[Theme music playing]
(Narrator) You're tra vel/ng through another dimension...
A dimension not onl y of sightand sound, but of mind,
a journey into a wondrous land
whose boundaries are tha t of ima Gina tion.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
He ain't here yet.
He'll be along.
He knows what's waiting for him here.
He knows he's gonna get shot.
No question about that.
I think I hear him coming now.
[Jazz music playing loud/ y on radio]
[Music stops]
Well, it's about time.
You're an hour and 15 minutes late, rance.
Sy, sy, sy, don't start that.
You know how emotional scenes
upset me before we shoot. Ah!
Now, don't get upset, rance,
[whinnys]
What do you say we get started?
All right, all right.
This is scene 71. Got your script?
Read it to me.
Come on, Tommy, let's go.
Huh? Oh, sorry.
It's the interior, saloon
cover shot of three bad men at bar.
Rance mcgrew enters, he walks to bar,
he glances sideways left and right.
"Left and right."
You think my head is on a swivel?
Listen, sy, when a cowboy walks into a bar,
he walks straight to the other end of the room,
then he takes his drink and looks at that,
then looks straight ahead.
He doesn't look left and right.
All right, rance, we'll shoot it your way...
Any way you want.
Now, can we begin?
In a minute, in a minute.
My stomach is killing me.
These scenes, these miserable emotional scenes.
All right, laddies, let's get this one this time.
This is scene 71.
It's a cover shot of rance entering the saloon.
Now, let's get with it, fellas, please.
We're way behind.
Second team out. The star is here.
(Narrator) Some 100-odd years ago,
a motley collection of tough moustaches
galloped across the west
and left behind a raft of legends and legerdemains.
And it seems a reasonable conjecture
that if there are any television sets up in cowboy heaven
any one of these rough and woolly nail-eaters could see
with what careless aban Don
their names and exploits are being bandied about,
they're very likely turning over in their graves...
Or worse, getting out of them.
Which gives you a clue
as to the proceedings that will begin in just a moment
when one Mr. Rance mcgrew,
a 3,000-buck-a-week phony baloney,
discovers that this week's current edition of make-believe
is being shot on location
and that location is the tw/I/ghtzone.
[Murmur of voices]
An inch more.
Six-gun...
[Gasps]
Dress it up.
We'll wait
for the new glass.
You win.
(Sy) You ready out there, rance?
(Rance) Yes.
All right. Act/on.
Rotgut whiskey.
[Glass breaking]
All right, wise guy.
Cut.
He put English on that, he deliberately made it curve.
An English on a bottle?
Guy needs a catcher's mitt.
All right, let's try it again.
From the bottle.
All right, positions, please.
Scene 71... again.
[Clearing throats]
Action.
Guess you boys know I'm the marshal.
We heard tell.
I guess you know that I know
that Jesse James is on his way here looking for me.
I know that, too.
Likewise.
There's something else I know that you don't know...
That you don't know that I know that you know Jesse James.
You tell him I'm gonna be here waiting.
I'll be right here waiting.
(Male voice) Now, we hear the horse r/de up,
he stops, he dismounts,
he appears on the porch.
Figured I'd bluffed you.
Here already, ain't he?
Marshal, marshal, please.
No killing in here.
Oh, I ain't aiming to kill him.
Just gonna maim him a little bit.
Just gonna pick off his pinkie.
Jesse ain't gonna take kindly to that.
[Sucks teeth]
Cut. [Sighs]
All right, we'll bring in Jesse here.
Ready, Jesse?
(Jesse) Yes.
Action.
Marshal mcgrew, ain't it?
Yip.
You're about to breathe your last, marshal.
[Gunshofl
Can't win 'em all.
[Laughing]
[Sobbing]
All right, Jesse,
this is it...
You and me,
man to man.
Stuntman!
Okay.
Stuntman! Stuntman!
Stuntman.
All right, cut and print it.
Good show, really good show.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Mcgrew.
All right, boys, this is the death scene.
Rance, in the bar.
Jesse lies over there.
Rance thinks that he's unconscious.
Jesse takes a gun up off the floor
and fires at rance's back.
At his back?
That's right.
Now, look, sy, I don't want to fight you
but that's not how Jesse James used to operate.
In everything I read about the guy, he fought pretty fair.
Can't I yell something?
Oh, that's thinking, that's real creative thinking...
Warn the fastest gun in the west that he's about to be shot.
Look, when you're up against rance mcgrew
you play it dirty, or you play it dead.
Now, stop arguing and get on with it.
This is cola.
I told you I wanted ginger ale.
It's got to look like whiskey.
Sy, either straighten this oaf out or fire him.
Mr. Mcgrew wants ginger ale.
Okay, ginger ale.
Your head against the bar, feet out here.
I don't care what he says.
Jesse James wouldn't shoot anybody in the back.
Yeah, but rance mcgrew would.
Let's get with it.
Scene 93, take one.
And, rance, baby, easy on the mirror.
(Sy) A c t/on!
[Player piano begins playing]
[Gasping] Why, you stupid clod, this is whiskey!
This is real whisk...!
Marshal, marshal...
Jesse's gunning for you.
He's coming right now.
Why, you cementhead,
he already came in in scene 73.
I'm gonna call my agent, and this time he'd better be in.
[Footsteps approach slowly, then stop]
They call me Jesse James...
The real Jesse James
not that side of pork that's been playacting me.
Cut?
Cut!
Shouldn't we cut?
For Pete's sake, somebody...
Let's cut!
I'd be looking for the marshal.
Fella named mcgrew.
Rance mcgrew.
Thataway.
You wouldn't be him, huh?
Where's the fella who loaned me this vest?
Marshal, I think maybe you and me
better have a little talk.
Maybe a long talk, maybe a short talk,
but a talk.
You're supposed to be tough.
You don't look so tough to me.
You know what you look like?
Well, I haven't been too well lately.
You look kind of like a marshmallow.
Mm. Mm.
Don't that rile you none?
[Grunts]
Come on, marshal.
First we'll have a drink.
Then we'll have a talk.
Then we'll have a showdown.
Two whiskeys. Just leave the bottles.
Marshmallow.
[Chuckles]
You don't do nothing very well, do you, Mr. Mcgrew?
[Coughs]
Don't that rile you none?
You're the most even-tempered dude
I ever did meet.
However...
I got no time to be social, marshal.
It's time you and me come to a meeting of the minds.
Why do you suppose they're all taking cover, marshal?
Closing time?
Yes... yes, it's curfew.
Well, good-bye, Jesse,
and it's been really very nice meeting you.
Marshal!
Just hold it right there.
Hmm?
You wasn't leavin', was you, marshal?
I mean, you wasn't just gonna walk out, was you?
No, no, no, ijust, uh...
Wanted to see if it was gonna rain.
No, not gonna rain.
I thought you was playing
some kind of trick on me.
Like the time that bad guy
had you covered in the back
and you went through the swinging doors
and swung one door back
and knocked the gun out of his hand.
Yes, that was the first show last season.
Or when those rustlers were collected in here
waiting to bushwhack you.
Ten or eleven of 'em wasn't it?
Uh, 13.
I got nominated for an Emmy on that one.
Oh, I'll bet you did. [Chuckles]
I just bet you did.
Folks couldn't help but admire a man of your talents.
[Laughing maniacally]
[Laughing nervous/ y]
You know, the thing of it is, marshal,
thing of it is...
I don't believe you ever fired a real gun in your life, did ya?
Did you ever hit a man in anger
or get hit in anger yourself?
Tell me true, do you ever ride a horse?
On... on occasion.
So you don't shoot, you don't ride and you don't fight.
You just strut around
wearing a phony badge going through the motions
of killing off fellows like me.
Now, I wouldn't say that.
Now, last... last year,
we had one script
in which one of the Dalton boys went free.
He told me about it.
He also told how you captured him.
You jumped 800 feet off a cliff
and landed on the back of his horse when he wasn't looking.
Come on, did you ever jump 800 feet off a cliff
and land on a man's horse?
Heights... heights make me...
Ill.
Tha t figures.
We had a meeting up there...
Me, my brother frank, the Dalton boys,
Sam starr, bill y the kid,
quitea few others.
And the consensus was
that you wasn't doing a thing for our good names.
So we had a little election
and they chose me to come down here
and maybe take a little of the shine
off your pants.
How's that?
Don't you get it?
We see you week after week
killing off this guy and that guy,
capturing that bushwhacker and that rustler.
But all the time winning.
Man, you just don't lose.
You are the "winninges t" fell o w
to ever come down the pike.
So me and my friends, we figured that maybe just once
you ought to lose.
Mm-hmm, yes, yes, I can see that, that's a very good idea
and I will take that up with the producer.
I don't think there'll be time to take it up
because mister, you're going to lose right now.
I'll tell you what I'm gonna do:
I'm going to be square with you...
A lot squarer than you ever been with any of us.
Face-to-face, and no, uh...
What do you call them, stuntmen?
Out on the street, you and me...
You coming down one side of the street,
me coming down the other.
But that... that's been done.
Didn't you see gunfightat red rock?
Lousy.
You didn't like it?
Let's go, marshal.
Now, you come around this corner,
and I'll come around that corner.
I'll let you make the first move.
Nothing could be fairer, could it?
Oh, my, no, no indeed.
Well, shall we say tomorrow afternoon?
This afternoon... now.
Why does it have to be this afternoon?
Could have been tomorrow afternoon.
Rush, rush, rush.
Rush, rush, rush, that's all anybody knows
is rush, rush, rush.
Marshal?
Where are you, marshal?
Come on out, marshal!
Come on out, marshal.
Marshal, where are you?
Come on, marshal.
Marshal, I'm going to count to five,
then we're both going to draw.
One...
This is ridiculous, it's never done this way.
Two...
I didn't even want to do the series.
I just did it because of the residuals.
Three...
And the fact that they were gonna let me use my own name
as the character.
Four...
I suppose you know I have an aging mother
and millions of fans all over this country,
and they're going to hate you for this.
And a lot of them are just like my old mother.
You're killing an American institution!
Five.
Stuntman! Stuntman!
Reach, marshal.
Just like I figured...
This guy couldn't outdra wa cra yon.
Give me a break, will you, Jesse?
Jesse, give me a break.
I'm too young to die.
I'll do anything you say, Jesse,
I'll do anything, just give me a break.
You say you got nominated for an Emmy?
Two, two.
You can'tact any better than you can draw.
Jesse, Jesse, I'll do anything, just give me a break.
I'll do anything you say, you, you, you just name it.
[Cocks] Anything?
You just name it.
Maybe you and me ain't too far away from a bargain.
I don't know exactly what it is I want,
but I'll sure think about it some.
You're not going to shoot me down?
Nope.
Tell you what I will do.
I'm gonna stick around
make sure that you have to play it careful from now on.
We may be stiffs up there...
But we're sensitive.
Jesse?
Jesse!
Jesse?
[Glass breaks]
It isn't whiskey, Mr. Mcgrew,
it's ginger ale, just like you ordered.
You all right, rance?
Yes, yes, I'm... I'm all right.
Where'd you all go?
Where'd we go? We didn't go anywhere.
You sure you're all right?
Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
(Sy) Let's get this sho 7 no w.
Jesse's on the floor.
You think he's unconscious.
He tries to get you in the back.
Somebody wants to talk to you, Mr. Mcgrew.
He's about to shoot a scene.
Says he's rance's agent.
My agent?
I don't know what the chain of command is,
so go out and talk to him.
Find out what it is he wants
what it is you want
and what it is we can shoot.
Howdy, marshal.
[Whinnys]
You said "anything,"
and "anything" is the following:
I'm gonna stick around from picture to picture
to make sure you don't hurt no more feelings.
Now, in this scene,
Jesse don't shoot you in the back.
He's lost blood, he's weak as tea,
but he can still get on his feet,
knock you through that window
and make his getaway.
Is that understood?
He knocked me, rance mcgrew, through a window?!
Why, it's, it's...
(Rance) Sy?
(Sy) Yea h?
Sy, uh, I have a grea t idea
for something I think might be a fun shot. Uh...
Wha t?!
Are you out of your mind?
Jesse does what? t?
Oh, rance...
All right.
Scene 93, take two.
A ction.
[Horse snorts]
Now, that was just fine.
Now, about next week's episode
the one where you knock the gun
out of Billy the kid's hand
from a fourth-story window a half a block away
with the base of a lamp.
No good, huh?
It stinks.
The way I see it is this:
Now, Billy, he hears you,
and he whirls around,
and he fires from the hip,
and he shoots the lamp right out of your hand.
Now, in two weeks,
I think we ought to give Sam starr a break.
He's a real nice fella... Awful good to his mother.
Haw!
(Narrator) The evolution of the so-oalled adul t western
and the metamorphosis of one rance mcgrew,
formerl y phony bal oney, now upright citizen
with a preoccupa tion with all things
involving tradition, truth and cowpoke predecessors.
It's the way the cookie crumbles and the six-gun shoots
in the twilight zone.
(Male presenter) Rod serl/ng, orea Tor of the twilight zone,
will tell you about next week's story
after this message.
And now, Mr. Serling.
For all of us, even the most young at heart,
I suppose there's a little kernel of want
having to do with reliving childhood...
That grand and glorious moment in time
when the biggest guy around is the patrol boy.
Next week on the twilight zone, this moment is recaptured
in George Clayton Johnson's exceptionally sensitive story
called kick the can.
It costars Mr. Ernest truex and Mr. Russell Collins.
If the tobaccos in a cigarette are good enough,
they alone will give mellow richness
and satisfactory mildness.
Try chesterfields and you'll discover
21 great tobaccos make 20 wonderful smokes.
(James) This is James arness.
You know, it's onl ya short hop
from the twilight zone to dodge city and gunsmoke.
Sa turda y nights over most of these stations.