Nothing in the Dark
"Nothing in the Dark" | |||
---|---|---|---|
The Twilight Zone episode | |||
Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 16 | ||
Directed by | Lamont Johnson | ||
Written by | George Clayton Johnson | ||
Featured music | Stock | ||
Production code | 3652 | ||
Original air date | January 5, 1962 (1962-01-05) | ||
Guest appearances | |||
| |||
Episode chronology | |||
| |||
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 3) | |||
List of episodes |
"Nothing in the Dark" is episode 81 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, originally airing on January 5, 1962. This is one of two episodes that were filmed during season two but held over for broadcast until season three, the other being "The Grave".
Opening narration
An old woman living in a nightmare, an old woman who has fought a thousand battles with death and always won. Now she's faced with a grim decision—whether or not to open a door. And in some strange and frightening way she knows that this seemingly ordinary door leads to the Twilight Zone.
Plot
Wanda Dunn, a frail and elderly woman, huddles in a dark basement apartment in an abandoned tenement. She is awakened by an altercation outside, in which Harold Beldon, a young police officer, is shot and falls just outside her door. He cries out that he is dying and pleads for her help, but she is afraid that he is "Mr. Death" trying to trick her into letting him in. She has no phone to call a doctor, but he continues begging her to help him, so she relents. She is relieved when she touches him and doesn't die, which convinces her that he is not Death after all.
Inside she explains her reluctance to help him, describing how she saw Death in the form of a man take an old woman's life just by touching her, and that she has seen him many times since then with different faces. Consequently, she has not left her home in years, preferring to live unhappily than to not live at all.
There is a knock at the door and Harold persuades Wanda to answer it. The man forces the door open and she collapses from terror. When she regains consciousness, the man apologizes and explains he is a building contractor and is tasked to demolish the building in an hour. He tries to persuade her that his work is both necessary and good, since tearing down clears way for the new. He affirms that she has been given due notice, and if she will not leave he will call the police. She turns to Harold for help, but the contractor doesn't see him, and leaves to get the authorities.
Wanda looks in a mirror and does not see Harold in the reflection; it dawns on her that Harold is Death. He explains with a friendly smile that he set up the ruse to gain her trust and convince her that he means her no harm. Wanda continues her protests, but he gently assures her she has nothing to fear and finally persuades her to give him her hand. Before she even realizes anything has changed, she finds herself standing beside her own dead body. Wanda and Harold walk arm in arm through the doorway, up the stairs, outside into the sunlight.
Closing narration
There was an old woman who lived in a room. And, like all of us, was frightened of the dark. But who discovered in a minute last fragment of her life that there was nothing in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on. Object lesson for the more frightened amongst us in or out, of the Twilight Zone.
Cast
- Gladys Cooper as Wanda Dunn
- Robert Redford as Harold Beldon
- R. G. Armstrong as Contractor
Reception
IMDb lists this episode at number seven in a ranking of all 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone.[1]
At the 2014 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Redford stated he has been told by the production company of the series that it is the most often viewed episode of The Twilight Zone.[2]
Sources
- DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
- Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
References
External links
- "Nothing in the Dark" at IMDb
- Nothing in the Dark review at The Twilight Zone Project
- v
- t
- e
- "Where Is Everybody?"
- "One for the Angels"
- "Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
- "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"
- "Walking Distance"
- "Escape Clause"
- "The Lonely"
- "Time Enough at Last"
- "Perchance to Dream"
- "Judgment Night"
- "And When the Sky Was Opened"
- "What You Need"
- "The Four of Us Are Dying"
- "Third from the Sun"
- "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"
- "The Hitch-Hiker"
- "The Fever"
- "The Last Flight"
- "The Purple Testament"
- "Elegy"
- "Mirror Image"
- "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"
- "A World of Difference"
- "Long Live Walter Jameson"
- "People Are Alike All Over"
- "Execution"
- "The Big Tall Wish"
- "A Nice Place to Visit"
- "Nightmare as a Child"
- "A Stop at Willoughby"
- "The Chaser"
- "A Passage for Trumpet"
- "Mr. Bevis"
- "The After Hours"
- "The Mighty Casey"
- "A World of His Own"
- "King Nine Will Not Return"
- "The Man in the Bottle"
- "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room"
- "A Thing About Machines"
- "The Howling Man"
- "Eye of the Beholder"
- "Nick of Time"
- "The Lateness of the Hour"
- "The Trouble with Templeton"
- "A Most Unusual Camera"
- "The Night of the Meek"
- "Dust"
- "Back There"
- "The Whole Truth"
- "The Invaders"
- "A Penny for Your Thoughts"
- "Twenty Two"
- "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
- "Mr. Dingle, the Strong"
- "Static"
- "The Prime Mover"
- "Long Distance Call"
- "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim"
- "The Rip Van Winkle Caper"
- "The Silence"
- "Shadow Play"
- "The Mind and the Matter"
- "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
- "The Obsolete Man"
- "Two"
- "The Arrival"
- "The Shelter"
- "The Passersby"
- "A Game of Pool"
- "The Mirror"
- "The Grave"
- "It's a Good Life"
- "Deaths-Head Revisited"
- "The Midnight Sun"
- "Still Valley"
- "The Jungle"
- "Once Upon a Time"
- "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"
- "A Quality of Mercy"
- "Nothing in the Dark"
- "One More Pallbearer"
- "Dead Man's Shoes"
- "The Hunt"
- "Showdown with Rance McGrew"
- "Kick the Can"
- "A Piano in the House"
- "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank"
- "To Serve Man"
- "The Fugitive"
- "Little Girl Lost"
- "Person or Persons Unknown"
- "The Little People"
- "Four O'Clock"
- "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby"
- "The Trade-Ins"
- "The Gift"
- "The Dummy"
- "Young Man's Fancy"
- "I Sing the Body Electric"
- "Cavender Is Coming"
- "The Changing of the Guard"
- "In His Image"
- "The Thirty-Fathom Grave"
- "Valley of the Shadow"
- "He's Alive"
- "Mute"
- "Death Ship"
- "Jess-Belle"
- "Miniature"
- "Printer's Devil"
- "No Time Like the Past"
- "The Parallel"
- "I Dream of Genie"
- "The New Exhibit"
- "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville"
- "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
- "On Thursday We Leave for Home"
- "Passage on the Lady Anne"
- "The Bard"
- "In Praise of Pip"
- "Steel"
- "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
- "A Kind of a Stopwatch"
- "The Last Night of a Jockey"
- "Living Doll"
- "The Old Man in the Cave"
- "Uncle Simon"
- "Probe 7, Over and Out"
- "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms"
- "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain"
- "Ninety Years Without Slumbering"
- "Ring-a-Ding Girl"
- "You Drive"
- "The Long Morrow"
- "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross"
- "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
- "Black Leather Jackets"
- "Night Call"
- "From Agnes—With Love"
- "Spur of the Moment"
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- "Queen of the Nile"
- "What's in the Box"
- "The Masks"
- "I Am the Night—Color Me Black"
- "Sounds and Silences"
- "Caesar and Me"
- "The Jeopardy Room"
- "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
- "The Encounter"
- "Mr. Garrity and the Graves"
- "The Brain Center at Whipple's"
- "Come Wander with Me"
- "The Fear"
- "The Bewitchin' Pool"