“Maybe there’s only one summer to every customer”: Two Scenes from a Classic Twilight Zone Episode (“Walking Distance”) that I’d Never Heard of Until a Day or Two Ago

[Previously: Bernard Herrmann’s Music to “Walking Distance.”]

By N.S.

I’ve seen this episode listed variously as number 5, 7, and 10. imdb.com says it was #5, and I see no reason to doubt it, this time.

Martin Sloan is a miserable ad executive (see also the Twilight Zone episode, “A Visit to Willoughby”) in a hurry, going nowhere, who takes a side trip to his hometown of Homewood.

Note the sign at the gas station, “RALPH N NELSON, PROP.” That was an in-joke. Ralph W. Nelson was the longtime production manager for The Twilight Zone (1959-1964). He’s not to be confused with Ralph Nelson, the TV and movie director.

“Maybe there’s only one summer to every customer”: I’ve heard that line at least four times over the past couple of days, and it still gives me chills. Frank Overton was a great actor, and it’s no accident that Rod Serling cast him in this role, in this story. Outside of (even within?) the business, he’s barely remembered now.

In To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) he played the sheriff who gets Atticus to shoot and kill the rabid dog. In Mockingbird, he had a proper Southern accent, unlike here. Overton took care of details like sitting down with a dialect coach to get his accent right. I guess that made him a character actor, even though he wasn’t fat, homely, or ethnic.

He was constantly working on TV, in pictures, and on the legitimate stage. He had 204 credits split between TV and pictures (imdb.com always undercounts credits), and counting his work on Broadway, it would probably surpass the 1,000 mark. Unfortunately, Frank Overton was struck down in 1967 just six weeks after his 49th birthday, by the big one. He left behind an ex-wife, a grown child, and a widow.

Here, Overton plays Robert Sloan, the father of Martin Sloan (Gig Young).

The Opening Scene:

“Maybe there’s only one summer to every customer.”: A Beautiful Scene from a Classic Twilight Zone Episode

“A man stuck in the hometown of his childhood, Martin Sloane (Gig Young) has a conversation with his father (Frank Overton) decades in the past.”

“season 01 | episode 10 |. ‘Walking Distance’ is episode five of the American television series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 30, 1959. The episode was listed as the ninth best episode in the history of The Twilight Zone by Time magazine.”