The Night of the Meek

"The Night of the Meek"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 11
Directed by Jack Smight
Written by Rod Serling
Produced by Buck Houghton
Featured music None credited
Production code 173-3663
Original air date December 23, 1960
Guest appearance(s)

"The Night of the Meek" is episode 47 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on December 23, 1960 on CBS.

Introductory scene/opening narration

As snow begins to fall, a drunk Henry Corwin, wearing his Santa Claus suit, stumbles and half-falls at a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob, the camera pans to Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf:

Plot

It is Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er-do-well, dressed in a baggy, worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on a sandwich and six drinks at the neighborhood bar. While Bruce, the bartender, is on the phone, he sees Corwin reaching for the bottle; Bruce throws him out.

Corwin arrives for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, an hour late and obviously drunk. When customers complain, Dundee, the manager, fires him and orders him off the premises. Corwin says that he drinks because he lives in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is incapable of fulfilling his desired role as Santa. He declares that if he had just one wish granted him on Christmas Eve, he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth".

Still in his outfit, he returns to the bar but is refused re-entry by Bruce. Stumbling into an alley, he hears sleigh bells. A cat knocks down a large burlap bag full of empty cans; but when he trips over it, it is now filled with gift-wrapped packages. As he starts giving them away, he realizes that the bag is somehow producing any item that is asked for.

Overjoyed at his sudden ability to fulfill dreams, Corwin proceeds to hand out presents to passing children and then to derelict men attending Christmas Eve service at Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House". Irritated by the disruption and outraged by Corwin's offer of a new dress, Sister Florence hurries outside to fetch Officer Flaherty, who arrests Corwin for stealing the presents from his former place of employment.

At the police station, Dundee reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purportedly stolen goods, but instead finds the empty cans and the cat. Angry at having his time wasted, he throws accusations of incompetence at Flaherty and disbelief at Corwin's claim that the bag is supernatural. Dundee challenges Corwin to produce a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903. Corwin reaches into the bag to hand Dundee his exact request, and is set free. He continues to distribute gifts until midnight, when the bag is empty.

A man named Burt, whose desired pipe and smoking jacket had come from Corwin's bag, sees Corwin again and points out that Corwin himself has not received a gift. Corwin says that if he had his choice of any gift at all, "I think I'd wish I could do this every year". Returning to the alley where the gift-laden bag had presented itself, he encounters an elf sitting in a large reindeer-hauled sleigh, waiting for him. Realising that his wish has come true and he is now the real Santa Claus, Corwin sits in the sleigh and sets off with the elf.

Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly tipsy from Corwin's brandy, look upward upon hearing the tinkle of bells and see Corwin, in Flaherty's words, "big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin' next to an elf", ascending into the night sky. Dundee invites Flaherty to accompany him home and share some hot coffee, with brandy poured in it, adding, "...and we'll thank God for miracles, Flaherty..."

Closing narration

The original narration, on December 23, 1960, ended with the words, "and a Merry Christmas, to each and all", but that phrase was deleted in the 1980s and is now excluded from reruns, VHS releases and the five-DVD set The Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition. The phrase is heard in the Blu-ray release of Season 2 as well as the version streamed by Netflix, but with noticeably different sound quality from the rest of Serling's narration.

Credits

Billed (in order of appearance)

  • Andrea Margolis (Girl pleading for "a job for my daddy")
  • Jimmy Garrett (Boy pleading for "a big turkey pot Christmas dinner")
  • Nan Peterson (Blonde in the bar, sitting next to the sleeping drunk)
  • Matthew McCue (Collins, one of the derelicts at the mission)
  • Larrian Gillespie (Adolescent elf)

Episode notes

By November 1960, The Twilight Zone's second season had already broadcast five episodes and finished filming sixteen. However, at a cost of about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. As a result, six consecutive episodes were videotaped and subsequently kinescoped to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission and future syndicated rebroadcasts. "The Night of the Meek" was one of those six. Total savings on editing and cinematography costs amounted to only about $30,000 for all six entries – not enough to justify the loss of depth of visual perspective, which gave those shows an appearance akin to that of stagebound live TV dramas, or even daytime soap operas which, at the time, were quickly and cheaply produced live on one or two sets. The experiment was therefore deemed a failure and never attempted again.

Even though the six episodes were recorded in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the fourth one, shown on December 23, 1960 as second-season episode 11. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour", was seen on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; the second, "Static", was shown on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth", appeared on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fifth, "Twenty Two", came on February 10, 1961 as episode 17; and the last one, "Long Distance Call", was transmitted on March 31, 1961 as episode 22.

Remake

See also

References

  1. ↑ Romano, Carlin, Inquirer book critic. "He Was So Outspoken About TV He Was Called Its Leading Critic in 1961. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2, 1993)"

Sources

  • DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
  • Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
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