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<\/a>By William Kozy<\/strong><\/p>\nThe overly histrionic ranting of \u201cFour O\u2019Clock\u201d led to its receiving only 3 votes in the survey asking \u201cWhat is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?\u201d This put it in a tie with 6 other episodes for 133rd thru 139th place. It\u2019s an unpleasant episode to sit through, despite Theodore Bikel\u2019s thoroughly immersed characterization in the role of Oliver Crangle, a pathetic shut-in who spends his whole waking life as a clerical bully: \u201cI compile [people] and I investigate them, analyze them. Then I categorize them, and I judge them. If they\u2019re impure and evil then they must be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n
We first see him on the phone, telling Mr. O\u2019Connor\u2019s employer that his worker is a Communist and must be discharged immediately. \u201cNever mind how I know, I just know\u201d he tells the employer. In that phone call, and in other exchanges throughout the episode we do get the impression that luckily for us all, the people he calls and writes letters to in general seem not to be cowed by him. This however, does lessen our sense of danger, our feeling of \u201cOh God, how many lives is he ruining?!\u201d Thus our antipathy is more because he\u2019s a schmuck, and not because he poses any substantial threat.<\/p>\n
But there is an even greater drawback to the episode than that. Crangle is such an over-the-top lunatic, and Bikel\u2019s performance so juicily indulgent in its judgmental aspect of the character\u2019s \u201cevil\u201d that we feel zero ambivalence and depth about the character, leading to perhaps the most predictable comeuppance of any TZ episode, once you find out his intention. Theodore Bikel in reality was a human rights activist who fought bravely against McCarthyism and blacklisting in the 1950s, so it\u2019s perhaps possible he felt so close to the subject he could muster no subtlety or desire to grant the slightest acknowledgment toward what inner life could have led this character to his actions.<\/p>\n
Rod Serling\u2019s writing however, also has a hand in the one-sidedness of the story-telling. He has adapted this script from a short story by Price Day published in the April 1958 edition of Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Mystery Magazine. The screenplay has no explanation for what so suddenly impels Crangle to come up with the scheme to make all the subversives and communists and criminals of the world two feet tall. It just enters his mind, seemingly because he simply looks at a clock on top of his filing cabinet. And then you have to wonder, well why not just do it immediately? Why would set it for some arbitrary time in the future? Just do it now. The answer we as the audience understand all too well is that it\u2019s a clunky way to pad out the half hour with more encounters between Crangle and those he is attacking.<\/p>\n
What I think a lot of critics get wrong about the episode is that they call Crangle a \u201cbigot\u201d or \u201cprejudiced.\u201d I applaud Serling\u2019s writing for actually not doing that, for not painting Crangle that way. You\u2019ll notice watching, that Crangle never makes any sort of ethnic, religious, or racial slur about the people he harasses. And that I think is a good call. Serling is concerned about something perhaps more universal; if he piled on bigotry to Crangle\u2019s make-up it would confuse the issue that Serling wants addressed: tyranny and the abuse of power, the harm that calling rumors facts can do. Crangle\u2019s next phone call is to a teacher\u2019s school superintendent, reporting that he \u201chas it on good authority\u201d that the teacher\u2019s morality is objectionable. \u201cNever mind who this is\u201d says Crangle, \u201cI happen to be giving you facts, and these facts are what is at issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crangle hangs up and leans back with a deep sigh that right at the 2:56 mark\u2026sounds like a fart, a la Rudy Giuliani testifying before Congress. It alarmed me at first. I had to replay the scene twice before realizing it was just him sighing an \u201cOh!\u201d Perhaps just \u201can undigested piece of meat\u201d in this Scrooge-like scenario in which Crangle is then visited by three characters. His landlady, bringing today\u2019s special mail delivery, and then the wife of a hospital intern who Crangle has spent much of the past trying to ruin with a letter writing campaign to the hospital accusing the young doctor of murder. The wife pleads her case that her husband tried his best to attend to the victim of a traffic accident, but she died before he could get to her. Crangle however, has not an ounce of sympathy or understanding, despite her confessing to Crangle that although the hospital pays no heed Crangle\u2019s letters, they are disturbing her husband\u2019s sensitive nature.<\/p>\n
The third visitor is someone Crangle has actually summoned\u2014an FBI agent who spells out the future for Crangle by the end of his exchange with him. The agent is here to respond to Crangle\u2019s repeated calls to Washington, D.C. about \u201cthe Reds.\u201d Crangle tells Agent Hall (a nice understated performance by Linden Chiles), \u201cIt\u2019s a complete conspiracy you know. All the evil people of the world have banded together, communists, subversives, thieves. It\u2019s a total, complete worldwide conspiracy.\u201d Something I didn\u2019t catch until a later viewing is the actual reason an FBI agent would bother to show up at this crackpot\u2019s apartment: Hall asks Crangle, \u201cNow, Mr. Crangle. On the phone you said that you had some sort of plan which you felt\u2026\u201d Aha, now that makes sense. He\u2019s not really here out of concern for Crangle\u2019s theories which probably sounded ridiculous over the phone, no, he\u2019s here to see what sort of terrorism Crangle is proposing.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s where the script commits I think it\u2019s biggest mistake\u2014in equating mental illness with evil. As Crangle elaborates to the agent his theories and his intentions, the true picture of his paranoia and sociopathy emerge. His musings defy logic as he describes one plan he had regarding making all the wheels in public transportation squares or triangle to inhibit all the evil people from getting around\u2014how does a man so attentive to details in his filing system overlook that all these oddball plans would harm the innocent as well? Even his pet parrot Pete food blurts out \u201cNut!\u201d (when calling for food). His monologue gets crazier the more he goes on until finally the agent says to him, as Crangle giggles maniacally, \u201cMr. Crangle, I\u2019d like to ask you a question sir. I hope you won\u2019t take offense at it.\u201d He continues, \u201cHave you ever had any psychiatric help?\u201d Crangle is aghast at the question and Agent Hall tells him, \u201cMr. Crangle you don\u2019t seem rational to me. I\u2026I think you\u2019ve developed some kind of obsession here. I think you need some help.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the script even admits that Crangle is mentally unbalanced, and yet it will soon mete out a harsh justice usually reserved for the truly evil. Were the \u201860s really this backward in getting mental illness confused with evil?<\/p>\n
Crangle\u2019s rantings increase in absurdity, to which Hall coolly tells him, \u201cMr. Crangle we have something in this country which makes all of this stuff quite unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law Mr. Crangle, we have the law. Now, we like people\u2019s help and their support, their cooperation, but interference is quite another matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crangle can only see this as a sign of Hall\u2019s complicity with the evil people. And just in case we haven\u2019t already spotted the twist ending so obviously coming, Crangle calls out after Hall as he exits, \u201cYou\u2019d better enjoy yourself for the next 15 or 20 minutes, you\u2019d better enjoy yourself to the utmost because you\u2019re going to be 2 feet tall! 2 feet tall Mr. Hall! That\u2019s what you\u2019re going to be! 2 feet tall, do you hear me? All the evil people, they\u2019re going to be 2 feet tall!\u201d<\/p>\n
Let me get this straight, does he mean 2 feet tall? Yes Crangle yes, we get it, we get it.<\/p>\n
At a minute before 4 o\u2019clock Crangle stands by the window gloating, talking to Pete the Parrot. Then the clock strikes four and you will never guess in a million years what happens.<\/p>\n
I rate this episode a 4\u2026.um, make that 2\u2026..o\u2019clock.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n [si-contact-form form=’2′]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [AdSense-A] By William Kozy The overly histrionic ranting of \u201cFour O\u2019Clock\u201d led to its receiving only 3 votes in the survey asking \u201cWhat is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?\u201d This put it in a tie with 6 other episodes for 133rd thru 139th place. It\u2019s an unpleasant episode to sit through, […]<\/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":[24543],"class_list":["post-97220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-the-twilight-zone-review-four-oclock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97220","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=97220"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}