4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I just wanted to come back and hear the calliope, May 7, 2002
This review is from: The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance/ Kick the Can [VHS] (VHS Tape)
WALKING DISTANCE is probably the best episode ever produced. Gig Young acts out Serling's prose so perfectly that he speaks for every man that ever wished he could go home again. It is a very moving episode. Bernard Herrmann's score intuitively picks up the emotion and heartfelt sincerity that Serling wrote into this story. This was Rod Serling's, Bernard Herrmann's and Gig Young's finest work for any medium. I think it is the finest piece of work ever put on film. KICK THE CAN is thematically similar and also very moving. It examines what it means to grow old and if one must give up the very things that makes us who we really are. It too is a very heartfelt episode, sincere and remains one of the best.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timeless and Forever., January 1, 2002
This review is from: The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance/ Kick the Can [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Long ago when Television was young there were indeed programs of quality and value. One of the great icons of the era was for sure Rod Serling. Mr. Serling has been gone now since 1975...but his vision and talent and taste for the ironic live on in " Twilight Zone" episodes.
In "Walking Distance" Martin Sloan( Gig Young) gets to look back on his life in a very special way. A shock to himself when he sees himself, as a boy, carving names into a post on a gazebo..( a gazebo that could have been possibly in Serling's home town of Binghamton New York.
The quagmire of time and space are now imposed on Martin Sloan..and this unique teleplay is one of the best 26 minutes you might see on Television. The montage scene on the merry go round...the field is at first tilted...then corrects itself with a return to Mr. Sloan's reality..Frak Overton, Byron Foulger and Ronnie Howard round out the singular cast.
If this were all not enough, Bernard Herrman lends a most meloncholy score to the whole proceedings. This is what happens when great artists combine talents to produce something timeless.
Some " Wisp of Memory" indeed!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
serling's best zone, January 15, 2000
This review is from: The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance/ Kick the Can [VHS] (VHS Tape)
"Walking Distance" -- Serling's ode to his childhood in Binghamton, N.Y. -- is extraordinary television. Gig Young is perfect as the world-weary New York ad man who is awakened by the boy within himself. Notice the faraway look in his eyes while he's eating ice cream at the lunch counter or the confusion that registers on his face when he meets his mother and father. The Serling script is autobiographical from start to finish. I was in a college discussion group in the 70s led by Serling when he said that this story and Night Gallery's "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" were among his most personal writing. He also credited Ray Bradbury as an influence, and "Walking Distance" certainly has that Bradbury feel of longing for small-town America of the 20's and 30's. Combine that with the Bernard Hermann music and the Victorian town set, with a vintage bandstand and carousel, and this is more like a short film than a TV show. But it is the Serling script and the performance by Young that make make this sparkle.
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