★★★ April 27, 1962 Season 3 Episode 32
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
This episode is slow moving but at times interesting . It contains elements that could have been a great Twilight Zone but the acting in this one is subdued and the story is slow. I did like the study of human nature at the end but the script was uneven.
A Christ-like alien ventures into a small Mexican village. He comes into a bar after being shot and hurting. He bonds with a little boy named Pedro played by Edmund Vargas. A doctor looks at the alien and by all accounts should have been dead. Everyone was fearful of him and he is referred to as a creature with powers. The alien offers a gift but will the lack of trust in the new comer accept it?
I did like the musical score for this one. The Gift has a guitar score composed and performed by Laurindo Almeida, one of the great classical guitarists.This story was originally written as one of the series’ possible pilots, but was passed over for The Twilight Zone: Where Is Everybody?
This show was written by Rod Serling
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
The place is Mexico, just across the Texas border, a mountain village held back in time by its remoteness and suddenly intruded upon by the twentieth century. And this is Pedro, nine years old, a lonely, rootless little boy, who will soon make the acquaintance of a traveler from a distant place. We are at present forty miles from the Rio Grande, but any place and all places can be the Twilight Zone.
Summary
The residents of a small Mexican village, just 40 miles or so south of the Rio Grande, panic when they learn a being from another planet may have crashed near by. As the result of an altercation with local police, one policeman is dead and the alien is severely wounded. A young boy, Pedro, quickly forms a friendship with the alien who says he has come in peace. He also says he has a gift for the people of the Earth, but the villagers’ fear means that mankind will never benefit from the alien’s generosity.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Madeiro, Mexico, the present. The subject: fear. The cure: a little more faith. An Rx off a shelf in the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Geoffrey Horne … Williams – the Alien
Nico Minardos … Doctor
Cliff Osmond … Manolo
Edmund Vargas … Pedro
Vladimir Sokoloff … Guitarist
Paul Mazursky … Officer
Henry Corden … Sanchez
Vito Scotti Vito Scotti … Rudolpho
Eumenio Blanco … Townsman (uncredited)
Carmen D’Antonio … Woman (uncredited)
David Fresco … Man (uncredited)
Lea Marmer … Woman (uncredited)
Joseph V. Perry … Man (uncredited)
sounds like a very good premise and all too-real complication of people assuming hostile intent automatically.
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Yes it is a good premise….that is true. It should have been better than what it was though. The ending is a twist…it just takes too long getting there.
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Loved this one
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I do like it also…it is overlooked…not my favorite but the story itself is great.
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Agree about the story
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Don’t remember this episode. Unfortunately, Netflix didn’t air season 3 so I’m only familiar with the more popular classics from that season that I remember from years ago.
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Its on Hulu now if you get that
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I liked this one – liked the setting of the alien story in the rural Mexican setting. And the message that our pettiness and close mindedness will focus in. I saw echos of Monster on Maple Street and the one about the Shelter in this one.
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I liked it also Paul…was it a little slow to you? I loved the plot but I thought it could have been a little better executed.
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I actually didn’t mind it as I liked the time they spent on developing the relationship betw the little boy and the alien.
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