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Just the night got Welcome back art lovers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast.
I'm vandom alone and with me here in the gallery as always are the
culture cast, Chris Statue, You and other people you know may be werewolves
more at nine and the projection booths Mike White that snow is pretty secret,
pretty silent. And this episode we're gonna be talking about Night Gallleries Season two,
episode five, which aired on October the twentieth, nineteen seventy one,
and was broken into two segments, The Phantom Farmhouse and the Silent Snow,
Secret Snow. Before we get into it, I just want to say what
an intro man that they had zoomed in on that mirror and Rod is like
walking around about the thanks. He was the most dynamic opening of any Night
Galler I've ever seen. Yeah, it was like straight out of airplane.
There's that scene an airplane where he walks where Robert Stack walks out of the
mirror. It's the reverse. They should have done that. Oh my god,
they really should have started going for it. Like, Rod, you're
not doing anything with the writing anymore that you want to play around? Yeah,
oh I don't. I want to go home. They're holding me against
my will. Let me alone, please, but I love of God,
just let me cash my checks and go home. From this picture, one
wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story of love. But that's precisely what it tell
us about the emotion as old as men. But the object of the emotion.
This is not quite as familiar. It's title Phantom Farmhouse, offering number
one in the Night Gallery. Now, the first segment is called the Phantom
Farmhouse. This is by Halston Wells, based on a short story by Seabury
Quinn and directed by janeau jouarc starts David McCallum, David Karradee, 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 ventriloquists 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 promote him anyway, but Las Vegas is,
Oh, Jeff Dunham. You mean that's right, 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 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 Karrady. Maybe it's the Satanist. I don't know, like 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
those listeners. I didn't come up with this all right, So now somebody
by the name of Seabury Quinn did, and then somebody named Halsted Wells adapted
it. Then somebody named Jane Swark directed it. Those three names together should
give you an idea of the well where we're going with this. It's pretty
all over the point. You know what, though, if you beat the
original short story Seabury Quinn, who was not like he was a writer here,
like all of his contemporaries were the Weird Tales guy, so it's like
Robert E. Howard and you know he Lovecraft and yeah, like all all
of the sort of the giants as it were, and he created a character
named like Jules de Granden, who was like a paranormal investing 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 like law lawyer, like that was his
primary function. Like he published a magazine called Caskets and Sunshine or something.
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 FRENCHI 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 and 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 like kind
of 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 house out there, just a ruin. And then
he continues going visiting with the girl and her family, and then there's this
business with people being attacked by wolves in the thing, like talk of it,
but none of that is sort of put together forthrightly. It's basically is
he insane or not? Is the 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. So they are a family of werewolves
and they are dead, so they're ghost wolves or were ghosts or something.
It ends basically the same way. So there's no there's no character like feeding
these people or like luring them, or there's no warlocks and all this other
shit. It's they kind of like let him know that that family who lived
there were sort of renowned as potential werewolves. Stay away from there, and
they are, and she's it's so it's more of a like Romeo and Juliet
with the two war factions where her parents want to eat him and the rest
of them think he's crazy and trying to keep them apart, and then she
makes the sacrifice just exercise me and my family will go away and the countryside
will be fine, but I'll lose you. But if I stay with you,
I'm going to murder you because I'm a wolf. They at 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. I'm
glad you did. The only note I have is crow noises and two random
French dudes. I mean that there are crow noises up the wazoo in this
episode. Perfect segue there, Chris, Mike already knows where we're going with
this. Another thing I like to point out in these episodes of the second
season to our 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 it's it's about twenty five years old at this point.
Here. It is, ladies, gentlemen, you probably know that from everything.
Uh most 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. This it appeared in a segment called Bongo,
which was part of a fun in Fancy Free in nineteen forty six. So
there you go. We love you single, Classic Wolf. You're you're joining
Castle Thunder in the pantheon of sound effects here. Um. I like this
episode a little bit. I like I did like how off off kilter it
seems and I don't know what's going on for so long like it. It
had the feeling of the sort of abstract a set at the beginning when they're
all on these pads, you we find ourselves in an asylum kind of,
but everyone's outside and they're all groovy, and they're on these pads that are
wrapped around these 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 Karradine 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 like this Lauretta Lynne wig that's been
bottle blonded and like, oh, her bangs are great. The bangs on
that wig are just chef's kiss spectagua. And the dress itself this like voluminous,
like 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? Like, 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. What's the weird thing about that is it's like
they could have you know, her parents are dressed. It could have been
faked. It could be nineteen seventy one. 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 she's not at a cotillion or anything. She's like, they're poor like
her parents, and she's a were wolf. Why does she even have the
dress? It doesn't make sense. She a werewolf or she a dog.
Well, they couldn't afford dog 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. You know, this is like
a two day shoot and yeah, and according session have swarked like the dogs
were like the nicest dogs in the world. They wouldn't even want to chase
anything anyway, So it's kind of impressive that they've got any shots at all.
But obviously they're where dog ghosts. I guess they're Wolvey ghost tens.
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 the there's a
quote from Big Trouble Little China. Eggshan is like talking about all the different
disciplines that they're all drawing from, and he's like, you know, Buddhism
and Confucianism, and we take what we want and leave the rest like a
salad bar. That's what this felt like. To me. It's like,
well, they are where wolves, so we'll put you know, you got
to have the pentagram on the hand. But they're also ghosts. But like
it is titled the Phantom Farmhouse, so there must be phantoms involved, the
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 ec 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 Kardeen came out of the tree, I
was like, well, 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 Krtey hops down off of the
thing, he tries to and then they kind of curtail he does he not
say cocaine anyone, I swear to god. He says it twice like 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 scene,
He's like cocaine anyone and then leaves. Maybe I'm wrong, I should
read the script, but that's what I heard. Maybe that's what I wanted
there, that's what you wanted David carradeen to say. It feels like he
would share. Yeah, I mean he seemed like a groovy guy. By
the way, hippie slang seems so natural coming out of David Karrety, and
like all of that dialogue could have been the worst if it weren't him,
and like 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.
Well, because David Carradey is a great actor. Yeah, was still sorry,
damn it. And speaking of damn it, stopped doing Day for Night.
Everybody stop. You can't do a were wolf story and do Day for
Night. Just don't even do it. Yeah, well, 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, I mean they're not going to get a
big lighting package out there, like you know, 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 there's some poetical looking shots in there,
like that, it's a nice looking it's a nice looking episode. When
McCallum's first like venturing into the forest, like there's a there's a scene of
this lamb like 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 like you know, the reversal lot with most obvious lighting in
the world, the sun, just because they needed needed for speed. But
like he managed to get a couple of like cool shots. There's another one
sort of at at the mid point where they're on top of a hill where
all the sheep, where McCallum walks down and sort of 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
Bates Motel like behind them. That's what it looked like to me. It
looked like where they like the older pictures of the Universal back a lot tour,
That's what it looked like. The set like the set that they were
on. It looked like just out there and the Universal like where they shoot
stuff like this. It's I mean, you know, it's like where you
guys gonna shoot over there. Look, this is not the best part of
this one. It's it's it's okay. You know, it didn't. It
didn't insult me. I was more confused, and then by the end I
didn't care. Well, it just it kind of just ends. Yeah,
it just kind of 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 kind of ended too, but it worked better than it just kind
of ended. This one just goes and that's it. It's like, okay,
all right, I guess it's over now, moving on. Why even
use wolves? Just make it her ghost and eats people, you know what
I mean? How about we're all vampire. Let's do vampires there. That's
a ghost and a wolf together. Stop and vampires are what like five cents.
You just get a little teeth. That's yeah. If you if you
even need the teeth. I mean, you just cover up the face or
you know, Catherine Deneuve and the Hunger. We didn't mention the Finger'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. Does 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, is the traditional lore. But like, guys,
we get it. We're not going to get a transformation sequencing. We
only have dogs instead of wolves. But like, we don't need to feature
the one thing you could a fart stop. They did it better on Cole
Shack with Tom Scarrett. Yeah, it's very similar. Like they couldn't do
wear wolves in that episode. So he's a dog, so they're dogs here,
all right? Sure, much more what it works, way better episode
though, the Coal Chack episode. Oh yeah, I've been just for scares
alone. We're allowed to offer in the Night Gallery a painting that brings to
life a literary classic from the pen of Conrad, A fragile, lovely pointing.
It's titled Silent Snow, Secret Snow. All right, our next segment
is called Silent Snow, Secret Snow. This was written by Gene R.
Kearney, based on a short story by Conrad Aiken, and directed by Gene
R. Kearney, starring Ours starring Orson Wells, Elizabeth Hush, Lonnie Chapman,
and Rodimus Para, who would go on to play a young David Kardean
on Kung Fu. This is a short film. It is a young man
effectively retreating from reality into a wintry world. What did you think of this
one, Chris? Before watching this segment, I did not know who Conrad
Aiken is was, but Rod Serling really made a big deal out of him.
I'll tell you that much. We'd like to travel now to the magical
world of Conrad Aiken. I was like, Oh, Michael, what is
this? This must be this must be something special. It's pretty good.
I think the gimmick of having Orson Wells narrated was the smartest thing about this
segment. Clearly, I don't know sure it works in this show, but
I think the story and what they're getting at maybe a little too heady for
this show. That's probably my concern is that the story is a little it's
not it's not what you expect it to be if you don't know the source
material. And then when it ends, I know for a fact it works
better in the source material because I did read the short story, and it
works way better in the short story. Like the short story makes the short
story makes this look bad by comparison, like very undercooked and undercooked adaptation.
That's what this makes it look like. But it still works, I think
for the most part. I mean, you of mine, I probably should
have read the short story, because I just wasn't following this one. I
mean I was following the story, but I just wasn't invested in this one.
I almost wish that it would have just been Orson Welles narrating the whole
thing, get rid of all dialogue, just have him say, you know,
his mother didn't understand, and his father was eerily familiar, like he
had been in a thousand different movie, and you can't quite put your finger
on which one it is. But it's like, I just I wasn't getting
the vibe of this one. So I was just kind of like, all
right, yeah, the kids were treating, and he keeps thinking about snow.
I was pretty nonplussed that Dad that we all sort of recognized from something
or other. Lonnie Chapman, I know him because he's in the Benecheck Pipe.
He was a bartender in the in Benecheck. I understand that the heart
was in the right place when they made this, and I think at the
time it was probably revelatory. I mean, you weren't certainly not expecting this
from Night Gallery. And I agree with you, Chris. If it's Orson
Welles and his voiceover, and you could have peeled that off and I could
just listen to it now and I would have a better effect than I got
from the episode, which is not in any way a slam on any of
the performers. I think they were all really good actually, But it was
a stock footage festival as what it was. It was a backlot covered in
fake snow and then a thousand shots of real snow from a million different sources
and not all that skillfully montaged. And I do like what they were going
for, and I do like a story of you know, sort of ferreting
out alienation and sort of you know, lack of you know, or a
dissociative sort of disorder like this, you know, it's it's worth discussing,
and they are handling it. Well, it's just it's not boring. It's
just it's what you said, Mike, Like, I couldn't connect to anyone
or anything else because there's just too much going on. We're listening to Orison
Wells and we're looking at these things, and we're listening to dialogue and none
of us, none of this is clued in on the kid. Really,
like we have to connect with this kid in order to follow along and understand
that this is a this is actually a nightmare for him. Well, we
keep seeing everyone's reaction to him. The kid seems perfectly happy disappearing into his
own skull, and like maybe some stakes for him would have would have would
have done it or released this as an audio. Well, and it's weird
that the director had done this before. This is like his second shot at
this. At first, I was thinking it was like a Currence at Owl
Creek Bridge where they took the short and just kind of you know Twilight Zona
fight it. I was like, oh, they took silent Snow, secret
Snow and they night galllerized it. But no, that was from like sixty
four, and I don't think that Wells was involved at all. And I
watched part of it on archive dot org and yeah, it's it's not the
same thing. It's black and white, it's totally different. But it's like,
oh, okay, I guess you just really like this, Gene r.
Kearney, you want to do it again? Well, and it was
something he'd already done, so like, you know, hey, I'll do
it with a budget now. And I can't get Wells, but like,
where was the progression? Where was the evolution? It's like, seven years
later, you get to remake your thing, make it awesome, right.
I honestly think that the short story is too good to adapt it like this.
It's it's I don't even again. There are plenty of things out there
that are, you know, unadaptable. We've heard it with all kinds of
things. We hear it with stuff like Dune and Watchmen, and they have
been adapted to varying degrees of success. Something that I really liked the book
of and I think the movie does a pretty good job, but I think
it has the same problem as This is No Country for Old Men. I
think works really well as a book but when you watch the movie, there
are parts of it that feel very literary in what they're doing, and they
don't work very well in a film context. I think this is one of
those things where the short story is really good. The short story is talking
about important stuff. It's talking about mental illness, and it kind of gets
trivialized in this and in a weird way that I know Conrad Aiken didn't intend.
I was thinking, you know, this is fifty years ago, this
episode sort of thing, and like the fifty years of knowledge that we have
now like it, you know, everyone's sort of turning and looking at this
kid, like what the hell is wrong with this kid? You know,
like it would be probably caught and treated now right, you know, there
would be some segment of this kid like losing his mind and has to retreat
to the snow. I do feel like, I gotta say, the initial
segments where we're getting into the kid's head where he's like he's counting the steps
of the mailman coming down the street and now he hasn't hearing it like that
did feel sort of manic and frenetic early on, and then it just kind
of turns into this beautiful wintry wonderland and like dispenses with all of what was
actually going on and what actually might have been more beneficial as a viewer to
understand what this kid's going through, because like it does trivialize it because it
makes it seem like what a wonderful place to escape to, you know,
it's like the end of Brazil. Like at least he earned that. Yeah,
I didn't understand. I understood the message in the short story, but
I did not. I didn't understand the message that they were going for in
this segment, and I don't understand how Jean Kearney didn't understand it this time.
This is it's odd to me, that's it. It's just odd because
you would think, like we've already mentioned, if this is your second crack
at it, you would have a better grasp of what this is and what
it's and what it's going for and what it's getting at and what the message
of the story is because this is a story that is heavily was meta and
I'm metaphorical, but it's it symbolic, very symbolic. Yeah, I get,
I get, I guess, but it's like it's it's it's light with
how symbolic it is. It's almost the The adaptation is very light on the
mental illness. The story short story isn't and I think that that is where
this weird disconnect happens, is they they can't outright get at what they're getting
at in the short story in the episode segment, and that is a problem.
Kearney's coming at it from a romantic sized sort of point view, which
is the fucking not the point, Like you're you're missing the point of this.
The snow is a neg gut everything except the actual meaning. Right,
good job you missed it like you did everything else, but except for making
us understand what the fuck the snow is meant to stand for, right,
which is all he cared about. I guess, you know, yeah,
I think he was just trying to show off, maybe get a film career,
like it's a hell of a show piece, you know. I think,
particularly at that time that you know it is allouded episode, people remember
it very fond and people talk about this episode and like, fine, it's
there's nothing wrong with it. It's just I don't necessarily subscribe to it.
And I think it's a sort of an archaic view of mental illness at best.
Well, on the way Rod Sterling plays it up at the beginning of
the segment, it makes it sound like it's going to be some grand musing
on something and it ends up just kind of spinning its wheels and having nothing
to say when the source material is rather clear as to what it's getting at.
Well, we're gonna play a preview of the next episode. We'll be
right back to wrap up Painting number one, about a man who spends a
night in a haunted house. An unbeliever, if you will, who,
by don believes the name of the painting is a question of Fear. The
name of this place is the Night Gallery. Oscar Wilde said something to the
effect that if there were not a devil, we'd very likely invent him.
He serves many a purpose, and this grim visaged character here is proof of
that. Rather bitter Pudding, a story that tells what happens when evil collides
with the evil. The painting is called The Devil is Not Mocked. That's
right. On the next midnight viewing, we'll be taking a look at season
two episode six that's broken into two segments, A Question of Fear and The
Devil Is Not mocked. Until then, where can we all be found?
Gentlemen, let's hear Chris where ding Way Media dot com, This show and
many more. If you can't find something to listen to on weirdingwaymedia dot com,
well you didn't try hard enough. It's you, not us. It's
you. It's on you. It's not our fault. You don't like to
be entertained, it's your fault. Right? Does that be the slogan?
That's on you? All right, ladies and gentlemen, until next time the
gallery is closed. I'm actually going with I think it. I think it
works. Yeah, it works very well