Tag Archives: Night Gallery

Night Gallery – Eyes (S1P2)

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ngeyes03

Yikes!

aka The one Steven Spielberg directed.  No doubt Rod Serling was the draw for this movie when it aired, and maybe there were some lingering Joan Crawford fans.  But a few years later, Steven Spielberg is the main reason anyone would remember this episode, and he maybe serves as a gateway for the entire series.

Joan Crawford is “a blind queen who reigns in a carpeted penthouse on 5th Avenue.  An imperious, predatory dowager.”  She has summoned her personal doctor to her apartment building where she is the only resident.  It is not clear whether this is by design or just no other tenants would be willing to live this close to her.

She has read about heard of a new procedure that could possibly restore her sight.  It has only been attempted on a chimp and a dog, and restored their sight for just a few hours.  The doctor says it is still experimental, but Joan is convinced it will work on a human.  And, by the way, she would need a donor willing to give up their sight for the rest of their life to provide her a few hours of sight.

Her lawyer has found a man who would donate his eyes for the grand sum of $9,000.  The doctor is repulsed by the thought, but Joan blackmails him into performing the surgery.

ngeyes04We cut to Tom Bosley channeling Lou Costello.  He is in a playground explaining to the world’s least intimidating loan-shark why he doesn’t have his cash.  The knuckle-breaker has him on a kid’s Lazy Susan spinning him around; if he doesn’t come up with the dough, it could result in a Dutch Rub.

Bosley tells him that he has $9,000 coming to him which will exactly clear his debt.  Bosley later makes it clear that he will commit suicide after the operation.  So he is a real sport to take care of his gambling debt first.  Some pricks might have stiffed the bookie and left the cash to a children’s hospital.

Apparently hospitals back then were just like today — hours after having experimental surgery on her eyes, Crawford is discharged and sent home.

She begins unwrapping the bandages and when her eyes are exposed, she is able to see for the first time in her life.  This being a Rod Serling joint, that can’t be allowed to stand.  In a twist very reminiscent of TZ’s Time Enough at Last, there is a blackout of the city which again plunges her into darkness.  NYC had just had a massive blackout four years earlier, so this was not a crazy concept to the audience.

ngeyes02It is possible to be churlish and point out the flaws in what follows.   So I will.  OK, there is a blackout, but how did it become bottom-of-a-coal-mine-pitch-black?  Her apartment has windows.  She even stumbles down the stairs and outside, but is stopped by a fence.  Panning up a few feet over the fence, a street scene shows plenty of light from the moon and car headlights.

Distraught, she is furious at the doctor as she believes he botched the operation.  She makes her way back up to her apartment.  She wakes up in the morning, and is able to see the sun rising over the New York skyline.  She is enthralled by its beauty, but it is short-lived as her sight begins to fade.  Her sight lasted 11 hours and it was stolen by the blackout and squandered on sleep.

In several ways, it is easy to believe this is the work of a 21 year old first-time director — but I mean that in the best possible way.  There are shots and camera tricks here that a veteran — including the older Spielberg — might have avoided:  Jump cuts, shooting a reflection through a bead on the chandelier, a spinning chair fading into the Lazy Susan, the stark color of Joan Crawford in a red dress stumbling around a totally black background to indicate her blindness, focusing on innocuous items such as a manila envelope or light switch.

My favorite is the scene above where Spielberg allows it to play out with the blind Joan Crawford addressing the doctor at the spot where he had stood earlier, not realizing he has moved.  Would Grampa Spielberg have left that in?  I’m not sure.  I am baffled why artists tend to smooth everything out as they age.  Writers seem to think a plot cheapens a novel, composers plod along and never establish a tune, and directors avoid the flair that makes movies fun.

I rate it a 20/20.

Post-Post:

  • Maybe Joan Crawford considered this slumming after her stellar movie career.  But she could have gone out on a high note had she not made one last movie after this one.
  • She has great blue eyes and spent 99% of her career in B&W movies.  No wonder she was so pissed all the time.
  • Crawford plays Claudia Menlo; Thomas Edison was known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park.”
  • Steven Spielberg talking about the episode:

 

Night Gallery – The Cemetery (S1P1)

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nightgallery01Five years after The Twilight Zone went off the air, Rod Serling returned with another genre anthology show.  There were many similarities, not the least being Serling hosting, and also writing many of the episodes.

The quality did not match that of The Twilight Zone, and it lasted only 3 years.  Its first airing was in the form of a 2-hour movie with three distinct stories, all written by Serling.  This first installment was The Cemetery.

Although only 5 years removed from TZ, the change in production values is huge, and evidenced from the very first shot.  Not only is the series shot in color, it opens with a sweeping shot of a decaying mansion, panning over to the titular cemetery, all the while leaves are blowing wildly through the frame.  TZ frequently did amazing things with its limited budget and technology of the day, but it seems that Night Gallery benefited from advances in both areas.

nightgallery03Ossie Davis is caretaker to Mr. Hendricks, an elderly artist who has had a stroke and is in a wheelchair, mostly mute.  70’s go-to Brit Roddy McDowall is the ne’er-do-well nephew who discovered that he was next in the old man’s will after his mother died.

Roddy parks his uncle in front of an open window against doctor’s orders.  There is a nice single-shot pull back from a close-up of the old man shivering in the window, ending in the cemetery.  That night, he falls into a coma and passes away.  McDowall doesn’t even pretend to be upset, only inquiring about the money.

He is, however, disturbed by one of his uncles paintings which seems to change each time he looks at it, accusing him like The Tell-Tale Art.  First it just shows a cemetery, then an open grave, then a coffin appears.

McDowall burns the painting, but it stubbornly reappears on the wall.  This time with the coffin open, showing his uncle, causing him to scream in terror.  That night McDowall hears noises and gets up to investigate.  The painting now shows his uncle walking out of the cemetery gates.

nightgallery11McDowall calls the police.  As he hangs up, there is a knocking at the front door, and the painting now shows his uncle at the door.  McDowall goes mad, falling down the stairs and breaking his neck.

The door opens, but the person is shown only from the knees down.  The identity is pretty well telegraphed as there is no creepy music to indicate the dead uncle, there is no uniform to indicate the police, and — oh yeah — the person reaching down to check on McDowall has black hands.  Surprise, it is Ossie Davis!

All is explained, and that could have been the end of the story.  However, there is an epilogue that throws another twist into the story.  This is more like a Tales from the Crypt story than one of the old Twilight Zones.  It does, however, do a great job of setting the tone for the series which will be more horror than sci-fi.

The disc itself is not Blu-Ray but is a very sharp transfer despite the occasional artifacts.

Post-Post:

  • Just as with Tales from the Crypt, kudos to the marketing department for selling the “Complete First Season” and not mentioning on the package that it was only 6 episodes long.
  • For some bizarre reason, the 8th episode of season 2 is also included in the 1st season collection.  Maybe marketers felt guilty.
  • It was a little disturbing in the beginning as I thought McDowall was calling Davis porter-boy rather than his name Portifoy.
  • Director Boris Sagal was the father of Peg Bundy.  He died after walking into the rotor blade of a helicopter.  What is it with TZ and helicopters?