The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank

"The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 23
Directed by	Montgomery Pittman
Written by	Montgomery Pittman
Featured music	Tommy Morgan
Production code	4811
Original air date	February 23, 1962
Guest appearance(s)
James Best Sherry Jackson Edgar Buchanan Lance Fuller Dub Taylor Ralph Moody Ezelle Poule Helen Wallace Vickie Barnes Jon Lormer James Houghton William Fawcett
Episode chronology

"The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" is episode 88 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on February 23, 1962 on CBS.

Plot

In the mid-1920s in a small rural town in the "southernmost section of the Midwest," a man, Jeff Myrtlebank, returns to life at his own funeral, causing the grievers to flee the church. The townspeople believe that the man must be possessed by a haint (a wandering demon), even though the town doctor declares it was more than likely a medical condition that imitated death; his heart stopped days prior after fighting influenza. Jeff seems normal enough, yet he has changed: he has suddenly become a hard worker with exceptional strength, yet consistently eats less since his return.

Discussing the puzzle, his mother says she is real concerned at how he's behaving: "He's different. Not like he was at all,... And the way he goes at that hard work. Why, he was never that friendly with work before." His father agrees with her. "I recollect worrying many times that he leaned just a shade tow'rd this side of shiftlessness." "Not lazy, exactly, but..." his mother says, and his father completes her sentence with, "No, no, just uninterested." The town-folk and doctor discuss it further, where the doctor reveals that not only did Jeff's heart completely stop, but that he didn't respond in any way to a sharp pin prick. Everyone seems as interested in what transpired during the days Jeff was dead as in how he came back to life.

When he goes to visit Comfort, he brings a bouquet of roses, but the roses are all dead. Afraid, Comfort will not let him touch her after she sees them. As he leaves, her older brother confronts him and tells him to never come back, and they fight. Myrtlebank defeats him readily, punching him in his jaw. This is the first time that Myrtlebank has ever done so, after many past fights, and that gains Comfort's sympathy. "Poor Jeff," she says. "He hasn't got anybody."

After the fight, the townsfolk gather and start saying they need to take care of this evil amongst them. Comfort races off to warn Myrtlebank and to avow her love for him. He proposes to her, but before she can respond to his proposal, angry townspeople arrive to confront the demon they believe is possessing Jeff. They demand that he leave. He insists that Comfort answer his proposal first, and she tells him yes, and that she's willing to go anywhere to be with him. Myrtlebank then makes an inspired speech in which he tells them that they are wrong and have nothing to fear from him. He also slyly threatens that if they're right, it might be in their best interests to be nice to him. They nervously accept the wisdom of this, and promise to attend Jeff and Comfort's wedding.

After they leave, Comfort asks him. "You couldn't really do all that, could you?" He says he hated lying to them, but when something comes up, "You gotta cope with it." As he speaks, he pulls out a pipe and a match, which lights by itself. When Comfort asks how he lit the match, he laughs and says, "Comfort, honey, first thing you got to learn is not to imagine things." He puts his arm around her shoulders to take her inside. As they walk toward the house, the fence gate closes behind them on its own.

Cast

James Best as Jeff Myrtlebank
Sherry Jackson as Comfort Gatewood
Edgar Buchanan as Doc Bolton
Lance Fuller as Orgram Gatewood
Dub Taylor as Mr. Peters
Ralph Moody as Pa Myrtlebank
Ezelle Poule as Ma Myrtlebank
Helen Wallace as Ma Gatewood
Vickie Barnes as Liz Myrtlebank
Jon Lormer as Strauss
James Houghton as Jerry
William Fawcett as Rev. Siddons
Mabel Forrest as Mrs. Ferguson
Patrick Hector as Tom

Quotations

Opening narration

“

Time, the mid-twenties. Place, the Midwest, the southernmost section of the Midwest. We were just witnessing a funeral, a funeral that didn't come off exactly as planned, due to a slight fallout from the Twilight Zone.

”

Closing narration

“

Jeff and Comfort are still alive today, and their only son is a United States Senator. He's noted as an uncommonly shrewd politician, and some believe he must have gotten his education in the Twilight Zone.

”

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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