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"He's Alive" is an episode of the The Twilight Zone.
Episode Details
Opening Narration
"Portrait of a bush-league fuehrer named Peter Vollmer, a sparse little man who feeds off his self-delusions and finds himself perpetually hungry for want of greatness in his diet. And like some goose-stepping predecessors, he searches for something to explain his hunger, and to rationalize why a world passes him by without saluting. The something he looks for and finds is in a sewer. In his own twisted and distorted lexicon, he calls it faith, strength, truth. But in just a moment, Peter Vollmer will ply his trade on another kind of corner, a strange intersection in a shadowland called The Twilight Zone."
Episode Summary
Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper), the leader of a small and struggling Nazi group, is visited by a shadowy figure who teaches him how to enthrall a crowd. The figure instructs Vollmer to arrange the death of one of his followers, Nick, thereby creating a martyr to rally everyone around. Following the figure's instructions and assistance, Vollmer is considerably more successful and his group's following grows. However, the elderly Jewish man that Vollmer lives with, Ernst Ganz (Ludwig Donath), spent nine years in Dachau and strongly disapproves of Vollmer's politics of hatred. Ernst disrupts a rally, accusing Vollmer of being "nothing but a cheap copy" of Adolf Hitler. After the failed rally, responding to the shadowy man's accusation that Vollmer has the instincts of a rabbit, Vollmer demands to know who his mysterious benefactor is. The man steps forward from the shadows to reveal himself to be Adolf Hitler.
The figure orders Peter to kill Ernst, and Peter steels himself enough to complete the task. Hitler congratulates him and asks him how it felt. Peter replies that he felt immortal. Hitler's thundering response is "Mr. Vollmer! We ARE immortal!" Afterwards, police arrive to arrest Peter for complicity to commit Nick's murder; he is shot while fleeing the scene. Peter stares at his bullet wound, astonished by the pain...and by the sight of his own blood. He addresses the police: "There's something very wrong here...Don't you understand that I'm made out of steel!?"
Hitler leaves the dying Vollmer, off to look for another worthy candidate.
Closing Narration
"Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare - Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry. He's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive because through these things we keep him alive."
Preview for Next Week's Story
The talented author Richard Matheson pays a return visit to Twilight Zone with a story called "Mute". It provides an exceptional challenge to the acting talents of Barbara Baxley, Frank Overton and an unusual 12-year-old by the name of Ann Jillian.
Production Companies
- Cayuga Productions
- Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (in association with)
Distributors
- Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1959) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
Memorable Quotes
- Main article: List of memorable quotes from the first series
External Links
- www.imdb.com/title/tt0734572/