Rod Serling - The mike wallace interview - 1959 - Twilight zone science fiction 2

and imagination and science fiction you know all of those things uh... there's no opportunity to cop a plea you're shop an experiment well you're not gonna be able to koppal clears java next because you're going to be obviously working so *** the twilight zone that in essence for the time being in for the foreseeable future you've given up on writing anything important the television rockford logo again this is the same anything important but i mean i don't know by important whom you're not going to try to delve into current social problems dramatically you're quite right and uh... utah ok got bell of the new york daily news this he said professionally i don't think twilight zone will hurt me but i must admit i don't think it'll help me either i'm stepping out of the line of fire you've had it as far as trying to be to brings up which destroyed the first to know professionally i don't think twilight zone or hurt me but i must admit i don't think it'll help me i never said that i'm convinced it'll help me i have great pride in the show eleven or twelve years of writing mike i can lay claim to at least yes i have never written beneath myself i'd never written anything i didn't want my name attached to i have probed deeper and some scripts meant the most successful in some counties but part of the ban on iraq's comfortable i'll take my work i played there minding the store and one of them uh... somebody asked me the other day that this means that i'm going to be a day here for missed and i had my answer is no i'm just acting a little bit tired nine people and i don't wanna by the fight anymore and when i don't wanna find i don't have to battle sponsors and agencies and i have to push for something and i want we have to settle for second best i don't have to compromise all the time which in essence is what the television writer does if he wants to put on controversial things when one is staying television watching on television because i think it's very possible to perform at their function of providing adult meaningful exciting challenging drama without dealing in controversy necessarily this of course mike is that the turbo possible worlds i'm not suggesting that that this is at the absolute millennium i think it's criminal who were not permitted of of social evils as they exist a controversial scenes as eric iron hand in our society uh... it's rediculous that drama which by its very nature should make a comment and those things that affect their daily lives of movies in the position which in turn to tel aviv goma have not been able to take these the picked this picture but this is this in the facts of life this is the way it exists and make it looked as year chefs your rose are going to be valid you can learn with these guys as the as the uh... precipitated the big change it's not for us to do it let's get all the television youngblood and i don't like you are not that i think the stakes around the degree of got some of the medium has made you the may do so she was a kind of a household name party was the first couple of months statue the television petty sherry esteem with which we consider to be two hundred hacks who worked on the clock and used boy girl situations in and one of five thousand different routine matters the pablo mrs thatcher and i respect petty's decision to leave he felt that he wasn't satisfied with doing things have to ask you to think do you think you could make it outside of television i'm not sure i could and i suppose this is an admission of a kind of weakness or at least a sense of insecurity in my prep had never had a broadway play produced what few motion pictures i've written have been somewhat less than spectacular and i spose i stayed in the media partly is innovation uh... i i one and i want to stay in the world this is the new u_n_ did stanley's the tools and techniques of interest and for many years maybe i don't know stocked up on the boarding gate shutout with types in a broadway play when i'm not sure i prepared for it the patty was going to take the chance to every dollar writes novels bob i pleaded broccoli but a lot you know almaden i'd love to read and i think next year i'll start my plate requiem was uh... under option it was written as a play tonight in their money back i want to do it over again assisting in the medium also because i have no like that bob jen was a t_v_ producer was associated with some of your earlier places said this about you said runs even going to stay commercial or become a discerning artist but not i remember the croat uh... he got out you got to give it a government study when most i was doing a profile in the new york times i didn't understand at the time i failed to achieve any degree of understanding in the ensuing years which had three and number if i i presume heard means inherently you cannot be commercial and artistic you cannot be commercial and quality you cannot be commercial concurrent a preoccupation at the level of storytelling to achieve and this i have to reject i think you can be i don't think calling something commercial tags it with a kind of an only a suggestion that it's thanks there's something wrong tree to be assured of i don't think uh... if you say commercial means to be publicly acceptable what's wrong with that as one can uh... the the essence of my argument mike is that as long as you are not ashamed of anything you right bb if you're a writer as well you know she when you perform if you're an actor and i'm not ashamed of doing a television series i could have done probably thirty or forty film series over the past five years i'd presume at least i turned on that now with great guarantees of cash the great guarantees it financial security but i've turned down because i didn't like him i did not think they were quality and god knows they were commercial but i think uh... imitating what heard says is the suggestion made by many people which you can't public acceptance is still the artistic and i as i say i have to reflect that one of your most recent players was one called the bold italic right it was about the corrupting influences of hollywood and big money weird that come from your own experience that many very autobiographical part of it was a composite of other people of of observation of other people involved but what do you mean by the corrupting influence of hollywood and big money what is that i'm listening i didn't mean to suggest that that corruption had a geographical tag that was necessary the corruption of hollywood but i try to do suggest captain matically was that when you get into the big money particularly in the kind of detonating exciting explosive overnight waited our industry permits there are certain bland issuance of a guy can succumb to a mini boom subjects a preoccupation status with the symbols of status heated swimming let's ten feet longer than the neighbors with the big car with the concern about billing all these things in a sense brother minute things really in context that become disproportionately large in a guy's mind both the console large what becomes small i think probably really valuable things and i know this sounds corny and but we've used to say that having a family from concern with raising children i'm concerned when they go to school group concerned with a good marital relationship all these things i think of the essence uh... unfortunately and the problem is i tried to dramatize in rebel without me the guy who makes a successes and really assailed by everybody and you suddenly find yourself any compromise along the line giving so many hours to work a disproportionate number a few hours to family and this is inherent in our business how many hours a day do you work right now is executive producer and or right or wrong twelve to fourteen hours a day how many days a week and uh... i don't mean now seriously i'm not asking for figures here obviously the twilight zone as your own creation you doing it for money i think that our audience would be fascinated to know and again i i i don't want to get to specific how rich gonna fell again under these circumstances well with the show's successful he can get tremendous leverage for half a million dollars as a problem at a million dollars of wat over a period of three or four years i suppose you know but my guy i'm not again his sons defense of the problems on strongly but i'm not nearly as concerned with the money to me on this show as i am with the quality of it and i can prove that i have a contract with metro goldwyn mayer which guarantees me something in a word of a quarter million dollars over a period of three years this is a conduit and trying to break and get out of so i can devote time to a series which is very quickly which is a very problematical it's only guaranteed twenty six weeks with only goes twenty six weeks and stops i love lost a great deal of money but i would rather take the chance to do something i like something i'm familiar with something that has a built-in challenge to it that's impossible bowl if it is a success you could make well over the two million dollars that used to be lighted years i have a meeting quite right but i happen to feel after and hereinafter working twelve to fourteen hours a day it's worth it and i think i rated i think anybody does it works and i think and create an idea and convention make a showgirl thirty seconds is television good some televisions one some television is exciting and promising income vast potential summi some television reoccurring bad i think it has promised link i think this is can conceive of your real life and i stick with it for the reasons i seven because i think it can only improve and can improve tremendously and i think inched toward that grocery story can be summed up in just a few words sprung so do you reject she slips just three emmy awards from a trailer home to a house in the in hollywood complete with swimming pool it hasn't been a long road but it's been a hard one and the last couple of miles have been paved with gold we thank rod serling greatest portrait arrive gallery one of the people other people are interested in mike wallace that's it for now