Tag: A Stop at Willoughby

★★★★★ May 6, 1960 Season 1 Episode 30

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This one is one of my favorites…it could have made my top ten. This one is very modern. James Daly plays Gart Williams who is pushed to the edge of a nervous breakdown by a boss who won’t let up and a wife who can’t get enough status symbols. Daly was great in this role… At some point all of us has felt like Gart Williams. A quote from Gart’s character while arguing with his wife: Some people aren’t built for competition, Janie, or big pretentious houses they can’t afford, or rich communities they don’t feel comfortable in, or country clubs they wear around their neck like a badge of status.

This one had a twist that I did not see coming. The transition to the last scene is brilliant. If Gart could see in the future he would see work tying employees to cell phones twenty four hours a day…”Push Push Push” would take on a whole new meaning.

This was Rod Serling’s first season favorite episode.

The train stations called out by the conductor on the 1960 train are real. At the time of the filming, stations such as “Stamford” and “Westport & Saugatuck” were stations on the New Haven Railroad. They continue to exist as of August 2015 as stations on the Metro North Railroad.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

This is Gart Williams, age thirty-eight, a man protected by a suit of armor all held together by one bolt. Just a moment ago, someone removed the bolt, and Mr. Williams’ protection fell away from him, and left him a naked target. He’s been cannonaded this afternoon by all the enemies of his life. His insecurity has shelled him, his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation, his deep-rooted disquiet about his own worth has zeroed in on him, landed on target, and blown him apart. Mr. Gart Williams, ad agency exec, who in just a moment, will move into the Twilight Zone—in a desperate search for survival.

Summary

Ad agency executive Gart Williams has had a particularly rough day – his young protégé has left to work at another agency and took a $3-million account him. He falls asleep on the train home and wakes up in another place and another time. It’s July 1888 and he’s in the village of Willoughby, a peaceful town where life is easy. He comes to back in his own time but as the pressures of works and his home life continue to mount, he decides Willoughby is exactly where he would like to spend the rest of his days.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Willoughby? Maybe it’s wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man’s mind, or maybe it’s the last stop in the vast design of things—or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it’s a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice)
James Daly … Gart Williams
Howard Smith … Misrell
Patricia Donahue … Janie Williams
Jason Wingreen … 1960 Conductor
Mavis Neal Palmer … Helen (as Mavis Neal)
James Maloney … 1888 Conductor
Billy Booth … Short Boy (uncredited)
James Gonzalez … Passenger (uncredited)
Herschel Graham … Executive (uncredited)
Ryan Hayes … Engineer (uncredited)
Butch Hengen … Tall Boy (uncredited)
Perk Lazelle … Executive (uncredited)
Clark Ross … Executive (uncredited)
Bernard Sell … Executive (uncredited)
Max Slaten … Man on Wagon (uncredited)
Hal Taggart … Executive (uncredited)
Billy Booth … Short Boy (uncredited)
James Gonzalez … Passenger (uncredited)
Herschel Graham … Executive (uncredited)
Ryan Hayes … Engineer (uncredited)
Butch Hengen … Tall Boy (uncredited)
Perk Lazelle … Executive (uncredited)
Clark Ross … Executive (uncredited)
Bernard Sell … Executive (uncredited)
Max Slaten … Man on Wagon (uncredited)
Hal Taggart … Executive (uncredited)