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Light and shad, Realism, Surrealism, impressionism, end of a storage
and interest in the pond, blow a good elenship towards the desire. And
this place is nothing if it isn't a desire. There's no admission, no
requirement of membership, only a strong and a plighting belief and depart at the
top of the stairs or the things that go bump at the night. The
name of this place, you would commend your actually definitely out of the rank
the night. Good 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 Malone and with me here in the gallery are the Podcast of Powers.
Mike White Hello, also shining as his Bollywood cinema clubs, Chris Stash
Here did you feel that rush of cool air? Past year? This is
season two, episode twelve, which aired on December eighth, nineteen seventy one.
The episode is split into three segments. Was our cool Air, Camera
Obscura and quothe the raven? Painting Number one it has to do with death,
usually the last chapter in every Man's Book of Life. Ye 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 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. Cool Air was
written by Rod Serling from a short story by HP Lovecraft and directed by Janos
Swark. Twenty two segments, Gentlemen, Jeno Swart, twenty two segments.
Least it's not Jane Keiarney. Wow, thank god it's not Gene Kiarney doing
twenty 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 Rodster. Oh, yes, such a great, great
movie. This is the tale of a May December romance. What do you
think of this one, Mike? It left me cold? Oh bing bang,
Yes, I was waiting for that rim shot there, Chris. Yeah,
there we go late on the uptake around here. We just got the
sound bore. Uh. 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? Like, 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 joke, auld dially be called boy.
They love HP Lovecraft, don't they? They really really do. I
mean, look, I'm not gonna say, oh, at what a weird
HP Lovecraft story to adapt, because look like HP 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 winners 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 icebox. You know what, Sure, fine,
whatever, but that's like a ten minute episode segment, not a twenty minute
segment, like good good lord. And I'm you know, not to jump
ahead, but I'm not sure that that criticism is not going to be leveled
against both of these segments. I think they're both too long for what they're
trying to do. I think this one is way too long for what the
punchline is. And look, I'm not saying the punchline doesn't work. It's
it's sufficiently campy and kind of goofy, but way too long, just way,
way, way too well. It also doesn't help that it feels so
similar to the one we just talked about on our last episode with them,
the woman that was Oh wait is that the one? Was it a woman
that was being menaced by that thing? Or am I completely mixing this up?
Yeah? Also HP Lovecraft right, and it's like 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 it's a shame that they they're on the heels of one
another because the romance respect is not present in the original HP Lovecraft story.
And I actually think it's an improvement by Rod Serling in that regard. And
if you read the original story, there's a lot of like, you know,
he's supposed to be from Spain, so it's all phonetically written like oh
elite l etli. 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's another unnecessary wrap around, just like the Pickman's model and
the last one, which starts in the present for no reason and then takes
us back like that. To me is the lamest part of it is the
surling concoction that we're going to see the leaves blow off the top of the
gravestone at the end and realize he's been dead twice. By the way,
who put that there? She put that 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 at the Night Gallery podcast.
I guess this isn't the podcast has high production values. This show doesn't.
Is this the backlot? Oh? Speaking of the backlot and high production At
one point, like this starts. It s a period piece. It's set
in the nineteen twenties, and she's in the back of you know what is
you know, basically a horseless carriage as a like driving down the street and
in the background the street is blocked off by a Universal Studios van. Oops.
Oh geez, I mean, what are you? What are you implying?
Father Malone? Maybe shoot the scene at night? I thought you were,
like, what are you? Are you implying that they fruit stand back
there or like two guys carrying a pane of glass anything other than a vehicle
from nineteen seventy one just sitting there like, hey, folks, the tour
is right right this way. Hey, who was asleep at the wheel at
this point? H that's the question. I blame Jano. But Jane did
do something really cool here. There's a there's a conversation scene when they're sort
of falling in love it's a minute and a half pan around the dinner table.
There's a joint in it, but it's it's really masterful considering all the
other limitations that they're sort of saddled with. Also, the music in this
episode, uh, this was a guest composer, guy named Robert Bain.
He was an LA session music musician, was actually Henry Mancini's guitarist, and
he was specifically chosen by Laird to do a Spanish flavored theme for this episode
and actually works really well. As far as I'm concerned, is this episode
about because soiling made it of romance? Is this now a tale of necrophilia?
Jeesus necromantic? Rod? Certainly, I'm just saying. I mean,
if we're if we're talking literally, then yes, well, 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 Sterling.
Yeah, But I mean the concept, you know, 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
so 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, you know, when you think about it that way, boy,
it really puts it all in perspective, doesn't it. You know what?
Hey? I I wish the payoff was in an episode half the episode segment
half the length. That's really it. Like, it's not a bad segment,
I just don't think it gets to the point fast enough. And also,
like your stall, as if we can't kind of figure out what's going
on, Like, was anyone surprised at the end that he was a corpse?
Like they kind of you know, hint at it a lot like a
lot, 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 that guy in there with the you've got ice in the bathroom
just pulling all these faces like he's you know, yeah, I don't know,
like he's auditioning. He's late stage Leslie Nielsen. Boy, he was
bad. He branched out a bit this evening and move a few feet away
from the usual and get into the area of photography. Now, this painting
here had best be viewed in the 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 things are and a hellish vision of what
they were and shlby. Our painting is called camera obscura. All right,
Our next segment is called Camera Obscura. This one was written by Rod Serling,
based on a short story by Basil Copper, and this one was directed
by John M. Vadam. This one stars Renee Abo Genoir I just love
saying his name, and the always incredible never heralded enough mister Ross and Martin.
This one was as about a greedy financier who was introduced to a client's
hobby, an optical illusion that's hard to shake. Which you think of this
one, Chris, I love was well, what a name? What a
name? Huh? What a recent loss? Jack passed away like two years
ago, a year ago, something like that? Yeah he I yeah,
never had the chance to interview him. Tried but never got him. He
was the narrator for my favorite two favorite authors who write books together. He
has been doing the voices for the narration for like ten fifteen books. So
that's what I know. And I know he's from Deep Space nine obviously,
but playing against the type of things that I've seen him in and the roles
that I he's playing an asshole like and it's it's weird because normally he's not
I mean, in in Boston Legal, he wasn't that character either. He
was kind of the voice of reason in Boston Legal. So I like this
segment. It's fun, it's fine. It's it's very similar to another segment
coming up in a lot of ways. It has a certain kind of feel
to it, and it's a very similar setup to things that you could see
as recently as like you know, I'm sure they're still making things where the
conceit is you're stuck now goodbye, like I'm sending you into the past.
Like that's that's a pretty stock and trade conceit sometimes with these like Twilight Zone
and anthology shows. So for what it was, I think it was fine.
That fake mustache, that Russ Martin is wearing it's pretty bad like giant.
I don't know, is the facial hair that they gave him is pretty
funny to look at. Um, you mentioned some of Renee Aberson was credits.
Are you not familiar with his television sitcom Benson that he was on.
Nope, Okay, this is the Pretty Day too. Obviously it was late
seventies early eighties, and he was pure asshole and that I know him from
that show, and so to me, Renee aber has always has a level
of asshole because of that. Yeah, he really helps save the segment.
I I didn't get necessarily why Ross Martin was in that really really bad old
man makeup because I kept thinking like he would show up because he basically sends
Renee Aberginois to the past, and I was just like, oh, so
young Ross Martin is going to show up here and be like hey, and
like have a community, you know, have a conversation with him and be
like see the errors of your ways, because it's very Christmas carol Um,
the way that you know you're seeing the errors. It's very ghost of Christmas
yet to come type of thing with you know, the people with the horror
makeup on and you know, oh you remember me, and or he was
actually doing that to them. It'd be like, oh you're you're dead and
you did this and you did this, and so I was just like,
oh, great, Ross Martin's gonna show up. He's gonna you know,
show him the error of his ways and then maybe he'll let him live and
you know, say you forget about the bill or whatever, I'll help you
out or something. But didn't get any of that stuff. I mean,
I like Ross Martin as well, you know, one of my favorite Colombo
villains from the suitable for framing. But yeah, I don't don't think he
had enough to do in this one. And no, yeah, yeah that's
still stick. Yeah that stands out still. You've touched those paintings. I
do like when you Were Gone, I did mention Ross Martin's hilarious fake facial
that's just like old fucking Yosemite Sam, Like, oh, just give him
the fakest of fake mustaches that he could not twirl, but he could if
he wanted. He looked like that skull that walked onto an elevator last episode.
I'm just so used to Ross Martin as Artemis Gordon being a Master of
Disguise. It was just that that vein, so I didn't question it that
much. But I'm glad I didn't, because had I thought gone down the
path that you did, Mike, I would have been very upset at the
end of this episode when he didn't reappear somehow in this nightmare realm that he's
cast. He just pulls off the mustache. It was this segment. There's
a new cinematographer on Night Gallery. His name is Jay South, and I
think this episode actually looks really good considering it's on the back lot. Leonard
South was the DP on Family Plot, Hitchcock's last film. He also did
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. I don't know how that keeps coming up on
this gun, and he did North Avenue Irregulars, one of my favorites.
This was shot on the back lot. Shut up every time it's I mean,
at this point, it's got to be a running gag on this show
because they're not even trying up anymore, Like, Hey, what do we
got on the back lot? What what can we do around these like four
fucking locations that we've got, And if it's not New York, how can
we make it look like in the last episode we talked about Pickman's Model,
which takes place in Boston during the nineteen twenties, and it looks a lot
like Victoria Green's London. Here, Baby, like they just went up those
stairs, they'd run into Pickman and that little gremlin running around with its stick
leg Bret for Dillman. Everybody goes Mike, you mentioned Christmas Carol, and
I thought, this is the This is the Christmas Carol for me where Scrooge
has to face all of his sins. Yes, like, this one makes
more sense to me, and therefore I liked it a lot more. I
do think it's over long by a lot. But the sequence where he's where
Renee Abajoir just like saying it is running across the street and the horse and
carriage is barreling down on him looks great. And I know it's just a
quickly lopical effect there, but it's a very tense sequence. For a moment
or two, I was actually fearing for Renee of Jonnoir's life. Yeah,
I wanted to counter at this point. As it turns out, Jack Leard
wouldn't give them the money to do that sequence, and John Battam tracked the
producer down and said how much would it be? And they told him it
was fifteen dollars and it was like, oh okay, yeah, like how
can we know have fifteen dollars blackout sketches, baby, that's what we need
that money for. That skeleton needs a good looking wig and a hat.
That entire cost down. You know, I do like this one. I
do think it's overlong, and then certainly can't help over explaining the ending.
It can't just cut to Ross Martin like gleeful that he's done this thing and
going, no, he has to tell us what happened there. You will
be trapped whatever I've trapped you in my camera obscure scoff. That was pretty
good. Yeah, that was a pretty good old man, Ross Martin with
a big mustache. There's a lot of really close up shots of his face
too, Like that's why the mustache. That's why I mentioned the mustache so
much, because like it's like all I can think of is like, he's
just this giant mustache and these two eyes. That's just Ross Martin. Yeah,
you looked like Maverick from the Warner Brothers cart too. And where's that
Manick, come here, help me out with this rabbit dart over here.
Maver just says that big mustache and the big hat and all as I can
barely see it. I don't even think you see his eyes. There's a
moment where uh that there's a shop window gets broken and they cut to a
gas lamp exploding. It was great. I like, I like when Renee
Loss gets thrown back into the past and he uh he sees the guy up
on the lamp and he's like, is that gash? Is that gas?
By? Yes, my good man, it is gas. Oh lord,
I know what I've been like, what year is this set in to begin
with? I was so confused, like he went back in time like what
thirty years at least? But didn't he go back in time at all?
Really? Like that's what I'm asking, Like, wouldn't he have been like,
well, it wouldn't have been like this is gas? Like yeah,
like right. That's why I don't understand, like they didn't. I don't
understand what the gimmick was when it, like you said, it didn't seem
like he really went back in time that far. If that all said is
that gas, and the guy could have said no, it runs on blood,
because you're not wrong. It keeps clogging up their heads too. Yeah,
I mean because yeah, when he goes, I considered it going back
in time because it kept saying like this building isn't here anymore, and this
building isn't here and dada. And then but he runs across people where he's
just like, you know, oh yeah, well basically this is going to
what's this is what is going to happen to you. But then he also
runs into people where they're dead, so they've lived their lives and now they're
dead, and like they might have died during his lifetime, but they weren't
dead when he was a kid, you know what I mean. So that's
one of those hazards of time travel they never talk about. If you go
into the past, there will be ghostly zombies of the dead. Oh,
it's just like if you go into the future, more locks, right right.
Give it to Rod Sterling to over explain the most obvious of episode segments.
You know, ultimately, if he's not telling me what happened, I
just don't understand the twist. But Badham does a good job here. Yeah,
I would agree. Bham's always been a solid director from the pen of
Edgar Allen Poe of More or Less Quoth the raven Our final segment is called
Quothe of the raven written by Jack Laird, directed by Jeff Corey. This
one stars Marty Allen and a Matt painting from Roger Carman's Pitting the Pendulum and
also stars mel Blank in an uncredited role. And also this this is a
blackout that comes with a sterling introduction, which makes me I noticed that,
I thought, is this from the syndicated package and it's now found its way
to to the to the regular episodes because more of that? Please um this
look it's it's you know, this is a Playboy cocktail party joke with Marty
Allen. Marty Allen, Man, oh man, I missed the Marty Allen
train. I mean, I don't know the origins of Hello, Dare.
I kind of don't want to. I mean, maybe I should go back
and buy some comedy albums from Martin and Rossi but or Allen and Rossie,
I should say, but yeah, man oh man, that you just again.
You see that fucking joke coming from a mile away and him with that
crazy hair just doesn't They're not going for very similitude with how Poe looked.
Ladies and gentlemen. Imagine, if you will, I have to have my
time wasted to introduce a blackout segment. That's all I'll say. Rod Sertling
look look like like he was being held at gunpoint to have to do the
intro for this segment. I mean, that's that was my takeaway was it
was? That was the stray just saying about this, was that he was
doing an intro for the like this is the only time he's done an intro
for a blackout segment, I believe right. I assume it's because it's Edgar
Allan Poe. Maybe he tends to gravitate towards the classier ones like this in
Ron's serials, estimation is a fine horror joke to make, not pulling your
head off to be chivalrous. Here's what I have to say about this segment.
I saw this young enough that and knew the raven as a poem,
but didn't quite work out some of the imagery in my mind. So this
was the first time I realized what a palid bust of palace above the chamber
door actually was. Oh, it's a statue of I got you, so
thank you Jack Blaird for that. He signs his name Edgar Allan Poe.
He spells it all N, which always gets my goat. It's a real
pet peeve of mine. But this is Marty Allen doing it, so we're
gonna. I'm gonna give it a pass. It only works, I mean,
it works if it's him, only him, Yes, because you know
Allan could pull that off. You know Edgar Allen Poe. His name is
Edgar Allen. He was adopted by the Poe family. His name is actually
all An, so it just makes me nuts when people think it's his middle
name, like Alan, like Alan Quartermain or something. Anyway, you and
Allen, you, you and you and Edgar Allen Poe fan father Malone.
You strike the scoche a little bit. Are we gonna get? Have we
gotten an actual Poe story in Nike Gallery? Is that a thing that happens
at any point? Or is this the h Is this the closest we get
to touching, to touching that level of Gothic? Well? I think this
is its closes. I don't think they adapt anything of his directly. We've
gotten some hints of his work prior, but It's good to know that Edgar
Allan Poe has now entered the the Universal Monsters a Lexicon as a touchdown to
bar sitting right next to Dracula and Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opic.
I mean, I guess they did the cask of Amontiado rights, which they
claim in that one with the the I who bought the Ghost House. It
was kind of the pit and the pendulum type of thing. And the case
can be made that HP Lovecraft's cool air is a tank on pose facts.
In the case of m Valdemar, it's very similar, so he's all over
the series. It's just not in any direct way other than troll like Marty
Allen playing with the look. The only redeeming thing for me here was hearing
mel Blank's voice at the end, like, ah, that those are some
tones. That was nice And I'm glad you pointed that out because I was
like, I think that was him. I love a good blackout sketch,
don't you uncredited? If it had been like if it had been ten years
later, it would have been yeah, definitely right. All animal noises in
this film were made by Frank Welker and nobody else again. I find it
interesting. This is now the second episode in a row that we've had the
blackout sketch end the episode. They've done that a few times now and again.
But like, is it a tree, No, I don't mind it.
I don't know. I don't know if there's better suited in between or
at the end. I view it as kind of like an after dinner mint
that you go out to the door with. It's it's the little spice mix
at the end of the meal at the Indian restaurant as you walk out the
door, Like it's just it doesn't need to be substantial. That's the point.
Like, I guess you could also see it as similarly a palette cleanser
in between the two segments. But I mean, I think it honestly works
best to just lead you out the door, give you a little chuckle on
the way out. Well, I think it. You know, it needs
to go where it needs to go, because if you're going to begin the
episode with the boy who predicted earthquakes, then you need a blackoutschtummediately following.
Don't put it at the end. You need to recover a little bit and
and you know, when the episodes are just sort of mediocre as they've been
putting them. At the end is a nice little like, you know,
pad on the back, like we're just kidding here, come back next time,
right, Sorry for wasting your time. It's the treat that they send
you out of the dentists office with. They drill your mouth for an hour.
Enjoy. When you're a kid, it's something fun. When you're in
an adult, it's a fucking it's a fucking toothbrush. It's the same thing.
All right, we're going to play a preview of the next episode and
we'll be right back to wrap things up. Of course, you're all here
by invitation, but don't let it disturb you if these paintings per se don't
happen to be you a thing. These are rather special paintings, the kind
of hanging generally put up with a noose. This painting, for example,
is of a rather special world. What has become perpetuated in the language as
the ghetto, that dismal realm of push kinds and poverty, where hopes are
stamped down like dirty shoes on snow. Death is a commonplace visitor to these
somber alleys, but occasionally someone else visits. Our painting is called The Messiah
on Mutt Streets, and this place, should you not already know, it,
is the Night Gallery. We all of us have a kind of fascination
from mirrors. There's a most appealing mystery to what is on the other side
of a looking glass, and occasionally we turn into Alice. Our last selection
Tonight's gallery a very special looking glass, and it's called the Painted Mirror.
That's right on the next midnight viewing, we'll be taking a look at season
two, episode thirteen. That's broken into two segments, The Messiah on Mott
Street and the Painted Mirror. Until next time. What are you working on?
Where can people find it? Mike White oh Man, Everything that I'm
working on that can be found over at Whirlingwemedia dot com. That's stuff like
the Projection Booth, that stuff like well ranking on bass. You can find
the old Cold Check tape series. There just all kinds of good things,
so new and old. Oh gosh, six hundred and thirteen old episodes of
the Projection Booths something like that just go nuts. You get a few hours
of entertainment out of that. Apparently Father Malone listens to that while he's working
I do, I do, and I encourage everyone to do so as well.
Where can people find that? Oh, I'll just ask Chris, where
can people find your stuff? Same place Weirdingwaymedia dot com where Father Malone,
you and I went into the went into a vault of a different direction with
some chronicles from the Crypt where we talked about tales from the Crypt all the
way through. And we also do the three of us do Dreams for Sale,
which was us talking about another anthal. We have a lot of we
could do a anthology series podcast network at this point for Buck saying like we're
putting in the effort in the work so that the good episodes are highlighted in
the bad episodes are skipped. Because boy, yeah, that's where you can
find a weird Away Media. There's a lot of other things there, you
know, not anthology stuff. You can hear my anthology radio drama Dark Destinations
over there, which you can find it Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's uh,
that's where all the stuff is. Gang. Thank you all for joining us
here at midnight viewing. The gallery is now closed.