July 22, 2023-number 142

Spoilers

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

An episode of The Twilight Zone that was unlike any of the others shown. Namely, it is an Academy Award winner.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was a short film that was shot in France and won at the Cannes Film Festival. It also won an Academy Award for Best Short Film. According to Wikipedia, the rights to the French film was purchased by TV producer William Froug to show to the American public. With a few adjustments (such as adding an introduction from Rod Serling and closing narration at the end), the film became the 22nd episode of The Twilight Zone.

It was also very different than other episodes because there was barely any dialogue in the film, depending on background sounds (such as bird noises or military orders) and a song laid over sections of the episode.

The story focused on a man named Peyton Farquhar, who was being prepared to be hanged by Union soldiers during the Civil War off a bridge over Owl Creek. As he was pushed off the edge of the bridge, his rope broke and he fell into the creek below. As he was fired upon by soldiers, he made his desperate attempt to escape. He successfully escaped the soldiers and wandered back to where his wife lived.

Just before their happy reunion, he snapped his head backwards and went taut and we saw, in reality, that he had never escaped and had been hanged on the bridge. We realized that everything that had happened after his rope broke took place in his head during the time when he had been pushed off the bridge and before the rope when tight.

“An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, in two forms: as it was dreamed … and as it was lived and died. This is the stuff of fantasy, the thread of imagination … the ingredients of the Twilight Zone.”

I found this to be an extremely engaging and exceptional episode of the show. I actually had figured out that he was still hanging on the bridge before the reveal, but I thought all the events that had happened were a purgatory of some sort instead of it all being in his head. I thought that twist at the end was really well done.

Roger Jacquet brought an excellent performance to the episode, showing his desperation and determination to get back to his love. The episode leaves with a haunting image of Farquhar hanging from the bridge.