Mr. Denton on Doomsday

"Mr. Denton on Doomsday"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 3
Directed by	Allen Reisner
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Stock music
Cinematography by	George T. Clemens
Production code	173-3609
Original air date	October 16, 1959
Guest actors
Dan Duryea Martin Landau Jeanne Cooper Malcolm Atterbury Doug McClure Ken Lynch

"Mr. Denton on Doomsday" is episode three of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 16, 1959 on CBS. This is the first Twilight Zone episode to be rerun.

Plot summary

Al Denton was once known as the quickest draw in town, but his life was ruined after he killed a teenaged boy in a duel—he is now an alcoholic wreck and the laughing stock of the community. A mysterious salesman named Henry J. Fate ostensibly further dooms Denton by causing him to inexplicably regain his expert shooting touch and once again inspire the respect and awe of the townsfolk, which Denton explains will only cause reputation-hungry gunslingers from miles around to seek him out and, inevitably, kill him. Just as Denton predicted, soon enough a challenge is delivered which Denton dare not refuse.

The still-weary and not-so-sure-handed Denton practices in the desert for his suicidal duel, but he misses his targets miserably and concludes that he must skip town. As he quietly packs his things and tries to flee under the cover of night, he strikes up a conversation with Fate, who seems to know things about Denton and offers him a way out. Fate claims to possess a potion guaranteed to make the drinker the fastest gun in the West for exactly ten seconds. Denton is skeptical but Fate goads him into drinking a free sample, after which Denton immediately realizes its benefits.

Still, Denton knows that with Fate's magical potion he has extended his lease on life by only one gunfight; there will be no end to the challenges he will surely continue to receive.

At the appointed time, Denton faces his challenger, Pete Grant, a young gunfighter who behaves like he knows he can't possibly lose. Denton downs his second potion only to find his opponent holding an identical empty bottle – Fate had slyly provided the same elixir to young Grant. Each man shoots the other in the hand, causing injuries which are minor but forever ruin both men's ability to pull a trigger.

Denton tells his young opponent that they have both been blessed because they will never again be able to fire a gun in anger. Henry J. Fate tips his hat to Denton and rides quietly out of town. Just as Fate had helped one man out of a pit, he had simultaneously prevented another from falling into one.

Cast

Dan Duryea as Al Denton
Martin Landau as Dan Hotaling
Jeanne Cooper as Liz Smith
Malcolm Atterbury as Henry J. Fate
Doug McClure as Pete Grant
Ken Lynch as Charlie
Bill Erwin as Man at the Bar

Quotations

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. [A revolver mysteriously appears on the ground next to Denton] And this is the third principal character of our story. Its function: perhaps to give Mr. Al Denton his second chance.

”

Closing narration

“

Mr. Henry Fate, dealer in utensils and pots and pans, liniments 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

This episode is one of very few in the series whose opening sequence features an eye with heavy mascara. It was plastered over the original opening when "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" was rerun on June 24, 1960. Although the plastering of Season One intros (including the majority of episodes with this alternate intro) is not uncommon due to the Summer 1961 repeat season, this is the only case of the alternate Season One intro plastering the original. The original lagoon opening has since been restored.^[1]

In his 1959 promotional film shown to potential sponsors, Rod Serling summarized an earlier version of this episode's plot under its original title, "Death, Destry, and Mr. Dingle." As told by Serling, the basic premise is similar, but the earlier version seems to have been more comedic in tone, involving a meek schoolteacher who quite unintentionally gains notoriety as a top gunslinger. The name "Mr. Dingle" (originally intended for the Dan Duryea character) would be used by Serling for a future episode, with Burgess Meredith playing the eponymous character in "Mr Dingle, the Strong" in 1961. The harmonica in the background is playing the Russian folksong "Stenka Razin".

External links

↑ TV.com episode page

"Mr. Denton on Doomsday" at the Internet Movie Database

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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