A Passage for Trumpet Season 1 Episode 32
Jack Klugman was even better in this episode than he was in A Game of Pool. His facial expressions, his body language, the nuances in his voice as he delivered his poetically prophetic lines about the sheer loneliness of his hopeless life...that's the stuff of stellar acting. To me the episode isn't about the story, it's crux is a broken man, Joey Crown. Joey pours his dreams into a paper cup and drowns them in cheap booze.
"Joey Crown, musician with an odd, intense face..."
Jack Klugman was even better in this episode than he was in A Game of Pool. His facial expressions, his body language, the nuances in his voice as he delivered his poetically prophetic lines about the sheer loneliness of his hopeless life...that's the stuff of stellar acting. To me the episode isn't about the story, it's crux is a broken man, Joey Crown. Joey pours his dreams into a paper cup and drowns them in cheap booze.
"Because I'm sad. Because I'm nothing, and because I'll live and die in a crummy one-roomer with dirty walls and cracked pipes, and... I'll never even have a girl. I'll never be anybody. Because half of me is this horn. I can't even talk to people, because this horn, that's half my language. But when I'm drunk... oh when I'm drunk, boy... I don't see the dirty walls or the cracked pipes. I don't know the clock's going or the hours are going by. 'Cause then I'm Gabriel. Oh, I'm Gabriel with the golden horn. And when I put it to my lips, it comes out jeweled. It comes out a symphony. It comes out the smell of fresh flowers in summer. It comes out beauty... beauty. When I'm drunk, only when I'm drunk."
Good Heavens...that's a beautifully depressing passage written by Rod Sterling. A more truistic monologue was never penned and never delivered with such pathetic ferocity.
Last edited by Citizen Rules; 07-31-23 at 08:28 PM.