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By William Kozy

Here’s the next entry in my ongoing survey asking writers and Facebook fans of the show, What Is Your Favorite Episode of the Original TWILIGHT ZONE series? Thank you everyone who helped with this!

In 21st Place with 75 votes is ONE FOR THE ANGELS.

OPENING NARRATION:

“Street scene: Summer. The present. Man on a sidewalk named Lew Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Lew Bookman, a fixture of the summer, a rather minor component to a hot July, a nondescript, commonplace little man whose life is a treadmill built out of sidewalks. And in just a moment, Lew Bookman will have to concern himself with survival because as of three o’clock this hot July afternoon hell be stalked by Mr. Death.”

The PLOT:

Ed Wynn plays Lew Bookman a salesman who plies his trade on the sidewalk armed with the gift of persuasion. The kindly man is beloved by all the neighborhood children as he pitches his trinkets and toys. But one day in his apartment he is confronted by Mr. Death (played by Murray Hamilton, the mayor of Amity in Spielberg’s “Jaws”.) This is one of three episodes of the show that featured a personification of Death, the others being “The Hitch-Hiker”, and “Nothing in the Dark” with Death played by Robert Redford. Anyway, Mr. Death tells Lew that he is doomed to die at midnight. Bookman uses his expertise to convince Mr. Death to let him live until he has a chance to make a masterpiece of a pitch.

Death grants this temporary respite, only to learn that Bookman never intends to make any pitch at all–he’ll hardly open his mouth from now on, he says. But Death arranges to have someone else die to take Bookman’s place. And so, a truck outside hits one of the neighborhood kids, Maggie. Maggie isn’t doing well as she lies in her bed in the same apartment building as Lew (but not bad enough to be hospitalized? Um, okay.)

So, Death has to be in her room by midnight to claim her soul and make things “right.” Mr. Death reveals this twist to Bookman’s plan who is stricken with the horror of it.

SPOILER ALERT…If you don’t want to read how this turns out, skip ahead to the Closing Narration.

So Lew Bookman decides he simply cannot allow Death to take Maggie. He hatches his plan. He sets up his table outside the apartment, and greets Mr. Death as he strolls up to the building. He tells Death that he has just the thing for him, a beautiful necktie. At first Mr. Death balks, but then Lew goes into salesmanship overdrive and starts extolling the virtue of tie after tie. He basically filibusters with all the bluster and creativity he has ever summoned–Mr. Death sweats and wipes his forehead with a hanky as he tries to keep up with all the malarkey Lew improvises. Bookman so successfully distracts Death, that he misses his opportunity to claim Maggie when the clock strikes midnight. The child is spared, but now Bookman, having made his masterpiece pitch, “one for the angels” as it were, has to abide his agreement with Death. They stroll off down the sidewalk, as Death confirms Lew is going to the place “up there” not “down there.”

CLOSING NARRATION:

“Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July. But, throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore a most important man. Couldn’t happen, you say? Probably not in most places but it did happen in the Twilight Zone.”

TRIVIA:

The idea for this episode was sprung from a script that Rod Serling wrote after graduating college. In that script, also called “One For the Angels,” a down-on-his-luck sidewalk salesman tries to save his lowlife brother from some hitmen. So he makes a pitch so terrific that it is assured there would always be a crowd surrounding them. Once Serling got The Twilight Zone up and running, he decided that he had wanted to write a script for Ed Wynn, and so he adapted that old script.

Watch One For The Angels for FREE.

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