Night Gallery - The Girl with the Hungry Eyes

Funnily When Night Gallery Opens in the Third Season......it specifies "ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY" but it wouldn't be until the next episode after this one, "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (that one titled "Rare Objects" (opening with Mickey Rooney feeding his face)) that we get an episode written by him. I found that curious that opening another season of a show featuring his very memorable likeness, his narrative voice, that distinctive host presence that is irreplaceable, missing at the end with just a credits role, lacking that impressionable closing monologue that bookends each tale with a message or lesson to contemplate, replaced by just a spooky introduction and painting the represents the episode.

Joanna Pettet returns for another episode of Night Gallery, in the third season, as what I consider a succubus, a desirable advertisement model—her greatest campaign for John (The Addams Family) Astin’s beer company—who seems to drain the life from men who want and crave her, photographed by an increasingly concerned “head shot specialist”, David Faulkner (James Farentino). Joanna’s face, particularly her eyes, seems to reach into the very soul of men, “requiring” their drawing to her so she can “thrive”. David feels he must stop her or the “maybe murders”—including a young Kip Niven (“New Year’s Evil”), friend to David, who feels the need to see her, as does Astin eventually—will continue. David realizes that she needs him as much as he needs her—she did make him a lot of money through her work in front of his camera—because without the glamor shots that are everywhere, in magazines and on billboards, she can’t “reach out” and draw more and more men into her spider’s web. I really liked Pettet in the first season episode of Night Gallery, “The House”, and she’s quite well cast in “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”, very much a captivating beauty who does have allure and sensuality that would be required in a successful succubus. And she’s indeed photogenic. The emphasis on her glowing eyes can be a bit much, and Farentino is a bit over the top to me (I never was the biggest fan of his, especially remembering his hysterics in the cult favorite, “Dead & Buried” (1981)), especially by the end when he gives the “gotcha!” monologue to her before setting all his negatives and shots of her on fire in his condo. I thought it was okay, feeling Pettet was certainly the highlight and reason to watch the episode. It was nice to see just single episodes without producer Laird’s past intrusions with little minutes-long excerpts in the hour-long format used as running-time padding. 2.5/5