The Twilight Zone Review: Mr. Garrity and The Graves

By William Kozy

“Mr. Garrity and the Graves” is actually a pretty fun episode in the Twilight Zone pantheon. It might take a second to realize, “Oh gosh this is one of the comedic episodes” because the ghostly supernatural element is so effective. But make no mistake, this is a comedy, and not a bad one at all. What I like about it, is that it holds up nicely upon repeated viewings because there are so many funny reaction shots of the great many characters, but they’re not thrust in your face. You have to scan the TV screen and look for them, and when you rewatch it, you’ll no doubt catch a performer’s funny expression that you didn’t notice the first time around. The episode received only 5 votes in my survey of fans and writers asking, ‘What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?’ tying it with 7 other episodes for 117th thru 123rd place of the 156 episodes.

I wonder why it didn’t get more love, and I do have a theory, and it has to do with actor John Dehner’s performance in the lead role as a charlatan who comes into a wild west town called Happiness, claiming to provide a certain miraculous service. He can bring the dead back from the grave. Now, while the rest of the cast doesn’t exactly play things straight, they clearly give comic performances, and that’s all right because they’re funny, and the acting styles give nothing away as to the surprise twist ending. But because Dehner is so clearly showing us all his cards from the get-go, we absolutely know it’s a ruse. Though Dehner’s performance in this is widely applauded, I would have loved to see a performance that genuinely kept our suspicions at bay. But the actor was just too tempted to insert near-vaudevillian shtick into his characterization. That’s too bad.

It’s a complicated scam, that could have failed Garrity and his accomplice. How do you count on a dog to simulate being dead so convincingly? Wouldn’t its breathing be very noticeable? And near the end, how on Earth did Garrity pull off the trick of making his accomplice disappear right in front of everyone’s eyes? There’s never even the slightest throwaway explanation. And where’d Garrity get the fog machines from?

Basically it works like this: Garrity comes into town and makes small talk with the bartender (Stanley Adams) and mentions that he’s a conjurer who can bring back the dead. Our bartender drops a beer mug in shock (it won’t be the last time he does that). Don’t get me wrong about Dehner—it’s not a “bad” performance at all—in fact it’s full of panache. But it’s as though he has studied the playbook on “How to Act Like a Con Man in a Comedy.” His performance is akin to Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” Word spreads about his claim and several of the town’s men convene in the bar. It’s quite a collection of accomplished comic character actors. Stanley Adams has a great handle bar mustache classic saloon bartender look, and in his fourth Twilight Zone appearance, J. Pat O’Malley turns up the drunken slurs as high as they’ll go, but the actor had great technique, and you can understand every word he says. Another fine performance is the town sheriff played by Norman Leavitt—with his authoritative mask hiding his trepidation when he understands that a gunman he shot in the back would be returning from the graveyard up on Boot Hill. And then there’s Percy Helton as Lapham with that indescribable, high raspy voice who’d been on TV screens for ages playing pandering oddballs. See! And just now on what must be my 10th viewing or so while writing this essay, I saw a little gag I never noticed. After some kowtowing, Lapham announces, “Jensen give the sheriff a drink on me!” The sheriff pats Lapham on the back as he bellies up to the bar saying, “That’s real kind of you, Lapham.” And who should insinuate himself in the generous act but O’Malley’s drunken Gooberman, saying “Real kind of you” as he squeezes in next to the two men.

That’s the nice thing about director Ted Post’s style here; he doesn’t pop in close with a shot to highlight a gag. He lets them play out in wider shots, so our experience of them is more natural and the pace of the action doesn’t stop and stutter. And the other thing that feels different about the shooting here by George T. Clemens is the use of close-ups. The episode will cut to a close-up of a face and there’s just something about the timing and the expression on the performer that strikes me as loopily funny.

Time for the dog trick. The men hear a commotion outside and they see a dog lying on the road behind a wagon. A man is kneeling beside and says the dog came out of nowhere (Pssst, that man is an accomplice). Garrity seizes the moment to show the townsfolk that he can indeed resurrect the dead. He has everyone turn away and he kneels down and starts muttering some mumbo jumbo. He’s not very convincing at it but I think that’s what’s funny about it. Dehner does a funny impression of someone trying to imitate an incantation, but just didn’t care much to get it completely realistic, so he mutters things like, “oooh dog…” And just like that, the dog springs to life and runs off. Now Garrity has established the foundation—an example of resurrection. We cut to one man exclaiming in close-up “It’s Devil’s work!” and then we cut to a woman also in close-up saying “Black magic is what it is!” There’s something amusing about her and she’ll have an even better scene later in the episode, but I want to point out something puzzling; she’s not listed in any of the credits on imdb or the Twilight Zone Companion. It’s strange because she’s got a bigger part than some others who do get listed.

When we cut to each character asking about bringing back their supposed beloved ones, there is just enough trepidation as there is feigned hope. It’s an interesting task and they all do it well, especially that uncredited actress. You see, the truth is, nobody in this town wants their “loved” ones to return because the 128 dead souls in the Boot Hill Cemetery all met their end violently during the course of Happiness’s “turbulent beginnings” as the plaque points out to those who enter town. Garrity does his homework about these towns, he researches and learns the true stories behind how various people met their untimely deaths. So he knows already that the bartender’s dead brother was a dishonest business partner, and that Gooberman’s dead wife had broken his arm six times, and that our nameless uncredited lady’s husband was a skinflint.

So they all put on a false show of a happy expectations. Garrity eyes a portrait of Adams’ brother on the wall behind the bar, and he comments that he’ll be the first one coming down. Cue: Adams drops his shot glass. They all rush out into the road and see a stout man resembling Adams’ brother limping toward them, enshrouded in fog. And then Adams comes out with the truth when he’s alone with Garrity: his brother was a “low down thieving skunk!” He asks Garrity to return him to the grave, to which Garrity replies that it’s a very difficult thing to do. Adams offers money, and Garrity ups the price, getting $750 out of Adams. Now I don’t know many people who carry around $750 in their wallet in this day let alone in the year 1890. In fact, $750 in the 1890 wallet is the equivalent of carrying $21,676.98 in your 2021 wallet. But the pay-off works, and the brother’s ghostly image fades away. Movie cameras were barely even invented at this point in history, so the con artists couldn’t be projecting the image. It’s another mistake that the episode miscalculates as being unnoticeable to viewers.

Soon everybody is looking to pay off Garrity to cancel their loved one’s resurrection, and they’re all paying similar amounts. These are not rich looking people either. It’s a bizarre misstep in the writing’s research. No one would have that much money, and it doesn’t really play as a funny joke. It just plays as poorly thought out. But the parade of townsfolk lining up to pay Garrity to reverse particular resurrections does play very funnily. I especially like the exchange between Garrity and the sheriff, who we can tell from his reactions most assuredly did NOT gun down Lightning Peterson in a fair gunfight. The sheriff submits to Garrity’s $1200 price, swiftly slapping down his entire wallet and turning back toward the bar calling, “Jensen! A whole bottle please.” He’s simultaneously bummed at paying out that much money and relieved to death that he won’t have to face the gunfighter looking for revenge.

There’s definitely a heartless cruelty to Garrity the way he just downright relishes taking these huge amounts of money from the people, even the ones who seem so desperate and weren’t killers, like our uncredited actress. Well, who knows, maybe she did kill her “scrawny” “gimlet-eyed” husband Ephraim Perkins. I suppose that’s one message the episode offers: we believe the living’s claim to missing their departed because they sound so effusive about it, but they can afford to pour on the emotion since there’s no chance that Death will step in and say, “Oh gee, if I knew you’d feel that badly I wouldn’t have claimed his soul. Here you can have him back.”

Garrity, his dog, and the accomplice meet up by the cemetery and plan to head to Tucson for their next con. Garrity bids a sarcastic adieu to the denizens of Boot Hill Cemetery, apologizing for not being able to bring them back. He leaves in his carriage, and then some creepy music not unlike the TZ theme rises up, and with it, the corpses in the graveyard. The characters plod forward, heading to town, and announce they eagerness to carry on with their mayhem. It’s a great, whimsically spooky shot.

One of the risen is Zelda Gooberman, played by Kate Murtagh, the only woman listed in the cast. Many folks helping me find out who the uncredited actress is, offered up Kate’s name but of course, she’s the wrong one. I suppose the Twilight Zone will take to the grave, the secret identity of the uncredited actress playing Ephraim Perkins former wife.

Here lies my rating for this episode: a 7.1. R.I.P.

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