The Bellero Shield

Directed by John Brahm; written by Joseph Stefano. Cast: Martin Landau (Richard Bellero); Sally Kellerman (Judith Bellero); Chita Rivera (Mrs. Dame); John Hoyt (Bifrost alien); Neil Hamilton (Richard Bellero, Sr.). Broadcast February 10, 1964. Story: Driven by scientific curiosity and outright avarice, humans transport an alien being to Earth—where he is questioned and brutally exploited. He offers salvation as he dies amid madness and loss.

A few episodes of The Outer Limits have received more written analysis than others, and "The Bellero Shield" is one of them: it is, by most accounts, the series' "do" of Shakespeare's "Macbeth." That assessment is valid, though the comparison holds mostly in a structural sense—a drama of ambition played out by a passive, easily controlled male, his greedy wife, and her cohort; the weight of a noble name and lineage; and, of course, Stefano's bald (and effective) inclusion of the "out, damned spot" fragment. The application of Shakespeare's scenario is fitting coming from Stefano: both writers produced work that is complicated, not smoothly reducible to a single narrow theme. There's more at work than can be effortlessly or satisfactorily encapsulated, though in the playwright's case, literal centuries of academic attempts have elapsed, with varying degrees of success. As for bids at figuring out Stefano, certainly David Schow qualifies as the acknowledged and admirable expert, and, well, here we are. And here's the point: with Macbeth, Shakespeare focused primarily (but not exclusively) on the many faces of ambition and its sometimes ugly consequences (nobody wrote comeuppance like the Bard); Stefano included this theme but shrunk it, and added a characteristically harsh auxiliary thesis—that we humans, of all types and motivations, wouldn't know divinity if it landed smack in the middle of our laboratory and graced us. Worse: we'd eviscerate it.

Cheery stuff, not a bit—Stefano repeatedly, reliably contemplated the sorrowful dualities of our species—but it makes an ideal canvas for the writer's jarring union of gothic/Freudian desolation and well intentioned science gone destructively wrong. Classic Stefano, and classic Outer Limits, well-served by veteran director John Brahm. Born in Hamburg, Brahm began his film career in his native Germany, coming to Hollywood in the 1930s; two noteworthy early directorial credits are Laird Cregar's duo of chubby-psycho star turns, The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945). In the 1950s and 60s, as did many old school (read: no longer commercial) directors, Brahm turned to television, leaving his classicist mark on The Twilight Zone and, more successfully, Thriller. For The Outer Limits, he directed this episode and the preposterous, strangely forceful "ZZZZZ"; his final film was, of all things, Hot Rods to Hell in 1967. With "Bellero", the director does a deft job of pacing and sequencing a story that, true to its theatrical influence, consists largely of two-person scenes building to a stunning final act. These conspiratorial confabs echo one another in interestingly symbolized ways: Lady—rather, Mrs. Bellero and her devoted servant (some reviewers have suggested lover) Mrs. Dame are constantly shrouded by shadows or massive drapes; Bellero Jr. and the Bifrost alien (a creature of amassed light), on the other hand, are always seen together in the bright, reflecting lab. Other meetings—the vile, clucking Bellero Sr. with either Mrs. Dame or his son's wife—typically take place in a gray netherworld and, at one point, on what appears to be the stairway to Hell. The cinematography of Conrad Hall is exemplary here: with a use of shadow that goes beyond noir and approaches the suffocating presence implied by the photography of Mexican and Italian gothic horror cinema, Hall adds to Stefano's thematic pallor of doom, and to Brahm's opera of bad fate. It's remarkable television, to say the least.

The performances are heightened for the material, yet remain convincing. Landau, in his second and last appearance in the series, gives Bellero Jr. a dysthymic and surrendering tone, the affect of a man inured to following the lead of the nearest bully—in this case, both his father and his wife. As the desperately calculating lady of the house, Kellerman (quite a dish in 1964) is furtively sympathetic and appropriately enthusiastic, though without the wispy voiced near hysteria that marked her later work. Rivera—Stefano's friend and neighbor—furthers the previous allusion to Mexican horror with her portrayal of a virtual magia negra familiar; she is perfect in a creepy (and interestingly barefoot) role. The stand-outs, however, are typical of Stefano's and Leslie Stevens's show—two ignobly under-used veteran character actors, here given the opportunity to shine (both appeared more than once in the Outer Limits universe). Hamilton is the most Shakespearean element in "Bellero", using broad strokes to reveal a base and ultimately grasping man. His dyadic scene with Rivera, contemplating the apparently dead alien ("Great men are forgiven their murderous wives!"—an utterance strong enough to make the episode's teaser) plays satisfyingly like a theatrical performance, and Hamilton takes the lead effortlessly (great actors are forgiven playing Commissioner Gordon on TV's Batman). Even more striking is Hoyt as the poetically-christened Bifrost alien. Hoyt, with his stern looks and austere presence, was often cast as, well, stern and austere men (witness his Emmett Balfour in this series' "Don't Open 'Til Doomsday" for a prime example). Here he's cast way against type as a being of pure light, a glass-like, harmonic creature of profound elegance and beatitude. And it works: it's unlikely any other actor could have lent such presence to the role; Hoyt's physical and vocal affectations define the alien as a delineated character and as (per Stefano) an angel grounded. Ted Rypel, in his fan publication "The Outer Limits: An Illustrated Review" from the late 1970s (likely the first, and still a damn fine, reflection on the series), inexplicably doubts that Hoyt did the musically lilting voice of the Bifrost alien; he's wrong—it's Hoyt, and it's fantastic work. The Project Unlimited mask Hoyt wears as the alien deserves comment: it's virtually featureless, almost fetal in its lack of definition (a prototype 2001 starchild, perhaps); again, cinematographer Hall deserves kudos for his interesting lens effects—and arduous camera positioning—which render Hoyt's Bifrost a shimmering, incandescent being. This is one of The Outer Limits most subtle and most successfully rendered bears.

And not truly a bear at all: the voracious Earthly inhabitants of the Bellero household are the monsters here; the galaxy-roaming creature of light is a shy and ultimately self-sacrificing entity, one who is ill-used by his human captors. Stefano reworks Shakespeare's insinuated contemplation of spiritual evil, with the evil more strictly human and decidedly banal (Bellero Jr. is especially implicated in this respect), though just as crushingly catastrophic. If the Bifrost alien is both god-like in his power (hence the Norse mythology reference) and plainly angelic (the Control Voice is explicit here), it still isn't he who has fallen by story's end. It is the mad and desperate human characters, who could see in the creature only what was attainable, and not what is offered. It is, by extension, we who have fallen—and, like Shakespeare, Stefano demands bitter restitution: the episode's final scene is among the series' most powerful and least hopeful.

—DCH