Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics

[TwilightZoneTom@Cult Labs]

Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics

Airdate: 19/05/94
Writer: Rod Serling (Story), Richard Matheson (Teleplay)
Director: Robert Markowitz
Starring: James Earl Jones, Jacl Palance, Gary Cole

NOTE: This is not due for release on DVD & Blu from Shock, but is currently available on DVD.

Rod Serling's widow Carol found two stories written by Serling, The Theatre and Where the Dead Are. Richard Matheson then adapted these stories for television in this one off TV movie.

The Theatre: A young girl goes to the cinema to see His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant. Suddenly she sees scenes from her own life instead of the comedy. The scenes actually took place earlier that day. She is very confused because the other people didn't see those scenes. As she goes to see the movie again, scenes from her future appear on the screen.

Where The Dead Are: Dr. Benjamin Ramsey is professor at the university in Boston in 1868. In front of his students he performes an appendix operation. As the patient O'Neil dies after the operation, Dr. Ramsey discovers that O'Neil suffered from a serious scull fracture twelve years ago. Since no one could have survived such an injury, he travels to the mysterious island where O'Neil came from.

[TwilightZoneTom@Cult Labs]

I thought I'd post a thread about this on the off chance anyone had seen it. I haven't myself, but I have just received the DVD.

Though technically not in the new century, I thought I'd post it here because it's not quite the 80's either, and that forum will be devoted to the new Shock release eventually. This is more of a curio.

I hear it's not actually that good unforunately, but as a bit of a completeist I have to see for myself.

[TwilightZoneTom@Cult Labs]

I haven't watched the whole of the second story in this yet, but it seems to be more promising than the first from the few minutes I did watch.

The first story is unfortunately rather a pointless little piece. I don't know whether the point seems to have been lost in translation or I'm just missing it, but it doesn't really have any clear message. Of course not all Serling scripts had a deeper meaning, some of them were adveture yarns, but I wouldn't say this one falls into that category.

Rather cheap looking and dated with a downer ending that doesn't tell you anything.