"American Masters"
Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval (1995)

Director:

Susan Lacy

Writers:

John F. Goff (writer)
Thomas Wagner (writer)

TV Series:

"American Masters" (1983)

Original Air Date:

29 November 1995

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Music | Romance

Plot:

The life and career of the renowned television writer and creator of the classic science fiction series, "The Twilight Zone." |

Plot Keywords:

Film Clip | Retrospective | Reflection | Interview | Rise And Fall

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Rod Serling	...	Himself (archive footage)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Desi Arnaz	...	Himself (presenting Emmy to Rod Serling) (archive footage)
Fielder Cook	...	Himself
Mike Dann	...	Himself
Saul David	...	Himself
Micky Dolenz	...	Melvin (archive footage) (as Micky Braddock)
Helen Foley	...	Herself
John Frankenheimer	...	Himself
Don Gordon	...	Himself
Lee Grant	...	Narrator
Mitchell Greenberg	...	Voice of Rod Serling
Vernon Hartung	...	Himself
Earl Holliman	...	Himself
Buck Houghton	...	Himself
Kim Hunter	...	Herself
George Clayton Johnson	...	Himself
Lamont Johnson	...	Himself
Richard Kiley	...	Himself
Jack Klugman	...	Himself
Alan Landsburg	...	Himself
Loring Mandel	...	Himself
Martin Manulis	...	Himself
Richard Matheson	...	Himself
Joseph McCarthy	...	Himself (archive footage)
Elliott Novak	...	Himself
Jack Palance	...	Himself
Robert Redford	...	Himself (voice)
Del Reisman
William Reynolds	...	Himself (archive footage)
Cliff Robertson	...	Himself
William Self	...	Himself
Anne Serling	...	Herself (Daughter of Rod Serling)
Carol Serling	...	Herself
Jodi Serling	...	Herself (Daughter of Rod Serling)
Robert J. Serling	...	Himself
Mike Wallace	...	Himself
Marc Scott Zicree	...	Himself

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

CBS Entertainment Production

Movie Connections:

References A Storm in Summer (1970) (TV)

A sympathetic, if brief, look at Serling's life.

I saw this PBS production on Christmas week - December 25th being Serling's birthday, it was appropriate. The opening sequence is shot in the same expressionistic, tense way as the best Zone episodes. And in all honesty, it focused on Serling's "Twilight Zone" work because it was the best and most available of his TV work.

There is little talk of his post-Zone work; he loathed "Night Gallery" and pretty much despaired of TV after that. His movie work, such as his screenplay for "Planet of the Apes," showed little of the boldness of his Zone scripts. I'd also hazard a guess that these parts of his career work was unavailable to the producers. (Some of Serling's works, such as his anti-Semitism episode of the Catholic show "Insight" and his UN-brotherhood fantasy "Carol for Another Christmas," are just plain unavailable.) Given what they had, the producers did a remarkable job, using sequences of "Zone" to illustrate Serling's worldview and state of mind. They gave him a fitting tribute, far better than what his industry gave him.