Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY
Season 1
Available on disc

THE CEMETERY/EYES/ESCAPE ROUTE

THE CEMETARY - Impatient to gain his undeserved inheritance from a rich uncle who is too sick to even indulge his passion for painting, Jeremy Evans leaves him in a cold room to die. His ruse works, but then he notices one of his uncle's paintings, a view of the house and its cemetery, has altered to show his uncle's coffin. Then, the painting shows his uncle rising from the grave and coming to the door. A pounding starts.

The first instalment of this portmanteau TV movie that became a television series is a good, if somewhat unsurprising one and at least sets the tone for what is to come. This is mainly through the acting of Roddy McDowell, who is delightfully loathesome as the perfidious nephew, and Ossie Davis as the stalwart, unflappable butler, who cannot see the changes being wrought in the painting. Is this a new kind of haunting or an old kind of gaslighting? Short and sharp, it doesn't have the time to really generate a sense of genuine fear, but it tells its tale with economy and a measure of entertainment. Though again, that may be laid at the feet of the two main actors.

EYES - A rich woman, blind from birth, manouevres a series of men into a situation where she will be the recipient of a donor's eyes and be given the ability to see, if only for a few hours. What could possibly go wrong?

The centrepiece of the three stories, Eyes is notable for being one of the last performances from Hollywood legend Joan Crawford and the debut directorial outing of a young Steven Spielberg. Both acquit themselves well. Admittedly, this sort of manipulative, strong woman is meat and drink to the star who could, ahem, do it with her eyes closed. Spielberg, for his part, keeps the direction simple enough, but ups the flair for the moment the lights go out. Literally. Crawford in a her red dress, floundering around in the utter blackness is a stark and startling image that rises above the somewhat pulpy and slightly overpadded storyline. The twist, though, is classic TWILIGHT ZONE.

ESCAPE ROUTE - A nazi war criminal is driven to the edge of insanity by nightmares from his past and the dread of the nazi hunters that are closing in on him. He becomes obsessed with a painting in the museum and starts to believe it could offer him a way out of wretched existence to a more simple place and time.

Surprisingly, this is the most effective story of the three. This is, in a good part, down to the performance from Richard Kiley as the hunted nazi, but the location, the representation of the heat and humidity and a very effective (and extremely simple) twist ending all play their part. The characters are given a bit more depth than those in the other stories, with Norma Crane's hooker with a hating heart neighbour and Sam Jaffe as a holocaust survivor both managing to make the most of unpromising and underwritten roles.

The tension ratchets up nicely in the latter part of the plotline and denoument is both satisfying and fitting, though perhaps not without a little pity for its sufferer.

OVERVIEW - Rod Serling may not have been able to claim to be the father of the anthology show, but he was certainly its most famous proponent through the original TWILIGHT ZONE series. Moving away from science fiction and into more horror-based stories seems an inevitable step, but his control over the less famous NIGHT GALLERY was not as complete. This is not obvious from the pilot telefilm, but does become clearer in the varying quality of the episodes that follow, especially the generally poor comedy sketches. Though not as well realised as its more famous counterpart, NIGHT GALLERY still has some excellent stories to tell.

THE DEAD MAN/THE HOUSEKEEPER

THE DEAD MAN - A scientist experiments with a patient who has the uncanny ability to manifest the symptoms of any disease suggested to him by hypnotic suggestion. When the patient turns his eyes towards the scientist's wife, and she reciprocates, the scientist suggests he mimic the symptoms of death.

The first episode of the show proper has been rebranded as Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY and this first story certainly feels like a Rod Serling story. A strong set up introduces the characters and the situational relationships. The patient's condition is sufficiently bizarre to make the audience wonder where the story is heading. The introduction of the love triangle is somewhat banal and leads everyone to believe we're heading to a simple story of a crime of passion, but there is a twist in the tale coming and, whilst it doesn't completely satisfy it does provide an ending that's so much better than where we might have thought we were heading. The direction and the acting may be a little on the hystrionic side, but the runtime doesn't provide enough time to set up any real tension. Spread out over the full episode length, this could have been much more interesting and darker.

THE HOUSEKEEPER - An older woman of plain looks is hired by a rich man to be his young, gorgeous wife's housekeeper. He explains that, if she is willing, he can use black magic and a frog to transform her and her future.

Unfortunately, this second story is very much the weaker of the two on offer here. Jeanette Nolan's makeup into the plain Miss Wattle is never convincing and she is not given the time to show the beautiful soul that she is constantly told is so obvious by a wildly overacting Larry Hagman. The story is clearly a victim of the slim running time. The situation is rushed, the wife is barely on screen long enough to exhibit the horrendous behaviour we are led to believe makes her such a monster, there is no time to investigate the husband's methodology or even his character, and so when the inevitable turn arounds come (and they are inevitable to the point of predictability) they fail to shock or impress.

With both of these stories suffering from not having the space to breathe that those in the original telefilm were given, there are signs that this format may not be able to sustain the quality of storytelling that we have become used to from Rod Serling. Hopefully, we're wrong about that.Top
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ROOM WITH A VIEW - A frustrated bedridden man teases a young nurse about her love life.

This is more a vignette than an acutal story. A short sketch that is made much more than the sum of its parts thanks to clever performances and a playful, teasing tone. Joseph Wiseman is great as the bedridden grouch who takes his pleasure in teasing the naive nurse, played in full guileless mode by Diane Keaton. Even the appearance by the young wife is playfully uncertain in whether she genuinely is a golddigger or actually has feelings for her older husband. Once the plot's outcome becomes clear, it all goes flat, but it's brief and was fun getting there.

THE LITTLE BLACK BAG - A drunk down and out and discredited doctor comes into possession of a doctor's bag from a hundred years in the future. With it, he believes he can change the whole face of medicine on the planet.

This segment is the centrepiece of the episode and the first evidence that the quality of the original telefilm has been carried through to the series proper. It stutters with the scenes set in the future, but whilst it is set in the present, it combines smart storytelling with excellent performances. Burgess Meredith is central to the success of the story, dependable as ever. His Doctor Fall is a marvellous creation, a wino who has fallen far but still holds onto the echoes of his previous education and station in life. This is told through his use of vocabulary, a flowery turn never far from his lips, but is contrasted with his dishevelment, broken glasses (a wonderful throwback to Meredith's classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode Time Enough At Last, and his genuine distress at losing his bottle of cheap wine, followed by his momentary distress at how much such cheap wine means to him. It's a peformance that seems broad at first glance, but is actually full of subtlety. Not so subtle is the wonderfully named Chill Wills, as his fellow derelict who sees a whole other set of possibilities represented by the gift from the future.

The ending is, unfortunately, a little bit predictable and it is undercut by the need to have it explained with another clunky scene set in the future, but this story aspires to the match the best of its parent show and doesn't fall too far short.

THE NATURE OF THE ENEMY - Ground control and the press follow television pictures from the surface of the moon that seem to suggest a mission sent there has met with an attack from a mysterious enemy.

This extremely short sequence actually starts off as a lesson in how to build a plot and some tension in a very short time. The brief running time, however, means that the story is never going to go very far and where it actually does go is a joke that fails miserably.

THE HOUSE - A woman recently released from a sanatarium comes across the house that has been in her dreams for quite some time. She decides to buy it even though she is informed it is haunted. The comes a knock at the door, but all she sees is a car driving away.

Hauntings happen in gothic houses in the dead of night. Not in the NIGHT GALLERY, though. In this segment, the haunting takes place in full daylight in dreamy soft focus and slow motion. If, in fact, it is a haunting at all. THE HOUSE is beautifully shot and has a striking aesthetic that will remain in the mind long after the segment has ended. What it doesn't have is an explanation. It's quite clear about what has happened, but not about the how of it. It is by that lack of a clear explanation of events that the story actually makes an impact, though it also manages to be unsatisfying at the same time for the very same reason. It is open to interpretation in a number of ways and so you can pick the one you like best.

CERTAIN SHADOWS ON THE WALL - A man slowly poisons his sister in order to gain early access to his inheritance. His attitude to her death shocks his other two sister, but not half as much as the sudden appearance of the dead woman's shadow on the wall, a shadow that can't be removed or painted over.

This second segment of the episode is definitely gothic in its stylings and makes no attempt to hide its meaning in open ends. It is blessed with two well-drawn characters in the surviving sisters, whilst the murderer is far too hysterical for a man has calmly plotted and carried out a murder. The plotting isn't all that strong, with the story being fairly straightforward, but the interactions between the sisters and their male sibling manage to keep the interest going long enough to get through the running time.

A failing comedian is offered a miracle from a miracle maker of self-proclaimed klutziness. He inevitably chooses to be able to make people laugh, but how will that go when he wants to make a move in serious drama?

Be careful what you wish for is the obvious moral of this segment and it's a pretty drawn out moral as well. The point is made early enough on for the story to drag when it becomes painfully obvious where it is going. Whilst the main character is believable in his desperation, the worker of miracles is not, at one point calling himself small when he is the same size as the man he is talking to. His sense of helpless fatalism in his own inability to work great miracles is a nice counterpoint to the comic's own brand of frantic desperation, the point is laboured and there are no surprises here.

CLEAN KILLS AND OTHER TROPHIES - A domineering big game hunting father insists his peace-loving son kill a deer himself or he will be disinherited. A faithful family retainer decides to take revenge.

Big game hunting is a loathesome 'sport' and it is represented here by Raymond Massey in full-on loathesome mode. The man is as casually racist as he is casually cruel to both the animals he has killed and the the son he seems to hate above all things. There is absolutely no way anyone in the audience is going to be on his side of the argument and so, when it comes, the denoument is satisfying even when it is as obvious as, well as an elephant in the rooom. Massey's performance dominates the piece and makes it worthwhile, since the other parts are merely supporting sketches rather than fully-formed characters and the plotting is simplistic to say the least.

A man driven to murder by the sound of his wife's voice has a visit from beyond the grave.

This is short sketch that aims to do nothing other than get to the punchline at the end. John Astin (THE ADDAMS FAMILY is given little to work with and Phyllis Diller is positively wasted as the spectral spouse, who admittedly is overly critical, but whose voice isn't all that bad. The twist ending is a nice one, though.

LONE SURVIVOR - The crew of liner is shocked to discover a lifeboat from the TITANIC with a survivor aboard three years after the sinking of that ship. His tale is one of cowardice and divine retribution.

A ghost story, but one with a twist to be sure. It doesn't stand up so well if you examine it too closely however. Why, for example, do the crew disappear at the critical moment. It would have made more sense for them to be present, but uncontactable by the survivor at the right time and if the crew are the ghosts then why do we have the whole opening (and closing) scenes from their perspective before shifting to the survivor's? You also need to be up on your naval disaster history for the final shot to pay off.

THE DOLL - A British colonel returns from colonial India to find his ward has been sent a doll that is an act of vengeance against him.

We like a nice period gothic segment in the NIGHT GALLERY, but this proves to be less and less chilling as the story goes on. The initial appearance of the doll is suitably evil, but this is in contrast to the final twist which suggests it shouldn't have looked like a child's doll at all. The evil of the doll is also hinted at rather than shown, since the segment concentrates on the adults, rather than the child and her doll. Then the sender of the doll turns up to explain in detail what the plot is all about in a very clunky infodump. It hardly seems worth sending the supernatural doll when you could just turn up and do the deed yourself. Of course, then that final twist wouldn't have been able to take place.

Randy Lane has been beaten down by 25 years working for the same plastics firm, long years of widowhood and the current challenge of an up and coming executive looking to take his place. Now, he learns his favourite bar, where a party was held to celebrate his return from war, is being demolished. Ghosts of the past haunt him, but are they real or just the hallucinations of a defeated man?

Written by Rod Serling and given enough screen time to breathe and tell its story at its own pace, They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar is perhaps the jewel in the crown of this first season. It's certainly the best since the pilot. Serling's script finds pathos and bathos in the plight of its common man and it is served well by William Windom as the declining executive questioning his worth in a world that seems to have raced past him at the same it time it was trampling him into the ground. He is matched, if not outmatched, by Diane Baker as the secretary who loves him and wants to protect and honour him. She is the beating heart of the episode, battling back against the forces of heartlessness as much as she is beating on the hero, trying to get him off the ground and into the fight again.

There is no explanation given for Lane's being thrust into his past, to the moment when the world seemed bright and full of promise. He talks about ghosts, but is it not he who is the ghost, haunting the important moments from his life. They might well be the waking fantasies of a desperate drunk, losing time in alcohol-fuelled reveries of his past. They might be some celestial being reminding him of what has made him the person he is and giving him the self-worth the world has knocked out of him.

The how, though, doesn't matter. This is a shout out for the common man, the struggling man, the man being left behind by his time and on those terms it is a resounding success. The ending might be a bit too cheesily sentimental, but can be forgiven that for the quality of what came before it. They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar is the level of storytelling the show should be aiming for.

THE LAST LAUREL - A bedridden ex-athlete believes his wife to be having an affair. He has found a way for his spirit to leave his body and act on its own, and he has murder on his mind.

Harking back to Room With A View, this short segment has the unenviable task of closing out the season after its finest moment. It was always going to pale by comparison, but also pales by borrowing the set-up from the earlier story, though the characters are quite different. The twist in the tale also mimics that of Escape Route, again diminishing its effect. The superimposition effect of the athlete's astral body never convinces and so the season ends not on the bang it should have, but with something only little better than a whimper.