Written by series creator Rod Serling, directed by Douglas Heyes, this first season entry is one of the most eerie and ambient episodes of the entire series. It's a straightforward telling of an attractive young woman in search of a gold thimble as a gift for her mother in a department store of a large American city. Neither the store nor the city are named. The woman, however, is. Her name is Masha White. Or is it? Ah, there's the rub, and the story hinges on this question, of whether Marsha is a real human or something made of wood.
The hustle and bustle of a large department store is nicely conveyed early on as Marsha asks someone where she must go to find the item she's looking for. She's told the ninth floor, and there she goes. When she arrives the place is dark, like a warehouse, and the only other person there is a strange looking and acting sales woman, who asks her some odd questions. Marsha does get the thimble she was looking for, then leaves. When she arrives back on the first floor she realizes that the thimble is scratched, asks where to return it; and when asks where she bought it, on the ninth floor, she is taken aback, as she is told that in this store there is no ninth floor!
After discussing the matter with the man in charge of returns and complaints, Mr. Ambruster, Marsha is taken to an office suite, where she lies down to wait to speak to someone about the matter. She soon falls asleep, and when she wakes up, the store is dark and empty, with not a soul in sight. What follows is an unsettling series of elevator trips and encounters with store mannequins behaving like people and speaking to Marsha, as if beckoning her to join them, which is in the end is what she does. Unable to escape, and also apparently devoid of personal memories, Marsha is told that she has been on leave, as it were, allowed to live like a normal human being, and that her time is up, she now must return to her true self, that of a department store dummy!
As if aware of the nightmarish aspects of his story, Rod Serling chose to end it on a semi-humorous note, on the next morning, with Mr. Ambruster recognizing the face of Marsha in a crowd, only to suddenly realize that it's a mannequin, not the woman he spoke to the day before. I'd rather they'd handled this differently, but this is a small criticism of an otherwise masterfully written, directed and acted episode. Young and lovely Anne Francis was perfectly cast as Marsha, as her well defined features gave her a somewhat generic look. Elizabeth Allen, as the too inquisitive for comfort ninth floor sales lady and James Milhollin, as the dithering Ambruster, were well cast. Milhollin's playing is broad, and I gather this was what was asked for, which was a lessening of the tension. This was, after all, mid-20th century television, geared to families, and that includes children.
The hustle and bustle of a large department store is nicely conveyed early on as Marsha asks someone where she must go to find the item she's looking for. She's told the ninth floor, and there she goes. When she arrives the place is dark, like a warehouse, and the only other person there is a strange looking and acting sales woman, who asks her some odd questions. Marsha does get the thimble she was looking for, then leaves. When she arrives back on the first floor she realizes that the thimble is scratched, asks where to return it; and when asks where she bought it, on the ninth floor, she is taken aback, as she is told that in this store there is no ninth floor!
After discussing the matter with the man in charge of returns and complaints, Mr. Ambruster, Marsha is taken to an office suite, where she lies down to wait to speak to someone about the matter. She soon falls asleep, and when she wakes up, the store is dark and empty, with not a soul in sight. What follows is an unsettling series of elevator trips and encounters with store mannequins behaving like people and speaking to Marsha, as if beckoning her to join them, which is in the end is what she does. Unable to escape, and also apparently devoid of personal memories, Marsha is told that she has been on leave, as it were, allowed to live like a normal human being, and that her time is up, she now must return to her true self, that of a department store dummy!
As if aware of the nightmarish aspects of his story, Rod Serling chose to end it on a semi-humorous note, on the next morning, with Mr. Ambruster recognizing the face of Marsha in a crowd, only to suddenly realize that it's a mannequin, not the woman he spoke to the day before. I'd rather they'd handled this differently, but this is a small criticism of an otherwise masterfully written, directed and acted episode. Young and lovely Anne Francis was perfectly cast as Marsha, as her well defined features gave her a somewhat generic look. Elizabeth Allen, as the too inquisitive for comfort ninth floor sales lady and James Milhollin, as the dithering Ambruster, were well cast. Milhollin's playing is broad, and I gather this was what was asked for, which was a lessening of the tension. This was, after all, mid-20th century television, geared to families, and that includes children.