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<\/a>By William Kozy<\/strong><\/p>\nThe prickly, pinched Barlett Finchley (Richard Haydn) drives his 1939 Lagonda V12 Drophead coupe into his long driveway, past the swimming pool, up to his luxuriously large home. He commences a tart discussion with the TV repairman (Barney Phillips, in his 2nd of 4 TZ appearances, the most memorable being the three-eyed alien). Finchley argue over cost and the state of machines that just don\u2019t work. But the repairman lets us in on the truth as he banters back and forth and we learn that Finchley is prone to physically abusing the appliances in his home, tearing out wires from the TV, throwing radios downstairs, and smashing alarm clocks onto the floor. When asked, \u201cWhat does go wrong with these machines Mr. Finchley? Have you got any idea?\u201d we see a quick look of frightened flash across Finchley\u2019s face, and we wonder what he\u2019s thinking. How long has this been going on? It\u2019s information that we never find out, and it\u2019s the kind of detail that I think makes this episode feel underdeveloped. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m asking for answers to the mysteries, but I do feel like without certain details we don\u2019t really have a firm grasp on what exactly the mystery is. <\/p>\n
As you\u2019ll see, various machines and appliances start attacking with our lead, but how long has this been going on? His whole life? That does seem to be the case when he confesses later to his secretary that for his whole life he\u2019s never been able to operate machines, but the degree of antipathy between him and machines has never reached the level that they have of recent. So what set of this development?<\/p>\n
Finchley is extremely short-tempered with everyone and one might be tempted to attribute that to the stress of the events, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s it. He\u2019s just too authentically pompous and fussy\u2014it\u2019s definitely a part of his very essence. So then, is that perhaps why he\u2019s being tortured? Because he\u2019s an ass? If so, then when did the machines decide enough was enough?<\/p>\n
After the repairman leaves, an alarm clock on the mantelpiece chimes, and I assume it wasn\u2019t supposed to because Finchley grabs it and smashes it on the ground. And then takes a fireplace poker and strikes it repeatedly. Oh Finchley where were you when we needed you at the climax of \u201cIt\u2019s a Good Life\u201d?<\/p>\n
Mr. Serling explains: \u201cThis is Mr. Bartlett Finchley, age forty-eight, a practicing sophisticate who writes very special and very precious things for gourmet magazines and the like. He’s a bachelor and a recluse with few friends, only devotees and adherents to the cause of tart sophistry. He has no interests save whatever current annoyances he can put his mind to. He has no purpose to his life except the formulation of day-to-day opportunities to vent his wrath on mechanical contrivances of an age he abhors. In short, Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, born either too late or too early in the century, and who, in just a moment, will enter a realm where muscles and the will to fight back are not limited to human beings. Next stop for Mr. Bartlett Finchley – The Twilight Zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
If indeed his issue is that he hates\u2026what? Anything mechanical? Surely he wouldn\u2019t surround himself with so many of them. And also it sure seems he made happy of that car he drove home. And he\u2019s so wrong about the typewriter when he denigrates it to his secretary Miss Rogers (Barbara Stuart, who was married to comedian Dick Gautier). Complaining about her only typing 30 pages in 3 \u00bd hours, he asserts that Thomas Jefferson wrote the entire Declaration of Independence with a feather quill in only half a day. Aside from the fact that it was written by five men over the course of 17 days, let\u2019s assume he was right\u2014is the one page Declaration of Independence written in half a day a better rate of production than what Miss Rogers put out? Not by a longshot. So is Finchley mathematically challenged as well?<\/p>\n
In any case, she quits. As she walks to the door, Finchley halts her pleadingly: \u201cMiss Rogers please!\u201d He quietly asks her to stay and suggests they have dinner. She politely declines, and then he comes out with the truth. He tells her that he doesn\u2019t want to be alone, but when she shows genuine concern for him, he can\u2019t help undermining the moment and he snaps at her. But she stays engaged and listens as he explains all the strange goings on with the clock, the TV, the car. Miss Rogers suggests he see a doctor, but if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned about the Twilight Zone—never ever suggest to someone that they see a doctor. It will send them into a rage (See my previous TZ review of \u201cSounds and Silences\u201d). We do find out in his temper tantrum that these \u201cmechanical monsters\u201d have been acting up for the last several months, but we are without a clue as to why. But this idiotic man who claims to be logical and rational insults Miss Rogers, calling her \u201cMechanical faced\u201d, which is an odd phrase. I\u2019m not sure what that referred to. She\u2019s an attractive woman after all, maybe not the bombshell that other TZ blondes were (Donna Douglas, Inger Stevens, Patricia Barry), but she was certainly pretty. Was he referring to her stoicism? The insult just seems a little esoteric.<\/p>\n
After she has left we get our first real hard evidence of supernatural shenanigans. The typewriter starts typing by itself! Finchley rips it out and sees that it has typed \u201cGET OUT OF HERE FINCHLEY!\u201d<\/p>\n
And then the television set joins in, showing flamenco dancer Margarita Cordova doing her thing and then pausing to look out at Finchley and say, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get out of here Finchley?\u201d (Ms. Cordova and her husband owned and ran a flamenco club in Los Angeles called \u201cEl Cid\u201d)<\/p>\n
Finchley scampers up his steps and makes his stand at the top, proclaiming to the whole house: \u201cAll right you machines! You\u2019re not going to intimidate me! Do you hear me? You\u2019re not going to intimidate me! You\u2026you\u2026machines!\u201d And the camera pulls out and wide for a nice closing shot of the mayhem before going to commercial.<\/p>\n
When we rejoin Finchley, he\u2019s in his bedroom calling women on the phone and inviting them to dinner, but he strikes out, blaming the telephone for his embarrassment. And then, standing before his mirror holding an electric razor, suddenly the razor stars hovering menacingly in midair all by itself. The telephone begins intoning over and over \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get out of here, Finchley?\u201d So the mayhem continues. Even his car makes trouble. Outside his home there is a commotion\u2014as Finchley approaches the gathered crowd, a policeman tells him he ought to get his emergency brake checked out because his car rolled down the driveway and \u201calmost hit a kid on a bike.\u201d Finchley balks at the notion, and then calls the crowd idiots after instructing them to leave.<\/p>\n
He takes to drink at night and passes out on his sofa. The alarm clock, typewriter and TV begin their sonic assault. Then the electric razor comes sliding down the steps, bump bump bump after Finchley. (Get up close to your TV screen and you can see the thin white string pulling the razor down the steps.)<\/p>\n
Finchley escapes out his front door, and then his car starts up and reverses, positioning itself to chase down its owner. What follows is the climactic car stalking in which a driverless car pursues Finchley. Stunt drivers were used to make the scene work and the effect actually works out rather well upon first viewing. It\u2019s only when you read afterward about all the shots where you can see them along with some other continuity mishaps that you can spot these giveaways. The stunt drivers sometimes crouched down low, and in some shots they were dressed all in black from head to toe to blend in with the black shadows in the car. At one point, the car crashes through a fence that Finchley has jumped over, and then it crashes into a pile of boxes. When the car reverses, extracting itself from the pile, there are a whole mess of fun things to spot. Firstly, look closely and you can clearly see a stunt driver in black turning the wheel. But then the most glaring and yet unnoticed error upon first viewing, is the huge metal grill that was placed on the front of the car, presumably to protect it when it crashes through the fence and boxes. I mean the thing encompasses the entire front of the car. But then when they cut to the next shot, it of course disappears, having been removed by the crew of course as they continue shooting the rest of the scene. Getting back to the shot of the car pulling out of the boxes, you can also see a shadow of the crew up against the white side of the car\u2014you can even see a silhouette of a man running, and no, it\u2019s definitely not supposed to be Finchley as he was long gone by that point.<\/p>\n
Finally, having chased Finchley down to his swimming pool, observe closely the shot of Finchley running toward his pool as we see the car and its headlights bearing down on him from behind. Look at the ground in front of the car, and you can clearly see tire tracks already there, apparently from a previous take or practice run.<\/p>\n
Finchley falls backward into the pool. We cut to the next morning and a throng is on the scene. At the back of an ambulance a policeman and doctor discuss the oddity of Finchley\u2019s body not floating despite not having anything to weigh him down. I feel like that\u2019s a detail the episode didn\u2019t need, because it stacks the deck on the side of the supernatural, removing the possibility of Finchley\u2019s being either mentally disturbed, or drunk as the policeman also suggests. We do know that Finchley had been drinking so that does make for a nice rebuttal to keep the viewers wondering. But no, the episode adds that weighted down detail which pretty much spells it out for us.<\/p>\n
I rate this episode a 4.9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n [si-contact-form form=’2′]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [AdSense-A] By William Kozy The prickly, pinched Barlett Finchley (Richard Haydn) drives his 1939 Lagonda V12 Drophead coupe into his long driveway, past the swimming pool, up to his luxuriously large home. He commences a tart discussion with the TV repairman (Barney Phillips, in his 2nd of 4 TZ appearances, the most memorable being the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24129],"class_list":["post-95778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-the-twilight-zone-review-a-thing-about-machines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95778","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=95778"}],"version-history":[{"count":-2,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}