The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine

"The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 4
Directed by	Mitchell Leisen
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Franz Waxman
Cinematography by	George T. Clemens
Production code	173-3610
Original air date	October 23, 1959
Guest actors
Ida Lupino Martin Balsam Jerome Cowan Ted de Corsia

"The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" is episode four of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 23, 1959 on CBS.

Plot summary

Aging film star Barbara Jean Trenton secludes herself in her private screening room, where she reminisces about her past by watching her old films. In an attempt to bring her out into the real world, her agent Danny Weiss arranges a part for her in a new movie and brings a former leading man—now also older, many years retired from acting and managing a chain of grocery stores—to visit her. This horrifies Barbara Jean and only drives her further into seclusion. Then one day, Barbara Jean's maid finds the screening room empty—and is horrified by what she sees on the screen. Danny comes over and sees on the screen the living room of the house, filled with movie stars and Barbara Jean as they appeared in the old films. She throws her scarf toward the camera and departs just before the film ends. In the living room, Danny finds Barbara Jean's scarf. "To wishes, Barbie", he says wistfully. "To the ones that come true."

Cast

• Ida Lupino as Barbara Jean Trenton
• Martin Balsam as Danny Weiss
• Jerome Cowan as Jerry
• Ted de Corsia as Marty Sall

Quotations

Opening narration

Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.

Closing narration

To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world. It can happen in the Twilight Zone.

Episode notes

This episode contains several similarities to Billy Wilder's film Sunset Boulevard and shares the same composer and conductor of music, Franz Waxman.

Ida Lupino would later direct the season five episode "The Masks". She was both the only person to have acted in one episode and directed another, and the only woman to direct a Twilight Zone episode.

References

Specific

General

Further reading

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

• "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" at IMDb