The Twilight Zone S1 E4: The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine

Mitchell Leisen: The Twilight Zone S1 E4: The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (US 1959). Ida Lupino (Barbara Jean Trenton) and John Clarke (young Jerry Hearndan). 

Mitchell Leisen: The Twilight Zone S1 E4: The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (US 1959). Ida Lupino (Barbara Jean Trenton).

Il sacrofago. Hämärän rajamailla.

    US © 1959 Cayuga Productions. PC: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. P: Buck Houghton.

    D: Mitchell Leisen. SC: Rod Serling. DP: George T. Clemens. PD: George W. Davis, William Ferrari. Title design: Herbert Klynn. M: Franz Waxman. Main title M: Bernard Herrmann (n.c.). ED: Bill Mosher. C: Rod Serling (narrator), Ida Lupino (Barbara Jean Trenton), Martin Balsam (Danny Weiss), Jerome Cowan (Jerry Hearndan), Ted de Corsia (Marty Sall), Alice Frost (Sally).

    Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA.

    26 min

    Language: English.

    Episode aired 23 Oct, 1959 on CBS.

    35 mm print from: Paramount Pictures.

    Courtesy of: MPLC.

    E-subtitles in Italian by SubTi Londra.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2026: Easy Living with Mitchell Leisen.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 21 June 2026.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2026): "Aired on 23 October 1959, as the fourth episode of the first season of the now-cult TV series The Twilight Zone – written and presented by Rod Serling – it marks Mitchell Leisen’s return to the theme of cinema for the first time since Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Whatever happened to Barbie Jane? She’s a former movie star of Norma Desmond calibre, both in past grandeur and present delusion, who has shut herself away in a room, endlessly re-running her old films on 16 mm. Played by Ida Lupino, Barbie Jane is coaxed into considering a new role and meeting with a former co-star – events that accelerate her psychological collapse and the episode’s drift into the “twilight zone” where logic dissolves and the fantastical takes hold. Leisen perceives cruelty and fickleness as inherent to the film world, especially Hollywood, and he extends that cynicism to his own image when a former star is shown as a frail old man running a chain of supermarkets in suburban Chicago. The actor chosen for the role, Jerome Cowan, bears a resemblance to Leisen himself. The episode suggests that the idea of being immortalised in or by the movies is, at its core, something morbid." Ehsan Khoshbakht

AA added background: 

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone." Rod Serling

From IMDb: Opening narration:

"Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of 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 actress Barbara Jean Trenton (Ida Lupino) secludes herself in a private screening room, where she watches her old films. Gently but desperately, her agent (Martin Balsam) tries to coax her out into the real world by arranging a part for her in a film and by bringing a former leading man (Jerome Cowan) to visit her. But these acts only drive her further into the past. Bringing her a meal, the maid finds the screening room empty--and is horrified by what she sees on the screen. She summons the agent, who turns the projector back on. On the screen he sees the living room of the house, filled with stars as they appeared in the old films. Barbara Jean is the center of attention. He pleads with her to come back, but she only throws her scarf toward the camera and departs. The film runs out. In the living room, the agent finds Barbara Jean's scarf. "To wishes, Barbie," he says. "To the ones that come true."

Closing narration:

"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." (from IMDb)

AA: I am no fan of Sunset Boulevard or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? because of their barely concealed misogyny. I feel no misogyny in Mitchell Leisen's The Sixteenth-Millimeter Shrine which belongs to their lineage, as pointed out by Ehsan Khoshbakht in his program note.

Ida Lupino attacks with relish her role as Barbara Jean Trenton who is lost in an illusion in an even more devastating way than Norma Desmond and Baby Jane.

Today, the story about Barbara Jean lost in the twilight zone is topical for all. We are all Barbara Jean, lost in cyberspace.

A brilliant 35 mm print.