Speaker 1: Will you wait begin?
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Midnight Viewing. It's one of our patented
Speaker 2: holiday specials, and this one's all about love you crazy kids,
Speaker 2: We're rounding up I realized that's my other show and
Speaker 2: kind of a plug, but I'm good with it. We're
Speaker 2: rounding up all of the best of Night Gallerries segments
Speaker 2: dedicated to love and all the terrible consequences to be had. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a Valentine's Day special, so I'm tempted to
Speaker 2: dive headfirst into the manufactured nature of the holiday and
Speaker 2: how it like all initially pleasant days meant to focus
Speaker 2: on friendship or family or your beloved and turned it
Speaker 2: into a money grubbing cash grab. But it's all a
Speaker 2: cash grab lately, So let's not be cynical, not with love.
Speaker 2: I mean, the segments we're gonna be talking about are
Speaker 2: terrifically cynical. It's Night Gallery Gang. But we are not
Speaker 2: listening in the spirit of yeah, but what can you do?
Speaker 2: Or hey, that's the way life goes? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we are celebrating love, you and I, and no amount
Speaker 2: of scientific theory about dopamine or early conditioning can explain
Speaker 2: away the genuine magic when it comes to love, nor
Speaker 2: can it diminish its power. I think we all need
Speaker 2: a little bit more of it right now. But let's
Speaker 2: not forget the cynicism. We'll need that as well. To
Speaker 2: that end, I've collected six stories from our time dwelling
Speaker 2: in the night Gallery, all dealing with love and its
Speaker 2: various guises, and all demented in their outcome. So stay strong, everybody,
Speaker 2: and if you think you have no love, especially if
Speaker 2: you think you have no love, rest assured. Love isn't
Speaker 2: a wave, It's a fucking tsunami, and it'll get us
Speaker 2: all eventually.
Speaker 3: Painting number one, it's titled The Dead Man, an interesting
Speaker 3: meeting between flesh and bone, between that which walks and
Speaker 3: that which you should excuse the expression get buried. So
Speaker 3: we submit for your approval of this and other frozen
Speaker 3: moments of Nightmare placed on canvas.
Speaker 2: In this episode, Carl Best's a doctor who has encountered
Speaker 2: an unusual young man who has the power under hypnosis
Speaker 2: to embody any physical ailment.
Speaker 1: What did you think of this, Chris?
Speaker 4: I like that they're talking about something that inherently have
Speaker 4: an interest in, which is the usage of hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
Speaker 4: I think that's interesting. I think it's an interesting place
Speaker 4: to go. Obviously, this is a like you had mentioned,
Speaker 4: this is a teleplay based on a pre existing short story,
Speaker 4: which would lead me to believe that I understand now
Speaker 4: why it was such a novel concept because it's pretty
Speaker 4: high concept stuff. I liked it. The ending is straight
Speaker 4: out of tails from the crypt Boy amusing, is still
Speaker 4: funny and humorous. I think it's an interesting if we're
Speaker 4: calling this now episode one. I think it's an interesting
Speaker 4: if this is the first thing that you saw versus
Speaker 4: the last thing being the first thing you saw. I
Speaker 4: think this still does a good job of setting the table,
Speaker 4: the stage, whatever you want to call it for what
Speaker 4: is to come, similarly to the way them Terry set
Speaker 4: the stage for the previous pilot.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, I really liked this. I love Jeff Corey,
Speaker 5: and I was so happy when they showed that dead
Speaker 5: body on the table it was Michael Blanche because I.
Speaker 4: Was just like, you're broad your goddamn but they brought.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Broad Barzinski. Yeah, I was very happy to
Speaker 5: see him. That was nice. And yeah, this whole idea
Speaker 5: of the hypnosis, I wish they would have done the
Speaker 5: third segment of the hypnosis to do two where it
Speaker 5: works and one where it doesn't. And maybe they did,
Speaker 5: but they might have just been condensed together in my head,
Speaker 5: because it felt like they really went from this to
Speaker 5: this and the screw up, the accidental screw up, and
Speaker 5: this whole idea of your mind's tricking you and all
Speaker 5: this kind of stuff. I was like, that's interesting, And
Speaker 5: then I did also like that doctor Max Redford is
Speaker 5: just openly cuckolded by his wife, but he seems okay
Speaker 5: with it as long as he's getting his jolly's medically.
Speaker 5: Then it was okay. So interesting, and yeah, I think
Speaker 5: having Fritz Lieber behind the original typewriter, I thought, really
Speaker 5: loaned this some credibility and some more interesting turns and
Speaker 5: we normally would get in a short segment like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: What's weird is this episode and the next one are
Speaker 2: gonna typify theme that I noticed running throughout Night Gallery,
Speaker 2: which we're gonna be looking at marriage a lot. We're
Speaker 2: gonna be looking at marriage in the late nineteen sixties
Speaker 2: early nineteen seventies, shot through from a horror anthology standpoint. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought that was an interesting aspect of this one.
Speaker 2: I too loved the I think the concept of hypnosis
Speaker 2: and coupled with what we don't understand about the brain,
Speaker 2: is a very fertile concept, and we've seen it before.
Speaker 2: This segment all difference to Fritz Lieber actually reminds me
Speaker 2: of an Eggar Allen Post story called The Facts in
Speaker 2: the Case of m Valdemar, where a man is put
Speaker 2: under hypnosis and then dies but remains constant in our
Speaker 2: world but his body is slowly decaying. Felt very much
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, Jeff Corey is the doctor, by the way.
Speaker 1: I love him.
Speaker 2: I love seeing him in anything he is, and oddly
Speaker 2: enough he is. He ends up directing about nine segments
Speaker 2: of the particular series that we're watching. I didn't know
Speaker 2: he was in that prolific director, but I guess he
Speaker 2: and Rod must have gotten along. And Louise Soerell.
Speaker 1: The wife and it.
Speaker 2: She's going to appear later in an adaptation of an
Speaker 2: HP Lovecraft story called Pigman's Model. I love all the
Speaker 2: acting in this, I love the concept. The ending us
Speaker 2: a little forgetting the code is a bit much. I
Speaker 2: think you're right, Mike, we needed a moment where we
Speaker 2: saw him do that once at least once, like the
Speaker 2: second time he fucks it up, and then the third
Speaker 2: time everything works fine, and then we've at least got
Speaker 2: some basis for it happening. But I do love the
Speaker 2: final bit, particularly the sort of use of the flashlight.
Speaker 5: When she goes screaming to ymetery. Good thing, there's a
Speaker 5: cemetery right next door to this house. And then when
Speaker 5: she goes screaming out and she doesn't stop screaming, Oh
Speaker 5: my godness, laughing quite a bit so good.
Speaker 2: And I love the very theatrical banging out of the
Speaker 2: sort of Morse code on the lid of the coffin.
Speaker 2: But when the doctor finally shows up and the sort
Speaker 2: of the one tracking shot and it's handheld, like it's
Speaker 2: so immediate and wonderful. Look that final makeup. It's not
Speaker 2: technically a makeup, it's like a it's a mannequin. If
Speaker 2: it's anything at all, that's not great.
Speaker 4: Little too desiccated to be actual based.
Speaker 1: It's not great, but the effect is pretty fantastic. It's
Speaker 1: pretty creepy. I like it. I did not like the.
Speaker 4: Equivalent to Norma Bates and Psycho. It's that level of yeah.
Speaker 4: But the way it's lit.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, we do need to talk about the horrible
Speaker 2: day for night. However, during that entire sequence, it was
Speaker 2: like day from mid afternoon it was like and it
Speaker 2: wildly like the quality jumped from shot like it was
Speaker 2: like clearly daylight.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly it was night.
Speaker 2: I don't know that didn't do the segment any service,
Speaker 2: but overall I really like this one, and I think
Speaker 2: it maintains the promise from what we got in the
Speaker 2: pilot a year later. They seem to be shooting for
Speaker 2: a bit of a higher quality across the board, which
Speaker 2: I really liked.
Speaker 4: It reminded me of It reminded me of Tales from
Speaker 4: the Crypt episodes as well. It had that very gothic
Speaker 4: feel to it, which I appreciate. I appreciated that, and
Speaker 4: again I appreciate that they have this kind of modern
Speaker 4: idea set in a ostensibly gothic setting. It's this mansion
Speaker 4: on these grounds with the cemetery. I don't know what's
Speaker 4: more Gothic than having a cemetery in your backyard, but
Speaker 4: I would wager that having a cemetery with mausoleums in
Speaker 4: your backyard it's pretty goddamn god. Oh, yeah, I like
Speaker 4: the concept. I like the finale, but I, like you said, Mike,
Speaker 4: I wish there was a little bit more to that
Speaker 4: tension of Okay, is it gonna work this time or no?
Speaker 4: And they just go right into the second one. I'm
Speaker 4: not not working this time. Sorry, whoa, whoa. Yeah, we're
Speaker 4: just getting to know.
Speaker 5: These characters like to that that you don't see the
Speaker 5: finale that it's just the horror of it. From Cory's POV,
Speaker 5: I had a little trouble and I when the door
Speaker 5: was answered and she just looks so rough, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: how long has it been? I wasn't really sure how
Speaker 5: long it was until they showed how desicated. What's his
Speaker 5: name in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is like
Speaker 5: Lance Rock or whatever. But I was so glad when
Speaker 5: they showed just how desiccated he was. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: so it's been a while, But I wish it would
Speaker 5: have been like I haven't seen you in six months
Speaker 5: or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I agree, it definitely needed that. I think they I think,
Speaker 2: like you said, the state of her was supposed to
Speaker 2: tell us that it's been sometimes, but that could have
Speaker 2: been a week later for christ you're that grief stricken.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that needed to be more clear. But I
Speaker 2: got to say at the very end in that shot
Speaker 2: with the flashlight panting around, the shot of her as
Speaker 2: catatonic was particularly haunting. I love a character going insane
Speaker 2: at the end of a horror thing.
Speaker 3: We offer for your approvalless still life, if you will,
Speaker 3: of noise, a soundless canvas suggestive of sound. The mouth
Speaker 3: belongs to Pamela, and life is shrieking battle axe made
Speaker 3: up of adenoids, tonsils, and sound decibels. In death, an
Speaker 3: unmuted practitioner of fishwife fery, undeterred and UnGagged by what
Speaker 3: one would have shown to be the great silencer. Some
Speaker 3: ghosts come back to haunt. Others come back simply to
Speaker 3: pick up where they left off. Our painting is called
Speaker 3: Pamela's and this is the night Gallery Now.
Speaker 2: Pamela's Voice was written by Ron Serling, directed by Richard Beckert,
Speaker 2: and stars Phyllis Diller and John Aston. Only it's about
Speaker 2: a murderous husband who discovers that all too late, that
Speaker 2: the difference between heaven and hell. Chris, you want to
Speaker 2: start on this one?
Speaker 4: Can I tell you guys something funny. Sure, yes, I
Speaker 4: didn't know that that was what Phyllis Dillar looked like,
Speaker 4: Oh really as a did you just know her as
Speaker 4: a tune puppet, an old, older person in her seventies
Speaker 4: and eighties? Like when I saw I didn't know. I
Speaker 4: knew because the episode told me. But I was like,
Speaker 4: that's Phillis Diller. Yeah, like from I only really think
Speaker 4: of Phyllis Dillar when she tells the when she's in
Speaker 4: the what the fuck is that movie? Coped the Aristocrats?
Speaker 4: Oh okay, she's in The Aristocrats.
Speaker 5: She the voice of the queen and as life.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but yeah, but I didn't she didn't look
Speaker 4: like Phyllis Diller outside of that though. Gomez Adams killing
Speaker 4: his wife, come on, John Aston's great.
Speaker 2: Are you saying come on? Like you can't believe they
Speaker 2: made him kill his wife? Or you're saying, hey, no,
Speaker 2: I'm saying come on.
Speaker 4: It's very tongue in cheek, given that his the character
Speaker 4: that he is one more or less known for playing,
Speaker 4: loves his wife immensely, and then this he's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: fuck you, if this is hell, I'll die again. Like
Speaker 4: all right, I love that.
Speaker 5: I grew up with Philip Stiller. Just she was always
Speaker 5: there for the longest time, just always there, TV, movies, there.
Speaker 2: Were so many more variety shows and stuff on TV
Speaker 2: all the time, on talk shows all the time.
Speaker 5: Well, she was even the Monster's mate in the Mad
Speaker 5: Monster Party. So we've talked a little bit about her before.
Speaker 4: Yeah that was bad, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Very bad. But she was just doing Philip Stiller yeah everything. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and literally yeah, because Fang was like the husband, I'd
Speaker 5: be able to remember this one. It really made a
Speaker 5: big impression.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because nothing, nothing happens. Yes, that's the simplicity and
Speaker 2: beauty of it is the brevity.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: To be fair, though, was there any more that they
Speaker 4: could have given us and or that we needed?
Speaker 1: Not really?
Speaker 2: No, Look, it's Who's afraid of Virginia woolf in two
Speaker 2: minutes with Ghosts. Look, it suffers from the rod sterling
Speaker 2: overly writerritis and it is bottled and whatever. But like
Speaker 2: you said, Chris, it's.
Speaker 4: Quick as an overstay.
Speaker 2: It's welcome, definitely, and some of their barbs at one
Speaker 2: another are actually pretty good, Like when she shows up
Speaker 2: as a ghost seemingly for the first time, she says,
Speaker 2: you're surprised to see me, and he says, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not surprised. You showed up everywhere uninvited your entire life.
Speaker 2: Why should anything be different. Now that's good. I will
Speaker 2: say they tread with or they treat lightly. The notion
Speaker 2: at the end, which is this isn't a ghost story
Speaker 2: at all. This is she's in heaven and he's in
Speaker 2: hell simultaneously. Right, That's what's going on here, which is
Speaker 2: really metaphysical and fun for a brief little more. Still
Speaker 2: at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 4: Yeah I didn't. I was having hard time understanding that.
Speaker 4: Conceit her heaven.
Speaker 1: Is just her heaven is torturing him by talking.
Speaker 2: Okay, his hell is being tortured by her from talking.
Speaker 1: It's like an O Henry story in a way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, again, it didn't overstay. It's welcome. John Aston's a
Speaker 4: good actor. He's great in everything. I've seen him in
Speaker 4: the Fright Nerds being one of those things he's okay,
Speaker 4: he's not the best part of that, but he's the
Speaker 4: father of Sean Aston. He's the original Gomez Adams.
Speaker 2: And not only is he playing against type here, but
Speaker 2: he underplays everything. He's really spooky, how quiet he is.
Speaker 2: I've never seen a performance like that from him before,
Speaker 2: so that was really welcome and interesting.
Speaker 4: No, I like this segment a fair amount only because
Speaker 4: it a doesn't overstay, It's welcome, and the twist at
Speaker 4: the end is nice. It's a cheeky little twist it is.
Speaker 1: The jokes are not really that funny.
Speaker 2: I've praised it for landing a few, but I don't
Speaker 2: know it accomplished what it set out to, which is
Speaker 2: a couple hating each other and they're tramped together forever
Speaker 2: and good for them.
Speaker 4: And look, Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five did that. They
Speaker 4: had those brief segments, those little essentially what amounted to interstitials.
Speaker 4: It can work if they know what they're a couple
Speaker 4: of children zoo. Yeah, Dreams for Sale was literally the
Speaker 4: name of the show.
Speaker 5: I never really realized until we started doing this show
Speaker 5: how much John Aston had to do with Night Gallery.
Speaker 2: I know right now because he directed a segment we've
Speaker 2: already talked about. He's in this one, he's in another one.
Speaker 2: I can't wait till we get to that one because
Speaker 2: I remember it being hilarious, Like his performance is so good,
Speaker 2: and I think he directs one more too, at least
Speaker 2: one more, which is a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeez.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't think if John Aston as anything other
Speaker 4: than an actor. So it's interesting because we have already
Speaker 4: seen him direct something and that was okay. I don't
Speaker 4: think he brought anything to it.
Speaker 1: The failure wasn't the direction. No, you did with what
Speaker 1: you could.
Speaker 2: Like the ultimate failure of the Tom Bondsley Steven Spielberg episode.
Speaker 1: It's not the direction, it's the terrible script.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at least here you can't go around with
Speaker 2: two people just throwing barbs at each other and then
Speaker 2: getting a pretty decent twist.
Speaker 4: No, yeah, it's and it doesn't overstay. It's welcome either,
Speaker 4: which is the important part because it could have shown
Speaker 4: him killing her, given us a couple scenes of them.
Speaker 4: I don't need that, Like, they can do that through
Speaker 4: dialogue and it's fine, And they did and it's it's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a rare instance with it's strength to just
Speaker 2: have them talking to each other. It doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: they're trying to skimp on a budget.
Speaker 4: Oh, Dina's is to a room of people talking, and
Speaker 4: that's what this is. It's just everything in this episode
Speaker 4: segment is just much more well thought out.
Speaker 1: You dig boothill baby. I love that line too. He
Speaker 1: just does that.
Speaker 3: From this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story
Speaker 3: of love. But that's precisely what it tells about. The
Speaker 3: emotion as old as man, but the object of the
Speaker 3: emotional this is not quite as familiar. It's titled Phantom Farmhouse,
Speaker 3: offering number one in the Night Gallery.
Speaker 2: Now the first segment is called the Phantom Farmhouse. This
Speaker 2: is written by Halston Wells, based on a short story
Speaker 2: by Seabury Quinn, and directed by Jeno Jouirque starts David McCallum,
Speaker 2: David Carrodine, Linda Marsh, Trina Parks, and Bill Quinn. I
Speaker 2: just want to point him out because the entire are
Speaker 2: you guys at all familiar with the ventriloquist by the
Speaker 2: name of Jeff Dunham.
Speaker 1: He's got this.
Speaker 2: Old man character named Walter, who Bill Quinn just looks
Speaker 2: like the living embodiment of it.
Speaker 1: Was very odd.
Speaker 4: Thanks for reminding me that Jeff Dunham exists.
Speaker 1: I know, look, I didn't want to bring him up
Speaker 1: or promotion anyway, but.
Speaker 4: Las Vegas's own Jeff Dunham.
Speaker 2: You mean, that's right, he's the hometown boy. Now, this
Speaker 2: story concerns an unorthodox psychiatrist who investigates the mysterious murders
Speaker 2: plaguing his patients, and there are wolves involved.
Speaker 1: What do you think of this one, Mike?
Speaker 5: I felt this segment made me feel stupid because I
Speaker 5: could not figure out what the heck was going on.
Speaker 5: All these people in this tree and David Keardy maybe
Speaker 5: he's a Satanist. I don't know what. Please just please
Speaker 5: explain this one to me, because I just was not
Speaker 5: getting this one at all.
Speaker 1: It's very confused, but of itself is confused. But here's
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 4: Bear with me.
Speaker 5: I'm ready. I'm ready for.
Speaker 1: This, listeners. I didn't come up with this, all right, so.
Speaker 4: No, somebody by the name of Seabury Quinn did. And
Speaker 4: then somebody named Halsted Wells adapted it. Then somebody named
Speaker 4: Janno Swark directed it. Those three names together should give
Speaker 4: you an idea of the where we're going with this.
Speaker 4: It's pretty all over the place.
Speaker 2: You know what, though, if you meet the original short
Speaker 2: straight Seabury Quinn, who was not he was a writer,
Speaker 2: like all of his contemporaries were. The weird tales guy.
Speaker 2: So it's like Roberty Howard and he Lovecraft and yeah,
Speaker 2: like all of the sort of the giants as it were.
Speaker 2: And he created a character named Jules de Granden who
Speaker 2: is a paranormal investigator, and he's got a whole series
Speaker 2: of these stories that they're all great. In addition to that,
Speaker 2: Seabury Quinn was like a mortuary lawyer. That was his
Speaker 2: primary function. He published a magazine called Caskets and Sunshine
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: And if you read the original story, it's much more simplified.
Speaker 2: I'll give you the short story version and that'll and
Speaker 2: you'll understand exactly what it is. This guy checks into
Speaker 2: a checks himself into an asylum in Maine in this
Speaker 2: case right, which is right across the border from Canada,
Speaker 2: which is why there are French speaking characters in the story.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of questions, why the hell everybody's
Speaker 4: speaking French? Als, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: That helps hold over for no good reason. Wow, He's
Speaker 2: allowed to walk the grounds and he walks and finds
Speaker 2: a house with a family, a mother and a father,
Speaker 2: and a beautiful girl who seems dressed from another age,
Speaker 2: and they have an instant connection, but she's very odd
Speaker 2: and keeps him at a distance. Nevertheless, when he comes
Speaker 2: back to the asylum and tells the people about it,
Speaker 2: they're like, you must really be crazy because there's no
Speaker 2: house out there just to ruin. And then he continues
Speaker 2: going visiting with the girl and her family, and then
Speaker 2: there's this business with people being attacked by wolves and
Speaker 2: the thing talk of it, but none of that is
Speaker 2: put together forthrightly. It's basically is he insane or not?
Speaker 1: Is the thing?
Speaker 2: Back and forth because he going to the asylum and
Speaker 2: they're crazy, but they're telling him he's crazy, but he's
Speaker 2: actually seeing the people. They are a family of were
Speaker 2: wolves and they are dead, so they're ghost wolves or
Speaker 2: where ghosts.
Speaker 1: It ends basically the same way. So there's no.
Speaker 2: Character feeding these people or alluring them, or there's no
Speaker 2: warlocks and all this other shit. It's they let him
Speaker 2: know that family who lived there were renowned as potential
Speaker 2: were wolves. Stay away from there, and they are, and
Speaker 2: she's it's so it's more of a Romeo and Juliet
Speaker 2: with the two warring factions, where her parents want to
Speaker 2: eat him and the rest of them think he's crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to keep them apart, and then she makes
Speaker 2: the sacrifice just exercise. Me and my family will go
Speaker 2: away and the countryside will be fine.
Speaker 1: But I'll lose you.
Speaker 2: But if I stay with you, I'm going to murder
Speaker 2: you because I'm a wolf the end. Now, how that
Speaker 2: turned into tree pads and groovy talk and moccasins and
Speaker 2: thumper from Goddamn you only live twice?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I did enjoy it.
Speaker 4: Glad you did. The only note I have is crow
Speaker 4: noises and two random French dudes. There are crow noises
Speaker 4: up the wazoo in this episode.
Speaker 1: Perfect segue there, Chris Mike Card. He knows where we're
Speaker 1: going with this.
Speaker 2: Another thing I like to point out in these episodes
Speaker 2: of the second season that are performers who probably don't
Speaker 2: have the spotlight shine on them enough. In this case,
Speaker 2: featured only once in this episode, but I think we
Speaker 2: all know it.
Speaker 1: It's about twenty five years old at this point. Here
Speaker 1: it is ladies and gentlemen. You probably know that from everything.
Speaker 2: Most of these sound effects ended up being used on
Speaker 2: Sesame Street a lot. That's a count von count if
Speaker 2: I've ever I've heard one. Its actual name is Single
Speaker 2: Classic Wolf, although sometimes it's called Single Coyote, which I
Speaker 2: think is racist. The first appearance of it, this was
Speaker 2: created by the Disney sound folks. It appeared in a
Speaker 2: segment called Bongo, which was part of a Fun and
Speaker 2: Fancy free in nineteen forty six. There you go, We
Speaker 2: love you, Single Classic Wolf. You're joining Castle Thunder in
Speaker 2: the pantheon of sound effects here. I like this episode
Speaker 2: a little bit like I did like how off off
Speaker 2: kilter it seems and I don't know what's going on
Speaker 2: for so long, Like it had the feeling of the
Speaker 2: sort of abstract set at the beginning, when they're all
Speaker 2: on these pads, we find ourselves in it at an
Speaker 2: asylum kind of, but everyone's outside and they're all groovy,
Speaker 2: and they're on these pads that are wrapped around these.
Speaker 1: Trees, and it's really weird.
Speaker 2: All that stuff was disconcerting, and I was like really
Speaker 2: enjoying it. And then when we go meet the girl
Speaker 2: who in this one, David Kardine is telling everyone that
Speaker 2: they have to go there. He's like trying to lure
Speaker 2: them out there to be killed, and he tells everyone
Speaker 2: who sees this girl is gonna fall in love with her,
Speaker 2: and when we see her, it's this Loretta Lynn wig
Speaker 2: that's been bottle blonded, and.
Speaker 4: Oh her bangs are great. The bangs on that wig
Speaker 4: are just chef's kiss.
Speaker 2: Specttaga and the dress itself, this voluminous ball gown looking.
Speaker 4: I don't understand it. Where you people are from, what
Speaker 4: time and place? That's all David McCallum needs to say.
Speaker 4: It's like, who the fuck are you? I don't understand
Speaker 4: how anyone in the right mind would be like, Oh,
Speaker 4: you clearly belong here. You are so out of time
Speaker 4: and out of place, it's beyond obvious. They don't even try.
Speaker 2: The weird thing about that is it's like they could
Speaker 2: have Her parents are dressed. It could have been faked.
Speaker 2: It could be nineteen seventy They're dressed basically in coveralls.
Speaker 1: They just look like poor farmers.
Speaker 2: Why if that's what they were wearing in like eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy one, why was she dressed not like them, Like
Speaker 2: she's not at a cotillion or anything.
Speaker 1: She stirred poor like her parents, and she's a werewolf.
Speaker 1: Why does she even have the dress?
Speaker 4: It doesn't make sense she had werewolf or she had dog.
Speaker 1: They couldn't afford the wolves.
Speaker 4: They could afford dogs.
Speaker 6: Though.
Speaker 5: I was wondering about that too, because when they showed
Speaker 5: the dog, I was like, Oh, the dog must be
Speaker 5: running away from the wolf, because I kept hearing the wolf,
Speaker 5: and I was just like, why is this dog running away?
Speaker 1: That's not a problem.
Speaker 2: This is like a two day shoot. Yeah, And according
Speaker 2: to Sin, I've swark. But the dogs were like the
Speaker 2: nicest dogs in the world, and they wouldn't even want
Speaker 2: to chase anything anyway.
Speaker 1: So it's impressive that they got any shots at all.
Speaker 2: But obviously they're where dog ghosts, Wolfy Ghoster tins.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Where dog ghosts are you asking us a question?
Speaker 1: You know what it's you know what it reminds me of.
Speaker 2: There's a quote from Big Trouble, Little China Eggshen is
Speaker 2: talking about all the different disciplines that they're all drawing
Speaker 2: from Buddhism and Confucianism, and we take what we want
Speaker 2: to leave the rest like a salad bar. That's what
Speaker 2: this felt like to me. It's like they are werewolves,
Speaker 2: so we'll put to have the pentagram on the hand,
Speaker 2: but they're also ghosts.
Speaker 4: But it is titled the phantom farmhouse, so there must
Speaker 4: be phantoms involved.
Speaker 2: A phantom reasoning, the phantom logic like.
Speaker 4: It felt like a really somehow poorly done. It feels
Speaker 4: like a poorly done episode of Tales from the Crypt,
Speaker 4: like an easy comics story. That's what it feels like.
Speaker 5: When they had all those people in the tree, I
Speaker 5: kept thinking, these are aspects of his personality and they
Speaker 5: are fighting within his mind.
Speaker 1: That would have been good.
Speaker 5: And then it just when David Kardine came out of
Speaker 5: the tree, I was like, there goes that theory.
Speaker 4: You were you were doing the episode's job for it,
Speaker 4: trying to make it more interesting than it ended up being.
Speaker 2: Did you notice that when David Karenine homps down off
Speaker 2: of the thing he tries to and they cretell he
Speaker 2: does he not say cocaine.
Speaker 1: Anyone, I swear to God.
Speaker 2: He says it twice he said it, And I was like,
Speaker 2: you couldn't have heard that. They wouldn't have put that
Speaker 2: on television. And then at the end of the seasons
Speaker 2: like oka anyone the leaves. Maybe I'm wrong, I should
Speaker 2: read the script, but that's what I heard. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: what I wanted to hear.
Speaker 4: That's what you wanted David Carrodine to say.
Speaker 5: It feels like he would share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed like a groovy guy.
Speaker 2: By the way, hippy slang seems so natural coming out
Speaker 2: of David Carroddy, Like all of that dialogue could have
Speaker 2: been the worst if it weren't him and he it
Speaker 2: was effortless, and I was like, oh, so that's how
Speaker 2: people talk instead of the awkward way people try to
Speaker 2: reproduce it.
Speaker 4: Because David Carrody is a great actor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was was he still is.
Speaker 4: Sorry, damn it.
Speaker 2: And speaking of damn it, stopped doing Day for Night.
Speaker 2: Everybody stop.
Speaker 5: Oh that was real rough.
Speaker 2: You can't do a were wolf story and do day
Speaker 2: for Night. Just don't even do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how long did you say they had for this?
Speaker 5: Five days?
Speaker 4: I don't know why they even tried two days?
Speaker 5: Two days Jesus, Yeah, no, wonder it looks so bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not going to get a big lighting package
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 4: I think it's more impressive that it only took two
Speaker 4: days and that it's not a complete mess.
Speaker 2: I think it's well shot. I think there's some poetical
Speaker 2: looking shots in there.
Speaker 4: It's a nice looking it's a nice looking episode.
Speaker 2: When McCallum's first venturing into the forest, there's a scene
Speaker 2: of this lamb running through the forest being pursued by
Speaker 2: the wolves, and it all looks gorgeous. It looks like
Speaker 2: a fairy tale. And then unfortunately we're right back to
Speaker 2: the Universal lot with most obvious lighting in the world,
Speaker 2: the sun, just because they needed for speed.
Speaker 1: But he managed to get a couple of cool shots.
Speaker 2: There's another one at the midpoint where they're on top
Speaker 2: of a hill where all the sheep, where McCallum walks
Speaker 2: down and scares the.
Speaker 1: Sheep, which another gorgeous shot.
Speaker 2: That there are little moments of beauty in these episodes,
Speaker 2: and at least this one did not in any way
Speaker 2: feel set bound.
Speaker 4: If they had just turned the camera around, they probably
Speaker 4: would have seen the Baits Motel behind them. That's what
Speaker 4: it looked like to me. It looked like where the
Speaker 4: oldertures of the Universal back Loot Tour. That's what it
Speaker 4: looked like. The set, the set that they were on,
Speaker 4: it looked like just out there in the Universal, like
Speaker 4: where they shoot stuff like this.
Speaker 2: It's it's like where you guys gonna shoot over there. Look,
Speaker 2: this is not the best part of this one, it's okay.
Speaker 2: It didn't insult me. I was more confused, and then
Speaker 2: by the end I didn't care.
Speaker 4: Well, it just ends. It just ends, and that's fine.
Speaker 4: But this is now I think. I want to say
Speaker 4: there was an episode segment in the last episode that
Speaker 4: just ended too, but it worked better than it just ended.
Speaker 4: This one just goes and that's it. It's okay, all right,
Speaker 4: I guess it's over now, moving on.
Speaker 1: Why even use wolves? Just make it ghost eats people,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? How about we're all vampires.
Speaker 2: Let's do vampires there, that's a ghost in a wolf together.
Speaker 4: Stop and vampires are what five cents? You just get
Speaker 4: the little teeth, that's it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if you even need the teeth, you just cover
Speaker 5: up the face. Or Catherine Deneuve and the hunger.
Speaker 1: We didn't mention the finger.
Speaker 5: What's that?
Speaker 2: The finger, the index finger that we got to see
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand times.
Speaker 1: That was a bit of a failure. I didn't like
Speaker 1: that at all.
Speaker 4: She is a really long finger. She is a really
Speaker 4: long finger. Only were wolves have long fingers.
Speaker 2: It's the index fingers as long or longer than the
Speaker 2: rest of the fingers. It's the traditional lore. But guys,
Speaker 2: we get it. We're not going to get a transformation sequence,
Speaker 2: and we only have dogs instead of wolves. But we
Speaker 2: don't need to feature the one thing you.
Speaker 1: Could have for it stop.
Speaker 3: Painting number one. It has to do with death. Usually
Speaker 3: the last chapter in every Man's Book of Life, the
Speaker 3: ashes in the dust, the tomb, and the engraving on
Speaker 3: the stone death the finale. But our first painting offers
Speaker 3: up a tail with the final curve not quite the
Speaker 3: final criten, there's an epilog we offer, you know, a
Speaker 3: little item called cool Air, tonight's first painting in the
Speaker 3: Night Gallery.
Speaker 2: Cool Air was written by Rod Serling from a short
Speaker 2: story by H. P. Lovecraft and directed by Jeno Swark
Speaker 2: twenty two segments, gentlemen, Jeno Smart twenty two segment.
Speaker 4: At least it's not Gene Kearney.
Speaker 2: Wow, thank god, it's not Jeane Kearney doing twenty two segments.
Speaker 2: I think I would lose my mind. This one stars
Speaker 2: Henry Darrow Barbara Rush, who, by the way, appeared in
Speaker 2: a TV movie called The Man, which was about the
Speaker 2: first Black President starring James Earl Jones. Written by Rod Star.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, by Rod.
Speaker 5: Star such a great movie.
Speaker 1: This is the tale of a May December romance. What
Speaker 1: did you think of this one? Mike?
Speaker 5: It left me cold?
Speaker 1: O bing bang.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was waiting for that room shot there, Chrish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4: Late take around here. We just got the sound for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're back in HP Lovecraft territory. Though again I
Speaker 5: can tell what's going on. Why are we supposed to
Speaker 5: not figure this stuff out? Yeah, the guy's dead, Like
Speaker 5: I could tell you that right from the get go.
Speaker 5: I don't know, I was. I really wanted to like
Speaker 5: this one. Maybe if it was like half the length,
Speaker 5: I would have liked it a little bit more. But
Speaker 5: at the length that it was, and just that I
Speaker 5: could see the twist coming. Yeah it did it. No,
Speaker 5: no joke, it diddly be cold boy.
Speaker 4: They love HP Lovecraft, don't they. They really really do.
Speaker 4: Look I'm not gonna say, oh, what a weird HP
Speaker 4: Lovecraft story to adapt, because look, HB. Lovecraft in a
Speaker 4: lot of ways is like Stephen King, like he's got
Speaker 4: plenty of things to adapt, folks, and they're not all
Speaker 4: within for a reason. Whatever the fuck. The conceit of
Speaker 4: this episode is that there is a man who has
Speaker 4: a Living Corps because he lives in an ice box.
Speaker 4: You know what, Sure, fine, whatever, but that's like a
Speaker 4: ten minute episode segment, not a twenty minute segment. Good lord.
Speaker 4: And I'm not to jump ahead, but I'm not sure
Speaker 4: that that criticism is not going to be leveled against
Speaker 4: both of these segments. I think they're both too long
Speaker 4: for what they're trying to do. I think this one
Speaker 4: is way too long for what the punchline is. And look,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying the punchline doesn't work. It's sufficiently campy
Speaker 4: and goofy, but way too long, just way way.
Speaker 5: It also doesn't help that it feels so similar to
Speaker 5: the one we just talked about on our last episode
Speaker 5: with the woman that was oll Wait is that the one?
Speaker 5: Is it a woman that was being menaced by that thing?
Speaker 5: Or am I completely mixing this up?
Speaker 1: In Pickman's Yeah, it's also HP Lovecraft, and it's basically a.
Speaker 5: Woman comes in and it's just like, oh, what is
Speaker 5: this stuff? And then oh there's a big monster or
Speaker 5: a big twist quote unquote at the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a shame that they're on the heels of
Speaker 2: one another because the romance aspect is not present. In
Speaker 2: the original HP Lovecraft story. And I actually think it's
Speaker 2: an improvement by Rod Sling in that regard. And if
Speaker 2: you read the original story, there's a lot of he's
Speaker 2: supposed to be from Spain, so it's all phonetically written.
Speaker 1: Oh elleal l E E t l E. It's very embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Henry Darrow.
Speaker 2: Henry Darrow here, he's five years younger than Barbara Rush,
Speaker 2: playing a dashing older man. I liked him. I liked
Speaker 2: his performance a lot. I thought Barbara Rush was really good.
Speaker 2: There is another unnecessary wrap around, just like the pickman's
Speaker 2: model in the last one, which starts in the present
Speaker 2: for no reason and then takes us back. That to me,
Speaker 2: is the lamest part of it is the Serling concoction
Speaker 2: that we're going to see the leaves blow off the
Speaker 2: top of the gravestone at the end and realize he's
Speaker 2: been dead twice.
Speaker 1: By the way, who put that there? She put that
Speaker 1: in there? Why would that be on there?
Speaker 2: Weirdest thing ever, by the way his name is misspelled
Speaker 2: on the grave.
Speaker 4: High production values abound at midnight at the Night Gallery podcast.
Speaker 4: I guess this isn't the podcast as high production values
Speaker 4: this show doesn't Is this the back.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Speaking of the backlot and high production at one point,
Speaker 2: like this starts as a period piece. It's set in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, and she's in the back of what
Speaker 2: is basically a horseless carriage as a driving down the street,
Speaker 2: and in the background the street is blocked off by
Speaker 2: a Universal Studios van.
Speaker 4: Oops. Oh geez, what are you implying? Father alone?
Speaker 1: Maybe shoot the scene at night?
Speaker 4: I thought you were What are you? Are you implying
Speaker 4: that this is.
Speaker 2: A fruit stand back there, or two guys carrying a
Speaker 2: pane of glass, anything other than a vehicle from nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one just sitting there? Hey, folks, the tour is
Speaker 2: right right this way.
Speaker 4: Hey, who was asleep at the wheel at this point? Huh?
Speaker 4: That's the question.
Speaker 2: I blame Jano. But Jane did do something really cool here.
Speaker 2: There's a conversation scene when there's falling in love. It's
Speaker 2: a minute and a half pan around the dinner table.
Speaker 2: There's a join in it, but it's really masterful considering
Speaker 2: all the other limitations that they're saddled with. Also, the
Speaker 2: music in this episode, this was a guest composer guy
Speaker 2: named Robert Bain. He's an LA session musician, was actually
Speaker 2: Henry Mancini's guitarist, and he was specifically chosen by Lair
Speaker 2: to do a Spanish flavored theme for this episode and
Speaker 2: actually works really well.
Speaker 1: As far as I'm concerned, is.
Speaker 2: This episode about because Sling made it of romance? Is
Speaker 2: this now a tale of necro feelings?
Speaker 4: Jesus necromantic? If we're talking literally, then yes.
Speaker 1: All right, good for you.
Speaker 5: Rod HP.
Speaker 4: Lovecraft was into some freaky shit.
Speaker 2: Lovecraft didn't have anything to do with that part of it,
Speaker 2: that's all Surling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But the concept, though, it still lends itself in
Speaker 4: that direction.
Speaker 2: The concept of necrophilia just goes way back to the
Speaker 2: beginning of civilization. We always had it with us. It
Speaker 2: just took Rod Sterling to really popularize it. Use it
Speaker 2: in between commercials for soap.
Speaker 4: Exactly. I only use ajax when I now back to necrophilia.
Speaker 2: It's the most romantic presentation of necrophilia I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I was moved.
Speaker 4: I Yeah, when you think about it that way, boy,
Speaker 4: it really puts it all in perspective, doesn't it. You
Speaker 4: know what? Hey? I wish the payoff was in an
Speaker 4: episode half the episode segment half the length. That's really it.
Speaker 4: It's not a bad segment. I just don't think it
Speaker 4: gets to the point fast enough. And also like you're
Speaker 4: stalling as if we can't figure out what's going on.
Speaker 4: There's anyone surprised at the end that he was a corpse,
Speaker 4: like they hint at it a lot, like a lot,
Speaker 4: a lot, A lot, a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, this episode does contain I think the single worst
Speaker 2: performance in any segment we've seen thus far, which is
Speaker 2: that handyman ice carrying guy, whoever he is.
Speaker 1: What's with the guy in there with the he's got
Speaker 1: ice in.
Speaker 2: The bathroom, just pulling all these faces like he's I
Speaker 2: don't know, like he's auditioning.
Speaker 4: He's late stage.
Speaker 1: Leslie Nielsen, boy, he was bad.
Speaker 6: Painting number two in the Night Gallery, addressing itself to
Speaker 6: the strains and stresses of the marriage, having to do
Speaker 6: with the fact that there is more than one way
Speaker 6: to kill a cat and more than one way to
Speaker 6: dispose of a wife. Our painting is called Stop Killing Me.
Speaker 2: Stop Killing Me was written by Jack Laird from a
Speaker 2: short story by hald Dresner kol hand Luke's hal Dresner
Speaker 2: Zorro the Gay Blades Hal Dresner. Kind of a slide
Speaker 2: whistle situation there. This one was also directed by Jenno Zwark,
Speaker 2: starring Geraldine Page first of three appearances in The Night Gallery,
Speaker 2: and James Gregory only. This is about a wife enlisting
Speaker 2: the aid of a police officer because she believes her
Speaker 2: husband is slowly murdering her through worry. What'd you think
Speaker 2: of this one, Chris.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a lot of fun. It does go
Speaker 4: on a little long too, but the length of this
Speaker 4: one is to sell. What's the length is selling what
Speaker 4: they're going for, and it works here. She is so
Speaker 4: haired with him that he is just fuck yeah, I
Speaker 4: see why this is the way that works here. And
Speaker 4: I enjoyed this episode. But I'm gonna be biased because
Speaker 4: I love James Gregory. Now again, when we started the
Speaker 4: Barney Miller Show, not so much the case, but his
Speaker 4: characterization has grown over time and grown on me. But
Speaker 4: seeing him here is great. He's fun. She plays that
Speaker 4: character great, He plays that character great. And I love
Speaker 4: that they keep focusing on the photo of his wife
Speaker 4: uh fucking desk because it is the funniest thing. Reasoning, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're right, I see there's no one would ever think divorce.
Speaker 4: It's oh my god, this guy's just so pent up
Speaker 4: and angry all day. Huh, He's just been waiting for
Speaker 4: someone like her to walk through his door. And I
Speaker 4: love that kind of storytelling where these two people were
Speaker 4: faded to be in this room together for ten minutes
Speaker 4: and it totally works.
Speaker 5: I wish that the Jano's Wark does something interesting in
Speaker 5: this episode where Geraldine Page will basically imitate her husband
Speaker 5: and repeat the lines that he keeps saying to her.
Speaker 5: And when she does that, we get these interesting cuts
Speaker 5: to almost like from the side all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: and she will turn to the side and start doing
Speaker 5: her husband's voice, not like literally saying what he's saying,
Speaker 5: and then cut back and she'll move back. And they
Speaker 5: did that a few times, but then they just started
Speaker 5: doing it kind of willy nilly as far as where
Speaker 5: she was going to turn to the left, to the right,
Speaker 5: to the straight to wherever. I wish he had been
Speaker 5: a little bit more consistent with that, because I thought
Speaker 5: it was a good device the way it ended up overall,
Speaker 5: I still liked it, but it just I thought it
Speaker 5: could have been a little bit more powerful as far
Speaker 5: as that went, but I thought that was nice and
Speaker 5: I also like that to your point, Chris, we have
Speaker 5: to spend this time. We have to take this time
Speaker 5: to hear the basically psychological warfare that this guy has
Speaker 5: been waging on his wife, letting her know that she
Speaker 5: has very little time to live, and when the payoff happens.
Speaker 5: I complain a lot about, Oh, we know where this
Speaker 5: is going to go. I was really looking forward to
Speaker 5: this going where it went to.
Speaker 2: This one is a flip side not of Satan, but
Speaker 2: of the late mister Pettington from two episodes ago. Except here,
Speaker 2: instead of a woman talking herself into murder, she convinces
Speaker 2: another of the ease of which he can dispatch his
Speaker 2: own spouse. Starts with a great b roll of the
Speaker 2: New York City skyline, dingy kind of nineteen seventies. Look
Speaker 2: at the show, which I always love. I think, I
Speaker 2: think Geraldine Page is so electric here in that scene
Speaker 2: that those moments, in particular Michael, she's pantomiming her husband,
Speaker 2: and we keep cutting to this unknown point of view.
Speaker 2: It's ultimately the viewer's point of view, or her point
Speaker 2: of view, because it's the husband talking to her and
Speaker 2: being servered.
Speaker 1: The cuts are so jarring, but she's so funny.
Speaker 2: This is a horrible situation, and the things that this
Speaker 2: husband is doing to her is really beyond the pale
Speaker 2: when you really think about it, and the way her
Speaker 2: performance just I don't know. I thought it was hilarious
Speaker 2: if only he could stop with the killing me, killing me,
Speaker 2: killing me.
Speaker 5: When I really thought I knew what way this episode
Speaker 5: was going to go with that title, I thought that
Speaker 5: she was going to come in and it was going
Speaker 5: to be a da situation. I want to report a
Speaker 5: murder who's mind? But then I actually thought that she
Speaker 5: was dead and was coming in. When she said my
Speaker 5: husband's killing me right now, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: that's interesting, like she's astro projecting or something. So I
Speaker 5: took this in a whole different way, but I ended
Speaker 5: up liking where it went, which was not supernatural whatsoever.
Speaker 4: I thought that too. I thought that too when she
Speaker 4: said that. I was like, oh, because again that's what
Speaker 4: it seems like. There's some angle here and it's just no,
Speaker 4: he's just he's almost like Pusher from the X Files,
Speaker 4: where it's like that's yeah, it's this weird, like just
Speaker 4: suggesting over and over again that it's putting her on
Speaker 4: edge constantly. I can't even imagine what that would be like.
Speaker 2: But good lord, I don't think we needed the sound
Speaker 2: effect of her getting run over in traffic. That wasn't necessary.
Speaker 2: The plot, the plan of it was obviously working. She
Speaker 2: left that police station feeling really no better than when
Speaker 2: she came in. There's certainly no less safe, So just
Speaker 2: having the police officer talking to his wife would have
Speaker 2: been sufficient. I do think we hold a little too
Speaker 2: long at the end, a little too long on the
Speaker 2: picture of his wife, like a minute.
Speaker 4: Feels like I was going to say, to your point.
Speaker 4: With the sound effect, it almost seems like it was
Speaker 4: added after the fact, and I know it obviously was,
Speaker 4: but more like they didn't ask James Gregory to react
Speaker 4: to anything, because I watched it a couple times and
Speaker 4: he doesn't react at all, but we hear it as
Speaker 4: the audience. It's like he would have heard it. He
Speaker 4: should have reacted. There should have been like a sly
Speaker 4: little smirk or a grin or something, and there's nothing.
Speaker 4: It almost it feels like they gilded the lily just
Speaker 4: a little. I'm not saying it's perfect. But it's a
Speaker 4: pretty good segment that is just too on the nose.
Speaker 2: I think it's twice as long as it probably should
Speaker 2: have been. But I'm not in any way angry at it,
Speaker 2: because I would watch Geraldine Page.
Speaker 1: Do just about it anything.
Speaker 2: I think she's great here anything else about this one, though,
Speaker 2: I think it's just really solid and I'm glad we're
Speaker 2: getting them. Yeah, peaks and valleys with this show, gentlemen,
Speaker 2: peaks and funtain all right.
Speaker 4: I like the idea that James Gregory is. At one point,
Speaker 4: she asked him, is your wife still as beautiful as
Speaker 4: the day you married her? And he just like stares
Speaker 4: at that photo just a moment too long, just a no,
Speaker 4: you're right, it's just again. James Gregory was the perfect
Speaker 4: person for this role.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's funny, perfect. While watching and I was like, I
Speaker 2: know this guy from somewhere. He's so good. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna look him up and so we can discuss
Speaker 2: him on the show. And then I saw the credits
Speaker 2: of Barney Miller and I'm not gonna just close my notebook.
Speaker 2: These guys can supply all the information we need to
Speaker 2: know about James Gregor.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this is almost a prequel. But
Speaker 5: I don't think Luger took this career path. Plus, I
Speaker 5: don't think he would be married according to Chris's theory,
Speaker 5: I am my.
Speaker 4: Theory hashtag Luger big gay.
Speaker 1: Well maybe that's why he's got to kill the wife.
Speaker 1: He's come out.
Speaker 5: Yeah bottom alone. Just two highlights off of mister Gregory's career.
Speaker 5: Won the role that he played in Manchurion Candidate. He
Speaker 5: was the husband what's her name, Angela Lancebery really.
Speaker 1: Good role, so good in that, yes.
Speaker 5: And then the other one is General Ursus I believe
Speaker 5: is his name from Planet of the Apes, Planet of
Speaker 5: the Apes.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that voice, man, he's so good.
Speaker 1: He's great in this.
Speaker 2: As a two person segment, yeah, bottle thing. We got
Speaker 2: here for fourteen straight minutes. These two could have taken
Speaker 2: another fourteen. Honestly, if they could have had some machinations
Speaker 2: added to this would have been perfectly satisfied.
Speaker 3: Strips of ethereal night clouds are seen from the vantage
Speaker 3: point of a square, a group of tombstones, and the
Speaker 3: face of a neutral onlooker who surveysed the silence. Oh
Speaker 3: perhaps not quite total silence, because the name of our
Speaker 3: painting is Whisper, and it tells the story of one
Speaker 3: body inhabited by two people. And at a point, as
Speaker 3: you can well imagine, this gets crowded. And if this
Speaker 3: one doesn't ice up your spine, we'll send you one
Speaker 3: of our official apologies along with the body. That's the
Speaker 3: kind of guarantee you get in the night Gallery.
Speaker 2: This is season three, episode thirteen. It aired on May thirteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three. The previous episode aired in March. They
Speaker 2: skipped the entire month of April. I wonder why that is,
Speaker 2: because they couldn't handle the awesomeness of April of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy three anyway. It was written by David Rafiel from
Speaker 2: a short story by Martin Waddell. Directed by Jean Zuark.
Speaker 2: It stars Tony Hey, Tony no Phony, Baloney, Tony the Tiger, LaRusso,
Speaker 2: Dean Stockwell, Ladies and Gentlemen, also Sally Field.
Speaker 1: It is about It is the story of a.
Speaker 2: Young wife who's getting high on ghosts and her husband
Speaker 2: is the dealer.
Speaker 1: Like what you think about this one? Oh, nobody can
Speaker 1: see you, Whisper.
Speaker 5: You couldn't hear me whisper that vaguely that I could.
Speaker 5: I didn't really like this one all, especially the way
Speaker 5: that it ended. I had no freaking idea what was
Speaker 5: going on for so much of this one and then
Speaker 5: it just ended? What the fuck? So what did I miss?
Speaker 5: What did I miss with it? That seems to be
Speaker 5: my thing for the shows? And somebody please explain this
Speaker 5: to me?
Speaker 1: Okay? Very simple.
Speaker 2: Young couple Stockwell and Sally Field. Sally Field is touched.
Speaker 2: She can communicate with the dead, or she's like a
Speaker 2: conduit for the dead. They can take her over and
Speaker 2: they can solve their problems, their unfinished business on earth
Speaker 2: through her, and Stockwell has always known this and known
Speaker 2: it's true and is attracted to that aspect of it,
Speaker 2: even though it's frightening and he's a little worried she
Speaker 2: one time she won't be able to get back they
Speaker 2: She feels a poll across the country, and so they
Speaker 2: end up stopping the small town where they've been living
Speaker 2: for about three months, and she keeps looking for this
Speaker 2: house over and over again, and then Stockwell goes, see,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Stockwell goes to a doctor to get
Speaker 2: her sleeping pills. At that point, the doctor said. Doctor
Speaker 2: is categorizing it as hallucinations, and he's basically blaming Stockwell
Speaker 2: for enabling these things. And he says, I've seen cases
Speaker 2: like this. The subject wants to go further, they don't
Speaker 2: want to come back. That's the setup for the end
Speaker 2: because eventually the main ghost that's been haunting her trying
Speaker 2: to find the summer house. It's another young bride whose
Speaker 2: child had died and their baby was interred incorrectly and
Speaker 2: that has to be corrected, and that's been the task
Speaker 2: the whole time.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: So Dean Stockwell plays the.
Speaker 2: Part of the husband and he buries the baby, the
Speaker 2: proxy for the baby. But it's been happening for so
Speaker 2: long that what Sally feel, what Dean Stockwell was worried about,
Speaker 2: and what the doctor warned about comes to pass and
Speaker 2: she can't get back to her body.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Wow, So I was so confused because Sally Field through
Speaker 5: this whole episode is talking I guess with the ghosts
Speaker 5: she but yes, but she is the ghost at times,
Speaker 5: but she's talking with the ghost. And then Dean Stockwell,
Speaker 5: I guess he's talking to us the audience. Yes, okay,
Speaker 5: see that's the most confusing thing. You can't have one
Speaker 5: character talking to nobody and then have another character talking
Speaker 5: to nobody, but one character's talking to another character and
Speaker 5: another character's talking to us. That was really fucked up. Man.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, but I'm with you, okod fucking bizarre? Look, Hyke,
Speaker 4: are you like it's my thing on this show? It's
Speaker 4: not yet things like fucking win? Are you that that's
Speaker 4: what I feel?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 5: How many times have I asked that on this show?
Speaker 5: I'm not high while I'm watching these episodes, I swear
Speaker 5: I'm straight.
Speaker 4: But to be fair, I was gonna say I did
Speaker 4: get what was going on, and I can tell you
Speaker 4: with absolute certainty, this is just a god This is
Speaker 4: just the spinning of wheels and a treading of water
Speaker 4: for twenty minutes, just and you know what, Dean stock
Speaker 4: Well's fine, Sally Field's fine. Sally Field doesn't play the
Speaker 4: crazy very well. She's just too goddamn and endearing as
Speaker 4: an actress. And yeah, the ending is just, oh you need.
Speaker 5: To see Sybil's.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I haven't seen that. Having not seen that,
Speaker 4: this is not a very good representation of that is
Speaker 4: probably a better way of putting it. And the ending
Speaker 4: is laughably bad. It's yeah, it's asinines. Oh my god.
Speaker 4: But what so? The question then becomes, if you can't
Speaker 4: get back to your body, what does that mean? What
Speaker 4: the what does that mean? Does that mean she's just
Speaker 4: a catatonic shell, eyes rolled back into her head, can
Speaker 4: do anything? Or is the ghost still in her body? Again,
Speaker 4: this isn't a oh. They don't explain it because they
Speaker 4: don't need to. They don't explain it because I don't
Speaker 4: think they have way to explain it, because they spend
Speaker 4: twenty minutes doing everything in their power to try to show,
Speaker 4: not tell, what's going on, and they somehow fail remarkably.
Speaker 5: You just wait. Father Malone's gonna love this episode.
Speaker 1: I fucking loved this episode. I did.
Speaker 4: Boy, that is the theme here. It's too hot, too cold,
Speaker 4: just right right.
Speaker 2: It's the magic of Jean's work. No, I'm not, that's
Speaker 2: up the case. I'm not liking it to the Jons magic.
Speaker 4: Gean's Wark should be the name of your next podcast,
Speaker 4: because I think at this point you have been You
Speaker 4: have defended no director more ever in the history of
Speaker 4: anything we've worked on than Jean's Wark.
Speaker 1: He's really good and he does fucking really good work here. Man,
Speaker 1: what can I tell you?
Speaker 5: There's no John Batham. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: He's at least Badam's equal. Well, laugh sir. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: what I liked about it.
Speaker 2: I liked the confusion at the beginning where okay, first
Speaker 2: of all, it starts, and it's typical of Night Gallery
Speaker 2: the entire run of the series, where I think we've
Speaker 2: all been baffled for a good portion of every segment
Speaker 2: as to what time period this is. But this episode
Speaker 2: actually embraces that. It makes us think that we're in
Speaker 2: some sort of like little house on the prairie time.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly she's burning a plane ticket in the thing.
Speaker 2: I thought that was great. I do understand what you're saying, like,
Speaker 2: because she's talking to what I thought was her. I
Speaker 2: thought she was breaking the fourth wall. I thought she
Speaker 2: was talking to us initially, but then she's just talking
Speaker 2: to nobody. And then when we get outside, it's this
Speaker 2: slow pan of her and we get this voiceover. I thought,
Speaker 2: I like, oh, we're getting a voiceover from Dean Stockhol.
Speaker 2: We're going to pan over and see what he's up to,
Speaker 2: and then we realize he's speaking out loud, and then
Speaker 2: is he narrating to himself and then he turns to us,
Speaker 2: and it's so unnerving. Every time they've done it, and
Speaker 2: they've done it a lot this season. It works like
Speaker 2: Gangbusters mat And not only that, in this he basically
Speaker 2: says to us, you're dead. That was extra uneasy, thinking
Speaker 2: I'm now supposed to be viewing this in the guise
Speaker 2: of a ghost. I'm just one of these floating spirits
Speaker 2: around her. And he keeps looking to us over and
Speaker 2: over again, he'll notice us peering at them. I liked
Speaker 2: that a lot. I think, honestly, this is an episode
Speaker 2: that Rod envisioned. I know he had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this episode, but this is what he wanted Night
Speaker 2: Galler to be beginning to end. I think these gentle
Speaker 2: character pieces with supernatural overtones.
Speaker 1: That's what I took away from an Ayvy. I do
Speaker 1: want to point out one thing.
Speaker 2: I haven't done this in some time, but there is
Speaker 2: another performer in this episode who deserves a bit of
Speaker 2: a spotlight.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: Oh that stormy wind from the Hannah barb Era library.
Speaker 1: Oh so good.
Speaker 4: I'm glad I had to hear it again.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play it again because it comes up again later. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: It really to the point where when I was watching
Speaker 4: it with my wife, she goes, can you turn it down?
Speaker 4: It's really obnoxious, And then I go of all the
Speaker 4: times to be watching this in the even as opposed
Speaker 4: to early in the morning.
Speaker 1: So here's something cool.
Speaker 2: When William Hannah and Joseph Barbera left MGM to start
Speaker 2: Hannah Barbera animation, they took their sound editor from MGM,
Speaker 2: who in turn took with him a massive amount of
Speaker 2: sounds from the MGM library, which had made available to
Speaker 2: all the studios in nineteen sixty five when Hanna Barbara
Speaker 2: released it as their own soundtrack library that includes Stormy Wind.
Speaker 2: Here it plays a prominent role here. It's been played
Speaker 2: too often, too long. It's it is no longer in use,
Speaker 2: thank god, but it it has appeared a lot in
Speaker 2: my gallery. Its just was so prominently displayed. I had
Speaker 2: to point it out here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am shocked that you like this. But to
Speaker 4: Mike's point, it is on brand. But that's not a
Speaker 4: bad thing. I think my issue is more in tune
Speaker 4: with where Mike is coming from, which is I really
Speaker 4: had a hard time understanding what the fuck, who the
Speaker 4: fuck was being talked to, And again I understand, I
Speaker 4: ended up understanding what was going on. I just I
Speaker 4: don't know. Coupling the weird storytelling with a very weak ending, again,
Speaker 4: I'm really struggling to understand what the meaning of the
Speaker 4: story is.
Speaker 2: Can I say about the ending? I actually found it
Speaker 2: horrified that the concept. I know, they don't explain to
Speaker 2: us what it means. But in my mind, she's just
Speaker 2: floating in the ether now and her body is a vegetable.
Speaker 4: So it's like, get out there. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And now not even that, but Dean Stockwell now
Speaker 2: is stuck with the notion that everyone has said to him,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be encouraging this in her, and the doc
Speaker 2: even says to him, she's got all these things, what
Speaker 2: do you have?
Speaker 1: I've got her.
Speaker 2: So the horror here is that now he's caused this
Speaker 2: thing and this crisis of supernatural conscience. This, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It bothered me. It worked on me at this ending.
Speaker 2: What can I tell you?
Speaker 4: I get it you and passionately describing it I think
Speaker 4: made me appreciate it a little bit more just now,
Speaker 4: because it did a very poor job in expressing.
Speaker 1: It's Dean stockwell Man. He's just so goddamned expressive.
Speaker 4: The best part of this episode.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he's amazing. I enjoy any chance to
Speaker 2: see him, and he elevates everything. And I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think the script does him and deserves. Too
Speaker 2: often on this show we've had really like Powerhouse guest
Speaker 2: stars who have been ill served by the script. I
Speaker 2: don't think the script will served anybody here. I know,
Speaker 2: I understand the problems you guys had with it, and
Speaker 2: I understand them.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just this one just vibrated on a different frequency
Speaker 2: with me for some reason,