Shadow Play (1961 The Twilight Zone episode)

"Shadow Play"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 26
Directed by	John Brahm
Written by	Charles Beaumont (adapted from his short story, "Träumerei")
Production code	173-3657
Original air date	May 5, 1961
Guest appearance(s)
Dennis Weaver Harry Townes Wright King Bernie Hamilton William Edmonson Anne Barton Tommy Nello Mack Williams Gene Roth
Episode chronology

"Shadow Play" is episode 62 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on May 5, 1961, on CBS.

Plot

A man convicted of murder, Adam Grant (Weaver), tries to convince those about to execute him that the world all around them is just his recurring nightmare. The story opens with the jury finding Grant guilty of murder and the judge sentencing him to death. He laughs uncontrollably, and exclaims that he refuses to die again. He claims that the district attorney and lawyers are all people he has known in his past, selected by his subconscious to play roles in his dream.

Speaking to others, including District Attorney Henry Ritchie, he points out logical errors accepted as normal by those around him, such as the fact that his arrest, trial, and execution are happening on the same day, and the fact the prisoners seem to stereotypically look like what you'd see in a story. Paul Carson, a reporter and friend of Ritchie, is questioning his own reality (he wonders about his impossibly perfect life). He persuades Ritchie to visit Grant. Ritchie speaks to Grant, but does not believe him. He asks Grant why he cares about dying if it's all a dream. Grant explains that he cannot get a decent night's sleep because he always wakes up screaming. He predicts what Ritchie's wife is preparing for dinner.

Ritchie goes home and finds that Grant's prediction is correct. This unnerves him, and he returns to the prison to talk with Carson. Carson says that Grant's claims call into question his sanity, and that Ritchie should ask the governor to issue a stay of execution. With reservations, Ritchie calls the governor, and the governor agrees to make the necessary phone call. The stay of execution arrives too late, Grant is executed, and the world descends into darkness and vanishes.

Grant finds himself in the courtroom being sentenced to death for murder again. The same people surround him in the courtroom, but their identities and roles have changed (e.g., a fellow inmate from the previous version of the dream is now the judge behind the bench).

Cast

Dennis Weaver as Adam Grant
Harry Townes as District Attorney Henry Ritchie
Wright King as Paul Carson
Bernie Hamilton as Coley
William Edmonson as Jiggs
Anne Barton as Carol Ritchie
Tommy Nello as Phillips
Mack Williams as Father Beaman
Gene Roth as Judge

Quotations

Opening narration

“

Adam Grant, a nondescript kind of man, found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice, he's scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn't prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It's something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in - The Twilight Zone.

”

Closing narration

“

We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live, instead, - in The Twilight Zone?

”

Adaptations

It was remade under the same title as part of the 1980s series in which Peter Coyote played Adam Grant.

It was also adapted for radio under the same title as part of The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas in which Ernie Hudson played Adam Grant.^[1]

References in popular culture

In Werner Herzog's series of films, On Death Row, Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner refers to this episode when discussing his feelings about his numerous stays of execution.

The X-Files episode "Monday" was inspired by "Shadow Play".

References

↑ "Store". Twilight Zone Radio.

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

External links

"Shadow Play" at the Internet Movie Database
Template:Tv.com episode12646
Full video of the episode at CBS.com

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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