Customer Reviews

The Twilight Zone: Perchance To Dream/ Shadow [VHS]

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No effort was spared by director Robert Florey (co-scripter of the first Karloff Frankenstein movie, and director of Murders in the Rue Morgue, Beast with 5 Fingers, Thriller's best Karloff episode "The Incredible Doctor Markesan") to film scenes of actual dark rides at San Francisco's now lost Playland-at-the-Beach and Pacific Ocean Park. This footage of the ñLimboī display case shot for Twilight Zoneļs ñPerchance To Dreamī is the real star of the episode, but Richard Conte gives one of his solid hard-boiled film noir characterisations. LimboÍs sinister mechanical paper mache star attraction was a vampire witch, with sharp fingernails that swayed hypnotically with dangling metallic drops of blood hinged to those freakish hands. Also seen and archived for posterity in this overlooked T. Zone are several other "lost" side show icons (created by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in the '40s) displayed above the spook ride entrance: a bloody ape, hands reaching from a grave (a nod to the Zone's short-lived companion series hosted by Roald Dahl, WAY OUT) and a Tor Johnson-esque monster in velvet. Watch for the nearby giant skull. There are several studio mock-ups not nearly as convincing, however- such as the gorilla that rolls by Conte and the "Cat-Girl. "Perchance To Dream" along with "Shadow Play" are the most essential dream-within-a-dream Twilight Zones. You won't hear the usual moral sermon from Serling either. Top-notch TV terror from the '60s.

"Perchance to Dream," written by Charles Beaumont for THE TWILIGHT ZONE's first season, has everything: a subtle and sensitive script with a protagonist who invites sympathy, a brilliant central performance by Richard Conte, taut direction by Robert Florey, and an apt and memorable score by Van Cleave. "Shadow Play," written for the series' second season and starring Dennis Weaver, is excellent, too. Clearly Beaumont, whose ZONE scripts were a bit darker and more unsettling than those of the series' creator, Rod Serling, was fascinated by dream-within-a-dream stories; he certainly did them up well. Another of Beaumont's finest episodes, which I would also recommend, is "Long Live Walter Jameson"; this one is available exclusively on DVD.