Ten to an owner...
Rod Serling: "A hotel suite that, in this instance, serves as a den of crime, the aftermath of a rather minor event to be noted on a police blotter, an insurance claim, perhaps a three-inch box on page twelve of the evening paper. Small addenda to be added to the list of the loot: a camera, a most unimposing addition to the flotsam and jetsam that it came with, hardly worth mentioning really, because cameras are cameras, some expensive, some purchasable at five-and-dime stores. But this camera, this one's unusual because in just a moment we'll watch it inject itself into the destinies of three people. It happens to be a fact that the pictures that it takes can only be developed in the Twilight Zone."
Air date: December 16, 1960
Chester and Paula Diedrich, a married couple of small-time thieves, hide out in a hotel room after robbing an antique store. While Chester claims that their stolen loot is seemingly worthless, they discover that they have plundered an unusual looking camera. As he takes a picture of Paula with the camera to test it, Chester finds the picture has Paula wearing a fur coat that they don't remember finding among their hoard, until Paula just so happens to find it in a trunk. When another picture reveals Paula's brother Woodward having escaped prison minutes before he bursts inside, the Diedrichs and Woodward realize that this particular camera has the magical ability to take pictures of the future. Though he initially decides to present the camera as a beneficial gift from himself, his wife, and his brother-in-law, Chester instead devises a get-rich quick scheme by using the camera's power over at the track. After winning several horse races and garnering a small fortune, the trio discover that the camera has a limited number of uses, and become suspicious and confrontational with each other over the last two photos.
The episode was the inspiration for the Goosebumps book, Say Cheese and Die!.
Some Most Unusual Tropes:
- Blackmail: After Chester and Woodward plummet out the window to their doom, the French waiter returns, and learns that Paula and her associates are wanted criminals. Assuming that Paula was the cause of her husband and brother's deaths, he takes the opportunity to blackmail Paula on two fronts. Either she gives him their money, or he'll turn her in to the police. Paula has no choice but to give in to his demands.
- Bottle Episode: Barring the scene at the racetrack, this episode takes place entirely in the Diedrichs' hotel suite.
- Disney Villain Death: This happens to Chester, Woodward, Paula, and the waiter, all in the same fashion.
- The Ditz: Paula is the dimmer one between her and her husband, and her brother Woodward is not very bright either, perhaps dangerously so.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Woodward, dumb as he is, actually points out Chester's Ignored Epiphany below.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played with; Paula, Chester, and Woodward clearly have a great deal affection between one another. Paula screams when her husband and brother topple out the window to their deaths and initially sobs that she has nothing left without them, but when she accidentally puts her hands on the money, which now belongs completely to her, her grief clears up quickly.
- "Everyone Dies" Ending: All four main characters are dead by falling out of the window by the episode's end.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: As the waiter looks over the final photo and notices that there are actually four bodies on the ground.
- Failed a Spot Check: Somehow, the Diedrichs' waiter notices that there are "more than two" bodies on the ground in Paula's last photo, but not that there are exactly four. Maybe the camera can alter its photos, or he was just bluffing and intended on shoving her out the window as well.
- Four Is Death: The last picture shows four dead bodies outside the hotel window, and its appearance quickly spells the death of all four major characters.
- French Jerk: The waiter, who is just as greedy and conniving as the crooks.
- Greed: A central theme demonstrated by all of the characters, including the hotel waiter.
- Ignored Epiphany: Once there's no longer any doubt that the camera can predict the future, Chester initially thinks they should use it for the benefit of humanity. Granted, there's a great deal of egotism there (talking about how it'd be a gift from him and his wife note ), but he seems genuine in wanting to help medical science and declaring his family should rise above their longstanding criminal ways. The greed takes over when he sees a horse race on TV.
- Karmic Twist Ending: After Paula plummets out the window, the waiter, certain that he's in the clear, looks at the final picture...Waiter: Yes, there are more than two bodies down there. Just as the picture shows...one...two...three...FOUR? (falls to his death)
- Laser-Guided Karma: The three crooks (and the just-as-crooked waiter) get their comeuppance for their endless greed, as the camera predicts their own deaths.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Chester considers using the camera to help humanity, referring to it as a gift from himself and his wife. When Woodward reminds him he's also there, Chester derisively says, "Yeah, and you, too."
- No Honor Among Thieves: When they learn that the camera is beginning to run out of pictures, Chester, Paula, and Woodward battle over who gets to use the last two and how they should be spent. When a picture is accidentally snapped and shows Paula screaming, Chester and Woodward believe that it's because the other wants to kill him. They wind up falling to their deaths in the struggle, causing Paula to scream
- Overly Long Gag: By the standards of a half-hour show that isn't Family Guy, the scene where Chester tries to explain his plan of using the future-predicting camera to cheat on horse racing to Paula and Woodward is this. Paula is soon able to get it... but Woodward still doesn't, so Chester needs to go over it a couple more times!
- Scream Discretion Shot: The waiter's death isn't shown, as the shot zeroes in on the camera while he screams.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
- The camera's ninth photo shows Paula screaming in terror. Chester and Woodward accuse each other of being responsible for her screaming, which leads to them fighting and falling out the window to their deaths, prompting Paula to scream.
- Paula runs to the window after the waiter reports the last photo shows "more than two" bodies, which allows her to trip over an extension cord and fall out the window. And while we don't see how the waiter dies, it's strongly implied that seeing himself as the fourth body in the photograph causes him to fall out the same window in shock.
- Spooky Photographs: The episode's titular camera can take pictures of the future, if only five minutes ahead.
- Too Dumb to Live: Even though she already knows the camera predicts the immediate future, Paula runs toward the window when the waiter says the photo shows more than two bodies. It somehow never occurs to her that she would become the third body in the photograph. As a result, she trips over a cord and falls out the window to her death.
- Villain Protagonist: Chester, his wife Paula, and her brother Woodward. The former two are small-time thieves and Woodward is a former burglar-turned-escaped convict.
- Wham Line: The French waiter tells the three characters that the camera can only take ten pictures for every person who owns it by reading the inscription written on it: Dix à la propriétaire, translated to "Ten to an owner".
Rod Serling: "Object known as a camera, vintage uncertain, origin unknown. But for the greedy, the avaricious, the fleet of foot, who can run a four-minute mile so long as they're chasing a fast buck, it makes believe that it's an ally, but it isn't at all. It's a beckoning come-on for a quick walk around the block in the Twilight Zone."
