The Twilight Zone Recap: He's Alive
A very young Dennis Hopper stars in this episode as a wannabe Adolf Hitler. That is, until Adolf Hitler himself shows up and helps him understand how to be a better leader. Well, better leader if you want to be Adolf Hitler, that is. So he starts speaking differently and people start following and all of a sudden he finds himself in a position to become the next Hitler. And that is when Hitler says that he needs a martyr, so he sacrifices one of his friends.
Next, an old friends challenges him in front of everyone and Hopper goes to him and shoots him, and the next thing you know, Hitler steps out of the shadows and just as Hopper is ready to ascend to the next step, the police burst in to arrest him in the death of his friend. So he runs, and as he runs, he is shot and killed. Perhaps next time, Adolf.
The interesting thing here is that the drama of this hour-long episode was really quite good, but the ending was a bit of a let-down. We never find out if Hitler was a part of his imagination or if he was actually alive. It doesn't matter so much, I guess, as I'm sure Serling meant it to be a commentary on hate, but after a good performance it just didn't end that well.
