Young Man's Fancy

Alex Nicol plays Alex Walker, who has just gotten married to his long-in-waiting wife Virginia(played by Phyllis Thaxter). Both have returned to the home of his recently deceased mother, and are planning to sell the house, but as Alex takes a nostalgic tour before selling, finds the happy childhood memories taking hold of him once again, alarming his wife, who only wants to leave as soon as possible, fearing the spirit of his dominating mother is calling him back to her, but as it turns out, something even more tragic is going on here... Nearly forgotten episode never takes off like it should, but the idea is there, and episode retains a most sad and inevitable aura of doom about it that still makes it work.

MeTV is running Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour back-to-back in late night, and I've gotten hooked on the black-and-white oldies. So when I watched Young Man's Fancy on TZ, I couldn't help thinking of Hitchcock's most famous protagonist, Norman Bates.

The TZ ep isn't nearly as violent as Psycho, of course. Nobody gets slashed in the shower, and Mom doesn't get mummified (mommified?) in the basement. In fact, there's no violence at all in the TZ ep, which pokes along rather sleepily.

The plot is simple: a mommy's boy husband wants to return to his (dead) mother's not-so-healthful embrace despite the pleas of his long-suffering bride. The twist ending is easy to guess, and the appeal of the episode is in the acting and overall mood of doleful desperation. It's an okay psychological study, though the lack of action has hurt the episode in the eyes of TZ fans.

Two good points of interest here in what otherwise is a TZ to forget.

One is that Richard Matheson has put a darker spin on a theme that Rod Serling used several times. The wish to return to childhood happens in 'Walking Distance', 'Kick The Can', 'Horace Ford', with variations of this theme elsewhere in the Zone. This time is different because we see this story through the wife who becomes fearful of her husband slipping away.

The second point of interest is Phyllis Thaxter in the role of the anguished Virginia trying to finally claim her husband as her own. The thinner plots in TZ were often held together by the lead actress. This minor star (to be found in a few Alfred Hitchcock Presents) provides a very sympathetic character and was always so expressive and watchable. The mother-in-law was clearly no monster, but for the sake of sanity we side with poor patient Virginia. Husband Alex (Alex Nicol) starts to act weak in a real creepy manner. Come on Virginia ! - but what's the girl to do?

Predictable storyline and some decent effects. The acting was fairly good, but there wasn't a strong message and the characters were unlikeable.

I was too young to experience TZ during its initial run and did not really begin watching them until seeing them in reruns in the 70's. And many of us, through the years are exposed to and have seen the various TZ episodes only through a variety of holiday marathons. Those marathons also have an expected list of wide spread favorite episodes, anticipated by fans that apparently must be and usually are always there like "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "A Stop at Willoughby", "Eye of the Beholder", etc.

The lesser-known or less-cherished episodes are then more or less fed into and out of the rotation of each succeeding marathon, time permitting. We're certainly used to this with all season 4 one-hour episodes in particular, which end up getting very little play on the average because of time constraints. For example, before buying a book detailing all the Zone episodes decades ago, I did not even know there was a season with one hour episodes ! But all the shows within 30 minute format for the other four seasons should have been viewable from time to time over the years.

For me though, this one, "Young Man's Fancy" has slipped through the cracks. This is one I have so little familiarity with, recollection of and apparently viewed for the first time just a few years ago. While its not highly rated for the most part and I was not really crazy about it myself, finding an unseen original episode, out of the 156 produced is like finding a piece of gold in a familiar, but beloved pile of lead.