Monday, December 13, 2021

THE TWILIGHT ZONE / "The Prime Mover" - 1961

Here's a great little episode starring Dana Clark, Buddy Ebsen, Christine White, Nesdon Booth and a host of excellent co-stars. The story's about Ace Larsen, a compulsive gambler that always seems to be down on his luck when it comes to the deadly sin. But when his friend Jimbo reveals a secret to him, Ace sees a way to ultimate riches and fame... Yeah, we'll see about that.

Ace owns a small café where he had a slot machine brought in as a way to increase business but Ace keeps putting quarters in with no payout. He's desperate for a win so asks a trucker if he'd like to flip for his tab, double or nothing. The trucker says okay, Ace flips a quarter, and loses.

The trucker says thank you, takes the 'lucky' quarter and puts it in the slot machine, and what do you know... JACK POT!!

Needless to say, Ace doesn't take it very well. 

Then Ace hears tires screeching, he goes outside to see a car flip over and crash into an electrical station! I've seen this same crash in other movies, one I know for sure is in WAR OF THE SATELLITES. 

Ace has Jimbo go with him to the crash site, where, Jimbo uses telekinesis to turn the car back over. Ace cannot believe what he has just witnessed...

Ace gets Jimbo to tell him about his powers, one that he's had all his life, and, he doesn't think it's anything special. Ace sees an opening.

With Ace's girl Kitty in tow, him and Jimbo hit the strip using their secret to manipulate dice and the roulette wheel. Is that an awesome still or what?!

And they make $200,000 in one night!!

But of course, Ace has bigger plans, a way to double his money. He contacts a few mob members and invites them over to play dice.

After checking things out, the boys are in, but, they're playing with the boss's dice.

Ace has hired the cigarette girl to be his girl, and he's winning like crazy. It's down to the last roll and Jimbo interrupts him, it's important.. But Ace just ignores him and tosses the dice...

OOPS!!

Ace is thinking... Wha' hoppin'??

Later Ace and Jimbo have a hoot after what they had been through, just ran out of gas!

Knocked back to reality, Ace sees the errors of his ways, and gets rid of the slot machine. Come on you guys, move it!!

Great ending with Jimbo showing us he's still got it, he did it for the better.

2 comments:

Grant said...

I like this one, but it's too bad that Jimbo didn't pretend to run out of the power after that $200,00!

KD said...

A fine episode that somehow, I hadn't seen for decades until catching it on MeTV, earlier this year or sometime last year!

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