The Night of the Meek (The Twilight Zone, 1959)

"The Night of the Meek (The Twilight Zone, 1959)"

"The Night of the Meek" is the December 231960 episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration

As heavy snow begins to fall, a drunk and dejected Henry Corwin, wearing his Santa Claus suit, stumbles and half-falls at a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob helplessly, the camera slowly pans to the right revealing, in the same shot, Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf, with the snow settling on his hair and coat:

This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of 'The Night Before Christmas'. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found... in the Twilight Zone.

Plot synopsis

It's Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er-do-well, wearing a worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on six drinks at Jack's Place, the neighborhood bar. Bruce, the brusque bartender, throws him out after spotting Corwin, now low on funds, reaching for the bottle. Arriving an hour late for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, the visibly-drunk Corwin is soon fired by Mr. Dundee, the mean-spirited manager, acting on a complaint from the rude mother who pushed her ill-behaved son to sit on Santa's lap. As Dundee orders him to leave the premises, Corwin pours out his heartache over living in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is unable to fulfill his desired role as Santa. Still in his outfit, he returns to Jack's Place, but is refused re-entry by Bruce who explains to the inebriated patrons that "Santa's a lush".

Stumbling aimlessly into an alley, he sees a large, cloth garbage bag which seems to have the ability of containing any item that's asked of it. Suffused with the spirit of Christmas, Corwin proceeds to hand out gift-wrapped presents to passersby and then, entering Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House", to derelict men attending the Christmas Eve service. Outraged at this interruption, Sister Florence goes outside to fetch Officer Flaherty who proceeds to arrest Corwin for apparently taking goods from his former place of employment. Flaherty then contacts Mr. Dundee, who arrives at the police station, exclaiming, "Ah-ha, here he is, and here we are, and there that is". Calling Corwin a "moth-eaten Robin Hood", Dundee reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purported "wholesale theft of thousands of dollars worth of goods", but all he manages to pull out are a couple of empty cans and a meowing stray cat.

Released, Corwin reaches into the bag and gives Dundee the Christmas present that he sarcastically requested, a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903. Leaving the precinct, he continues to hand out gifts for the remainder of the evening, until the bag is empty. Burt, an elderly derelict, points out that Corwin has taken "not a thing" for himself. Corwin replies that his only wish is to do this every year. Returning to the alley where he found the bag, he encounters a young female elf, sleigh and four reindeer waiting to take him to his destiny as the eternal Santa Claus.

Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly light-headed from sampling the brandy, hear the tinkle of bells and confirm to each other that they have, indeed, just seen Henry Corwin, in a sleigh with reindeer and an elf, ascend into the night sky on Christmas Eve.

Closing narration

A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There's a wondrous magic to Christmas and there's a special power reserved for little people. In short, there's nothing mightier than the meek.

Episode notes

By November 1960, The Twilight Zone's second season had already broadcast five episodes and finished filming sixteen. However, at a cost of about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. As a result, six consecutive episodes were videotaped and then transferred to 16-millimeter film for TV transmission. Total savings on editing and cinematography costs amounted to only about $30,000 for all six entries—not enough to justify the loss of depth of visual perspective, which made the shows look like stagebound live TV dramas, or even soap operas. The experiment was therefore deemed a failure and never attempted again.

Even though the six shows were recorded in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the fourth one, shown on December 231960 as episode 11. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour", was seen on December 21960 as episode 8; The second, "Static" was shown on March 101961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth", appeared on January 201961 as episode 14; the fifth, "Twenty Two" was seen on February 101961 as episode 17; and the last one, "Long Distance Call" was transmitted on March 31961 as episode 22.

See also

• List of The Twilight Zone episodes
• Night of the Meek (1986) (The Twilight Zone) - remake in the 1985 revival of the series

References

• 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

• The Night of the Meek at IMDb
• The Night of the Meek at the TV.com episode page