Two men in an attic, locked in mortal embrace. Moments later, the first floor door slowly opens on its own. Takamori takes the sword, shrieks " Banzai!" and jumps out the window, presumably to his death. Going down to the floor to retrieve it, Fenton is then fatally impaled on the sword when Takamori pulls at his feet. Fenton seizes him by his sword arm and overpowers him, and the samurai sword is dropped, wedging into the table supports, pointing upward. But Takamori, now thoroughly under the controlling influence of the sword, poises to kill Fenton.
He has lost his job, his wife is leaving him, he is consumed with hostility and bigotry, and he coaxed Takamori into conversation because he does not want to be left alone. In a sudden depression, Fenton admits that he is unhappy with himself and what he has done. Fenton defends himself by saying his orders were to take no prisoners, and he had been trained to think of Japanese as inhuman. The sword, however, appears to be dictating the course of the conversation, and soon Takamori accuses Fenton of being a murderer because he killed an unarmed man. Seeing Takamori's guilt, Fenton tries to offer some comfort. He first states his father tried to alert sailors to the attack, but then confesses that his father was actually a traitor who directed where the planes should drop the bombs. Takamori watched as the planes bombed the harbor, and his father with it. His father was a construction foreman who helped build the harbor. In response to an insult from Fenton, Takamori describes his experience as a small child at Pearl Harbor. Intensely uneasy now, Takamori tries to leave but the door to the attic won't open for either him or Fenton, even though it doesn't have a lock. Fenton challenges the accusation, but then admits to it. This tension, too, subsides, though Takamori, seeming to gain some kind of supernatural insight from the sword, says Fenton killed the Japanese soldier after the soldier surrendered. They assume an adversarial posture, and Takamori challenges Fenton with the sword. While recounting how he got the sword, Fenton appears to suffer a post traumatic flashback. They have brief heated exchanges that cool but then reemerge. Seemingly despite himself, Fenton continues to speak in a racially offensive manner, such as addressing Takamori as "boy." Takamori grows more uneasy and more confrontational to match Fenton's increasing hostility. He has had the inscription on it translated: "The sword will avenge me".
Why?"įenton says he has repeatedly tried to sell, give away, or throw out the sword, but it always comes back. When Fenton leaves to fetch more beer, Takamori takes hold of the sword and says in an astonished way "I'm going to kill him. Fenton shows Takamori a samurai sword and says he took it off a Japanese soldier whom he killed during the war 20 years earlier. Arthur takes offense at first, but when it becomes apparent that Fenton meant no harm he admits that he changed his name from Taro. Fenton makes a remark about the incongruity between his first name and his obvious ethnicity. Fenton is gruff yet cordial, and invites Takamori to share a beer with him in his cluttered attic. A young Japanese American named Arthur Takamori ( George Takei) comes in looking for work, on a tip from a neighbor. Plot ĭigging through his attic, an American World War II veteran named Fenton ( Neville Brand) finds an old samurai sword.
Ghosts from the dim reaches of the past, that will lead us into the Twilight Zone. It's twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Two men alone in an attic, a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday's war.
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