Ringside Report The Twilight Zone Review: The Four of Us Are Dying

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By William Kozy

In my ongoing survey in which over 3,000 writers and Facebook fans of the original Twilight Zone series responded to the question, “What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?” this episode is amongst the few that deserved much better than the low ranking it received due to few votes. Tied for 152nd place out of 156 is “The Four of Us Are Dying.” It’s not a classic episode among the likes of “Time Enough At Last” or “To Serve Man”, but it’s worlds better than clunkers like “The Whole Truth”, “Mute”, “From Agnes—With Love” and others near the bottom along with it.

This episode has a lot going for it. It’s got a very creative shooting style despite it’s low-budget; there’s a semi-surreal approach to the set decorating with all the neon signs suspended seemingly in mid-air, and Dutch angles. And the direction and cinematography pulls off some very nicely executed low budget effects using well-choreographed blocking and camera movement and framing.

The writing has a good hard boiled quality, and all the cast members play their roles with a terrific subdued professionalism befittingly the dark underbelly nature of the milieu. A man named Arch Hammer checks into a flea bag hotel, and as he shaves in the mirror, the camera tracks little details, leaving the mirror momentarily only to return to it to find that Hammer’s face has changed. It’s a clever bit of timing for the actors and camera operators.

Opening monologue:

His name is Arch Hammer, he’s 36 years old. He’s been a salesman, a dispatcher, a truck driver, a con man, a bookie, and a part-time bartender. This is a cheap man, a nickel-and-dime man, with a cheapness that goes past the suit and the shirt; a cheapness of mind, a cheapness of taste, a tawdry little shine on the seat of his conscience, and a dark-room squint at a world whose sunlight has never gotten through to him. But Mr. Hammer has a talent, discovered at a very early age. This much he does have. He can make his face change. He can twitch a muscle, move a jaw, concentrate on the cast of his eyes, and he can change his face. He can change it into anything he wants. Mr. Archie Hammer, jack-of-all-trades, has just checked in at three-eighty a night, with two bags, some newspaper clippings, a most odd talent, and a master plan to destroy some lives.

Arch visits a cocktail lounge where Mag is singing the blues and playing the piano. She’s played by Beverly Garland, in yet another fetching performance among a TZ pantheon of lovely actresses. After checking out the obituary picture of musician Johnny Foster, Arch changes his face to match it, and pretends to be Johnny as he surprises Mag who is shocked but over the moon to see him alive. Arch/Johnny sweet talks her and she is falling for it head over heels. We feel so bad for her being taken in—this man with so many faces unfortunately has no soul.

After making plans with Mag to run away, Arch leaves the club, and sets his next plan in motion. To impersonate a gangster named Virgil Sterig who was shot and left to die in a river. When he shows up at the gangster’s apartment who betrayed him, the scene is chock full of film noir tough talk as he confronts Mr. Penell who tries his best to convince Virgil that he’s happy to see him alive. But anyone can see through Penell’s sweaty, panicked state. Virgil takes his not just his cut of the money, he takes all of it, claiming interest for getting three bullets in the belly and being left face down in a cold river. As he takes his leave, two goons enter the room, so he races past him and out of the building as the goons pursue him. He finds himself trapped in a dead end alley and now it’s his turn to panic as he has trouble thinking of a face to assume. Back up against the hard brick wall, Arch/Virgil sees a dilapidated poster of a boxing match promoting a fighter. Virgil concentrates hard and quick on the face, and presto, he’s got it. The thugs catch up to him and they’re taken aback by this unexpected character asking them, “What did I do? Why are you guys trying to finger me? I mean what goes? I didn’t do nothing to you guys.” The henchmen walk away, and Arch gives a relieved chuckle. In true Hitchcockian fashion we have been duped into feeling a relief of the suspense over whether this creep gets caught.

This new character walks out of the alley and by incredible coincidence is seen by a newspaper stand right there, being run by….his own father. This poor old man reveals that Arch’s new persona is Andy Marshak, a man who was his son. That is, he used to be his son until “you ran out. You were before you broke your mother’s hear, before you did dirt to a sweet, decent little girl who would’ve cut off an arm for you. But now you ain’t my son. Now you ain’t nothing to me. You’re nothing. I hate your guts. Do you hear me? I hate your guts.” Arch/Andy has heard enough—the father’s words seem to have stung even though they were misdirected at this man. Did Arch perhaps also have a past history filled with betrayals due to his inability to manage his power ethically?

The father grabs Andy before he could walk away, and scolds him in a near maniacal way, filled with rage and hurt. Andy pushes the old man away from him causing him to fall to the curb, still crying out, “Look at the monster!” and then dissolving into tears with his surrendering to the tragedy of his life: “Look at…my son.” It’s a very good scene for actor Peter Brocco who Steven Spielberg recruited for the Twilight Zone Movie in his 1982 reboot of the “Kick the Can” episode.

Arch/Andy is now back in his hotel room, packing up quickly when he hears someone fiddling with the door lock. He hides behind the door as it opens. Does Arch have the boxing skills of Andy? I would assume not—it would be a different kind of power to be able to have the brain of the person whose face he’s stolen. Which leads one to imagine a host of questions, should one choose to go down that path when watching an episode with a high-concept premise such as this one. One should wonder for instance, “Well, okay he has the power to look like anyone, but how then is he able to have the voice of that person also, to fool people (like Mag)?” And although they tried in the casting process to cast four actors with close to the same physique, they’re off by a bit: Harry Townes (Arch) is 5’9 ½”, Ross Martin (Johnny) was 5’11”, Phillip Pine (Virge) was 6’1”, and Don Gordon (Andy) is 5’8”. But hey, if Arch has the power to reshape physical flesh, then maybe he can raise his height or lower it—sounds reasonable doesn’t it? But the voice thing…hmmm, how would he even know how to reshape his vocal chords to match his new identities? I ask too many questions.

Back to the story. The man entering the hotel room is a detective and Arch/Andy has reverted back to normal Arch. The detective arrests Arch, telling him “You’re down for a bunko ramp Hammer, I got to put you on the book. You can make two calls when you get to the station.” A bunko rap is for gambling. This detective was able to get a warrant (I assume—the hotel manager handed over the key?)…a warrant for a gambling rap for a place way far away (Detroit, Michigan)? Must’ve been a helluva gambling rap.

Townes goes to the closet to get his jacket, whereupon the detective pulls his gun to make sure everything’s on the up and up. This provides another of several scenes where the tension is nicely constructed as we await Arch to turn around and see what face he has on. But in this moment, he turns around and he’s still Townes—a sensible choice because there was hardly any chance he could get away with any sort of trickery in a small hotel room like this one. Wisely, he waits for his chance when he and the detective get to the lobby and leave through a revolving door. Townes pulls the old fake-leave-and-come-back-inside-thru-the-revolving-door-and-change-your-face-and-reemerge-outside-the revolving-door trick. The detective grabs the man but now it’s And Marshak again. “I’m sorry” says the detective, “Did you see a guy come out of there?” “No”, says Marshak, and the detective runs back inside.

Arck/Marshak lights up a cigarette and starts off anew, but pulls up short when he runs into his father again…but this time Dad has a gun. And it’s pointed at his own son. “You got such a debt Andy” he tells his son. “You owe for so many years, you owe for so many things. And now you pay off, son.” It’s a nicely ironic bit of business that the father is right o course, but in ways and for reasons he has no idea about. Arch/Andy tells old man Marshak that he’ll show him he’s wrong, but he’s “just got to concentrate”; frustrated with his inability to change faces while under intense pressure, he takes too long, and his father shoots him. Marshak falls to the pavement, and we see a close-up montage of his face as it morphs from one character to the next as he dies.

Closing monologue:

He was Arch Hammer, a cheap little man who just checked in. He was Johnny Foster, who played a trumpet and was loved beyond words. He was Virgil Sterig, with money in his pocket. He was Andy Marshak, who got some of his agony back on a sidewalk in front of a cheap hotel. Hammer, Foster, Sterig, Marshak-and all four of them were dying.

A well-directed episode by John Brahm. The camera tilts up at the end and reveals what seems to me to be the New York City skyline. Aha, so that’s where this story takes place,

I rate this episode a 6.5.

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