Twin Passings

I know this was kind of an usual role for Glenn Ford, but I like him as Captain Fisby in that silly ‘50s movie “The Teahouse Of The August Moon,” where Brando played a happy-go-lucky Japanese guy (who would have thought that was possible?). Another favorite role was that of Dave The Dude in “A Pocketful of Miracles,” and of course the well-meaning teacher confronting a gang of toughs in “Blackboard Jungle.”

I never really knew just how much he was acting and how much he wasn’t, and if you asked me to list his “tough guy” roles (the ones where he really made his name), I honestly couldn’t give you one.

As for Joseph Stefano (born in South Philadelphia), he was the executive producer of the ‘60s black-and-white version of "The Outer Limits," and more notably, the screenwriter of “Psycho.” Being a child of ‘60s television, I saw many of the show’s episodes, which went more for shock value at that time (schlock value now, actually…I remember the one with character actor Simon Oakland dressed as a chicken from outer space taking over an amusement park ride).

However, Stefano was trying to communicate messages of a sort through the show (it was the ‘60s, after all), and he wasn’t afraid to tackle themes that might upset people; “A Feasibility Study” with Sam Wanamaker dealt with a local community that had been abducted and enslaved by aliens that spoke with a British accent and looked like piles of molten rock (once more, it was the ‘60s) and decided to commit suicide, basically, to save the planet Earth, and “The Prisoners of Zanti” was about sending our prisoners to outer space so they could land on a planet and be tortured by angry-faced ants (no word on whether or not the screenwriters indulged in illegal substances).

Stefano wasn’t as accomplished a writer as Rod Serling (“The Twilight Zone”) or possibly even Gene Roddenberry (“Star Trek”), but he did produce some thought-provoking television that made people think “outside the box,” and I think that’s an honorable accomplishment.