Original Air Date: April 21, 1961
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Justus Addiss
“Introducing, four experts in the questionable art of crime: Mr. Farwell, expert on noxious gases, former professor, with a doctorate in both chemistry and physics; Mr. Erbie, expert in mechanical engineering; Mr. Brooks, expert in the use of firearms and other weaponry; and Mr. De Cruz, expert in demolition and various forms of destruction. The time is now, and the place is a mountain cave in Death Valley, U.S.A. In just a moment, these four men will utilize the services of a truck placed in cosmoline, loaded with a hot heist cooled off by a century of sleep, and then take a drive into The Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling
“The Rip Van Winkle Caper” is a strange and somewhat campy episode. It concerns four thieves (played by Oscar Beregi, Simon Oakland, Lew Gallo, John Mitchum) who rob a bullion train and escape to a lair in the desert where they promptly gas themselves to sleep in a glass cryo chambers. They plan to sleep for a century and when they awake their robbery will be forgotten so the group will be free to spend their stolen riches.
Three of them awaken in the next century (one died when a rock crushed his glass encasing). They decide to walk toward town together but their partnership soon devolves into infighting while they all suffer from dehydration. The last man standing dies just as a strange, futuristic vehicle pulls alongside him. As the man dies offering gold, the people of the future state that gold has not been valuable for many years since it has been easily manufactured. It is an amusingly whimsical twist ending.
“The last of four Rip Van Winkles, who all died precisely the way they lived, chasing an idol across the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot sun as so much desert flotsam, worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine to. Tonight’s lesson – in The Twilight Zone.”
-Rod Serling
The Twilight Zone Trivia:
- The episode was filmed just outside Lone Pine, California in conjunction with the previous episode “A Hundred Yards Over The Rim.” Props were also reused however the futuristic car was borrowed from the film Forbidden Planet.
- The episode is sometimes compared to B. Traven’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a 1927 novel.
- The title alludes to early American writer Washington Irving’s famous short story “Rip Van Winkle.”
Click here to return to my survey of The Twilight Zone series.
Great Books Guy 
One traditionally criminal drama in our entertainment is when a group of criminals plan to pull off the perfect crime, but things somehow don’t go as planned. The Twilight Zone took it back to basics, but made it most significantly original thanks to all the sci-fi ingredients. Simon Oakland and Oscar Beregi are superbly cast and the particular way that the twist ending was delivered was interesting. I have always enjoyed it for that much.
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I saw this and would like to share a few things. I. All 4 men were sociopaths and such types are inclined to engage in fights to the death in which the last survivor, the last man standing, is to be the winner who takes all. Note that their educations and intellects matter little. There socio-emotional bent is what drives them. Waiting 100 years to enjoy their loot is a bit unusual for this type but that is part of the premise of the story so it has to stand. Note also that poverty is shared but wealth is horded. Note in being a fight to the death in which one man remains is also what happens in a tale about a party of military rocketeers who crash land, not on the asteroid at which they were aiming, but close to their launching pad in the Nevada desert near Reno. In this case only 1 of the men is a sociopath and the fight is over water rather than gold.
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