Carol Lynley and Donna Douglas are browsing in an antique shoppe. Donna sees a statue that is the spitting image of Carol’s husband Bill Bixby.  She calls Carol over and she also sees the resemblance.  The audience, not so much.  I honestly see no resemblance whatsoever between the statue and Bill Bixby.

But, for a cool 75 bucks, she has it delivered, placing it the backyard.  Bixby is less than impressed.  She tells him that she bought it because it looks like him.  Bixby, who complains about the cost on his junior law partner salary says “overruled.”

The Buddy Druid

That night, he has a nightmare about the statue coming into their bedroom. The next morning, he notices foot-steps of dead grass leading from the statue to the house.  That day, he goes to the shoppe to ask about the statue.  I was pretty pleased with myself noting that both Bixby and the owner were saying Drood instead of Druid.  Then Bixby realized what the old man was saying and corrected him.  Kudos for suckering me in, anyway.

On the other hand, there is some really botched composition in that scene where Bixby’s face is directly behind a vertical pole on a quilt rack.  Was no one looking through the camera?

Yeah, real dead ringer.

Turns out the owner, after 10 years, just happened to find a picture of the statue with historical information on the back.  At home, Bixby reads to his wife that the statue is of a “defrocked Abbot of Penicude Cathedral, Father Balamaster, referred to as Bruce the Black.”  This delights Carol as Bruce is Bixby’s name in the episode.^[1] She buys into Donna’s theory that this is Bruce’s great-great-great grandfather.

Bixby continues, “He practiced sorcery, and the religious ceremonies of his particular order were purely satanic.  And the worshipers followed their leader’s habit of debauchery and rapine as well as sacrifices both animal and human.”

And now the bloodline has really devolved . . . to a lawyer — the horror!

While barbecuing the next day, Bixby sees see statue appear closer to him after he looks away for a second, like the topiary in The Shining (or not, I read it eons ago). After burning himself on the grill, the statue is back in its place.  Bixby talks to it, telling it that he is not intimidated by it.

He is caught talking to the statue by Donna.  The grill flares up, bathing them in magic-hour light.  Bixby is possessed by Bruce the Black, grabs Donna and gives her a hard long kiss.  She actually seems OK with it, hoping he tries it again some time.

He continues being a little crazy when he sees an image of Bruce the Black in the fire, and tries to barbecue the neighbor’s cat.  When the maid catches him and he calls her an “old bag”, the party is pretty much over.

That night, he has another nightmare where Bruce the Black suggests that he kill Carol so he can have Donna.  That’s just crazy — that bed will hold three.  He manages to resist.  He goes downstairs and gets a crowbar to destroy the statue.  On the first swing, there is a flash of light and Bixby has become the statue and Bruce the Black is lying on the ground, restored to life.  The new statue still looks nothing like Bixby.

There is an unnecessary scene at the end that just raises more questions, but it is another chance to see Donna Douglas, so no harm.

Wow, two good segments and no filler sketch segment — highly unusual for Night Gallery.  This outting was also unique in that, even though it was not one of the comedy segments, it did have several clever situations and witty lines.  Unlike most of the comedy segments.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Bixby also played Bruce on The Incredible Hulk — or should have.  For some reason, his character was renamed David Banner for that series.
• Is your name not Bruce?
• Twilight Zone Legacy:  Donna Douglas was in the classic Eye of the Beholder.  Ned Glass and Bill Bixby were also in one episode each.
• A Beverly Hillbillies twin spin episode with Jed Clampett in the first segment, and now Ellie May Clampett (or Ellie may not (hooo-aaah!!  misspent youth reading Mad Magazine finally pays off!).
• That last scene does kind of bug me.  Donna takes the statue back to the store to see if the owner wishes to buy it.  Where is Carol?  Is she dead?  What is that mischievous smile Donna gives?  Was this some sort of plot by her?

Gunslinger Sam Dichter comes a-riding into town.  He stops for a moment to check out a man who has been hanged from a tree that overhangs the road.  He could have stolen the corpse’s spurs, or maybe his fine pin-striped gray coat, but he already has one like it.  The exact same ensemble — awkward!

He hitches his horse outside the local saloon, enters and orders a whisky.  I’ve always wondered about that.  When cowboys came in off the dusty trail, is whiskey really the first thing they order?  Seems like just water would be a good start, then maybe some lemonade.  Which is why I would have been beaten to a pulp in 19th century saloons . . . a fabulous citrussy pulp.

He sarcastically asks the bartender if the place is always this busy.  Seeing as there is only one table, and it is filled with four guys playing cards, this is really an overflow SRO crowd for this establishment.

He walks to the table and is quite happy with himself that the men recognize him as Dichter, a gunslinger with “lightning draw and deadly devilish aim.”  Maybe he recognized the card players also — there was Jed Clampett, Jock Ewing, former Tarzan Lex Barker, and Danny Noonan’s father.

When the clock strikes 9 pm, Tarzan reluctantly stands up from the table.  Dichter recognizes him as a fellow gunslinger.  He walks out of the saloon and seconds later a gunshot is heard.  The men at the table say they know what happened — Tarzan got his head blown off just as Dichter had heard that he died years earlier.

He sits down to play the dead man’s hand.  Soon he recognizes Mr. Noonan as another gunslinger he saw killed at high noon in Monterey.  Dichter decides these strange events are the result of “fever crawling into my mind”.  Because drinking straight whisky after a long ride could have nothing to do with it.  I begged him, have the lemonade.

Just as Dichter and Mr. Noonan are about to draw on each other, the clock chimes at 10 pm.  Noonan knows the bell tolls for he, so he is next to walk out of the saloon.  A few seconds later there is the sound of another gunshot.

Very soon, the clock chimes at 11 pm.  I can see why people come to this joint — time really flies here.  This time it is Jock the bank-robber’s time to step outside.  He tells Dichter where he is going and how is is going to die.  Another gunshot.

Jed tells Dichter that he wasn’t a criminal, but a doctor.  He patched up the bad guys so they could go on stealing and killing.  I’m sure it would horrify most actors now, but he makes a pretty good case for the death penalty, and against leftie criminal-lovers.

The clock strikes midnight — which I really expected Serling to save for Dichter — and it is Jed’s turn to walk out the door.  Years ago, in despair over the lives he had enabled to be taken, he killed himself.  Exit exit.  Bang bang.

Dichter — no steam engine scientist — still hasn’t quite cracked the code.  He demands the bartender tell him what this place is.  The bartender tells him it is a waiting room where people await their ordained fate — Hell.

The clock strikes 1 AM and it is last call for Dichter.  He exits and is back where the segment started.  This time, he when he stops at the hanging man, he reaches up and takes the sack off the dead head and sees his own face.

Terrified, he runs to the saloon where the quartet are playing cards again and the bartender already has a whiskey waiting for him.  The last minute of the episode has no dialogue.  In slow motion, the clock chimes 9 pm again, Mr. Noonan knows it is his time, and they all stare at the clock (whose second hand is the only thing not in slow motion).  Very effective.

Nothing startlingly original here, basically one set (although they did spring for a horse), yet it is one of my favorites so far.  I’m always a sucker for a Hell / Purgatory story. And the veteran cast was perfectly . . . er, cast.  Most of the heavy lifting, though, is done by Steve Forrest as Dichter.  His cockiness, lack of understanding and fear are well-conveyed.

Post-Post:

• Twilight Zone Legacy:  Albert Salmi was in three episodes, Steve Forrest and Buddy Ebsen in one each.
• Buddy Ebsen is playing Doc Soames.  It was also a Doc Soames that patched Nick Andros up in The Stand.
• This was Lex Barker’s last IMDb credit.