Lawson Zerbe stars in a George Bamber script about a totalitarian future where his character (Frank Smith, but known as 108303715) will be euthanized because he has wasted valuable time writing poetry. Society has determined that math- and science-related activities have top priority to deal with the serious problems of the age, 500 years from this episode’s broadcast date.
The story starts with Smith in a prison cell of some sort where he is awaiting time to be judged for the irrelevance of his acts, described there as writing “doggerel.” As it is explained, he will not be found “guilty” or “not guilty,” but as “productive or non-productive, social or anti-social.” He is sentenced to be “processed” by the department of agriculture in the next twenty days. Typically, such a sentence includes a kind of futuristic “sedation” that makes the time pass more quickly. He, however, insists on being fully awake for the days so he can continue to write. They objected, but granted his wish.
Eighteen days pass, and an old a security officer (referred to as “Old Guard” in the script) stops at his cell and tells him that he has been secretly reading the poetry, and likes it. The guard’s time for his termination is coming soon: he is more than 100 years old, and the government requires it. He makes a suggestion that he and Frank change clothes, buying Frank many more days to keep writing. This is possible because the numbers on their foreheads are very similar. The 3s can be easily altered to become 8s, and no one will care or be alert enough to acknowledge the difference when Smith’s number matches the guard’s and vice versa. The guard has an altruistic incentive. He loves poetry, as does his granddaughter, and he wants to make sure that poetry can survive. He cannot imagine a world without poetry. The more Smith writes, the more likely poetry might survive. The final scenes of the story reinforce the guard’s love of the art form in an unusual way in somewhat of a surprise ending.
The name “Frank Smith” might have been selected to remind listeners of 1984’s “Winston Smith.” The concepts behind the story are drawn from an area of literature that can be found in George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and other that offer “dystopian” visions of the future. There is a parallel to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, as even poetry books would be burned as subversive. There is a line of dialogue in the script about a poem that “Frank Smith” wrote. He says “I wrote about the last blade of grass I had seen.” This could be a reference to a lesser known dystopian novel of 1956 by John Christopher, The Death of Grass. It became a movie in 1970, No Blade of Grass. That MGM movie was produced and directed by a Suspense favorite actor Cornel Wilde, who also contributed to the screenplay.
The nine-digit number that was placed on the foreheads in the story is noted as similar to the nine-digit US Social Security number assigned to each worker or taxpayer. It is claimed in the script that one would be assigned at birth. That was not the case at the time of broadcast. Workers were required to apply for a card and number when they started their work life, often around 14 or 15 years old. It was not until the 1980s when there were revisions to various tax laws that it was recommended that children be registered into the system in their earliest weeks and months of life. Listeners would have been surprised at the idea that children and even babies would get numbers. But it was a lot less than 500 years away. People losing their names and being known by numbers would be recognized by the listeners as a reference to the numerical tattoos used in the Nazi concentration camps. Bamber reinforces that human nature and human horrors can be repeated in the future, even if in a different way.
A fascinating aspect of this script of more than 60 years ago are Bamber’s assumptions about technology 500 years into the future. The technology we have today has superleapfrogged his expectations and those of the 1960s audience. The numbers on the foreheads? Why? There are bar codes and QR codes today, and image recognition is actually pretty good today. (Check it out: take a picture of a packaged household good and submit it to a search engine or to Amazon). The codes could be applied in some kind of “invisible” ink rather than wearing the numbers on their heads. There are also biometrics for the identification of persons, such as retinal scans. Bamber was writing in the transistor era, with the integrated circuit technology just getting off the ground. We already use implanted chips to help trace household pets and other animals. He still includes typing and keyboards in the story. He was writing this in the punch card era, and the idea of typing directly into a computer meant you were in some kind of advanced computer environment that was far away in the future as far as most people and enterprises were concerned.
The line of dialogue about the disposition of Smith’s body as being “taken from your cell to the division of agriculture for processing.” There is a modern-day effort to promote “human composting” as part of the “green burial” movement. This is probably the concept that Bamber was referring to.
No script cover is available. The date and time of recording is not known.
This episode was announced as “2461” in the prior week’s announcement. Zirato may have had the script for a couple of months, at least, before scheduling it. The date that it takes place is “November 2462, ten months after the broadcast. It is possible that this was originally expected to be broadcast in November 1961 to make that month exactly 500 years into the future.
There are two “Frank Smith” poems in the story. The first is:
In my treeless, greenless office
Amid the bustling mad despair
I hunger after exile
From the chrome and filtered air.
and the second is:
In the monumental silence
Of a long and pointless strife,
I'm
pained at my reluctance
To let go this last of life.
I
only ask the place
And time enough to give
Some small
meaning to the meaningless
And point to having lived.
The script, like most of his Suspense scripts, was written at a time when Bamber was struggling. He was trying to get some career traction in Hollywood for movies and television. It was a difficult time from many perspectives, and his personal struggle with the uncertainties of freelance writing had him on the verge of seeking to do something more financially return. Just substitute “radio scripts” for “poetry” in the 2462 storyline, and you get the idea. That personal conflict may have been one of inspirations for this script’s core. The poetry used in the story might have emerged from these ruminations. He would leave writing behind a few years later when he started working in public relations and marketing in the paper and wood products industry.
Classic radio enthusiast Ryan Osentowski notes that this episode has similarities to the 1961-06-02 broadcast of The Obsolete Man on Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Serling wrote that episode himself, about a librarian (played by Burgess Meredith) who is declared obsolete because there are no more books. The Serling story is far deeper and broader in meaning than 2462. Some of that is from his skillful writing, but the staging of the television broadcast amplifies its storyline. It is likely Bamber drew some measure of inspiration from the broadcast since he was a devoted fan of The Twilight Zone. The episode can be viewed at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-02029
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620121
THE CAST
Lawson Zerbe (Frank Smith [108303715]), Rosemary Rice (Court Stenographer), William Mason (Young), Robert Randall (Lieutenant), Robert Dryden (Old Guard)
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