Mr. Denton on Doomsday
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Template:Infobox TTW season one Mr. Denton on Doomsday is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.
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Details
Episode number:3
Season:1
Production code: 173-3609
Original air date: October 16, 1959
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Allen Reisner
Music: stock
Cast
Al Denton:Dan Duryea
Henry J. Fate:Malcolm Atterbury
Hotaling: Martin Landau
Liz: Jeanne Cooper
Pete Grant: Doug McClure
Synopsis
Washed-up gunslinger Al Denton is given another chance by a mysterious man by the name of Henry J. Fate, who offers him a potion guaranteed to make him the fastest gun in the West for five seconds. Facing a quick-draw who rode into town looking for a duel, Denton downs his vial of the potion only to find his opponent holding an identical bottle. Both men shoot each other's hand, causing injuries that will never allow them to use a gun again. Afterwards, Denton tells his opponent that they have both been blessed.
Trivia
- The title character was named after a childhood friend of Serling's, Herbert Denton.
- The following is an excerpt from Rod Serling's pitch to potential sponsors of his new show, The Twilight Zone. It was included as an extra on "Twilight Zone's" DVD release, and was transcribed by Matthew Cregg.
"A parenthetic note here: on the Twilight Zone there'll be a variety of stories, and this is a variety that covers not only story type but time, locale, the nature of the people. For example, this is a western called "Death, Destre and Mr. Dingle." And this is the principal character in the story. It's a Colt .45. There's a schoolmaster named Dingle who picks up this gun one day finding it in a school yard. Quite accidentally, it goes off on a couple of occasions. First it hits a rattlesnake between the eyes at fifty yards, then it knocks the gun out of a desperado's hand. And while it's all quite accidental, the various onlookers make an assumption that Mr. Dingle's a pretty fast gun. And they start to build not only a reputation for this spindly little dude but also almost a reverent tradition. And, as in the classic western mold, every top gun in and out of the territory converge on the town ready to invite Mr. Dingle, poor little Mr. Dingle who really doesn't know how to use a gun, to a showdown. So, Mr. Dingle buys himself a little vial full of liquid that's simply out of this world because it comes with a money-back guarantee. Simply that it will make him the fastest gun in the west for fifteen seconds. It's this vial he carries into a saloon one night ready to meet at gunpoint a gentleman named Dirty Dan Destre. A fast gun in his own right. So fast he makes Hugh O'Brien look like Charles Coburn. But when the two men face one another and Mr. Dingle drinks his liquid with the money-back guarantee, he suddenly sees in the hand of his opponent a very familiar vial, identical with his own. I won't tell you the ending except that it's reasonably happy if unexpected."
Themes
Perhaps an allegory for the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, with Fate's potion representing "the bomb" which when originally in America's hands only ensured victory promised an unbreakable stalemate when possessed by both parties.
External link
- TV Tome episode page (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-237/epid-12587)
References
- Sander, Gordon F.:Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
Back to: The Twilight Zone, Episode List, Season 1