Of Late I Think of Cliffordville (11 Apr. 1963)
"The Twilight Zone" Of Late I Think of Cliffordville (original title)

Aging tycoon William Feathersmith is bored with life and makes arrangements through a devilish travel agency to return to the Cliffordville of his youth and start all over again.

Director:

David Lowell Rich

Writers:

Malcolm Jameson (short story "Blind Alley"), Rod Serling,

Stars:

Albert Salmi, John Anderson, Wright King

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Albert Salmi	...	William Feathersmith
John Anderson	...	Diedrich
Wright King	...	Hecate
Guy Raymond	...	Gibbons
Christine Burke	...	Joanna
John Harmon	...	Clark
Hugh Sanders	...	Cronk
Julie Newmar	...	Miss Devlin

Storyline

William Feathersmith is a hard-nosed - and hard-hearted - businessman who is now quite wealthy but bored. It's clear that what he enjoys is the chase and the acquisition of wealth. He also likes breaking men in the process. While leaving the office one day, he finds himself on the wrong floor and in the office of Devlin Travel, run by the devilishly attractive Ms. Devlin. In return for his amassed fortune, she offers to send him back in time to his hometown of Cliffordville in 1910 where he can start over and get the pleasure of building his empire all over again. He accepts and once back to the days of his use begins wheeling and dealing. Nothing quite goes as planned however.

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Plot Keywords:

travel agency | boredom | soul selling | millionaire | based on short story | 

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 April 1963 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cayuga Productions, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

51 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

When the bell-tower shows and the clock strikes "midnight", you can see a relatively light sky is visible.

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Quotes

Narrator: [Opening Narration] Witness a murder. The killer is Mr. William Feathersmith, a robber baron whose body composition is made up of a refrigeration plant covered by thick skin. In a moment, Mr. Feathersmith will proceed on his daily course of conquest and calumny with yet another business dealing. But this one will be one of those bizarre transactions that take place in an odd marketplace known as the Twilight Zone.

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Connections

Spoofed in Weird Science: Sci-Fi Zoned (1995)

User Reviews

"I get everything I go after..."

A user instead of a bringer, that's how Miss Devlin (Julie Newmar) characterizes old Feathersmith (Albert Salmi) when he's down and out and about to go utterly bust in the Cliffordville of his past. Too impatient to use the skills that made him a multi-millionaire in the first place, Feathersmith falls victim to the premise that one can find a shortcut to success.

For those viewers thinking of making their own deal with the devil, these Twilight Zone stories would be a good primer on how to avoid all those nasty pitfalls that human frailty is subject to. Like a faulty memory that forgets an important invention takes place a quarter century in the future. Or that a former object of one's desire turns out to be Joanna Gibbons (Christine Burke). Man, what was Feathersmith thinking about?

For us older fans, one of the treats here is catching all those great character actors turning up in one program. John Anderson showed up in just about every TV Western series that ever came out, while Wright King managed an extended run as Josh Randall's sidekick in the second season of 'Wanted:Dead or Alive'. Then there's Julie Newmar, the gal that put the purr in Catwoman in the mid-Sixties 'Batman' TV show.

Hey, here's something I picked up on while watching this show. As Feathersmith nears the end of his rope, he solicits Miss Devlin (Newmar) to return him to the future while in that warehouse basement. Take note of the tall crate marked 'This End Up' - it was used as one of the props in the prior episode of the series, 'The New Exhibit', one of the crates a wax figure arrived in. This kind of thing happened before, and I wonder if Serling threw those things in intentionally to see who was paying attention. Or more likely, a way of recycling props to keep expenses down.

Of course the twist ending is what everyone comes to appreciate with these stories, but this one had a pretty good moral to teach as well. Working for something and earning it is a whole lot more satisfying than just having it - a lesson not necessarily confined to an outer region of the Twilight Zone.