The Twilight Zone Review: Execution

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By William Kozy

Here’s an episode that deserves much better than to be lumped in the group of episodes that received only 2 votes from respondents to the poll asking “What is you favorite episode of the Twilight Zone?” It’s miles better than that group’s “Cavender Is Coming”, “From Agnes – With Love”, “Black Leather Jackets”, “Sounds and Silences” etc. It has one of the best lead performances by an actor in any Twilight Zone in Albert Salmi’s visceral, nearly deranged villain who somehow still manages to make us feel a twinge of remorse for him. The plot is also terrific fun. Salmi is Joseph Caswell an outlaw in Montana is about to be hung for shooting a man in the back. His words tell the story of a character without conscience—sitting up on the horse, about to be hanged; he balks at the religious man coming to offer spiritual comfort: “Reverend, no need. I ain’t interested in prayers.” But I do notice he is sweating profusely while no one else is. Is he covering up his fear with his insouciance: “Better make it short and get it over with.”

I like this exchange that almost lends a debatable aspect to the justice being meted: Caswell says (Salmi’s interesting accent is great all the way through this episode), “The young fellow I put a hole in had too much mouth, not enough brains. I’d invite him out again tomorrow if I had to do all over again.” So was self-defense involved? That possibility is rebuked by the victim’s father: “You shot my son in the back, Caswell, and that’s a long country mile from an invitation to a showdown. Now if that’s all you got to say, I got this to add. I’d like it to take a while. I’d like you to feel it Caswell. The more you kick, the more justice I figure there is in the world.” Caswell, who has been coolly smirking counters: “Well, I’ll do a jig for you, Pappy, just like a puppet.”

Serling’s writing here and throughout is some of his better work. He doesn’t overdo the long sentence dialogue purple prose, but it’s still unique and creative. He clips short his characters’ sentences, but with a conciseness that still lends color.

The executioner whacks the horse on the behind sending it off so that Caswell is left to dangle from the rope. The camera pans over to his shadow on the ground, and suddenly, the shadow disappears. It’s a creative reveal. The reverend and judge who were looking down at it, then look up in shock at where Caswell should be hanging: “Oh, my dear God” and “What happened to him?” Upon first viewing I thought, “Why would those men be looking at the ground anyway? Just for the visual effect? But upon rewatching, I admit that one can detect the directorial attempt made to make this a set-up based on character, not contrivance. We see the two men turn away from the hanging out of deference to justice. They stand peaceably looking down in silence which explains their positioning to make the shadow gag work. I would just say this then: the camera positioning could have been better plotted to show us these two men making that movement. As shot, it’s a little too obfuscated.

Caswell wakes up in a room, with Professor Manion (Russell Johnson) standing over him. Caswell is hoarse and confused but Manion explains gently to him where and when he is and that he is the first time traveler in history. Manion then notices the rope burns around Caswell’s neck and immediately suspects trouble.

In the next scene, the Professor, alone in his laboratory dictates his observations to a tape recorder. He narrates what Caswell told him about his background, and clearly Caswell has left out the nefarious activities. The Professor pauses, pacing as he lights up a smoke to help him think. It’s a nice moment—we know something’s on his mind, and indeed he picks up the microphone to record his thoughts: “There are the marks of a rope etched deeply into his neck. He has no explanation for this. I have one other observation. Hardly scientific…I don’t like his looks. I don’t like the eyes or the face or the expression. I get a feeling of disquiet. I…I get a feeling that I’ve taken a 19th century primitive and placed him in a 20th century jungle. And heaven help whoever gets in his way.”

That’s a very nifty piece of writing, and Russell Johnson does it justice despite my never thinking much of him as an actor. This episode presents him at the very best I’ve seen him. But the real marvel is Salmi, who indeed perfectly incorporates the character the Professor describes with trepidation. Salmi’s Caswell takes full advantage of his 6’2” height, and he works his mouth constantly, almost animal-like, as he tries figuring things out, plotting his options. It’s like he’s a lidded cauldron, bubbling away, and whenever sensory overload gets to him, his distress is palpable. Caswell, lurking quietly in the doorway, lumbers hesitantly into the room, reminding me of Frankenstein’s monster. He approaches a rack of test tubes and makes a gesture that is best seen instead of described by me. Did he want to see if he could drink one? It’s a brilliant little thing that only great actors summon up organically.

He approaches the Professor and the stock music used is terrific. The throbbing pulse of a heartbeat like a timepiece with subtle little trills of a piccolo maybe, buried way underneath. It gets to you. The Professor offers a cigarette and Caswell is a taken aback by the Professor’s lighter (“That’s fire right out of the air”), although it’s been pointed out that lighters were invented in 1823. Nevertheless, the bigger culture shock comes when Caswell insists on seeing the things the Professor spoke of like “horseless carriages”. The Professor draws open the curtain and opens the window. The blaring traffic, sirens, and neon lights are too much for Caswell who draws back in agony.

The Professor confronts Caswell about the man he must have killed. They talk philosophy—right and wrong, law, order, justice—the music creeps up again lending an air of impending danger. Caswell confesses to killing many people to which the Professor answers that he’s going to have to send Caswell back. To me it’s a bit crazy that the Professor would tell this killer who is twice his size that he’s going to send him back to be hanged. Caswell loses it, and kills the Professor, smashing a lamp over his head. The tape recorder inadvertently turns on right at the point in the tape in which the Professor says he doesn’t like the looks of Caswell. This bit of witchcraft scares and confounds Caswell, who runs like Hell out of there. The camera tracks in slowly to the tape recorder with Manion’s lifeless body next to it as we hear this ironic sentence: “And Heaven help whoever gets in his way.”

Caswell runs out into the street half manic, half in wonder. He leans against a phone booth that is ringing and he steps inside of it, maybe for protection? The receiver falls off and the voice of the operator perplexes him. He tries to get out, but you know how those folding doors were. Trapped inside, he braces his legs against one side with his back against the other side and presses hard enough to burst through. It’s a cool stunt and we can tell that Salmi has performed it himself since the camera doesn’t cut. Bravo!! Caswell enters a bar with a jukebox blaring jazz. Caswell can’t stand it and breaks the machine. Salmi is great in this scene, but the actor/bartender plays things way too calmly. Caswell gazes at the TV screen, and the bartender turns it on. It’s a little too on the nose that a TV western should come on with a cowboy about to fire his gun in a showdown aimed right at the camera. Predictably, Caswell fires his own gun at the TV.

Fleeing the bar, a car almost hits Caswell so he fires his gun at it, then runs away, collapsing exhaustedly onto the pavement as we hear sirens approach. How he gets away and back to the lab is anybody’s guess but that’s where we next find him, begging the dead Professor to help him. But a visitor turns on a light in the room. It’s a robber holding a gun. Caswell asks what he wants and I like this Serling dialogue: “What do I want? What do you want Buffalo Bill? Well, that’s what I want. Whatever’s around loose”. The gunman keeps his gun aimed, and we watch Caswell, biding his time, waiting for his moment—the suspense is great. In an effective Hitchcockian twist of audience psychology we find ourselves rooting for the lead villain. He may be a bad guy, but he’s our bad guy. A very efficiently choreographed and executed fight scene follows. It takes rewatching closely to detect a stunt double for Salmi. The robber is half Caswell’s size but overtakes him via a well-conceived stunt in which Caswell must fight one-handed after his hand was crushed underfoot by the robber. The robber wraps the curtain draw strings around Caswell’s neck, strangling him. Caswell has come full circle. But justice hasn’t said its peace just yet. As the robber skulks about the room, he eventually walks into the time machine to see what treasures it might offer. The door closes, trapping him inside and of course he ends up at the end of the noose meant for Caswell back in 1880.

Questions of justice haunt the men who ask who this stranger is that replaced Caswell. “What kind of Devil’s work is this?” and “Did we hang and innocent man, then?” Serling’s end monologue provides some answers: “…No comment on his death save this—justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar.”

I rate this episode an 8.

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