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 published under a joint nom de plume “Lewis Padget.” 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 in time for Christmas in 1959. As with many Twilight Zone episodes, it reminds us that good people triumph in the end and that character matters. Whereas Pedott is delightfully selfless, Fred Renard is bitterly selfish, and for that he pays the ultimate price. Still, I have a few lingering questions: Why would a man with a special gift like Pedott find himself spending 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 apartment so he could break into it?

At any rate, once again George T. Clemens’s brilliant cinematography shines 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, but the series retains a level of mystery and intrigue that often leaves its audience in a state of wonder. The folkloric “What You Need” operates under the assumption that every person has a 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 “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 and television shows but gained notoriety for his habit of womanizing and trouble with the police. He had well-documented affairs with numerous 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. 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 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 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 included 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 married three times and had three children. His son Philip was also an actor, he famously played the corpse in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (1955), but following this he gave up acting and turned to landscape gardening (he was disappointed his role would have 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 as T’Pring the 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 gets almost all of her fan mail from her few lines she spoke in “What You Need” in 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 woman customer
  • Fred Kruger…..man on the street
  • Norman Sturgis…..the night clerk
  • Adrian Crossett…..bar patron (uncredited)
  • Juney Ellis…..woman on street (uncredited)
  • Frank Logan…..waiter (uncredited)
  • Ron Nyman…..cop (uncredited)
  • John Pedrini…..man on street (uncredited)
  • Mark Sunday…..photographer (uncredited)
  • Bob 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…..min 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 episodes 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 Paul Newman, James Dean, Boris Karloff, Leslie Nielsen, and many others. Rod Serling submitted a script about time travel to the show but it was never made into an episode.
• Tales of Tomorrow had several other connections to The Twilight Zone, including director Don Medford (who directed five episodes of The Twilight Zone) and the fact that both shows dramatized the works of prominent science fiction authors (Tales of Tomorrow featured the 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 also written by “Lewis Padgett.”
• 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 in 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.
• 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 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 the best possible outcomes. Also, the Renard character is killed not by a car, but by falling off a subway platform while a train is coming into the station.
• Writer Henry Kuttner was a literary influence on early Twilight Zone writers like Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. Bradbury compiled a compendium of Kuttner’s short works in 1975, and Matheson dedicated his most famous novel I Am Legend to Kuttner.
• 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 used in other Twilight Zone episodes, “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 re-uses the phrase “Why don’t you take a flying jump at the moon!”
• The opening narration for this episode references a ‘chip on the shoulder the size of the national debt’ was later used again in the opening narration of The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).
• All the street scenes in this episode was 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 so as not to risk the free product placement offered by Ford to Cayuga Productions. If you carefully, you can see the stuntman driving the car wearing protective padding underneath his jacket.
• The Twilight Zone did not air the prior week on December 18, 1959 so that CBS could broadcast a special “CBS Reports” series. That evening, they showed a story entitled “Iran: Brittle Ally” with correspondents Edward R. Murrow and Winston Burdett examining U.S. support to the Shah of Iran (imagine that!).

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