Customer Reviews

Twilight Zone (Time Enough At Last/The Monsters are Due on Maple Street) [VHS]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This is one of Serling's best stories put on film. It is very insightful of how human nature can lead to the destruction of communities, self and others. He shows that when something is different from the norm is introduced into our lives we immediately become fearful and suspicious of all others around us.

"Monsters on Maple Street" is one of the all time outstanding Twilight Zone episodes. For those who feel a hunger for stories that possess depth and intelligence not found in contemporary television, you are in for a real treat. This should be required viewing for television executives today. An added pleasure is counting all the young actors that later developed famous acting acreers. END

" The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"

Rod Serling, a screenplay writer for MGM in the 1950's wrote many famous science fiction teleplays, movies, Broadway shows, and television entertainment shows. Serling has won multiple Emmy awards for his work. He wrote 92 twilight zone episodes that were aired on CBS. They became one of America's most recognized, and most popular television series.
Some of Serling's most famous writings include: "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Time Enough at Last". "Time Enough at Last" was written in 1959. I do not know when "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" was written but I assume it was around 1959.
Rod Serling died on June 28th, 1975. He died during a coronary bypass operation in Rochester, New York. Rod Serling's stories of aliens and super natural happenings are entertaining for all to this day. His name will live on in science fiction history forever.
"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street", a teleplay and television entertainment show, was written by Serling in the nineteen fifties'. I love how Serling describes les Goodman's car starting up with no one in it (673). This event brings chaos and unproven assumptions. Other things, such as flickering lights, happen all down Maple Street. They are mostly all blamed on Les Goodman because of his insomnia. These things bring complete and utter chaos.
Confusion breaks free when all of the lights and appliances down Maple Street turn off and stop working (668-669). This advances the plot to confusion. Chaos doesn't come until Les Goodmans' car starts up with no one inside. People turn wild as new and crazy things happen down Maple Street. Sound effects in this section of the teleplay are screams, crying, and gunfires.
Other crazy things happen down Maple Street. Lights flicker, appliances turn on and off, and again chaos starts up (683). Mostly these things are blamed on Les Goodman. They think he is an alien because his insomnia sometimes wakes him up. So to occupy himself he takes walks at night and claims to be looking at stars. But the families all down Maple Street think he is looking for his alien friends. This foreshadows who is behind all of the chaos and confusion.
I thought Rod Serling's teleplay, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street", was very realistic when referring to human nature. Even though it is believed that alien or outer space life forms are not real. The car starting then produces this assumption.
I thought it was interesting how Serling never gave a definite ending to "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street". He never gives a definite ending to the teleplay. I just assumed the chaos went on until every human life on Maple Street was dead or confused for their lifetime. Even though I am not into science fiction writings, I really enjoyed "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street". I would call this science fiction movie and teleplay one of the best from the 1950's.

I read the script and saw the Twilight Zone episode in class "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" by Rod Serling, and I thought that it was one of the great episodes of all the Twilight Zone. I liked the suspense and anxiety of the neighbors of Maple Street. This anxiety is even more increased when a boy named Tommy explains about aliens from outer space. At this point, all of the residents and neighbors of Maple Street start to doubt each other's humanity, and this event foreshadows certain chaos in store for Maple Street. This drives the neighbors to be the opposite of what good neighbors should be.
When Tommy gathers courage to bravely confront the residents of Maple Street, he speaks about the supposed "existence of aliens". He tells everyone about how "They looked just like humans." (672) The residents of Maple Street try to dismiss this story as a myth, something that could never happen. When the lights go on and off and cars start up, their minds expand this so-called myth into ridiculous proportions. They slowly start to believe Tommy and his story, and the residents of Maple Street start to doubt each other's humanity.
I think that the doubt and fear that the residents of Maple Street exhibit sort of foreshadows the future chaos and destruction that is in store for Maple Street. Les Goodman is the first to be accused of being not human, an extraterrestrial. Charlie, a neighbor that is affected the most by the strange incidents, makes this accusation. The fear grows when a strange dark figure walks slowly down Maple Street. Charlie is
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blinded by his extreme paranoia, and he shoots the dark figure dead. They soon find out that the shadowy figure is really Pete Van Horn, one of their fellow neighbors. Charlie is in turn accused by the residents of Maple Street that he is the real alien among all of them. The blame shifts just as quickly to Tommy, and then to another. Soon, Maple Street erupts in a volcano of chaos. Steve asks everyone amid this chaos, "Are you all gone crazy? Stop!" (681) His words don't help, and he ends up with a punch to his face.
Tommy's story eventually drives the neighbors to be just the opposite of what good neighbors should be. The story leads Charlie to shoot Pete Van Horn. I think the theme of the teleplay is to care for your neighbors and not to jump to conclusions. The theme of the book is sort of like that quote, "Love thy neighbor." Rod Serling tells everyone about what good neighbors should be like through his screenplay. Maple Street resembles the average and normal American streets back in the 1950s. Just because of a few lights and cars going haywire I don't think that friends and neighbors shouldn't turn on each other like they are mortal enemies. The violence of the characters of the teleplay are vividly described when Serling describes the camera shots as, "There are several close camera shots suggesting the coming of violence. A hand fires a rifle. A fist clenches. A hand grabs a hammer..." (682)
In conclusion, I really liked the realism and morals of the story. "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" is really a great Twilight Zone episode even though the visual effects are sort of primitive by modern standards. I loved the suspense and fear and paranoia shown by the characters in the teleplay. I think that this is truly the best of all of the classics by Rod Serling.

This video contains what are perhaps the two best-known and loved TWILIGHT ZONE titles, "Time Enough at Last" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." The former episode stars Burgess Meredith as a bookish bank teller named Henry Bemis. Scolded by his boss and his wife for being "a reader," Bemis retires to the bank's vault each day during his lunch hour to indulge his passion. One day while he is reading in the vault, a nuclear explosion happens and the earth is turned into a wasteland. Stumbling upon the remains of a public library, Bemis declares that now he has all the time in the world to read - but does he really? Serling's script for "Time Enough at Last" is whimsical though ultimately tragic, with similarities to both "The Obsolete Man" (also with Meredith) and "The Lonely."
"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" reflects Serling's concern with the dangers of conformity and prejudice, seen also in another classic episode, "The Eye of the Beholder." An apparent power failure causes mass hysteria on Maple Street; the suburban citizens believe that "monsters" from outer space have landed - and Serling proves them right, in more ways than one. The "Monsters" script is powerful, with subtle references to the Holocaust and a chilling end-narration from Serling. The cast, however, is generally undistinguished, and the acting from everyone except for Claude Akins as semi-hero Steve Brand and Jack Weston as antagonist Charlie is rather wooden. But while in any other episode this would be a fatal flaw, in "Monsters" it hardly matters, since the real "star" of the episode is the mob - that is, everyone AS A GROUP.

Time Enough At Last - A sole survivor of a nuclear war is all alone in its aftermath. First, he finds solace in books. However, after he breaks his reading glasses, he is lost.

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street - After the lights go out on Maple Street and the phones go dead, the neighbors become afraid and accuse each other of somehow causing the problem after seeing a meteorite or possibly a UFO pass through the neighborhood.

TZ Vol.2 has to be second best of all Twilight Zone Tapes. Having The great Monsters Are Due On Maple Street with the IMMORTAl episode Time Enough At Last is A great Bargen.

I liked the monsters are due on maple street... It made the 50's seem so abnormal because how things are today... If you haven't seen the origanal you must see it...!!!

"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," is a classical episode of the Twilight Zone. I like how it showed that we can be prejudice and suspicious. It's also interesting how all the "monsters", or aliens, had to do was flick on and off a few lights to scare the people. Then the rest was the peoples own doing. The movie is very dramatic, and is almost exactly the same as the teleplay. The fact that it is in black and white makes it even more intense, in my opinion. The video and the teleplay both had the same scene of fright where the lights go out and nothing works. This then goes on to mass confusion, foreshadows the coming of aliens, and shows the weak points of the human race.
The plot advances with chaos. The people get scared and confused. They blame each other for having something they don't. This causes mass confusion and general panic. Things only get worse after that. One thing happens after another. The suspicious grows and the people get paranoid, until someone is killed. This person was Pete Van Horn. "You killed him, Charlie. You shot him dead!" (679)
As the plot advances they also foreshow what will come. The aliens are the ones who cause all the lights to fail, but the humans are the ones who became suspicious. This foreshadows the doom of the humans. The aliens plan to go from Maple Street to Maple Street and do the same to cause the fall of humans. "Then I take this place... this Maple Street...is not unique."
Rod Sterling's theme for "Monsters are due on Maple Street" is you shouldn't be too quick to judge people. Or be suspicious of people who have things you don't. Chaos supports this theme in showing how easily we can become suspicious of others. Then from there chaos and mayhem come. The theme could also be a kind of moral. "They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find... and it is them selves" (682) I think this quote is a good quote to describe the theme.
I think "Monsters are due on Maple Street" is really great. It has a wonderful plot. When I read the teleplay, I thought it was just like the other Twilight Zones. (I have seen a few others. One was about a man being in isolation.) I really enjoyed the Monsters are due on Maple Street. The teleplay was almost exactly like the movie or visa versa. My favorite part in this one was at the end where the sudden quietness is shocking. Then the aliens come and start talking, and it fades out to Sterling's face and he said his "And this is the Twilight Zone." I also like the beginning/ending songs. In conclusion I think the teleplay and the movie were both equally interesting.

The Monsters Due On Maple Street

"The Monsters Due On Maple Street" was probably the only kind of movie that was supposed to be scary back then. Since I'm in the year 2003 that movie was pretty dumb, but back in that time it must have been awesome. The aliens looked really dumb with those two antennas. I liked seeing all the fake shooting and killing. I can now see how far we have come with movies since then. The movie was confusing until the alien started to talk. They told their plan of taking over the Earth by flickering some lights and making some stuff mess up. When they said that, it put all the pieces of the movie together, and foreshadowed that the human race would end because of prejudice.
I think the way he ended the movie was great. He told about the plan and makes you think, could that happen to us? That is how he advanced the plot, he told the story about the alien's plan and then had them talk and tell how everybody is the same. He had the aliens take off saying they were going to take over the world just by sitting down. Then left for another place to terrorize.
When the aliens talk it foreshadows the Earth in complete destruction. Dying because of them assuming that their friends are the enemy, when really they are the most dangerous because they terrorize people as innocent as them. When the aliens talk they say the theme of how people can be so prejudice. "They find the most dangerous enemy they can find............and it's themselves" (682). It is the probably the best and easiest plan the aliens have ever come up with.
The theme in this story is not to be prejudice. My part advanced the theme by talking. The aliens tell their plan about using prejudice to destroy the humans. As much as that sounded stupid, it was smart. The aliens could actually make their plan work, and that is what The Monsters Due Maple Street shows. About everyone has a little bit of prejudice inside him. After reading the story, realizing the theme, and thinking about it, you will think could that happen to me?
The book and movie are so close to each other. You can read from the book and they will say almost all of the same lines in the movie. That is what helps me relate to the movie. I can just see if the picture was same in the movie as in my mind. In other movies they are far off from the book, so it changes the whole view of the story. The author picked a great way to show how everyone can be so prejudice. When I read the story I also was prejudice. I thought Charlie was the alien, but as I found out nobody was. That surprised me a lot. This was the first book that showed that nobody was the bad guy, and that made the story's end great.