Talk about getting "lost in your role"! In this one-of-a-kind episode of the Twilight Zone, a 36 year old business executive, Arthur Curtis (Howard Duff), happily married with a lovely wife and cute daughter, discovers that his life is a film role, noticing that his office is a movie set! Imagine if your entire life, which seems so vivid and real, turns out to be a film script and, in actuality, you are a drunkard, whose career is in the toilet, married to a money-grubbing wench who demands a divorce and payday for having been your wife. The entire intriguing episode has Arthur unwavering in his belief that his life isn't imaginary, despite what his eyes and those around him (the film director, his horrible wife, agent, etc) tell him. His real name is Gerry Reagan, but he insists that he is Arthur Curtis; the question is whether or not the man can differentiate fantasy from reality. Maybe it is true that it would simply be easier to run away and hide from the anguish and misery of real life for the more pleasant, harmonious fantasy of a private delusion. With superb direction by Ted Post (Hang 'Em High) who carries us along for the ride as Arthur tries his hardest to prove his life is real and that others who continue to call him Gerry are wrong, and an eerie, disorienting score by Van Cleave augmenting the aura of disquiet that comes with encountering a different world than the one for which you were lost, Twilight Zone fans owe it to themselves to check out "A World of Difference"; it's a real doozy. Howard Duff offers an exceptional, believable performance as a man confronting a crisis that he cannot seem to escape, no matter how hard he tries to locate the life Arthur is supposed to have when everything says it doesn't exist.
Review of A World of Difference
