A Piano in the House

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The Twilight Zone original series Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1961 – Summer 1962 List of The Twilight Zone episodes

Episodes: 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

“A Piano In the House” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

• Episode number: 87
• Season: 3
• Original air date: February 16, 1962
• Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.
• Director: David Greene
• Producer: Buck Houghton
• Music: Stock

[edit] Cast

• Fitzgerald Fortune: Barry Morse
• Esther Fortune: Joan Hackett
• Marge Moore: Muriel Landers
• Marvin (the Butler): Cyril Delevanti
• Gregory Walker: Don Durant
• Throckmorton: Phil Coolidge

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Opening Narration

"Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, theater critic and cynic at large, on his way to a birthday party. If he knew what is in store for him he probably wouldn't go, because before this evening is over that cranky old piano is going to play 'Those Piano Roll Blues' - with some effects that could happen only in the Twilight Zone."

Drama critic Fitzgerald Fortune goes to a curio shop to buy his young wife Esther a player piano as a birthday present. He discovers it has magical properties: its music reveals people's hidden fears, loves, and secrets. At the shop, the music causes the hard-hearted owner to become sentimental. Later at home, it makes their solemn butler, Marvin, to burst out laughing; revealing his true feelings working in the home of the callous critic. When he puts on a roll for his wife, she is forced to tell him that she detests him for his cruelty to her and the people around him. He then tries it out on one of his wife's party guests, a jaded playwright, Gregory Walker, who admits to being in love with Fitzgerald's wife and that they had a tryst while she was on vacation away from Fitzgerald. At the party, a bubbly heavy-set woman, Marge Moore, is chosen to demonstrate the piano's effects. Marge admits to a dream of being a tiny, light, and graceful ballet dancer as she skips around the room. Finally, Fitzgerald announces he's going to reveal the devil himself and inserts a new roll into the piano, but Esther swaps it for a different one. When the music (a lullabye) plays, everyone looks to see who will be effected. Surprisingly, Fitzgerald reveals himself to be no more than a frightened and sadistic child who is jealous of others around him. All of the guests depart, along with Esther.

[edit] Closing Narration

"A man who went searching for concealed persons. And found himself, in the Twilight Zone."

[edit] The Twilight Zone Links

• The Twilight Zone
• Episode List

[edit] Source

• Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion, Bantam Books, 1982. ISBN 0-553-01416-1