Mute
- Episode aired Jan 31, 1963
- TV-14
- 51m
Ilse, the orphaned daughter of telepathic parents must learn to speak and deal with a world she cannot communicate in.Ilse, the orphaned daughter of telepathic parents must learn to speak and deal with a world she cannot communicate in.Ilse, the orphaned daughter of telepathic parents must learn to speak and deal with a world she cannot communicate in.
- Ilse
- (as Ann Jilliann)
- Frau Werner
- (as Eva Soreny)
- Karl Werner
- (as Oscar Beregi)
- Pedestrian
- (uncredited)
- Rude man on porch
- (uncredited)
- Man in Flashback
- (uncredited)
- Bartender
- (uncredited)
- Committee member in prologue
- (uncredited)
- Narrator
- (uncredited)
- …
- Pedestrian
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe main street that Ilsa runs across is the same one used in I Sing the Body Electric (1962). Located on the MGM backlot in Culver City, it was known as the "New England Street", and is same set that was featured in the Andy Hardy movies, starring Mickey Rooney., Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock", Frank Sinatra's "Some Came Running" and the 1970s musical fantasy "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band", starring The Bee Gees, which was the last major film shot there. Much of the MGM backlot had been demolished in 1974, and the remainder, including the New England Street, was pulled down in 1978, soon after filming wrapped on "Sgt Pepper's".
- GoofsIsle is bothered by people's voices, but not by any other sounds, including ringing phones and doorbells.
- Quotes
Narrator: [Opening Narration] What you're witnessing is the curtain-raiser to a most extraordinary play; to wit, the signing of a pact, the commencement of a project. The play itself will be performed almost entirely offstage. The final scenes are to be enacted a decade hence and with a different cast. The main character of these final scenes is Ilse, the daughter of Professor and Mrs. Nielsen, age two. At the moment she lies sleeping in her crib, unaware of the singular drama in which she is to be involved. Ten years from this moment, Isle Nielsen is to know the desolating terror of living simultaneously in the world - and in The Twilight Zone.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Twilight-Tober-Zone: Mute (2023)
Another reviewer excuses the teacher's behavior as simply being a product of that era. I don't know how you could see this woman's actions and attitudes as anything less than sinister, particularly her line about making Ilse just like everyone else. As for Cora Wheeler, I have my doubts that she truly loved Ilse and find it plausible she saw her more as a substitute for her dead daughter. The underhanded way in which she sabotaged Ilse's chances at being reunited with people like herself did little to endear me to her, nor did the hysterical way she clung to the confused Ilse in the end, screaming about how Ilse needed her, when the case seemed to be more the other way around.
All this is not to necessarily say that I wholeheartedly approve of child rearing techniques of Ilse's biological parents, but frankly, if a line hadn't been shoehorned in at the end that explains that the Nielsens viewed Ilse as a science experiment more than a daughter, it would be harder to condemn them as parents simply because they were a tad unorthodox. When Ilse begins speaking her name out loud for the first time, it didn't register as an uplifting moment for me, like Helen Keller saying "water" in "The Miracle Worker," but rather it had the extremely uncomfortable feel of watching someone break under the strain of mental torture. What was intended as a hopeful ending instead left me feeling saddened that something special had been lost in order to force Ilse to conform to the rest of "normal" society.
- rocketXpert
- Jun 1, 2011
Details
- Runtime51 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1