A Most Unusual Camera
- Episode aired Dec 16, 1960
- TV-PG
- 25m
When three unintelligent crooks get ahold of a camera that takes pictures of the future, they set out to make a quick fortune with their new toy.When three unintelligent crooks get ahold of a camera that takes pictures of the future, they set out to make a quick fortune with their new toy.When three unintelligent crooks get ahold of a camera that takes pictures of the future, they set out to make a quick fortune with their new toy.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAdam Williams began and ended 1960 with Twilight Zone appearances. This episode, in which Williams plays the dumb brother Woodward, first aired in December 1960 while in January 1960 "The Hitchhiker" aired. In that episode Williams plays a sailor.
- GoofsChester and Paula were staying in a hotel suite. Somehow Woodward happened to know where they were - including the room number. However, it's not inconceivable that Paula's family, including brother Woodward, would know her residence.
- Quotes
Narrator: [Opening Narration] A hotel suite that, in this instance, serves as a den of crime, the aftermath of a rather minor event to be noted on a police blotter, an insurance claim, perhaps a three-inch box on page twelve of the evening paper. Small addenda to be added to the list of the loot: a camera, a most unimposing addition to the flotsam and jetsam that it came with, hardly worth mentioning really, because cameras are cameras, some expensive, some purchasable at five-and-dime stores. But this camera, this one's unusual because in just a moment we'll watch it inject itself into the destinies of three people. It happens to be a fact that the pictures that it takes can only be developed in The Twilight Zone.
- ConnectionsEdited into Twilight-Tober-Zone: A Most Unusual Camera (2021)
Adam Williams plays the part of Woodward, Paula's escaped con brother, possibly the dumbest character ever presented on the twilight zone. Soon a Frenchman shows up in their room and notices that the camera says, in French, that it only allows 10 pictures per owner, providing Rod Serling with a great opportunity to make one of his exploratory statements about the human psyche. Obviously, the only thing on the crooks' mind is greed, but Serling doesn't seem to know where else to go with this message.
The Frenchman gives us an antagonist to our antagonists, plotting to steal the money that they won unfairly and unsquarely. But the ending of the episode is just too goofy to take seriously, even for a twilight zone episode. After learning that the camera only takes ten pictures per owner, rather than consider the possibility of each of them taking turns being the owner (and thus getting at least another 22 pictures out of it), Chester and Woodward start fighting over it and end up falling out the window to the ground below.
Paula gives a weak attempt at grief until she realizes that now all of their prize money is hers to keep, and just for the hell of it, looks out the window and takes a picture of her brother and husband dead on the ground below. What the hell? Not only does she waste one of the two pictures left, but she takes a picture of something that surely she would never want to see in the first place.
But soon we realize that this is crucial to the plot, as the Frenchman immediately shows up ad calmly begins collecting the money, since he has an airtight insurance against her telling the police, as this would put her in a, ah, fantastic plight. He tells her that there are not just two bodies in the picture that the camera spit out after she snapped one out the window, and rather than going to look at it, she runs to the window with enough velocity to trip and fling herself out the window to the ground below. Come ON.
I can accept Chester and Woodward falling out the window while fighting over the camera, and I can accept Paula getting over their deaths immediately, as soon as she realizes that now all the money is hers, but then the Frenchman shows up and not only doesn't notice that there are four bodies in the photo that Paula took out the window and not three, but she manages to accidentally fall out the window herself.
Now, at this point, it's getting difficult enough to believe, but then the guy notices that, wait! There aren't three bodies, there are four! Oh no!! The camera then pans away and we hear the sound of the Frenchman falling out the window too. I'm guess we panned away because they had run out of ideas for how four people could accidentally fall out of the same window within a few minutes of each other.
The moral of the episode is clear enough, and it is an entertaining episode, but definitely has far more 'oh please' moments than I have come to expect from your typical twilight zone episode.
- Anonymous_Maxine
- Jun 28, 2008
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1