Weally hate pigment, light and ship realism, surrealism, impressionism and those stories.
An interest in the odd quare a predilection towards the bisire. And this
place is nothing if it isn't a bizarre There's no admission, no requirement of
membership, only a strong and applighting belief in the dark at the top of
the stairs or things that go a bomp at the night. The name of
the place you you have committed your accidentally out of the ring is the night
Gad. The Welcome back art Lovers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery podcast,
where we discuss Night Gallery Rod Rod Serlings follow up to the Twilight Zone.
I'm following alone and with me here in the gallery are the culture casts.
Chris Stassue. Let me get this straight. Lady, your husband is killing
you, Okay? I hate my wife and the projection booths. Mike White,
Not that's it. Ornel Wilde is here with us right now. This
is season two, episode nineteen. It aired on February ninth, nineteen seventy
two, making it their Valentine's episode. This one is split into three segments.
Those are deliveries in the rear Stop killing Me and Deadweight number one entry,
a painting that suggests a story replete with gaslight, handsome cabs, and
cadavers. An all star cast of corpses appearing in what we call Deliveries in
the Rear, delivered to me now on night Gallery. Deliveries in the Rear
was written by Rod Serling and directed by Jeff Corey. Stars Cornell Wilde,
Rosemary ForSight, James Metropole, Human Chucky Cheese, Animatronic. If I've ever
seen one, Peter Whitney and a young Gerald McCraney very briefly tell us the
tale of a surgical professor who's procuring specimens for dissection from less than reputable sources.
It's just the ory, birken hair, but from the perspective of doctor
Knox or in this case Fletcher. And did you know that to a strangle
someone while kneeling on their back, thus compressing their lungs, is known as
burking? No, it did not, anyway, What do you think of
this one, Mike, Yeah, boy, oh boy. Well, you
know this is a common theme for this show. If anybody's listening to more
than two episodes, this one was pretty long. Saw that ending, saw
that twist coming quite a ways away. But I liked Cornell Wilde in this.
I really liked the Grave robbers as well, especially that guy's teeth and
the use of all of the wide angle the fish eye lenses throughout so much
of this. I thought it was decent. But and I liked the twist
at the end, even though it was telegraphed. But yeah, it just
it went on for a little too long for me, how about you,
Chris, everything Mike just said and then but in a Cockney accent. See,
it's one of these things where again similarly to the last episode we talked
about with the aiding Room, if you know the main character has a significant
other in this kind of story, brother, that significant other ain't making it
to the end of the story. The joke I wanted to say when you
brought me on earlier was what's in the box? Because it's pretty much the
same fucking gag the more what's in a coffin or what's under the sheet,
it's the same thing of you're about to find out just what happens when you
tempt fate. Buddy, you know, you work with disreputable types and your
wife gets murdered because she's the only one wandering the streets of London at night,
conveniently, as they would say. But in this kind of story,
that twist makes sense because it's the Twilight Zone. It's just I don't need
thirty minutes of it again, just like the waiting room. Just brevity is
the soul of wit, is something a wise man once said. Rod Serling
apparently don't give a singular fuck about William Shakespeare or whoever said that. It's
probably Shakespeare, I'm assuming. Here are my first two notes, where are
we? Everyone is English except the core protagonists, followed by are we in
England? I don't get it, Mike. I'm sorry I have to disagree
with you. But Cornell Wilde seemed to be not remembering his lines the entire
episode. I've said still liked them. I still like them. I've said
in the past Startling's pension for overwriting dialogue is an asset. In the period
pieces I mentioned in the last episode, it's no truer than in this episode.
I think this. I think the story is two on the nose,
and it takes us way too goddamn long as usual to get there. But
it didn't make the trip any less enjoyable. It's way more enjoyable than any
Sterling's attempts at contemporary storytelling. What trips this one up for me is Cornell
Wilde, and it's because he Embonnie's a contemporary acting style or straight out of
fifties acting style that is so jarring that it shakes the episode apart for me.
I do think it was beautifully shot. Jeff Corey. Every time each
episode as the series progresses get better, earned better. The lighting is moody.
There's so much shadow and silhouette, which takes time, which they had
no time to make any of these episodes. He frames every room with a
door or window, framing the performer. It starts with doors, ends with
windows. It's subtle, but by the end it's like a creepshow comic book
frame behind behind Cornell wild just thought that was incredible. If I could be
a nitpicking asshole for a moment here, this is burkenhair. Basically that was
eighteen thirty eight. Mannequins weren't created until the eighteen forties. I know they've
been Milliner's statues since the fifteenth century and everything, but that's not what Rod
meant anyway. It is a nitpick, I would say that rod Serling at
this point only operates in pedantic storytelling, and I don't understand why at all,
because again, we know if there's anything that rod Serling can do other
than smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and look suave while doing those two other
things, which is hard enough as it is, he can write stories that
have an impact, that have longevity, that have a timelessness, and yet
for some reason it seems like he left it in the sixties, and I
just don't understand because for me, in a lot of ways, Night Gallery
felt like a promise that has never been fulfilled, which is the twilight zone
of the seventies. And in a lot of ways, everybody butt Rod Sterling
has made good on it. Like the show Night Gallery. I've been really
enjoying watching it, obviously, but rod Sterling's episodes keep coming up as the
ones where we're like, rods Sterling, what's going on, man? And
we know a lot of the backs, behind the scenes stuff. But we've
had two episodes now back to back where it's been rod Sterling has told it
half an hour story and it's it was a good story that went way too
long. His complaints of being edited. I wish they had. Yeah,
yeah, this went it clocked in like fifteen sixteen minutes, be really,
really good. I'd have no complaints at all the fact that we're left another
twelve minutes of people talking for no good goddamned reason, because we're stalling for
the big twist, because that's what this episode is all predicated on, the
big twist that it's the doctor's wife who he's ended up having murdered inadvertently.
Though he gets his come upance right, but I don't know. Yeah,
i'd like that whole little speech at the end where it's just people say that
you could do well, that's not true, Bob, Bob Botton. It's
like, Okay, you're laying it on way too thick, your buddy,
so for sure that's going to be your wife in there. I the actor
Ian Wolf that was in this. For a hot second, I thought he
was ned Glass from the last episode, so I was like, oh,
cool, he just shows up and sells weird stuff here, but then it's
weird as I looked up both of them on IMDb, and both of their
IMD p dB pictures are from episodes of Berniey Miller all roads converge. It's
spooky, it isn't very spooky. Or maybe we're all just too focused on
a particular time and place in American broadcast television history. Perhaps question why we're
so focused on the seventies. But yet Barney Miller, Colchat Columbo Night Gallery
Dreams for Sale doesn't count, but it is based on a show that took
place before. So yeah, we love the seventies and not the VH one
way. No, I don't have any quips. Where's Danny Bonaducci making funny
laughs or some contemporary person who wasn't even around during the seventies and they're just
shocked by things you had pet rocks. This is a thing, that's a
thing, really Yeah. Painting at number two in the Night Gallery addressing itself
to the strains and stresses of the married, 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 Hal Dresner
cool Hand Luke's Hal Dresner Zorro the Gay Blades. Hal Dresner kind of a
slide whistle situation there. This one was also directed by Jeno 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. I mean
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
like it works here, so she is so harried with him that he is
just fuck. Yeah, I see why this is late. It is like
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 on me. But seeing him here is great. He's fun.
She plays that character great. He plays that character great. And I
love that they keep focusing on the photo of his wife on the fucking desk
because it is the funniest thing. Reason. Yeah, you're right, I
see, there's no one whatever think divorce. It's Oh my god, this
guy is just so pent up and angry all day. Huh, he's just
been waiting for someone like her to walk through his door. And I love
that kind of storytelling where it's like these two people were faded to be in
this room together for ten minutes and it totally works. I wish that they
well. Janot's work 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, she will turn to the side and start
doing her husband's voice, not like literally saying what he's saying, and then
cut back and she'll move back. And they did that a few times,
but then they just started doing it kind of willy nilly as far as where
she was going to turn to the left, to the right, to the
strait to wherever. I wish she had been a little bit more consistent with
that, because I thought it was a good device the way it ended up
overall, I still liked it, but it just I thought it could have
been a little bit more powerful as far as that went, but I thought
that was nice and I also like that to your point, Chris, we
have to spend this time. We have to take this time to hear the
basically psychological warfare that this guy has been waging on his wife, letting her
know that she has very little time to live, and when the payoff happens.
I complain a lot about, Oh, we know where this is going
to go. I was really looking forward to this going where it went to.
This one is a flip side not of Satan but of 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 at the show, which always love I think.
I think Geraldine Page is so electric here in that scene that those moments
in particular Mike, where she's pantomiming her husband and we keep cutting to this
unknown point of view. It's ultimately the viewer's point of view, or her
point of view, because it's the husband talking to her and being servered.
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 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 d O
A 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, that's
interesting, like she's astral projecting or something. So I took this in a
whole different way, but I ended up liking where it went, which was
not supernatural whatsoever. I thought that too. I thought that too when she
said that, because it's like, oh, like because again, like 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. That's so really in blue.
Yeah, 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. Like 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, a little like a minute.
Feels like I was gonna say, I mean 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 of 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. So
it almost it feels like they gilded the lily just a little. I'm not
saying it's perfect, but it's a pretty good segment that is just too on
the nose. I think it's twice as long as it probably should have been.
But I'm not in any way read it because I would watch Geraldine Payne
do just about 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
vale all right. I like the idea that James Gregory is. At one
point, he's like, 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, Like it's
just again, like 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 like
that. These guys can supply all the information we need to know by James
Gregory. 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 Lugar
big gay. Well that's why he's got to kill the wife. He's come
out, you know. Yeah, botom alone. Just two highlights off of
mister Gregory's career. Won the role that he played in Manchurian Candidate. He
was the husband what's her name, Angela Lansberry? Really good role. Yes.
And then the other one is General Ursus I believe is his name from
Plane of the Apes, Planet of the Apes. Yes, yeah, that
voice, man, he's so he's so good. He's great in this.
As a two person segment, the bottle thing we got here for fourteen straight
menuts. These two could have taken another fourteen. Honestly, if they could
have had some machinations added to this would have been perfectly satisfied. Here we
have a cameo dandy problem. How to flee the coupe, how to make
tracks away from the police and unhappy peers ship out two. Safer claims the
story of a chap who, if he'd had it to do over again,
would have remained where he was. He finds out that he is precisely what
is the title of the picture, dead Weight. Our last segment here is
called dead Weight. This was written by Jack Laird from a short story by
Jeffrey Scott and directed by Timothy Galphus. This one stars Jack Albertson, Bobby
Darren, and Foghorn. Foghorn, that's right, one name like Vampiro or
Mishu. At first I thought this was from Treg Brown's Warner Brothers Sound effects
library. Turns out Hannah Barbera. Although I could have chosen a dozen different
sounds of horns here from a dozen different libraries, because they are layered non
stop in the background of this episode. If you're listening with headphones, all
you were hearing was was foghorns an occasional bubbling, which turned out to be
a water cooler, and that was actually a really good payoff. But oh,
by the way, because I have to I'm a monomaniac and I have
to research everything. Foghorns are actually called diaphones. They were invented by Robert
Hope Jones in eighteen ninety four. He was the creator of the Wurlitzer organ.
Wow, I'm disappointed leghorn wasn't mentioned in any form. I know,
like first she heard foghorns and letting heard leghorns. Yeah, anyway, I
don't want to correct you anything, but James Metropole also makes an appearance in
here as delivery Boy, one of the worst performances of an extra art war.
While he's not an ex ray, he's got a few lines. He's
terrible. He's absolutely awful, just the reaction shots that they let him do.
And I personally I blame the editor because you get off of that guy
as soon as possible and get right back over to Jack Albertson because he's putting
on a show even when he's not even saying anything. Just that face is
fantastic. James Metropole, shame on you, man. Remember I remember in
Cool Air. The worst part of that episode, which was a pretty good
episode ultimately, was the fucking delivery guy. He shows up for a two
scene one scene, just says a few lines of awfulness and then I'm out.
Just came to ruin this moment. By this one's the tale of a
gangster on the Lamb and the exporter who he approaches to help ship him out
of the country. Continue, fellas, I know we're all gonna say the
whole thing. Bobby Darren looks like Kevin Spacey he played in YadA, YadA,
YadA. I would actually put out a piece of information that I couldn't
get out of my mind as I was watching it. Bobby Darren in this
episode segment looks like Jeff Bezos with hair and a mustache. And it freaked
me out the whole time I was watching it because he just looked like Jeff
Bezos with hair and a mustache, and I couldn't get it out of my
mind. Obviously, we know Kevin Spacey played Bobby Darren. Whatnot Bobby Darren
the least convincing gangster possible as far as I'm concerned, Because yeah, that
that elephant waits three. Can I just say that as first of all,
Okay, just wait till season three and it's glorious anyway, go ahead.
This is pretty glorious in and of itself, though, because Bobby Darren.
Someone was like, what are the most trophy stereotype things you could say as
a gangster, like all the things that they have him say, and then
so I think he died like the next year. If memory serves, this
was like one of his last performances. Man. Yeah, that mustache was
just hilarious to me. And I know that Johnny Fontaine was based on Frank
Sinatra, but I just kept thinking of Johnny Fontaine while I was watching this,
and I just kept waiting for somebody to grab them be like like a
man, you know, such a weasel. Oh he was such a weasel.
Yeah, just that everything that went on. But he does a good
turn, especially when he talks about shooting that little kid and the clothes up
they give him. I was like, oh, that's really good. I
kind of like this, but was it as good as the fish eye on
Jack Albertson's face. He's okay, everything okay with you, You're right,
everything okay. He tells that story to Jack Hamerston. Jack Hammerston replies,
that'll teach the little rascal not to play hoockey, right, so good,
But he actually, he says, I guess. He even goes as far
as saying like, I guess that'll teach you. Like he's like, are
you playing a game with me, like, no, I'm just being a
dick to you, because like Bobby Darrenson deliver every line like he's out of
breath. Did you notice that? All right? He's really worked up,
like like he just ran up to the to deliver these lines very quickly.
Every time he's not on not on screens, he's running in place or something
like that. Couldn't quite figure it out. I do think Kevin Spacey is
a better Bobby Darren than Bobby Darren. Actually, oh, I get what
you're saying, Chris about the resemblance to a later thing, but Jesus Christ
couldn't get that out of my mind the entire time. Is Kevin Spacey right?
And it was like, luckily I have been here, he would have
been I mean, he's problematic. I don't want to see him anymore,
but like his performance would have been better than Bobby Terence. I am so
glad I avoided all of that. Like when Kevin Spacey announced that he was
going to do that when he was like what fifty sixty years old, and
Bobby Darren died when he was thirty seven, I'm like, yeah, no,
I don't want anything to do with this movie. And then then he
himself a residency here in Las Vegas as Bobby Darren. That's the best part.
Okay, if you're gonna take the joke one step too far, wasn't
a joke? Jokes us for paying to go see it? If we did.
You know, Kevin Spacey does like to take the joke one step too
far. That's what he's still doing barbecue videos. Yeah. I do think
though, as fun as the segment is, I think y'all would both agree
with me. It is a bit of a black sketch. Yeah, it
works only because again, like they have six and six and a half minutes,
eight minutes to tell this, but it is even. It might be
a little he goes around the bend twice Bobby Darren does with the story,
and it's I don't think, maybe you need to tell it again, even
more exasperated than before. I found that very odd, the way that he
reinvents his crimes for a second time. I'm like, we heard you the
first time. He's a dastardly guy, don't you get it? He's talking
about it. I think the idea is that he starts to feel guilt for
it the second time he spills the story but ultimately he's going to be dog
food either way. That I kept expecting this is going to be some sort
of supernatural thing, This is going to be some sort of soul thing,
a thing to care to get his soul or get him a body or something.
And when it just turned out to be like as simple as a glass
of poison right right, and he just falls over dead, I was like,
wow, right on well, And then I kept thinking, in this
is something that we've thought about on here before two what year is it?
And I was thinking was way earlier than that dog food container led me then
to believe. I was like, oh, okay, this is nineteen seventy
three. I thought we were in nineteen twenty six. Might as well have
been this export or import exporter, are you? Yeah? The out of
placedness, out of timeness of the story was strange. I like the gag
of he's a dog, he's dog food now. But I love in a
movie or a TV show where somebody offers somebody else to drink and the other
person ain't paying attention because Jack Albertson does not drink even pretend to. He
just like and Bobby Darren just chugs the fuck it knocks it back and he's
just okay, like all right, you have fun with that. I just
love that because you know he's with settling on a toast. We'll have a
toast to your health. That'll teach a little rascal not to play hockey.
His death, it was pretty fantastic. The way he just like keels over
and dies. It reminded me of something like out of a Saturday Night Live
skit, yeah, or a Monty Python just like right that with the fish
eye lens right before that, right on Jack Albertson's face. Right, it's
hey, they got a lot of milets out of the fishy lens this episode
and the seven minutes. I didn't mind it. I know it's just a
blackout sketch, but like I like the length of your blackout sketches. If
they're entertaining, fill the episodes with seven minutes at black Eyes, it would
be fun. I thought the twist was going to be he like sent him
to like Papua New Guinea or something, because in the seventies it would have
been like, oh, we'll send him to the Bermuda Triangle or something like
buck this guy, you know what I mean, That's what I was expecting.
I was not expecting him to make it out alive because they paint his
character into such a disgusting corner. It's like Jack Albertson's jack Albertson is not
going to not do something, because it's clear that he's very much like on
the up and up. But dog food it was unexpected. Yeah, dog
food, but not a been where. I guess that's gave him everything he
promised. He was shipping them off to South America. Yeah, they're gonna
enjoy him down there. Say he was gonna get there alive or not as
dog food. I'll get there like fifteen years before. The contrast, always
ask your exporter, Am I going to be dog food? It's those are
words to live by. All right on that We're gonna play the next episode
and we'll be right back to wrap things up. Our opening kickoff is deep
into the end zone of the words We're hounds Bay and which is fly brooms
and the belief in the supernatural is as natural as breathing or not breathing.
We call this item I'll never leave you Ever. Our next painting tell us
the story of a young man whose major in school philosophy. But whose extracurriculum
labor has taken into the area of black magic. And for this you don't
get a degree, but the commencement ceremony is a guess see for yourself as
we offer you, there aren't any more McBain's. That's right on the next
midnight view and we'll be taking a look at season two, episode twenty that's
broken into two segments. I'll never leave you ever, and there aren't any
more McBain's until next time. What are you working on and where can people
find it? Mike White, You can always find everything that I do over
at weird Ingwaymedia dot com. That includes my show The Projection Booth, as
well as a lot of other things that we work on, including what is
that Dreams for Sale? That's still going on right I think we got a
little bit of time until the clock finally runs out on that, although by
the time they hear this, it'll be already out. I think, oh,
okay, Well, you can hear the whole series over at Weirdingwaymedia dot
com. How about you, Chris Ash Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. Same place,
all the same, similar things, not all the same things, but a
lot of the collaborative stuff, and then the Culture Cast, where like Mike
does on the Projection Booth, I talk about movies once a week, So
if that's something you're interested in, that's where you can go to find it.
I got a lot of visual stuff over at fondamalone dot com, but
all of my audio content, all of the podcasts I work on, Dark
Destinations and astounding tales of the public Domain and noise Junkies, those can all
be found at weird ingwaymedia dot com. Thank you all for joining us here
at midnight viewing. The gallery is now closed.