A Serious Off-Set Injury Ended Up Working To The Twilight Zone's Advantage
In the history of Rod Serling's original run of "The Twilight Zone," the season 2 episode "The Silence" sticks out like a sore thumb. The episode in no way falls under the categories of science fiction or fantasy, instead opting to tell a disturbingly human story about an extreme bet between two men. Wealthy Archie (Franchot Tone) bets fellow men's club member — and known chatterbox — Jamie (Liam Sullivan) that he can't spend a year in silence.
The episode unfolds in an odd and surprising but never unbelievable fashion. Jamie accepts the bet, hoping to win $500,000 (about 5 million dollars today). In an attempt to surveil his colleague and prevent cheating, Archie erects a public glass room in which Jamie will be trapped for the year. Archie also spends much of his time taunting Jamie with lies about his wife, but Jamie doesn't fall for the low blow. At year's end, Archie reveals he lost his wealth and can't pay the bet, while Jamie reveals he cut his vocal cords to make sure he'd win. What's the point of all this? It's not really clear, though Serling's ominous final narration mentions that "gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit."
The bet
"The Silence" is obviously based in part on Anton Chekhov's story "The Bet," and while it doesn't utilize the show's typical genre trappings, it does take some interesting risks in terms of aesthetics and plotting. Notably, actor Tone speaks only from one side of his mouth, giving the strange, off-putting effect of a shadowy figure with a curled lip whispering evil things into Jamie's ear. If this had been another "Twilight Zone" episode that ended with the reveal that the devil's been present all along, it wouldn't have been a surprise.
According to Marc Scott Zicree's "The Twilight Zone Companion," Tone's manner of speaking wasn't just an acting choice: he actually had an accident during production that left one side of his face unfilmable. "On the second day of shooting, Franchot Tone didn't show up," Serling is quoted as saying. "And we waited and we waited. The call is six in the morning. When it got to be 10 a.m. and everybody had been sitting there in their own smoke waiting and no Franchot Tone, we get his agent who tracks him down. He's in a clinic."
Tone had been injured the night before, and one side of his face was apparently "scraped raw." According to Serling, the actor had been beaten by the boyfriend of a girl he'd approached in a restaurant parking lot. Co-star Sullivan had a different story, saying that Tone fell onto a driveway at a party while trying to pick flowers for a date. Either way, the actor could no longer be shot from both sides of his face, as the injury was prominent. A notoriously brisk production, "The Twilight Zone" had to find a way around showing Tone's injury. "I said, 'So be it,'" Serling recalled. "Come on in, Franch, and we'll shoot the other side of your face,' which we did."
Serling made sure to shoot Franchot Tone's good side
Tone had already filmed one day before receiving the injury, and luckily enough, that shoot encompassed the episode's opening and closing scenes. This meant episode scribe Serling and director Boris Sagal could use the limitation to their advantage, stylistically aligning the angled shots of Tone's face with the scenes in which Jamie is trapped in glass. In the first and final scenes, Archie is honest with Jamie, but when he's trapped in the box, Archie uses underhanded techniques to try to make him crack. He's lying through his teeth, and with only 50 percent of the actor's face available to shoot, "The Twilight Zone" made that idiom literal.
"The Silence" isn't among the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone," but that's through no fault of its actors or director. The episode simply doesn't land quite right because it feels so out of place in a show that typically stretches the boundaries of our imagination. The only magic on display in this half-hour is movie magic, but in this case, the show's adaptability is more impressive than any alien reveal.
"The Twilight Zone" is currently streaming on Paramount+ and Freevee.