Original subtitles

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: You unlock this door with the key of imagination.

Beyond it is another dimension.

A dimension of sound.

A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind.

You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance,

of things and ideas.

You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

-[WIND BLOWING] -[WOOD CREAKING]

[SHIP'S BELL RINGING]

[SOUNDS STOP]

[BLOWS OFF DUST]

[LOUDLY] Let's get with it, Conklin!

A tight office is a happy office.

Idle hands make for an unproductive poop deck.

Belay that, Miss Abernathy.

Extraneous activity is nothing more nor less

than sloppy seamanship, in a manner of speaking.

You there, Fenstermacher!

Let's keep an even keel there, in a manner of speaking.

Let's keep an even keel there, man.

To all of you,

bear in mind that we must all of us go aft,

climb up the old mast, and in a manner of speaking,

set our sights to a distant horizon.

Tight ship! A happy ship!

Damn the torpedoes of competition

and full speed ahead!

[RINGS BELL LOUDLY]

WOMAN: Well shot, Mr. Conklin.

Right between Captain Bligh's eyeballs.

He's an exceptional voice. My ears are still ringing.

You know, that fat boy is headed for mutiny in a few hours?

Where would you find a plank heavy enough to hold him?

When I think of all the kamikazes they threw at us during the war,

wouldn't you think that just one would would've hit him?

["ANCHORS AWEIGH" PLAYING LOUDLY]

One of these days, all that noise is gonna come back and bite him.

I hope I'm around to see it happen.

NARRATOR: This is Roswell G. Flemington. 220 pounds of gristle,

lung tissue and sound decibels.

He is, as you have perceived, a noisy man.

One of a breed who substitutes volume for substance,

sound for significance, and shouting to cover up the readily apparent phenomena

that he is nothing more than an overweight and aging perennial Sea Scout

whose noisemaking is in inverse ratio

to his competence and to his character.

But soon, our would-be admiral of the fleet

will embark on another voyage.

This one is an unchartered and twisting stream

that heads for a distant port called the Twilight Zone.

[LOUD EXPLOSIONS]

[CANNON FIRE]

[EXPLOSIONS FADING]

[NOISE RESUMING]

[PHONE RINGING]

[EXPLOSIONS, RINGING CONTINUE]

Hello? Hello?

Who? Oh, just a moment. I can't hear you. Please.

Roswell! Roswell!

Could you turn that down just a little bit?

I can't hear a thing on the telephone!

Do you know what that is, madam? Collector's item.

The actual sounds of the battleship Missouri bombarding Okinawa!

[SHOUTING] But I can't hear who's on the phone!

Lay on, gentlemen, and let 'em know what's what!

Fire at will! And by the good Lord Harry,

we'll show them how the Navy treats aggression!

[SOUNDS STOP]

And that, madam, was an act of utter abomination

and the most callous vandalism.

May I remind you that those were the actual sounds

of the battleship Missouri bombarding Okinawa?

And there were only 100 such records in existence.

Now there are only 99.

What you have done, madam, is an act of desecration

not unlike the defacing of a statue of John Paul Jones.

What are you, madam, some sort of a fanatic?

Roswell, we've had this out before.

What was once an idiosyncrasy of yours is now an obsession.

This… This insistence on blaring noises

and running a household like it was a destroyer escort on convoy duty.

The combination has now become quite impossible, and I can't live with it.

Stand, madam!

Oh, knock it off, Roswell.

You are an insufferable, noisy clown, but you are not stupid!

I have had you up to here, and my ears have had you,

and my stomach lining has had you,

and whatever part of the brain that keeps a person balanced, that's had you, too.

In short, Roswell, I have had you!

I am absolutely and completely thunderstruck!

Are you, now?

I am, indeed. My own wife. And after 20 years!

Twenty years ago, Roswell, I wasn't taken in marriage.

I was piped aboard. And after 20 years,

the shrill piping has become absolutely unbearable.

So, at this point, Roswell, I'm leaving,

in a manner of speaking, the ship's company!

You're deserting me!

In a manner of speaking, Roswell, you said it!

[PANTING]

It wasn't locked, Roswell.

It might interest you to know, madam,

that when I was a young chap,

I had a mother who insisted she was ill.

She was a whiny, petulant, complaining female

similar to yourself.

And when I would come home from school,

she would make me walk tiptoe and whisper.

[WHISPERING] Whisper. Whisper. Whisper.

[SPEAKING NORMALLY] You know, in our house,

we never had any cookies.

All we had were fudge brownies,

because they made less noise when you chewed them.

[QUIETLY] "Eat your brownie

"and run upstairs and change,"

[WHISPERING] But keep it quiet."

[LOUDLY] And I tell you, madam, I had quite enough of that!

And that is why I went to sea!

And that is why I've spent my life

in the very wholesome, healthy and quite understandable pursuit

of the free and the unfettered.

And that is why I am the owner,

manager, chairman of the board and president

of the Roswell G. Flemington Model Ship Company.

Second to none in the field!

Whose motto is, "Damn the torpedoes,

full steam ahead for fun and profits."

I know the company, I know the president, I know the motto.

And I respond, Mr. Roswell G. Flemington,

with the following nautical phrase

which I have now taken to heart and will proceed to implement.

The phrase is, "Lay aft, and dump the garbage!"

So, in a manner of speaking, consider yourself dumped!

"Flight deck sounds of aircraft

leaving the carrier Hornet."

[LOW RUMBLING]

Good riddance, madam! I have never liked you.

I have simply suffered you.

[RECORDED ROARING]

[WATER DRIPPING]

[DRIPPING BECOMES LOUDER]

[MOANING]

[LOUD, CONSTANT DRIPPING]

[DRIPPING STOPS]

[DRIPS TWICE]

[DRIPPING RESUMES, RICOCHETING]

[DRIPPING, RICOCHETING]

[DRIPPING RESUMES, RICOCHETS]

[DRIPPING STOPS]

[CLOCK TICKING]

[TICKING BECOMES LOUDER]

[ALARM RINGING]

[EXPLOSION]

[HISSING, CLANKING, GEARS SPRINGING]

Well?

Nothing abnormal, Mr. Flemington.

No excess wax, no obstruction of any kind,

no inflammation.

By the great Lord Harry,

candor dictates, Doctor, that I tell you that as a ship's surgeon,

you wouldn't make a cabin boy in a manner of speaking.

Frankly, I think consulting another physician

might be an extremely practical idea.

I only wish you'd had a modicum of professional ethics

and given me this advice before you went through

the motions of this perfunctory examination.

As it is, I shall be dunned with your bill

as well as the bill of another ear specialist.

In point of fact, Mr. Flemington,

I wasn't gonna recommend another ear specialist.

Now, I had in mind perhaps some, uh, well, some psychiatric help.

I presume you are being humorous, sir.

It is only that charitable outlook

that prevents your being called to accounts.

Psychiatrist, eh? Well, let me tell you, Doctor,

and I use the term loosely,

there are few people walking this earth

as sane as I am.

I bid you good day, sir.

Good day.

[LOUD SNAPPING]

What do you suppose happened to lardhead?

Count your blessings, honey. I've been here four years,

and this is the first time he's been late.

Wouldn't it be marvelous if his car fell off the ferryboat with him in it?

The millennium, the absolute millennium.

[DOOR SLAMMING]

Thus endeth the dream.

ALL: Good morning, Mr. Flem.

I've been here five years and that's the first time

he's walked in without telling me that the smoking lamp was not lit

and that we had to move full speed ahead toward the shores of prosperity.

Maybe he's sick.

Something incurable, like barnacles on the brain.

Very good. Barnacles on the brain. Conklin, you'd better get out your darts.

Only forget the portrait. Shoot for the record.

[ALL LAUGHING]

That's odd. Very odd.

I've been here ten years and that's the first time I've seen him look frightened.

[TRAFFIC HONKING]

[PEOPLE TALKING ON STREET]

[GROANING]

[WATER COOLER GURGLING]

[LOUD SPLASHING]

Let's keep it quiet out here.

I was just…

[LOUD SQUEAKING]

With your permission, Mr. Flemington,

new shoes.

What have you got in them, pipe organs?

This ship has got to shape up. Repeat, shape up.

Noise is not efficiency.

Let's secure now. And watch this noise.

Yes, sir.

[BELL CLANGING]

Unless I'm very much mistaken,

it is one of those very odd phenomena. Auto suggestion we call it.

A person talks himself into believing occurrences take place

when indeed they are pure figments of imagination.

Beyond that, Mr. Flemington, there is very definitely some suggestion here

that you are very resentful of your mother.

And have a preoccupation with her imaginary aches and pains.

My guess at least for the moment would be

that this particular feeling extended itself to your wife

who provided you with a similar mother image.

But I can tell you this, Mr. Flemington,

and forgive me if I repeat myself,

these occurrences are pure figments of imagination.

I believe that, Doctor.

Now, snap your fingers.

Well, do you think I, uh…

Go ahead, snap your fingers.

Any abnormal sound?

Normal!

Stamp your feet.

[STAMPS TWICE]

Normal again?

Happily, delightfully, comfortingly normal.

You've cured me, Doctor.

By the good Lord Harry,

if Admiral Nelson had had you at Trafalgar,

he'd have saved both his eye and his arm.

In naval parlance, sir, you're 4.0.

Four point oh, sir, in a manner of speaking.

That's all right, Mr. Flemington.

Slam it at will, be my guest.

You, sir, have the soul of a seaman.

Bless you.

[SINGING TO SELF]

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Mind over matter.

My wife obviously the culprit

a miserable preoccupation with noise literally planted the seed in my head.

Incredible what one crew member can do to a whole ship's company.

And the whole business, mind over matter.

Madam, you are not welcome on this particular quarter deck.

Nor shall I stay here, Admiral.

I forgot some of my jewelry.

I will retrieve same and then, whether you pipe me ashore or not,

that's precisely where I'll be heading.

And might I add this, madam,

despite your efforts to capsize this worthy vessel, in a manner of speaking,

against the rocks and hidden shoals of petulance

and petty dissatisfaction, the ship remains tight

and all your efforts, worthless and wasteful.

Horatio, old pal, let the following be my final comments:

You are an overgrown sailor boy with an undermanned head.

You are so full of incredible neuroses

that I wonder that you haven't cracked before this.

Belay that, madam, belay that.

It just so happens that I have had a psychiatric examination,

and if there is one thing wrong with me, it is you.

It is simply you. And furthermore, madam,

I can tell you one other thing:

The whole business is mind over matter.

Totally and absolutely mind over matter.

Do you know what I can do to you?

I can shut you off.

Do you realize that?

I can literally shut you off

because I am a man of such incredible will

that I can do anything I want to do.

Now, go ahead.

Yell at me.

Go on, yell at me.

Because even now, at this moment

I am in the process of exercising mind over matter.

I am shutting you out.

[MUFFLED] Flemington, I really do wonder about you.

I wonder why no one has committed you. I really…

See! See!

I have shut you out.

Go on, talk some more.

[MUFFLED] Really, Roswell, you do need help.

You really do need help.

Incredible. Mind over matter.

I want to shut her out, I simply shut her out.

Now, then, what shall we listen to tonight?

"Anchors Aweigh"?

"Midshipmans' March"?

Let's see.

"Actual sounds of Japanese destroyer

"exploding in lady bay."

"Complete with boiler hissings,"

fantail cracking and smokestack exploding."

Great, great.

Better get ready out there.

This will galvanize you properly.

[RECORD PLAYING VERY QUIETLY]

[SILENCE]

[GLASS BREAKING QUIETLY]

[SCREAMING]

[SILENCE]

[SCREAMING]

Louder! Louder!

Make more noise.

Let's hear it.

Come on, let's hear it.

Louder! Louder!

NARRATOR: When last heard from, Mr. Roswell G. Flemington

was in a sanitarium pleading with the medical staff to make some noise.

They of course believed the case to be a rather tragic aberration.

A man's mind becoming unhinged.

And for this, they'll give him pills, therapy and rest.

Little do they realize that all Mr. Flemington is suffering from

is a case of poetic justice.

Tonight's tale of sounds and silences

from the Twilight Zone.

PRESENTER: And now, Mr. Serling.

Next time out on The Twilight Zone we move into a very dark corner

of the odd and the unpredictable with a story called "Caesar and Me."

It's written by Adele T. Strassfield,

and it stars one of the most talented young men

on the acting scene today, Jackie Cooper.

Here's one that may stay with you after the lights are out.

It's a story of a ventriloquist and his dummy,

and this one is designed for the cold chills and the hot fevers.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]