Change Your Image
mallon1968
Reviews
Night Gallery: Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay/With Apologies to Mr. Hyde/The Flip-Side of Satan (1971)
Suburban horror
Michele Lee and James Farentino (who were married in real life at the time) star as a happy married couple with a slight wedge in between them: "Aunt Ada," a relative who's come to stay with her niece at her home, much to the chagrin of her husband. Through a little research and the advice of his colleague (nicely played by Jonathan Harris, in campy doom-and-gloom mode), it's found that this woman is an impostor. She's a witch, looking for a new young body for her soul, and Lee's will do just fine, thanks. The pleasure of this clever and slightly shivery episode is the chess game between Farentino and Jeanette Nolan (who seems like she's having a lot of fun as the old witch), each trying to keep Michele Lee's character to themselves. Lots of neat little visual tricks (as witches gather en masse, disappear, burn...)and a dollop of humor from scriptwriter Alvin Sapinsley and William Hale, who know very well this story's best served with a wink. This is one of those stories that Rod Serling might have criticized for just 'stopping' instead of 'ending,' but the episode ends on a deceptive point of 'normalcy' ("Is she, or isn't she?") which is very satisfying. There are a few blips in the screenplay (What college class meets around the midnight hour??) but overall, this is a most enjoyable story.
Night Gallery: Green Fingers/The Funeral/The Tune in Dan's Cafe (1972)
Compact, poetic, eloquent
Most of the stories dramatized on "Night Gallery" are quite enjoyable, but really aren't incredibly original, so for me, a lot of times it's not so much the story that's of interest as how the material's developed. "The Tune in Dan's Cafe" is a fine example of this. It's a simple story--a married couple that's on the edge of divorce stops into what seems to be a nearly abandoned café--only the proprietor remains. When they play the jukebox, they find it only plays one hackneyed country song ("If You Leave Me Tonight, I'll Cry" by Jerry Wallace, which seems a perfect choice to me), which continually skips in the same place. The proprietor relates a story about a previous couple who came to a violent end in the café in the past; the skipping jukebox reflects that moment, and the story intimates that the café (and at least one particular ghost) awaits her return. Consider you have 20 minutes for this story segment that relates 2 accounts of troubled relationships, and the reason behind the haunted café. Add in some cool visual effects and some understated acting, and you have an idea of how well editor-turned-director David Rawlins has treated this material. There's no need for a lot of exposition or explanation in this story; the spare but effective teleplay does the trick and the editing of the segment is efficient yet stylish, and the ending ties everything up so well--we intuit that the doomed couple inspires the contemporary couple to patch things up--and also to get the hell out of the café--as the long-awaited girlfriend is returning...
Night Gallery: Midnight Never Ends/Brenda (1971)
One of the best of Season 2
You can look at this episode at least two ways: One, as a rambling, silly episode with a bratty girl who befriends a decidedly unscary moss-like monster, or you can interpret this story as I do, as an impressionistic portrait of a lonely girl, where the monster is some important part of Brenda herself, and as the monster seems to be the only entity she has any meaningful relationship with, it only underlines her loneliness, and I find this very poignant. Laurie Prange is probably too old to play Brenda, but she plays it very convincingly, and the teleplay by Matthew Howard (Douglas Heyes) keeps things appropriately ambiguous--has the monster always been on the island? How responsible is Brenda for stirring it to life, and if so, why? There's no shock ending: the monster doesn't 'get' anyone in the end, and viewers are more than adequately left with an unsettling impression that when Brenda returns to the island the following year, the monster will return, too, with a vengeance. Skillfully written, directed and scored (the acting's a little broad--see Glenn Corbett--no matter), and an excellent mix of both the sad and the unsettling, and very resonant to this viewer.