Queen of the Nile (The Twilight Zone)

"**Queen of the Nile**"
"Queen of the Nile"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 23
Directed by	John Brahm
Written by	Jerry Sohl ; (credited to Charles Beaumont)
Featured music	Lucien Moraweck
Production code	2626
Original air date	March 6, 1964
Guest appearances
	Ann Blyth as Pamela Morris/Constance Taylor ; Lee Philips as Jordan Herrick ; Celia Lovsky as Viola Draper ; Ruth Phillips as Charlotte ; Frank Ferguson as Krueger ; James Tyler as Mr. Jackson
Episode chronology
← Previous; "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"	Next →; "What's in the Box"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)
	List of episodes

"Queen of the Nile" is episode 143 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a journalist becomes romantically involved with a dangerous, secretly immortal movie star.

Opening narration[edit]

Jordan Herrick, syndicated columnist, whose work appears in more than a hundred newspapers. By nature a cynic, a disbeliever, caught for the moment by a lovely vision. He knows the vision he's seen is no dream; she is Pamela Morris, renowned movie star, whose name is a household word and whose face is known to millions. What Mr. Herrick does not know is that he has also just looked into the face—of the Twilight Zone.

Plot[edit]

Chicago columnist Jordan Herrick visits actress Pamela Morris, a 38-year-old woman known for her beauty and vitality, for an interview. In Pamela's manor he notices a painting of her that is dated 1940. Pamela still looks just as she did in the painting. When questioned on this, she says the painter drew her when she was a child with a projection of what she would look like as an adult, and deflects questions about her age. Pamela and Jordan flirt during the interview and make dinner plans for that night. As Jordan is leaving, an old woman whom Pamela introduced as her mother, Mrs. Draper, warns him to never come back. Mrs. Draper says Pamela is many centuries old and that she is actually Pamela's daughter.

During his date with Pamela, Jordan mentions that he is from Chicago, and Pamela volunteers she had played there once at a particular theater. Jordan mentions what Mrs. Draper had said. Pamela claims Mrs. Draper is mentally ill, but after the date, Herrick calls his editor and asks him to research Pamela's first film, The Queen of the Nile. The editor reveals that the film was a remake of a silent movie filmed on location in Egypt. Leading lady Constance Taylor was apparently killed in a cave-in near the end of the shooting. The editor compares photos of Constance and Pamela in the same role and says they look alike. The editor also reveals that the theater where Pamela claims to have played was torn down 40 years earlier. Jordan asks the editor to dig up articles on every man Pamela has ever been involved with.

Jordan returns to the manor and confronts Pamela with his discovery. Pamela drugs Jordan's coffee and then places a scarab beetle on his unconscious body. The beetle drains his life until he has turned to dust. She then applies the scarab to her own chest.

The episode ends with another young and handsome columnist arriving to interview Pamela, starting the cycle once again. In the closing narration, it is hinted that Miss Morris is actually Cleopatra VII, and that she has lived for more than 2,000 years.

Closing narration[edit]

Everybody knows Pamela Morris, the beautiful and eternally young movie star. Or does she have another name, even more famous, an Egyptian name from centuries past? It's best not to be too curious, lest you wind up like Jordan Herrick, a pile of dust and old clothing discarded in the endless eternity of the Twilight Zone.

Production notes[edit]

Apparently, in the original first-draft script, a handsome young policeman turns up at the end of the story, asking Pamela Morris as to the whereabouts of the now missing Jordan Herrick. She begins to flatter and flirt with the cop, setting him up to start the cycle all over again.

Footnotes[edit]

The footage of Herrick aging is an old movie trick: the same type as used in Long Live Walter Jameson.
The footage of the victim's body becoming dust is recycled footage from Long Live Walter Jameson.
The theme of a woman who seduces men to stay immortal is in the classic poem La Belle Dame sans Merci

References[edit]

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[edit]

"Queen of the Nile" at IMDb

v t e 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"