A Nice Place to Visit

For the album by Frozen Ghost, see Nice Place to Visit.

"A Nice Place to Visit"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 28
Directed by	John Brahm
Written by	Charles Beaumont
Production code	173-3632
Original air date	April 15, 1960
Guest appearance(s)
Larry Blyden as Henry Francis "Rocky" Valentine Sebastian Cabot as Pip Sandra Warner as Casino Girl John Close as Policeman Barbara English as Dancing Girl Peter Hornsby as Croupier Robert McCord as Waiter Bill Mullikin as Parking Attendant Nels P. Nelson as Policeman Wayne Tucker as Croupier

"A Nice Place to Visit" is episode 28 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone first aired on CBS on April 15, 1960. The title comes from the saying, "A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

In 1965, a slightly modified version of this story was broadcast on the radio program Theater Five.^[1] The episode (number 154), "The Land of Milk and Honey", retained all of the important aspects of this episode, including the innuendos and the surprise ending. On November 14, 1935 the radio program The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee broadcast a play titled: The Other Place starring Colin Clive and written by John Balderston which dealt with a similar theme.^[2]^[3]

Opening narration

“

Portrait of a man at work, the only work he's ever done, the only work he knows. His name is Henry Francis Valentine, but he calls himself "Rocky", because that's the way his life has been – rocky and perilous and uphill at a dead run all the way. He's tired now, tired of running or wanting, of waiting for the breaks that come to others but never to him, never to Rocky Valentine. A scared, angry little man. He thinks it's all over now but he's wrong. For Rocky Valentine, it's just the beginning.

”

Plot

Henry "Rocky" Valentine is a criminal who is robbing a pawnshop after taking out a night watchman. Before he can get away, he is shot by an offscreen police officer while trying to climb a fence. He wakes up to find himself seemingly unharmed by the encounter and in the company of a pleasant individual named "Pip" who tells Rocky that he is his guide and has been instructed to grant him whatever he desires. Rocky is suspicious, having never received anything for free in his life. He believes Pip is trying to con him and asks him if he is a cop. Pip proceeds to quote personal information about Rocky's tastes and hobbies from a notebook. Irritated, Rocky demands that Pip give him his wallet. Pip says he has no wallet but obligingly gives him a large amount of money and is willing to give him as much as he desires. Rocky believes Pip wants him to commit a crime on his behalf and that the money is an incentive.

Rocky holds Pip at gunpoint, following him to a luxurious apartment that Pip insists is Rocky's. Demanding to know what he must do to acquire all this luxury, Rocky remains skeptical when he is told that it's all free. Despite his suspicions, he begins to relax, changing his clothes and taking a shower, after which he is presented with a meal served on a silver platter. He abruptly becomes suspicious again and demands that Pip taste the food, believing it to be poisoned. When Pip claims he can't remember how to eat, Rocky shoots him in the head but finds that the bullets just bounce off, leaving Pip unharmed. Rocky now realizes that he is dead and immediately assumes that he is in Heaven and that Pip is his guardian angel.

Later, we see Rocky in a casino, surrounded by beautiful girls and winning every game he plays. Outside he sees a tall policeman and is able to make him smaller and thus pick on him. After returning to his apartment with Pip and the "dolls" (as Rocky refers to them), Rocky asks to see some of his former friends who have died. Pip says that won't be possible, as this "paradise" is his own private world, and none of the people are real except for Rocky and Pip.

Rocky becomes curious as to why he was allowed into Heaven. "I must have done something good that made up for all the other stuff. But what? What did I ever do that was good?" With Pip, he visits the Hall of Records (seen to have been established in the year I), but it merely contains a list of his sins. Rocky is puzzled but he decides that if God is okay with him being there, he won't bother worrying.

After a month, Rocky becomes thoroughly bored by always having his whims satisfied and predictably winning at anything he attempts. He calls up Pip and asks if he can put a challenge where he would actually get caught in a robbery. Pip is able to do that, but Rocky backs off claiming there would be no fun if he knew the outcome. He then tells Pip, "If I gotta stay here another day, I'm gonna go nuts! I don't belong in Heaven, see? I want to go to the other place." Pip retorts, "Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!!" Shocked and horrified, Rocky unsuccessfully tries to open his apartment door in order to escape his endless "paradise," as Pip begins to laugh malevolently at Rocky's predicament.

Closing narration

“

A scared, angry little man who never got a break. Now he has everything he's ever wanted – and he's going to have to live with it for eternity – in The Twilight Zone.

”

Production

Mickey Rooney was the first choice to play Valentine. In a memo to Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont suggested, should Rooney not be available, that Serling himself consider playing the part. Serling declined and Rooney ended up being unavailable. (He guest starred in a later episode.)^[4]

Guest star Cabot had to bleach his hair white for the role; it took three months for the actor's hair to return to its original dark color.^[4]

One version of this episode has Valentine throwing an apple at a table which changes into a pool table – although another version has this scene cut out.

"A Nice Place to Visit" was also singled out for its brazen sexual innuendo. Program Practices requested that Valentine not refer to a girl as "a broad [...] really stacked", even though the crudity was essential to establishing the unsavory qualities of the character. Nor could the protagonist refer to a party as "a ball", since that word had more than one meaning. In another sequence, a voluptuous young lady tends to Valentine's every need, then says "is there anything else I can do for you?" CBS's comment: "Please be certain that the girl's third speech be delivered in a sweet manner, as described."^[5]

Popular culture

Elliott Murphy alludes to this episode in the song "Sacrifice" from his "Unreal City" album. The lyrics to the song's bridge are as follows: "On TV was a petty thief shot by the police, he came to in Las Vegas in a penthouse suite, he had a magic butler gave him all that he desired, a feast of wine and women 'til his passions were expired. He couldn't understand why a crook like him had died and gone to heaven when his life was full of sin, and when he shot pool and every ball quickly fell, he saw his butler was the devil and the penthouse was in hell."

The unreleased They Might Be Giants song "Hell Hotel" is based on "A Nice Place to Visit". According to producer Bill Krauss, the song references the episode's plot and lead actor Sebastian Cabot.^[6]

The Anthony Horowitz short story Howard's End has a very similar plot.

Billionaire President-elect Donald Trump has said that this episode of The Twilight Zone inspired him in his efforts to succeed.^[7]^[8]

This episode is referenced in two episodes of The Sopranos. In "Chasing It", this episode is explicitly mentioned when it is described to Tony Soprano. In the episode "Kennedy and Heidi", Tony Soprano visits Las Vegas and basically lives the episode, having an unprecedented string of success with gambling, drugs, and women.

References

↑ Theater Five internet archive
↑
↑
1 2 Zicree, Marc Scott (1989). The Twilight Zone Companion (second ed.). Hollywood: Silman James. pp. 114–115. ISBN 1-879505-09-6.
↑ Erikson,Hal(October 1985). "Censorship: Another Dimension Behind the Twilight Zone", The Twilight Zone Magazine.
↑ Weiskopf, Myke (1996). "Early Years Handbook". TMBG.org.
↑ http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/watch-donald-trumps-philosophy-success-was-inspired-twilight-zone-episode
↑ Wayne Barrett, The Deals and the Downfall. New York: Harper Collins, 1992, pp. 31-32.

External links

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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