One of the most acclaimed anthology television shows of all time was Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, which aired for five seasons between 1959 and 1964. And one of the most beloved episodes is “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” starring William Shatner and directed by Richard Donner, who would go on to helm, among other films, Superman: The Movie and the Lethal Weapon series. But for Donner, the episode was something of a nightmare to shoot.
In the show, Shatner plays a man on a plane who suffers from acute aerophobia and, during a particularly turbulent flight, insists that there is a creature on the wing of the plane, doing damage to it and threatening them all.
In the pages of Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion, first published in 1982, Donner is quoted as saying shooting the episode was tedious, because he had never filmed an episode so heavily reliant on specials effects. “A man flying in on wires, wind, rain, lightning, smoke to give the effect of clouds and travel and speed; and actors. You couldn’t hear yourself think because of the noise of the machines outside. And fighting time, all the time,” he explained. “It was just unbearable. If any one of those things went wrong, it ruined the whole take.”
He further noted that the challenges were compounded because the studio was to use the set for another production, and this forced the crew to work overtime. However, the director revealed that the result was worth all the stress: “I do love it. It’s just an unusual thing for television, really, to see that much energy go into a little half-hour film. And the story was good, too.”
Writer Richard Matheson says the character of the Gremlin was not properly depicted
The teleplay for “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” was written by the late sci-fi writer Richard Matheson, who in Zicree’s book praised Shatner’s performance while raising criticisms regarding the episode’s filming.
He noted that the character of the Gremlin, portrayed by stuntman Nick Cravat in a furry costume, was poorly depicted and lacked the intended fear factor. “I didn’t think much of that thing on the wing … The man who was inside that suit looked exactly the way I described him in the story,” Matheson said. “All they had to do was use him the way he was. This thing looked like a panda bear.”
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Matheson further stated that Jacques Tourneur, who could have directed the episode, had an amazing concept for the Gremlin’s character, which he believed would have been perfect. “Tourneur was going to put a dark suit on [Cravat],” he added, “and cover him with diamond dust so that you hardly saw what was out there.”
Shatner received acclaim for his role of Bob Wilson, as he had previously for the Twilight Zone episode “Nick of Time” from the show’s second season. Additionally, the episode was remade (with John Lithgow as Wilson) as part of 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie.