Midnight Viewing Night Gallery Valentine Spectacular

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Welcome back to Midnight Viewing. It's one of our patented holiday specials, and this one's all about love you crazy kids, We're rounding up I realized that's my other show and kind of a plug, but I'm good with it. We're rounding up all of the best of Night Gallerries segments

Painting number one, it's titled The Dead Man, an interesting meeting between flesh and bone, between that which walks and that which you should excuse the expression get buried. So we submit for your approval of this and other frozen moments of Nightmare placed on canvas.

In this episode, Carl Best's a doctor who has encountered an unusual young man who has the power under hypnosis to embody any physical ailment.

What did you think of this, Chris?

I like that they're talking about something that inherently have an interest in, which is the usage of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I think that's interesting. I think it's an interesting place to go. Obviously, this is a like you had mentioned, this is a teleplay based on a pre existing short story, which would lead me to believe that I understand now why it was such a novel concept because it's pretty

Okay, yeah, I really liked this. I love Jeff Corey, and I was so happy when they showed that dead body on the table it was Michael Blanche because I.

Was just like, you're broad your goddamn but they brought.

Yeah, yeah, Broad Barzinski. Yeah, I was very happy to see him. That was nice. And yeah, this whole idea of the hypnosis, I wish they would have done the third segment of the hypnosis to do two where it works and one where it doesn't. And maybe they did, but they might have just been condensed together in my head, because it felt like they really went from this to this and the screw up, the accidental screw up, and this whole idea of your mind's tricking you and all

Yeah, I agree.

What's weird is this episode and the next one are gonna typify theme that I noticed running throughout Night Gallery, which we're gonna be looking at marriage a lot. We're gonna be looking at marriage in the late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies, shot through from a horror anthology standpoint. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting aspect of this one.

I love him.

I love seeing him in anything he is, and oddly enough he is. He ends up directing about nine segments of the particular series that we're watching. I didn't know he was in that prolific director, but I guess he and Rod must have gotten along. And Louise Soerell.

The wife and it.

She's going to appear later in an adaptation of an HP Lovecraft story called Pigman's Model. I love all the acting in this, I love the concept. The ending us a little forgetting the code is a bit much. I think you're right, Mike, we needed a moment where we saw him do that once at least once, like the second time he fucks it up, and then the third time everything works fine, and then we've at least got

When she goes screaming to ymetery. Good thing, there's a cemetery right next door to this house. And then when she goes screaming out and she doesn't stop screaming, Oh my godness, laughing quite a bit so good.

And I love the very theatrical banging out of the sort of Morse code on the lid of the coffin. But when the doctor finally shows up and the sort of the one tracking shot and it's handheld, like it's so immediate and wonderful. Look that final makeup. It's not technically a makeup, it's like a it's a mannequin. If it's anything at all, that's not great.

Little too desiccated to be actual based.

It's not great, but the effect is pretty fantastic. It's pretty creepy. I like it. I did not like the.

Equivalent to Norma Bates and Psycho. It's that level of yeah. But the way it's lit.

Right, Yeah, we do need to talk about the horrible day for night. However, during that entire sequence, it was like day from mid afternoon it was like and it wildly like the quality jumped from shot like it was like clearly daylight.

And then suddenly it was night.

I don't know that didn't do the segment any service, but overall I really like this one, and I think it maintains the promise from what we got in the pilot a year later. They seem to be shooting for a bit of a higher quality across the board, which I really liked.

It reminded me of It reminded me of Tales from the Crypt episodes as well. It had that very gothic feel to it, which I appreciate. I appreciated that, and again I appreciate that they have this kind of modern idea set in a ostensibly gothic setting. It's this mansion on these grounds with the cemetery. I don't know what's more Gothic than having a cemetery in your backyard, but I would wager that having a cemetery with mausoleums in your backyard it's pretty goddamn god. Oh, yeah, I like

These characters like to that that you don't see the finale that it's just the horror of it. From Cory's POV, I had a little trouble and I when the door was answered and she just looks so rough, I was like, Okay, how long has it been? I wasn't really sure how long it was until they showed how desicated. What's his name in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is like Lance Rock or whatever. But I was so glad when

Yeah.

I agree, it definitely needed that. I think they I think, like you said, the state of her was supposed to tell us that it's been sometimes, but that could have been a week later for christ you're that grief stricken. So yeah, that needed to be more clear. But I got to say at the very end in that shot with the flashlight panting around, the shot of her as catatonic was particularly haunting. I love a character going insane at the end of a horror thing.

We offer for your approvalless still life, if you will, of noise, a soundless canvas suggestive of sound. The mouth belongs to Pamela, and life is shrieking battle axe made up of adenoids, tonsils, and sound decibels. In death, an unmuted practitioner of fishwife fery, undeterred and UnGagged by what one would have shown to be the great silencer. Some ghosts come back to haunt. Others come back simply to

Pamela's Voice was written by Ron Serling, directed by Richard Beckert, and stars Phyllis Diller and John Aston. Only it's about a murderous husband who discovers that all too late, that the difference between heaven and hell. Chris, you want to start on this one?

Can I tell you guys something funny. Sure, yes, I didn't know that that was what Phyllis Dillar looked like, Oh really as a did you just know her as a tune puppet, an old, older person in her seventies and eighties? Like when I saw I didn't know. I knew because the episode told me. But I was like, that's Phillis Diller. Yeah, like from I only really think of Phyllis Dillar when she tells the when she's in the what the fuck is that movie? Coped the Aristocrats? Oh okay, she's in The Aristocrats.

She the voice of the queen and as life.

Yeah yeah, but yeah, but I didn't she didn't look like Phyllis Diller outside of that though. Gomez Adams killing his wife, come on, John Aston's great.

Are you saying come on? Like you can't believe they made him kill his wife? Or you're saying, hey, no, I'm saying come on.

It's very tongue in cheek, given that his the character that he is one more or less known for playing, loves his wife immensely, and then this he's like, yeah, fuck you, if this is hell, I'll die again. Like all right, I love that.

I grew up with Philip Stiller. Just she was always there for the longest time, just always there, TV, movies, there.

Were so many more variety shows and stuff on TV all the time, on talk shows all the time.

Well, she was even the Monster's mate in the Mad Monster Party. So we've talked a little bit about her before.

Yeah that was bad, Yeah.

Very bad. But she was just doing Philip Stiller yeah everything. Yeah, and literally yeah, because Fang was like the husband, I'd be able to remember this one. It really made a big impression.

Yeah, because nothing, nothing happens. Yes, that's the simplicity and beauty of it is the brevity.

Yeah.

To be fair, though, was there any more that they could have given us and or that we needed?

Not really?

No, Look, it's Who's afraid of Virginia woolf in two minutes with Ghosts. Look, it suffers from the rod sterling overly writerritis and it is bottled and whatever. But like you said, Chris, it's.

Quick as an overstay.

It's welcome, definitely, and some of their barbs at one another are actually pretty good, Like when she shows up as a ghost seemingly for the first time, she says, you're surprised to see me, and he says, no, I'm not surprised. You showed up everywhere uninvited your entire life. Why should anything be different. Now that's good. I will say they tread with or they treat lightly. The notion at the end, which is this isn't a ghost story at all. This is she's in heaven and he's in

Yeah I didn't. I was having hard time understanding that. Conceit her heaven.

Is just her heaven is torturing him by talking.

Okay, his hell is being tortured by her from talking.

It's like an O Henry story in a way.

Yeah, again, it didn't overstay. It's welcome. John Aston's a good actor. He's great in everything. I've seen him in the Fright Nerds being one of those things he's okay, he's not the best part of that, but he's the father of Sean Aston. He's the original Gomez Adams.

And not only is he playing against type here, but he underplays everything. He's really spooky, how quiet he is. I've never seen a performance like that from him before, so that was really welcome and interesting.

No, I like this segment a fair amount only because it a doesn't overstay, It's welcome, and the twist at the end is nice. It's a cheeky little twist it is.

The jokes are not really that funny.

I've praised it for landing a few, but I don't know it accomplished what it set out to, which is a couple hating each other and they're tramped together forever and good for them.

And look, Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five did that. They had those brief segments, those little essentially what amounted to interstitials. It can work if they know what they're a couple of children zoo. Yeah, Dreams for Sale was literally the name of the show.

I never really realized until we started doing this show how much John Aston had to do with Night Gallery.

I know right now because he directed a segment we've already talked about. He's in this one, he's in another one. I can't wait till we get to that one because I remember it being hilarious, Like his performance is so good, and I think he directs one more too, at least one more, which is a lot.

Oh yeah, yeez.

Yeah. I don't think if John Aston as anything other than an actor. So it's interesting because we have already seen him direct something and that was okay. I don't think he brought anything to it.

The failure wasn't the direction. No, you did with what you could.

Like the ultimate failure of the Tom Bondsley Steven Spielberg episode.

It's not the direction, it's the terrible script.

Yeah, but at least here you can't go around with two people just throwing barbs at each other and then getting a pretty decent twist.

No, yeah, it's and it doesn't overstay. It's welcome either, which is the important part because it could have shown him killing her, given us a couple scenes of them. I don't need that, Like, they can do that through dialogue and it's fine, And they did and it's it's okay.

Yeah, it's a rare instance with it's strength to just have them talking to each other. It doesn't feel like they're trying to skimp on a budget.

Oh, Dina's is to a room of people talking, and that's what this is. It's just everything in this episode segment is just much more well thought out.

You dig boothill baby. I love that line too. He just does that.

From this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story of love. But that's precisely what it tells about. The emotion as old as man, but the object of the emotional this is not quite as familiar. It's titled Phantom Farmhouse, offering number one in the Night Gallery.

Now the first segment is called the Phantom Farmhouse. This is written by Halston Wells, based on a short story by Seabury Quinn, and directed by Jeno Jouirque starts David McCallum, David Carrodine, Linda Marsh, Trina Parks, and Bill Quinn. I just want to point him out because the entire are you guys at all familiar with the ventriloquist by the name of Jeff Dunham.

He's got this.

Old man character named Walter, who Bill Quinn just looks like the living embodiment of it.

Was very odd.

Thanks for reminding me that Jeff Dunham exists.

I know, look, I didn't want to bring him up or promotion anyway, but.

Las Vegas's own Jeff Dunham.

You mean, that's right, he's the hometown boy. Now, this story concerns an unorthodox psychiatrist who investigates the mysterious murders plaguing his patients, and there are wolves involved.

What do you think of this one, Mike?

I felt this segment made me feel stupid because I could not figure out what the heck was going on. All these people in this tree and David Keardy maybe he's a Satanist. I don't know what. Please just please explain this one to me, because I just was not getting this one at all.

It's very confused, but of itself is confused. But here's what happened.

Bear with me.

I'm ready. I'm ready for.

This, listeners. I didn't come up with this, all right, so.

No, somebody by the name of Seabury Quinn did. And then somebody named Halsted Wells adapted it. Then somebody named Janno Swark directed it. Those three names together should give you an idea of the where we're going with this. It's pretty all over the place.

You know what, though, if you meet the original short straight Seabury Quinn, who was not he was a writer, like all of his contemporaries were. The weird tales guy. So it's like Roberty Howard and he Lovecraft and yeah, like all of the sort of the giants as it were. And he created a character named Jules de Granden who is a paranormal investigator, and he's got a whole series of these stories that they're all great. In addition to that, Seabury Quinn was like a mortuary lawyer. That was his

Wow.

And if you read the original story, it's much more simplified. I'll give you the short story version and that'll and you'll understand exactly what it is. This guy checks into a checks himself into an asylum in Maine in this case right, which is right across the border from Canada, which is why there are French speaking characters in the story.

I had a lot of questions, why the hell everybody's speaking French? Als, thank you, thank you.

That helps hold over for no good reason. Wow, He's allowed to walk the grounds and he walks and finds a house with a family, a mother and a father, and a beautiful girl who seems dressed from another age, and they have an instant connection, but she's very odd and keeps him at a distance. Nevertheless, when he comes back to the asylum and tells the people about it, they're like, you must really be crazy because there's no

Is the thing?

Back and forth because he going to the asylum and they're crazy, but they're telling him he's crazy, but he's actually seeing the people. They are a family of were wolves and they are dead, so they're ghost wolves or where ghosts.

It ends basically the same way. So there's no.

Character feeding these people or alluring them, or there's no warlocks and all this other shit. It's they let him know that family who lived there were renowned as potential were wolves. Stay away from there, and they are, and she's it's so it's more of a Romeo and Juliet with the two warring factions, where her parents want to eat him and the rest of them think he's crazy. I'm trying to keep them apart, and then she makes

But I'll lose you.

But if I stay with you, I'm going to murder you because I'm a wolf the end. Now, how that turned into tree pads and groovy talk and moccasins and thumper from Goddamn you only live twice?

I don't know, but I did enjoy it.

Glad you did. The only note I have is crow noises and two random French dudes. There are crow noises up the wazoo in this episode.

Perfect segue there, Chris Mike Card. He knows where we're going with this.

Another thing I like to point out in these episodes of the second season that are performers who probably don't have the spotlight shine on them enough. In this case, featured only once in this episode, but I think we all know it.

It's about twenty five years old at this point. Here it is ladies and gentlemen. You probably know that from everything.

Most of these sound effects ended up being used on Sesame Street a lot. That's a count von count if I've ever I've heard one. Its actual name is Single Classic Wolf, although sometimes it's called Single Coyote, which I think is racist. The first appearance of it, this was created by the Disney sound folks. It appeared in a segment called Bongo, which was part of a Fun and Fancy free in nineteen forty six. There you go, We love you, Single Classic Wolf. You're joining Castle Thunder in

Trees, and it's really weird.

All that stuff was disconcerting, and I was like really enjoying it. And then when we go meet the girl who in this one, David Kardine is telling everyone that they have to go there. He's like trying to lure them out there to be killed, and he tells everyone who sees this girl is gonna fall in love with her, and when we see her, it's this Loretta Lynn wig that's been bottle blonded, and.

Oh her bangs are great. The bangs on that wig are just chef's kiss.

Specttaga and the dress itself, this voluminous ball gown looking.

I don't understand it. Where you people are from, what time and place? That's all David McCallum needs to say. It's like, who the fuck are you? I don't understand how anyone in the right mind would be like, Oh, you clearly belong here. You are so out of time and out of place, it's beyond obvious. They don't even try.

The weird thing about that is it's like they could have Her parents are dressed. It could have been faked. It could be nineteen seventy They're dressed basically in coveralls.

They just look like poor farmers.

Why if that's what they were wearing in like eighteen seventy one, why was she dressed not like them, Like she's not at a cotillion or anything.

She stirred poor like her parents, and she's a werewolf. Why does she even have the dress?

It doesn't make sense she had werewolf or she had dog.

They couldn't afford the wolves.

They could afford dogs.

Though.

I was wondering about that too, because when they showed the dog, I was like, Oh, the dog must be running away from the wolf, because I kept hearing the wolf, and I was just like, why is this dog running away?

That's not a problem.

This is like a two day shoot. Yeah, And according to Sin, I've swark. But the dogs were like the nicest dogs in the world, and they wouldn't even want to chase anything anyway.

So it's impressive that they got any shots at all.

But obviously they're where dog ghosts, Wolfy Ghoster tins.

I don't know.

Where dog ghosts are you asking us a question?

You know what it's you know what it reminds me of.

There's a quote from Big Trouble, Little China Eggshen is talking about all the different disciplines that they're all drawing from Buddhism and Confucianism, and we take what we want to leave the rest like a salad bar. That's what this felt like to me. It's like they are werewolves, so we'll put to have the pentagram on the hand, but they're also ghosts.

But it is titled the phantom farmhouse, so there must be phantoms involved.

A phantom reasoning, the phantom logic like.

It felt like a really somehow poorly done. It feels like a poorly done episode of Tales from the Crypt, like an easy comics story. That's what it feels like.

When they had all those people in the tree, I kept thinking, these are aspects of his personality and they are fighting within his mind.

That would have been good.

And then it just when David Kardine came out of the tree, I was like, there goes that theory.

You were you were doing the episode's job for it, trying to make it more interesting than it ended up being.

Did you notice that when David Karenine homps down off of the thing he tries to and they cretell he does he not say cocaine.

Anyone, I swear to God.

He says it twice he said it, And I was like, you couldn't have heard that. They wouldn't have put that on television. And then at the end of the seasons like oka anyone the leaves. Maybe I'm wrong, I should read the script, but that's what I heard. Maybe that's what I wanted to hear.

That's what you wanted David Carrodine to say.

It feels like he would share.

Yeah, he seemed like a groovy guy.

By the way, hippy slang seems so natural coming out of David Carroddy, Like all of that dialogue could have been the worst if it weren't him and he it was effortless, and I was like, oh, so that's how people talk instead of the awkward way people try to reproduce it.

Because David Carrody is a great actor.

Yeah, it was was he still is.

Sorry, damn it.

And speaking of damn it, stopped doing Day for Night. Everybody stop.

Oh that was real rough.

You can't do a were wolf story and do day for Night. Just don't even do it.

Yeah, how long did you say they had for this? Five days?

I don't know why they even tried two days?

Two days Jesus, Yeah, no, wonder it looks so bad.

Yeah, they're not going to get a big lighting package out there.

I think it's more impressive that it only took two days and that it's not a complete mess.

I think it's well shot. I think there's some poetical looking shots in there.

It's a nice looking it's a nice looking episode.

When McCallum's first venturing into the forest, there's a scene of this lamb running through the forest being pursued by the wolves, and it all looks gorgeous. It looks like a fairy tale. And then unfortunately we're right back to the Universal lot with most obvious lighting in the world, the sun, just because they needed for speed.

But he managed to get a couple of cool shots.

There's another one at the midpoint where they're on top of a hill where all the sheep, where McCallum walks down and scares the.

Sheep, which another gorgeous shot.

That there are little moments of beauty in these episodes, and at least this one did not in any way feel set bound.

If they had just turned the camera around, they probably would have seen the Baits Motel behind them. That's what it looked like to me. It looked like where the oldertures of the Universal back Loot Tour. That's what it looked like. The set, the set that they were on, it looked like just out there in the Universal, like where they shoot stuff like this.

It's it's like where you guys gonna shoot over there. Look, this is not the best part of this one, it's okay. It didn't insult me. I was more confused, and then by the end I didn't care.

Well, it just ends. It just ends, and that's fine. But this is now I think. I want to say there was an episode segment in the last episode that just ended too, but it worked better than it just ended. This one just goes and that's it. It's okay, all right, I guess it's over now, moving on.

Why even use wolves? Just make it ghost eats people, you know what I mean? How about we're all vampires.

Let's do vampires there, that's a ghost in a wolf together.

Stop and vampires are what five cents? You just get the little teeth, that's it.

Yeah, if you even need the teeth, you just cover up the face. Or Catherine Deneuve and the hunger.

We didn't mention the finger.

What's that?

The finger, the index finger that we got to see one hundred thousand times.

That was a bit of a failure. I didn't like that at all.

She is a really long finger. She is a really long finger. Only were wolves have long fingers.

It's the index fingers as long or longer than the rest of the fingers. It's the traditional lore. But guys, we get it. We're not going to get a transformation sequence, and we only have dogs instead of wolves. But we don't need to feature the one thing you.

Could have for it stop.

Painting number one. It has to do with death. Usually the last chapter in every Man's Book of Life, the ashes in the dust, the tomb, and the engraving on the stone death the finale. But our first painting offers up a tail with the final curve not quite the final criten, there's an epilog we offer, you know, a little item called cool Air, tonight's first painting in the Night Gallery.

Cool Air was written by Rod Serling from a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and directed by Jeno Swark twenty two segments, gentlemen, Jeno Smart twenty two segment.

At least it's not Gene Kearney.

Wow, thank god, it's not Jeane Kearney doing twenty two segments. I think I would lose my mind. This one stars Henry Darrow Barbara Rush, who, by the way, appeared in a TV movie called The Man, which was about the first Black President starring James Earl Jones. Written by Rod Star.

Oh yeah, by Rod.

Star such a great movie.

This is the tale of a May December romance. What did you think of this one? Mike?

It left me cold?

O bing bang.

Yes, I was waiting for that room shot there, Chrish.

Yeah, there we go.

Late take around here. We just got the sound for.

Yeah, we're back in HP Lovecraft territory. Though again I can tell what's going on. Why are we supposed to not figure this stuff out? Yeah, the guy's dead, Like I could tell you that right from the get go. I don't know, I was. I really wanted to like this one. Maybe if it was like half the length, I would have liked it a little bit more. But at the length that it was, and just that I could see the twist coming. Yeah it did it. No, no joke, it diddly be cold boy.

They love HP Lovecraft, don't they. They really really do. Look I'm not gonna say, oh, what a weird HP Lovecraft story to adapt, because look, HB. Lovecraft in a lot of ways is like Stephen King, like he's got plenty of things to adapt, folks, and they're not all within for a reason. Whatever the fuck. The conceit of this episode is that there is a man who has a Living Corps because he lives in an ice box. You know what, Sure, fine, whatever, but that's like a

It also doesn't help that it feels so similar to the one we just talked about on our last episode with the woman that was oll Wait is that the one? Is it a woman that was being menaced by that thing? Or am I completely mixing this up?

In Pickman's Yeah, it's also HP Lovecraft, and it's basically a.

Woman comes in and it's just like, oh, what is this stuff? And then oh there's a big monster or a big twist quote unquote at the end.

Yeah, it's a shame that they're on the heels of one another because the romance aspect is not present. In the original HP Lovecraft story. And I actually think it's an improvement by Rod Sling in that regard. And if you read the original story, there's a lot of he's supposed to be from Spain, so it's all phonetically written.

Oh elleal l E E t l E. It's very embarrassing. Henry Darrow.

Henry Darrow here, he's five years younger than Barbara Rush, playing a dashing older man. I liked him. I liked his performance a lot. I thought Barbara Rush was really good. There is another unnecessary wrap around, just like the pickman's model in the last one, which starts in the present

By the way, who put that there? She put that in there? Why would that be on there?

Weirdest thing ever, by the way his name is misspelled on the grave.

High production values abound at midnight at the Night Gallery podcast. I guess this isn't the podcast as high production values this show doesn't Is this the back.

Oh?

Speaking of the backlot and high production at one point, like this starts as a period piece. It's set in the nineteen twenties, and she's in the back of what is basically a horseless carriage as a driving down the street, and in the background the street is blocked off by a Universal Studios van.

Oops. Oh geez, what are you implying? Father alone?

Maybe shoot the scene at night?

I thought you were What are you? Are you implying that this is.

A fruit stand back there, or two guys carrying a pane of glass, anything other than a vehicle from nineteen seventy one just sitting there? Hey, folks, the tour is right right this way.

Hey, who was asleep at the wheel at this point? Huh? That's the question.

I blame Jano. But Jane did do something really cool here. There's a conversation scene when there's falling in love. It's a minute and a half pan around the dinner table. There's a join in it, but it's really masterful considering all the other limitations that they're saddled with. Also, the music in this episode, this was a guest composer guy

As far as I'm concerned, is.

This episode about because Sling made it of romance? Is this now a tale of necro feelings?

Jesus necromantic? If we're talking literally, then yes.

All right, good for you.

Rod HP.

Lovecraft was into some freaky shit.

Lovecraft didn't have anything to do with that part of it, that's all Surling.

Yeah, But the concept, though, it still lends itself in that direction.

The concept of necrophilia just goes way back to the beginning of civilization. We always had it with us. It just took Rod Sterling to really popularize it. Use it in between commercials for soap.

Exactly. I only use ajax when I now back to necrophilia.

It's the most romantic presentation of necrophilia I've ever seen.

I was moved.

I Yeah, when you think about it that way, boy, it really puts it all in perspective, doesn't it. You know what? Hey? I wish the payoff was in an episode half the episode segment half the length. That's really it. It's not a bad segment. I just don't think it gets to the point fast enough. And also like you're stalling as if we can't figure out what's going on. There's anyone surprised at the end that he was a corpse, like they hint at it a lot, like a lot, a lot, A lot, a lot. Yeah.

Also, this episode does contain I think the single worst performance in any segment we've seen thus far, which is that handyman ice carrying guy, whoever he is.

What's with the guy in there with the he's got ice in.

The bathroom, just pulling all these faces like he's I don't know, like he's auditioning.

He's late stage.

Leslie Nielsen, boy, he was bad.

Painting number two in the Night Gallery, addressing itself to the strains and stresses of the marriage, having to do with the fact that there is more than one way to kill a cat and more than one way to dispose of a wife. Our painting is called Stop Killing Me.

Stop Killing Me was written by Jack Laird from a short story by hald Dresner kol hand Luke's hal Dresner Zorro the Gay Blades Hal Dresner. Kind of a slide whistle situation there. This one was also directed by Jenno Zwark, starring Geraldine Page first of three appearances in The Night Gallery, and James Gregory only. This is about a wife enlisting the aid of a police officer because she believes her husband is slowly murdering her through worry. What'd you think of this one, Chris.

Yeah, this is a lot of fun. It does go on a little long too, but the length of this one is to sell. What's the length is selling what they're going for, and it works here. She is so haired with him that he is just fuck yeah, I see why this is the way that works here. And I enjoyed this episode. But I'm gonna be biased because I love James Gregory. Now again, when we started the Barney Miller Show, not so much the case, but his characterization has grown over time and grown on me. But

I wish that the Jano's Wark does something interesting in this episode where Geraldine Page will basically imitate her husband and repeat the lines that he keeps saying to her. And when she does that, we get these interesting cuts to almost like from the side all of a sudden, and she will turn to the side and start doing her husband's voice, not like literally saying what he's saying,

This one is a flip side not of Satan, but of the late mister Pettington from two episodes ago. Except here, instead of a woman talking herself into murder, she convinces another of the ease of which he can dispatch his own spouse. Starts with a great b roll of the New York City skyline, dingy kind of nineteen seventies. Look

The cuts are so jarring, but she's so funny.

This is a horrible situation, and the things that this husband is doing to her is really beyond the pale when you really think about it, and the way her performance just I don't know. I thought it was hilarious if only he could stop with the killing me, killing me, killing me.

When I really thought I knew what way this episode was going to go with that title, I thought that she was going to come in and it was going to be a da situation. I want to report a murder who's mind? But then I actually thought that she was dead and was coming in. When she said my husband's killing me right now, I was like, oh, okay,

I thought that too. I thought that too when she said that. I was like, oh, because again that's what it seems like. There's some angle here and it's just no, he's just he's almost like Pusher from the X Files, where it's like that's yeah, it's this weird, like just suggesting over and over again that it's putting her on edge constantly. I can't even imagine what that would be like.

But good lord, I don't think we needed the sound effect of her getting run over in traffic. That wasn't necessary. The plot, the plan of it was obviously working. She left that police station feeling really no better than when she came in. There's certainly no less safe, So just having the police officer talking to his wife would have been sufficient. I do think we hold a little too long at the end, a little too long on the picture of his wife, like a minute.

Feels like I was going to say, to your point. With the sound effect, it almost seems like it was added after the fact, and I know it obviously was, but more like they didn't ask James Gregory to react to anything, because I watched it a couple times and he doesn't react at all, but we hear it as the audience. It's like he would have heard it. He should have reacted. There should have been like a sly little smirk or a grin or something, and there's nothing.

I think it's twice as long as it probably should have been. But I'm not in any way angry at it, because I would watch Geraldine Page.

Do just about it anything.

I think she's great here anything else about this one, though, I think it's just really solid and I'm glad we're getting them. Yeah, peaks and valleys with this show, gentlemen, peaks and funtain all right.

I like the idea that James Gregory is. At one point, she asked him, is your wife still as beautiful as the day you married her? And he just like stares at that photo just a moment too long, just a no, you're right, it's just again. James Gregory was the perfect person for this role.

You know.

It's funny, perfect. While watching and I was like, I know this guy from somewhere. He's so good. I'm like, I'm gonna look him up and so we can discuss him on the show. And then I saw the credits of Barney Miller and I'm not gonna just close my notebook. These guys can supply all the information we need to know about James Gregor.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this is almost a prequel. But I don't think Luger took this career path. Plus, I don't think he would be married according to Chris's theory, I am my.

Theory hashtag Luger big gay.

Well maybe that's why he's got to kill the wife. He's come out.

Yeah bottom alone. Just two highlights off of mister Gregory's career. Won the role that he played in Manchurion Candidate. He was the husband what's her name, Angela Lancebery really.

Good role, so good in that, yes.

And then the other one is General Ursus I believe is his name from Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Apes.

Yes, yeah, that voice, man, he's so good.

He's great in this.

As a two person segment, yeah, bottle thing. We got here for fourteen straight minutes. These two could have taken another fourteen. Honestly, if they could have had some machinations added to this would have been perfectly satisfied.

Strips of ethereal night clouds are seen from the vantage point of a square, a group of tombstones, and the face of a neutral onlooker who surveysed the silence. Oh perhaps not quite total silence, because the name of our painting is Whisper, and it tells the story of one body inhabited by two people. And at a point, as you can well imagine, this gets crowded. And if this one doesn't ice up your spine, we'll send you one

This is season three, episode thirteen. It aired on May thirteenth, nineteen seventy three. The previous episode aired in March. They skipped the entire month of April. I wonder why that is, because they couldn't handle the awesomeness of April of nineteen seventy three anyway. It was written by David Rafiel from a short story by Martin Waddell. Directed by Jean Zuark. It stars Tony Hey, Tony no Phony, Baloney, Tony the Tiger, LaRusso, Dean Stockwell, Ladies and Gentlemen, also Sally Field.

It is about It is the story of a.

Young wife who's getting high on ghosts and her husband is the dealer.

Like what you think about this one? Oh, nobody can see you, Whisper.

You couldn't hear me whisper that vaguely that I could. I didn't really like this one all, especially the way that it ended. I had no freaking idea what was going on for so much of this one and then it just ended? What the fuck? So what did I miss? What did I miss with it? That seems to be my thing for the shows? And somebody please explain this to me?

Okay? Very simple.

Young couple Stockwell and Sally Field. Sally Field is touched. She can communicate with the dead, or she's like a

Wow.

So Dean Stockwell plays the.

Part of the husband and he buries the baby, the proxy for the baby. But it's been happening for so long that what Sally feel, what Dean Stockwell was worried about, and what the doctor warned about comes to pass and she can't get back to her body.

Yeah.

Wow, So I was so confused because Sally Field through this whole episode is talking I guess with the ghosts she but yes, but she is the ghost at times, but she's talking with the ghost. And then Dean Stockwell, I guess he's talking to us the audience. Yes, okay, see that's the most confusing thing. You can't have one character talking to nobody and then have another character talking to nobody, but one character's talking to another character and

I'm sorry, but I'm with you, okod fucking bizarre? Look, Hyke, are you like it's my thing on this show? It's not yet things like fucking win? Are you that that's what I feel?

Like?

How many times have I asked that on this show? I'm not high while I'm watching these episodes, I swear I'm straight.

But to be fair, I was gonna say I did get what was going on, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, this is just a god This is just the spinning of wheels and a treading of water for twenty minutes, just and you know what, Dean stock Well's fine, Sally Field's fine. Sally Field doesn't play the crazy very well. She's just too goddamn and endearing as an actress. And yeah, the ending is just, oh you need.

To see Sybil's.

Oh yeah, I haven't seen that. Having not seen that, this is not a very good representation of that is probably a better way of putting it. And the ending is laughably bad. It's yeah, it's asinines. Oh my god. But what so? The question then becomes, if you can't get back to your body, what does that mean? What the what does that mean? Does that mean she's just a catatonic shell, eyes rolled back into her head, can do anything? Or is the ghost still in her body? Again,

You just wait. Father Malone's gonna love this episode.

I fucking loved this episode. I did.

Boy, that is the theme here. It's too hot, too cold, just right right.

It's the magic of Jean's work. No, I'm not, that's up the case. I'm not liking it to the Jons magic.

Gean's Wark should be the name of your next podcast, because I think at this point you have been You have defended no director more ever in the history of anything we've worked on than Jean's Wark.

He's really good and he does fucking really good work here. Man, what can I tell you?

There's no John Batham. I'll tell you that.

He's at least Badam's equal. Well, laugh sir. Okay, here's what I liked about it.

I liked the confusion at the beginning where okay, first of all, it starts, and it's typical of Night Gallery the entire run of the series, where I think we've all been baffled for a good portion of every segment as to what time period this is. But this episode actually embraces that. It makes us think that we're in some sort of like little house on the prairie time. And then suddenly she's burning a plane ticket in the thing. I thought that was great. I do understand what you're saying, like,

That's what I took away from an Ayvy. I do want to point out one thing.

I haven't done this in some time, but there is another performer in this episode who deserves a bit of a spotlight.

Here we go.

Oh that stormy wind from the Hannah barb Era library.

Oh so good.

I'm glad I had to hear it again.

I'm gonna play it again because it comes up again later. Oh, I know.

It really to the point where when I was watching it with my wife, she goes, can you turn it down? It's really obnoxious, And then I go of all the times to be watching this in the even as opposed to early in the morning.

So here's something cool.

When William Hannah and Joseph Barbera left MGM to start Hannah Barbera animation, they took their sound editor from MGM, who in turn took with him a massive amount of sounds from the MGM library, which had made available to all the studios in nineteen sixty five when Hanna Barbara released it as their own soundtrack library that includes Stormy Wind. Here it plays a prominent role here. It's been played too often, too long. It's it is no longer in use, thank god, but it it has appeared a lot in

Yeah, I am shocked that you like this. But to Mike's point, it is on brand. But that's not a bad thing. I think my issue is more in tune with where Mike is coming from, which is I really had a hard time understanding what the fuck, who the fuck was being talked to, And again I understand, I ended up understanding what was going on. I just I don't know. Coupling the weird storytelling with a very weak ending, again, I'm really struggling to understand what the meaning of the story is.

Can I say about the ending? I actually found it horrified that the concept. I know, they don't explain to us what it means. But in my mind, she's just floating in the ether now and her body is a vegetable.

So it's like, get out there. Okay.

Yeah, And now not even that, but Dean Stockwell now is stuck with the notion that everyone has said to him, you shouldn't be encouraging this in her, and the doc even says to him, she's got all these things, what do you have?

I've got her.

So the horror here is that now he's caused this thing and this crisis of supernatural conscience. This, I don't know. It bothered me. It worked on me at this ending. What can I tell you?

I get it you and passionately describing it I think made me appreciate it a little bit more just now, because it did a very poor job in expressing.

It's Dean stockwell Man. He's just so goddamned expressive.

The best part of this episode.

Oh my god, he's amazing. I enjoy any chance to see him, and he elevates everything. And I don't think. I don't think the script does him and deserves. Too often on this show we've had really like Powerhouse guest stars who have been ill served by the script. I don't think the script will served anybody here. I know, I understand the problems you guys had with it, and I understand them.

I don't know.

I just this one just vibrated on a different frequency with me for some reason,