Two rapscallions wage a bet for $500,000 dollars on the line. A bet of silence, if you will. The chatterbox Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan; Star Trek episode, Plato's Stepchildren), who drones on and on with older gents (particularly annoyed and wanting to get away from him but unable to do so) at a men's club has gotten on the very last nerve of Archie Taylor (Franchot Tone), a regular if just for his family name and "fine breeding" (his words). Taylor (and the other men who congregate at this meeting place for an "aging retired elite of affluence") just wants Tennyson to shut up. To just quit talking. The men around him are delighted with the wager where Archie offers half a million to Tennyson if he can go a whole year without saying a word. The idea that they didn't have to listen to him hammer away about what he could do with a loan (a substantial one he muses aloud hoping to get a loan from someone gullible enough to expect he'd be successful, which no one is silly enough to answer in his favor), and his opinions on people he "meets at the market" (stock market) is a sweet savor to their ears.
But as Archie's concerned lawyer (played by Lost in Space's Jonathan Harris) approaches him troubled by this whole affair, the prideful, pompous "man of integrity and honorable social standing" shows the kind of menace he truly is. Archie devises this masterplan where a room downstairs in the men's club houses Tennyson is encased in glass with microphones and cameras watching and listening to see if he'd talk. So a year he endures the silence with a price. Talk about a guy that gets it multiple ways: you can't help but sympathize with Tennyson. Archie's repeated attempts to use Tennyson's "possibly promiscuous" wife to break him (the true backstory of Tone's face damage adds notoriety and actually is considered by TZ scholars to be a benefit to the episode as that one side only visible provided the actor with this added bit of sinister, deviousness, and serpent-in-the-grass sneakiness) particularly is rather unpleasant and wholly distasteful. A big scene is the set-up, in my opinion. Archie diminishing Tennyson's character, insulting his personality, speaking candidly about how his voice causes him to wince and that his mere presence is a nuisance almost immediately earns the derided youngster some sympathy. Archie never comes off less that an arrogant, entitled morally dubious scoundrel carrying on a charade that fooled all of the men in his inner circle. Of course, on first glance, Tennyson has this bravado and carries himself also as someone deserved to be within the high class of a society of privilege. However, a key scene between Sullivan and Harris opens our eyes to the fact that he is indeed broke and not of a charmed life as Archie had mightily pointed out to all who would listen he had squandered his inheritance and financial support on bad choices in the market, and with a wife who "visits Tiffanys as much as others do a grocery store", that certainly didn't help.
But the twist is what makes The Silence so devastating and stinging. Be careful who you wager with because it could come back to truly turn on you badly. First off, Archie doesn't provide the money beforehand. He claims that Tennyson will have to trust his *reputation.* Second, Archie continues to use manipulation and defamation brazenly to get Tennyson to crack. So when the two face each other at the end, and Archie is forced to reveal his true situation, Tennyson's fate perhaps isn't a surprise. His reason for the silence, however, is a stunner. It is everything TZ represents in regards to a twist of fate that often leaves the main character in a rotten predicament. I think, for not featuring anything supernatural, fantastical, or sci-fi related, The Silence is a real gem. I think it is underrated and worth taking a look at if you haven't yet. Tone is a game antagonist and Sullivan equal as his desperate foil. Harris as the voice of reason is rightfully grim and dead serious, but Tone's superiority complex will simply not listen.
But as Archie's concerned lawyer (played by Lost in Space's Jonathan Harris) approaches him troubled by this whole affair, the prideful, pompous "man of integrity and honorable social standing" shows the kind of menace he truly is. Archie devises this masterplan where a room downstairs in the men's club houses Tennyson is encased in glass with microphones and cameras watching and listening to see if he'd talk. So a year he endures the silence with a price. Talk about a guy that gets it multiple ways: you can't help but sympathize with Tennyson. Archie's repeated attempts to use Tennyson's "possibly promiscuous" wife to break him (the true backstory of Tone's face damage adds notoriety and actually is considered by TZ scholars to be a benefit to the episode as that one side only visible provided the actor with this added bit of sinister, deviousness, and serpent-in-the-grass sneakiness) particularly is rather unpleasant and wholly distasteful. A big scene is the set-up, in my opinion. Archie diminishing Tennyson's character, insulting his personality, speaking candidly about how his voice causes him to wince and that his mere presence is a nuisance almost immediately earns the derided youngster some sympathy. Archie never comes off less that an arrogant, entitled morally dubious scoundrel carrying on a charade that fooled all of the men in his inner circle. Of course, on first glance, Tennyson has this bravado and carries himself also as someone deserved to be within the high class of a society of privilege. However, a key scene between Sullivan and Harris opens our eyes to the fact that he is indeed broke and not of a charmed life as Archie had mightily pointed out to all who would listen he had squandered his inheritance and financial support on bad choices in the market, and with a wife who "visits Tiffanys as much as others do a grocery store", that certainly didn't help.
But the twist is what makes The Silence so devastating and stinging. Be careful who you wager with because it could come back to truly turn on you badly. First off, Archie doesn't provide the money beforehand. He claims that Tennyson will have to trust his *reputation.* Second, Archie continues to use manipulation and defamation brazenly to get Tennyson to crack. So when the two face each other at the end, and Archie is forced to reveal his true situation, Tennyson's fate perhaps isn't a surprise. His reason for the silence, however, is a stunner. It is everything TZ represents in regards to a twist of fate that often leaves the main character in a rotten predicament. I think, for not featuring anything supernatural, fantastical, or sci-fi related, The Silence is a real gem. I think it is underrated and worth taking a look at if you haven't yet. Tone is a game antagonist and Sullivan equal as his desperate foil. Harris as the voice of reason is rightfully grim and dead serious, but Tone's superiority complex will simply not listen.