The Twilight Zone Review: A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain

By William Kozy

This episode has a nice, simple compelling plot: A wealthy man married to and hopelessly in love with a gold digger 40 years younger, seeks to undergo a scientific experiment that will make him younger and thus more attractive to his cruel wife. So what kept it from receiving more votes from the fans and writers responding to my survey question: “What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?” “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain” got only 6 votes, tying it with 11 other episodes for 106th thru 116th place of the 156 episodes. I think the answer lies in a poorly thought-out comeuppance for our villainess; the script convolutes a faulty rationale as to why she is trapped when the plot twist emerges, but I think viewers see right through to the invalidity of the deserved fate. It’s a big writing mistake. And despite how much lengthy blabbering and explaining is done by the good doctor to try and convince us that his brother’s gold-digger wife is faced with retribution, we cannot help but watch and devise in our own head a hundred different reasons why she is not.

The second reason for the episode’s failure is too heavy-handed a treatment of the gold digger wife played by Ruta Lee. Ms. Lee is an extraordinary vision to look at, indeed one of the sexiest most beautiful women of the entire series, and as we know there are a LOT of beautiful women throughout the series. So, on that level one can see why perhaps the elderly husband Harmon Gordon, played by Patrick O’Neal in very thick special effects make-up would be crazy about her. But on the other hand, she’s written so obnoxiously and so inhumanely, that it it ultimately stretches credibility that anyone would put up with her. And her performance I have to say doesn’t help. I would have loved to see her tone down the evil; there’s no need to play it so broadly. It’s already in the words, it’s in the script already how cruel she is, so doubling down on that with such an obviously callous performance only makes us see the performance as over-acting. I would have loved to see an actress play the part smartly and let the words convey the situation–a smarter acting choice would have been to actually try to play the role with as much kindness as possible but without changing the dialogue. Then we might have actually believed there was a glimmer of a possibility that we’d believe he is holding on to a thread of the love he thinks he feels for her.

One of the more successfully executed scenes in the episode is the very opening in which Ruta Lee’s Flora Gordon (who we learn was a chorus line dancer before hooking up with Harmon) partying up a storm all by herself in the apartment. With a drink in her hand she shimmies around dancing and breaking a knick knack in the process. When old man Harmon comes home she accosts him and drags him about getting him to dance with her. Her expression is devastatingly alluring with perhaps a hint of torment? But he does his best to rise up to her energy level and dances to the music before stumbling a bit and taking refuge on a bar stool. Catching his breath he says, “Oh sorry, you keep forgetting I’m no longer a varsity end. Ah, it was fun though, huh?” He coughs, and Flora is openly disappointed in his failure to keep up, and begins perpetrating the first round of humiliations. It is pathetic but our feelings of sympathy for him are somehow eclipsed by our shock at how awful a person she is. Harmon sputters, “Oh my doctor should’ve witnessed that little activity” which triggers Flora to complain, “If you persist in telling me about your ailments, I may just have to run out and get sick. It gets dull you know.” And when she lights up a cigarette and tosses the match on the carpet, Harmon lumbers over to pick it up as quickly as his body allows. Flora taunts, “Well it’s Smokey The Bear!” But what I think really ticks us off most about her opening salvo is when she tells Harmon, “While you’re at it, why don’t you pick up the remnants of the aged eyesore that I so happily knocked over a few minutes ago?” It turns out as Harmon shuffles over to it, that the figurine had come from his mother and he tells her “It’s a very old piece, Flora.” “Worth what?” Flora counters, “89 cents?” That’s what really gets us. You just shouldn’t be cruel to a boy about his mother.

It’s enough to ignite the first sign of gumption in Harmon. He tells her that although the piece wasn’t worth much, it had sentimental value: “That’s a word you may not understand, sentiment. It means the capacity to love.” And in response Ms. Lee does have one of her finer moments in the episode. She does in fact, pull off what I mentioned earlier as she taunts Harmon with dialogue indicating the possibility of her running off if he’s so dissatisfied with her, but as she tells him, she is caressing him and sexily kissing his cheek. The frisson is palpable as you can practically feel the glee he must get out of her physicality and sensuousness. Perhaps he is even drawn to the teasing, while perhaps she is even jazzed by the power she holds over him. She might threaten to part ways, but does she really mean it? She’d not only be giving up the life of luxury, she’d be giving up the position of extreme sexual power over a wealthy man.

Harmon places a call to his brother, Dr. Raymond Gordon, and asks him to come over. As we hear tell of it later from Raymond, this has been a recurring pattern: Harmon gets upset with Flora, and calls his brother for consolation. This has helped form a very negative opinion of Flora in Raymond’s view. As the two men have a drink together, Harmon tells Raymond he wishes he’d get to know Flora better: “She’s really…well, she’s a very fine girl.” For a moment that seemed like even Harmon had trouble finding the words to say that. But Raymond is resolute in his disdain for Flora. He tells Harmon that while he could forgive Flora for her “hungers” and cold heart, he can’t forgive her for what she’s done to Harmon: “She’s turned you into a frightened quaking fool. You dote on her. You give in to her. You run after her like a poodle.”

Something’s on Harmon’s mind though, and he stands up hesitantly and comes out with it: “This thing that you, uh, have been working on” he says, “The cellular serum–you’ve been successful with it.” Raymond already knows where Harmon is going with this, telling him “You must be out of your mind.” Harmon admits he’s desperate but not insane. Apparently, Dr. Raymond Gordon is involved with a project that has been injecting certain animals with a serum and making the critters younger. But they’ve only been successful with much simpler species like mice, hamsters, and guinea pigs. They’re twenty years from even considering humans. As he explains, they don’t know how it will affect “the basic metabolism of the body or the mind” but Harmon remains adamant that his brother inject the fluid in him. He’s desperate he tells him. Raymond warns him of the grotesque risks, but Harmon persists. Raymond sensibly flat out refuses to abide by his brother’s request.

So the writers have to find some way of getting him to acquiesce, and they do so by having Harmon strongly imply that he will jump off the terrace, 20 floors above ground. He does this by sadly walking out there to the terrace. Raymond follows him out, coyly informing Harmon what the effects on a man’s body would be upon falling 500 feet to the concrete below. Harmon counters, “As a man, can you tell me what the effects are of a human brain when a man is deeply, totally and dedicatedly in love with a woman who can’t stand the sight of him?” Raymond tries again to convince Harmon otherwise, telling him he’s a bright, kind, charming man who’s been “hammered out of shape by a flashy little piece of baggage that isn’t fit to wait on your table.” Harmon lays it on the line. She’s apparently the only thing in this world that he cares about, and he begs Raymond for the chance. Convinced now that Harmon will wind up dead anyhow, Raymond asks to think it over for an hour or two.

Next thing you know, Harmon is shooting up behind a beaded curtain like he lives in some kind of hookah joint. The good doctor tells him to go to bed and not go to work tomorrow, and he tells him “I’ll be here early in the morning. I want to be very close to you for the next few days.” Well, shouldn’t he stay close to him starting like, immediately? Instead of leaving him alone for that entire evening? He even says specifically that the first change will be within six hours. So…isn’t THAT when the doctor should be close by? With one foot out the door, the doctor warns Harmon, or “promises” rather, “that if you don’t survive, or if you’re damaged in any way, I’m going to take it out of her skin. Piece by piece. She’s gonna donate a pint of blood for every pint she’s bled out of you.” After the doc leaves, Harmon gives himself a thoughtful look in the mirror.

The next day Raymond arrives, and here’s a funny side note that has nothing to do with the episode. But check out your TV’s closed captioning as Flora contemptuously lets Raymond in saying, “Well well if it isn’t the poor man’s kill bear.” Huh? Apparently whoever did the closed captioning has never heard of the early TV’s Dr. Kildare which is what Ruta Lee/Flora actually said: “poor man’s Kildare.”. I’m trying to imagine what the CC typist was thinking–probably played that part over and over trying to understand: “Is she saying kill bear? Jeez.” Anyway, Raymond and Flora continue trading jibes as he asks about Harmon’s condition and Flora doesn’t have any helpful info. Actor Walter Brooke, playing Raymond, then walks about the room a bit, wondering how Harmon is, and he distractedly tosses his coat on the back of the couch. It falls to the floor, and when he turns back around from his pacing, he notices it and picks it up, replacing it on the couch. It’s an action that wasn’t accidental or they would’ve done another take. So my question is…why? What was the purpose of deliberately having the coat fall? Some misguided notion of trying to make the scene look authentic, a la Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint’s dropped glove scene in “On The Waterfront”? Did they think it would be a nice symbolic moment of the doctor’s careless decision to go ahead and inject Harmon?

I’m not sure why Raymond just doesn’t go ahead and go into the bedroom to check on Harmon instead of continuing to pepper this obviously unhelpful entity Flora, but that’s what he does, until finally, Harmon emerges from the bedroom wiping his head with a towel. But we can indeed glimpse that his hair color is much darker, more youthful. Harmon opens the terrace door for some air and then turns and walks back toward the two saying, “Ah it’s incredible what a god night’s sleep will do for a man, isn’t it?” And surprise! All that cakey make-up has disappeared! O’Neal’s voice is back to normal–he had done a nice job of aging it.

The other two go over to him, and Flora is astounded, asking him what he’s done to himself. But she’s definitely NOT disappointed. No, she’s turned on clearly, once she eases out of the initial shock. Harmon feels like a million bucks and offers to let the doctor take him on tour and write him up in the medical journals. But first he says, he want to take Flora on a month-long vacation. Ruta Lee is very fine in this particular first half of the final scene. She’s quite believable in her skilled handling of the mixed emotions of shock and happiness over her new husband. She’s a delight to behold. It’s when things turn upside down in a few moments, that she goes into a tailspin of bad acting.

Flora goes into the bedroom to change out of her nightgown, leaving Harmon and his brother to assess Harmon’s progress. Harmon is over the moon with the results, as the doctor looks on intently. The staging does something fun to notice: with successive shots of O’Neal, the gray hair around his temples keeps getting darker. The age regression is continuing. Harmon is giddy, but the doctor remains on vigil, worried about how much more the process will go on. Flora comes back into the room, and we notice Harmon reacting to some sort of headache. He staggers back to the mirror and bends over, convulsing with a stomach ache. Flora and Raymond huddle around him trying to help, and Raymond guides Harmon into the bedroom.

Moments later, Flora paces outside the bedroom awaiting the doctor’s word. When he comes out he insists on a word with Flora before letting her see Harmon. Grabbing hold of her, Raymond warns her that she’s going to have to readjust her life. He tells her that Raymond is sleeping and will need help when he awakens. As the doctor allows her to enter the bedroom, we see her go in and then come back out, and she’s put on her “I can hardly process this!” face. Holding her stomach she attempts a look of such dismay/horror that plays a bit over the top, especially when she adds in the weird bodily movements. She squints and starts moving her body as though she’s being subtly electrocuted. The doctor blathers on about how she now has a responsibility she must honor and he guides her back into the room so that we too can see that Harmon lies in bed and he’s a just a baby boy. With shoes on that for some reason fit.

Flora flees the room, with Raymond hot on her tail warning her about what will happen if she runs off. He tells her that if she leaves, she loses all the possessions she has gained, the furs, the jewelry, the apartment, everything. But I wonder, what exactly would Raymond say, if indeed she did gather up all those things he mentioned and left? He countered her threat, saying that yes, despite there being other fish in the sea as she put it, “Yes but you happen to be married to my brother.” And how would he go about proving that this little child is Flora’s husband? And what really would there be for Flora to stick around for in the absence of any more income from Harmon since he won’t be returning to his job? At this point she can get along quite well I imagine by moving all those luxury items out, and heck she can sublet that expensive apartment or just give it up. And if anyone asks, “Where’s your husband?” she can say, “I don’t know, you tell me!” Or worse yet for the doctor, “Why don’t you ask the doctor over here where my husband is?” But of course the most pertinent issue of all would be, why would Raymond want Flora around at all? He hates her, so why would he even want the brother he loves to be raised by Flora? It’s the perfect chance to be rid of her forever.

The episode’s writer would have us believe that she is now destined to experience “poetic justice” as Raymond puts it. Growing old as Harmon grows up. And Ruta Lee’s delivery of her last lines unsurprisingly didn’t win her an Emmy: “But it isn’t fair Raymond. It just isn’t fair. Everything. Everything is on his side.”

The Fountain of Truth rates this episode a 3.9

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