The Twilight Zone Review: The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross

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By William Kozy

It’s a great premise: a man finds that he can trade anything that he possesses for anything else that someone else possesses upon their agreeing to the bargain. We viewers start thinking about what we would do, how we would best exploit this ability. At first it might not seem so easy; after all, a trade implies that the two exchanged goods are of relatively equal value so how can one make very valuable profit? One answer lies in finding someone whose circumstances put them in a more desperate state for want of what you have. The problem with this episode is that although it uses that tactic to a certain degree it relies mostly on a cheapened plot aspect by having the other people in the bargain not actually thinking the trade is possible.

So in nearly every instance, the other party winds up chuckling, muttering things along the line of “Oh yeah, sure sure. I’ll trade ya, heh heh heh, what a joker, heh heh…” What I would have preferred to see would be some actual clever writing in terms of creating scenarios with characters who actually would go along with the trade, and even benefit by it! I don’t buy that any of the young men working in the building would actually agree to giving up a year of their lives for a thousand dollars if they knew that would actually happen. The premise has other logic problems, and I’ll get to those. And perhaps it is because of those problems that voters in my survey asking, “What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?” only gave 4 votes to “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross”, tying it with 9 other episodes for 124th thru 132nd place.

Salvadore wants Leah Maitland, and that word “wants” is indeed more accurate than “is in love with” which is a distinction the episode wisely points out. Played by Don Gordon, he’s a lout, rough around the edges, and Leah, the woman he pursues, recognizes this, impelling her to break up with him. Very much to the writing and actress’s credit though, we do see what attracted her to Sal in the first place. There are many well-performed moments from actress Gail Kobe that indicate she does feel an animal magnetism type of connection with Salvadore. There is an erotic frisson to see her struggle with those feelings knowing at the same time that he’s not right for her in the more important ways. Salvadore wants her for her non-showy sexiness, but more likely he wants her because it would validate him as a man if someone so good-hearted took to him.

The directing cannily shows a certain side of Leah that belies her supposedly angelic type. We get brief, subtle glimpses of it. She does seem visibly impressed with the “good things” in life shall we say. For instance, she does seem mightily turned on by the car Sal “borrowed” as he drives up to greet her when she arrives at the apartment she shares with her father who disapproves of Sal. But after getting rebuffed, Sal punches the door and breaks his hand. He goes to the hospital and after getting taped up is laid up in a bed in a room with an old man with a hacking cough. Firstly, who gets an overnight stay in a hospital for a broken hand? But as Sal and the old man converse, the old man contentiously asserts that having a cold at his age is worse than a broken hand to which Sal counters just as contentiously, and offers a swap. The old man says, “It’s a deal” and just like that, overnight the two men wind up with each other’s ailments. The old man of course regrets it (a bit of a Twilight Zone bitter lesson), and Sal goes on his merry way. Interesting that neither of them ponder for even a second, the impossible magic of that swap. No questions? Really? It’s as lazy a bit of writing as is not coming up with an explanation for the magic ability. At least in “A Penny For Your Thoughts” Dick York’s mind-reading was precipitated by a tossed coin that landed on its edge.

Sal figures out his next step: he goes to Mr. Halpert, the rich man whose car he borrowed after getting it washed for him. He proposes that he sell his youth to Mr. Halpert in exchange for a million bucks and ownership of the apartment. Halpert laughs his head off, humoring Sal as he escorts him to the door, “All right. I tell you what you do. You wrap the years up and mail them to me.” Clearly, Halpert doesn’t actually believe it will happen. But in this case, unlike the old man in the hospital, I think Halpert would indeed have taken that deal. What 72-year-old wouldn’t pay a million dollars to be 26 again and still be rich enough to go on a cruise with friends as Halpert does? But then the question becomes, what will Sal now do to get back his youth? It’s a fairly clever gambit—he swaps just a year here and there with young workers for sums of money much lower than a million dollars. Between that price point and the fact that they all think he’s nuts anyway (again, the writer takes the easy way out), Sal eventually works his way back to 26-years-old (actor Gordon was 38 at the time, and looks it).

There’s something a bit stupid though about the scene that propels the scheme to swap years in exchange for cash to the young men. When the first young man politely rejects the offer of a year for $250, he does it in the spirit of thinking the old man is joking. He answers honestly anyway with a bit of poetry, “I wouldn’t swap some of my nights for all the crown jewels in a golden bucket.” Sal looks a bit frustrated at first, thinking he’s in trouble, but then he blurts out, “Wait! Come back!” He then tells the young man, “You thought I was joking, didn’t you?” So okay, Sal realizes that he can make these swaps even if the other party agrees jokingly and doesn’t believe it will happen. But Sal already knew that was the case from his meeting with Mr. Halpert. So then, why bother upping the offer to the young man to $1,000? He’s still not going to believe it anyway. So Sal could’ve just taken out his checkbook and written any amount really, even ten dollars and the kid would’ve just smiled and said, “Yeah sure Mr. Ross, heh heh, one year it is! Heh heh, thanks for the tip! Heh heh.” By upping it to a thousand dollars it also makes us think, “Oh so maybe Sal has met the right price point for the young man to accept?” But that’s not the case at all.

And then the next scene is a little confusing. Sal gets in an elevator and there’s a young dark-haired operator in there. Sal says, “You’re new here aren’t you?” and the doors close as the camera tilts up to the floor numbers descending. The shot dissolves to the end of the floor numbers as we tilt down to the door opening and out steps Sal handing a checking to the (or an) elevator operator, now with white hair. Are we supposed to think that he made a deal with that one man right then and there? Or was that supposed to be a shot with a dissolve to signify a passage of time whereby we assume many swaps have been made with several operators over time?

Sal shows up at Leah’s apartment to talk to her wheelchair-bound father. Sal reviews her father’s life as he talks to him and I liked this subtle plant—he mentions amongst all the man’s deeds that he came home from the war “with a game leg” and points to a wall full of guns which Sal calls “crummy souvenirs.” He ends up calling him a loser, and challenges him as to why he isn’t worthy of Leah. Asked if he loves her, Sal pauses, saying “I want her” and there’s the crux. Before they get into to much of a debate though, Leah arrives home. And again we see a twinkle in her eye as she sees Sal in his fancy suit. She says at one point with a big smile, “You look very prosperous.” She accepts Sal’s offer to take her out to dinner.

Next thing you know, Sal and Leah are making out hot and heavy back at Sal’s apartment. But Leah pulls away, admitting that their physical attraction was never at issue. Backing her up roughly against the wall, Sal insists that he can be the right guy for her if she just tells him what that guy is like. She tells him the blunt truth: “You don’t care about me. Not really. You don’t care about anybody. Are you gentle? Are you kind? The man I marry is going to have to have compassion.” Sal argues back, “You mean like your stupid old man?” And she tells him yes. And with that she pushes past to leave, but Sal grabs her and plants another heavy kiss on her, and I gotta say, she does not resist. But she does tell him, “Don’t you understand? It’s not something you can buy.”

Disgruntled, he returns her to her apartment. She excuses herself and goes to bed, after her father says he’d like to talk to Sal. As Mr. Maitland begins to tell Sal that he can’t let him marry her, Sal interrupts and tells him that he wants to offer Mr. Maitland $100,000 for something he has. The camera tracks in on Sal as he tells him “It’s a little hard to explain…” That would have been a difficult scene for the writers to handle. Can you imagine Sal coming out with it? I can’t really picture Mr. Maitland chuckling, “Heh heh, that’s funny, yeah yeah sure I’ll swap, now go on ya scamp get outta here.” The two men didn’t have that kind of relationship.

But we cut to the next shot, and it’s Sal driving Leah home as she rests her head romantically on his shoulder. Sal seems different—gentler, more soft-spoken as he coos, “I love you very much.” Mr. Maitland greets them at the door, and Sal asks sweetly if he can talk to him. Mr. Maitland coldly complies. Now it’s only been one day, ONE DAY, and Leah is suddenly head over heels for Salvadore, caressing and kissing, telling him “I love you.” The script should’ve worked in some line of dialogue, or filmic passage of time to indicate that at least a bit more time elapsed to help explain her turnabout. But in any event she leaves the two men to talk.

Sal apologizes to Mr. Maitland for all the grief he has caused, admitting that Mr. Maitland was right about things. Sal confesses, having had a sudden enlightenment. He is tuned into his past psychology now in a very mature way, understanding that he wanted Leah to prove something to himself. To win her like “a prize, a symbol.” But he assures Mr. Maitland that he loves her and will make her a good husband.

Maitland however flatly tells him that he won’t let it happen. Sal pleads, “I’m asking you for forgiveness, for compassion.”

“Compassion?” questions Maitland. “Don’t you remember? I sold it to you yesterday.” And with that Maitland reveals his hand from beneath the blanket covering his war-torn legs, his hand which now holds the final and rejection of Salvadore’s self-improvements.

I’ll rate this episode a 5.5 caliber.

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