The Twilight Zone: Season 1, Episode Twelve “What You Need”

Original Air Date: December 25, 1959
Writer: Rod Serling (based on “What You Need” by Lewis Padgett)
Director: Alvin Ganzer

“Serenity, peace of mind, humor -the things you need most, I can’t supply.”

“What You Need” was based on a 1945 short story of the same name written by spouses Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore who often published under a joint nom de plume “Lewis Padgett” (click here to read my review of the original short story). The Twilight Zone episode “What You Need” was actually not the first on-screen depiction of the story, in fact there was an earlier show called Tales of Tomorrow (1951-1953) that featured an episode of the story that was perhaps more true to the original work (in which an old man possesses a unique scientific machine foretelling people’s future needs rather than a man with a vague fantastical power to grant people necessities) but this revision does nothing to diminish the greatness of this Twilight Zone episode.

“You’re looking at Mr. Fred Renard, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a friendless man, a lonely man, a grasping, compulsive, nervous man. This is a man who has lived 36 undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden years and who at this moment looks for an escape- any escape, any way, anything, anybody- to get out of the rut. And this little old man is just what Mr. Renard has been waiting for.”
-Rod Serling

A curious old man named “Pedott” (played by Ernest Truex) has the uncanny ability to offer people exactly what they need (not necessarily what they want). The implication is that Pedott possesses the power of clairvoyance. He subtly performs his ability in a cafe by offering a vial of cleaner solution to a woman, and he gifts a former Chicago Cub’s pitcher named “Lefty” a bus ticket to Scranton, Pennsylvania. It seems strange at first, but then when the phone rings in the bar for Lefty, he is surprisingly offered a minor league coaching job in Pennsylvania, but before he leaves he suddenly realizes his suit coat has a stain. The woman with the vial of cleaning solution offers to help him clean his coat and they depart together. Amazingly, both of their needs have been met thanks to Pedott.

But while this whole bar scene tableaux unfolds, a shady man at the bar has been watching the situation. His name is Fred Renard (played by Steve Cochran), and he follows Pedott outside the bar demanding to be given what he needs. In a quiet moment of fear, Pedott hands Renard a pair of scissors which he later finds useful when his scarf is caught in an elevator, very nearly killing him by strangulation.

After surviving the event in the elevator, ever the exploiter, Fred Renard once again tracks down the gentle Pedott to his apartment and threatens him unless he plays into a new business partnership scheme. Renard explains he is a down-on-his luck guy (“born under a lousy zodiac or something”) who has been struggling all his life and he wants some security for the future. As he grows increasingly belligerent, Pedott gives him a leaky fountain pen which drops ink on a newspaper report for an upcoming horse race (he wins $240 on the race). But when the fountain pen stops working, Renard confronts Pedott who informs him that “the things you need, you only need once.” Pedott tells Renard that he cannot give him what he needs most: “Serenity, peace of mind, humor, the ability to laugh at one’s self.” And as Renard grows increasingly persistent, Pedott relents and hands him a pair of shoes while cautiously backing away. The shoes cause Fred to slip on the rainy street in front of an oncoming car and he dies upon collision. In a world where Pedott may be killed, perhaps death is what a man like Fred truly needed.

There is a brief little coda at the end of this episode in which a couple wanders out of their apartment to witness the commotion after the traffic accident. Pedott offers a man in his bathrobe a comb, which then comes in handy when a reporter takes their photograph.

“Street scene. Night. Traffic accident. Victim named Fred Renard. Gentleman with a sour face to whom contentment came with difficulty. Fred Renard, who took all that was needed, in the Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling

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My Thoughts on “What You Need”

“What You Need” is a charming little urban folktale, a nice story released just in time for Christmas in 1959. As with many Twilight Zone episodes, it reminds viewers that good people will triumph in the end and that character matters. Whereas Pedott is charmingly selfless, Fred Renard is bitter and selfish. Because of this, he pays the ultimate price. Karmic justice rules in the end. Still, despite being a heartwarming Christmas episode, I have a few lingering questions: Why would a man with a special gift like Pedott find himself spending his time in a dive bar? Could he not foresee that he would encounter a scummy individual like Fred Renard eventually? And how was Fred Renard able to track down Pedott’s personal apartment to break in and confront him? In some ways, the character of Pedott reminded me of Henry J. Fate in “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” and the notion that the future can be shaped and foretold will be revisited again in future Twilight Zone episodes like “Nick of Time.”

Once again George T. Clemens’s brilliant cinematography shines in this episode as we encounter a rainy, dark, hazy MGM backlot made to look something like the streets of Chicago. The brilliance of The Twilight Zone often lies in its simplicity and subtly as well as its remarkable world-building atmosphere. Nothing is ever truly out of place. Each episode retains a level of mystery and intrigue that leaves the audience in a state of wonder. The folkloric “What You Need” operates under the assumption that every person has a cosmic deprivation, whether they know it or not.

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Credits:

• Director: Alvin Ganzer
  • Alvin Ganzer (1911-2009) began his career in casting and as an assistant director at Paramount, working on films like The Great McGinty (1940), The Hitler Gang (1944), Going My Way (1944), and At War with the Army (1950). The first feature film he directed was The Girls of Pleasure Island (1953), which starred Leo Genn, Don Taylor, and Gene Barry. Ganzer was handed the film after director F. Hugh Herbert fell ill during production. Ganzer directed episodes of many television shows like Science Fiction Theatre, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Lost in Space. He directed four episodes of The Twilight Zone (“What You Need,” The Hitch-Hiker,” “Nightmare as a Child,” and “The Mighty Casey“). He and his wife Murial had two children. He died in Hawaii in 2009.
• Written by: Rod Serling, based on the short story “What You Need” by Lewis Padgett (the joint pseudonym of science fiction authors and spouses Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, the pseudonym was taken from their mothers’ maiden names). The short story was originally published in the October 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
• Music: Nathan Van Cleave
• 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:
  • Steve Cochran…..Fred Renard
    • Robert Alexander “Steve” Cochran (1917-1965) was born in Eureka, California and worked various oddjobs, from cowpuncher to railroad station hand, before dropping out of school at the University of Wyoming. He was rejected for military service in World War II because of a heart murmur, and was later brought to Hollywood by Sam Goldwyn. He acted in a variety of films (such as 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives and 1949’s White Heat) and television shows (such as The Untouchables, Route 66, The Virginian, and Bonanza) but gained notoriety for his habit of womanizing and his trouble with the police. He had numerous well-documented affairs with starlets and actresses, was married three times, and had one daughter. In 1965, Cochran recruited two “young women” and a 14-year-old girl to accompany him on a sailing trip from Acapulco to Costa Rica, ostensibly to take part in an upcoming film. However, the yacht lost one of its two masts in a storm a few days into the trip, then Cochran fell ill and died two days later at the age of 48. The cause of death was later determined to be an acute lung infection. The women who were accompanying him did not know how to sail the boat and were trapped with his decomposing body for ten days before they were eventually rescued at sea. The boat, still carrying his corpse, was later found drifting off the coast of Guatemala.
  • Ernest Truex…..Pedott
    • Ernest Truex (1889-1973) began his career as a child actor performing at the age of five and later touring through Missouri at age nine as “The Child Wonder in Scenes from Shakespeare.” He later made his way into film and television. Two of his high school classmates were Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd. He starred in two Twilight Zone episodes: “Kick the Can” (alongside his youngest son Barry) and “What You Need.” He was married three times and had three children. His son Philip was also an actor, famous for playing the corpse in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (1955), but following this part he gave up acting and turned to landscape gardening (he was disappointed that his role would not be speaking in the film). Ernest Truex died in 1973 of a heart attack at the age of 83.
  • Arline Sax…..girl in the bar
    • Arlene Martel (1936-2014) was frequently billed as “Arline Sax” or “Arlene Sax” prior to 1964. She was called “Martel the Chameleon” because her appearance and her proficiency with accents and dialects allowed her to portray characters of a wide range of races and ethnicities. Her most notable roles were T’Pring in the classic Star Trek episode “Amok Time” and Tiger on Hogan’s Heroes. She also appeared in The Outer Limits episode “Demon with a Glass Hand” and minor roles in two Twilight Zone episodes: “What You Need” and “Twenty-Two.” She later stated that she got almost all of her fan mail from her few lines she spoke in “What You Need” from The Twilight Zone rather than any other show she did. Some of her other shows included: Perry Mason, Have Gun – Will Travel, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West, Battlestar Galactica, The Monkees, and The Six Million Dollar Man, among others. She regularly attended Star Trek conventions from the 1970s until her death. While suffering from breast cancer, she died of a heart attack in Santa Monica in 2014 at the age of 78.
  • Read Morgan…..Lefty
    • Read Morgan (1934-2022) was a U.S. Air Force veteran in World War II. He began his television acting career in the 1950s on The United States Steel Hour. He appeared in numerous television programs like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train as well as in films like Back to the Future (1985). He is perhaps best known for playing Sergeant Hapgood Tasker in the second season of the American western television series The Deputy. He retired from acting in 1994 and died in Los Angeles in 2022 at the age of 91. He and his wife did not have any children.
  • William Edmundson…..bartender
    • William “Bill” Edmundson (1902-1979) was an African American actor and singer from Spokane, Washington. After relocating to Harlem as a young man, he co-founded the vocal quartet called The Southernairs under Decca Records. The Southernairs were a gospel and traditional African spiritual group that recieved a fair bit of radio play. They disbanded in the 1950s after nearly three decades together. At that time, Edmondson returned to acting. He appeared in shows like Bonanza and two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“What You Need” and “Shadow Play“). He died of a heart attack in Los Angeles in 1979 at the age of 76. In 1998, Document Records released the complete Southernairs recorded works.
  • Doris Karnes…..the female customer
    • Doris Karnes (1912-1998) made a handful of appearances on television shows like Playhouse 90, The Real McCoys, and Route 66. She appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“What You Need” and “The Lateness of the Hour“). She was married to actor Robert Karnes (1917-1979), who had a minor uncredited role in films like From Here to Eternity (1953) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), among many others, as well as many appearances in shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Andy Griffith Show, Rawhide, Perry Mason, Have Gun – Will Travel, Mission: Impossible, Bonanza, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and M*A*S*H. He also appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone (“The Arrival“) as well as an episode of Night Gallery (“Midnight Never Ends”). They had one child together.
  • Fred Kruger…..man on the street
    • Fred Kruger (1913-1961) appeared in television episodes of Schlitz Playhouse, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, Maverick, and others. He also appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“What You Need” and “Back There” the latter was uncredited). I was unable to find many more details on the life of Fred Kruger.
  • Norman Sturgis…..the night clerk
    • Norman Sturgis (1922-1993) made minor appearances in shows like Gunsmoke, Schlitz Playhouse, and others throughout the 1950s. I was unable to find many more details on the life of Norman Sturgis.
  • Adrian Crossett…..bar patron (uncredited)
    • William Adrian Crossett (1918-1968) was from Buffalo, New York. He attended Syracuse University where he was president of the dramatic society. He was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II and helped put on plays for servicemen at Fort Niagara. He was wounded in action twice and subsequently awarded the Purple Heart. After the war, he relocated to Hollywood and appeared in many minor roles in films and television shows across his 25-year acting career (primarily in Westerns). He developed a lifelong friendship with actor Steve Cochran who employed him as his stand-in for the rest of his career (Crossett also worked as a stand-in for other actors and productions). In the 1960s, his career began wind down, especially after Steve Cochran abruptly died of a lung infection in 1965 aboard his yacht off the coast of Guatemala. Shortly thereafter in 1967, Crossett moved back to New York after his mother passed away. He, too, passed away the following year in 1968.
  • Juney Ellis…..woman on street (uncredited)
    • Juney Ellis (1909-1997) appeared in many television shows like The Mickey Rooney Show, I Love Lucy, Science Fiction Theater, Schlitz Playhouse, Perry Mason, Daniel Boone, and Little House on the Prairie among others. She made two appearances on The Twilight Zone (“What You Need” and “The Midnight Sun“).
  • Frank Logan…..waiter (uncredited)
    • Frank Logan (1925-1992) appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Flipper, and Miami Vice among others television shows. He was also in the 1966 film Around the World Under the Sea and a string of TV movies.
  • Ron Nyman…..cop (uncredited)
    • Ron Nyman (1924-2000) emigrated to Hollywood from England and primarily appeared as an extra in films, including the 1952 version of The Ten Commandments (1956), A Star Is Born (1954), the classic Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) among many other films. He starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and other Marilyn Monroe films and in many television shows like Bonanza, I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Batman, Bewitched, Daniel Boone, Mission: Impossible, and others. He was badly hurt during the filming of Battlestar Galactica which effectively ended his career in show business.
  • John Pedrini…..man on street (uncredited)
    • John Pedrini (1911-1990) had small uncredited parts in films like Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955), True Grit (1969), and Tora! Tora! Tora (1970), as well as television shows like Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Virginian, I Spy, Batman, Gunsmoke, and Columbo, among many others.
  • Mark Sunday…..photographer (uncredited)
    • Mark Sunday only has two credits listed on his IMDB page (this episode of The Twilight Zone and Man with a Camera, a television show that ran from 1958-1960). I was unable to track down any other information on Mark Sunday.
  • Bud McCord…..silent paramedic (uncredited)
    • Robert “Bud” Leigh McCord III (1915-1980) appeared in a variety of television shows, particularly in small uncredited roles in Westerns, in addition to The Twilight Zone. His first role was an uncredited appearance as an office clerk in the 1947 movie The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, and his first credited role was in an episode of the 1956 television series Schlitz Playhouse. After a couple more uncredited roles and minor appearances, he joined The Twilight Zone in 1959 (he was presumably hired by Cayuga Productions). In fact, he set a record for most appearances on The Twilight Zone (75 times, mostly uncredited). He was also a stunt double on the show. He had a son named Robert IV (1938-2008) and a daughter named Penny. McCord died in 1980.
  • Frank Allocca…..waiter (uncredited)
  • Don Anderson…..man in the bar (uncredited)
  • Dick Barber…..man in the street (uncredited)
  • Robert Barry…..man in the street (uncredited)
  • Evelyn Coner…..woman in the street (uncredited)
  • Paul Cristo…..man in the bar (uncredited)
  • Paul Denton…..man exiting the bar (uncredited)
  • Kenner G. Kemp…..man in the bar (uncredited)
  • Dale Logue…..man in the bar (uncredited)
  • Beryl McCutcheon…..woman in the bar (uncredited)

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The Twilight Zone Trivia:

• This story was previously featured in an episode of Tales of Tomorrow, a live science fiction anthology show that ran on ABC from 1951-1953 totaling 85 episodes typically running for thirty minutes each. The series featured such classic tales as Frankenstein starring Lon Chaney Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others. The show drew top-billed talent during its run including the likes of Paul Newman, James Dean, Boris Karloff, Leslie Nielsen, and many others. In fact, Rod Serling once submitted a script about time travel to the show but it was never made into an episode.
• Tales of Tomorrow has several other connections to The Twilight Zone, including shared director Don Medford (who directed some thirty-six episodes of Tales of Tomorrow and five episodes of The Twilight Zone) and the fact that both shows dramatized the works of prominent science fiction authors (Tales of Tomorrow featured stories by Theodore Sturgeon, Arthur C. Clarke, H.G. Wells, and many others). Tales of Tomorrow also had an episode entitled “The Dark Angel” which was written by “Lewis Padgett,” the joint nom de plume of the author of the short story that inspired “What You Need.”
• Buck Houghton initially selected the short story “What You Need” for an episode of The Twilight Zone. He described it in a phone call to Rod Serling who then purchased the rights. The story initially came to Buck Houghton via the standard process within the story department.
• The original short story “What You Need” appeared in a collection of Lewis Padgett’s stories called Line of Tomorrow (1954). It was initially published in the October 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Click here to read my full review of the short story as well as the Tales of Tomorrow episode.
• The original story featured a machine that could foretell an individual’s future. Serling replaced this science-fiction element with a fantasy story about a street peddler who could perform a similar fantastical act without the machine. In the original story, the man owns a shop where he has a machine and gives people what they need for benevolent purposes. Also in the story, the character Renard (whose named Tim Carmichael) is killed not by a car, but by falling off a subway platform while a train is coming into the station.
• Writer Henry Kuttner (one half of the nom de plume “Lewis Padgett”) was a literary influence on several early Twilight Zone writers like Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. Bradbury later compiled a compendium of Kuttner’s short works in 1975, and Matheson dedicated his most famous novel I Am Legend to Kuttner.
• Writer Henry Kuttner never got to see his story put to screen in The Twilight Zone. He died suddenly in his sleep in 1958 at the age of 42, one year before The Twilight Zone would air this episode.
• During the scene in Mr. Renard’s hotel room, a bellhop brings him a newspaper. Renard then opens it and spreads it out on the floor. The movement is quick, but the front page of the newspaper is visible, indicating that it is the same “Daily Chronicle” front page that was used in other Twilight Zone episodes, such as “Time Enough at Last.” The headline reads “H-Bomb Capable of Total Destruction.” Once Renard opens the paper and looks at the racing page, several Cayuga Productions in-jokes are apparent in the names of the listed jockeys, including “Serling” (referencing series creator Rod Serling), “Clemens” (referencing director of photography George Clemens), “Houghton” (referencing producer Buck Houghton), “Butler” (referencing set decorator Rudy Butler) and “Denault” (referencing assistant director Edward Denault), as well as several others. Funnily enough, the odds on “Serling” are only 7-2. The horse that Fred Renard winds up betting on is “Staunch Soldier” whose jockey is listed as Denault.
• This episode uses the colloquial phrase “Why don’t you take a flying jump at the moon!” It is spoken by Renard to the bartender. The phrase also appears in other episodes, including “The Chaser” and “To Serve Man.”
• The opening narration for this episode references a ‘chip on the shoulder the size of the national debt,’ which was later used again in the opening narration of The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).
• All the street scenes in this episode were shot on MGM’s Lot 2.
• Almost all the cars featured in the first season of The Twilight Zone were Ford automobiles since Ford gave Cayuga Productions free use of its vehicles. Interestingly enough, the car that ran over Renard in this episode was not a Ford. This was to avoid risking the free product placement offered by Ford to Cayuga Productions (Ford might not have appreciated seeing their vehicles causing an accident onscreen). If you look carefully, you can see the stuntman driving the car and wearing protective padding underneath his jacket.
• The Twilight Zone did not air on CBS the prior week on December 18, 1959 so that CBS could broadcast a special “CBS Reports” series. That evening, the network showed a story entitled “Iran: Brittle Ally” with correspondents Edward R. Murrow and Winston Burdett critically examining U.S. support to the Shah of Iran (imagine that!)

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

Short Story Review: “What You Need” by Lewis Padgett