Original Air Date: May 20, 1960
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Don Medford
“You take what you get and you live with it.”
“Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face, whose life is a quest for impossible things like flowers in concrete or like trying to pluck a note of music out of the air and put it under glass to treasure…Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face, who, in a moment, will try to leave the Earth and discover the middle ground – the place we call The Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling
In a noir-stylized New York scene we are introduced to Joey Crown (played by Jack Klugman), a down on his luck trumpet player who finds solace at the bottom of a bottle. He is forced to sell his beloved trumpet for cash to a pawn shop and decides he would rather die than continue on without a life of music, so he gets drunk and steps out in front of an oncoming truck. Suddenly, he awakens but no one else seems to notice him as he wanders about town. Assuming he has died, Joey wanders back to his old music club where he meets another trumpet player. Miraculously, the man can see him. He tells Joey that he is not dead, but rather in “limbo” between life and death, and that he may choose whether he wants to live or die. This is why he cannot see his reflection in a mirror.
Realizing that life is still worth living despite all the misery, Joey chooses to return. “But Joey… no more stepping off curbs. You take what you get and you live with it. Sometimes it’s sweet frosting, nice gravy; sometimes it’s sour, goes down hard, but you live with it, Joey. Ah, it’s a nice talent you’ve got there –to make music, move people, make ’em want to laugh, make ’em want to cry, make ’em tap their feet, make ’em want to dance. That’s an exceptional talent, Joey. Don’t waste it.” As the other player leaves, Joey asks for the man’s name and he replies, “My name? Call me Gabe. Short for Gabriel” (i.e. the Angel Gabriel played by John Anderson who bore a strong resemblance to Abraham Lincoln). Joey awakens on the street beside the truck driver who hands him a wad of cash to forget the whole accident. Much to Joey’s delight, it is enough money to buy back his trumpet from the pawn shop. Later that evening he is practicing playing his trumpet when a girl named Nan (played by Mary Webster) shows up. She says she is new to the city and Joey decides to show her around. They stroll off casually together into the night.
“Joey Crown, who makes music, and who discovered something about life; that it can be rich and rewarding and full of beauty, just like the music he played, if a person would only pause to look and to listen. Joey Crown, who got his clue in the Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling
My Thoughts on “A Passage for Trumpet”
Joey Crown represents the classic down-on-his-luck, working class stiff character archetype who turns to alcohol which is periodically recycled by Rod Serling, or what Marc Scott Zicree refers to in The Twilight Zone Companion as the “urban loser.” In this noir-esque world of bleakness, a man experiences a brush with death. Despite the jaded view of ordinary urban life expressed in this episode, “A Passage for Trumpet” nevertheless offers a certain blend of Norman Rockwell or Frank Capra-styled optimism. As Gabe says: “You take what you get and you live with it. Sometimes it’s sweet frosting, nice gravy; sometimes it’s sour, goes down hard, but you live with it, Joey.”
Credits:
- Director: Don Medford
- Written by: Rod Serling
- Music: Lyn Murray, including trumpet cues
- 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: Don Klune
- Set Decorations: Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason
- Sound: Franklin Milton and Philip Mitchell
- Starring:
- Jack Klugman…..Joey Crown
- Jack Klugman (1922-2012) served in the U.S. Army during World War II and began his acting career in 1949 and started television and film work with roles in 12 Angry Men (1957) and Cry Terror! (1958). He won his first Primetime Emmy Award for his guest-starring role on The Defenders in 1964, and won two later Emmy Awards for his role in The Odd Couple. He made a total of four appearances on The Twilight Zone (“A Passage for Trumpet,” “A Game of Pool,” “Death Ship,” and “In Praise of Pip“) tying Burgess Meredith for the most appearances in a starring role on the series. He married actress Brett Somers in 1953 and they had two children. They separated in 1974 and privately divorced in 1977. Somers died in 2007 from cancer at age 83. Klugman had an 18-year relationship with actress Barbara Neugass that ended in 1992 with an unfortunate palimony suit that Neugass ultimately lost. After his first wife died, Klugman was married to his longtime partner Peggy Crosby in 2008. Klugman was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1974 and had a vocal chord removed in 1988, but he continued acting. He died of prostate cancer at his home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles in 2012 at the age of 90.
- Frank Wolff…..Baron, the nightclub owner
- Walter Frank Hermann Wolff (1928-1971) began his career working in film and television before later relocating to Italy where he appeared in many European films, including Spaghetti Westerns. After years of depressive struggles and a tumultuous marriage, Wolff committed suicide by cutting his throat in the bathroom of his Rome hotel room at the age of 43 on December 12, 1971. At the time, he was separated from his wife who had left him for another man.
- John Anderson…..Gabe, short for Gabriel
- John Robert Anderson (1922-1992) was known for bearing a strong resemblance to Abraham Lincoln whom he portrayed three times. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) as the used car salesman “California Charlie” who sells a car to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). He appeared on various television shows like Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Laramie, Have Gun – Will Travel , The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Virginian, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, The Big Valley, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Incredible Hulk, MacGyver, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. A appeared in four supporting roles of The Twilight Zone (“A Passage for Trumpet,” “The Odyssey of Flight 33,” “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville,” and “The Old Man in the Cave“). He also played The Interrogator in the episode of The Outer Limits entitled “Nightmare,” a sheriff in a 1972 episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery entitled “Through the Flame Darkly,” and he played Kevin Uxbridge in the Star Trek TNG episode “Survivors.”
- Mary Webster as Nan
- Mary Webster (1935-2017) appeared in a variety of television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as well as in Vincent Price’s 1961 science fiction film Master of the World. She made two Twilight Zone appearances –“A Passage for Trumpet” and “Death Ship” –both episodes starred Jack Klugman.
- Ned Glass…..Nate (Pawnshop Owner)
- Ned Glass (1906-1984) who plays the pawnshop owner, was a prolific Polish-American television actor. He also plays a fridge repairman in “The Midnight Sun” and he appears in an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery titled “Last Rites for a Dead Druid.”
- James Flavin…..Truck Driver
- Jack Klugman…..Joey Crown
The Twilight Zone Trivia:
- The character of Joey Crown first appeared in 1940s Rod Serling radio scripts (“The Local is a Very Slow Train” which was later renamed “Hop Off the Express and Grab a Local” for the Grand Central Station radio anthology program). He later appeared again, albeit as a piano player, on the Kraft Television Theater program in an episode entitled “The Blues for Joey Menotti” in 1953. A similar character was submitted in a script of the same name (“A Passage for Trumpet”) to Studio One in 1954 and then to Arthur Heinemann who rejected it.
- In his “limbo” state, Joey’s reflection is supposed to be absent from any mirrors, but his reflection is clearly seen twice.
- This was the first of four appearances in The Twilight Zone by Jack Klugman (Burgess Meredith also had four starring roles on The Twilight Zone). He and Mary Webster later appeared in the episode “Death Ship,” though their characters do not interact though they share a scene.
- Jack Klugman was paid $2,500 for his role in this episode.
- To give his character an added degree of realism Klugman trained with a classical trumpet player for two weeks before shooting this episode in order to have the finger positions down correctly even though in the final cut he was not actually playing. John Anderson later revealed that CBS sent the musical director to his house with a cassette tape of the song he would play as well as sheet music so he could accurately pantomime playing the song in the episode. Though he later said Jack Klugman told him he didn’t learn his finger parts for the show.
- The episode marks The Twilight Zone directorial debut of Don Medford.
- This was the second of two episodes in which Serling used the nickname of his daughter “Nan.” The first was “The Hitch-Hiker.”
- The Houghton Construction work site, truck, and Houghton Bistro are all tributes to producer Buck Houghton.
- A poster in the background at the start of this episode reads “Maria Corvier” and it sits beside a large ballerina doll. Maria Corvier was a character from the MGM film Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) featuring Cyd Charisse playing the role of the ballerina Maria Corvier. Another poster can be seen which reads “Give Blood Now” –a recurring prop that can be spotted in various episodes of The Twilight Zone.
- Another background sign reads “Occupancy by no more than 166 persons is unlawful and dangerous.”
- There was initially intended to be a second scene of a self-pitying Joey playing on the rooftop when a girl comes up to speak to him. But this scene was cut from the final script.
- At one point, Joey mentions “Officer Flaherty” –a character name that is later reused in “The Night of the Meek.”
- Joey’s early trumpet playing is compared to Harry James (1916-1983), Max Kaminsky (1908-1954), and Butterfield –a reference to Billy Butterfield (1917-1988). All three were big band trumpeters of the 1930s and 1940s. Max Kaminsky played with big bands like Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw. Billy Butterfield played trumpet, flugelhorn and coronet with the likes of Artie Shaw, Les Brown, and Benny Goodman.
- The name of the bar in this episode is The Band Wagon. A large poster can be seen hanging on the wall of Cassius Clay. This poster appears in nearly every bar scene of The Twilight Zone, including “A Kind of a Stopwatch” and “What You Need.”
- In the scene outside the movie theater, there are posters for the films Big Leaguer (1953), Fast Company (1953), Moonfleet (1955) and Edge of the City (1957).
Click here to return to my survey of The Twilight Zone series.