That One Twilight Zone Where Three People Actually Died
By: Delani R. Bartlette
Tags: Film, True Crime, Crime, Murder, Pop Culture

Today is National Twilight Zone Day, a day to celebrate Rod Serling’s groundbreaking, genre-bending TV show.

I was too young to see the show when it originally aired; like most fans, I caught the show in syndication decades later. Its creepy, yet optimistic stories turned me into a fan.

When Twilight Zone: The Movie came out in 1983, I was only 10, but I’d already been a fan of the original series for years. I recognized the director, John Landis, from several other movies I’d really enjoyed: An American Werewolf in London, Kentucky Fried Movie, and The Blues Brothers.

While the movie got mixed reviews, I liked it, overall, despite what I thought were some rather corny revisions. But there was one segment in particular: “Time Out,” starring Vic Morrow, that went too far, even for The Twilight Zone.

To recap, the segment is about a man named Bill Connor (perhaps a reference to rabid white supremacist Bull Connor) who has just found out he was passed over for a promotion at work. Apparently he lost out to a Jewish man, and he’s got things to say about it. Our “everybigot” gets drunk and rants about Jews, Blacks, and Asians, and, just to show that he’s awful in every possible way, gets handsy with the waitress.

After being confronted about his asshole behavior, he leaves, pissed off. But when he opens the door, he steps into…the Twilight Zone (sorry, couldn’t help it!). He finds himself in Nazi-occupied France, where SS officers question him. He can’t speak German, so they try to arrest him. A chase ensues, and he ends up falling off a window ledge. When he hits the ground, he’s in yet another time and place — this time, it’s the Jim Crow South, and he’s being chased by the KKK, who think he’s black. He jumps into a lake to escape them, and when he re-emerges, he’s in Vietnam, being fired at by US soldiers. One soldier throws a grenade at him, but rather than killing him, it sends him back to Nazi-occupied France. This time, the SS seizes him and throws him into a boxcar full of Jews. As he looks out of the train car, he can see his friends in front of the bar looking for him. He tries in vain to get their attention, but they can’t see him. The segment ends with Connor being taken away by the train.

This segment seemed so in line with Serling’s style that for many years I assumed it had also been adapted from the original series. But in fact it was the only segment in the movie that wasn’t; though it was loosely based on an episode called “A Quality of Mercy,” it was actually written by Landis. The theatrical version was fairly close to what Landis had originally written, but studio execs thought that the Connor character was too unrelatable. So Landis added an ending where, during his time in Vietnam, Connor finds and rescues two Vietnamese children, thereby “redeeming” himself.

In that scene, Morrow’s character was to take two Vietnamese children — played by Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) — under his arms and wade through a waist-deep river as bombs and an attack helicopter destroy the village.

From the beginning, every aspect of filming this scene was fraught with issues, starting with casting for the two children Morrow was supposed to save. In the film industry, there are strict rules about how and when child actors can work. They are not allowed to work at night without a special waiver and they definitely aren’t supposed to work near explosions. In order to sidestep these pesky regulations, Landis arranged to hire Le and Chen illegally, and pay them out of the movie’s petty cash. The children’s parents — who did not speak English well and had never worked in films — were instructed to hide the children’s presence from firefighters on set, because the firefighters would likely report the labor violations.

Several members of the production crew, seeing how Landis wanted a low-flying helicopter amid multiple pyrotechnics, with children nearby, expressed reservations about the safety and/or legality of such a scene. They were ignored. One of Morrow’s friends stated that his last words before filming the scene were, “I’ve got to be crazy to do this shot. I should’ve asked for a double.”

Filming for the scene began in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, at Indian Dunes, a park just north of L.A. Dorcey Wingo, a Vietnam veteran and professional helicopter pilot, was at the controls of a Huey UH-1B. He told the assistant director to tell Landis that the explosions should not be detonated so close to the chopper, but the message was never given to Landis.

As the scene got underway, Wingo immediately had trouble navigating the three-ton craft through the pyrotechnics. He started to pilot the helicopter away from the danger, but Landis commanded him through the walkie-talkie, “Lower! Lower!”

Around the same time, the pyrotechnic technician on the ground detonated two gasoline firebombs close together. The two explosions merged and engulfed the rear rotor, breaking it apart and causing the helicopter to spin out of control and crash on top of the three actors. The helicopter’s rotor decapitated Morrow and Le; Chen was crushed to death by one of the struts. The actors’ deaths were recorded on film from at least three different angles; the footage can easily be found on YouTube.

Bizarrely, immediately after the crash, Landis shouted, “That’s a wrap!” and ordered everyone to immediately go home.

A week after the accident, three crew members — camera operators Stephen Lydecker and Roger Smith, and Smith’s camera assistant, Randall Robinson — called a press conference in Lydecker’s living room. Afraid the incident at Indian Dunes would be “swept under the rug,” they told the press all about what they believed were numerous examples of a “cavalier disregard for human safety.”

On June 15, 1983 — days before the film’s release — Landis, associate producer George Folsey, and production manager Dan Allingham were each charged with two counts of manslaughter in the deaths of Chen and Le. It was the first time a director would be charged in an on-set death.

Landis, Wingo, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were indicted on three counts of manslaughter because of “aggravated, reckless, grossly negligent” acts resulting in the deaths of Morrow and the children.

At the conclusion of that first trial, the judge dismissed the charges against Folsey and Allingham, but upheld them against the other men. The prosecution appealed this case, and the court of appeals upheld the charges.

The second trial lasted 10 months, from 1986 to ’87. It, like the first, was an emotional trial, with the children’s parents tearfully recounting witnessing their children’s deaths. The footage of the actors’ deaths was played for the jury, many of whom were brought to tears.

Meanwhile Landis’ defense was to claim the whole thing was a tragic accident that couldn’t have been foreseen, as well as to shift the blame onto everyone else.

Unfortunately, the prosecutor, Lea “Dragon Lady” D’Agostino chose to pursue a strategy that can best be described as incoherent — in her closing statements to the jury, she stabbed a potato with a straw. On May 29, 1987, a jury acquitted all five men of all charges.

That is not to say there has been no fallout, however. The parents of Le and Chen sued Warner Bros. for many millions of dollars, as did Morrow’s daughters, and won.

Second assistant director Andy House had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee. Stephen Spielberg, the co-producer, reportedly never spoke to Landis again.

The three camera operators who called that first press conference never recovered. Lydecker, who had decades of experience in film, was labeled a “troublemaker” and was unable to find work afterwards. Smith, who was inside the helicopter when it crashed, suffered serious back and neck injuries. Since the accident, he was only able to find the occasional low-paying gig. Robinson, who was also in the helicopter, suffered from PTSD and went many months without being able to find work.

As for the men who were tried and acquitted, their fates differed dramatically.

Wingo was under threat of having his pilot’s license revoked for nearly five years — during which time he couldn’t find work. He sued the financing studio, Warner Bros., Landis, and others, for civil damages. In 1988, they settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. After his acquittal, he was, after a time, able to go back to work for a private helicopter company, but no film production companies will hire him.

Stewart was basically blacklisted from Warner Bros. and Columbia, but after a few years, was able to find work on other projects. Allingham left Landis’ production company to work with Whitley Streiber’s movie, Communion.

Folsey and Landis, however, continued to work together. Unlike his “below-the-line” co-defendants, Landis seems to have suffered no professional backlash from his role in the actors’ deaths. In the four years between the accident and the commencement of his trial, Landis directed four movies, produced another, and directed Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, among other projects. After his trial, he directed Coming to America — and invited the jury who had acquitted him to a private screening. The movie ended up being the third highest grossing film of 1988. He went on to direct or produce dozens more movies, TV series, and documentaries.

Landis did face some consequences, though: the Directors Guild of America took the unusual step of reprimanding him for “unprofessional” conduct on the Twilight Zone set. The California Labor Commission fined Landis the maximum possible — $5,000 — for his violation of child labor laws. California’s OSHA originally fined him over $62,000 for 36 worker-safety violations. However, several months after the trial, the agency was being dismantled thanks to anti-regulation Republicans, and it withdrew all but $1,350 of its fines.

Thankfully, the actors’ deaths did end up having one positive effect: stricter safety regulations. Soon after the accident, Warner Bros. called a meeting to create standards on every aspect of filmmaking, from aircraft to smoke. All the various unions and guilds that work in the trade were represented. Together they created comprehensive Safety Bulletins, then issued a safety manual that is given to all employees. The Safety Bulletins continue to be updated regularly.

As for Twilight Zone: The Movie, it continues to get mixed reviews. It was never meant to be anything more than a fun anthology scare movie. I rewatched it recently, and, like most movies I loved when I was a kid, it just doesn’t hold up. Maybe if I didn’t know that three people were killed making it, I could enjoy it more.