Joe Dante and Rob Bottin prepare to make some magic. Recalls Licht, “My agent called and said,
‘They want to see you again for Twilight Zone.’ I’ll never forget this, I went into the room and there was Joe Dante and Steven Spielberg. It takes a lot to make me nervous and man, I was nervous. I went in and read again and a few hours later they came in with an offer. They could have offered me $1.50 and a sandwich and I would have taken the job.” The film script differed from the television production in a number of ways, perhaps most notably in the addition of the character of a school teacher named Helen Foley, who bumps into Anthony while he is riding his bike, and gives him a ride to his home. Kathleen Quinlan played Helen in what was a very different role for her at that point in her career. “I wasn’t really a big fiction person at
that time,” the Oscar nominee (APOLLO 13, 1995) confides. “I hadn’t done a lot of fiction, but I met Joe and he was really interesting and terribly imaginative, and he drew me in.” The characters of Helen and Anthony
spend almost all of the segment’s running time on screen together, and Quinlan delighted in having an opportunity to work so closely with young Licht. She remembers, “He was a nice, sweet kid. Children being on set is a weird thing, because in their role they can be kids, but on set they needs to be adults, so it is a weird dichotomy. Once Jeremy felt comfortable with me, we could just play. I remember he seemed to know where he was going and what he needed to do.” Licht looks back on working with Quinlan and glows. “She was unbelievable,
guiding me through different things because she had more experience than I did. She was fantastic!” Matheson’s adaptation for the film
sees Helen taking Anthony to his country home where the segment spends the rest of its running time. Helen is introduced to Anthony’s nervous, doting family, consisting of Kevin McCarthy as Uncle Walt, Patricia Barry as the mother, William Schallert as the father, and Nancy Cartwright as Ethel. Behind Anthony’s back the family members appeal to Helen, begging her to help them escape the young monster’s clutches. When Anthony catches wind of their intentions, he punishes them in various ways that only a child’s mind would concoct. The madness among the family members
stands in stark contrast to Anthony’s stoic, cold demeanor, and Licht recalls how Dante made that happen in an organic way. “I’ll never forget the first day of working with the other characters. I was in school in a trailer on the Warner Brothers lot while all the other actors were rehearsing, and I know Joe was rehearsing them pretty hard because when I got to set they had this mania about them, this sort of manic terrified energy. My mom had been running lines with me so I wasn’t in there for the rehearsals with everyone else. They had this energy of needing to get out of there, terrified with the whole thing, and I walked in calm and cool, which was just what my character needed.” The bizarre house was a character unto itself, recalls Licht. “It was a really funky
Joe Dante, Billy Mumy, Buck Houghton, John Davison, and Carol Serling
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • JAN/FEB 2012 69
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