Sky Room Talk
Preparing For The Apocalypse in THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Lecture by Philip Harwood
Monday, October 26 at 7:30pm
$10 Members | $15 Public
Back by popular demand, Film Historian Philip Harwood brings us back on another visit to Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.
Between 1959 and 1964, Emmy Award winning Producer and Writer Rod Serling, took us into the “fifth dimension”, which we knew as The Twilight Zone. The stories were based on science fiction and fantasy, mixed with social commentary, usually ending with a twist, or some macabre lesson.
Mr. Serling incorporated many social issues into his television plays. One element of the series was preparing for the proposed end of civilization, either by bomb, or our fear of the unknown. Film Historian Philip Harwood shows us how certain characters are affected by this cataclysmic cycle of events on a journey through time, as we enter The Twilight Zone, viewing and discussing three episodes from the series, all written by Rod Serling:
TIME ENOUGH AT LAST (1959): Burgess Meredith is Henry Bemis, a man “who seeks salvation in the rubble of a ruined world.”
THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET (1960): Neighbors on Maple Street fear possible unknown visitors, allowing this fear to take over.
THE SHELTER (1961) Another normal neigborhood is overtaken by fear when a report of “Unidentified objects” are plunging towards earth. Fearing the bomb, a doctor and his family retreat to their fallout-shelter. However, the rest of the neighborhood also wants to share their shelter, which leads to panic.
Philip Harwood currently teaches film studies at LIU: Post, the JCC IN Manhattan, and the 92nd Street Y. He was Coordinator for Lifelong Learning at Queens College. He is also a published author.
