The Purple Testament

"**The Purple Testament**"
"The Purple Testament"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 1; Episode 19
Directed by	Richard L. Bare
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Lucien Moraweck, conducted by Lud Gluskin
Production code	173-3619
Original air date	February 12, 1960
Guest appearances
	William Reynolds as Lt. Fitzgerald; Dick York as Captain Phil Riker; Barney Phillips as Captain E.L. Gunther; Warren Oates as Jeep Driver; Paul Mazursky as Orderly; Ron Masak as Harmonica Man; William Phipps as Sergeant; S. John Launer as Colonel; Marc Cavell as Freeman;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Last Flight"	Next →; "Elegy"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 1)
	List of episodes

Last updated October 05, 2024

"The Purple Testament" is the nineteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone . It is "the story of a man who can forecast death".^[1] It originally aired on February 12, 1960, on CBS.

Opening narration

Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.

Plot

William Fitzgerald ("Fitz"), a lieutenant serving in World War II, suddenly gains the mysterious ability to see who is about to die via a strange glow on the person's face. After correctly predicting several deaths, he tells his friend Captain Riker what he is able to see, but the Captain does not know whether to believe him. Riker consults with a doctor, Captain Gunther, who thinks it may be wise to conduct a few tests on the lieutenant. While Riker and Gunther are discussing this, Fitz is in the same hospital visiting one of his men, Smitty, who is supposed to pull through. But he sees the strange light on the soldier's face and knows his fate. After his premonition comes true, Fitz makes a scene in the hospital in front of Captains Gunther and Riker.

Back in camp, after Riker lays out plans for the next mission, Fitz reveals that he has seen the light on the captain's face. Though Riker insists it means nothing, that the two of them will share a drink after they return from battle, he nonetheless leaves behind some of his personal possessions - a few photographs and his wedding ring - before he goes into combat. In the camp, the men argue about the rumors of the lieutenant's predictions, but Riker tells all the soldiers there that there are no "mind readers" in the camp. Fitz, seeing the men's faces and realizing he could cause mutiny (and that none of them are fated to die), agrees with the captain.

In the ensuing battle, all return except for Riker, who is killed by a sniper. Captain Gunther brings news to Fitz that he is being sent back to division headquarters for some much needed rest, but as the lieutenant gathers his gear, he catches his reflection in a mirror and sees the light on his own face. After this, Fitz becomes distant, as if resigned to fate.

A jeep driver comes to pick Fitz up. The sergeant sends the two off, telling the driver to be careful as they go; Fitz then sees the light on the face of the jeep driver. They have not completely checked the area for land mines on the road ahead. As the soldiers are gathered around the camp at dusk, the sound of an explosion is heard in the distance.

Closing narration

From William Shakespeare, Richard the Third, a small excerpt. The line reads, 'He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war.' And for Lieutenant William Fitzgerald, A Company, First Platoon, the testament is closed. Lieutenant Fitzgerald has found the Twilight Zone.

(In fact, the quotation is from Richard II , not Richard III .)^[2]

Production notes

Dean Stockwell was originally cast in the lead role but was unable to appear. He would later star in the similarly themed episode "A Quality of Mercy". The concept of seeing a light on the face of those who are about to die was readdressed in "Into the Light", an episode of the 2002 revival series. This is one of several episodes from the first season with its opening title sequence plastered over with the opening for the second season. This was done during the summer of 1961 as to help the season one shows fit in with the new look the show had taken during the following season.

Rod Serling quotes the Shakespearean source of the episode title in his closing narration: "He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war." He claims the quote is from Richard III , but it actually comes from Richard II .^[3]

Broadcast date controversy

On the same day as the screening of the episode, director Richard Bare and William Reynolds, then filming the TV series The Islanders , were in a plane crash, with one person on board the plane being killed in the crash. Reynolds claimed Rod Serling pulled the episode from its scheduled screening date, out of concern for the families of Reynolds and Bare. In his exhaustively researched 2008 book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, Martin Grams concludes that the episode did indeed air as originally scheduled on February 12, 1960, despite Reynolds' statements.^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

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References

↑ Rod Serling. Promotional spot for "The Purple Testament". Original airdate: February 5, 1960
↑ "Richard II". Shakespeare's Words. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
↑ The Life and Death of Richard the Second . Retrieved July 8, 2021– via MIT.

Sources

Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
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 Purple Testament" at IMDb

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[preview-1] Rod Serling. Promotional spot for "The Purple Testament". Original airdate: February 5, 1960

[2] "Richard II". Shakespeare's Words. Retrieved 30 November 2019.

[3] The Life and Death of Richard the Second . Retrieved July 8, 2021– via MIT.

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v t e 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" "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"

v t e Works directed by Richard L. Bare
Films	Smart Girls Don't Talk (1948) Flaxy Martin (1949) The House Across the Street (1949) Return of the Frontiersman (1950) This Side of the Law (1950) Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957) Girl on the Run (1958) I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (1969) Wicked, Wicked (1973)
Film and television series	Joe McDoakes (1942–1956) So You Want to Learn to Dance (1953) The Twilight Zone "Third from the Sun" (1960) "The Purple Testament" (1960) "Nick of Time" (1960) "The Prime Mover" (1961) "To Serve Man" (1962) "The Fugitive" (1962) "What's in the Box" (1964) Green Acres (1965–1971)