Movies - TV
This Twilight Zone Episode Didn’t Win An Emmy – It Won An Oscar
By WILLIAM BIBBIANI
The popular horror anthology TV series “The Twilight Zone” received three Emmy Awards during its 156-episode run, but it also won an Academy Award for one particular episode.
These awards, also known as Oscars, are typically given to honor movies instead of television. However, the episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was an exception.
Based on Ambrose Bierce’s 1890 short story of the same name, the episode follows a Confederate soldier sentenced to death by hanging who believes he managed to escape.
The story has been adapted many times before “The Twilight Zone,” but as it turns out, the version of the tale they aired wasn’t produced for the series or TV.
William Froug, a producer who worked on the fifth and final season of “The Twilight Zone,” had seen a French film version of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Robert Enrico.
Froug decided that this adaptation could solve the show’s over-budget issue and purchased the rights to air the film rather than trying to create a new episode.
They shortened the film to fit the time slot and recorded a new introduction from Rod Serling, who introduced the film as a special presentation of an award-winning short.
Froug shared, “With that one airing, we immediately took care of the whole year’s overage. It brought us out at the end of the year under budget.”
Six weeks after the episode aired, the 36th annual Academy Awards were held, and the film won an Oscar in the Best Live-Action Short Subject category.