"Miniature"

"Miniature"

A lonely man falls in love with a museum doll he comes to believe is alive.

Stars Robert Duvall, Pert Kelton.
Original air date: February 21, 1963.

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"9" I love that sweet Charlie. And the women in his life are so dang annoying. No wonder he wants to escape to his little Dolly and her house.

The first time I saw this some station was airing this non-syndication package ep colorized. Anybody else see this? Would Rod have turned over in his grave or what?

Leen

Yes, I have this on tape from WSBK-Boston with the scenes inside the dollhouse colorized. Actually, I kind of liked it. Sorry.

Excellent hour-long episode. Duvall makes this episode for me. Without his brilliant acting I think I wouldn't like this one nearly as much.

Agreed, but I think Pert Kelton and Barbara Barrie were great, too. And what a talented, versatile actor William Windom was. I haven't seen him in nearly as many things as I have Duvall, but from what I've seen, it seems that he could probably play any type of role and seem convincing, just the way Duvall could and can.

Yes, I have this on tape from WSBK-Boston with the scenes inside the dollhouse colorized. Actually, I kind of liked it. Sorry.

Ya know for a while there was an obsession with colorizing everything that wasn't. I'm glad that phase didn't last. I just didn't like it. I remember they did it to "It's A Wonderful Life," too.

Ted Turner had something to do with this if I best remember.

Leen

Turner was arguably the leading proponent of colorization, although I doubt he had anything to do with "Miniature." Personally, I liked the way it was done here, since it was so selective -- only the interior of the dollhouse, and only when movement occurred inside. It gave the same contrast as The Wizard of Oz. I agree that colorization can compromise the director's concept, but for an episode that had never been available to the public in 21 years, I was willing to overlook this.

Pert Kelton's biggest claim to fame is probably creating the role of Alice Kramden when Jackie Gleason began The Honeymooners as live skits on the Dumont network. When The Honeymooners was revived in the Miami Beach shows, Kelton played Alice's mother.

Interesting article on colorization for those who may be interested.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/...olorization.htm

William Windom delivered one of my very favorite guest performances in Star Trek as Commodore Matt Decker in "The Doomsday Device". Just a phenomonal performance. And I agree, he is very good in "Miniature". I like him.

Miniature is always top 3 for me so I gave it a 10 here. Duvall just kept me fascinated through and through. And that annoying mother and sister were almost like comic relief to the steadfastness of Charley parkes. The brother in law was pretty funny too. Favorite scene?

POSSIBLE SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Where Charley comes home from the shrinks office, "cured," he goes to his bedroom, and after his mother leaves he locks the door, turns and throws the key. The look on his face! Told you right there Charley had fooled them all and was going to do something big next...

Watching this episode during the marathon is the first I've seen of it, and I am so happy I finally got to watch it. I've heard such good things about it, but never had the opportunity to see it. With so much praise of the episode, one would have such high expectations. A thanks to Mr. Bevis for keeping the hype down (despite it being one of his favorites) so I could watch it with a mind free of opinions and biases. After watching it, I could easily agree with those who give it positive reviews. Robert Duvall demonstrated excellent acting talent playing a weird, child-like man. 'Miniature' accompanies 'The New Exhibit' and 'The Thirty-Fathom Grave' as my favorite hour-long episodes. It was a treat to see William Windom in the episode too. I love FCISOAE, and without a doubt, he gives another superb performance.

I've seen that episode too TZRider and agree with you that Mr. Windom gives a damn good guest performance in one of the great Trek originals.

Glad you liked it, lazyboyx! Probably my favorite 4th-season episode, although as I mentioned to lazyboyx, there were several people on the 5th D board who didn't see the appeal of this one at all--providing yet more evidence that people are different. Either a "9" or "10" for me.

I'm not sure I've gotten all there is to get from this episode. For example, Buddie's habit of cracking his knuckles. Why does he do that? It seems to be a device for releasing tension, but I'll have to watch him more closely next time to see if there's more to it. Myra's manipulation of her glasses is fascinating to watch, too.

Yes, I was wondering the same about Buddie's knuckle-cracking too. William Windom brought it up and I thought he was going to give some analysis, but nothing came of it. I assumed it was a nervous habit.

I caught the beginning of this on Sci Fi this morning -- or Sci Fi's version of the beginning. Frankly, I'm appalled that Sci Fi is chopping even more out of the edited episodes than was already missing. For those of you who don't know the full version of this episode, it starts in the office as lunchtime arrives. Charley's co-workers chide him for not stopping work along with them as soon as the clock hits 12, thereby making them look bad. Then Charley leaves for the museum, where Sci Fi begins the episode.

I noticed the "Burton County Museum" sign and decided to see whether this could give a clue as to where the episode takes place. Alas, the World Almanac says that none of our 50 states has a Burton County. I'm wondering whether there's an in-joke here, but the only TZ Burton that I know is Richard Matheson's middle name.

This makes it difficult to gather new fans onboard I'm sure. Of course after knowing the eps inside out I don't know if these cuts ruin the continuity for newbies or not. Hope not!

Leen

I don't think it affects much to new watchers. Honestly, I had no clue that any of the episodes were cut until I watched them on DVD and realized small parts that I couldn't recall seeing before. For avid viewers and fans, the cuts can be meaningful and distort the episodes somehow. However, for newcomers, I am sure the main plot gets through.

great episode.. robert duvall was great

i did not find myra annoying at all.. she just pushed charley because she felt that he should get more out of life than work and home to mother. now mother parkes is another story.. she was annoying!!

-ag

All syndicated TV shows are edited to fit more commercials.
The older the show, the more time is cut from the episodes.

When Seinfeld was sold into syndication, Jerry Seinfeld himself
was allowed to determine exactly where to splice the footage.

I doubt Rod Serling was given this courtesy, considering his
much-relinquished control over the later Twilight Zone seasons,
and further cuts probably have been made several times
in the 30 years since his premature passing.

The current cuts apparently originated with a repackaging by Viacom, the series syndicator, around 1985, well after Rod's death. When he was alive, stations acquired complete episodes and made their own cuts, if any, and therefore out of Rod's control.

Over the last year Sci Fi has trimmed even more. There's enough commercial time on the networks now for recent series to lose less than a minute of content per episode, but TZ belongs to that era when there was over 25 minutes of entertainment per half hour. The current cuts might be even more extensive had the original airings not devoted some time to bumpers and Rod's previews.

Booooring. I'll never quite understand the overwhelming affection most of you have for this ep. Ah well.

This is another high-point episode for me. I think I've still got the two tapes(one a friend taped for me) of the 25th anniversary Special from 1984 where the dollhouse interior scenes are colorized. One of my favorite endings as Charlie, the guy who lives at home with his mother, finds happiness with a real doll.

I find this a touching and sentimental story and felt sorrow for Charlie, then happiness for him at the end. He was a poor square peg who just couldn't fit into the round holes of life despite the efforts of those around him to jam him into one. I can identify with him.

Great episode. Robert Duvall did an amazing job as Charlie. Charlie is just so timid and calm it really creeps me out. Reminds me of Sy the Photo Guy from One Hour Photo. I love the part when Charlie wipes his tears with the doll. It's just so damn creepy! So thanks for the picture, Crown 85!!

i hate ths episode

10
I know a LOT of people who could relate to this one.
For me, this episode is one of the holy trinity of Season 4. (along with DS and OTWLFH)

I just got to see this one shortly ago for the first time.
An excellent ep in many ways. Robert Duvall is just about perfect with his calmness sprinkled all over this episode.
I then went back and listened to a few of William Windom's comments about this one, and I also went back and watched a few of the "colorized" scenes as well.
IMO, these Season 4 eps that I have seen, have been better than most here give them credit for.

I give this one a 7 which would have been higher but unfortunately, I saw the ending coming after only a few minutes.
Certainly , it will still be enjoyable for future viewings though.

Thank you and good night.
TZ DZ Fan

TZ DZ wrote:

I agree. While some do seem padded, by and large the 4th season meshes well with the other TZ seasons.

This might sound daft, but would the hour-longs have been better received if they were NOT confined to one season and instead were scattered among the other four?

I honestly did not want to watch "Minature". The thought of a grown man who falls in love with a doll was definetly not appealing to me. But I forced myself to watch it and ended up really liking it.

Robert Duvall steals the show as totally convincing loner Charley Parkes, who's shy mannerisms seem almost other-worldly. Charley's mom is a "mother-hen" taken to the extreme, bordering on cartoonish, while Barbara Barrie is very good as a caring sister who fails miserably as a matchmaker.

I never got a great sense that the doll did anything to endear itself to Charley the way that it did, but inanimate objects don't usually have much control in that department anyway.

I gave "Miniature" a "7".

Lol, Leen...I'm watching this right now and you are right...especially the date the sister fixes him up with.

I just love this ep. Poor crazy Charley is just about my favorite TZ character.

Ah, has anyone seen the movie Punch-drunk Love?

Adam Sandler plays Barry Egan, a man quite similar to Charley Parkes. He's timid, socially awkward, and has several overbearing and annoying women in his life. I highly recommend it.

Good call, Glitch! "Punch-Drunk Love" is a good flick and quite shocking at times. I'd recommend it as well. Sandler's character does seem a lot like Charley Parkes, albiet much more violent.

Good call, Glitch! "Punch-Drunk Love" is a good flick and quite shocking at times. I'd recommend it as well. Sandler's character does seem a lot like Charley Parkes, albiet much more violent.

yeah, I'm not a huge Sandler fan, but I love this movie. It's funny, but in a different way than his other movies. And it shows that Sandler can actually act!

Excellent! 10 zones. The ending was somewhat predictable, but the road there was very fascinating. I enjoyed every second of it. Certainly not too long.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***
To me the key word to this episode is normal and we learn a lot about it indirectly. It is quite scary to think about how easily Charley could fool his family. He just put on a smile and everything was fine to them. I knew something was wrong when he let her mother take off his shoes. Interestingly everybody tried their best to help Charley to change, but they would never change. His mother would always take off her sons shoes, no matter how old he was. His sister believed a girl would solve all his problem. They all were satisfied as long as he surrendered to their ideas of "normal" happiness. That he just pretended was enough to them.

The psychiatrist had a pretty good speech too. Who is really "normal"? I was totally taken by surprise when he turns to Myrnas husband and says: "That's an interesting habit you have, that..."

this episode is very good and i gave it an 8 but one thing is weird. it says in the credits the music is by fred steiner, so i thought it was brand new. the music that plays while charlie is in the museum looking at the dollhouse i think i it heard playing at the beginning of four o'clock

Sorry, TZgrrl, but I don't detect any music common to the two episodes. Nevertheless, although Steiner is credited for the "Miniature" score, much of it is his arrangement of classical themes. For that matter, the tune we hear the doll play on the harpsichord is the beginning of Mozart's Piano Sonata in A Major, which is the also the basis for the clarinet solo you hear earlier when Charlie is leaving the office and shortly afterwards walking to and through the museum, and for the tune that closes out the episode. Steiner is credited for these last two, but what the doll plays is credited solely to Wolfgang Amadeus.

The date of this post is Mozart's 250th birthday. I can't think of a better way for a TZ fan to celebrate it than to watch "Miniature."

Probably better than sending him a card, anyway! Thanks for the info!

I think this could have been a great half-hour episode, but streched out I think it's predictable and slightly boring. Still a good performance from Duvall.
6.5/10. I'm generous so I'll round that up to a 7

Though they're different pieces of music, they're both played by solo clarinet starting on C, so you're not crazy for thinking they might be the same.