The title fills me with a sense of dread that Night Galley only wishes it could achieve legitimately. I fear another Godawful maudlin show-biz tale like Make Me Laugh. I was completely wrong in pre-judging Thriller, though, so there is hope.
Millicent Hardy arrives home early from a vacation at “the cape” where rooms were going for an outlandish $35 per night. She can’t find her sister Marion anywhere. Her room is a mess, half-open drawers, clothes everywhere, a burned-through cigarette resting on the vanity. The kitchen isn’t much better with dishes everywhere.
Millie hears tapping upstairs — not the usual haunted house tapping — Marion was actually a tap dancer. She goes to the upstairs studio to see her sister, and finds her hanging from a rope deader that Henri Radin.
Every day for six weeks, Millie has been having strange experiences. Today she saw Marion’s wig and passed out screaming. Yesterday, a dress of Marion’s mysteriously appeared in her closet. Marion’s hair is showing up in Millie’s hairbrush. There are apple sauce jars left around — a favorite of Marion’s. Cigarette butts, but Millie doesn’t smoke.
While talking to her boyfriend about selling the property, she mindlessly picks up a cigarette to smoke. That night she hears the tapping again. Well unless they were triplets, this has got to go better than last time. Nothing really happens, Millie just begs forgiveness for not being with Marion in her time of need.
The next day she gets a visit from William Jason to purchase the property. As he is making his pitch, the piano and tapping start again. Jason doesn’t hear anything, and it stops the second he leaves.
Going to answer the phone, she finds a locket was buried with Marion that has pictures of a skull and Millie; or maybe Marion herself — who can tell with twins.
She goes to see the doctor who called an begins taking on the characteristics of her dead sister — smoking, referring to Millie as her sister, admitting to being a slut.
That night, a spectral voice calls out to her and lays out a tap dancing outfit for her which she puts on. There is another noose hanging in the studio and the voice beckons her to “come to me”. She hesitates and Jason steps out of the shadows. There are a couple of switcheroos and it turned out to be a good episode. So much for my prognostication skills.
Post-Post:
I was much too young when the Gidget movie came out; I was still in that phase when I thought girls were icky! Then I happened upon this episode of Night Gallery and I totally fell in love with her. She’s absolutely beautiful in this episode. The storyline could have been better but Sandra totally pulled it off. And I have to say that she looked incredible in that tap dancing out fit. I wish I could find a pinup of that! In any case, Sandra had to over come a great deal of personal heartbreak and tragedy and I was so happy after nearly 20 or 30 years she was on the Sally Jessie Raphele show. Even at sixty, to these eyes, she still just as beautiful. That’s it for now. Bye!