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Post by Grabthar's Hammer on Aug 14, 2023 8:00:28 GMT
I remember this as a kid because it was quite horrifying. A racist guy is somehow transferred to I think the past or maybe into someone else's body and the end of the episode is him on a prison type train headed to Auschwitz to (I assume) be killed. And he's pleading out to his friends that he was just at a bar with but they can't see him.
Does anybody know what that was? I know it's not much to go on.
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GiantFan1980
Junior Member
@scifi1980
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Post by GiantFan1980 on Aug 14, 2023 9:12:41 GMT
Twilight Zone: The Movie. The segment is infamous in cinema because the actor, Vic Morrow was killed along with 2 children during the end segment when the helicopter crashed on top of them and Morrow and one of the children were decapitated while the 2nd child was crushed. Director John Landis said the deaths were accidental of course but he was very careless on set and many believe his lack of safety was the lead cause for the crash. Landis ignored child labor laws and willingly exposed the actors to dangerous explosives.
The theory I read was the pyro special effects caused the helicopter blades to fall apart and drop like a rock on the actors. Steven Spielberg ended his friendship with Landis for his careless behavior. The accident footage has been on Youtube for years but you won't see anything graphic. The video is a good look at how insane they were being with the explosions going off as the three actors struggled through the water.
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Post by Prime etc. on Aug 14, 2023 18:06:15 GMT
The original ending was that Morrow saves the kids and that causes him to be more inclusive and presumably he returns to the diner. I am not sure if they had all the shots for it--I am guessing they did but due to the accident, they weren't going to have footage of the kids who were killed.
Spielberg hired Landis and was the executive producer. He was legally liable for the supervision of the set on some level and was able to get out of responsibility. The production crew in charge of the child supervision deceived the parents and the union child actor custodian--they weren't supposed to be working. Ironic considering that the story was about racial intolerance and they were exploiting the kids. And Morrow agreed to do the stunt--that was the craziest thing. He risked his life and theirs to do it. If he had said no--it would not have happened. The irony is so thick because the original show did not rely on spfx at all--so they were trying to up the ante by having big explosions and action.
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forca85
Sophomore
@forca85
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Post by forca85 on Nov 2, 2023 2:57:02 GMT
I feel like the downer ending with him ending up on the Train works... So it's really a shame they couldn't have just done close ups on the Helicopter and throw in some shots of the actors "reacting" to it.
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Post by Prime etc. on Nov 3, 2023 0:40:26 GMT
You mean--you wish they had included the Vietnam sequence but cut away from the accident?
I assume the shot of Morrow on the train being carried past his friends was supposed to be the first shot in his time travel, and they changed it to the end. All the other stories are upbeat. That one screws up the tone due to the truncated conclusion.
Surprised they didn't remove the story entirely or shoot a replacement.
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Post by Rodney Farber on Jan 14, 2024 0:05:43 GMT
You might also consider the TV episode "Deaths-Head Revisited" which is close (Dachau rather than Auschwitz) but is not a time-travel episode. A former Dachau killer goes back after the war as a tourist and is met with contempt by people who recognize him.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 28, 2024 22:02:39 GMT
Night Gallery also had the story with Richard Kiley as the former SS commander who is hiding in South America and then he discovers he can wish himself into a painting of a fisherman on a lake--and intends to do that to escape. The ending in it is closer to what the Twilight Zone segment concluded as but the latter doesn't make sense because Morrow is not a camp commandant or a KKK member--he's just a guy who is verbally intolerant because he lost a promotion. That's why the ending of him saving the kids in Vietnam was meant to be upbeat.
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