Twilight Zone: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1961)
I should preface this essay by recounting an amusing incident from when I was fifteen or sixteen years old. I was touring, of all places, Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., when, as I walked the pathways through the headstones, I looked over at an old manse in the distance—a place I didn’t know at the time was Robert E. Lee’s house—and saw what I took to be a woman in a Victorian dress standing out front. My vision must have been very sharp in those days, as I could see that she was smiling. I suddenly felt a little uneasy. Was this a ghost I was seeing? Could anyone else see her? Foolish, I know. I later found out it was just a costumed tour guide, but her image has stuck with me all these decades. It is an image reminiscent of Farquhar’s wife in the film I review below.
