She even takes off her shoes after getting in the car. In the radio play, Ronald picks up a hitch-hiker, but it’s a woman, not the sailor we see in the episode. Nan isn’t the only character Serling gender-swapped. And yet she’s entirely credible as she gradually slides into a desperate panic as the hitch-hiker appears again and again no matter how far she drives. She banters easily with the mechanic who changes her tire at the outset of the episode. She’s clearly a capable individual, undertaking a trip that would challenge anyone, male or female.
The casting of Inger Stevens proves Serling was right.
TWILIGHT ZONE THE HITCHHIKER TV
He surely realized that the dramatic potential of placing a lone young woman in peril - particularly on TV versus radio - was higher than if he depicted a man feeling threatened by another man. “Ronald Adams” became “Nan Adams.” (Nan, incidentally, is a nickname for his youngest daughter, Ann.) Fletcher didn’t like it, but it’s hard to fault Serling’s choice here. In its original form, “The Hitch-Hiker” was the story of a man on a coast-to-coast drive, not a woman. Wait, you may say, he played a female character? Nope. It was staged by the legendary Orson Welles, who both narrated the play and served as the lead character. “The Hitch-Hiker,” written by Lucille Fletcher, debuted on Novemon CBS Radio. (Spoilers ahead, so, if you need to, go here for ways you can see the episode first.) But the story that unfolds before our eyes is very close to what unfolded before people’s ears when this tale first aired on radio almost 20 years earlier. Oh, he made some changes, as we’ll see - some rather key ones. This time I’m taking a closer look at a real fan favorite from Season 1: “The Hitch-Hiker.” It provides an excellent example of Serling knowing when to stay out of the way.
TWILIGHT ZONE THE HITCHHIKER SERIES
In my series of posts exploring his Twilight Zone scripts adapted from other writers’ work, I’ve seen stories where he did a lot, ones where he did a little, and others that fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t know if anyone expressly taught that lesson to Rod Serling, but he clearly understood it. If it was a solid piece, don’t do a rewrite job simply to justify your existence.
The trick was not to do less than you had to, but also not to do more. Some of these experts were terrible writers. My job as an editor entailed taking articles written by technical experts and rendering them into layman-friendly English. “Do as much - or as little - as necessary.”Ī boss of mine told me that once.
0 kommentar(er)
