"Zoning" Out, Volume IV: Bunco

"THE FOUR OF US ARE DYING" - January 1, 1960

(Yes, once upon a time in TV world, new episodes aired on major holidays!)

Karma is a recurring theme in The Twilight Zone, where either bad people get their just desserts, or good people get a second chance after making colossal mistakes. The former definitely is more common than the latter, but it does happen. Right, Ace Larsen? There's also times where good people get screwed, which isn't cool. Regardless, an episode of comeuppance has arrived in ye olde Twilight Zone recap series, in the form of the lucky 13th overall episode, "The Four of Us Are Dying." This is a unique episode in that the main character, Arch Hammer - such a noir name matching the noir feel - is played by four different actors. How? Arch Hammer has a particular set of skills and he's not one to let them go to waste.

Harry Townes - who later appears in one of my favorite sleeper (heh) episodes of the series, "Shadow Play", is the default form of Arch, a drifter who comes and goes with dead end jobs, dead end schemes, and hangs with dead end men and women. His gift though? He can change his face to take the form of others. One of the first scenes in the episode is Hammer at the sink, shaving, and contorting his face into different forms. Then we see a series of news clippings of various figures who have been shuffled off this mortal coil, and we get the conceit - he wants to assume the forms of the dead and cause a little trouble.

His first assumed identity is Johnny Foster, a famous trumpet player who was killed in some train accident. He doesn't do this one for monetary gain or maybe even petty revenge for whatever happened to the guy he's mimicking. No, this one is simply for a woman. Maggie, the piano player and singer in the lounge Johnny performed at, is his target. He does the thing, changes his face, and gives poor Maggie a shock at his reappearance. It doesn't seem like he can absorb the memories of his targets, so he speaks in platitudes and without much personalization, but it's enough to convince her to run off with him to Chicago. He exits, she escapes the depression of Johnny's death, and off we go.

(Fun bit here - a guy who recognizes Johnny runs off to talk with him, and he goes outside the club where "Johnny" is trying to light a smoke. Guy lights a match and the light from it shows that it's not Johnny, but instead Arch)

His next goal is, naturally, money for his scheme to run off with Maggie. He decides to assume the identity of a dead gangster, Virgil, and extort his boss who had him whacked. This is a successful venture to start, as he gets the cash and begins to head out the door. Just as he leaves, however, some thugs come in and he has to run away to avoid them. Naturally, he can just change his face to evade them, but since he's panicking, he can't concentrate on the task. Apparently it's not even easy to go back to his default form! Arch heads down an alley and sees a flyer for a boxing match starring an Andy Marshak, and he's able to relax enough to assume his form. The gambit works, of course, and the two dopey gangsters waddle off, defeated.

Then... comeuppance arrives. As Arch walks off in his Marshak disguise, he comes across an old man who he doesn't recognize, but old man definitely recognizes him. Marshak may be a great boxer, but he's not a great man, as this is the father of the real deal, and he's done some bad things to his family. Hammer-as-Marshak manages to escape the unhinged father, but upon returning to the hotel where his scheme began, he is busted for bunco (or fraud for you youths). At this point he has returned to normal, but as soon as he gets the chance, he slips back into another face and evades the cops. Unfortunately, he's chosen the Marshak face again, and dear old daddy meets him outside, and, well... the photo above tells the tale. Karma is a you know what.

"The Four of Us Are Dying" is not the best episode of the series, instead it's merely a fun romp where you get to see a real jerk get what he deserves for messing around and flying too close to the sun with his abilities. The episode is unique in that it's clearly filmed on a soundstage with phony big city backdrops and weird neon signs that otherwise could not logically hang in this manner outside. I might think it was by design - a fake town for a man who is faking his way through it, assuming identities of others. It fits the theme of the episode to a tee. It's not one of my personal favorites, but is still one that I will stop and watch if it pops up in a marathon.