A Most Unusual Camera
Encyclopedia
"A Most Unusual Camera" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone
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. The pair come to realize that its pictures reveal the future, specifically five minutes ahead. After Paula's jail-escapee brother Woodward shows up, they decide to use the camera to take pictures at a racetrack. The trio win $9,500 on the first race they wager on. They bet and win on five other races and leave with a considerable but undisclosed sum.
Back at their hotel, a French waiter notices their camera and mentions the French
inscription (dix à un propriétaire) meaning "ten to an owner". Paula, Chester and Woodward quickly get the waiter out of the room (by reminding him to bring them champagne they've ordered) and determine that they now have only two pictures left. They disagree on how and when to use those remaining. While tugging over the camera, a picture is accidentally taken and wasted, showing Paula screaming and recoiling in horror. Each guessing the other means her harm Chester and Woodward fight and, in their struggle, fall out an open window to their deaths. Paula is horrified when they do — shrieking and jumping back, as in the picture — but gets over it quite quickly when she realizes that all the loot is now hers. She takes a picture of their bodies (the last picture) in the courtyard below the window and begins collecting the day's winnings, planning to then check out of the hotel. Before she can leave, the waiter returns and robs her. He then notes that her last picture shows "more than two" bodies in the courtyard. Panicked, Paula runs to look out the window, trips over a wire and falls out the window. The waiter then counts the corpses in the picture. "Yes, there are more than two bodies down there. Just like the picture shows. One, two, three--four!" Shocked when he realizes who's the fourth corpse, he trips and falls also, leaving the camera lying on the floor.
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
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Synopsis
Two thieves, Chester and Paula, rob a curio shop, and among the things they steal is a strange cameraCamera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
. The pair come to realize that its pictures reveal the future, specifically five minutes ahead. After Paula's jail-escapee brother Woodward shows up, they decide to use the camera to take pictures at a racetrack. The trio win $9,500 on the first race they wager on. They bet and win on five other races and leave with a considerable but undisclosed sum.
Back at their hotel, a French waiter notices their camera and mentions the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
inscription (dix à un propriétaire) meaning "ten to an owner". Paula, Chester and Woodward quickly get the waiter out of the room (by reminding him to bring them champagne they've ordered) and determine that they now have only two pictures left. They disagree on how and when to use those remaining. While tugging over the camera, a picture is accidentally taken and wasted, showing Paula screaming and recoiling in horror. Each guessing the other means her harm Chester and Woodward fight and, in their struggle, fall out an open window to their deaths. Paula is horrified when they do — shrieking and jumping back, as in the picture — but gets over it quite quickly when she realizes that all the loot is now hers. She takes a picture of their bodies (the last picture) in the courtyard below the window and begins collecting the day's winnings, planning to then check out of the hotel. Before she can leave, the waiter returns and robs her. He then notes that her last picture shows "more than two" bodies in the courtyard. Panicked, Paula runs to look out the window, trips over a wire and falls out the window. The waiter then counts the corpses in the picture. "Yes, there are more than two bodies down there. Just like the picture shows. One, two, three--four!" Shocked when he realizes who's the fourth corpse, he trips and falls also, leaving the camera lying on the floor.
See also
- List of The Twilight Zone episodes
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's The Ned Zone