The Sixth Finger (episode)
Encyclopedia
"The Sixth Finger" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits
television show. It first aired on 14 October 1963, during the first season.
mining town, the story is about a rogue scientist, Professor Mathers, who discovers how to affect the speed of evolutionary mutation. A disgruntled miner, Gwyllm Griffiths, volunteers for the experiment, enabling the professor to create a being with enhanced mental capabilities, and who, incidentally, begins growing an overdeveloped cortex and a "sixth finger" on each hand. When the mutation process begins to operate independently of the professor's influence, the miner takes control of the experiment. Now equipped with superior intelligence and powers of thought that are capable of great destruction, such as telekinesis, the miner seeks vengeance on the mining town he loathes. Later, however, the miner ends up evolving beyond concepts such as "love" and "hate," and instead intends to turn himself into a pure, shapeless intellect with the help of his girlfriend, Cathy Evans. Out of love for him, however, she reverses the process at the last second, bringing him back to his former self, though he also appears to faint, or possibly die after the process, but the episode ends before we can see.
. For this, the then-new Glenn Gould
recordings of the Bach preludes were used, which were performed faster than anyone had done them before. The scene used three different preludes. As it opens, Gwyllm plays the Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor. Most of the conversation with Mathers uses Prelude and Fugue No. 5 in D Major. When he says, "I shall stop soon anyway," he begins Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major.
The ABC censor, Dorothy Brown, objected to the Darwinisim and promotion of evolution inherent in The Sixth Finger. One of the earliest deletions from the script was a speech by Prof. Mathers on the subject: "In the short span of nine months, every human embryo passes through a million years of its previous evolution — from protoplasm to fish, to amphibian, to furry ape with a tail, to man. I'm experimenting with a means of continuing this process in the same lifetime ..." the dialogue foreshadowing the fate Ellis St. Joseph had in store for Gwyllm once Cathy pulls the lever on Mathers' machine, reversing his evolution. As originally scripted, Gwyllm devolves into the protoplasmic form of a jellyfish. However, ABC
executives would only allow him to regress to the stages of early man, due to concerns that religious viewers who did not accept the theory of evolution would be offended.
The Welsh village was shot on English Towne Street on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
's backlot
. Mrs. Ives' boarding house, where the experiments take place, was a Victorian mansion known as The Vinegar Tree house on backlot #2. The stock footage establishing the Welsh village was from How Green Was My Valley
(1941).
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
television show. It first aired on 14 October 1963, during the first season.
Control Voice (shortened introduction)
Introduction
A scientist develops the means to advance the evolution of man by hundreds of thousands of years. The man who is evolving encounters police officers and says to them "Your ignorance makes me ill and angry."Opening narration
Plot
Set in a remote WelshWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
mining town, the story is about a rogue scientist, Professor Mathers, who discovers how to affect the speed of evolutionary mutation. A disgruntled miner, Gwyllm Griffiths, volunteers for the experiment, enabling the professor to create a being with enhanced mental capabilities, and who, incidentally, begins growing an overdeveloped cortex and a "sixth finger" on each hand. When the mutation process begins to operate independently of the professor's influence, the miner takes control of the experiment. Now equipped with superior intelligence and powers of thought that are capable of great destruction, such as telekinesis, the miner seeks vengeance on the mining town he loathes. Later, however, the miner ends up evolving beyond concepts such as "love" and "hate," and instead intends to turn himself into a pure, shapeless intellect with the help of his girlfriend, Cathy Evans. Out of love for him, however, she reverses the process at the last second, bringing him back to his former self, though he also appears to faint, or possibly die after the process, but the episode ends before we can see.
Closing Narration
Production
Regarding Ellis St. Joseph's original script, a number of scenes and characters were removed or condensed to save money, including five speaking parts — Bryn Evans, Gert the Bread's legless, Bible-thumping husband (Cathy Evans' father); Wilks, the local police constable; Robbart and Emlyn, two coal miners, and the fat Mr. Caradoc, the pit owner. The start of Act Four, showing Gwyllm's vengeful rampage against the mine, was removed. Originally, Gwyllm kills Wilks and his deputies, then proceeds on to the mine; the gatekeeper sees him coming, enveloped in a bituminous aura. Mr. Caradoc sets off the disaster whistle just as Gwyllm reduces him to smoldering ashes. Gwyllm then places a box of dynamite at the pit entrance, igniting the fuse with a burning glance. Emlyn, one of the trapped terrified miners, attacks him with a pickaxe and is flattened by a burst of kinetic force. Gwyllm then becomes translucent, evolving beyond the need for vengeance — as he does after zapping one of Wilks' deputies off his motorbike in the finished episode — and abandons the burning fuse to walk back to Mathers' Lab. Robbart, another miner, stamps out the fuse. Gwyllm later tells Cathy his ghostly translucence is evidence of his further evolution: "I can now live by photosynthesis of pure light". The dialogue between Gwyllm and Prof. Mathers at the end of Act Three, when Gwyllm declares his intentions to obliterate the village, was originally slightly longer. This shortened version of the script was only 40 pages long (one page roughly equaling one minute of screentime.) To fill the gap, the sequence of Gwyllm discovering music was quickly written as a five-minute insert by Joseph StefanoJoseph Stefano
Joseph Stefano was an American screenwriter, known to genre fans for writing the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and for being the producer and co-writer of the Outer Limits TV series.-Early years:As a teenager, Stefano was so keen to become an actor that he dropped out of high school two...
. For this, the then-new Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
recordings of the Bach preludes were used, which were performed faster than anyone had done them before. The scene used three different preludes. As it opens, Gwyllm plays the Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor. Most of the conversation with Mathers uses Prelude and Fugue No. 5 in D Major. When he says, "I shall stop soon anyway," he begins Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major.
The ABC censor, Dorothy Brown, objected to the Darwinisim and promotion of evolution inherent in The Sixth Finger. One of the earliest deletions from the script was a speech by Prof. Mathers on the subject: "In the short span of nine months, every human embryo passes through a million years of its previous evolution — from protoplasm to fish, to amphibian, to furry ape with a tail, to man. I'm experimenting with a means of continuing this process in the same lifetime ..." the dialogue foreshadowing the fate Ellis St. Joseph had in store for Gwyllm once Cathy pulls the lever on Mathers' machine, reversing his evolution. As originally scripted, Gwyllm devolves into the protoplasmic form of a jellyfish. However, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
executives would only allow him to regress to the stages of early man, due to concerns that religious viewers who did not accept the theory of evolution would be offended.
The Welsh village was shot on English Towne Street on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
's backlot
Backlot
A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio, containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions, or space for temporary set construction....
. Mrs. Ives' boarding house, where the experiments take place, was a Victorian mansion known as The Vinegar Tree house on backlot #2. The stock footage establishing the Welsh village was from How Green Was My Valley
How Green Was My Valley (film)
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 drama film directed by John Ford. The film, based on the 1939 Richard Llewellyn novel, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and written by Philip Dunne. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall...
(1941).
Quotes
Cast
- David McCallumDavid McCallumDavid Keith McCallum, Jr. is a Scottish actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, in the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., as interdimensional operative Steel in Sapphire & Steel, and Dr...
— Gwyllm Griffiths - Edward MulhareEdward MulhareEdward Mulhare was a popular television actor whose career spanned four decades.Born at 22 Quaker Road, Cork City, County Cork, Ireland, and educated by the Irish Christian Brothers, Mulhare intended to study medicine, but was sidetracked by a growing interest in acting...
— Prof. Mathers - Jill HaworthJill HaworthValerie Jill Haworth was an English actress.Haworth was born in Sussex, to a textile magnate father and a mother who trained as a ballet dancer ....
— Cathy Evans - Nora MarloweNora MarloweNora Marlowe was an American film and TV character actress from Worcester, Massachusetts best known for her role as Flossie Brimmer on the CBS drama The Waltons and as Sara Andrews on the CBS sitcom The Governor and J.J. and for her roles in films including The Thomas Crown Affair and...
— Mrs. Ives - Janos ProhaskaJanos ProhaskaJanos Prohaska was a Hungarian United States based actor and stunt performer on American television from the 1960s. He usually played the roles of animals or monsters....
— Darwin, Prof. Mathers' trained chimpanzee - Constance Cavendish — Gert "the Bread" Evans
- Robert Doyle — Wilt Morgan
- Chuck Hayward — Constable's Deputy #1 (stunt)
- George Pelling — Constable's Deputy #2
- Al Wyatt — Edward Mulhare's stunt double