User Reviews

As with some Twilight Zone episodes, this one is more an interesting premise than an interesting story. But it is an interesting premise. Imagine someone yelling "cut!" on your life.

One thing about this episode, though, it's open to multiple interpretations. What's *really* going on? Which "reality" is real? Or are both of them? Is Reagan having delusions of being actually being the character he's playing, Curtis? Or is *Curtis* the one having a delusion, the delusion of being in some other reality where his home, family, and company don't exist? Or are both realities somehow simultaneously true? That's the weirdest, but most interesting possibility.

An unanswered question which might give us a clue: *Does* Reagan/Curtis know more about Curtis' life than is contained in the script? It's odd that he can't manage to remember any telephone numbers. Yet he knows all the addresses. Seems unlikely a man wouldn't remember his own telephone number, yet it seems equally unlikely that a movie script would include the address of the office building in which a businessman character works.

Serling's voice-over provides equal contradiction. In the intro, he states that Curtis is a real flesh-and-blood man. Yet in the outro, as Curtis is flying away, Serling suggests he's flying off to the Twilight Zone. That would only be so if it were *Reagan* who was real; if Curtis is real, then, flying away on the airplane, he's back in reality and has successfully *escaped* the Twilight Zone.

Most interesting. What do *you* think?

Many reviewers have touched upon the idea of "the world is a stage". I view this episode a little bit differently in that I believe writer Richard Matheson was giving subtle commentary about the escapist mentality that the American culture was beginning to develop in the 1950's. With shows like "Ozzie and Harriet" or "Leave It To Beaver" which showed a clean-cut, white-picket fence, innocence, and a happy and fulfilling family life, "Twilight Zone" flashed light into the dark depths of humanity and social commentary. The world wasn't filled with friendly milk men, friendly talking horses, and polite well-behaved children as the television at the time would have you believe.

Gerry Reagan is an actor plagued with marital and financial problems. He plays a character with a happy and stable family life that was the prototypical image of a sitcom husband in the 50s. Something the American public was drawn to while watching the cookie cutter television programs of the 50s that weren't based in reality.

When his manager Brinkley insists to Gerry there are more serious things at hand this was Matheson's way of transposing the Cold War nuclear arms race, Civil Rights movement, and many of the other issues of the day to Gerry's situation. Gerry escaped into his role as a husband in a fantasy world where he escaped to and didn't want to face the troubling tribulations at hand in his personal life. Just as the American public escaped into the fantasy world of family sitcoms of the day, not wanting to be bothered by the troubles of the world around them. And continue more so to this day.

**SPOILERS** What at first look like an ordinary day in the life of L.A business executive Arthur Curtis, Howard Duff, turned into a horrible nightmare. That's when movie director Marty Fisher, Frank Maxwell, yelled "Cut" as Arthur was about to make a phone call to his wife Marion, Susan Dorn. The quiet and peaceful life that Arthur was living immediately disappeared when he in fact became the washed out drunk and on the skids actor Gerald Reagan!

You can see right away why Gerald was so confused in being who he is in real life. His life was a disaster area with him being hounded by his ex-wife Nora, Eileen Ryan, and living on the edge in being on the verge of getting blackballed out of his job as an actor because of his constant drunkenness. The life of Arthur Curtis, whom Reagan was portraying, was so much better with a loving wife and family, including a 6 year old daughter Tina, that returning to reality was just too much for him to bare. With what looks like, by everyone on the movie set, that he's suffering from a nervous breakdown Gerald's agent Brinkley, David White, is called in to get his client straightened out so he can finally finish the movie before it's scarped altogether!

***SPOILERS*** It's never in doubt to those of us watching who Arthur Curtis really is: Actor Gerald Reagan. But it's very obvious that Gerald truly believes that he's in fact Arthur Curtis. For once in his sad and sorry life he's has a life that's not worth throwing away by drowning himself in a bottle of booze! That of successful businessman and loving husband and father Arthur Curtis. A life that he, in the misery of his existence as Gerald Reagan, can only dream about. And it's this dream that Gerald was determined to make into reality. And in the end he somehow, by crossing over into the "Twilight Zone", is able to do it!

This is a really neat episode and one with a lot of philosophical implications. In fact, before I saw it the first time, I wondered almost the same thing--what if one day you find out that the entire life you think was yours is really just a movie or TV show? Here, Howard Duff is hard at work at the office when suddenly he sees that he is NOT a business man but a famous actor and that his "life" was all part of a script.

So we have a really cool idea--one that sure hit home with me. Well the rest of the episode is pretty good, but I also noticed that the initial concept really was the best aspect of the show. What happened next wasn't bad, but it also wasn't nearly as exciting or fulfilling as the first five minutes. Still, it's a neat episode and well worth your time.

The premise was fantastic, especially having a glimpse of the behind- the-scenes of the TV studio. As a reviewer commented earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were the actual production crew of TZ.

Howard Duff character's constant stone expression of bewilderment lacked any sort of range or subtlety. Compare this to Jack Klugman's incredible facial expression in "Passage for Trumpet", another season 1 episode of TZ. I appreciate Howard's character was really bewildered, but more range would have given this episode 9/10 for sure.

The ending was more optimistic as usual, so that was good to see.

"A World Of Difference" (episode 23) was first aired on television March 11, 1960.

Anyway - As the story goes - Arthur Curtis thinks he's an average businessman living a normal life. Or is he an actor playing a businessman in an office that's really a set?

Nice opening. Howard Duff, a businessman, enters his office, gives his attractive secretary a nice greeting -- not nice enough, if you ask me -- and gets to work. He picks up the phone and it's dead. "Oh, for heaven's sake," he says, hanging up. And a voice yells "Cut"! It's the director's voice. Duff is on a movie set, surrounded by crew, but he doesn't believe it. He's convinced that he's the happy character that he's playing.

His real life isn't so hot, as we can imagine. His wife is a harridan, and Duff has been acting up on the set about is being dropped from the production. He can't believe what's happening to him. He's still convinced he's the happy businessman instead of the drunken and uxurious actor.

The ending clears everything up ambiguously. He apparently takes off for a vacation in the company of his fictitious wife.

The plot is a bit clumsy compared to other episodes. It's as if Richard Matheson, the writer, had a great "concept", as it's called. Let's have a guy who assumes in real life the role of the character he's been playing. It's not exactly a fresh idea. We've had Ronald Coleman doing "Othello" and several others. But nobody could think of a proper ending.

It's still enjoyable, of course. But if, at the end, Duff is absorbed into his cinematic role to the exclusion of genuine life, why not take off for a vacation with that secretary instead of his wife?

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.

The creepiest part about this one is that anyone one of us could at anytime hear a director say, "cut", and we would suddenly realize that we were merely an actor playing everything that we thought we were. Howard Duff did a superb job of conveying this very notion.

An interesting note is that the actress who plays the lead character's real wife, is the real mother of Sean Penn. He was born about 5 months after this episode aired.

... this episode doesn't milk its concept for all it may be worth. To go this meta and blur the lines between a seemingly (TV-)real place and a film set is inspired and unexpected for a 1950s show. But would it not have been more fun if the story had had just one more twist where the protagonist is indeed right in his protestations that he is the only one that is real? Or to reveal that these fictional characters as played by actors become real when the cameras are rolling?

As is, the ultimate theme here seems to be "method acting taken too far", so it reads more as a study of insanity than anything particularly supernatural. Now that theme is frequently the province of the series, so it is certainly a good fit and a good episode. But one does wonder if it could've been more.

Gerry Reagan (Howard Duff) is an actor who seems to believe that his on-set character called Arthur Curtis is his real identity. He's snapped back to reality when the director yells "CUT!!" Whether Reagan is suffering through a momentary breakdown or just prone to delusions is debatable. Unfortunately, reality swiftly returns and brings him back into contact with his wife Nora (a mean-spirited Eileen Ryan) and his halfway sympathetic agent (David White from "Bewitched"). It seems that Gerry's career is on the down-swing and his soon-to-be ex-wife is only interested in him signing over his share of his dwindling assets. But Gerry swears he doesn't know her or his agent. "I'm Arthur Curtis!!!" he screams at them, to no avail. The lines of insanity and reality are blurred in this episode, leaving viewers with some unraveling loose ends and no valid explanation. When Gerry/Arthur returns to the studio to see his true love Marion (Susan Dorn), he leaves with her before the set is dismantled and the two lovers take off on a plane to oblivion. Was he really Arthur Curtis after all? Was the entire escapade with Marion all in his mind? I guess if one had a wife with Nora's temperament, changing identities isn't such a bad idea. But where the heck is that plane going? Come to think of it, how does Marion feel about the whole situation?

Veteran movie and television director Ted Post handles his duties quite nicely here and allows his characters some real emotions in the limited confines of a half hour show. Howard Duff was a first-rate actor in his day, although some remember him more for being married to director/actress Ida Lupino. David White was in countless TV shows and movies throughout his long career and is perfectly cast in this role. Eileen Ryan, the mother of actors Sean and Christopher Penn, is still a working actress today. Her performance as Nora Reagan in this episode was one of her best. The main theme of "A World of Difference," that is, escaping from the pressures of daily existence, was revisited countless times in other episodes during the Twilight Zone's five-year run. The subject matter was close to the heart of creator/writer Rod Serling. He was under enormous strain himself.

Rod Serling employed the 'escape from the pressure and stress of every day life' theme in many of his stories. Off the top of my head there's 'Walking Distance' and 'A Stop at Willoughby' just in the first season alone. 'A World of Difference' adds just a bit of manic horror into the mix, as Howard Duff's character(s) tread the thin line between reality and insanity. It's a compelling story that keeps you guessing as to who the main character REALLY is, businessman Arthur Curtis or actor Gerry Raigan (I know, it looks weird, but that's how his wife spelled it). The bookends of the story seem to confer a legitimacy to the Arthur Curtis character, thereby affording the usual Twilight Zone twist right from the very start. It's intriguing that Serling keeps the viewer off kilter throughout, and even when it's over and that plane flies off into the sunset, one is left to wonder just exactly where Curtis/Raigan has gone off to.

This episode features a guy named Arthur Curtis. He finds himself on a movie set with no idea on how he got there. Everyone thinks that he's an actor named Gerry Reagan. It's then revealed that Gerry Reagan is the name of the actor who plays a fictional character called Arthur Curtis. He tries to go back to his world quickly while the set is being dismantled. He manages to get there in time and is reunited with his wife.

The best part is probably how they don't explain what's going on here. Was he a fictional character who came to life? Did he switch roles with the actor who played him? If so, what happened to the real actor? The ending is more or less happy, so it's not that big of a deal. It's a very creative concept executed masterfully. ****