Mr. Denton on Doomsday
- Episode aired Oct 16, 1959
- TV-PG
- 25m
The town drunk in the old-west faces his past when Fate lends a hand.The town drunk in the old-west faces his past when Fate lends a hand.The town drunk in the old-west faces his past when Fate lends a hand.
- Narrator
- (voice)
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
- Stagecoach Driver
- (uncredited)
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
- Barfly
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- Rod Serling(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn his 1959 promotional film shown to potential sponsors, Rod Serling summarized an earlier version of this week's plot under its original title, "Death, Destry, and Mr. Dingle." As told by Serling, the basic premise is similar, but the earlier version seems to have been more comedic in tone, involving a meek schoolteacher who quite unintentionally gains notoriety as a top gunslinger. The name "Mr. Dingle" (originally intended for the Dan Duryea character) would be used by Serling for a future episode, Mr. Dingle, the Strong (1961) with Burgess Meredith playing the eponymous character.
- GoofsTV antennas can be spotted in the distance.
- Quotes
Al Denton: I was good. I was real good. I was so good that once a day, someone would ride into town to make me prove it. And every morning, I'd start my drinkin' a few minutes earlier. Until one morning, the guy who asked me to prove it turned out to be sixteen years old. I left him there on his face. Right there in front of the saloon. I left him there bleedin' to death with my bullet in him. I guess it'll start all over again, now. Every fast and fancy man who owns a gun will come riding in down that street. Only this time it'll be me face down, bleedin' to death. I think I'll go in and get a shave. I wanna look proper on the day I die.
- ConnectionsEdited into Twilight-Tober-Zone: Mr. Denton On Doomsday (2020)
- SoundtracksStenka Razin
(uncredited)
Russian folk tune
played throughout
While the Twilight Zone is best remembered for twist endings, it's best episodes almost always featured richly developed characters and/or sharply delivered plots that set enormously high stakes for those characters. "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" delivers on both in spades. Dan Duryea made his career as a villain throughout the 40s and 50s -- a character with a charming smile and a deadly sneer to match the personality. In this episode, he creates a character wallowing in alcoholic desperation arising from the loss of what he perceives is his greatest gift (his abilities as a gunman), ready to grab at anything that will revive this gift; the real twist in this episode is what his character learns from reviving that gift, a moral lesson delivered by Serling without unnecessary syrup (something many later Serling-written episode would be all too full of).
The performance that Duryea creates hits all of these notes brilliantly, and he is richly supported by the entire cast -- Jeanne Cooper and Ken Lynch as the sympathetic saloon owner and bartender, Malcolm Atterbury as the inscrutable peddler, and Martin Landau as a sadistic thug who terrorizes the Duryea character. Further, Allen Reisner's direction keeps the look as a standard Western, giving the audience a familiar surrounding in which to allow the story to unfold.
This episode is not the one most think of when they think of classic Twilight Zone episodes, but it should be.
- chrstphrtully
- May 27, 2015
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1