{"id":1585,"date":"2010-03-13T10:06:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T15:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ringsidereport.com\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2010-03-13T10:06:44","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T15:06:44","slug":"twilight-zone-man-in-the-bottle-1960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=1585","title":{"rendered":"Twilight Zone: Man in the Bottle (1960)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reviewed by Geno McGahee<\/strong>
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cI can offer you four wishes with a guaranteed performance.\u201d\u2014Genie (Joseph Ruskin)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arthur Castle (Luther Adler) and his wife Edna (Vivi Janiss) own an antique shop and are not doing very well financially.\u00a0 Arthur\u2019s father owned it before him and his grandfather owned it before his father and now it was his and all three of them never were able to keep their heads above water.\u00a0 He even refers to it as a \u201cmonument to failure,\u201d and he is near bankruptcy.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t change his good heart, however, as he buys what he believes to be an empty wine bottle from Mrs. Gumley (Lisa Golm), only because she is so poor and needs the money.\u00a0 This is more than a wine bottle, however, and Arthur and Edna are going to get more than they bargained for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During one of Arthur\u2019s angry outbursts concerning the bills and how life has basically shat on him, he knocks down the wine bottle and unleashes a genie.\u00a0 The Genie (Joseph Ruskin) appears and offers the couple four wishes and a guarantee on the performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a tale that sort of hits everyone, I think.\u00a0 Who doesn\u2019t want the chance to live on easy street, but this is the Twilight Zone and you are not going to get away that easily.\u00a0 Once the couple starts wishing, the genie only lives up to the wish and everything begins to backfire upon them.\u00a0 When they get money, the tax collector arrives to take his share\u2026an absurdly large share.\u00a0 When Arthur wants power, he is sent to Nazi Germany.\u00a0 It makes you think of that saying: \u201cBe careful what you wish for.\u00a0 You might just get it.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a much better saying than: \u201cIt\u2019s not who you know, it\u2019s who you blow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I really loved this tale.\u00a0 I love any story that shows the pitfalls of free money.\u00a0 The story is fantastic and it shows how Rod Serling can take a topic like a Genie and turn it into an interesting and adult oriented tale.\u00a0 The acting was top notch, but I do have one question.\u00a0 Vivi Janiss was in \u201cThe Fever\u201d and was married to Franklin (Everett Sloane).\u00a0 Now, did she leave poor Franklin for this guy Arthur?\u00a0 I know that you might argue that Franklin is dead and she can knock boots with whomever she pleases, but I\u2019m not 100% sure that Franklin didn\u2019t survive that fall and how dare Arthur mow another guy\u2019s lawn.\u00a0 I wish that they made an episode where Franklin and his new friend, The Slot Machine, kick in the door of the antique shop and take back his woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, this is a near perfect tale with the twists and turns that we adore from the Twilight Zone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

RSR Rating: 9\/10.\u00a0 Arthur, did you wish for Franklin\u2019s Wife?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Geno McGahee \u00a0 \u201cI can offer you four wishes with a guaranteed performance.\u201d\u2014Genie (Joseph Ruskin) Arthur Castle (Luther Adler) and his wife Edna (Vivi Janiss) own an antique shop and are not doing very well financially.\u00a0 Arthur\u2019s father owned it before him and his grandfather owned it before his father and now it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,89,292,468,621,725,729],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-23","tag-black-and-white","tag-genie","tag-luther-adler","tag-rod-serling","tag-tv","tag-twilight-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}