{"id":10537,"date":"2013-05-20T23:26:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T03:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aforgrave.ca\/detritus\/?p=10537"},"modified":"2013-05-21T19:47:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T23:47:50","slug":"you-best-clear-offa-my-roof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aforgrave.ca\/detritus\/2013\/05\/20\/you-best-clear-offa-my-roof\/","title":{"rendered":"You Best Clear Offa My Roof!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just not in so many words.<\/p>\n

\""You<\/a>

“You Best Clear Offa My Roof!” animated GIF, by aforgrave, The Twilight Zone, Season 2, Episode 15, “The Invaders”<\/p><\/div>\n

Some Thoughts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The actress in this role is none other than Agnes Moorehead<\/a>, whom I remember from Bewitched<\/a> where she played Endora, Samantha’s overbearing mother. (Poor Darren!)<\/li>\n
  2. The Rod Serling walk-into-frame opening is classic. Right out of the theatre.<\/li>\n
  3. Moorehead’s movements are very stage-like, larger than life — and as the (play) episode moved along, I gradually came to realize that she had been carrying the role without speaking. (There’s a nice vignette in The Twilight Zone Companion which describes Moorehead questioning the director Douglas Heyes, “I’ve been reading the script and I’ve been trying to find my part …”) In fact, she speaks not a single word throughout — saving the voice\/english for the “aliens” so we can realize that she, in hindsight, is the non-human, and that “The Invaders” are the ones from Earth.<\/li>\n
  4. The music in the piece just before The Invaders’ spacecraft engine is heard is really haunting. Thanks, Jerry Goldsmith! (Yeah, the same.)<\/li>\n
  5. For someone who lives alone, that’s one heck of a pot of stew she’s cooking up. It’s huge!\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Yeah, I thought<\/em>\u00a0I recognized the spaceship from Forbidden Planet!<\/li>\n
  7. When she was trying to get The Invaders out of her house, it felt as if she was fending off mice or rats. Either that, or some neighbourhood kids who were teasing the crazy old lady with remote controlled robots. Except when they were clearly being “walked” by an unseen hand. They didn’t look remote control then.<\/li>\n
  8. As she inspected her hand and arm after the first attack, I was thinking about radiation burns. That was still a big unknown (and therefore scary) thing in the early sixties.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One of the most fascinating aspects of these old teleplays is the significant number of episodes that are carried by a single character — and that character is typically isolated from the rest of the world by their experience. \u00a0This probably makes it easier for us to identify with the character and therefore assume their emotions, which helps us to get the message of the film. But those notions of isolation, the other<\/em>, the alien<\/em>, these are pervasive in The Twilight Zone.<\/p>\n

    \"My<\/a>

    My copy of “The Twilight Zone Companion, 1982 edition.” circa 1982.<\/p><\/div>\n

    So far, I’ve watch the following:<\/p>\n