There is an argument to be made that “Third from the Sun” is the most visually inventive episode of The Twilight Zone‘s first season or, perhaps, the entire series.
Wanting to set up the big twist long before it was revealed, director Richard L. Bare utilized a number of off-kilter camera angles, music and props to make the viewer feel as though something wasn’t quite right.
“I used wide-angle lenses on every shot; even close-ups were made with a 28mm,” he explained in Stewart T. Stanyard’s Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television’s Groundbreaking Series. “I tilted and cocked every scene to give a sense of uneasiness since the cast was making plans top fly to another planet and avoid an impending H-bomb attack.”
One of the most memorable shots in the episode is a lazy Susan-style rotation where the camera moves from one character to the next during a bridge game between the Sturkas (Fritz Weaver and Lori March) and Ridens (Joe Maross and Jeanne Evans).
According to Bare, the visual was a last minute idea he came up with on-set with cinematographer George T. Clemens.
Revolving Shot in Twilight Zone‘s “Third from the Sun” Was Added Last Minute
“I got an idea that wasn’t in the script, that the production department wasn’t prepared for,” Bare recalled in Stanyard’s book. “I told George to put the camera on the center of a bridge table and get a close-up of each of the players as they had dialogue.”
“That necessitated bringing in a ‘fourth wall,’ but neither the grips nor George complained, they merely went about fulfilling the director’s vision,” he continued. “Since I started directing at a young age, I always had a certain amount of friction with the cameramen—until they found out that I had gotten started as one of them.”
He went on to add that the cast didn’t really need much direction beyond where “to position themselves for the camera—and, of course, avoiding bumping into one another.”
More than three decades after the episode aired in early 1960, the revolving camera technique became a staple of That ’70s Show.
Series creator and host Rod Serling, who had adapted the script from Richard Matheson’s short story of the same name, was very pleased with how “Third from the Sun” turned out. Serling told Bare just that during a house party at Bare’s home, praising the director’s work as “exemplary, and that of all the shows to date, he liked that one best.”
Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!
