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name of this place that you would come in your actually bentially out of the
range is the night Got Welcome back art lovers to Midnight Viewing The Night Gallery
podcast, where we discuss Night Gallery Rod Serlings follow up to The Twilight Zone.
I'm Father alone and with me here in the gallery are the projection booths.
Mike White, Wow, have you seen my Jesus Christ, I blew
that line completely. Have you seen my tambourine and the culture cast Chris Stash?
You don't you know you're supposed to remove your hat around a lady?
And we are discussing Season two, episode eleven, which aired on December the
first, nineteen seventy one. This episode is split into three segments. Those
are Pickman's Model, The Deer Departed, and an Act of Chivalry. HP
Lovecraft, known to the a sacinados of the occult demonology. Witchcraft as a
master's storyteller is responsible for our first selection in this museum of the frequently morbid.
Two connoisseurs of the Black Arts, you will probably recognize it. It's
a painting that tells the story of a young artist who recruits his models from
odd places, and the models are very odd. Indeed, the painter's name
accidentally is Pickman. The title is Pickman's Model. And where else would you
see a story like this except in the night Gallery, all right. Pickman's
Model was written by Alvin Sappinslee from a short story by HP Lovecraft and directed
by Jack Laird, starring Bradford Dillman, who I only know from Piranha,
Louise Cerell, who is in one thousand episodes literally no joke, one thousand
episodes of Days of Our Lives, and one episode of Bannit Check, and
Donald Moffatt, Oh my, oh done, yeah, unbelievably young Donald Moffatt.
This is the story of a young painter and his student and the horrible
thing he's painting that might just be real. What do you think of this
one, Mike? I found this interesting. It reminded me at times of
a Cold Check episode. I don't know why. I guess it was just
because of the weird creatures and kind of I guess maybe christ And reminded me
a little bit of the night Strangler with this like old Seattle, but this
time it's what old Boston type of thing. That's right, kid, and
this whole like mystery that's set up because there's a around this one. And
then it reminded me a creep show at the very end. You know which
segment I'm talking about, the one with Hal Holbrook. But it takes a
long time to get there, Like I wish it this one and I sounded
like a broken record because I said this in the last episode. I wanted
this to get to where it was going so much quicker, and they give
all these explanations for why this artist quit quit painting. He disappeared. Oh
there was something wrong with his hand, da And I don't know when they
introduced the hand thing, but it took a long time for me to realize
that he's got an ft up hand from his poppy. But overall, I
thought it was pretty good, better than I thought it was going to be.
How about you, Chris? Is it weird that within the last six
months this was adapted again? Was it really? Yeah? It was in
Garabel del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosity. My friends. Oh wow, how how
does it compare? This is way better? Okay? I mean what's funny
is, obviously, when you have the source material of HB. Lovecraft,
you're you're setting yourself up, I think, for success because HB. Lovecraft
is a fantastic author. So the source material is good, as they would
say, the body is willing, So the source material is really good.
So they have to do a lot to really fuck it up. And I
don't think that they do. I think they tell an interesting story here and
use the source material in an interesting way and I've never seen Bradford Dilman and
anything else. And he's fine. Oh oh oh, I'm sorry to call
you a liar, but I'm gonna call you a liar right now, sir.
He just got murdered on the Greenhouse Jungle episode of Colombo. But he
is such a weird milktoast factor that he could be anybody, like, oh
my god, you're right. Yeah, he has like he's he's nothing.
He's just this weird heard cipher because I've seen him in a thousand things like
the Mephisto Waltz or Escape from the Plane of the He's the guy think gets
murdered then, yeah, yeah, he was the guy that that. Yeah,
spoilers for the Jungle, but yeah, he has nothing to do.
I think he had spoil episode fifty plus years old. Yeah, it's Rimlan
knocks him off, but yeah, you're right. Well, I mean he's
given a lot to do here, thankfully. Again, I don't think it
matters rising to the occasion or not. He's fine. But we follow the
female character a lot more than we follow him, so she's definitely the protagonist.
Yeah yeah, yeah, what about you, Foughtlan? What do you
think I liked it overall. I thought it was sufficiently creepy. I love
seeing Donald Moffitt so young, and just the ability he has the ability to
just spill out exposition like it's actual dialogue. Like, yeah, it's really
impressive. Like I had to rewind it and watch it again, just just
because nothing he's saying is essential as a character in the real world talking as
a human being. It's it's all basically narration, and he makes it seem
like it's just effortless. This episode takes and I'm from Boston and this episode
takes place in Boston. It's weird. It doesn't take place in Arkham.
It shows to set it in the North end of Boston, which is the
at least when I was growing up, that's the Italian section of Boston.
It certainly wasn't some sort of bohemian paradise on the on the shore or anything.
So that was a little weird. And then when they go to show
us what that part of the city actually looks like, it's the European portion
of the Universal back Law. So that just really tickled me that, like
that's what that can pass, and apparently it did. I also really liked
Bradford Dillman's Tope leather gloves. I'm talking a lot about costumes lately. I
don't know why, but like they're coming more and more apparent, like how
good the work is in the costumes in this so I like those a lot.
You know, we end up getting a ghoul, which I was so
excited for. Chris, you and I have tangled with ghouls in the past
over on chronicles from the Crypt their versions of ghouls, and we dealt with
the Monster Club and their versions of ghouls, and they gave us a pretty
good one here. I think the goal when it finally shows up facially,
it lives up to those paintings, and I think it's really terrifying. I
was so pleasantly surprised because we've talked very recently about you know, oh yeah,
this thing turns into a worm and you can, you know, jump
in this other room and see it, or that big spider that we saw
a couple of episodes ago, and it's just like, these are laughable effects.
So I was just going, please don't show the creature, Please don't
show the creature. And then when they showed him, I was like,
oh, wow, he actually looks really good. This is a great costume,
the face worked, the little rat tail that he had worked, that
kind of big, weird like possum body that he had. I was like,
this, actually they're pulling it off here, folks. They could have
shown him a little less. The skinny leg sticking out of what is like
a muppet body that he's wearing. That it kind of turns it into a
luchador flick for me for a second when opened in their break Yeah, exactly,
Like that was really scary, and you're what you were talking about earlier.
The sort of the sequence that reminds you and I of the Crate from
Creep Show, which is the last shot of the crate is the last shot
basically of this where we get the thing's eyes like it's still there waiting.
I don't know why we needed a wraparound segment in this very short episode with
the bargain basement Victor Buono. That was that was weird. Also in this
thank You, he's so reminding me at Bueno thank You is this guy renting
in the wrap around segment because he's just claimed everything he sees. He's like,
I found this painting, it's mine. And then they go into the
basement and they're like, what's in there. He's like, I don't know,
maybe paintings. Give me that pickaxe, and he just starts like this
isn't your house man, You're just moved in what I actually, I actually
find it interesting that this episode was an episode within an episode within an episode.
I guess an episode with yeah, right, because yeah, it's a
segment within a segment within a second. Because it's a segment of this show
and then there's like two segments inside of it. It's very strange. I
don't know if it works, because I don't know if I needed the stakes
of the monster gets out again at the end, like I just assumed that's
what was going to happen. I don't think I needed to have it explicitly
shown, because it's not that it doesn't add anything or that it somehow detracts.
It's just I don't know, like it's kind of unnecessary. It's like
it it's like they sacrificie telling parts of the actual story to have these dopey
wraparounds with two guys who we know nothing about other than yeah, one of
them's like, this is just it's just mine now, Like yeah, no,
dude, No, that's not how this works. That's not how renting
works. Just for the house and look for these paintings. Okay, Yeah.
It feels to me like Sappensley wanted to, you know, get not
distance from Lovecraft, but like, you know, to update it in a
way to make it for people at the time, with that wraparound. But
if you're going to do that, then just do it in nineteen seventy one.
Like, we don't need all the Victorian trappings to enjoy HP Lovecraft.
It's the ideas behind it, not not the time period which it was set.
That's actually a stumbling block in a lot of in a lot of ways.
The scene where she's exploring his studio, I thought that was really good
and really tense, you know, the shining where she's looking through the I
don't know had I had the same feelings. I thought that was really good.
Overall. I'd liked this episode a whole lot. Also early on jack
Lard like Iris is in on Louise Sorel to like get us to another scene,
and I loved that it was great. Also, she's really bad at
fake laughing. Got a lot in the episode like to try and like suck
up to her favorite artists. Also, there was one line of dialogue he
says to her, which is, did you not hear me when I said
I I had no need of human company? And could you not understand why?
I imagine HP Lovecraft said that a lot to anyone in circle. They
probably heard that a few times. I like this more than the I guess
my question to you guys, do you guys like this more than the other
HP Lovecraft story that they've done, And they're going to do another one,
the last Rites of Doctor or whatever, just talking about all the old Yeah,
it's a lovecrafty in story, right, I mean it's it's not a
Lovecraft written story, but it's the closest this show's scotten so far to Lovecraft.
Yeah. I like this one better, I think because it's the other
one. That one felt like a blackbout skit that went on for way too
long. Yeah, that other way half the length of this one, and
ed was boring. This one moved right along. It was really good.
I dug it. Yeah, I'm with you, guys, I agree that
this was This episode was This episode tegment was a lot of fun, and
once again Donald Moffatt hotly lard. Oh boy, yeah, and he was
almost unrecognizable with those big old mutton shops that he had going on. But
as soon as that voice started, I was just like, Oh, he's
going to tell her to let him all familiarize suppose with media and seances,
a slightly curdling nocturnal event in which the dead come back to visit through the
good offices of a middleman or a woman. It's a sport that lends itself
to table tappings, some ghostly manifestations that float transparently across the room, and
a few distant supplical voices. This painting offers a new side of the familiar
seance because it tells what happened when the seance is successful. But the appearing
dead isn't the one expected offer. Do you now on the night Gallery The
Dear Departed? Oh, it feels like forever since we since we had our
last segment. This next segment is called The Deer Departed. This one was
written by Rod Serling, based on a short story by Alice Mary Schneering,
and directed by Jeff Corey. Back again. This one stars Steve Lawrence Maureen
Arthur, who was in one of my favorite episodes of the Monkeys called the
Aliens Mickey Dolans. It also stars Harvey Lembeck, who was Eric von Zipper
and all those Funicello Beach movies, and he was also in one of my
favorite Monkeys episode that was Monkey's Alacar. This one is a tale of a
tree of supernatural hucksters and the proper way to hold a seance? Mike,
what did you think of this one? I was frustrated by this one.
I I'm so. I watched Nightmare Alli, both the Del Toro and the
original, quite a few times over the fall when I was doing an episode
on for the Projection Booth, and I kept being reminded of that movie while
I was watching this segment, and I have to say, there's no comparison,
and just again, I feel like a broken record. But I could
really see the end coming. I just knew as soon as I figured out
that Harvey Lembeck was being cuckolded by Steve. Steve Lawrence almost said Steve Harvey,
which would be a whole different thing. Once I found that out,
I was just like, oh, Okay, well he's going to come back.
But I thought that I mean this, it's there's a punchline, and
it's like the punchline. Once that happens, then the thing is over.
Oh hey, he's back. But I'm like, no, no, he
needs to be there and make their lives miserable, and like it felt like
it was eighty percent of the setup and twenty percent of the payoff or maybe
even ninety ten, and it should have been much more, or like fifty
fifty, like get to him dying a lot faster. We don't need to
have all this stuff. And yeah, I don't know who would be fooled
by these seances either, um so, and I was just like, oh
cool, he's actually back as a ghost, the ghost of Eric von Zipper.
And man, oh man, did Harvey Lembeck start to look real old,
real quick now that he was a spring chicken and real quick? Oh
my god? Unrecognizable almost you know, the voice like you know, obviously
snaps us back to who exactly this guy is. But at the same time,
wouldn't have picked him out of a lineup. No, he used to
look like a young Buddy Hackett and then he just he got real No.
I completely agree with Mike. It's it's strange because you would think more of
the payoff would be the focus of the episode, and the payoff is like
two seconds, not even exaggerating, like less than two seconds. I don't
it's I I don't understand the setup being ninety nine percent of the episode because
the payoff is nothing. There is no payoff at all. Everyone is doing
fine. I mean, I don't know. It's We've we've seen this before,
entails from the crypt. We saw this with the what's the actor from
Animal House and I think it's Catherine Moriarty, even Peter Riegert, No,
the one who plays the d n oh John Vernon, and it's it's I
think it's called I think that episode is aptly titled seance even if memory serves
so, I've we've seen this before and this isn't very good, but it
is in the same ballpark of all of these other kinds of seance. Con
Men sayance things because apparently there's no such thing as a real seance in in
entertainment. They're all con men all the time. Yeah, you know,
and I love as saying on scam those those are great, you know,
like family plot or seance on a wet afternoon, even that the Wegim movie,
that prequel where they like they said it in the seventies, like and
that was all about like a psychic scam artist. I love all of that,
And this one started out promising, even though it was some haunted mansion
ship. They were trying to pedal on these on these rubes, like the
floating tambourine. That is exactly what I thought of. Thank you so much.
Let us know you're here by ringing a bell. I did write this
note they're falling for a mannequin head with crape tendrils. Wow. Um,
but these people are you know, desperate and grief stricken that we'll give it
a pass there. But ultimately what ends up happening is what you guys have
already described, which is this feels like the first act of an episode of
Night of Night Gallery and instead it just ends, and there's we don't is
there is it an implied threat that he's now going to kill them, because
otherwise I don't see how this is a detriment. They have a genuine ghost
now in their little medium act. They can make a fortune, right right,
I mean yeah, because he doesn't come back and it's just like,
hey, you've been cheating on me with my wife or like that would be
great. It comes back and haunts him and just like you know, becomes
like the when Patrick Swayze's trying to get Whoopie Goldberg to you know, go
talk to Demi Moore, that whole like where he's singing Henry the Eighth over
and over again. That would be great if he's just there torturing these people
for having screwed him over in real life. But we don't get anything like
that. We don't get any payoff at all. He just sort of appears
and we're like, Okay, well we knew that was going to happen.
What what else? Yeah? Got here? And I enjoyed this episode exactly
till the moment where Harvey Lembeck spills out this thing like I'm not good enough
for you guys, like you should go on without me, you don't need
me. Then it became obvious we were watching another Rod Sterling episode that just
sort of overly dramatic, like basically like a retirement speech. Also Rod wants
across and he loves to nail himself to it all the time. Whoe is
me? Whoa is me? Like, shut the fuck up? It's but
it's it's it returns all the time. It's like ever President Sterlings. Sterlings.
Episodes of this show always feel very tongue clucking. He's got to have
the downtrod in every man, but this particular every man. Is he just
like incredibly needy that he's acting out this way or does he feel out of
class? Like it's not like Steve Lawrens doesn't actually need him, you know,
and speaking of which, like they're having an affair behind his back,
but like he's in the in the scene we're introduced to him, he's like,
I'm gonna quit. I'm not good enough for this bye, And Steve
Lawrence says, yeah, like what about your wife? And he's like and
he literally says, oh, yeah, Angie, I didn't even consider her
like you all have exactly yeah. I mean, look, he came back
for her and couldn't even use his powers of deduction to realize that she was
banging Steve Lawrence the entire time because I don't understand, like what I just
don't understand, Like I don't understand the ending at all. Like he's like,
oh yeah, like okay, question Mark. He's like, now I'm
dead. I know the whole story, Like you know I didn't take it
that way. No, I mean it wasn't as overt as it let me.
It wasn't as overt as it normally is with the show like this one,
especially when it's written by Rod Good old Rod, you know what I
mean. That's more what I'm getting at. It's normally more over. This
was just like it needed ten more seconds, fifteen more second, one more
line of dialogue, me like, really like one more line of just like
give us the intent behind Harvey Lembeck's character. That's all I'm saying, right,
And it's like Steve Lawrence, God bless him, but he plays smermy
really well. I don't like him as a nice guy because I just don't
think he's a nice guy. So if he was more smarmy and more like
Noah, I mean, he's super sincere when he's talking with Harvey Lembek in
this episode, and then he's being just kind of like a normal dude when
he's scamming these rubes. I really wish he had laid it on way thicker,
Like this is one occasion where I'm just like, overact, please overact,
yeah, for the at least in the big fantastic ending by the way,
a fishing line strung to a wooden pedal. It's clumsily shoved under a
rug. Oh that's fool proof. Good work, guys, Yeah, I
like it's Yeah, that's where you're so hung up on Father Malone. You
can barely see the strings. Okay, barely see the strings. Yeah,
look at this card I'm levitating here. You don't see the fishing wire at
all. Where's the piece of wax on my phone? If they're gonna give
us the abrupt ending where it's like I'm back and I know the truth and
that's our payoff, then at least they can't They shouldn't be lame brained right
before it happens, like they didn't need any of those effects. They needed
her to go behind the door and do voices and that was it. These
people were already on the line. So I don't know, like, what
are we supposed to take away from this and that, you know what,
Ultimately they're they're being punished, if they're being punished at all, because it's
very vague, but they're not being punished for fleecing grief stricken people looking for
any solace that they can grab up and deserve. It, man, Come
on, yea, that's the that's the that's the tact, that's the angle.
Our friend Rod is taking those poor bastards with a dead child. Fuck
them, Fuck them. It's not their story. Ultimately, it's the grifters
story. The ghost could have at least painted an a on their costumes,
the on their wardrobe. Steve and Laureen, why would you're You're giving Rod
Serling much too much, too much credit, sir, literary devices. How
dare you he knew a few, you know, he knew his stuff.
But god man, he's faltering. Yeah, faltering, And but jame on,
Jeff Corey, by the way, for letting those accents go through those
I'm just a dizzy Gary Ol kind of thing. Oh yeah, I was
really really curious as to what accent Steve Lawrence was doing. I Steve Lawrence,
which is all he needed to do, And all I wanted from him,
And all I wanted from Harvey was just Harvey Limbeck and that woman just
that from her. That's it. We don't have to pretend we're in fucking
Playhouse twenty or whatever. The fact that's fair. No Night Gallery is slightly
distorted version of history. An act of Chivalry. An Act of Chivalry written
and directed by Jack Laird. He's now an autour. This one starts at
Dedre Hall. Here's my description that I wrote down. Ugh, oh boy,
might have finally reached the moment of Okay, I can see why everyone
was bagging on the blackouts for as long as they were. It's it's now
piling up. Come on, you're telling me that it is. The episode
is worse for it not just ending with the deer departed. Okay, okay,
Oh that's all I'm saying. It's a moment of levity in an otherwise
kind of you know, first part, this episode's fine. Second part is
middle of the This is a nice little note to go out on. At
least it's not another universal monster. Yeah, I was really surprised by that.
Instead, it's just a skeleton. I mean cheap. It's cheap.
Everybody where people still Fedora that that heavily would it still look like madmen everywhere?
Like, well, that's the thing. I just like that. It's
it's just this is a period piece, Okay. I like how the My
favorite thing is that the Fedora just has the wig essentially glued and it and
they just put it on top of the skeleton. They're not even trying.
I mean, hey, when they're being lazy, they're being lazy and lazy
and gentlemen. Rod Serling, Oh, this is all Jack. His name
is on every single one of these blackouts, more or less, right,
pretty much, him and jam gene Kearney seemed to be the main offenders.
Alvin Sappens League jumps in every once in a while. Right, Yeah,
And that's pretty much all I got to say about this one. I'm not
even we talked longer about it than we did to the leg I think your
review is correct. All right, We're going to play a preview of our
next episode and we'll be right back to wrap up. To the shoppers,
the hunters, the sifters, and the winnowers. To those of you who
comprise that vast fraternity of picture watchers, we offer you this salon of the
special and the supernatural. Painting Number one. It has to do with death,
usually the last chapter in every man's book of life, the ashes and
the dust, the tomb and the engraving on a stone death the finale.
But our first painting offers up a tail with the final curtain not quite the
final curtain. There's an epilogue. We offer you now a little item called
cool Air. Tonight's first painting in the night Gallery. We branch out a
bit this evening and move a few feet away from the usual and get into
the area of photography. Now, this painting is here at best be viewed
in a dark room because it conjures up the ghostly, the ghastly, and
the ghoulish. It tells the story about a very remarkable device that offers up
a vision as things are and a hellish vision of what they were and shall
be. Our painting is called Camera Obscura from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe
of More or Less Quoth the Raven. That's right on the next midnight viewing,
we'll be taking a look at season two, episode twelve. That's broken
into three segments, cool Air, Camera Obscura, and Quothe the Raven.
Until next time. What are you working on and where can people find it?
Chris Stashu. They can find it over at weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's
that's where you can hear me and so many other people, including our good
friend father Malone, who does he does, he does the audio bumpers for
this great podcast network of ours, isn't it. I mean, the dulcet
tones of Father Malone are heard at the beginning of every single show, and
you can find all those shows over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. How about you,
Mike. You know, I keep hearing you guys doing this whole podcasting.
I think I should probably get into it one of these days. So
maybe if I got a great voice for it. Oh wow, thanks.
Maybe, you know, if you guys have room on this weirding Way Media
thing, I'll, you know, kind of join you with that, if
that's all right. I heard the Projection booth needs a new host. You
want to you starring? Well, this is Stepan. Sure sounds good.
I'll take it. Sold. As for me what they said, It's all
at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Everybody, Thank you all for joining us here at
midnight viewing. The gallery is now closed.