The
Twilight Zone was never too heavy on the science. For that reason, I would consider it more
fantasy. Take A Most Unusual Camera. A husband-and-wife pair of crooks comes
across a camera that seems much like any other instant camera. You press a button and out comes a
photograph. It’s never explained where
the camera came from or how it works, but it does work.
Chester
notes that there’s no place to load film.
But what the heck? It’s the only
thing of note in an otherwise worthless haul.
It doesn’t take long for them to realize that the camera takes in image
from five minutes into the future.
Chester thinks of all the good it could do humanity.
When
Paula’s brother, Woodward, turns on a horse race, Chester hatches a brilliant
plan: Take the camera to the race
track. They can photograph the results
and bet on the winners. So, of course
they come back with a bag full of cash.
(I guess we’re left to assume that they paid taxes, although it’s
unclear why they let Woodward tag along, since he escaped from prison.)
It’s
understandable that we would never get an origin story on the camera. That’s not the focus of the story. Instead, Serling chooses to focus on the fact
that greed always catches up with us.
Even if the IRS doesn’t notice, someone else will. The hotel’s waiter, Pierre, follows them into
the room with the intent of helping himself to their winnings.
My
main issue is that the story seemed a bit rushed. Chester and Woodward get into a fight and
fall out a window, which is understandable.
What gets me as strange is that Paula and Pierre meet a similar
fate. The only reasoning seems to be
that a different death would be harder to explain.
Normally,
I’d lament that the story didn’t get a longer run time. This time it did. There was a movie called Time Lapse, which
seems to folly the basic plot pretty closely and was done pretty well, if I
recall. The moral of the story is the
same, though. If you find a camera like
this, play it safe. Don’t get greedy.
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