"Hey! I Know That Guy!" Episode #2

"Hey! I know that guy!"

 

Well, it's time for another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

For instance, in the first installment I went with James Gregory who appeared briefly at the end of the premiere episode of The Twilight Zone.  But as I stated in that post, there are at least two (that I can think of off the top of my head), that only have two characters, so in those episodes neither of the actors or actresses could be considered secondary.

And thus, this time I am going with what is one of my all-time favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone, "A Game of Pool". In this episode, a wanna be pool star is frustrated because, although he considers himself to be top notch, he is always being compared to a champion pool stud who is no longer living. The episode starred Jack Klugman as the would be star and Jonathan Winters (in a rare dramatic performance) as the former stud come back to life to play a one-on-one game with the wannabe.

In choosing which of the two stars to focus on, it would have been my natural tendency to go with Winters.  He was a great comic actor.  But then, Klugman had a good career on film, too.  I picked Klugman in the end  because, not only can I talk about a fairly extensive career, I also can review a long neglected film, Twelve Angry Men.

Jack Klugman's career spanned 60 years, beginning in 1950 as a bit player. But by the time of his first role on the Zone he already had a good resume, including one of the lead roles in a TV soap opera called The Greatest Gift  (1954-55). And, of course, after the stint on The Zone, everyone knows he went on to greater heights.  He is well remembered for playing Oscar Madison, foil to co-star Tony Randall's Felix Unger on the comedy The Odd Couple. (And by the way, he got his feet warm for that role by subbing for Walter Matthau in the stage production of the original play on Broadway.)

And when his term as Oscar ended, he also found dramatic success as the titular character of the mystery series Quincy, M.D.. Like the previous installment's Gregory,  Klugman  made his biggest impact on the small screen, but as we will see, he did have some rather memorable impact in the theater as well.

If you are a child of the 70's, you may also remember him appearing from time to time with his (then)  wife, Bret Somers on TV shows like Tattletales. And Bret also mentioned him from time to time during her stint as a regular on The Match Game. 

So on to the TV stint on The Twilight Zone. Klugman had 4 turns at starring on the show.  His first was as a downtrodden has been trumpet player who eventually finds a new lease on life in "A Passage for Trumpet". Besides his second role as the pool player in today's episode, he also appeared in two other episodes "Death Ship" and "In Praise of Pip". All four rank in the upper half of most full series episode rankings, and I'm happy to say, most people agree with me that "A Game of Pool" was his best.

In "A Game of Pool", Jesse Cardiff (Klugman) plays alone in a poolroom, showing off to everyone (and no one) how good he is.  But he laments that everyone else claims that he is not the equal of Fats Brown, a legend who has been dead for 15 years, Jesse wishes he could play Fats just one game and prove his mettle.  But making a wish in the Twilight Zone can bring about things you never expected.  Such as Fats Brown (Winters) appearing and answering the challenge.

Ultimately it comes down to Jesse playing for his life against Fats.  "You win; you live. You lose; you die." says Fats.  Which Jesse reluctantly accepts as the stakes seeing as to how he wants to win the prestige of being called the best so badly.  And when it comes down to the final ball, take it whichever way you want, Fats ends up losing (By choice or by misstep, you decide.  But I tend to think he flubbed on purpose.)  And Jesse ends up being the best.  But after he dies (sometime in the future, mind you, not right away) he finds that he has taken on the mantle that Fats vacated and has to show up whenever anyone wishes they could have played one game against the great Jesse Cardiff.

Klugman is the outstanding of the two here.  Not that there is anything to fault Winters by for his portrayal, but if an Emmy were going for one or the other I would have given it to Jack.  This is one of those episodes I end up watching about once every other month, just because I can get into it.  And not just because I wish I could play pool half as good as either of the two characters (although that does factor in to it). 

I'm given to understand both actors actually pulled off most of the shots in the episode. (The same seems to be true for the shots made by Newman and Gleason in The Hustler, and Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) did the stunt shot at the end of the "Hustling the Hustler" episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Yes, I do love me some pool.  I even watch pool tournaments on TV. )

 

 

Klugman had very few roles in which he was the star on the big screen.  But even as a co-star, he managed to hold his own.  In particular was his presence in the Henry Fonda led film 12 Angry Men. Klugman was just one of 11, and admittedly he didn't garner the attraction that Fonda or co-star Lee J. Cobb. But when his turn to come on screen arrived, you knew he was there.  

I read the screenplay for 12 Angry Men in high school.  It was years before I finally got to watch it on video.  (I may have seen it on network TV before then,  but I don't remember).  

Even longer years later I had the opportunity to serve on a jury myself.  Not a murder trial.  It was a simple case of possession with intent to sell illegal drugs.  And I remember we initially had a hung jury.  The jury room didn't turn out acrimonious as it did here, but we did have some discussions.  And I remember we had one hold out until the very end.  Also I remembered the scene from this movie where one juror admonished another juror for changing his vote just so they could go home. So the situation was on my mind at that time.

If you know anything about the film you know that the 12 men are jurors deciding the outcome of a murder trial. Initially the vote is 11-1 "guilty". with one hold out, that being Henry Fonda's character.  Gradually over the course of the film, however, Fonda , and eventually some others are able to instill some doubts about the "guilty" verdict they initially cast until it comes down to one adamant hold out.  Klugman (credited as Juror #5; none of them actually have names they are all identified by their numbers in the jury seating) is one of the early jurors to change his vote.  And he becomes an advocate for others who change their votes to the hostile holdouts.

!2 Angry Men is a great character study, even though a couple of them sometimes come across as a little caricaturistic. (I speak here mainly of the immigrant character (Juror #11), played by George Voskovec, who himself was an immigrant, so maybe it wasn't intentional. Klugman's presence in the jury room is sometimes sedate, but that is in fitting with the character. Juror #5 is a city slum kid like the defendant and has much more sympathy for him as a result.

AS a film, this is one well worth seeing.  Despite the studio reluctance to a film with no actual action or sets to enhance the story, the film managed to get recognition, It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (all of which it lost to Bridge on the River Kwai). I don't think it's too big a surprise there were no nominations for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor for this film because, after all, how could you choose any one over the others as prominently lead actor?

For the best that Klugman had to offer, I would still go with watching him as Oscar Madison, but if you want to see his dramatic chops, you can't go wrong with !2 Angry Men.

 

Thanks for your time.

Quiggy