William Shatner's Twilight Zone Episode Was 'Unbearable' For Director Richard Donner
William Shatner wasn't always Captain James T. Kirk. Before his breakout part, he starred in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone." The first, and more famous, was "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Shatner plays Bob Wilson, an airplane passenger with a fear of flying. Wilson has recently recovered from a mental breakdown and his sanity is seemingly in doubt again when he sees a gremlin messing with the plane's engines. Is the Gremlin just his illness and fear acting up? After failing to convince everyone else aboard of the monster's existence, he takes matters into his own hands.
Shatner wasn't the only future star on board this flight. The episode was directed by the late Richard Donner, future director of "The Omen," "Lethal Weapon," and "Superman." The irony is twofold. In a few short years, Shatner would star as the captain of a ship that flies a lot higher than 20,000 feet. Then, more than a decade later, Donner would make audiences believe that a man could fly, no plane needed.
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was based on a story by the late sci-fi writer Richard Matheson. He discussed the making of the episode in "The Twilight Zone Companion," a 1992 book by Marc Scott Zicree that breaks down the show episode by episode. Matheson revealed his inspiration for the story ("I was on an airplane. I looked out the window and said, 'Jeez, what if I saw a guy out there?') and praised Shatner's performance as "marvelous." Matheson did have problems with the episode's direction, though — maybe if he'd been there during the shoot, he'd be more forgiving of Donner.
Matheson's complaints
Matheson's criticism comes from the depiction of the Gremlin. The creature was played by stuntman Nick Cravat in a furry body suit, one that didn't even look that scary when the episode first aired. Matheson was unimpressed: "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. All they had to do was use him the way he was. This thing looked like a panda bear."
According to Matheson, the episode almost had a different director: black-and-white horror master Jacques Tourneur, who by the 1950s was supplementing his film work with TV directing. Tourneur had a different idea of how to depict the Gremlin: "Tourneur was going to put a dark suit on [Cravat] and cover him with diamond dust so that you hardly saw what was out there," Matheson explained, adding that he would've preferred this version. Tourneur's "Cat People" masterfully keeps its monster unseen; it even invented the jump scare to do so. If you want a peek at how Tourneur's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" might have turned out, watch "Night Call," the one episode of "The Twilight Zone" which he did direct. Another Matheson adaptation, this episode featured a woman haunted by harassing phone calls.
All that said, Donner's version of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is a classic for a reason. That it turned out so well is all the more miraculous given the circumstances of its making.
Richard Donner's directorial baptism
From the beginning, Donner was confused about why he got the job. He'd been directing TV for three years, but never such an effects-heavy episode. Since shooting in a real airplane was unfeasible, the set was a recreation of one — or at least the plane's cabin and left wing, where the Gremlin was hitching a ride. The episode's setting wasn't just an airplane either, but an airplane flying through a storm. So, the set was suspended over a water tank to catch the falling "rain," which meant no stage floors. According to Donner, this created a complex shooting environment:
"A man flying in on wires. Wind. Rain. Lightning. Smoke, to give the effect of clouds and travel and speed. Actors. You couldn't hear yourself think because of the noise of the machines outside. And fighting time, all the time. It was just unbearable. If any one of those things went wrong, it ruined the whole take."
Worse, the crew had to work overtime on the shoot since the studio had committed the set to another production. Despite the stressful shoot, Donner was proud of the finished episode: "I love it, I do love it. It's just such an unusual thing for television, really, to see that much energy go into a little half-hour film. And the story was good, too." If Donner hadn't had this trial by fire, maybe he wouldn't have become the director he went down in history as.