The Twilight Zone (1959–1964): Season 1, Episode 32 - A Passage for Trumpet - full transcript
Musician Joey Crown is down on his luck. An alcoholic, he can't find work because no one trusts him. Broke, he hocks his trumpet but then steps in front of truck which knocks him onto the sidewalk. He awakens in a strange world where no one can see him and he presumes that he has died. He eventually bumps into someone who can in fact see him, a fellow horn player who tells him that it's still within Joey's power to decide on life or death.
A Passage for Trumpet
First Aired: 20 May 1960
English Subtitles by
Pandorafilm - Heerlen
You're traveling
to another dimension.
A dimension not only of sight
and sound, but of mind.
A journey into a wondrous land
of imagination.
Next stop: The Twilight Zone
Joey Crown, musician
with an odd, intense face.
Whose life is a quest
for impossible things.
Like flowers in concrete.
Or like trying to pluck a note...
of music out of the air and
put it under glass to treasure.
Hi, Joey.
-Hi, Baron.
I brought along my baby. I thought
you might need somebody with a horn.
Not tonight. The last time you played
trumpet for me, you loused it up.
I had to share you with a bottle.
-A bottle? Me?
I forgot what the stuff tastes like.
For months, I'm way up on the wagon.
What am I? Some kind of kook?
I know what that stuff does to me,
but I ain't an old man.
Me and the horn, we got many years
left. I could be a number one boy.
What am I gonna do?
Chuck it away on some bum habit?
It's a pretty mellow horn.
I got some nice music in here.
You know yourself, when I pick it up
and I blow it, I can make 'em cry.
What do you say, Baron?
Don't do it.
-For old times, Joey, huh?
For old times when you had it.
A magic horn.
Harry James, Max Kaminsky, Billy
Butterfield, you were 'em all, baby.
You traded it off for some bad
hooch and you got took.
You got the crummy end of the stick.
Why, Joey, why?
Because I'm sad.
Because I'm nothing.
Because I'll live and die in a
crummy one-roomer with dirty walls.
I'll never even have a girl.
I'll never be anybody.
Half of me is this horn.
I can't even talk to people, Baron.
'cause this horn,
that's half my language.
But when I'm drunk, Baron...
I don't see the dirty walls
or the cracked pipes.
I don't know the clock's going,
that the hours are going by.
'cause then I'm Gabriel.
I'm Gabriel with a golden horn.
And when I put it to my lips,
it comes out jewels.
It comes out a symphony.
Comes out the smell of
fresh flowers in summer.
Comes out beauty.
When I'm drunk, Baron.
Only when I'm drunk.
Just plain ordinary nothing.
Man, I'm tired of hanging around.
Joey Crown, musician
with an odd, intense face.
Who in a moment will try to leave the
earth and discover the middle ground.
The place we call the Twilight Zone.
Back again, huh, Joey?
-Hi, Nate. This time I'm selling it.
Eight and a half.
-Eight and a half? Alright.
Eight and a half.
-Sign it.
I got enough instruments now
to equip Sousa's band.
I need another bugle like
I need my taxes raised.
Don't worry, I ain't getting
that price so fast.
I got an overhead too, you know.
You don't understand that.
What kind of responsibilities
somebody like you got?
Nothin' at all.
Yeah. Nothin' at all.
No responsibilities.
No nothing.
Officer, I assure you, I'm not what
you would call drunk, you see.
You can ask officer Flaherty who's
usually on this beat. He'll tell...
Excuse me, buddy,
you happen to have a...?
Excuse me, pal, you have a match?
I said you have a match?
Movies better than ever?
Look, I don't want to disturb you.
But Gracie usually works here and
I wanted to tell her what happened.
This big truck and I, we tangled,
and the first thing I knew I was...
Look, at least you can be a
little courteous, I mean...
Look at me!
Now, look.
Now, listen.
Somebody's trying to pull a gag.
Somebody's trying to shake me up.
Now, look, miss.
Please, something's going on,
somebody trying to pull...
Look, fellow, you happen
to have a light?
I'm dead.
That's it.
I'm just plain old deceased.
Hey, I'm a ghost. You know,
that truck made it after all.
I'm haunting you.
I'm a boojie.
At last. For the first time in the
very short life of Joey Crown...
he was successful at something.
Charlie's off, huh?
You don't hear me either, do you?
Nobody hear me?
Anybody see me?
I used to come in here a lot. But I
don't recognize any of you people.
None of you of course
woulda noticed me.
You don't hear me either, do you?
I'm not a guy you would notice.
Charlie, every now and then he used
to give me a drink on the house.
He was a nice guy, Charlie.
You know what he did one time?
You know what he did?
Charlie went out and bought an old
Tommy Dorsey record from way back.
When I was playing with him. On this
record there was a long solo of me.
Old Charlie goes and orders it.
Like a big surprise for me.
Puts it on the juke.
Would you believe it?
A nice thing like that
from old Charlie.
When I was alive.
Hey, don't stop.
It's coming out beautiful.
Thanks.
You said thanks.
-Thanks.
You hear me?
-I hear you.
You see me?
-Very clearly.
You're a ghost too, huh?
-Not really.
I am. I stepped in front of
a truck this morning.
I ain't good for the health.
Believe me.
You wanna blow this a while, Joey?
-Yeah, I'd like to.
You mind?
-Whatever you like.
Joey? You called me Joey.
Joey Crown, that's the name,
isn't it?
Yeah, that's my name but
we ain't never been introduced.
Not formally but I know who you are.
You play a nice trumpet.
I know, I'm an expert on trumpets.
-You ain't no slouch on it.
Well, go ahead.
How come you know who I am?
You're not a ghost, you're not dead.
No, I'm not dead.
Neither are you, Joey.
I'm not?
-By no means.
But what about the people in
the bar and in the streets?
They are dead. They're the ghosts,
they just don't know it, that's all.
Sometimes to make it easier,
we have to work it that way.
We let them go on in a life
that they're familiar with.
That's why they couldn't hear you.
You're the one that's alive.
Like I said, I stepped off a curb...
-That you did.
Right now you're in a kind of a
limbo. You're neither here nor there.
You're in the middle.
Between the two.
The real and the shadow.
Which do you prefer?
Which do I prefer?
You know something?
I always felt I was getting
dealt from the bottom.
Or maybe, I just forgot how
much there was for me.
Maybe I forgot about the nice music
that I could make on this horn.
Going into Charlie's, meeting people,
going to a movie now and then.
I never won a beauty contest but
I had friends, I had good ones.
Yeah, somewhere along the line I
just forgot all the good things.
That's what happened.
I just forgot.
You've got a choice, you know.
There's still time.
If I've got a choice
I mean, if I've got a choice...
then I wanna go back.
Understand?
I wanna go back.
-All right. You go back.
But no more stepping off curbs.
Take what you get and
you live with it.
Sometimes it's sweet frosting,
nice gravy.
Sometimes it's sour, it goes
down hard, but you live with it.
Yeah, it's a nice talent you got.
To make music, to move people.
Make 'em wanna laugh.
Make 'em wanna cry.
They can tap their feet.
Make 'em wanna dance.
That's an exceptional talent, Joey.
Don't waste it.
See you around, Joey.
-Hey, mister.
What is it?
-I didn't get your name.
Your name. I didn't get your name.
My name? Call me Gabe.
-Gabe?
Gabe.
Short for Gabriel.
Goodbye, Joey.
I didn't see you, pal.
Lucky I only grazed you.
Oh, that's okay, no harm done.
I ain't had an accident for 14 years.
I'd be obliged to you if you...
You know, no doctors, no insurance
companies. Nothing like that, huh?
Be a nice guy, huh, pal?
You play it beautifully.
-Thanks.
I gave it up this morning
but I'm taking her back.
The bugle and me,
till death do us part.
I'm new here. I've never even
been in New York before.
I just moved in.
My name is Nan.
-Hi. I'm Joey Crown.
Will you play some more?
Sure. I'll play whatever you like
for as long as you like.
You know, you may like it here.
It's not a bad town.
Oh, I'm sure it isn't.
Maybe you could show me some of it.
Me?
Sure. I'd love to. I could show
you the Battery and Central Park.
I could show you 52nd. Street
and listen to some good jazz...
Joey Crown, who makes music.
He discovered that life can be rich,
rewarding and full of beauty.
Just like the music he played.
If a person would only pause
to look and to listen.
Joey Crown, who got his clue...
in the Twilight Zone.
English Subtitles by
B. Cornelis - Pandorafilm - Heerlen
First Aired: 20 May 1960
English Subtitles by
Pandorafilm - Heerlen
You're traveling
to another dimension.
A dimension not only of sight
and sound, but of mind.
A journey into a wondrous land
of imagination.
Next stop: The Twilight Zone
Joey Crown, musician
with an odd, intense face.
Whose life is a quest
for impossible things.
Like flowers in concrete.
Or like trying to pluck a note...
of music out of the air and
put it under glass to treasure.
Hi, Joey.
-Hi, Baron.
I brought along my baby. I thought
you might need somebody with a horn.
Not tonight. The last time you played
trumpet for me, you loused it up.
I had to share you with a bottle.
-A bottle? Me?
I forgot what the stuff tastes like.
For months, I'm way up on the wagon.
What am I? Some kind of kook?
I know what that stuff does to me,
but I ain't an old man.
Me and the horn, we got many years
left. I could be a number one boy.
What am I gonna do?
Chuck it away on some bum habit?
It's a pretty mellow horn.
I got some nice music in here.
You know yourself, when I pick it up
and I blow it, I can make 'em cry.
What do you say, Baron?
Don't do it.
-For old times, Joey, huh?
For old times when you had it.
A magic horn.
Harry James, Max Kaminsky, Billy
Butterfield, you were 'em all, baby.
You traded it off for some bad
hooch and you got took.
You got the crummy end of the stick.
Why, Joey, why?
Because I'm sad.
Because I'm nothing.
Because I'll live and die in a
crummy one-roomer with dirty walls.
I'll never even have a girl.
I'll never be anybody.
Half of me is this horn.
I can't even talk to people, Baron.
'cause this horn,
that's half my language.
But when I'm drunk, Baron...
I don't see the dirty walls
or the cracked pipes.
I don't know the clock's going,
that the hours are going by.
'cause then I'm Gabriel.
I'm Gabriel with a golden horn.
And when I put it to my lips,
it comes out jewels.
It comes out a symphony.
Comes out the smell of
fresh flowers in summer.
Comes out beauty.
When I'm drunk, Baron.
Only when I'm drunk.
Just plain ordinary nothing.
Man, I'm tired of hanging around.
Joey Crown, musician
with an odd, intense face.
Who in a moment will try to leave the
earth and discover the middle ground.
The place we call the Twilight Zone.
Back again, huh, Joey?
-Hi, Nate. This time I'm selling it.
Eight and a half.
-Eight and a half? Alright.
Eight and a half.
-Sign it.
I got enough instruments now
to equip Sousa's band.
I need another bugle like
I need my taxes raised.
Don't worry, I ain't getting
that price so fast.
I got an overhead too, you know.
You don't understand that.
What kind of responsibilities
somebody like you got?
Nothin' at all.
Yeah. Nothin' at all.
No responsibilities.
No nothing.
Officer, I assure you, I'm not what
you would call drunk, you see.
You can ask officer Flaherty who's
usually on this beat. He'll tell...
Excuse me, buddy,
you happen to have a...?
Excuse me, pal, you have a match?
I said you have a match?
Movies better than ever?
Look, I don't want to disturb you.
But Gracie usually works here and
I wanted to tell her what happened.
This big truck and I, we tangled,
and the first thing I knew I was...
Look, at least you can be a
little courteous, I mean...
Look at me!
Now, look.
Now, listen.
Somebody's trying to pull a gag.
Somebody's trying to shake me up.
Now, look, miss.
Please, something's going on,
somebody trying to pull...
Look, fellow, you happen
to have a light?
I'm dead.
That's it.
I'm just plain old deceased.
Hey, I'm a ghost. You know,
that truck made it after all.
I'm haunting you.
I'm a boojie.
At last. For the first time in the
very short life of Joey Crown...
he was successful at something.
Charlie's off, huh?
You don't hear me either, do you?
Nobody hear me?
Anybody see me?
I used to come in here a lot. But I
don't recognize any of you people.
None of you of course
woulda noticed me.
You don't hear me either, do you?
I'm not a guy you would notice.
Charlie, every now and then he used
to give me a drink on the house.
He was a nice guy, Charlie.
You know what he did one time?
You know what he did?
Charlie went out and bought an old
Tommy Dorsey record from way back.
When I was playing with him. On this
record there was a long solo of me.
Old Charlie goes and orders it.
Like a big surprise for me.
Puts it on the juke.
Would you believe it?
A nice thing like that
from old Charlie.
When I was alive.
Hey, don't stop.
It's coming out beautiful.
Thanks.
You said thanks.
-Thanks.
You hear me?
-I hear you.
You see me?
-Very clearly.
You're a ghost too, huh?
-Not really.
I am. I stepped in front of
a truck this morning.
I ain't good for the health.
Believe me.
You wanna blow this a while, Joey?
-Yeah, I'd like to.
You mind?
-Whatever you like.
Joey? You called me Joey.
Joey Crown, that's the name,
isn't it?
Yeah, that's my name but
we ain't never been introduced.
Not formally but I know who you are.
You play a nice trumpet.
I know, I'm an expert on trumpets.
-You ain't no slouch on it.
Well, go ahead.
How come you know who I am?
You're not a ghost, you're not dead.
No, I'm not dead.
Neither are you, Joey.
I'm not?
-By no means.
But what about the people in
the bar and in the streets?
They are dead. They're the ghosts,
they just don't know it, that's all.
Sometimes to make it easier,
we have to work it that way.
We let them go on in a life
that they're familiar with.
That's why they couldn't hear you.
You're the one that's alive.
Like I said, I stepped off a curb...
-That you did.
Right now you're in a kind of a
limbo. You're neither here nor there.
You're in the middle.
Between the two.
The real and the shadow.
Which do you prefer?
Which do I prefer?
You know something?
I always felt I was getting
dealt from the bottom.
Or maybe, I just forgot how
much there was for me.
Maybe I forgot about the nice music
that I could make on this horn.
Going into Charlie's, meeting people,
going to a movie now and then.
I never won a beauty contest but
I had friends, I had good ones.
Yeah, somewhere along the line I
just forgot all the good things.
That's what happened.
I just forgot.
You've got a choice, you know.
There's still time.
If I've got a choice
I mean, if I've got a choice...
then I wanna go back.
Understand?
I wanna go back.
-All right. You go back.
But no more stepping off curbs.
Take what you get and
you live with it.
Sometimes it's sweet frosting,
nice gravy.
Sometimes it's sour, it goes
down hard, but you live with it.
Yeah, it's a nice talent you got.
To make music, to move people.
Make 'em wanna laugh.
Make 'em wanna cry.
They can tap their feet.
Make 'em wanna dance.
That's an exceptional talent, Joey.
Don't waste it.
See you around, Joey.
-Hey, mister.
What is it?
-I didn't get your name.
Your name. I didn't get your name.
My name? Call me Gabe.
-Gabe?
Gabe.
Short for Gabriel.
Goodbye, Joey.
I didn't see you, pal.
Lucky I only grazed you.
Oh, that's okay, no harm done.
I ain't had an accident for 14 years.
I'd be obliged to you if you...
You know, no doctors, no insurance
companies. Nothing like that, huh?
Be a nice guy, huh, pal?
You play it beautifully.
-Thanks.
I gave it up this morning
but I'm taking her back.
The bugle and me,
till death do us part.
I'm new here. I've never even
been in New York before.
I just moved in.
My name is Nan.
-Hi. I'm Joey Crown.
Will you play some more?
Sure. I'll play whatever you like
for as long as you like.
You know, you may like it here.
It's not a bad town.
Oh, I'm sure it isn't.
Maybe you could show me some of it.
Me?
Sure. I'd love to. I could show
you the Battery and Central Park.
I could show you 52nd. Street
and listen to some good jazz...
Joey Crown, who makes music.
He discovered that life can be rich,
rewarding and full of beauty.
Just like the music he played.
If a person would only pause
to look and to listen.
Joey Crown, who got his clue...
in the Twilight Zone.
English Subtitles by
B. Cornelis - Pandorafilm - Heerlen