20 years of The Bunburyist.

The inquiring Elizabeth Foxwell. 

I missed the 20th anniversary of The Bunburyist (which occurred on November 5). I've been very busy as an editor at McFarland and Co., which—although I relish the opportunity to work on many fascinating projects dealing with subjects like women's history and mystery fiction—leaves me less time to devote to social media. I am very grateful for the many visitors who are interested in mystery history and continue to drop by. They might note that lately I've been including posts about mystery-related music (particularly film music), as I tend to find that composers often do not receive much attention for their important work.

The following are the top 10 posts on The Bunburyist based on views, and I should note that my page with links to mystery course syllabi is pretty popular as well. Do you have other favorites?
 

 The Top 10 Posts on The Bunburyist, 2005–25:

10. "Iniquity is catching":  Frank R. Stockton's The Stories of the Three Burglars (1889)

 9. "Security Risk" [TV episode, narrated by Jack Webb, 1963] 

 8. "Iconic Detectives" exhibition at Ohio State

 7. New release, Gerald Fried's crime drama music

 6. Hidden Fear (film, 1957)

 5. McFarland's true crime sale

 4. Upcoming tribute to Rod Serling

 3. "Committed" (TV episode with Alan Ladd, 1954)

 2. "The Grave Grass Quivers," by MacKinlay Kantor (1931)

 1. Dozen Best Detective Stories Ever Written

Historical marker honoring Rod Serling unveiled.

Jesse Bethea on Columbus Underground reports on the unveiling of a new historical marker on the Antioch College campus that honors writer-producer Rod Serling, an Antioch graduate and instructor. At the ceremony, Ohio governor Mike DeWine showed a photograph of his grandfather Albert Little teaching Serling. 

Upcoming tribute to Rod Serling.

Rod Serling, from a 1959
Mike Wallace interview

The Yellow Springs Film Festival (Ohio) plans a tribute to Rod Serling on October 2, featuring his author daughter Anne Serling (As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling) and writer-critic Mark Dawidziak (who has written a book on the Twilight Zone), a performance of the ca. 1948 Serling-Bill Rega radio play "The Air Is Free" (focusing on two endangered coal miners), a screening of the Twilight Zone episode "The Obsolete Man," and a panel discussion. 

Ohio historical marker for Rod Serling.

Rod Serling testifies before 
the FCC in Jan. 1960.

John Kiesewetter of Cincinatti's WVXU writes of the upcoming unveiling of a historical marker in Yellow Springs, OH, to honor writer, producer, and instructor Rod Serling. The marker will be situated outside One Morgan Place at Antioch College. Serling graduated from Antioch in 1950 and later taught at the college. The Yellow Springs Film Festival plans a tribute to his work in October. 

New statue of Rod Serling.

A new statue of writer and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was unveiled in Recreation Park, in his hometown of Binghamton, NY, on September 15. 

Hammett, Chandler, and the Writers Guild.

Ad for Mister Dynamite (1935)

In the Writers Guild Foundation's online On the Shoulders of Giants: Early Writers Guild History are the following goodies:

• Dashiell Hammett's 1935 membership application (his screen credit of the past three years is listed as Mister Dynamite [1935], which is an adaptation of his "On the Make"). The page after Hammett's application is Lillian Hellman's application.

• Cover of the guild's July 1947 The Screen Writer, which lists Raymond Chandler's "Critical Notes" that critique the contents of the May 1947 issue. One of his observations (in response to an article by Joseph L. Mankiewitz) is "I do not think a writer has to become a producer or director to be an independent artist . . . there is a cleavage between the creative art of writing and the arts of directing and producing..." (31). The July 1947 issue also has "Writing and Realization" by Meyer Levin (author of the Leopold and Loeb-inspired Compulsion) about a film in Palestine that involved him.

The foundation also has posted "The Top 20 Best Written TV Series." No. 15 is Hill Street Blues, no. 9 is The Wire, no. 3 is The Twilight Zone, and no. 1 is The Sopranos.

Rod Serling at war.

I want you to know what shrapnel and "88s" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean.

—The dedication of an unpublished short story by Rod Serling to his children, quoted in Anne Serling's As I Knew Him

Rod Serling with his 1960 Emmy
for outstanding writing
(for The Twilight Zone)

Rod Serling served as a paratrooper in World War II and was profoundly affected by his experiences. In Vincent Casaregola's thoughtful discussion "War in The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Haunted Visions of World War II" in Horrors of War, he notes that one-sixth of Twilight Zone episodes are about war (these include "The Purple Testament" with William Reynolds and "The Quality of Mercy" with Dean Stockwell; other examples from Serling's oeuvre are "The Time Element" aired on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, "The Strike" for Studio One, and The Rack). In the episode below from Writing for Television: Conversations with Rod Serling, Serling states, "I was traumatized into writing by war events."

Rod Serling speaks.

Some Rod Serling items I discovered:

• Binghamton, NY, is moving its Walk of Fame for preservation reasons. The first star was given posthumously to native son Serling.

Rod Serling, from 1959
Mike Wallace Interview

• At a May 1971 UCLA event, an often witty and blunt Serling commented on Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "A Stop at Willoughby"; Night Gallery episode "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar";  and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production "Storm in Summer." As can be expected given Serling's continual criticism of television, he had things to say about the state of TV in general:

"It . . . points out one of the major, in-bred problems of television: that however moving and however probing and incisive the drama, it cannot retain any consistent thread of legitimacy when after 12 or 13 minutes, out come 12 dancing rabbits with toilet paper." 

He plugged science fiction authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and a young filmmaker by the name of George Lucas ("Science fiction is becoming an altogether legitimate art form") and good writing ("You judge good writing by its lasting quality . . . nothing I've written in my life . . . will ever be remembered 100 years hence"). He considered his best work to be "Requiem for a Heavyweight," The Rack, and Seven Days in May.

UCLA showcases the career of Rod Serling.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive continues its look at the career of Rod Serling—with special attention to his work outside of Twilight Zone and Night Gallery—through September 19. Coming up are his celebrated Requiem for a Heavyweight (and "The Man in the Funny Suit," which focuses on the making of Requiem) as well as Planet of the Apes; lesser known is The Yellow Canary (1963), in which Pat Boone plays a musician whose son is kidnapped. In addition, the archive showed Let Us Continue, a U.S. Information Agency short film written by Serling in the wake of the JFK assassination that profiled President Lyndon Johnson and his public policy interests. Also on view was the 1969 pilot for "The New People" (which bears a resemblance to Lost) written by Serling and starring Richard Kiley.


Update. Television Obscurities discusses an alternative version of The New People pilot.

"I was greeted like cancer."

Writer-producer William Froug turned 90 last week, and the Archive of American Television is highlighting a 2011 interview with him, in which he discusses Rod Serling's sense of humor, Twilight Zone episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," writing detective novels and radio scripts, and other topics.

Rod Serling: "The screenplay ... is written for a continuous performance."

Letters of Note features a January 1966 letter from Rod Serling protesting the insertion of commercials in films shown on TV.

BBC Radio 7: "Time Enough at Last."

Today BBC Radio 7 will air "Time Enough at Last," a famous Twilight Zone episode about a bookworm after a nuclear holocaust that features Saturday Night Live alum Tim Kazurinsky. The original TV program was adapted by Rod Serling from Lyn Venable's 1953 short story, first aired in 1959, and starred Burgess Meredith.

Go here for the schedule; usually the BBC Radio 7 programs can be heard online up to a week after broadcast.

About the image: Burgess Meredith in "Time Enough at Last," Twilight Zone (dir. John Brahm, 1959).

WCFTR: Kirk Douglas's suspense-related and other work.

Among the small number of collections featured online at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research is one on Kirk Douglas:

• Documents and a still from Seven Days in May (1964; dir. John Frankenheimer, writ. Rod Serling), including suggestions by Stanley Kubrick

• Annotated script from "Never Steal a Butcher's Wife" (Suspense, 1950). You can listen to the episode here.

• Various materials on Spartacus (1960)

About the image: Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (1951, dir. William Wyler)

Rod Serling's "Night of the Meek."

For today, Rod Serling's 85th birthday as well as Christmas Day, let's remember the episode he wrote for The Twilight Zone, "Night of the Meek," starring Art Carney as an alcoholic department store Santa. Go here to watch it.

Submitted for your approval: The Twilight Zone at 50.

Binghamton, New York's "TZ at 50: A Celebration of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone" on Oct. 1–4 includes the following activities as it recognizes its talented native son:

The Sept. 29th WSKG "Off the Page" program with Bill Jaker focuses on Serling, including some rare early Serling radio broadcasts

Rod Serling Conference, Oct. 2–3, Ithaca College, which will look at The Twilight Zone as well as other Serling works such as Requiem for a Heavyweight

WSKG further honors Serling during its 8 pm broadcast on Oct. 3rd with readings of two well-known Twilight Zone scripts ("Walking Distance," "Mirror Image") and a short documentary on Serling

Happy birthday, Rod Serling.

My personal writing hero, Rod Serling, was born on Christmas Day in 1924 in Syracuse, New York. Creator of The Twilight Zone and winner of six Emmys, he was the gifted screenwriter on Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Seven Days in May, and Planet of the Apes. He died during a coronary bypass operation in 1975.

Stephen King, sadly, is dismissive of The Twilight Zone in Danse Macabre, but I admire TZ's tight structure (I think the half-hour programs are better than the one-hour ones), writing (in addition to Serling, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, Charles Beaumont, Earl Hamner), acting, and twist endings. Here's how one teacher uses TZ in his classes. Serling had a distinguished teaching career at Ithaca College in New York, which honors him with a biennial conference. The Rod Serling Foundation is lobbying to put Serling on a U.S. postage stamp.

Be prepared to seek out the middle ground ... that wondrous and very difficult-to-find Valhalla where man can look to both sides and see the errant truths that exist on both sides. If you must swing left or you must swing right—respect the other side. Honor the motives that come from the other side. Argue, debate, rebut—but don't close those wondrous minds of yours to opposition.
—Rod Serling, Binghamton HS Commencement speech, 1968