Printer's Devil

"Printer's Devil"
	The Twilight Zone episode
	Burgess Meredith, Robert Sterling; and Pat Crowley
Episode no.	Season 4; Episode 9
Directed by	Ralph Senensky
Written by	Charles Beaumont (Based on his story "The Devil, You Say?")
Featured music	Stock from "The Big Tall Wish" and "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" by Jerry Goldsmith; and stock cues by Nathan Van Cleave, Leonard Rosenman, Tommy Morgan, Leith Stevens, Bruce Campbell, Nathan Scott and Fred Steiner
Production code	4864
Original air date	February 28, 1963
Guest appearance(s)
	Burgess Meredith: Mr. Smith ; Robert Sterling: Douglas Winter ; Pat Crowley: Jackie Benson ; Ray Teal: Mr. Franklin ; Charles P. Thompson: Andy Praskins ; Doris Kemper: Landlady ; Camille Franklin: Molly ; Leon Alton: Bartender ; Ryan Hayes: Paper Hawker ; Bernard Sell: Cafe Patron

"Printer's Devil" is episode 111 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The title comes from the expression printer's devil, an apprentice in the industry.

The initial plot set-up is based in part on the well-known deal with the devil motif: a mysterious, seemingly eccentric man (played by frequent Twilight Zone contributor Burgess Meredith) brings success to a local newspaper by working as its reporter and linotype operator, eventually revealing that he wants the editor's soul in exchange. This hour-long episode was written by Charles Beaumont, and based on his 1951 short story "The Devil, You Say".

Opening narration

Take away a man's dream, fill him with whiskey and despair, send him to a lonely bridge, let him stand there all by himself looking down at the black water, and try to imagine the thoughts that are in his mind. You can't, I can't. But there's someone who can—and that someone is seated next to Douglas Winter right now. The car is headed back toward town, but its real destination is the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Douglas Winter (Robert Sterling), the editor of a newspaper called The Courier, is being pushed out of business by a big conglomerate paper, The Gazette. Though Douglas is an exceptionally kind and accommodating boss, his staff begin abandoning him when he becomes unable to pay them. After the linotype operator quits, the only remaining employees of The Courier are Douglas himself and his girlfriend, Jackie Benson (Pat Crowley). Douglas is an earnest dreamer who sees The Courier as his purpose in life; faced with its demise, he drives to a bridge to contemplate suicide. There he is approached by a strange man (Burgess Meredith) who introduces himself as "Mr. Smith" and says he came to town hoping to join The Courier as a linotype operator and reporter. Even after witnessing Mr. Smith's speed and precision with the linotype machine, Doug tries to talk him out of it, saying he cannot pay him or even resume operation of The Courier due to an overdue debt payment to the bank of nearly $5,000. Mr. Smith immediately loans him the $5,000.

Shortly after his hiring, Mr. Smith produces a report of a bank robbery that occurred just a half hour before. Business booms for the little newspaper, as Mr. Smith scoops The Gazette on dramatic news stories, with special editions which sometimes hit the streets barely two hours after the events happen. The owner of The Gazette, Mr. Franklin, offers to buy out The Courier. Though Douglas himself doubts that The Courier can stand up to Franklin's monopolizing tactics, assuming his recent success is down to luck, he refuses his offer. The day after, a fire burns down The Gazette building. When an edition of The Courier goes on sale just two hours after, Franklin accuses Doug of arson. Doug has witnesses to account for his whereabouts at the time, and when he asks Mr. Smith if he caused the fire, Smith successfully dodges the question.

Jackie, still suspicious of Mr. Smith, prods Douglas for information on where he came from, and says he should get rid of him now that the $5,000 loan has been repaid. Douglas refuses, and becomes irritable when she asks what he was doing at the bridge where he met Smith.

At last Mr. Smith reveals why he joined The Courier: he wants Doug to sign a contract assuring Mr. Smith's continued services in exchange for Doug's soul. When Doug is reluctant, Mr. Smith uses a variation of doublethink, arguing that while he believes himself to be the devil, he is clearly mad, and to a sane sophisticated man like Doug things like souls and the devil clearly do not exist. Doug signs the contract.

Eventually, however, he comes to the conclusion that Mr. Smith is somehow causing the events that he writes about, and tells Mr. Smith he wants him gone. Smith says that is impossible now that the contract has been signed, and writes a story about Jackie being injured in an auto accident at 11:30—an hour and a half in the future. He tells Douglas that when he joined The Courier he modified the linotype machine so that anything typed on it happens, and will write that Jackie died of her injuries unless Douglas kills himself. In this way Smith could immediately claim his soul and move on to other clients, instead of having to work at The Courier for the rest of Douglas's natural life. Douglas tosses aside the offered gun and goes frantically searching for Jackie. Meanwhile, she confronts Mr. Smith. He agrees to leave town if she gives him a lift, and asks to drive.

Unable to find Jackie, Doug returns to The Courier building and uses the linotype machine to write a new story. The car with Jackie and Mr. Smith runs off the road, but Jackie is uninjured, and Mr. Smith has vanished. Doug shows a confused Jackie the story he wrote, which says that Mr. Smith left town at 11:29, and that his contract with Doug was declared void due to Doug's not fully understanding the terms of the agreement. Douglas resumes running The Courier after having the infernal linotype machine destroyed, and hauled away.

Closing narration

Exit the infernal machine, and with it his satanic majesty, Lucifer, prince of darkness—otherwise known as Mr. Smith. He's gone, but not for good; that wouldn't be like him—he's gone for bad. And he might be back, with another ticket....to The Twilight Zone.

gollark: Parametrised over other relations!

gollark: Make it a separate trait!

gollark: This is bad!

gollark: It requires equality to exist!

gollark: Monoids, for purposes.

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

"Printer's Devil" on IMDb
"Printer's Devil" at TV.com

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The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"