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| Mr. Jeff Myrtlebank (James Best): declared dead three days ago. |
“The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank”
Season Three, Episode 88
Original Air Date: February 23, 1962
Cast:
Jeff Myrtlebank: James Best
Comfort Gatewood: Sherry Jackson
Doc. Bolton: Edgar
Buchanan
Mr. Peters: Dub
Taylor
Pa Myrtlebank: Ralph
Moody
Ma Myrtlebank: Ezelle
Poule
Liz Myrtlebank: Vickie Barnes
Orgram Gatewood: Lance Fuller
Ma Gatewood: Helen
Wallace
Reverend Siddons: William Fawcett
Strauss: Jon
Lormer
Jerry: James
Houghton
Tom: Patrick
Hector
Mrs. Ferguson: Mabel
Forrest
Crew:
Writer: Montgomery
Pittman (original teleplay)
Director: Montgomery
Pittman
Producer: Buck
Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Director of Photography: Jack Swain
Art Direction: George
W. Davis, Phil Barber
Set Direction: H.
Web Arrowsmith
Assistant Director: E. Darrell Hallenbeck
Casting: Stalmaster-Lister
Editor: Bill
Mosher
Story Consultant: Richard McDonagh
Sound: Franklin
Milton, Bill Edmondson
Music: Tommy
Morgan
And Now, Mr. Serling:
“A symbol of a sad but rather commonplace event. An
impressive funeral, the deceased laid out in a most acceptable manner, but in
this case, at the last moment deciding that in matters concerning the trip to
the great beyond, perhaps this trip wasn’t necessary. You’ll see it next week
on The Twilight Zone when we present Montgomery Pittman’s ‘The Last Rites of
Jeff Myrtlebank.’
“Very often when you write for a living, you run
across blocks. Moments when you can’t think of the right thing to say. Now,
happily, there are no blocks to get in the way of the full pleasure of
Chesterfield. Great tobaccos make a wonderful smoke. Try ‘em. They satisfy.”
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
“Time? The mid-twenties. Place? The Midwest. The
southernmost section of the Midwest. We were just witnessing a funeral. A funeral
that didn’t come off exactly as planned…due to a slight fallout…from the
Twilight Zone.”
Summary:
On a sunny afternoon somewhere in the Midwest, the
residents of a quiet, forgettable town cram themselves inside a tiny church to
pay their respects to one Jeff Myrtlebank, a kind soul taken from the world too
soon. As the reverend recites the eulogy, the townsfolk begin to notice
something strange about the wooden coffin housing Mr. Myrtlebank’s remains at
the front of the room. It begins to creak, to move, and before anyone has time
to process what is happening, it opens all by itself and a man inside sits
straight up and looks directly at the congregation. This is Mr. Jeff
Myrtlebank. He has been dead for three days. The church-goers flee the room,
screaming.
Over the next few weeks the townsfolk begin to speculate
about Jeff Myrtlebank. They say he’s acting strange, different than before. Doc.
Bolton claims that Myrtlebank was dead beyond any doubt when he pronounced him
as such. It’s not long before the talk turns to otherworldly things. Perhaps
Myrtlebank is not who he says he is. Maybe it’s some sort of specter just
pretending to be Myrtlebank. A haint. What if it aims to take over the whole town? After
coming to the conclusion that there is an evil spirit living in their town that
must be stopped at all costs, a mob of angry townsfolk drive out to the
Myrtlebank place.
Myrtlebank
is there with Comfort. The townsfolk tell him that they want him to leave town
and never come back. He tells them that if indeed he is an evil spirit with supernatural
abilities then they should probably refrain from upsetting him. The crowd appears
not to have thought of this possibility. Myrtlebank tells them that he and
Comfort are getting married. The townsfolk abruptly change their tone and seem
delighted by the news. After they leave Comfort witnesses Myrtlebank light a
match without striking it on anything. He offers her his arm and tells her not
to imagine things. She smiles and they walk quietly into the night.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
“Jeff and Comfort are still alive today. And their
only son is a United States Senator. He’s noted as an uncommonly shrewd
politician, and some believe he must have gotten his education…in the Twilight
Zone.”
Commentary:
“The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” marks the end of Montgomery
Pittman’s brief time in The Twilight Zone. He directed a total of five episodes
of the show, three of which—“Two” “The Grave” and “Jeff Myrtlebank”—he also wrote,
making him the only person to write and direct his own material. Unfortunately,
this was one of the last projects he ever completed. Cancer would claim his
life in June of this same year, only four months after this episode first
aired. Pittman’s output is so minimal that his contribution to the show often
goes unnoticed, which is unfortunate. His skill as a storyteller can be seen in
every aspect of production from story to dialogue to character names to
casting. His direction is unique to every episode as is his writing. In just
three teleplays he displays enormous versatility delivering a sensitive post-apocalyptic
love story, a horror western, and a comedy about a hillbilly being possessed by
the devil. One of his scripts features only a few lines of dialogue while the
other two function almost exclusively around it. The Twilight Zone seemed to be the appropriate arena for Pittman’s
unconventional personality after five years under contract to Warner Bros.
Television, bouncing from one series to the next. It was a show that would permit creative experimentation and would
not attempt to alter his material, a problem he had encountered several times
before. His most recognizable contribution to the show was directing Serling’s
season two classic “Will the Real Martian Please Stand up?” While none of his
own teleplays for the show ever achieved this level of fandom, all three are
solid pieces of dramatic television. More importantly they adhere to the
personality of the show. Had he lived and contributed more we might consider
Pittman a key figure in the show’s legacy. Instead, he exits the show’s story only
a few months after entering it, his episodes recognizable to the vast majority
of the show’s fanbase but his name familiar to virtually no one.
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| Montgomery Pittman |
I found only three biographical essays with significant
amounts of original material while researching Pittman’s work. Everything else
seems to be taken from one or more of these works. The first biographical
sketch comes from actor Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. who dedicates an entire chapter of
his career memoir My Dinner of Herbs (2003) to his friendship with Pittman. Zimbalist played womanizing
private detective Stuart Bailey in ABC’s 77
Sunset Strip, of which Pittman wrote and/or directed twenty episodes, by
far his most significant contribution to a single show. The second essay is a
tribute to Pittman from Sugarfoot
actor Will Hutchins written in 2013 for his column “A Touch of Hutch” for the
website Western Clippings. Probably
the most informative resource was a piece written in 2010 by television
historian John Desmond called “A Somewhat Forgotten Figure to Some Extent
Remembered: Notes on Television Director, Script Writer, and Occasional Actor
Montgomery Pittman” for Bright Lights
Film. Desmond was able to locate many of Pittman’s teleplays, archival news
articles written about his work, and inner-office memos in the Warner Bros.
Archives at the University of Southern California. He also interviewed
Zimbalist and Hutchins several times. The first two memoirs focus on Pittman
the man while Desmond spends most of his article analyzing Pittman’s work in
television, specifically his contribution to the western genre, citing Pittman’s
efforts to push the television western into a mature and authentic arena
alongside its big screen counterpart.
Pittman
was born in Louisiana—although the city is apparently unknown—in 1917 and later
moved with his family to either Oklahoma or Arkansas—again, accounts vary but
he may have lived in both states. While still a teenager he left home to sell
snake oil in a traveling medicine show. After a stint in the military he
settled in New York City to try his hand at acting. It was here that he met
actor Steve Cochran (season one's "What You Need") who persuaded Pittman to move to Los Angeles by
promising him a job as caretaker of his house. Pittman continued to pursue
acting in California, landing bit roles in films like The Enforcer (1951) and Inside
the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951). By the mid-fifties, however, he had
turned his attention to writing. He found initial success in the live dramas of
the time including three teleplays for Schlitz
Playhouse in 1954 where he first worked with Buck Houghton. In 1956 he
signed with Warner Bros. Television and began writing for ABC, usually for
westerns shows like Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Lawman,
and Maverick or for police dramas
like Hawaiian Eye and Surfside 6. Pittman wrote several low
budget films during this time, the most successful of which is probably Come Next Spring (1956) which starred Steve
Cochran and Ann Sheridan and featured Sherry Jackson, Edgar Buchanan, and James
Best in supporting roles. He also co-wrote a Tarzan film with Lillie Hayward
called Tarzan and the Lost Safari in
1957.
Pittman’s
transition into directing was born largely from his disapproval at having his
material altered by others. As a director Pittman understood the audience’s
relationship with the camera and its influence on the atmosphere of a story. In
episodes like “The Grave” and “Dead Man’s Shoes” he saturates scene after scene
with high-contrast lighting and peculiar camera angles to draw the audience’s
attention to the atmosphere before they know the story or even the characters.
This immediately establishes the personality of the episodes, both of which are
slightly derivative in terms of plot, and allows Pittman the freedom to be a
bit campy in certain scenes because he has established a relationship with the
viewer. In episodes like “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank,” however, or his
post-apocalyptic love story “Two,” he lets the characters move the story along,
even when they aren’t even speaking. "Jeff Myrtlebank" also features several moments where Pittman uses the camera to give the scene an unsettling atmosphere. The shot of Myrtlebank rising up out of the coffin in the opening scene is highly effective. Pittman combines close ups of the lid opening slowly at first then faster with abrasive music to give the audience the same sense of sudden shock that the characters are experiencing. The fight between Myrtlebank and Orgram is also shot really well.
Pittman
also had an eye for casting. Stalmaster-Lister was the agency responsible for
casting the show’s third season but according to Lamont Johnson the director
still had a significant authority in the casting process. Pittman’s episodes,
particularly the three he wrote himself, featured amazing casts with actors who
would go on to major careers in film and television.
It
is his writing, however, that is likely his strongest skill as a storyteller.
In “Two,” probably the best of his writing efforts on the show but only by a
narrow margin, Pittman successfully narrates a believable relationship between
two strangers with only a few lines of dialogue in the entire episode. His
dialogue increases with each episode, however, and by this third teleplay the
characters have quite a bit to say and it’s the dialogue that moves much of the
episode along. His episodes also feature characters playing against stereotypes.
In “Two,” Elizabeth Montgomery is the aggressor not the brutish Charles Bronson.
In “The Grave,” Pittman presents the audience with a traditional western
scenario, a hired gunman—the hero—chasing a wanted fugitive—the villain. But
later in the episode he suggests, through harsh criticism from the supporting
characters, that said hero is perhaps a coward, or perhaps not. He leaves it
ambiguous. As of this writing his Twilight Zone scripts have yet to be
published. The reason for this remains a mystery.
His ear
for character names is also noteworthy. Pinto Sykes, Johnny Rob, Mothershed,
Steinhart, Comfort and Orgram Gatewood, Jeff Myrtlebank. Creating memorable
character names is a difficult task and Pittman makes it look effortless. Even if
you only see “The Grave” or “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” once, you are
not likely to forget most of these names because they are entirely appropriate
for both the character and the actor.
During
the third season there was a noticeable attempt on the show to feature stories
that showcased rural settings, particularly those in the American South, a
region largely absent from the previous seasons. Serling penned two episodes
set during the Civil War: “The Passersby” and “Still Valley,” his adaptation of
Manly Wade Wellman’s story, “And the Valley Was Still.” Wellman was a highly
regarded folklorist and historian who set a great deal of his fiction in the
Blue Ridge Mountains. He also adapted the light-hearted fable “Hocus Pocus and
Frisby” from a story by Frederic Louis Fox. Season three also introduced writer
Earl Hamner who would go on to create The
Walton’s a decade or so later. Hamner’s first episode “The Hunt,” about an
elderly hunter who drowns attempting to rescue his beloved hound dog, takes
place in the rural mountains of Virginia, where Hamner was born and raised, and
he portrays the region as honestly as possible. Unfortunately, “The Hunt” was
poorly translated to the screen due largely to uninspired direction and
miscasting. It plays a bit awkward and even culturally insensitive at times.
With “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” Pittman had the advantage of casting
and directing the episode himself. As a result the dialect and mannerisms are
completely authentic to rural southern culture.
This
was largely achieved by casting actors from the south. Lance Fuller (Kentucky),
Dub Taylor (Virginia), Ralph Moody (Missouri), and most importantly Kentucky-born
actor James Best who appeared in Pittman’s earlier episode “The Grave” and
would later appear in Earl Hamner’s hour-long episode “Jess-Belle” during
season four. Although he will forever be remembered as bumbling Hazzard County
Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from The Dukes
of Hazzard, Best was an extremely talented and prolific actor of stage and
screen. Due to his native southern dialect he was often cast in westerns
including a small role in Arthur Penn’s The
Left-Handed Gun (1958). He also appeared in Raoul Walsh’s adaptation of
Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead
(1958). His television resume includes practically every popular western series
from 1950 to 1970. He did make several appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and in a famous episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “The
Jar,” based on the story by Ray Bradbury. Anxious and intense, and delivering a
spot-on accent, Best nails the role of Jeff Myrtlebank. Pittman’s script calls
for a handful of absurd expressions—“I could eat the hide right
off a bear”—that would sound ridiculous coming from anyone else. Best understands
Pittman’s humor and his performance carries a sense of free-spirited spontaneity.
The
supporting cast is equally impressive. Edgar Buchanan gives a fantastic
performance as the small town doctor. Buchanan starred in dozens of western
films and series during his career but is remembered mostly as Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Dub Taylor is also
incredible here as angry and suspicious Mr. Peters. Not surprisingly, Taylor
was also a regular in western films for most of his career. He appeared in a
string of films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch (1969), The
Getaway (1972), and Pat Garrett and
Billy the Kid (1973). He was also one of the wisecracking bar patrons in Back to the Future Part III (1991). His
most well-known role was as Ivan Moss in Bonnie
and Clyde (1967), the father of C.W. who helps stage the ambush that leads
to the deaths of the outlaw couple.
Sherry
Jackson, who plays Myrtlebank’s love interest Comfort Gatewood, is actually
Pittman’s stepdaughter. Pittman met her mother, Maurita Gilbert Jackson, through his friendship with Steve Cochran. Pittman
frequently worked with friends and family. Buchanan, Best, and Taylor had all
worked with Pittman several times before. Maurita co-wrote several teleplays
with Pittman for 77 Sunset Strip. Sherry
Jackson was a child actor when Pittman met her in the early 1950’s. She
achieved notoriety as the daughter of Danny Thomas in Make Room for Daddy from 1953 to 1958. She also appears in the Star Trek episode “What Are Little Girls
Made Of?” written by Robert Bloch. Pittman frequently cast her in his films.
Providing
the slightly bizarre harmonica soundtrack for this episode is Tommy Morgan.
Morgan is a highly regarded harmonica player who made his living scoring films
and television series, mostly westerns. His playful melody adds an extra layer
of humor to the action of the episode. His music can also be heard in “Hocus
Pocus and Frisby” and the season five episode “Mr. Garrity and the Graves.”
“The
Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” is not a universally recognized episode of the
show nor is it Pittman’s best effort. But it’s definitely worth a few viewings
for anyone who has never seen it. Some reviewers have read an underlying
didacticism in this episode but I don’t think that was Pittman’s angle. I
think he simply wanted to tell an entertaining story. Pittman was a novice in
the world of fantasy but he seems aware of his limitations. He kept his plots simple
and let the characters and the camera tell the story. His final contribution to
the show is an appropriate one for it bears all the hallmarks of his brand of
storytelling. It’s weird, it’s overflowing with black humor, it plays with a
familiar thematic structure, and it ends ambiguously. Myrtlebank does have some type of otherworldly ability but Pittman leaves it
at that. The audience never really finds out what happened to him.
In
1962, Pittman, an avid cigar smoker, suddenly and rapidly developed a large
tumor on the side of his neck. He had it removed but the cancer had already
spread. He died on June 26 at the age of 45. During a brief but productive
career Pittman explored all the avenues of the filmmaking process. He managed
to take creative control of his material—a rare luxury in the television
industry, especially during the early years of its existence—and sought, with
mild success, to intellectualize the television western. The Twilight Zone was Pittman’s first major creative venture outside
of westerns and detective shows. It was perhaps the first time he was given
total creative freedom. The result is a small handful of episodes which bear
the mark of a natural storyteller.
Grade: B
Grateful acknowledgement to:
“A Somewhat Forgotten Figure to Some Extent Remembered: Notes on Television Director, Script Writer, and Occasional Actor Montgomery Pittman” by John Desmond (Bright Lights Film, October 31, 2010)
“A Touch of Hutch” by Will Hutchins. (Western Clippings, January, 2013.)
My Dinner of Herbs by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (Lighthouse, 2003)
Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone by Stewart Stanyard (ECW Press, 2007)
Notes:
--Montgomery Pittman also wrote and directed the season
three episodes “Two” and “The Grave.” He also directed Serling’s “Will the Real
Martian Please Stand Up?” for the second season and “Dead Man’s Shoes” written
by Charles Beaumont and OCee Ritch for the third season.
--James Best also appeared in Pittman’s episode “The
Grave” and in Earl Hamner’s season four episode “Jess-Belle.”
--Ralph Moody also appeared in a first season segment
of Night Gallery called “Little Black Bag” adapted by Serling from a story by C.M.
Kornbluth.
--Ezelle Poule also appeared in season two’s “The
Howling Man.”
--Jon Lormer also appeared in the season one episode
“Execution,” the season two episode “Dust” and season four’s “Jess-Belle.”
--As I mentioned, Pittman’s Twilight Zone scripts have yet to be published.
--Download the Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Robert Knepp
--Download the Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Robert Knepp
--Brian
