Jagger was probably idealistic and he wasn't a racist. He killed a Ku Klux Klan member in self-defense. Jagger was different than the rest of the townspeople. Jagger was a great character and well played by Terry Becker. Colbey even takes some responsibility in a way when he admits how he left things out when covering the story when they might've helped Jagger. Koch doesn't like that they are going to hang Jagger and knows it's wrong, but his attitude is basically that's just the way that it is. He admits in the end how he wanted to get re-elected sheriff. He didn't speak up when there was evidence in the man's defense. An innocent man was hung and he stood by and let it happen. Constantine plays probably the weakest character. Michael Constantine was okay as Sheriff Charlie Koch. I also thought Becker gave the best performance next to Goober. The ending to this was so great and so effective. When he's taking pleasure in watching Jagger die and when he's telling off Colbey in one scene it comes off so convincing. He really was a good actor to make such a transformation into someone so bad. He perjures himself, hangs a man he knows is innocent, he's glad the man is going to hang, rubs it in, and is probably a racist along with the rest of the townspeople. I always know George Lindsey for playing Goober on The Andy Griffith Show, but in this episode, Lindsey plays someone so mean. There were some great performances in here from Paul Fix as Colbey the news editor, Ivan Dixon as the Reverend Anderson, and Terry Becker as Jagger. The writing was great and the ending was powerful. But it's certain that people are to blame for the light going out. Maybe it is an act of God for all we know. It was such a great concept to have the sunlight go away and to have total darkness brought on by hate. It's too bad, because I also can't think of any Western movie or TV character who faced the end of a rope with so much defiance and no regrets.Īll I can say is what a great episode. As for Terry Becker who portrayed Jagger, perhaps the 'ordinariness' of his appearance works against him I can't recall a single other vehicle I might have seen him in. Rounding out the cast, Paul Fix is competent in everything I've ever seen him in (surprised he wasn't the sheriff in this one). Similarly, George Lindsey might have gotten the nod as Andy Griffith's deputy instead of winding up a Goober, but he just didn't show the personality here for it. Not that he fared that badly in the long run, with a respectable career and a ton of TV and movie credits. With the right breaks he could have gotten the Rod Steiger role in 1967's "In the Heat of the Night". I had a thought about Michael Constantine as I watched this story. With blackness enveloping a busy street in Dallas (the Kennedy assassination), the Berlin Wall (Communism vs the Free World), Birmingham (race riots) and Viet Nam (still an under-reported conflict in a remote corner of the globe), Serling pin-points trouble spots teetering on the edge of the abyss, virtually begging for sanity to prevail and offer the opportunity for light to shine through the darkness. The darkness theme to symbolize 'too much hate' was also cleverly used to place in context the state of the country and the world during this era of the Sixties. This might have been one of Serling's more brilliant efforts. Scriptwise, Serling daringly allows Jagger to describe the lynch mob as 'you muckers', cleverly displacing a single letter to get Jagger's rant past the censors. At that point, any evidence to the contrary convinces Reverend Anderson that Jagger WAS guilty. As the Reverend tries to comfort Jagger, the doomed man defiantly declares that he WANTED to kill and he enjoyed it. But then things take a turn as Jagger is confronted by black Reverend Anderson (Ivan Dixon), who attempts to bridge the divide between men of different faith and different color. So in that respect, Jagger might have been seen as going against the white citizenry at large in the name of racial equality. Jagger's description of the man he killed is that "He handled the whipping of some poor scared colored guy". Evidence pointing to a self defense argument has been discredited by witnesses in favor of convicting a man based on a community's bias. Initially it's tough to get a good read on Jagger (Terry Becker), who's murder of a Klan White Knight is positioned as a cover up by the local authorities, including Sheriff Koch (Michael Constantine) and his bigoted Deputy Pierce (George Lindsey). This is one of the more compelling and provocative segments of The Twilight Zone, but it took me a couple of viewings to capture the nuance.
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