Showdown with Rance McGrew

The spoiled star of a Western show Rance McGrew is very successful in the business despite his behavior with the fellow coworkers. While shooting the showdown of his character with Jess James, he forces the director to shoot the way he wants. Out of the blue, he is transported to the Wild West and the real Jess James is coming to him.

"Showdown with Rance McGrew" is a silly and unfunny episode of "The Twilight Zone". The lead character is a spoiled man that performs a Marshall on television, but the hard work is performed by his stunt. He likes to give his opinion in the screenplay and director, cast and crew have to accept since he is the star. And he is also clumsy, destroying many scenes. While shooting scene 71, he is transported to the Twilight Zone and his life changes. This episode is indeed a waste of time. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Duelo com Rance McGrew" ("Duel with Rance McGrew")

"Showdown with Rance McGrew" is another clear attempt to insert comedy into the traditional Sci-Fi/Fantasy concept of "The Twilight Zone", which is something Rod Serling already tried earlier in the third season with "Once Upon a Time". Personally, I prefer my episodes as dark and sinister as possible, and I don't like the light-headed, comical or overly moralistic ones. "Showdown with Rance McGrew" isn't an exception, although I gladly admit I had to laugh out loud a couple of times with the spoofing of typically arrogant Hollywood actors and how contemporary TV-series illustrate the supposedly "Wild" West. The spoiled and obnoxious actor Rance McGrew is a loathsome person to work with on set, but naturally considers himself to be God's gift to screen entertainment. In his films, he supposedly defeats the meanest guns of the Far West without much effort. But then, a typical TZ-occurrence takes place, and McGrew finds himself inexplicable transported back in time and faced with the real Jesse James for a little lesson in humbleness. It's a forgettable and thoroughly unremarkable entry, but - as said - good for a handful of chuckles, especially whenever McGrew hysterically calls out to his stunt double.

Rod Serling wrote two scripts for series three that were inspired by an idea from another writer, Frederick Louis Fox. The other was the quaint but likable 'Hocus-Pocus and Frisby'. Fox was generally a writer of TV western screenplays, so unsurprisingly this one is set in the world of the then popular TV-west-that-never-was.

Rance McGrew (Larry Byden) is TV cowboy who suddenly steps out of his make-believe world and into the 'real' west where he is confronted by Jesse James.

It starts brightly with visual gags, a film crew and the ridiculousness of the sixties' TV western. However when Jesse James came in he was such an anodyne character of the TV western ilk anyway, when the show needed a dynamic and deadly, movie type like Lee Marvin ('The Grave', series three) or Martin Landau ('Mr Denton On Doomsday',series one). The rest falls very flat as there is nothing to consider remotely realistic about Jesse James, and so the story peters out badly.

And also one more western scheme, where the escape in time is so easy to include. This is not the first episode with this plot; I even think that there was a ZANE GREY series episode which proposed a more or less similar story. But the moral, message here is very interesting, showing this arrogant and disgusting actor who took advantage of his lead characters to impose himself to other actors and shooting crew members. The intrusion into the TWILIGHT ZONE is so juicy, so interesting, that I am very excited by this smart scheme. So this story reunites the western, escape in time and also a very powerful morale, related with narcissism, arrogance, and above all, life, real and true life doesn't always look like the fake plot of a film. Movie reality is not necessarily the actual reality. Also funny and not gloomy, unlike so many other episodes.

I can't help feeling this thirty minutes is one, long Hollywood insider joke. The script is full of sarcastic references to pampered no-talent celebrities, their long-suffering directors, and the general make-believe of Hollywood heroics. Still, it's pretty amusing for an inside look at the artificial nature of movie-making. Larry Blyden plays Rance Mc Grew, a phony tough lead in a Western series. He can't really handle a gun nor brawl with the bad guys nor even ride a horse. And when challenged by the real life Jesse James (courtesy the TZ), what does he do? He calls his agent-- how fitting!

There were scores of such Westerns at the time (1962) which I'm sure this entry was intended to spoof. However, the TV cowboy has long since ridden into the sunset, so much of the satirical punch may be lost. Still, I think enough of the idea remains to keep viewers entertained, if, for no other reason, than the great opening sequence which tells us just about all we need to know about what follows.