Line #14 Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E13TheFourOfUsAreDying


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0_hr37nwa_ucu_eyps.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"I just need a little more time!"'']]
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4	->'''Creator/RodSerling''': His name is Arch Hammer. He's thirty-six years old. He's been a salesman, a dispatcher, a truck driver, a con man, a bookie, and a part-time bartender. This is a cheap man, a nickel and dime man, with a cheapness that goes past the suit and the shirt; a cheapness of mind, a cheapness of taste, a tawdry little shine on the seat of his conscience, and a dark-room squint at a world whose sunlight has never gotten through to him. But Mr. Hammer has a talent, discovered at a very early age. This much he does have. He can make his face change. He can twitch a muscle, move a jaw, concentrate on the cast of his eyes, and he can change his face. He can change it into anything he wants. Mr. Archie Hammer, jack-of-all-trades, has just checked in at three-eighty a night, with two bags, some newspaper clippings, a most odd talent, and a master plan to destroy some lives.
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6	Air date: January 1, 1960
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8	Arch Hammer (Harry Townes) is a petty crook who has a special talent. Through concentration, he can change his face to fit the appearance of any man he sees. He first takes the image of Johnny Foster (Ross Martin), a murdered trumpeter, in order to steal his girlfriend Maggie (Creator/BeverlyGarland). To cover his finances and the rent for his motel room, he then impersonates dead gangster Virgil Sterig (Philip Pine), who demands money from Penell, the mob boss who put the hit on him. After Hammer leaves, Penell sends two men after him. To evade them, Arch changes his face yet again so that he now resembles boxer Andy Marshak (Don Gordon). As he emerges from the alley thinking he's in the clear, Arch meets Andy's father (Creator/PeterBrocco), who is none too pleased with the things his 'son' did. The police closing in and a later encounter with Mr. Marshak will soon teach Hammer that his line of work is not all it's cracked up to be.
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11	!!The Four of Us Are Troping:
12	* AdaptationalSuperpowerChange: In the original short story, Hammer's shapeshifting involuntarily causes him to appear as whoever a person wants to see the most. Here, he has to change through concentration. This changes the ending slightly, since in the story, he got away with everything only to be shot by a gas station worker who sees him as someone who he's wanted to kill for years.
13	* BedTrick: Although he never actually gets the chance to get her into bed, Hammer's first disguise is meant to seduce dead trumpeter Johnny Foster's girlfriend Maggie, who agrees to go away with him.
14	* ContrivedCoincidence: Both times Hammer shapeshifts into Andy Marshak, he just happens to run into Marshak's estranged father.
15	* CrisisMakesPerfect: Inverted. Hammer tries to change out of his Andy Marshak form so he can prove to Marshak's vengeful father that he's not that man and won't get shot, but the pressure of having a gun pointed at him breaks his concentration too much and after a few seconds Marshak’s father shoots Hammer.
16	* FakeIdentityBaggage: Arch has the ability to change his face, which he uses to trick a trumpet player's grieving girlfriend and extort a crime boss for money. After shapeshifting into boxer Andy Marshak to hide from the boss's men, he runs into Marshak's father, who has a bone to pick with his wayward son. The next time Hammer takes Marshak's face, he finds that his father brought a gun.
17	* HeroicBSOD: Maggie tells the disguised Arch how she slumped into a depression after Johnny's death. She still went to work, but the only songs she could sing were sad ones.
18	* HonorRelatedAbuse: Marshak's father had been looking for Andy for some time because he brought dishonor to his family for some unspecified crime. Unfortunately for Arch, that means shooting his "son".
19	* IHaveNoSon: Marshak's father tells Arch, disguised as his son Andy, that Andy ''used to be'' his son, but he's nothing to him after whatever unspecified nasty thing he did.
20	* KarmicDeath:
21	** In the original short story, Hammer's undoing comes when a gas station attendant sees him as a man he's spent the last ten years wanting to kill.
22	** In the episode, he's shot when he takes on the appearance of Mr. Marshak's wayward son Andy, who "broke his mother's heart and did dirt to a sweet little girl."
23	* LaserGuidedKarma: Hammer is an unscrupulous man and dies a violent death. [[NoodleIncident What little Mr. Marshak says about his estranged son Andy's misdeeds]] make clear that Andy deserves a bad death, too (although [[MisplacedRetribution it's a cosmic irony that he inflicts it to another crook]]).
24	* TheMafia: Arch Hammer imitates Virgil Sterig, a gangster who was murdered on the orders of mob boss Penell, to threaten said boss for rent money.
25	* NeonCity: The city the story takes place in is chock full of neon advertisements that litter the sky, alongside other downtown joints.
26	* NoodleIncident: Andy was stated to have broken his mother's heart and "did dirt" to a sweet girl who was devoted to him. It's never said how he specifically did either.
27	** The original story doesn't tells us why the attendant wants to kill the man he wishes to, either.
28	* OffingTheOffspring: Andy Marshak's father ''believes'' he's doing this, as Arch's last-minute insistence that he's not really his son doesn't register with him.
29	* OffscreenVillainy: It's not shown what Andy Marshak did offscreen, but it's clear he left trail of suffering in his wake.
30	* ShapeshiftingSeducer: Hammer turns into torch singer Maggie's dead boyfriend Johnny to get her to go away with him.
31	* ShapeShifterSwanSong: As he dies, Arch switches from face to face before settling on his original look.
32	* SpannerInTheWorks:
33	** Arch willingly shape-shifted to Andy in order for him to get away from gangsters trying to hurt him. When it looked he was going to make a clean escape, some random guy (later revealed to be Marshak's father) blows him away instead (for a completely unrelated reason).
34	** The original story has Hammer walking away with a lot of crimes, only to run into a schmuck that had a very obsessive desire to kill some guy that wronged him when he stopped for some gas.
35	* ThoughtControlledPower: Hammer needs to concentrate to change shape. Unfortunately for him, that means that when he is scared out of his mind by someone trying to kill him, he is unable to change forms quickly. This turns into a literally fatal weakness when confronted by Mr. Marshak.
36	* VillainOfAnotherStory: Andrew Marshak's [[TheGhost sole appearance]] is in a boxing bout poster and Mr. Marshak’s attempted TheReasonYouSuckSpeech telling that he did crimes awful enough that he is honor-bound to [[OffingTheOffspring kill him]]. Unfortunately for Hammer, he is the one who is going to get killed for Marshak's sins.
37	* VillainProtagonist: Arch, who Serling notes is a bad guy in the introduction, and who uses his powers for his own benefit.
38	* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Hammer can change his appearance into that of another man if he concentrates.
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Context Recap / TheTwilightZone1959S1E13TheFourOfUsAreDying