A Town Has Turned to Dust (Playhouse 90)

"A Town Has Turned to Dust"
Playhouse 90 episodes
William Shatner as Jerry Paul
Episode nos.	Season 2 Episodes 38
Directed by	John Frankenheimer
Written by	Rod Serling
Original air date	June 19, 1958 (1958-06-19)
Running time	90 minutes
Guest appearances
Rod Steiger as Harvey Denton William Shatner as Jerry Paul Fay Spain as Annamay Paul James Gregory as Hennify

A Town Has Turned to Dust was an American television play broadcast live on June 19, 1958, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Rod Steiger and William Shatner starred in the production. Rod Serling wrote the teleplay, and John Frankenheimer directed.

Serling originally wrote the story as a depiction of the lynching of a young African-American in the Southern United States. Due to objections from the program's commercial sponsors, who were concerned with offending Southern viewers, it was not produced and aired until Serling moved the story's setting out of the South and changed the victim from black to Mexican.

Plot

Pancho Rivera, a 19-year-old Mexican boy, is jailed in Dempseyville, a small southwestern town suffering from drought and heat. Pancho is charged with attempted robbery of the general store and assault on the wife of the shopkeeper, Jerry Paul. Paul leads a mob to the jail. Rather than defend Pancho from the mob, the sheriff, Harvey Denton, turns Rivera over to the mob. Pancho is hung.

The mob celebrates at the saloon after the lynching. Hennify, a reporter visiting from St. Louis, confronts Paul and Denton. He asks what the penalty would have been if Rivera had been convicted rather than lynched. Hennify is told the penalty would have been five to ten years in prison.

The next day, Hennify visits Paul's store. Hennify observes a mark on the face of Paul's wife, Annamay, and notes that the mark matches the ring on Paul's hand. After Hennify leaves, Annamay accuses Paul of killing an innocent boy. Paul warns her not to damage his good name and throws her to the ground. Denton enters the store and confronts Paul with his suspicion that Paul killed Pancho. Denton suspects that Annamay was in love with Pancho.

The town's Mexican residents stop patronizing Paul's store. They stand in silent protest outside the store. Paul taunts Pancho's brother, Ramon, challenging him to enter the segregated saloon. Ramon enters the saloon and strikes Paul three times with a whip. Paul stirs up the white patrons by blaming the Mexicans for the town's problems. He again leads a mob to the jail, demanding that Ramon be turned over. This time, Denton refuses and speaks to the mob. Annamay appears and tells the mob that she loved Pancho and that was why Paul killed Pancho. Paul and Denton exchange gunfire. Denton is wounded, and Paul is killed.

Denton tells the priest that there is no absolution for him or for the mob. He confesses that he led a mob 16 years earlier that killed an elderly man. Denton then collapses and dies. That night, the drought that has plagued Dempseyville ends as rain begins to fall. Hennify writes that the rain came too late, because the town had already turned to dust due to prejudice and violence.

Cast

The following performers received screen credit for their performances:

• Rod Steiger as Harvey Denton
• William Shatner as Jerry Paul
• Fay Spain as Annamay Paul
• James Gregory as Hennify the reporter
• Mario Alcalde as Ramon Rivera
• Martin Garralaga as Priest
• Eugene Iglesias as Pancho Rivera
• Malcolm Atterbury as Jenkins
• Paul Lambert as Danny
• Sandy Kenyon as Billy
• Clegg Hoyt as Flagg
• Eddie Ryder as Pete Ankers
• Helen Kleeb as Mrs. Flagg
• Míriam Colón as Dolores

Robert Ryan hosted the show.

Production

Martin Manulis was the producer, and John Frankenheimer directed. Rod Serling wrote the teleplay. The play was presented live from Television City in Los Angeles. It was broadcast on June 19, 1958, as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90. Playhouse 90 was voted "the greatest television series of all time" in a 1970 poll of television editors.

Serling's teleplay was remade in 1998 as a science fiction film for the Sci-Fi Channel.

Censorship

Serling originally wrote the story about lynching in the South based on the killing of Emmett Till in particular. Concerned with offending viewers in the Southern United States, the commercial sponsors were unwilling to tackle Southern racism. Serling was only able to have the story told by switching the time to the late 19th century, the setting to the southwest, and the victim to a Mexican. Serling recalled:

By the time A Town Has Turned to Dust went before the cameras my script had turned to dust . . . Emmett Till became a romantic Mexican who loved the storekeeper's wife, but 'only with his eye.' . . . The setting was moved to the Southwest in the 1870's . . . The phrase 'twenty men in hoods' became 'twenty men in homemade masks.' They chopped it up like a roomful of butchers at work on a steer.

Despite the compromises, Serling biographer Nicholas Parisi observed, "the true target" of Serling's contempt "could hardly have been clearer" than in Sheriff Denton's reply when the mob's leader claims the Mexicans "need to be taught a lesson". In particular, Denton replied:

That's all they've had for a hundred years is a lesson! We've been the teacher. We taught 'em to turn their cheeks, we taught 'em to bow their heads, we taught 'em to say 'yessir.' . . . That's all they've ever had is a lesson! Now, what is left to teach 'em? How to stop breathing in a noose?

Reception

In The New York Times, Jack Gould called it "powerful drama" and "a raw, tough and at the same time deeply moving outcry against prejudice." He praised Serling's "vivid dialogue, Frankenheimer's "simply superb" direction, and the "superlative" performances of Steiger and Shatner.

William Ewald of the UPI called it "a play with good bones", "plenty of meat", and "dialogue that swirled." However, he felt that production was not wholly successful because the portrayals were "too black and white".

In The Boston Globe, Elizabeth W. Driscoll called it "a taut 90 minutes of live-from-Hollywood theatre."

Bill Fiset of the Oakland Tribune wrote that its tackling of racial intolerance made it "a milestone for television" and "one of the meatiest dramas the program has ever presented" -- not "meek or sterile" like so much television drama. He also credited strong acting by Steiger and Shatner and excellent direction.