Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room

"Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room"
	The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 2; Episode 3
Directed by	Douglas Heyes
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Original score by Jerry Goldsmith
Production code	173-3641
Original air date	October 14, 1960
Guest appearance(s)
	Joe Mantell as Jackie "John" Rhoades; William D. Gordon as George;

"Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" is episode 39 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 14, 1960, on CBS.

According to the book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic by Martin Grams, Serling wrote the teleplay in response to a request from CBS to write scripts using as few actors as possible for budgetary purposes. This episode was produced $5,000 under budget.

Opening narration

This is Mr. Jackie Rhoades, age thirty-four, and where some men leave a mark of their lives as a record of their fragmentary existence on Earth, this man leaves a blot, a dirty, discolored blemish to document a cheap and undistinguished sojourn amongst his betters. What you're about to watch in this room is a strange and mortal combat between a man and himself, for in just a moment, Mr. Jackie Rhoades, whose life has been given over to fighting adversaries, will find his most formidable opponent in a cheap hotel room that is in reality the outskirts of The Twilight Zone.

Plot

An insecure, unsuccessful gangster named Jackie Rhoades (Joe Mantell) waits in a cheap hotel room for instructions from his boss, George (William D. Gordon). George gives Jackie a gun and orders him to shoot a barkeeper who has refused to pay for protection. Jackie begs to be given another job, but George flatly refuses, roughs Jackie up, and leaves. Terrified, Jackie starts talking to his reflection in the mirror, trying to justify committing murder. He puts a cigarette in his lips but finds no match.

A puff of smoke emerges from the other side of the mirror, and he sees reflected a different version of himself: a strong, self-assured, confident man. Jackie and his reflection engage in a lengthy argument about how his life has turned out as a result of going along with peers and never standing up for himself. Finally, the double tells Jackie he wants to take over, that it is his turn to run their life, and that he deserves to live. Jackie argues but cannot decide what to do.

George telephones and Jackie nervously assures him that he is on the way to do the job. The double reappears and tries to persuade Jackie to let him out. He knows that disaster will strike, life will be over, if Jackie tries to do the job; he refuses to let Jackie lead them both to ruin. Angry and panicking, Jackie spins the mirror on the chest of drawers and, as it spins, Jackie backs away in terror when he sees that the double is looming larger and larger.

George comes by, furious that Jackie has not done his job. He sarcastically explains that the old man Jackie was to shoot is "in excellent health" and demands, "So what've you got to say for yourself?" Jackie calmly looks up at him and answers, "Two words. I resign!", emphasizing the point by kicking and punching a stunned George. He opens the door and orders the hoodlum out, tossing the gun after him and demanding he never come back. Ringing the room clerk to check out, he refers to himself as "Jackie—'JOHN' Rhoades." The nervous Jackie, now on the other side of the mirror, asks, "What's to do now?" John responds, "Now we go look for a job. Now maybe we get married. Now maybe we stop biting our nails." John then walks out of the room, looks back at the mirror, and sees only his own confident reflection.

Closing narration

Exit Mr. John Rhoades, formerly a reflection in a mirror, a fragment of someone else's conscience, a wishful thinker made out of glass, but now made out of flesh, and on his way to join the company of men. Mr. John Rhoades, with one foot through the door and one foot out of 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

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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"