The Twilight Zone (1959) s05e11 Episode Script

You unlock this door with the key of imagination.
Beyond it is another dimension- a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.
You've just crossed over into the twilight zone.
Oh, i'm sorry, dear.
You keep forgetting i'm no longer a varsity end.
Oh, it was fun though, huh? My doctor should have witnessed that little activity.
If you persist in telling me about your ailments, i may just have to run out and get sick.
It gets dull, you know.
Terribly dull.
I just, uh mentioned it in passing, my dear.
What did you do today? You, uh did you go shopping? Oh, i had a ball.
An absolute wild ball, an earthshaking ball.
Want to know what i did? What? Well first of all, i had breakfast.
Then i had lunch, and then i fired the stupid maid.
And then i waited for you, harmon, dear.
So, all in all, i'd say it was one of those days that made you simply want to go jump off a bridge.
Am i getting through to you at all? Why, it's smoky the bear.
Flora, dear, you could start a serious fire.
Big daddy, one of these long, late nights, that's exactly what i'm going to do.
While you're at it, why don't you pick up the remnants of that aged eyesore that i so happily knocked over a few minutes ago? This came from my mother.
It's a very old piece, flora.
Oh? Worth what? I'll tell you what, big daddy.
On our anniversary, i'll go out and buy you six of them.
I'll take them to the dime store and have them gift-wrapped.
Then i'll find you some of your favorite music and play it on your old victrola.
Something like, uh, "come to the wildwood church"? And other such red-hot toe-tapping numbers? It's worth very little except except for sentimental value.
That's a word you may not understand, "sentiment.
" It means "the capacity to love.
" Big daddy, if i don't fill the bill, why don't you just say so right out? Should you fail to know it there are 14 flights a day to reno, and i would just adore to be on any one of them.
Flora, i'm, uh, i'm not angry, i just wish that you would, you would you would try to be more careful.
Somebody should have wished that five years ago when we took out our papers.
Oh, i knew you were old, harmon.
I just didn't know how old.
You better be careful, big daddy, because if you ever take me to a swinging weekend in egypt, i just may run away with a mummy.
I'll, uh, i'll just wash up and we'll go to dinner.
Yeah.
You do just that.
We'll make it your night.
We'll do something really wild like go to a band concert in the park.
A picture of an aging man who leads his life as thoreau said: In quiet desperation.
Because harmon gordon is enslaved by a love affair with a wife 40 years his junior.
Because of this, he runs when he should walk, he surrenders when simple pride dictates a stand.
He pines away for the lost morning of his life when he should be enjoying the evening.
In short, mr.
Harmon gordon seeks a fountain of youth.
And who's to say he won't find it? This happens to be the twilight zone.
Oh, great.
I didn't ask you to run the mile, just to go dancing or the movies or something.
Don't start telling me about how you took me out of a chorus line and introduced me to the finer things.
Your idea of the finer things is to hold hands in a mausoleum and listen to the organ music.
Well, get yourself a nice, tall glass of warm milk, big daddy, and curl up with an almanac, 'cause we want you happy, don't we? Uh, could i talk to dr.
Gordon, please? Yes, thank you.
Uh, raymond? It's harmon.
Raymond, i've got to talk to you tonight.
Would you please come over? Uh, drink all right? Uh, yeah, it's fine.
You look a little tired, harmon.
Well, i've been, uh a little rushed this past week, so flora in bed? Uh, yes, yes, she went to bed.
She asked to be remembered.
Oh, she'll be remembered.
You ought to get to know her better, raymond.
She's really she's really a very fine girl.
Did i say otherwise? Well, i know you two haven't been exactly close, certainly not as close as a brother- and sister-in-law could be.
Harmon will you do me a favor? Certainly.
As a matter of fact, two favors.
First, don't try to sell me flora.
You know what i think of her, i've told her myself to her face so i have no compunctions about saying it aloud.
She's a brassy, conniving, little broad.
Let me finish.
I could forgive her her hungers, harmon, or the fact that she's made out of asbestos and hasn't got a heart in her body.
But i can't forgive her for what she's done to you.
You know that she's turned you into a frightened, quaking fool.
You dote on her, you give in to her, you run after her like a poodle.
That's item number one.
Now the second favor is that from now on, after you've had your battles, don't call me at odd hours of the night.
I don't do that very often.
Once is often and twice is endless.
We're very close as brothers go.
You know there isn't anything i wouldn't do for you.
But i can't run over here like a saint bernard every time you get frozen halfway up the mountainside.
Now, she's a predatory little alley cat.
And she's always been that way.
I can just give you so much solace, so much sympathy, and after that, it begins to craw.
Now, what is it tonight? Just someone to while away the hours with or is there something quite specific? Um um this thing you, uh been working on.
Go on.
The cellular serum you've been successful with it.
You must be out of your mind.
I'm desperate, yes, but i'm not out of my mind.
You've made animals younger, i've seen it myself.
You inject them with your fluid and they're young again.
Animals, yes.
Guinea pigs, white mice, hamsters.
I've rejuvenated glands, organs, sometimes a complete cellular structure.
But we haven't scratched the surface, harmon.
We're stumbling in the dark.
I want you to inject me.
You don't know what's involved.
We're 20 years away from trying this on a human being.
Why? We're dealing in basic life form.
We have no idea of how much damage might result.
We don't know how it will affect the metabolism of the body or the mind, or the effect on the brain.
We're winging this, we've killed as many as we've saved.
You said you'd do anything for me.
Anything within reason.
Oh, but this is within reason, raymond.
I've come close to the end of my rope.
I'm at the point where it matters very little to me whether i live or die.
I want you to test this serum on me, make me young again.
I don't want to get any older.
Aside from this pronounced death wish of yours, how would you like to spend the rest of your life as a mutated freak? Or a gibbering idiot? Or a mindless shell? That's not only possible, it's highly probable.
We can't control an experiment on a human being.
It would be catch as catch can.
I'd not only take the risk, i'd welcome it.
The answer is no! I wouldn't experiment on a strange bum i found on the street raymond.
to say nothing of my own brother.
Raymond, please, wait, wait.
Raymond, please.
The answer is no.
Good night, raymond.
Thank you for coming.
Harmon.
As a doctor, i can tell you what the effects on the human body are landing on concrete at the end of a 500-foot fall.
As a man, can you tell me what the effects are on the human brain when a man is deeply, totally and dedicatedly love with a woman who can't stand the sight of him? Have you even the remotest idea what kind of life this is for me? I can tell you what it could be should be.
You're a bright, charming, wealthy, discerning guy, and you've been hammered out of shape by a flashy piece of baggage not fit to wait on your table.
Well, whatever she is or isn't, she is the only thing on god's earth that i care about.
I beg you, give me a chance.
Give me a chance to save myself.
And if i don't? Then we'll see who reaches the sidewalk first: The man in the elevator or the free-falling body.
Oh, my dear god.
I feel sorry for you.
Let me think it over for an hour or two.
I'll come back.
Is that it? That's it.
What can i expect? You can expect a miracle, but you're not very likely to get it.
Go to bed now, don't go to work tomorrow.
I'll be here early in the morning.
I want to be very close to you for the next few days.
Well, when can i expect some change? Within six hours.
That's when the first physical change is noted.
As for the mental change, none of the rats or guinea pigs have told me what the feeling was.
I'll be the first.
You'll be the first assuming that you survive.
You want to know something, raymond? I'm not only going to survive, i'm going to be young again, i can feel it.
I wonder if she has any idea what she's done.
Even one slight little suspicion.
But i promise you that if you don't survive or if you're damaged in any way, i'm going to take it out of her skin, piece by piece.
She's going to donate a pint of blood for every pint that she's bled out of you.
That's not a medical hypothesis, that's a promise.
Go to bed now.
I'll see you in the morning.
Well, well, if it isn't the poor man's kildare.
What brings you out into the early dawn, doctor? Where's harmon? When last seen, he was pounding a pillow.
Is he all right? What is this, e.
s.
p.
Or something? I asked you a question- is he all right? I presume he is, but if you don't think so just go in there and blow a bugle.
No, i'll wait for him to get up.
Yeah, you do that.
Take off your stethoscope and make yourself at home.
Haven't you talked to him this morning? I haven't talked to anybody.
Until you pounded at the door at this ungodly hour.
Did you talk to him last night? He said something when he went to bed.
I hardly heard him.
He sounded lucid to you? Look, pally, i'm not the night nurse.
I think you're in the wrong ward.
Besides that, you bore me.
How do you feel, harmon? How do you feel, harmon? I ask for vince edwards and look what they send me.
Ah, it's incredible what a good night's sleep will do for a man, isn't it? Harmon? What have you are you wearing makeup or something? Makeup no, no.
No makeup, just a good night's sleep.
Well you look so different.
Oh, do i? Yes, you well, you look wonderful you, you look so young.
What's happened to you? Ask my brother over there.
No, his brother doesn't know.
Howdoyou feel, harmon? I feel like a million dollars tax-free, that's how i feel.
Know what i'll do for you, ray? I'll let you take me on tour.
They'll write you up in all the medical journals.
But first you've got to give me four weeks.
Flora and i are going to go on a little ocean trip.
An ocean trip? Mm-hmm.
Well well, that's wonderful.
When do we go? I've been thinking.
We ought to see if there's anything sailing tonight.
Unless of course you'd rather fly.
Oh, fly, sail, who cares? Ooh, big daddy, i don't know what you've done to yourself but let me clue you in about something: I don't care, 'cause i like this fine.
Oh, yes, i like it fine.
I don't want you to plan any trips for quite a while.
Oh, blow it.
I'll just go and change for you, all right? Where would you like to go? Paris? Rome? Tokyo? Hmm? Anywhere you say.
I'm your passenger.
Oh mmm, ahh why, this is incredible.
You haven't looked that way since you were 30 years old.
That's fantastic, it's absolutely fantastic.
I keep getting younger.
If i keep going at this rate, i'll be drafted.
If you don't stop, we may be in trouble.
Oh! What do you mean, trouble? What kind of trouble? I wish i knew how much longer it would go on or how long before it stops.
Oh, it's still going on.
I can feel it.
Harmon? It's still going on, what what is oh harmon? Harmon, what's going on with you? What's happening? Harmon? Leave him go.
I want him to go to bed.
Go to bed, harmon.
Raymond, you tell me what's happening to him.
Quiet, leave him alone! What's going on? Leave him alone.
What is it? Sit down, flora.
But i want to see him.
You will.
But i don't want you to wake him.
He's in shock now, and sleep is precisely what he needs.
I want to see him right now.
No, not now.
Right now, flora, as of this moment, you've got to readjust your life.
What are you talking about? Look, is this some kind of a trick? I want to see harmon, i want to see my husband.
Your husband is sleeping.
When he wakes up, he's going to need help.
Help? What kind of help? I want to see him.
You will.
But i think you'd best get oriented.
Flora, the ground rules change now.
Now you stay in your own yard.
The world doesn't begin and end with flora anymore.
It isn't just flora's wishes and flora's temperament, and flora's capacity for anger.
Now it's something else.
It's very different.
You have a responsibility now.
And you're going to honor it.
You're going to take care of harmon.
He's going to need you.
Flora! If you're leaving, make note of the fact that what you're wearing is all that you take with you.
If you think that i'm going to stay and take care of a grubby, thumb-sucking little kid that's precisely what you're going to do.
And short of that you leave here exactly as you arrived: Unadorned.
All the furs and the jewelry and anything else that my brother gave you remain here.
He can't make me stay here.
You can't make me stay here, either.
There are other fish in this ocean, mister.
Indeed there are, but you're not married to them.
You happen to be married to my brother.
That's crazy.
Crazy? No.
It's bizarre.
And it's a fact.
And if i ever hear that he's left alone with nurses, maids and governesses, you're going to find yourself right back on the chorus line do you understand? He's going to get some attention now.
And i don't mean just intimate and sporadic visits between nightclubs and beauty parlors.
I mean from morning till night.
Won't he ever grow? Oh, yes.
As of right now, he'll grow a little bit older each day, like any little boy.
And you'll perform the process together.
As he grows older, you'll be growing old.
There's a little poetic justice, flora: That you should be forced to drink from the same cup.
And then when tomorrow comes, there'll be someone younger outside waiting to come in.
Always waiting to come in.
But it isn't fair, raymond.
It just isn't fair.
Everything everything is on his side.
Well, you see, flora, as you get older, see how wise you get.
It happens to be a fact.
As one gets older, one does get wiser.
If you don't believe it, ask flora.
Ask her any day of the ensuing weeks of her life as she takes notes during the coming years and realizes that the worm has turned.
Youth has taken over.
It's simply the way the calendar crumbles in the twilight zone.