Mr. Denton on Doomsday

"Mr. Denton on Doomsday"

"Mr. Denton on Doomsday" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration

Portrait of a town drunk named Al Denton. This is a man who's begun his dying early—a long agonizing route through a maze of bottles. Al Denton, who would probably give an arm or a leg or a part of his soul to have another chance, to be able to rise up and shake the dirt from his body and the bad dreams that infest his consciousness. In the parlance of the times, this is a peddler, a rather fanciful-looking little man in a black frock coat. And this is the third principal character of our story. Its function? Perhaps to give Mister Al Denton his second chance.

Plot Summary

Washed-up gunslinger Al Denton is given another chance by a mysterious man by the name of Henry J. Fate, who offers him a potion guaranteed to make him the fastest gun in the West for ten seconds. Facing a young gunfighter named Pete Grant, who rode into town looking for a duel, Denton downs his vial of the potion only to find his opponent holding an identical bottle. Each man shoots the other in the hand, causing injuries that will never allow them to use a gun again. Afterwards, Denton tells his young opponent that they have both been blessed because they will never again be able to fire a gun in anger.

Closing narration

Mr. Henry Fate, dealer in utensils and pots and pans, linaments and potions. A fanciful little man in a black frock coat who can help a man climbing out of a pit—or another man from falling into one. Because, you see, Fate can work that way...in the Twilight Zone.

Episode notes

• The title character was named after a childhood friend of Serling's, Herbert Denton.

• On the night of June 24, 1960 this became the first The Twilight Zone episode to be rerun.

• Martin Landau (born 1928), a very familiar face to TV viewers and moviegoers for over five decades, essays a truly vicious and despicable denizen of the Old West in the first of his two TZ appearances. His second performance, as a completely dissimilar character, a fear-driven Soviet defector, came four-and-a-half years later, in one of TZ's final episodes, fifth season's "The Jeopardy Room".
• Malcolm Atterbury (1907-1992) was a stage and radio actor and vaudevillian who, between 1954 and 1979, appeared in scores of films and TV episodes, usually in character cameos. Here, as the mysterious traveler with the ability to transform destiny, he creates one of his most memorable personalities. His other TZ role, in fourth season's hour-long "No Time Like the Past" cast him as a very similar character, a 19th century horse-and-wagon medicine show presenter (without supernatural powers).
• Arthur Batanides (1922-2000), a small-part actor in hundreds of films and TV episodes was a regular, in 1953-54, on an early TV sci-fi series aimed at a young audience, Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers. He exudes vague menace here, in delivering Pete Grant's invitation to a gunfight to Al Denton. In his return TZ appearance, third season's "The Mirror", he's a bearded compatriot of Peter Falk's Castro-like Latin American despot.
• Bill Erwin (born 1914), an actor with hundreds of films and TV episodes among his credits, usually in bit parts, has continued to act into his nineties. All three of his TZ roles are typically brief cameos. Here, he's one of the saloon patrons, in second season's "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?", he's one-half of the married couple who seems uncertain whether the other half is the "Martian", and in fourth season's hour-long "Mute", his part is so small, he doesn't even receive billing in the closing credits.
• Doug McClure played the young gunslinger that challenges Denton. McClure was best known for his character Trampas in the NBC Western TV show "The Virginian".

Themes

While the main character assumes he cannot escape his fate being eventually shot by a gunslinger, fate itself personalizes in the shape of "Henry J. Fate" and actually acts like a guardian angel, proving the main character's expectations to be wrong.

While generally fate is referred to in a negative context, this episode reveals that fate can also contribute to Man's advantage.

References

• Sander, Gordon F.: Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

• Mr. Denton on Doomsday at IMDb
• TV Tome episode page