Twilight Zone Collector's Edition (Passerby, the 7th is made up of Phantoms, An Occurrence at Owl...

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The rarest of all "Twilight Zone" episodes is on this videotape

This volume of "'The Twilight Zone' Collector's Edition" is mostly devoted to the Civil War, with the first and third episodes that are included. If they had picked "Still Valley" they could have had a complete set of Civil War visits to the "Zone," but that is not the case (I doubt they think that far ahead in planning out what goes on what tape). This tape stands out because it has the rarest of all "Twilight Zone" episodes with "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which is good, because the other three episodes are average "Zones" at best:

Episode 69, "The Passerby" (Written by Rod Serling, First aired October 6, 1961), is a minor tale in which a Southern woman named Lavinia (Joanne Linville) is waiting for her husband to return form the Civil War, but fears he might be dead. James Gregory plays a sergeant who stops to rest and who figures out ahead of Lavinia, but not ahead of the audience, what the twist is to this one. Then again, any story in which Abraham Lincoln shows up has some redeeming quality. Still, this is an average episode.

Episode 130, "The 7th is Made up of Phantoms" (Written by Rod Serling, First aired December 6, 1963), a trio of men in a National Guard tank on maneuvers near the Little Big Horn keep coming across signs that "Custer's Last Stand" is about to take place. Connors (Ron Foster) and McCluskey (Randy Boone) become convinced they are chasing the past, but Langsford (Warren Oates) believes they are crazy. Then McCluskey is shot in the back with an arrow. This episode harkens back to those days when Custer was still admired. The episode is also interesting because once they spent money on the tank apparently they could not afford much else, so the attempts to convince us that past and present are coming together are fairly simple and economical. The rest is okay and ultimately depends on the performances of the actors as they becoming convinced what is happening is really happening.

Episode 142, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (Written & directed by Robert Enrico, based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce, First aired February 28, 1964), is actually a French film that was the winner of the Cannes Film Festival of 1962 and which would win the Academy Award in 1963 for Best Short Film. Several minutes had to be cut and of course Rod Serling provided opening and closing narrations. During the Civil War a Confederate spy (Roger Jacquet) is about to be executed. As he is being hung from a railroad bridge the rope breaks. Dodging bullets he swims for his life and begins a desperate attempt to get home. This French film worked on American television because it was almost entirely silent and the one brief ballad that is sung is sung in English. In its final season "The Twilight Zone" was over budget and the producers solved the deficit by buying the film rights for $10,000. Besides, the Bierce short story is perfect for the "Zone." Having this one justifies getting this tape.

Episode 146, "I am the Night: Color Me Black" (Written by Rod Serling, First aired March 27, 1964), finds Sheriff Charlie Koch (Michael Constantine) presiding over the execution of a man named Jagger. But the night does not end the following morning and it becomes clear that Jagger is innocent, the victim of a corrupt justice system. The darkness is caused by hate and in this episode Serling gets unbearably preachy: "A sickness known as hate; not a virus, not a microbe, not a germ--but a sickness nonetheless, highly contagious, deadly in its effects. Don't look for it in the Twilight Zone--look for it in a mirror. Look for it before the light goes out altogether." There are more elegant attempts to say the same thing on other episodes that are much more effective.

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