Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

I had wrapped up the third season (and additional content included, “the Lost Tales”) from my DVD set and has some time to kill Sunday evening so I slipped in the first disc of the first season—I had intended to watch all the episodes of this set much earlier in 2019 but never seemed to get around to it—and watched the Pilot (after the official first season episode, with “The Dead Man” and “The Housekeeper”). It just reminded me of how different Night Gallery started to where it finished it terms of overall quality. Granted the first few episodes of the first season were still a mixed bag to me, but the Pilot had three tales that really landed well with me personally even if I wasn’t all that wild and crazy for the episodes the followed in the first season’s early goings. I knew I would be focused on Twilight Zone Monday onward for a wee little bit (I have already saved the schedules for New Year’s Eve and Day for marathons to be presenting the show on both Syfy & Decades Ne...

Geraldine Page has been driven to drink and mental illness by ex-husband Leif Erickson’s exit from her life, now up in her attic talking to the ghost (named Jamie) of a murdered criminal who lost a gunfight with police in there. She just can’t seem to get over the dissolution of her marriage, up in the attic imparting her agonies to Jamie, a ghost just wanting to remain at peace in the woodwork, a spectre without form since his body has been ravaged as wormfood. Jamie begs her to just leave him be but she can’t help seeking comfort and friendship wherever possible…even if it is from a ghost who is little more than shadow vacating the environs of a cobwebbed, spider-infested attic few would ever wish to enter.  Erickson, for some reason, time and again, returns to her home, requesting Page seek help for her “sickness”. Her loneliness is apparent from the get-go when she nudges a handyman to stay for coffee and cookies, while he obviously has commitments and other clie...

As much as I love Chuck Connors in this episode of Night Gallery, “The Ring with the Red Velvet Ropes” left me a bit confused. I *think* this is a version of hell or something similar where being the best at your sport can demand a heavy price. Granted being “married” to Joan Van Ark for as long as you remain the champ in their enigmatic netherworld would seem to be quite a perk, Lockwood doesn’t get a lot of answers as to how he got to the luxurious hotel where he’s granted access to a pool room, fancy digs, and pleasant view of an ocean outside the window. He just can’t seem to leave unless he agrees to fight Connors, a champ considered the best although to the viewing public Lockwood is the Heavyweight Champion of the World. It does seem that prior to Lockwood winning his championship, the man he defeated, Big Dan Anger (Ji-Tu Cumbuka), once boxed Connors…and lost. And Joan Van Ark tries to convince Lockwood to lose, too, but he’s “never thrown a fight” so once the two bulls loc...

What an unexpected and outrageous outcome to an episode of Night Gallery! This features Cameron Mitchell as a master hypnotist in jail for a B&E, doing an 18 month stretch. He has found the perfect human experiment in a prison lifer (Burgess Meredith), dying to get out and “be free”. What is remarkable about this human subject is that through Mitchell’s hypnotism, he’s able to convince Meredith that cold water is hot and that is so real to him that his fingers are scalded! Mitchell is able to convince Meredith, in the harrowing opening sequence of the episode, that his hands are fists of steel…Meredith commences in punching the concrete wall barrier of the prison until both hands are broken and he’s pulled away by fellow inmates. Barry Sullivan is the prison doc who has become astonished by Mitchell’s work, agreeing to let him convince Meredith that he’s in a jet plane, way up in the sky…so convincing in fact that Meredith develops physical symptoms of hypoxia, leaving blisters...

 These were included on my Season Three DVD set. “Die Now, Pay Later” is a tale that was written by Jack Laird but didn’t air on network television. It is a minor conversation piece between Sheriff Slim Pickens hoping to convince Undertaker Will Greer to cut out a sale on funeral items such as caskets, flowers, and urns because “business has picked up” ever since he started it. People dying off, Pickens can’t prove they are being murdered but rumors, many fueled by his demanding wife, seem to indicate plenty of motives out there for each fresh victim. Greer goes about his parlor, tending to his various items on sale as Pickens follows, practically begging him to cut out the clearance sale in order for folks to stop murdering those they dislike in cold blood! Not much to it except that Laird includes the possibility that Greer is a warlock, since his ancestor was burned at the stake in Salem as one. Pickens particular style of vernacular and speech always brings an audience bu...