The Twilight Zone: The Encounter

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"The Encounter" Season 5, Episode 31 (1964)

"Two men alone in an attic: a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday's war. It's twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Ghosts from the dim regions of the past... that will lead us... into the Twilight Zone."

"The Encounter" aired only a single time on May 1st, 1964 and then not again until January 1st, 2016. Let's walk through the plot and see why that was.

Fenton is a WW2 combat vet who's fallen on hard times. Lost his job, lost his wife, unhealthy, and drinking too much. He's up in the attic, taking stock of the physical clutter of his life. He finds a samurai sword and hurls it angrily against the wall. 

Arthur is an American-born child of Japanese immigrants who at age 4 was a personal witness to Pearl Harbor. He too is out of work and has shown up at Fenton's house on a tip from his neighbor that Fenton might be looking for some gardening work.

Fenton agrees and invites the young man up to the attic for a beer. Not wanting to be impolite to his new employer, Arthur accepts.

After needling Arthur about his Anglicized name, Arthur responds that he's just as American as anyone but admits his birthname was Taro, he just changed it to Arthur. Fenton alternates between calling him Arthur, Taro, Takamori, and "boy," which as intended provokes Arthur.

Arthur begins to suspect that Fenton might be a dangerous type when he shows him the sword.

Arthur pretends not to be able to read Japanese, but when Fenton leaves to get more beer, he holds the blade aloft and says to himself (almost astonished) "I'm going to kill him... I'm going to kill him. Why?"

When Fenton returns he says he had the inscription translated on the spot, when he took it off a dead Japanese officer. The words mean "The Sword Will Avenge Me." And the sword seems to influence both men as they drink their beer. Arthur receives a flash of psychic insight - Fenton didn't find the sword; he killed the officer who tried to surrender - and Fenton needles Arthur into admitting his father was actually spying for the Japanese. ("He signaled the planes; he told them where to drop their bombs.")

They continue to have flare-ups that almost spill over into violence, the sword all the while providing them both with "Day of the Dove"-style hallucinations and adrenaline. Fenton says he was just following orders. But then he loses it altogether: ("I've been pushed and pulled this way and that way until I hate everybody! You dirty little Jap!") They struggle, and the sword, sharp-end-out, becomes wedged in the table. Fenton slips and impales himself on it. Convinced the sword is possessed, Arthur screams "Banzai!" and leaps through the window to his death.

Moments later, as Rod delivers his wrap-up, the door to the attic, presumed jammed, slowly opens on its own.

"Two men in an attic, locked in mortal embrace. Their common bond, and their common enemy: guilt. A disease all too prevalent amongst men both in and out

...of The Twilight Zone."

I like "locked in mortal embrace." I guess it's a common enough expression, or something not created for this episode. I like it, though. You are attached to what you attack. Survival must cancel programming. That's it, Ruk! Logic! You can't! protect! someone who's trying! to destroy you!

Sorry, ahem - "What Are Little Girls Made Of" hiccup there. But the principle stands. It's a dark little tale about the damage war inflicts on the humans who wage it against a backdrop of the ephemeral reasons for waging it. As Fenton points out several times, he got decorations for treating the Japs the way he was told to: as animals. Now he's being told by the same government to "buy their damn transistors" and that they're "an ancient, cultured people," all while he's seen his own life and livelihood post-war gone to pot. 

And what are we to make of the ending? Fenton commits a kind of accidental seppuko (which is of course a bastardization, or a shadowy reflection perhaps, of the actual ritual, as near as I can tell; what Fenton accomplishes is more what they call suicide-by-cop), and then Arthur's fatal defenestration? (Raising the number of Twilight Zone episodes that end this way to at least two, the other being "Perchance to Dream." And I bet there are more.) 

Japanese-Americans complained about the plot twist of Arthur's Dad being a mole for Imperial Japan. There were a handful of sleeper agents Japan had in Hawaii and elsewhere but overwhelmingly, the idea that Japanese-Americans were a fifth column was wartime propaganda and contributed in no small part to the internment of thousands of American citizens. This subtext would of course be discouraged by advertisers of the era - although there are at least a few contemporaneous shows that mentioned both the moral ambiguity of the Japanese internment and the domestic alienation of the soldier returned home to patronize his country's former enemy - and mainly it's just a buzzcrush of an episode. At a time when LBJ was building up American troop presence in Vietnam, perhaps it was felt a Twilight Zone reminder of the wounds leftover from the country's last Asian military adventure was imprudent.

All of that works pretty well. The magic sword element, though, doesn't.

We're meant to believe that these two lonely and alienated individuals are driven to the end they are by the Twilight-Zone-y vibrations of the samurai blade, with its curse/inscription. But, neither the dialogue nor the way things are staged/ paced really re-enforces that all that well. If this was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, for example, where a supernatural element is not automatically assumed, I doubt anyone would think there was anything magical going on. So, this element could have been cleared up a little.

Good performances from the leads:

Went on to do something-or-other-somewhere. And

Neville Brand was a highly-decorated WW2 vet who got his start in 1950's film noir classic D.O.A. As mentioned at that link, he parlayed his primitive visage and simmering rage into a successful film career of nut-jobs, heavies and he-men. Here he does good work emphasizing the ugly aspects of Fenton's character - namely his racism, alcoholism, and alienation - while also inhabiting the role enough where one recognizes the war hero defeated by elements and circumstances so far beyond his control as to make him surprisingly sympathetic. ("I'm not afraid of dying so much as living.")

He reminded me of some of my old customers at the VFW and not in a comfortable way. Which I guess shouldn't be surprising, since Brand himself was a veteran of a foreign war; he knew of whom he spoke and portrays here. 

Some (especially in 2016) might object to my drawing equivalence between them - Fenton is a racist; Arthur is a victim of racism. But it is not me who is drawing said equivalence; it's the writer, Goldsmith. That parallel is what this story is all about. These are American men who were both killed in WW2, in different ways, by the same side (the USA), just the effect was delayed for 19 years.

Director Robert Butler was a constantly-employed director, writer, consultant, and producer in four separate decades, but he's most commonly associated (at least in the hearts and minds of Star Trek fans) as the guy who directed "The Cage." Writer Martin Goldsmith was perhaps best known for his work in film noir, including Detour, covered elsewhere in these pages.

All in all, I'd recommend Hell in the Pacific over this one for the same theme, but perhaps that's not the best one-to-one-comparison. It's a powerful episode and very worthwhile dramatic terrain.

~

Friday Night Film Noir: Detour (1945)

  "The difference between a crime film and a noir film is that the bad guys in crime movies know they're bad and want to be, while a noir hero thinks he's a good guy who has been ambushed by life."

The above quote and all quoted material below is from Roger Ebert's review of the film. (I put all the dialogue from the film itself between single-quotation-marks.) That's probably the format I'll adapt for this Friday Night Film Noir series - pick one arguably-definitive review of the film and sprinkle in my own thoughts and screencaps.

"Detour tells the story of Al Roberts, played by Tom Neal as a petulant loser with haunted eyes and a weak mouth, who plays piano in a nightclub and is in love, or says he is, with a singer named Sue, played by Claudia Drake."

I italicized or says he is because that's the right approach to take with this film. Detour is heavily narrated (perhaps even heavily redacted) by Al, and the reasons Al gives for the things he does (or doesn't do) don't always make sense. Moreover, the things we see on-screen don't always appear to be accurately described by the narration. This works perfectly well - if we accept that what we are seeing and hearing is what the film's protagonist desperately wants to believe. We are eavesdropping on his own self-rationalizations and sublimation. From the first moment we meet him - 

he is (Ebert again) "an innocent bystander who looks (and sounds) guilty even to himself." For clarity's sake, let me first recount the plot as he sees / narrates it.

When Sue leaves for the west coast, Al stays behind and continues to play piano. Unhappily. After a particularly successful gig - where he receives a ten-dollar tip, prompting the great line 'When this drunk gave me a ten spot, I couldn't get very excited. What was it? A piece of paper crawling with germs.' - he decides to hitch-hike cross-country to be with her. No more sitting around torturing himself with thoughts of her life apart from him. (Sidenote - his and Sue's song is "I Can't Believe You Fell in Love with Me.")

He ends up getting a lift from one Mr. Haskell.

Haskell tells him about the last hitch-hiker he picked up, 'a dame with claws' who left deep scratches on his hand. Al is hesitant to comment either way. ('A lot of rides have been cut short by a big mouth.') That night, Mr. Haskell dies of a heart attack while Al is driving.

Uh-oh.

"Al buries the body, and takes Haskell's car, clothes, money and identification; he claims to have no choice, because the police will in any event assume he murdered the man."

"He picks up a hitchhiker named Vera (Ann Savage), who 'looked like she'd just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.' Though not necessarily in this pic.

"She seems to doze, then sits bolt upright and makes a sudden verbal attack: 'Where'd you leave his body? Where did you leave the owner of this car? Your name's not Haskell!' Al realizes he has picked up the dame with the claws."

From that point on, Al is completely at Vera's mercy. He offers her all the money he took from Haskell, but she insists they go to Los Angeles as planned and sell the car. Which almost happens, until Vera picks up the newspaper. 

"(She) dreams up a con for Al to keep impersonating the long-lost son and inherit the estate."

"Waiting for the old man to die, they sit in a rented room, drinking, playing cards and fighting - 

"until Al finds himself with another corpse on his hands, once again in a situation that makes him look guilty of murder."

The last we see of Al, he is walking along the road, bemoaning his fate, when he is picked up by the cops.

'Someday a car will stop to pick me up for a ride I never thumbed.'

'Yes, fate - or some mysterious force - can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.'

The End.

The Leads

"Roberts is played by Tom Neal as a sad sack who seems relieved to surrender to Vera ('My favorite sport is being kept prisoner,' he tells her.)" 

"Most noir heroes are defeated through their weaknesses. Few have been weaker than Roberts. He narrates the movie by speaking directly to the audience, mostly in a self-pitying whine. He's pleading his case, complaining that life hasn't given him a fair break."

Detour is more a tone poem than a sensible narrative, realizing onscreen a particularly masculine state of anxiety, guilty conscience, masochism, and above all, a kind of chronic helplessness and self-sabotage. 

"These are two pure types: the submissive man and the female hellion."

'I kept imagining I was being followed...'

Some biographical info: "Neal, who was born into a wealthy family in Evanston, Illinois, was a former boxer with a Harvard law degree who played mostly tough guys in the movies. A troubled man, he was blackballed in Hollywood in 1951 after beating Franchot Tone to a pulp and giving him a concussion in a quarrel over the affections of Barbara Payton." 

Payton and Neal separated shortly after the above, and in 1965 Neal was tried in the shooting death of his wife Gale and served six years in prison for manslaughter.

As for Ann Savage, who shows up in my news feed and probably yours at Halloween time:

"Ann Savage plays Vera as a venomous castrator. Every line is acid and angry. (...) There is not a single fleeting shred of tenderness or humanity in her performance as Vera, as she snaps out her pulp dialogue."

Examples include: 'What'd you do... kiss him with a wrench?'

'Where'd you hide the butts?'
'ON THE TABLE, SUCKER!'

"I don't like you, Roberts - you're not a gentleman, see!?"

Allegedly, Savage was a guest-star in the Saved By the Bell episode "Boss Lady" but I can find no visual corroboration for this. What a world, what a world, though, if so.

The Director

Edgar Ulmer started off as an assistant to F.W. Murnau before emigrating to the United States to escape Hitler. Thus, curiously, Nazi-flight “provided one of the links between the German Expressionism (of Murnau,) with its exaggerated lighting, camera angles and dramaturgy, and the American film noir, which added jazz and guilt.”

Ulmer keeps it simple in Detour, but that shouldn't detract a contemporary viewer from appreciating the artistry of some of the production choices, particularly the extensive use of rear projection for the many car scenes.

Reliable Narrator?

Back to the Freud:

"Of course Al could simply escape from her. Sure, she has the key to the room, but any woman who kills a bottle of booze in a night can be dodged fairly easily. Al stays because he wants to stay. He wallows in mistreatment."

"Most critics of Detour have taken Al's story at face value. (...) But the critic Andrew Britton argues a more intriguing theory in Ian Cameron's Book of Film Noir. He emphasizes that the narration is addressed directly to us: We're not hearing what happened, but what Al Roberts wants us to believe happened. It's a 'spurious but flattering account,' he writes, pointing out that Sue the singer hardly fits Al's description of her, that Al is less in love than in need of her paycheck, and that his cover-up of Haskell's death is a rationalization for an easy theft. For Britton, Al's version illustrates Freud's theory that traumatic experiences can be reworked into fantasies that are easier to live with."

"At the end, Al is still complaining: 'Fate, for some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me, for no good reason at all.' Oh, it has a reason."

As a story about an innocent man who is swept along in circumstances he can neither control nor understand, it's passable but not very complex or satisfying. As the retcon-projection of a man lying to himself (and us) though, it's fascinating.