want? Painless things.
We'd like quarters for the four of us, rations for as long as we're here and no trouble.
That last part- no trouble.
I don't think you understand, major.
We don't recognize your authority here.
We've had transients pass through on occasion, but they didn't stay.
Like you, they represented themselves as authorities, but we discovered they carried their headquarters with them.
They represented no one but themselves.
Well, this is a new breed, mr.
Goldsmith.
This whole area will be organized now.
It will be set up into military sectors, each controlled by a local constabulary- yours truly.
Well, you and your constabulary can remain overnight and we'll be glad to share our food with you, bed you down.
Tomorrow morning, you'd better do your organizing somewhere else.
Mr.
Goldsmith, the following is unofficial.
Now, we'd like you to make your transition here as easy as possible.
Now, under certain circumstances, we might even allow you to remain in nominal control.
That's assuming that you don't give us any trouble.
Now, that's unofficial.
The following is official.
Now, let me fill you in on the situation here, mr.
Goldsmith.
Between buffalo, new york, and atlanta, georgia, there are probably around 500 people alive.
You know why.
Because there's no authority, there's no discipline.
We're here to give you both.
And if you give us any trouble- any trouble atall- i'm going to hang you from that balcony right over there.
Well, now, what about it, mr.
Goldsmith? You want to cooperate or do you want your neck broken? We already have an authority.
We've had him for better than ten years.
Whatisall this? Poison.
It's contaminated food.
Who says so? The old man in the cave.
A, uh, old man in a cave have any of you looked at yourselves in the mirror lately? You all look like skeletons, you know that? Just like skeletons.
Where is this old man who keeps you on a diet? When does he come out? He never comes out.
He stays in the cave.
Well, i'm not surprised, mr.
Goldsmith.
I'm not surprised at all.
Off lake erie, we've got a pack of weirdies up there that bay at the moon once a week.
And then around what used to be chicago, man, we got a real swinging cult going there.
They've built themselves a statue made out of fissionable lead.
This is their deity.
What do we have here? We have an invisible old man in a cave.
Now, come on, mr.
Goldsmith.
Now, when you take it out and run it around the block a couple of times, don't you think it sounds kind of nutty? We've survived, major french.
The rest of the world has died of radioactivity, strontium 90, plague.
We survived.
Because of the old man, huh? That's right, because of the old man.
He cues you in, huh? He tells you what's poisonous, what's radioactive, that whole bit? As long as he's alive, we'll be alive.
Do you know something? Now, i don't think any of you are going to die of radioactivity.
I think if you're going to kick off, you're going to kick off either from malnutrition or from being conned to death.
If that's true, major, at least it'll be a painless death.
Mr.
Goldsmith, check this.
The booking odds are as follows.
is a soft-in-the-head hermit who doesn't even know what year it is.
That's not for us to say.
That's for you toask! All of you! Friends, romans, farm animals, we are now going up to the cave and check your favorite recluse.
We're going to bring him out in the sunshine and get a good look at him.
And then we're going to decide if he's worthwhile keeping alive.
Come on, you're coming with us.
All right, goldsmith, do you want to tell us about this? How do you open it? I don't know.
To my knowledge, it's never been opened.
But the old man lives inside, right? How does helive? How does he stay alive? I don't know.
How do you know he'sinthere? How do you communicate with him? He sends out notes messages.
He sends out notes and messages.
Well, gentlemen, we really have a prize here.
We get the blue ribbon for this.
An idiot leading the idiots.
Douglas, throw me that hand grenade.
You people better make some tracks.
Might make your eyes smart.
Old man, this is just the beginning! You hear?! Just the beginning.
Douglas car.
Don't take this food out.
You hear, it's contaminated.
Sure, mr.
Goldsmith.
Stop it! Listen to me, all of you.
Listen to me! There's every possibility that all of those cans contain enough strontium 90 to kill every man, woman and child in this village.
Oh, come on, mr.
Goldsmith, why don't you tell us how disappointed you are, huh? Oh, mr.
Goldsmith, you are kooky, you know that? You've got enough food in that pile over there to feed us all for a good long time.
There's enough poison in those cans to kill us all in ten days.
Most of it was canned after the bomb.
We've no idea where it came from; who processed it.
All right, let's lay it on the line there, mr.
Goldsmith.
Here, now.
Come on, who'd like a nice square meal for a change, huh? Anybody else? Dig in.
Okay, anybody else want to continue to play kindergarten games with mr.
Goldsmith here, go home and chew on an old bone.
No, don't be fools! Don't commit suicide! Don't let these pack rats invade our homes, turn order upside down! Stop it, stop it! Don't eat the food.
Hey, look at this! We just repealed prohibition! Just like christmas, huh? Like thanksgiving.
Yeah, thanksgiving, too.
What's your name? Jason.
Jason? Jason and the golden fleece.
Yeah, i'm a literate man, you know that? I went to college, jason.
Yeah, i went to college.
What did you learn? Well, if it isn't the illustrious mr.
Goldsmith, keeper of the legend, protector of the fables, and the lord, high chamberlain of the cave.
You look hungry, mr.
Goldsmith.
And thirsty.
You've got 100 cases of that stuff over there.
Now, you want to break every bottle, man, you've got a big job.
Do you have any remote idea what you've brought to this village? Yeah.
Yeah, i brought into this village the first square meal that any of these people have had in ten years.
And the first six protracted hours of enjoyment that any of them have had since you started leading them around by the nose.
Now, why don't you unbend, old man? Can you answer me that? Why don't you unbend? You came as intruders, but now you're murderers.
Only god knows how many people will die because of tonight.
The old man in the cave warned us about this food dozens of times.
He warned us.
Old man in the cave! The old man in a cave! Now hear this! There is no old man in the cave! He's a lie! He's a concoction.
Nobody's seen him, nobody's heard him, nobody knows who he is, or where he's from.
You made him up.
You cut him out of whole cloth! Now, i don't know what your graft is, goldsmith i don't know how you get paid off, but i do know that it's time you let these people know what's in that cave.
Open the cave, goldsmith.
You'll have to kill me first.
Mister, i have killed a hundred times you.
That's how i've stayed alive.
Jason, gather up your people and we're going up to the cave.
He'll open it for us.
Harber, follow me.
Everybody! Everybody, he's going up to the cave.
Get him out of there! Please, please, all of you, listen.
Listen to me.
There's no reason, no reason under the sun why this cave must be opened; why you must see the old man.
All you have to know is that he's kept us alive.
He's let us survive.
Goldsmith, we've survived for ten years! But we haven't lived.
Jason, he didn't drop the bomb.
He didn't kill off this earth.
We did that to ourselves.
All he's done is to let us survive our mistake.
All he's done is to let us plant a seed again and let it grow.
All the compassion that's left on this earth is in that cave.
Well, then, make him open the cave! Let's see the old man now! Open up that door! All right.
My god! My dear god! It's a machine.
It's a computer.
There's your old man, there's your tyrant.
Kill it.
Well, you've got to kill it.
You've been hungry long enough.
Now, kill it! All right, all right! All right! All right, you're free now.
You understand? You're free! When we talked about the ways that men could die, we forgot the chief method of execution.
We forgot faithlessness, major french.
Maybe you're not to blame.
Maybe if it weren't you, it would have been someone else.
Maybe this has to be the destiny of man.
I wonder if that's true.
I wonder.
I guess i'll never know.
I guess i'll never know.
Mr.
Goldsmith, survivor, an eyewitness to man's imperfection, an observer of the very human trait of greed and a chronicler of the last chapter- the one reading "suicide.
" Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be.
This has been the twilight zone.
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.
Been to the cave, jason? Did you see goldsmith? Did he talk to the old man? Goldsmith's still up there.
He said to tell you he's getting a message from the old man.
He'll bring it down with him in a few minutes.
Is he asking about this food? It's all pre-bomb, all of it.
It's safe as anything.
Why do we have to keep waiting for the old man? Why don't we just take our chances with it? We already took chances.
The old man told us not to plant on the north acreage; that it was poisonous.
This is what came up.
Did these grow, evie, or did somebody leave them to us in a will? They were the best.
The best?! Hate to see the worst! I don't think we ought to eat those, evie.
I say we just better bury them with honors.
That's what goldsmith went to the cave for- to ask the old man what land we should try this time.
The old man, indeed.
Who knows where he gets his omniscient knowledge, but evie's right.
He knows about land.
Remember those tomatoes that came up? You remember he sent a message to goldsmith, telling usnotto plant them? Oh they were monstrous.
Like rotten watermelons.
They tasted but, jason, all of this stuff's pre-bomb.
I just know it.
Let's wait for goldsmith.
See what the old man has to say.
What about the food? Wait till goldsmith gets back from the cave.
Wait till he has a chance to ask the old man.
I'm surprised at you, all of you.
Man doesn't live by bread or canned food alone, or freak carrots, or mutated tomatoes.
But do me a favor, will you? Don't ask me what hedoeslive by.
In this tenth illustrious year after the bomb, i wouldn't be able to tell you.
Announcement! I have an announcement.
We've just had communication from the old man in the cave.
There's an 80% possibility of rain tomorrow.
The wind's from the northeast.
This means that there will likely be a very high radioactive count in the precipitation.
Now place all rain barrels upside down, and keep all water troughs covered.
As to the canned goods there, the old man says that they're contaminated and should be destroyed.
What you're looking at is a legacy that man left to himself.
A decade previous, he pushed his buttons and a nightmarish moment later woke up to find that he had set the clock back a thousand years.
His engines, his medicines, his science were buried in a mass tomb covered over by the biggest gravedigger of them all- a bomb.
And this is the earth, ten years later, a fragment of what was once a whole, a remnant of what was once a race.
The year is 1974, and this is the twilight zone.
Do you have anyone in charge? I'm in charge.
Do you have a name? Goldsmith.
Hmm.
This place- does it have a name? And if it does major? If it does, father, we'd like to hear it.
Uh who are you? Major french is my name.
Central states commander.
We're being sent around to organize.
Organize? Yes, that's what i said.
Now, how many people do you have here? We haven't counted lately.
What about food? There's sufficient.
Hmm.
You grow your own? Some.
We have a supply of prewar canned goods left over.
We'll need some quarters.
Harber, have a look around.
Douglas, you stay with the jeep.
Furman stay with me.
Major, uh, what do you want? Painless things.
We'd like quarters for the four of us, rations for as long as we're here and no trouble.
That last part- no trouble.
I don't think you understand, major.
We don't recognize your authority here.
We've had transients pass through on occasion, but they didn't stay.
Like you, they represented themselves as authorities, but we discovered they carried their headquarters with them.
They represented no one but themselves.
Well, this is a new breed, mr.
Goldsmith.
This whole area will be organized now.
It will be set up into military sectors, each controlled by a local constabulary- yours truly.
Well, you and your constabulary can remain overnight and we'll be glad to share our food with you, bed you down.
Tomorrow morning, you'd better do your organizing somewhere else.
Mr.
Goldsmith, the following is unofficial.
Now, we'd like you to make your transition here as easy as possible.
Now, under certain circumstances, we might even allow you to remain in nominal control.
That's assuming that you don't give us any trouble.
Now, that's unofficial.
The following is official.
Now, let me fill you in on the situation here, mr.
Goldsmith.
Between buffalo, new york, and atlanta, georgia, there are probably around 500 people alive.
You know why.
Because there's no authority, there's no discipline.
We're here to give you both.
And if you give us any trouble- any trouble atall- i'm going to hang you from that balcony right over there.
Well, now, what about it, mr.
Goldsmith? You want to cooperate or do you want your neck broken? We already have an authority.
We've had him for better than ten years.
Whatisall this? Poison.
It's contaminated food.
Who says so? The old man in the cave.
A, uh, old man in a cave have any of you looked at yourselves in the mirror lately? You all look like skeletons, you know that? Just like skeletons.
Where is this old man who keeps you on a diet? When does he come out? He never comes out.
He stays in the cave.
Well, i'm not surprised, mr.
Goldsmith.
I'm not surprised at all.
Off lake erie, we've got a pack of weirdies up there that bay at the moon once a week.
And then around what used to be chicago, man, we got a real swinging cult going there.
They've built themselves a statue made out of fissionable lead.
This is their deity.
What do we have here? We have an invisible old man in a cave.
Now, come on, mr.
Goldsmith.
Now, when you take it out and run it around the block a couple of times, don't you think it sounds kind of nutty? We've survived, major french.
The rest of the world has died of radioactivity, strontium 90, plague.
We survived.
Because of the old man, huh? That's right, because of the old man.
He cues you in, huh? He tells you what's poisonous, what's radioactive, that whole bit? As long as he's alive, we'll be alive.
Do you know something? Now, i don't think any of you are going to die of radioactivity.
I think if you're going to kick off, you're going to kick off either from malnutrition or from being conned to death.
If that's true, major, at least it'll be a painless death.
Mr.
Goldsmith, check this.
The booking odds are as follows.
is a soft-in-the-head hermit who doesn't even know what year it is.
That's not for us to say.
That's for you toask! All of you! Friends, romans, farm animals, we are now going up to the cave and check your favorite recluse.
We're going to bring him out in the sunshine and get a good look at him.
And then we're going to decide if he's worthwhile keeping alive.
Come on, you're coming with us.
All right, goldsmith, do you want to tell us about this? How do you open it? I don't know.
To my knowledge, it's never been opened.
But the old man lives inside, right? How does helive? How does he stay alive? I don't know.
How do you know he'sinthere? How do you communicate with him? He sends out notes messages.
He sends out notes and messages.
Well, gentlemen, we really have a prize here.
We get the blue ribbon for this.
An idiot leading the idiots.
Douglas, throw me that hand grenade.
You people better make some tracks.
Might make your eyes smart.
Old man, this is just the beginning! You hear?! Just the beginning.
Douglas car.
Don't take this food out.
You hear, it's contaminated.
Sure, mr.
Goldsmith.
Stop it! Listen to me, all of you.
Listen to me! There's every possibility that all of those cans contain enough strontium 90 to kill every man, woman and child in this village.
Oh, come on, mr.
Goldsmith, why don't you tell us how disappointed you are, huh? Oh, mr.
Goldsmith, you are kooky, you know that? You've got enough food in that pile over there to feed us all for a good long time.
There's enough poison in those cans to kill us all in ten days.
Most of it was canned after the bomb.
We've no idea where it came from; who processed it.
All right, let's lay it on the line there, mr.
Goldsmith.
Here, now.
Come on, who'd like a nice square meal for a change, huh? Anybody else? Dig in.
Okay, anybody else want to continue to play kindergarten games with mr.
Goldsmith here, go home and chew on an old bone.
No, don't be fools! Don't commit suicide! Don't let these pack rats invade our homes, turn order upside down! Stop it, stop it! Don't eat the food.
Hey, look at this! We just repealed prohibition! Just like christmas, huh? Like thanksgiving.
Yeah, thanksgiving, too.
What's your name? Jason.
Jason? Jason and the golden fleece.
Yeah, i'm a literate man, you know that? I went to college, jason.
Yeah, i went to college.
What did you learn? Well, if it isn't the illustrious mr.
Goldsmith, keeper of the legend, protector of the fables, and the lord, high chamberlain of the cave.
You look hungry, mr.
Goldsmith.
And thirsty.
You've got 100 cases of that stuff over there.
Now, you want to break every bottle, man, you've got a big job.
Do you have any remote idea what you've brought to this village? Yeah.
Yeah, i brought into this village the first square meal that any of these people have had in ten years.
And the first six protracted hours of enjoyment that any of them have had since you started leading them around by the nose.
Now, why don't you unbend, old man? Can you answer me that? Why don't you unbend? You came as intruders, but now you're murderers.
Only god knows how many people will die because of tonight.
The old man in the cave warned us about this food dozens of times.
He warned us.
Old man in the cave! The old man in a cave! Now hear this! There is no old man in the cave! He's a lie! He's a concoction.
Nobody's seen him, nobody's heard him, nobody knows who he is, or where he's from.
You made him up.
You cut him out of whole cloth! Now, i don't know what your graft is, goldsmith i don't know how you get paid off, but i do know that it's time you let these people know what's in that cave.
Open the cave, goldsmith.
You'll have to kill me first.
Mister, i have killed a hundred times you.
That's how i've stayed alive.
Jason, gather up your people and we're going up to the cave.
He'll open it for us.
Harber, follow me.
Everybody! Everybody, he's going up to the cave.
Get him out of there! Please, please, all of you, listen.
Listen to me.
There's no reason, no reason under the sun why this cave must be opened; why you must see the old man.
All you have to know is that he's kept us alive.
He's let us survive.
Goldsmith, we've survived for ten years! But we haven't lived.
Jason, he didn't drop the bomb.
He didn't kill off this earth.
We did that to ourselves.
All he's done is to let us survive our mistake.
All he's done is to let us plant a seed again and let it grow.
All the compassion that's left on this earth is in that cave.
Well, then, make him open the cave! Let's see the old man now! Open up that door! All right.
My god! My dear god! It's a machine.
It's a computer.
There's your old man, there's your tyrant.
Kill it.
Well, you've got to kill it.
You've been hungry long enough.
Now, kill it! All right, all right! All right! All right, you're free now.
You understand? You're free! When we talked about the ways that men could die, we forgot the chief method of execution.
We forgot faithlessness, major french.
Maybe you're not to blame.
Maybe if it weren't you, it would have been someone else.
Maybe this has to be the destiny of man.
I wonder if that's true.
I wonder.
I guess i'll never know.
I guess i'll never know.
Mr.
Goldsmith, survivor, an eyewitness to man's imperfection, an observer of the very human trait of greed and a chronicler of the last chapter- the one reading "suicide.
" Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be.
This has been the twilight zone.