Long Live Walter Jameson

"Long Live Walter Jameson"
The Twilight Zone episode
Scene from Long Live Walter Jameson
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 24
Directed by	Tony Leader
Written by	Charles Beaumont
Production code	173-3621
Original air date	March 18, 1960
Guest stars
Kevin McCarthy: Walter Jameson Edgar Stehli: Prof. Samuel Kittridge Estelle Winwood: Laurette Bowen Dody Heath: Susanna Kittridge
Episode chronology
← Previous "A World of Difference" Next → "People Are Alike All Over"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"Long Live Walter Jameson" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Walter Jameson, a college professor, is engaged to a young doctoral student named Susanna Kittridge. Susanna's father, Samuel Kittridge, another professor at Walter's college, becomes suspicious of Walter because he doesn't appear to have aged in the many years they have known one another, and seems to have unrealistically detailed knowledge of some pieces of history that don't appear in texts. Jameson at one point reads from an original Civil War diary in his possession. Later, Kittridge discovers the truth after recognizing his future son-in-law in a Mathew Brady civil war photograph. Jameson had earlier denied having an ancestor in the war. Moreover, the man in the photograph has the same facial mole, and wears the same ring, as Jameson,

Although Jameson denies the truth at first, he ultimately reveals his real life history, which includes the fact that agelessness (but no kind of immunity to injury) was imparted to him by an alchemist, more than 2000 years before. Jameson indicates that he's old enough to have known Plato personally. Jameson doesn't know what was done to him by the alchemist, only that the alchemist was gone when he recovered, and he then stopped aging while everyone around him continued with normal living. Soon, he had to leave and become a constant refugee.

Kittridge asks Jameson to share this "gift" with him, but Jameson does not know how. Jameson tells Kittridge that even if he could share it with him, it would only make him immortal from this point on. He asks Kittridge if he would want to be a seventy year old man forever. The years have not always been kind. Jameson tells Kittridge that he learned a terrible lesson from living for so long and reveals his desire to die. Jameson even has a pistol he keeps in his desk, but he is too cowardly to commit suicide.

Kittridge soon realizes that if Jameson marries his daughter, eventually she will grow old and Jameson will abandon her in order to keep his secret. Kittridge then refuses permission for Jameson to marry his daughter. In spite of this, Jameson proposes to Susanna, and they plan to immediately elope.

Unbeknownst to Walter, he is being stalked by an elderly woman. She is Laurette Bowen (Estelle Winwood), one of his many wives and consorts through the years, whom he had abandoned when she grew old and frail while he remained young. She claims that she cannot allow Walter to destroy another woman's life, and that it's wrong. She discovers Jameson's pistol lying on his desk, and in her passion, she shoots him with his own gun (evidently she had not brought one and has not planned to shoot him). Kittridge passes by Laurette as she is making her escape, outside the house. When he enters Jameson's study he finds Jameson bleeding, but seemingly at peace. Soon, Jameson starts to rapidly age. Kittridge attempts to help but nothing can be done, and Jameson collapses on the floor. Susanna, in the meantime, comes into the house and Kittridge tries to stop her from seeing the aged Walter. However, eventually he is unable to keep her out of the room. Once inside she discovers only a an empty suit of clothes where Walter was, with a white substance near the collar and sleeves. When Susanna asks what is on the floor, the professor replies "Dust, only dust."

Production notes

The scenes of Walter Jameson's aging was performed by using an old movie-making trick. Age lines were drawn on actor Kevin McCarthy's face in red make-up. During the beginning of the scene, red lighting was used, bathing the scene in red and hiding the age lines. As the scene progressed, the red lights were turned down and green lights were brought up. Under the green lights, the red age lines were prominent. The lighting changes were unseen by the audience because it was filmed in black-and-white. The ultimate result is the appearance of a complete make-up change with no cuts to the scene.

Goof

• The date of the diary entry of September 11, 1864 is said to be on a Tuesday, but in reality it was on a Sunday.

DVD release

For the DVD release Kevin McCarthy returned to record an audio commentary for the episode, revealing that he never met Rod Serling and that aside from Invasion of the Body Snatchers his appearance in this episode generated the most fan mail he ever received.

See also

• Queen of the Nile 1964 Twilight Zone episode with similar plotline
• All Men are Mortal 1946 novel by Simone de Beauvoir
• She: A History of Adventure, an 1886 novel by H. Rider Haggard about an ageless woman who rules a lost African kingdom, who ages rapidly and dies at the end
• The Wandering Jew: a series of old legends about a Jewish man who is made immortal in the time of Jesus, and cursed to wander the Earth until the second coming
• The Man from Earth Film length version of a simliar tale

Further readings

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition). ISBN 1-879505-09-6.
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

• "Long Live Walter Jameson" at the Internet Movie Database