The Twilight Zone Review: Young Man’s Fancy

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By William Kozy

There are two kinds of creepy. One is the kind where you have an uneasy sense of dread regarding mystery and danger being dangled in front of you, and the other kind of creepy is the unpleasant annoyance you might feel toward a person or situation that is possibly tinged with a weird intimacy or questionable ethics. This episode “Young Man’s Fancy” manages to check off both boxes of creepiness. Which makes it a shame it only received

3 votes in the survey that asked, “What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?” tying it with 6 other episodes for 133rd thru 139th place.

We open on a shot of the late Henrietta Walker’s house, the mother of Alex who has just gotten married. The same house, by the way, would be used in the very next episode, “I Sing The Body Electric”! Thirty-four-year-old Alex Walker (actor Alex Nicol was actually 46) and his bride “the former Virginia Lane” (actress Phyllis Thaxter was 43 at the time) trot happily out of their car, and head into the house he grew up in to gather his clothes and sign papers in preparation to sell the house that his mother lived in until passing away recently. Then they will head off on their honeymoon…or so the plan was supposed to go.

There are some nice touches in the couple’s opening exchange whereby we get indications that Alex is either feeling regretful or forgetful about things. Each time his wife reminds him of something he forgot to do, he chimes back with an “Oh of course” that has a certain ring to it. Like he’s almost trying too hard to convince even himself of what course of action should be taken. It’s creepily telling that right after his wife plants a kiss on his lips he glances down at a photo of his mother. We learn from Alex a little bit later that she was very sick toward the end when he was taking care of her.

The dark cloud hanging over Alex darkens still more as he heads upstairs to get his clothes, pausing to set the grandfather clock’s pendulum swinging again, and straightening pictures on the wall. Virginia has made a call to the realtor Mr. Wilkinson to come by with the papers just as Alex returns and enters the room with the wary concern of a little boy about to ask a favor he knows better than to ask. Alex’s first step in his pathetic journey back toward infantilism is to request that his new wife and he take several of the furniture items with them, like the TV set and refrigerator that he had just bought for mother…”a few months before she died.” And then there’s a fascinating change of facial expression that Thaxter morphs into as she listens to Alex go on about the radio his mother loved so much. She’s looking at him with annoyance as he mentions the old time greats but instead of cutting back to Alex, they hold on her face and you can see her face just melt away the annoyance and turn into the expression of a woman looking on bemusedly at a little boy’s exuberance. It’s sweet but it also makes you wonder about Alex’s appeal to women—that perhaps it’s his boyishness that casts some spell, a spell with supernatural underpinnings as we’ll find out later. His reminiscences also serve to establish for us, all the props that will rise up out of the past to taunt Virginia—the “broken” radio, the movie magazines his mother used to read, the fudge she would make as he mimes eating one.

Off he goes to pack and as Virginia straightens up around the house she comes face to face with a photo of Alex’s mother. So powerful is her hold on Virginia as well, that Virginia cannot help but challenge her aloud, telling her that “he’s mine now” and that she’ll never get her “claws on him again.” And as if to say “oh yeah?” the radio starts up, playing Henrietta’s favorite song “The Lady in Red.” Confused, Virginia, turns off the radio. She retreats to the kitchen to putter about, and the song comes again. She goes beelines it to the radio but finds that the music is coming from somewhere else. Upstairs? She goes to investigate. It is a phonograph in a bedroom where Alex has put it on as plays with some items from his youth that his mother kept in a chest. Look closely however on the shot of the record spinning on the turntable and you’ll see that the record title is “Lady Be Good.” Oops.

Alex is just sitting there, lost in his world of childhood playthings, but Virginia’s entrance breaks his reverie. She lets him go on about all the memories in this chest of toys and clothes, but when he wonders aloud why his mother kept them, Virginia pounces frustratedly: “Because she would’ve liked for you to stay exactly as you were when you first wore them!” His hurt is immediately visible, and Virginia goes down to him sitting there on the floor to soothe the hurt. He puts the things away in a huff and leaves the room pouting. As he petulantly packs his clothes, Virginia still clings to him for forgiveness. It’s all such a tangled mess of role-playing amongst the threesome—mother, son and wife all taking turns as the domineering one while the other does the begging.

Virginia goes downstairs to let Mr. Wilkinson the realtor in. Alex joins them, walking like a zombie, slowly trying to figure out how to get out of this emotional mess. Alex winds up simply stalling, telling Mr. Wilkinson that he wants to think about it some more, much to Wilkinson’s barely contained annoyance.

Virginia confronts Alex, reminding him of his promise to sell the house. He claims he’s not backing down, but she presses him for the reason. There’s really nowhere for him to run to, so he nervously comes out with his plan, “Couldn’t we live here, Virg?” She’s shocked of course, and they have a well-written exchange of a desperate debate. You feel for her so much here, waiting twelve years for him to free himself from his obligations. Yeah, you feel for him too, you really do, but not nearly as much because after all, right is right. We recognize that he does need to grow up and to do right by his wife. She literally grabs him and cries and begs for him “not to do this to” her. It’s an emotional episode, and almost hard to watch for the discomfort. Bravo to Phyllis Thaxter.

It’s great that it’s not so one-sided—his tortured soul spills out as he explains his guilt over what his mother must’ve gone through, losing her health as she took care of Alex after his father left the family when Alex was only two months old. We’re as torn as this couple is.

And then the gavel comes down—with hard-hearted steadfastness Alex coldly proclaims that he will not sell the house, and he marches upstairs. She is about to go after him when the furnishings begin their assault. The on again off again ticking of the grandfather clock resumes. She goes to get her purse convinced she can get Alex out of the house; she trips over the vacuum cleaner which has magically turned into an old-style model. And so has the telephone, and the magazine has switched to an edition many years older, and there are fudge brownies in the dessert bowl, and the kitchen appliances have all gone back in time—Thaxter displays a keen mix of anger over what is happening along with her fear.

Virginia runs to the stairs to go get Alex, and there at the op of the steps is the biggest surprise of all from the past. Henrietta stands looming at the top of the staircase. Virginia challenges her, claiming he belongs to her now. She defends her claim’s righteousness telling Henrietta that her love will make him strong, not weak and dependent. Virginia calls Henrietta out, and we feel like she’s right about everything she’s saying. That Henrietta probably did hate Virginia for the potential power Virginia had to strengthen Alex—after all, it’s a classic psychology that all parents and their children’s mates struggle through, right?

Virginia’s court summation issued at Henrietta is a solid one. She made her case. But she has forgotten one thing. She has forgotten that perhaps another enemy besides Henrietta was the problem all along. As Henrietta tells her, “This is not my doing” Alex opens the door of her bedroom, comes out and with hand reaching out says, “Come back to me, mother. I want you to.” Henrietta has a hint of remorse for Virginia it seemed to me, but she goes to Alex nonetheless. And Alex is now a little boy much to Virginia’s horror: “Alex! Not you…oh…”

Alex the boy asks his mother if they can go to the zoo and have ice cream, and then he pulls his mother into the room. Her bedroom. Creepy. Cruelly he turns to Virginia and tells her “Go away lady. We don’t need you anymore” as he shuts the door. Thaxter’s reaction is terrific, subtly convulsive, speechless, hurt, utterly and existentially baffled and broken-hearted. She can only run down the steps and out of the house. We feel so much for her that I actually found myself annoyed with Serling’s rather flippant reading of the closing monologue. We want to help her somehow, and that’s the mark of a successful episode I think.

I rate this episode a 7.9

Trivia Add-On:

imdb says this is One of 16 of the 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone that involved the appearance of a ghost. How many others can we name?

I came up with The Hunt, The Hitch-Hiker, Deaths-Revisited, The Changing of the Guard, Nothing in the Dark, Night Call, A Game of Pool, The Passersby, The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms, Death Ship, Ring a ding Girl, Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, The 30 Fathom Grave, King Nine Will Not Return, Mr. Garrity and the Graves, and Young Man’s Fancy. That’s 16, but am I counting one that doesn’t really count as a ghost?

There are some others that one can make a case for, however tenuously: The Last Flight? Walking Distance? One for the Angels? A Nice Place to Visit? Jesse-Belle?, Occurrence at Owl Creek Ridge? Sixteen Millimeter Shrine? The Trouble with Templeton? Dust? Ninety Years Without Slumbering?

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