Trollheart

Title: “The Fever”
Original transmission date: January 29 1960
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Robert Florey
Starring: Everett Sloane as Franklin Gibbs
Vivi Janiss as Flora Gibbs


Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Addiction, obsession, madness, gambling
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: A-



Serling’s opening monologue


Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights all expenses paid at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs's knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there's a prize in their package, neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce. A most inoperative, deadly life-shattering affliction known as the Fever.


A man and woman who have won a competition to spend a few days in Las Vegas argue as the husband, a stuffy Puritan type, disapproves highly of gambling and refuses to lighten up. Suffering her to spend the holiday, he nevertheless refuses to let her gamble. However when a drunk who has lost his shirt on one of the machines forces a coin into his hand and leaves him to play the machine, Franklin wins. Surprised, he determines to take the money he has won back to the hotel room, rather than, as he says these “baboons” would do, shovel it back in and lose it all. As he leaves though, he seems to hear someone call his name…

The voice continues to call him, and soon he can’t sleep. He keeps watching the pile of coins, and eventually decides he can’t keep them, must go back down to the casino and put them all back into the machine, lose them all, get rid of them. He’s soon hooked though of course, and once the coins are gone he starts cashing cheques, trying to win back all the money he has lost. He becomes irritable, irrational, obsessive, standing at the machine till morning, convinced it will eventually pay out. Of course it doesn’t, and when the arm jams as he puts in his last dollar, he loses it and accuses the machine of taunting him, of being alive, of deliberately breaking down so it wouldn't have to pay out. He pushes the machine over, and is escorted from the casino.

Back at the hotel, he keeps hearing the sound of the machine’s voice calling his name, and when he opens the door it’s there, advancing towards him, taunting him, laughing at him. He backs away, away - his wife tries to convince him there is nothing there - but he keeps retreating towards the window until he falls out of it and is killed. As a final insult, or joke, the last dollar he lost, the one that got caught in the machine, rolls out to land beside him.

Serling’s closing monologue

Mr. Franklin Gibbs, visitor to Las Vegas, who lost his money, his reason, and finally his life to an inanimate, metal machine, variously described as a "one-armed bandit", a "slot machine", or, in Mr. Franklin Gibbs' words, a "monster with a will all of its own." For our purposes, we'll stick with the latter definition because we're in the Twilight Zone.

The Resolution

Poetic justice really. The man who rails against gambling becomes so addicted that he loses his reason and ends up falling out of his window to his death. Or, if you prefer, is haunted by a slot machine and forced out the window. Either way, gambling ends up being the death of him.

The Moral

Clearly, gambling is for mugs. Gamblers only play to lose, not to win. Quit while you’re ahead.

Themes

Obsession and addiction play the largest parts in this episode. Once hooked, Franklin cannot stop playing the machine. He tells his wife this is because he has to win back the money he’s so far lost, and as far as it goes, this is true. However, in reality he just can’t stop playing. He’s become a slave to the one-armed bandit, and could not more walk away than he could stop breathing.

Obsession and gambling usually go hand in hand, of course. Gambling is an obsession, an obsession with winning, or trying to win. While Franklin initially puts all the money he has won back into the machine, he can't leave it at that, and has to keep playing. He's now hooked, and the family fortune is being fed to what Homer Simpsons once called Gamblor.

Madness features too, of course: did Franklin go crazy, thinking the machine was coming for him? Well of course he did... didn't he? His wife neither heard nor saw the machine, and you have to wonder how an inanimate machine with no power of propulsion could have somehow made it up to their room, and not only that, then been down on the ground beside the lifeless body of Franklin, to deliver the final insult.

Questions, and sometimes, Answers

On their arrival, the manager of the casino tells the couple they have “unlimited credit” (absolutely would never happen - casino would quickly go broke but that’s what he says). If this is the case, why then does Franklin have to use his own money to gamble? Why, when he goes up to cash his first cheque, does the teller not advise him he has unlimited credit?

Considering how much he hates/hated gambling, why did Franklin go to Las Vegas, the Mecca of the gambler? Why didn’t he let someone else go with his wife? And even if he had to go, did he realistically not expect his wife to want to gamble?

Iconic?

No, this is a one-off episode and I don’t recall anyone else doing it.

Those clever little touches

When the gambling machine is coming for Franklin, seeming to call his name, a slot in its base is curved upwards, and looks like a mouth smiling or grinning. Also, when it “speaks”, you can hear the sound of coins rolling in the sound, a little like in Pink Floyd’s “Money”.

Personal Notes

This was the first of the “funny” Twilight Zone episodes, and while it’s patently ridiculous it is good fun. It’s nice to see Serling could preach on the evils of gambling without getting all high-handed about it, inject a lot of humour into what is essentially a very dark subject for a lot of people.

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