The After Hours
| "The After Hours" | |
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |
Publicity photo of (l-r) Anne Francis, James Millhollin and Francis's mannequin double
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 34 |
| Directed by | Douglas Heyes |
| Written by | Rod Serling |
| Featured music | Bernard Herrmann (from Where Is Everybody?) |
| Production code | 173-3637 |
| Original air date | June 10, 1960 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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"The After Hours" is episode thirty-four of the American television anthology series, The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on June 10, 1960, on CBS.
The opening narration involves Marsha White riding an elevator to the ninth floor. Then the rest of the narration is heard.
Marsha White (Anne Francis), a woman browsing for a gift for her mother in a department store, decides on a gold thimble. She is taken by the elevator man to the ninth floor, a floor beyond that shown on the elevator's floor indicia. She enters the ninth floor and turns to complain to the elevator operator that there is nothing there, but the door closes abruptly, leaving her to ponder her situation. Upon ringing a buzzer for service, she is approached by a saleslady who guides her to the only item on the floor: the exact gold thimble that Marsha wants. During the sales transaction, she grows increasingly puzzled by the comments and actions of both the male elevator operator who transported her to the barren, seemingly deserted floor, and the aloof and clairvoyant female salesclerk behind the counter who addresses her by name and sells her the thimble. The sales lady asks Marsha if she's happy, to which she responds that it's not her business. The sales lady appears surprised and insulted, and Marsha leaves. As Marsha rides the elevator down, she notices that the thimble is scratched and dented; she is directed by the elevator operator to the Complaints Department on the third floor.
When she tries to convince Mr. Armbruster, the sales supervisor, and Mr. Sloan, the store manager, that she bought the item on the ninth floor, she is told that the store doesn't have a ninth floor. She has no evidence of the transaction as she paid cash, and has no receipt. Marsha spots the back of the salesclerk who sold her the thimble, and is shocked to discover that the woman is not a salesclerk at all; she's one of the department store's display mannequins. While resting in an office following her frightening discovery, Marsha finds herself accidentally locked inside the closed store (after hours). She attempts to find a way out and becomes alarmed by mysterious voices calling to her and by some subtle movements made by the supposedly lifeless mannequins around her. Moving about aimlessly, she topples the sailor mannequin, whom she recognizes as the somewhat frustrated elevator operator in earlier encounters.
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