The Twilight Zone: Season 1, Episode Twenty-Six “Execution”

Original Air Date: April 1, 1960
Writer: George Clayton Johnson/Rod Serling
Director: David Orrick McDearmon

“I died once, mister. I’ve been to hell. Now I’m back…”

“Commonplace—if somewhat grim—unsocial event known as a necktie party, the guest of dishonor a cowboy named Joe Caswell, just a moment away from a rope, a short dance several feet off the ground, and then the dark eternity of all evil men. Mr. Joe Caswell, who, when the good Lord passed out a conscience, a heart, a feeling for fellow men, must have been out for a beer and missed out. Mr. Joe Caswell, in the last, quiet moment of a violent life.”
-Rod Serling

The year is 1880. The place is the Old West. A notorious outlaw named Joseph “Joe” Caswell (played by Albert Salmi) is set to be hanged when he mysteriously and spontaneously disappears leaving an empty noose. Eighty years later, a New York professor named George Manion (played by Russell Johnson who most notably played the Professor on Gilligan’s Island) is tending to his subject, a man who has traveled through the professor’s newly crafted time machine. Joe Caswell’s life was saved as he became the first person to ever experience time travel. Professor Manion explains to a dazed Caswell how the machine works, and his hopes for acclimating Caswell to a modern, urban setting. However, when Professor Manion sees the rope burn on Caswell’s neck, and hears him confess to killing at least twenty men, Manion realizes Caswell must be returned to 1880.

Tension builds between the two men until Caswell finally attacks Manion. He then runs out into the streets of New York City but he is quickly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of cars, lights, television, and so on. Caswell rushes back to the lab to plead with the now deceased corpse of Professor Manion to return to his own time. At that moment, a thief enters the lab and fights with Caswell. He strangles Caswell and then accidentally activates the time machine sending himself back to 1880. His body is found hanging from the noose intended for Caswell, befuddling the onlookers in the old west. In some ways, each character in this episode has become the hostage to some form of cosmic retribution.

“This is November 1880, the aftermath of a necktie party. The victim’s name—Paul Johnson, a minor-league criminal and the taker of another human life. No comment on his death save this: justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar. Tonight’s case in point in The Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling

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My Thoughts on “Execution”

In a fascinating blend of genres, Rod Serling and George Clayton Johnson introduce us to a familiar tale of the old west before it suddenly becomes jarringly interrupted by the intrusive “devil work” of modern science. Even with the advent of time travel in this episode, there is still a sense of supernatural justice which has been dealt to the characters in this story. One cannot help but recalls the accidental horror Victor Frankenstein unleashed on the world when his own experiment sought to murder him in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Perhaps the same might be said here of Professor George Manion.

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Credits:

• Director: David Orrick McDearmon
• Written by: Rod Serling (based on a short story proposal by George Clayton Johnson)
• Music: Stock Music
• Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
• Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
• Art Directors: George W. Davis and Merrill Pye
• Film Editor: Joseph Gluck
• Assistant Director: Kurt Neumann
• Set Decorations: Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason
• Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell
• Starring:
  • Albert Salmi…..Joe Caswell
    • Albert Salmi (1927-1990) was best known for his work as a character actor, appearing in over 150 film and television productions. He appeared in films like Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Caddyshack (1980); and television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Have Gun – Will Travel, Have Gun – Will Travel, Wagon Train, Bonanza, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Daniel Boone, Lost In Space, Gunsmoke, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, as well as three episodes of The Twilight Zone: “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville,” “A Quality of Mercy,” and “Execution” (all of which involve time travel). He married actress Peggy Ann Garner in 1956 and they had one child together before getting divorced (their daughter Catherine died at age 38 in 1995 of heart disease). In 1964, he was remarried to Roberta Pollock Taper with whom he had two daughters. He suffered from clinical depression in his later years. In February 1990, Albert and Roberta were separated with Roberta accusing Albert of alcoholism and abuse (she filed for a restraining order from her husband). A few months later On April 23, 1990, Albert and his estranged wife Roberta were found dead in their Spokane home by a friend who stopped by to check on her. According to newspaper accounts, it was a horrid murder-suicide scene as Albert fatally shot Roberta in the kitchen of her home, before shooting himself in an upstairs room. He was 68 years old.
  • Russell Johnson…..Professor George Manion
    • Russell Johnson (1924-2014) famously played Professor Roy Hinkley (“The Professor”) on Gilligan’s Island and Marshal Gib Scott on Black Saddle. He amusingly once participated in the satirical “Ig Nobel” award presentation ceremony in which he was credited as “The Professor Emeritus of Gilligan’s Island.” He was often typecast after his role on Gilligan’s Island, but he appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (“Execution” and “Back There“) and in one episode of The Outer Limits (“Specimen: Unknown”). He was married three times and had three children (one of whom died of AIDS, leading Johnson to become an advocate for AIDS-related causes). He died of kidney failure at his home in Bainbridge Island, Washington in 2014 at the age of 89.
  • Than Wyenn…..Paul Johnson
    • Than Wyenn (1919-2015) was a character actor whose career spanned more than forty years with more than 150 credits in film and television. He may be best known for his role in this episode of The Twilight Zone as well as roles in the films Imitation of Life (1959) and Splash (1984). He was often involved in Jewish causes throughout his lifetime. He died in Woodland Hills, California in 2015 at the age of 95. He and his wife had two children.
  • Jon Lormer…..Reverend
    • Jon Lormer (1906-1986) was a character actor who appeared in many shows like Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, Lassie, Peyton Place, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Gunsmoke. But he is perhaps best remembered for his four appearances in The Twilight Zone: “Execution,” “Dust” (in which he was wrongly credited as “John Lormer”), “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank,” and “Jess-Belle“; and for his three appearances in Star Trek: first as Dr. Theodore Haskins in the pilot “The Cage” (and also consequently in “The Menagerie, Parts I and II”), then as Tamar in “The Return of the Archons,” and finally as the Old Man in “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” –he is the character who speak’s the episode’s title line. He died in 1986 of cancer in Burbank, California at the age of was 79.
  • George Mitchell…..Elderly Man
  • Fay Roope…..Judge
  • Richard Karlan…..Bartender
  • Joe Haworth…..TV Cowboy

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The Twilight Zone Trivia:

• “Execution” is the second contribution to The Twilight Zone from writer George Clayton Johnson and the episode has a great deal in common with themes found in his earlier episode “The Four Of Us Are Dying.”
• “Execution” is also the second western-themed episode of The Twilight Zone after “Mr. Denton on Doomsday.”
• Professor Manion’s tape recorder was a Mohawk Midgitape and it apparently retailed for about $249.95 in 1960.
• Much of the equipment, dials, and machinery (and even the large transparent globe) were reused from films like Forbidden Planet (1956), Satellite in the Sky (1956), and World Without End (1956).
• The background beeping noises heard in the time machine were later reused in Star Trek. They had been previously used in The Twilight Zone episodes “Third from the Sun” and “Elegy.”
• When Caswell leaves the bar, he stops in front of a place called “Jim Henry’s Paradise,” the same sign was used in the film Cabin in the Sky (1943). Other signs on the street read “The Oasis Cafe,” “Loews,” “The Joint – Sodas and Sandwiches,” “Hairdressing Saloon – Haircutting and Shearing,” “Ric Club,” “Lonely Club,” Cold Beer,” “Rooms,””Capri,” “Club Bonanza,” and others.
• This episode takes place on November 14 in both the years 1880 and 1960.
• After “Where Is Everybody?” this episode marks the second time that a frantic character locks himself inside a phone booth.
• For this episode, CBS director of editing William H. Tankersley made several requested changes to the script to avoid “distastefulness,” such as a removal of a moment of Caswell spitting. They also changed a few minor lines of dialogue and asked that no commercial identification be visible on the bar, jukebox, or television set.
• There were two unforeseen incidents that pushed back production for this episode by a few hours: there was a power failure on the backlot and actor Neville Brand phoned in sick for his scheduled role as Caswell so Buck Houghton quickly made a few calls and secured Albert Salmi for the part.
• Writer George Clayton Johnson met Albert Salmi on the set and later praised his style of method acting.
• During the hanging sequence at the start of the episode, Salmi grabbed the rope and held tight to it so that when the camera panned over to his feet, it would appear as if he was truly hanging by the neck. However, the sequence was only done twice as Salmi told director David Orrick McDearmon he wasn’t sure he could hang on long enough to do it a third time.
• The shadow of Caswell hanging was not actually actor Albert Salmi’s shadow, but rather an illusion created to highlight the vanishing effect.
• When Caswell runs through the noisy streets of New York City, the theater advertisement reads Doris Day in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (which was released theatrically six weeks after this episode was filmed). Outside a movie theater, a poster can be seen advertising The Last Time I Saw Paris (1955). Both were MGM films.
• The music playing on the jukebox that Caswell interrupts is Eric Cook’s “Turkish Delight” from the CBS stock music library. It was also featured in prior Twilight Zone episodes “Where Is Everybody?” and “The Lonely.”

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