Production #3605 “WALKING DISTANCE” (Initial telecast: October 30, 1959)
© Cayuga Productions, Inc., October 29, 1959, LP15011
Dates of Rehearsal: June 23 and 24, 1959
Dates of Filming: June 25, 26, 29 and 30, 1959
Script #5 dated: April 13, 1959, with revised pages dated June 19, 23, 24 and 25, 1959.
Production Notes
Producer and Secretary: $660.00
Story and Secretary: $2,452.27
Director: $1,250.00
Cast: $11,211.16
Unit Manager and Secretary: $520.00
Production Fee: $750.00
Agents Commission: $5,185.55
Legal and Accounting: $250.00
Below the line charges (M-G-M): $45,810.40
Below the line charges (other): $6,396.30
Total Production Costs: $74,485.68
Cast: Sheridan Comerate (gas station attendant); Joseph Corey (the soda jerk); Bill Erwin (Mr. Wilcox); Byron Foulger (Charlie); Ronnie Howard (Wilcox boy); Buzz Martin (the teenager); Michael Montgomery (Martin, age 11); Pat O’Malley (Mr. Wilson); Frank Overton (Martin’s Father); Nan Peterson (the woman in park); Irene Tedrow (Martin’s Mother); and Gig Young (Martin Sloan).
Original Music Score Composed and Conducted by Bernard Herrmann (Music Score No. CPN5809): Main Title (:40); Introduction (:28); The Drugstore (:37); Memories (2:22); The Park (1:40); The House (1:32); Curtain (:20); The Parents (1:40); The Merry-Go-Round (:37); Artists’ Life (by Johann Strauss, 1:45); Martin’s Summer (1:32); Elegy (3:33); Natural Rock (by Bruce Campbell, :14); Finale (1:00); and End Title (by Herrmann, :45).
“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Occupation: vice-president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s an exodus. Somewhere up the road he’s looking for sanity. And somewhere up the road, he’ll find something else.”
Plot: New York executive Martin Sloan is unable to cope with the pressures of today, and in a desperate attempt to revisit his childhood, makes a return trip to his hometown. There, he finds the town and the people not as it is today, but as it once was. The smell of cotton candy, the merry-go-rounds, and the band concerts – all part of a moment in time that Martin has longed to embrace again. His mother and father are still alive, and young Martin is spending his summer carving his name into a wood post. In an attempt to share the moment with his younger self, Martin exposes the boy to a severe leg injury. While the boy is back home healing from his wound, Martin’s father pays him a visit. He knows who Martin is and where he came from – and there is no room for him in the past. The wisdom comes from his father’s lips: Martin has been looking behind him for an escape – perhaps he should be looking ahead. Walking out of town, Martin returns to the present day – content on living his life a bit more relaxed should he choose to do so.
(middle) “A man can think a lot of thoughts and walk a lot of pavements between afternoon and night. And to a man like Martin Sloan, to whom memory has suddenly become reality, a resolve can become just as clearly and inexorably as stars of a summer night. Martin Sloan is now back in time. And his resolve is to put in a claim to the past.”
“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six. Vice president in charge of media. Successful in most things – but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives – trying to go home again. (a pause) And also like all men perhaps there’ll be an occasion . . . maybe a summer night sometime . . . when he’ll look up from what he’s doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope – and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there will flit a little errant wish . . . that a man might not have to become old – never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. (a pause) And he’ll smile then too because he’ll know it is just an errant wish. Some wisp of memory not too important really. Some laughing ghosts that cross a man’s mind . . . that are a part . . . of the Twilight Zone.”
Trivia, etc. Rod Serling recalled a number of times how he came up with the idea for this episode. “This is partly from looking at a park on a movie back lot and partly from a sense of my own nostalgia. Often in the summer I’ll go back to my hometown, Binghamton, and go through a place called ‘Recreation Park’ which I can link to vivid and wondrous memories of growing up. I think there’s a little of this bitter-sweet nostalgia in all of us for a time well remembered.”
For the September 6, 1959, issue of The Sunday News, Serling recalled in the “What’s On?” column: “I was walking on a set at M-G-M when I was suddenly hit by the similarity of it to my hometown. Feeling an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, it struck me that all of us have a deep longing to go back – not to our home as it is today, but as we remember it. It was from this simple incident I wove the story of ‘Walking Distance.’”
A year and a half later, Serling remarked how he paid a visit to Recreation Park, where he spent his childhood. “I looked at the merry-go-round, now condemned, overgrown by weeds, and I had that bittersweet recollection of that wondrous time of growing up.”
In Binghamton, New York, Serling was raised in the loving care of an average middle-class family. In the same house with the same friends throughout his youth, Serling did not hesitate to tell people that he led a happy life. He never felt the need for analysis, skirting the possibility of being classed with the current trend of “couch” writers who purged themselves in print. Serling’s purpose with this episode was to probe his dramatic characterizations. As he explained, “thoughtfulness doesn’t necessarily suggest oddness.”
An early draft of this script featured a variation of the opening narration: “The mirror image of Martin Sloan. Age thirty-six. Occupation – vice president, ad agency, in charge of media. This is not just a Sunday drive for Martin Sloan. He perhaps doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s an exodus. Somewhere up the road he’s looking for sanity. (a pause) And somewhere up the road – he’ll find something else.”
The first draft of the script, dated April 13, 1959, was reviewed by the CBS Television Network. It’s main concern was to have the production crew observe customary caution to avoid visual identification of commercial brand names in the gas station set and in the malt shop. This included, of course, the cigarette machine outside the gas station. CBS also insisted to “please direct camera angles to obscure any view of Martin Sloan’s mangled leg.” Two brief passages spoken in Martin Sloan’s dialogue were also censored: “… going back to the womb” and “Oh, my God!”
Originally, this episode was script #6, dated April 13, 1959, and script #5 was to be Bradbury’s And There Be Tygers, for which, according to a progress report dated April 9, 1959, Bradbury was going to script the teleplay. Since this fell apart, “Walking Distance” was quickly renumbered.
Frank Overton was paid $1,000 for playing the role of Martin’s father for this episode. He also received first-class New York round-trip transportation since he was performing on the East Coast. Filming was originally scheduled to begin on or about July 6, 1959, but was pushed back a week to accommodate the director and actors’ schedules as production fell into place. The opening scene at the gas station was filmed on Lot 3, for a cost of $600 in materials, signs and props. This was the same gas station used for the evening scene in the second act of “The Hitch-Hiker.” The sign hanging above the gas station in the opening scene read “Service Station: Ralph N. Nelson, Prop.” This was a tip of the hat to Ralph W. Nelson, the unit production manager for The Twilight Zone. To film outside, a generator was rented to power the cameras and equipment. There were intentions of filming scenes inside the gas station, shortly after Martin arrived, but that was changed before production began.
The car the mechanic was working on at the gas station was the same featured on the side of the street in the opening scenes of “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” While Gig Young can be seen sitting inside the car during Serling’s narration, the opening shot of the car speeding toward the station did not feature Young. A stunt driver was hired (at the cost of $50) to drive the rental, with precision, down the dirt road. Someone evidently caused damage to the seat cushion inside the car – Cayuga fronted a repair bill for 10 dollars.
Originally the interiors of the drug store (both old and new) were scheduled to be filmed on Stage 26 at M-G-M. Hours before production began, however, the set decorator and his crew moved all the props and settings to Stage 5 to accommodate the studio’s error in paperwork, granting another television production use of the same Stage 26 on the same day. Rental fees for food, signs, chairs, tables, mirrors and other props for both drug stores cost Cayuga a total of $1,800.
The exterior of the park (a.k.a. the Pavillion) was filmed on Lot 2 at M-G-M. The cost for props, including an ice cream cart, a baby carriage, balloons and other props cost $1,050. An extra company prop man was hired (at the cost of $75) for June 25 and 26, to handle the scenes that required many extras (including children). An organ grinder and a monkey were hired for some of the scenes, costing $75 for the day, but whether they were filmed remains unknown – he does not appear in the finished film. (They do, however, make an appearance in “Mr. Bevis.”)
The residential street prominently displaying the Wilcox and Sloan House was located on Lot 3, which had been built specifically for the 1944 motion picture, Meet Me in St. Louis. The movie was produced from 1943 to 1944 with a total budget of $1,707,561.14. The cost of building the street was $208,275. Located at Jefferson and Overland Boulevards in Culver City, the street became known at the studio as “The St. Louis Street.” The scene in which Martin Sloan walks the street where he grew up and recalls the names of the neighbors and their corresponding houses contains two in-jokes. Rooney was a tip of the hat to Serling’s good friend Mickey Rooney. Dr. Bradbury was referencing science fiction author Ray Bradbury.
To capture the cinematography that director Robert Stevens was looking for in one key scene, he needed the entire bandstand and carousel to be disassembled and reassembled from Lot 2 to Stage 26. The director’s request was forwarded to Buck Houghton, who approved it, at the expense of $450, charged against Cayuga. On the morning of June 26, the carousel shots were filmed, providing cinematography that emphasized Martin’s insecurity after the accident.
Between takes, one of the young children, Michael Patterson, while running around the stage on the morning of June 26, ran into a bench and hurt his leg. A studio physician was called over to the set to look at the injury. After putting on a bandage, the doctor said the child was fine, and the incident did not cost the company any loss of time during production.
When Martin Sloan encounters his younger self, carving his name on the wooden post, a blooper can be seen – and was overlooked by the film editor, Bill Mosher, and his supervisor, Joseph Gluck. In one shot, young Martin is carving the letter S to indicate his last name, and has yet to spell the rest of the letters, L-O-A-N. In another shot, the last name is already carved, and young Martin is still working on the letter S. In the third shot, he is still working on the same letter, but the other letters have yet to be completed.
There were three shots of the carousel horses taken from the transition sequence between the youthful Martin’s injuries and the arrival of his father. The darkest shot of the three was chosen for use as the background end titles, solely because the closing credits, which were white, would show up best on the screen.
Serling had watched the rough cut of July 17, and throughout the month of September, expressed to Buck Houghton his concerns relative to the scoring. Per Serling’s suggestions – but not without a fight from Herrmann – the following changes were made to the music score, to emphasize key scenes in the episode.
(1) The curtain music to the teaser in the beginning needed an uplift. Herrmann objected to doing this, even when Serling stated “at present it just seems to dwindle off suggesting nothing in the way of tension to follow.”
(2) There was originally no music in the scene when the drugstore clerk goes up to Mr. Wilson to request reordering supplies. At Serling’s insistence, music was added to help the audience associate with the oddness of the situation.
(3) Serling insisted that the sound of the calliope be heard in act two, right after Martin’s mother slaps him, and he looks off hearing something for the first time. “It was my feeling that the calliope is a signatory kind of sound,” Serling explained.
(4) When Martin left the drugstore a second time near the closing of the episode, there was no music. Serling insisted that music “perhaps partly nostalgic and partly haunting” would suggest not only the pathos of the moment, but the oddness of the whole story.
“I know all these suggestions go against your grain, Bucko,” Serling wrote to Houghton, “and in most of our disagreements I’ve always felt that we could reach compromises and have done so most successfully. But in this particular instance I feel so strongly about this music situation that I hope you’ll grant me a little extra prerogative here and see what you can do even under protest. Which is a helluva oblique way of reiterating how tremendous I think this film is and how beautiful I think the music is or at least ninety five percent of it.”
Houghton went to Lud Gluskin, head of the music department at CBS, to explain Serling’s concern. Gluskin offered two options. First was to select stock music cues to deal with each issue and then re-dub the picture. These, of course, would not be consistent with Herrmann’s musical structure, be very costly, and Herrmann would probably be offended to the point of being unwilling to ever do another Twilight Zone. The second option was more expensive – have Bernard Herrmann rescore at the four points, call for another orchestral session as well as redubbing. This second option, through Serling’s insistence, was implemented and Herrmann composed the new music consistent with the old.
To keep peace with Herrmann, Serling wrote a thank-you letter on October 6. “This is belated congratulatory tome to acknowledge what is one of the most beautiful music scores I’ve been privileged to hear. I’m referring to the background music to ‘Walking Distance.’ If you can tell me how I can get this on a recording to keep, I’d much appreciate it. It is a lovely, sensitive and most inspiring theme. Thank you for lending a great talent to our project.”
“Writing music for ‘Walking Distance’ afforded me a most stimulating and rewarding experience, for the nostalgia of the play lent itself most readily to music, and music is always able to communicate most expressively when it assumes an emotional role rather than, as is usual, a descriptive one,” replied Herrmann. “It is very rarely that one has an opportunity to write music of a lyrical temperament.”
Combined with music and script, The Twilight Zone was being praised by a number of viewers. “I have a tough, literary hide to penetrate,” wrote Edmund Brophy, a successful scriptwriter for CBS Radio, “but in your third act of ‘Walking Distance,’ in the scene between father and son, you achieved some rare and piercing dialog, as close to poetry and truth as the stratospheric flier, who ‘reached out my hand to touch the face of God.’ Stay with it. We will stay with you.”
“The Ida Lupino piece on the aging star who refused to yield to time and projected her wishes and the advertising executive who yearned to recapture his boyhood were just great,” wrote Henry von Morpurgo of the Pacific Coast Club in Los Angeles. “You seem to stir and stimulate something that is strange and deep and beautiful and profound and inchoate in all of us. Something that is marvelous and mysterious and yet which we ordinary people cannot express. The magic of your great talents, Rod, articulate these feelings, make them seem understandable and enable us better to understand ourselves and our friends.”
On October 21, 1959, Serling asked Comora to incorporate the following lines to any promotional materials sent out: “From the standpoint of story development, performance, and film technique, it’s my honest feeling that ‘Walking Distance’ stacks up as one of the most meaningful and poignant half-hour dramas ever produced. It dramatizes flavor, color and dimension to a kind of wondrous, bittersweet attachment the human being has for the past. Bob Stevens’ direction and Gig Young’s performance prove that the half-hour television form can also be a legitimate story-telling form. When my name was attached to this one – it was put on with pride!”
Variety magazine reviewed, “Well written and equally well performed, the level may be too high for those who make up the ratings. It hasn’t reached the payoff point yet. Serling’s plays need more than his explanations, fore and aft. It’s a serious takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock’s caricature, but doesn’t help the watcher to un-track himself.” The same review added: “Direction of Robert Stevens had good movement.”
Martin Grams is the author of the award-winning book, The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic.
