Burgess Meedith as Henry Bemis in "Time Enough At Last" 11/20/1959

One of the classic Twilight Zone Episodes. An episode that is permantlly etched into my memory. Henry Bemis is a lover of literature, but his boss at the bank and his wife at home never give him time to just sit down with a book. The set-up shows a hen-pecking wife, and a obnoxious boss, neither with an appreciation for the written works. One day during his lunch break he sneaks into the Bank's safe with a book. In a close up shot we see his book pages start to flap, then his watch crystal explodes. Awaking from unconscienceness and disoriented we see Henry leave the vault, to a destroyed city. Apparently mankind had annihilated itself and only the vault spared the meek Mr. Bemis. He stumbles through the ruins, speaking to himself of the horror, and of taking his own life out of loneliness and desperation. Then he sees the steps to a Library and he lights up. After a commercial we see stacks of books. Henry happily looks to each stack trying to find the first literary morsel to consume. After he selects a book we see his glasses slide off his nose and smash on the steps of the Library. Mr. Bemis, very nearly blind now has lost his only reason to live along with his eyesight.

This classic irony story written by Rod Serling was adapted from a short story by the same title written for IF magazine in 1953 by Lynn Venable.

Meredith, a veteren of 4 Twilight Zones and numerous other television and movie appearances said that he got more comments and praise for this part than just about any role he played in his entre career.