(1969)
Dir - Boris Sagal
Overall: GOOD
The first segment in the Night Gallery pilot comes out strong, one that utilizes the disturbing painting gimmick to the fullest and features a pitch perfect performance from Roddy McDowall as a scumbag nephew who gets more than he bargained for when he arrives at his rich and senile uncle's estate to make sure that his inheritance will be forthcoming. "The Cemetery" also features Ossie Davis as a butler with his own agenda, and host/creator Rod Serling's script manages to mix a Scooby-Doo style ruse along with genuine supernatural events, all revolving around a painting of the ground's family cemetery that gets more details added to it as things go along. The inspiration likely stems from M.R. James' 1904 short story "The Mezzotint", but Serling's take basks in a type of gleeful psychological horror that appropriately sets the stage for the rest of the program.
(1969)
Dir - Steven Spielberg
Overall: GOOD
Notable as the first directorial work in television from an up and coming Steven Spielberg, "Eyes" also features Golden Era legend Joan Crawford in one of her last starring roles, here playing a rich and blind curmudgeon who goes to heartless lengths to be able to see for a measly couple of hours. The pseudo-science plot specifics do not have an ounce of plausibility, but this is hardly important since it provides Rod Serling's tale with a solid set up for fate's seemingly cruel hand to deliver due comeuppance. Spielberg stages some trippy sequences when New York undergoes a hilariously timed black out, and the director's eye for gripping camera angles is already on par this early in his career. Crawford is ideally cast as the cruel villain who blackmails her way into her doomed situation, but Tom Bosley steals the show as the hapless sap that is forced to give up his eyes to bail himself out of gambling debts, turning in a pathetic performance that is heartbreaking despite the story's campy outcome.
(1969)
Dir - Barry Shear
Overall: GOOD
Though comparatively the least memorable segment in the three part Night Gallery pilot, "Escape Route" is still an expertly done one, looking at a Nazi in hiding in South America whose monstrous past catches up with him in a curious fashion. That is via a nondescript painting that Richard Kiley's doomed antagonist becomes infatuated with, a painting in a museum that simply depicts a man fishing and in effect offers up an enchanting alternative to his decades of being on the run and living out the remainder of his miserable existence with such horrible deeds giving him little if any pause. Kiley is being hunted down before he bumps into an older gentleman who recognizes him from their concentration camp days, resulting in a moment that crystalizes that we are dealing with a man who deserves less sympathy than he lets on. This makes the final and impossible reveal that much more satisfying, another EC comics worthy moment of comeuppance that many of Rod Serling's stories utilized.
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