The Twilight Zone/Recap/S1/E04 The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine

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Rod Serling: Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part in the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.

Aging film star Barbara Jean Trenton (Ida Lupino) secludes herself in her private screening room, where she reminisces about her past by watching her old films. In an attempt to bring her out into the real world, her agent Danny Weiss (Martin Balsam) arranges a part for her in a new movie and brings a former leading man—now also older, many years retired from acting, and managing a chain of grocery stores—to visit her. This horrifies Barbara Jean and only drives her further into seclusion. Then one day, Barbara Jean's maid finds the screening room empty—and is horrified by what she sees on the screen. Danny comes over and sees on the screen the living room of the house, filled with movie stars and Barbara Jean as they appeared in the old films. He pleads with her to come back, but she throws her scarf toward the camera and departs just before the film ends. In the living room, Danny finds Barbara Jean's scarf. "To wishes, Barbie", he says wistfully, "to the ones that come true..."

Rod Serling: To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world. It can happen-in The Twilight Zone.

Trivia

• Martin Balsam also appeared in the episode "The New Exhibit".
• Ida Lupino later directed the episode "The Masks". She was the original series' only female director, and the only actor to direct an episode.

Tropes

• Glory Days
• Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight
• Trapped in TV Land: Though it's her choice.