The Twilight Zone: Season 1, Episode Five “Walking Distance”

Original Air Date: October 30, 1959
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Robert Stevens

“Martin, I only wanted to tell you that this is a wonderful time of life for you. Don’t let any of it go by without enjoying it. There won’t be any more merry-go-rounds, no more cotton candy, no more band concerts. I only wanted to tell you that this is a wonderful time for you. Now. Here. That’s all, Martin. That’s all I wanted to tell you. God help me. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

In my view, Walking Distance is Rod Serling’s magnum opus. It is perhaps the greatest piece of writing ever produced on network television. In addition to a pitch-perfect cast and script, legendary composer Bernard Hermann offers a moody, melancholic, reflective score that is both somber and hopeful. Cinematographer George T. Clemens delivers a feast of visual delights via a series of hazy mirrors and looking glasses as we (the audience) unknowingly travel back through time into a dream-like vision of one man’s quest to regain his lost childhood. As the episode opens, a man drives up to a gas station along a country road on a summer afternoon.

“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice-president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s an exodus. Somewhere up the road he’s looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, he’ll find something else.“
-Rod Serling

Martin Sloan (played by Academy Award winner Gig Young) is escaping his busy life in the city to return to his childhood hometown. Since he is not in a hurry, he decides to walk about a mile-and-a-half from the gas station to his hometown of “Homewood” (the town is based on Rod Serling’s hometown of Binghamton, New York. It was shot on the set that was constructed for Judy Garland’s film Meet Me In St. Louis). Upon arrival in Homewood, Martin is struck by how little has changed in town. He visits the old drugstore where he once worked as a boy, he orders an ice cream soda with three scoops –still only ten cents! He muses upon the reflection of Old Mister Wilson who once spent the lazy days sleeping in the back room (when Martin leaves the store, the confused clerk opens the backroom door to reveal Old Mister Wilson still asleep in the back).

Martin takes a walk through his old neighborhood. A local boy (interestingly played by a very young Ron “Ronnie” Howard) on the street curiously calls Martin’s childhood home “the Sloan house.” In the park, he spots a little boy carving his name onto a bandstand –the boy turns out to be Martin, himself. Adult Martin calls out and follows him home where he confronts his parents. In shock, they turn him away, believing him to be a lunatic.

“A man can think a lot of thoughts and walk a lot of pavements between afternoon and night. And to a man like Martin Sloan, to whom memory has suddenly become reality, a resolve can come just as clearly and inexorably as stars in the summer night. Martin Sloan is now back in time. And his resolve is to put in a claim to the past.“
-Rod Serling

A neighborhood boy brags to Martin about his brand new car, made in 1934 –the first of its kind in town. Again, Martin tries to confront his younger self on the merry-go-round at the park but the boy flees in fear and injures his leg. He tried to reclaim his youth only to wound himself in the process. As the light begins to fade around Martin, he calls out to his younger self —“Martin I only wanted to tell you that this is a wonderful time of life for you. Don’t let any of it go by without enjoying it.”

Martin’s father (played by Frank Overton) finds his adult son at the park’s carousel. He returns Martin’s wallet which was previously dropped on the porch. Somehow he knows his son’s secret, but he tells him he must leave: “…we only get one chance. Maybe there’s only one summer to every customer. That little boy, the one I know, the one who belongs here, this is his summer just as it once was yours. Don’t make him share it.” Martin listens and takes one last spin on the carousel, which returns him to the present-day where ice cream is now thirty-five cents and cars are abundant. He walks back to his car at the gas station having left the fantasy of his childhood behind him, never again to return.

“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives—trying to go home again. And also like all men, perhaps there’ll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he’ll look up from what he’s doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there’ll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he’ll smile then too, because he’ll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man’s mind, that are a part of the Twilight Zone.“
-Rod Serling

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My Thoughts on “Walking Distance”

Nostalgia is a powerful narcotic. The idea that your childhood could be mere “walking distance” away is intoxicating, but sadly it is always just out of reach –time is a fickle mistress. “Walking Distance” offers the Twilight Zone episode par excellence. This is a deeply moving, bittersweet reflection on the passage of time. It strikes right at the core of the human condition. “Walking Distance” was also a deeply personal story for Rod Serling; it is a reflection on his youth growing up in Binghamton, New York just down the street from Recreation Park. In the episode, Serling reminds us that we cannot return and relive our old memories, but perhaps we can look around today and find our own joy just the same. Always looking backward for answers only yields sadness. Perhaps there really are merry-go-rounds, cotton candy, and bandstands sitting right in front of us. None of us will ever get the chance to walk back in time like Martin Sloan, but perhaps there are faint traces of his journey that we all feel deep within each of us.

In many ways, “Walking Distance” was Rod Serling’s most autobiographical Twilight Zone episode. Like Martin Sloan, Serling held a deep longing to reconnect with his father who died prematurely of a heart attack. “Going back was something he really would have liked to have done,” Rod’s daughter Anne Serling once confirmed. “He was very close to his father. He always used to say to me, ‘I wish you had known your grandfather.” Serling’s brother later commented: “I think where Rod got the great love for the small town was in the Army; when he was overseas. It was the ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’ syndrome. Everything he had taken for granted as a child had suddenly become preciously dear to him. He thought he’d never see it again. This was true, too, when he got into the hectic world of television. Yellow Springs and Antioch [where he attended and taught school] were the same kind of small village ivory tower existence, where everything was peaceful. The [Homewood] thing ran through much of his writing.”

“My major hang-up is nostalgia,” Serling once said. “I hunger to go back to knickers and nickel ice cream cones. One time, I went walking in a recreational park in my home town called ‘Recreation Park: There’s a merry-go-round in it which I spent one given night staring at.” Later, when The Twilight Zone was in production, Serling found himself strolling through a set on the MGM lot and was suddenly struck by the similarity between the set and his home town. “It struck me that all of us have a deep feeling to go back as we remember it. It was from this simple incident that I wove the story.”

Director Robert Stevens (1920-1989) later won an Emmy for “The Glass Eye” on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. As the years went by, Stevens would still get letters at his New York flat from fans praising “Walking Distance.” He later said: “There was a lot of loving care put into Walking Distance: I still get letters about it. I never realized at the time that it would touch so many people. I wish I could have done more shows for Rod.”

The standouts in “Walking Distance” are the tender performances of Gig Young and Frank Overton. The interplay between both men, father and son, adds a painfully emotional dynamic to the episode as (against the backdrop of Bernard Herrmann’s sublime and haunting score) Martin Sloan yearns to return to a simpler time, far away from his busy job, but his fatherly wisdom reminds Martin that he cannot go back, childhood can only be experienced once, and he must learn to find joy in the time period in which he is living. Perhaps it is one final lesson imparted from father to son from beyond the grave.

“You’ve been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead.”

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Credits:

• Director: Robert Stevens
  • Robert Stevens (1920-1989) was a director, producer, and writer. He was a friend of CBS network executive William Dozier and was primarily active throughout the 1950s and 1960s on classic anthology TV shows like Suspense for which he directed many episodes. He won an Emmy Award for his directing work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (he directed a total of 44 episodes) and he directed two classic episodes of The Twilight Zone (the pilot “Where Is Everybody?” and “Walking Distance“). In 1987, Steven Spielberg hired him to direct “Moving Day,” an episode of Amazing Stories, which turned out to be his final screen credit. In 1989, Stevens was robbed and beaten in his rented Westport, Connecticut home where he had retired in 1987. The culprit turned out to be a young man named John Doherty. Stevens died shortly thereafter of cardiac arrest on August 7, 1989 at the age of 68.
• Written by: Rod Serling
• Music by: Bernard Herrman
• Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
• Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
• Art Directors: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
• Film Editor: Joseph Gluck
• Assistant Director: Edward Denault
• Set Decorations: Henry Grace and Rudy Butler
• Sound: Franklin Milton and Jean Valentino
• Casting Director: Mildred Gusse
• Cast:
  • Gig Young…..Martin Sloan
    • Gig Young (1913-1978) was the stage name for Byron Elsworth Barr. He adopted the name “Gig Young” from the name of a character he played in a 1942 film entitled The Gay Sisters. He appeared in films like Sergeant York (1941), Dive Bomber (1941), Navy Blues (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), You’re in the Army Now (1941), One Foot in Heaven (1941), The Gay Sisters (1942), The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942) and many others. He took a hiatus from his movie career and enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1941 where he served as a pharmacist’s mate until the end of World War II, serving in a combat zone in the Pacific. He later performed on Broadway and numerous films before turning to television for acting roles. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Come Fill the Cup (1952) and Teacher’s Pet (1959), finally winning the award for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969). A struggling alcoholic, Young’s life was tumultuous. He was married five times (his third wife was Elizabeth Montgomery who appeared in a minor role in The Twilight Zone episode “Two“). Gig Young had one child named Jennifer (though he denied being her biological father during a five-year legal battle before ultimately losing his case). After collapsing several times on various sets due to alcohol withdrawal, and beginning to lose hired roles (he was fired from the set of Blazing Saddles after being unable recite his lines in an alcoholic haze), three weeks after winning his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Young (age 64) suddenly shot and killed his new wife, a German magazine editor named Kim Schmidt (age 31), before turning the shotgun on himself in a horrifying murder-suicide. There was no suicide note left behind and police determined the act was not premeditated. He was for a time under the supervision of controversial celebrity psychologist Eugene Landy (known for losing his license amidst his unconventional care given to Beach Boys guiding light Brian Wilson). In his will, Young bequeathed his Academy Award to his agent Martin Baum, but in 2010, Young’s daughter successfully retrieved the Academy Award for herself.
  • Frank Overton…..Robert Sloan, Martin’s father
    • Frank Emmons Overton (1918-1967) was perhaps best known for his roles as Major Harvey Stovall in 12 O’Clock High, Sheriff Heck Tate in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and General Bogan in Fail Safe (1964). One of his last roles was that of Elias Sandoval in the classic Star Trek episode “This Side of Paradise,” which originally aired in March 1967, just one month before Overton’s death at the young age of 49. He was survived by his wife and daughter.
  • Irene Tedrow…..Mrs. Sloan, Martin’s mother
    • Irene Tedrow (1907-1995) was an American character actress for various stage, film, television, and radio productions. She appears in this episode in conservative dress with heavy make-up, as was the style for the era. Tedrow’s performance in “Eleanor and Franklin” garnered her one of the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Comedy or Drama Special and her other notable roles included as Janet Archer in the radio series “Meet Corliss Archer,” Mrs. Lucy Elkins on the sitcom Dennis the Menace, and as Mrs. Webb in the stage production of Our Town at the Plumstead Playhouse. Tedrow was a founding member of San Diego’s Old Globe Theater appearing in numerous Shakespearean adaptations. She later joined Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater. She appeared on Broadway through her 80s. Tedrow was married to William Kent, who originally had come to the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany. They had two children.
  • Michael Montgomery…..Young Martin Sloan
    • Child actor Michael Montgomery also appeared in The Loretta Young Show (1953) and The Donna Reed Show (1958). I am unsure of what happened to him.
  • Ron “Ronnie” Howard…..Wilcox Boy
    • Ron Howard (1954-present) appears as a young neighborhood boy in this episode. As a child actor, he played the young Opie Taylor, son of Sheriff Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) on The Andy Griffith Show and he appeared in films like The Music Man (1962) and American Graffiti (1973), before playing Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days. In the 1980s, he turned toward directing and producing with films like Night Shift (1982), Splash (1984), Cocoon (1985), Willow (1988), Backdraft (1991), andThe Paper (1994). Howard won the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture for A Beautiful Mind (2001) and was nominated again for Frost-Nixon (2008). He has directed other celebrated films like Apollo 13 (1995), Cinderella Man (2005), Rush (2013), In the Heart of the Sea (2015), Thirteen Lives (2022), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), The Dilemma (2011), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), as well as the Dan Brown/Robert Langdon films The Da Vinci Code (2006), Angels & Demons (2009), and Inferno (2016). His daughter Bryce Dallas Howard is also a celebrated Hollywood actor and director.
  • Byron Foulger…..Charlie, the soda jerk
    • Byron Kay Foulger (1898 – 1970) was a recognizable character actor who had an extensive filmography in Hollywood. He made more than 90 appearances on television in shows like I Love Lucy, The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Maverick, The Monkees, Perry Mason, Laredo, Gunsmoke, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Addams Family, Dennis the Menace, The Andy Griffith Show, and Petticoat Junction to name a few. Foulger died at the age of 71 of heart problems in Hollywood on April 4, 1970, just a few hours before the final first run episode of Petticoat Junction aired on CBS.
  • Sheridan Comerate…..Gas Station Attendant
    • Sheridan Comerate (1928-1973) was famous for his film roles in 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Live Fast, Die Young (1958). He tragically died in a private plane crash near Brick Township, New Jersey, in 1973 at the age of 45. Both pilots had been flying stunts and their blood alcohol content was over the legal limit for driving an automobile.
  • Joseph Corey…..Soda Jerk
    • Joseph “Joe” Corey (1927-1972) appeared in episodes of M*A*S*H, Gaby, and Burke’s Law but his most notable role was this episode of The Twilight Zone.
  • Nan Peterson…..Woman in Park
    • Nan Peterson (1931-2023) was known for roles in The Hideous Sun Demon (1958), Shotgun Wedding (1963), and The Twilight Zone (1959). She apparently had one child and died in 2023.
  • Pat O’Malley…..Mr. Wilson, sleeping in the stock room
    • Not to be confused with the English actor J. Pat O’Malley (who also appeared in The Twilight Zone, a total of four episodes), Pat O’Malley (1890-1966) was an Irish-American one-time railroad switchman turned silent film star began with the Kalem Studio in 1913 and appeared in a few Irish films before signing on with Thomas Edison’s company in 1914. He appeared in many hundreds of small roles before retiring in 1956.
  • Buzz Martin…..teenager
    • Buzz Martin (1939-2024) started out on stage as a child actor known as “Buzzy Martin.” He performed the role of “Nibs” in a 1950 Broadway revival of Peter Pan starring Jean Arthur in the title role, alongside Boris Karloff who played the dual roles of George Darling and Captain Hook. He later pivoted to television and made appearances in shows like Kraft Theatre, The Virginian, The Lloyd Bridges Show, Have Gun – Will Travel, Playhouse 90, Wagon Train, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rawhide, and others. “Walking Distance” was his only episode of The Twilight Zone. As far as I can tell, he retired from acting around 1963 and started going by the name Henri B. Martin. He was married to Paula J. Mainwaring. He died on January 15, 2024 in Sonora, California.
  • Bill Erwin…..Mr. Wilcox (uncredited)
    • Bill Erwin (1914-2010) was a character actor known for his Emmy-award winning appearance on Seinfeld as the curmudgeonly Sid Fields. He was a Texan and World War II veteran. His acting career was extraordinarily prolific –he appeared in a variety of films like Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) and many younger viewers might remember him for appearances as the old man whose wife takes pity on Kevin’s mom in the airport in Home Alone (1990) or as Edward Little in Dennis the Menace (1993). He appeared in a wide array of television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Studio 57, I Love Lucy, Zane Grey Theatre, Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Rifleman, Wagon Train, Leave It to Beaver, The David Niven Show, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, Lassie, Rawhide, My Three Sons, Get Smart, The Dukes of Hazzard, Full House, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, The Drew Carey Show, and many other shows. He played Doctor Dalen Quaice in the fourth season Star Trek TNG episode “Remember Me.” He was a self-taught cartoonists whose work was published in The New Yorker, Playboy, andLos Angeles magazines. He appeared in four Twilight Zone episodes (“Mr. Denton on Doomsday,” “Walking Distance,” “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” and “Mute“). He died at the age of 96 in 2010.

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The Twilight Zone Trivia:

• Rod Serling was partly inspired to write this episode after taking trips back to his hometown, particularly to Recreation Park in Binghamton, New York. The idea came to him after walking through an MGM set one day when he was suddenly struck by the similarity between the set and his home town and it filled him with nostalgia.
• Bernard Herrmann wrote this score right after writing the score for North by Northwest and right before writing the score for Psycho. This was an extraordinary chapter in his legendary career.
• Bernard Herrmann’s score in this episode was apparently his second pass, according to Buck Houghton (as mentioned in the Blu-Ray audio commentary). There was some sort of minor disagreement between Rod Serling and Buck Houghton/Bernard Herrmann over the initially composed music, but it was settled and Serling later traded mutually fond letters with Herrmann.
• Robert Stevens also directed the pilot episode “Where Is Everybody?” but because he went over time and budget on “Walking Distance” he was not invited back.
• The setting of “Homewood” was the set design for the Judy Garland film Meet Me In St. Louis. The idea of “Homewood” was based on Serling’s hometown of Binghamton, New York.
• A young Ron “Ronnie” Howard appears as a neighborhood boy in this episode.
• Bernard Herrmann composed the score for this and five other Twilight Zone episodes, as well as the classic opening and closing music.
• This episode was shot at night on an MGM backlot.
• Rod Serling told cinematographer George T. Clemens to shoot Martin Sloan’s parents as if they were “ghosts.” He gave particular attentiveness to this episode and its production.
• Currently in Recreation Park in Binghamton, New York the indoor carousel is painted with scenes from Twilight Zone episodes, and a plaque at the center of an outdoor bandstand honors Rod Serling’s “Walking Distance.” Rod Serling’s carved initials were renovated away years ago.
• Although playing a 36 year-old man Gig Young was actually age 46 during its shoot. He was 5 years older than Frank Overton who played his father in the episode.
• One of the names Martin mentions that he remembers living on his street from his youth is “Dr. Bradbury” -a nod by Rod Serling to Ray Bradbury, an instrumental voice who helped open doors for Serling in the early Twilight Zone science fiction writers’ scene. Another name is “Rooney” -a nod to Rod Serling’s friend, Mickey Rooney (who later starred in the feature film adaptation of Serling’s award-winning Playhouse 90 episode “Requiem for a Heavyweight”). Other names mentioned are “Wilcox” and “Van Buren.”
• This is one of four Twilight Zone episodes to include mid-episode narration by Rod Serling.
• Like Martin Sloan, Rod Serling also had a lifelong leg injury, though his injury was a result of a shrapnel wound during World War II which left a scar for the rest of his life, rather than a carousel injury.
• The service station in this episode reads “Ralph N. Nelson Prop.” (short for proprietor) -an inside joke and a reference to production manager for most Twilight Zone episodes, Ralph Nelson.
• A chocolate soda with three scoops cost only a dime in Martin Sloan’s youth. Back in 1959, it costs 35 cents.
• As a child, Martin attended Emerson Public School, he spends the month of August at his aunt’s farm near Buffalo, and his family rented a cottage on Saratoga Lake. He once had a sister but she died.
• A Calliope (pronounced “Cal-eye-oh-pee”) is referenced several times in this episode. It was a popular American musical instrument that made sounds through a variety of large whistles (originally locomotive whistles).
• The music playing on the jukebox in the drugstore is Bruce Campbell’s “Natural Rock” which was CBS stock music. The same music can also be heard in future episodes “From Agnes – With Love” and “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain.”
• There is a terrific essay entitled “The Many Fathers Of Martin Sloan” by Christopher Conlon which covers various accusations of plagiarism against Serling by Gore Vidal and Ray Bradbury and others.
• One of the chief industries in Rod Serling’s boyhood hometown of Binghamton was a shoe-manufacturer called Endicott-Johnson. Being a local philanthropist, Mr. George Johnson donated six carousels to local parks for the benefit of children. This is all relayed by Anne Serling in her introduction to Stories From The Twilight Zone collection.
• As with “Where Is Everybody?” Ray Bradbury complained that Serling had stolen his idea from a short story entitled “Black Ferris” for “Walking Distance.” However, once again the two bear little resemblance.

Click here to return to my survey of The Twilight Zone series.

Click here to read my reflections on Rod Serling’s short story “Walking Distance.”