Rod Serling Screenplays: Where to Start?

I watched his Patterns, a refreshingly tense adult drama, on TV late last night. It got me wondering what other movies he had written in addition to his TV work.

I found this list of his screenplays on Wiki. I’ve seen Seven Days in May and Planet of the Apes, but (to the best of my recollection) none of the others.

I’m curious as to what other people think. Do you have strong opinions on any of them? Is there anything not on the list that should be? How would you rank the ones that are, and which would you especially recommend seeing?

The only other one I’ve seen is Requiem For A Heavyweight. Not bad, but far from a favorite film.

I saw The Man. It was — not great? Like he said: not bad, but not great.

Anyone see A Carol for Another Christmas? I saw it on TCM recently, one of the few times it has been broadcast. It’s a very strange version of the Dickens story. Star studded too.

I watched most of that, but it was heavy going. Rod could be awfully heavy-handed with his moralizing when the mood was upon him.

Good cast, though.

If Serling was writing for print, he would be a great short story writer and a pretty mediocre novelist. His forte was the twist ending which works much better in shorter formats like teleplays. Just about the only thing the final film kept from his script for Planet of the Apes was his twist ending. When the Serling script was faithfully adapted for comics, it only took one issue.