(1971)
Dir - Don Taylor
Overall: GOOD
Though it hardly fits into Night Gallery's horror trajectory, "The Messiah on Mott Street" is still a textbook work from host/screenwriter Rod Serling, something that paints the supernatural in a benevolent light as something that can bring salvation to those in destitute. The segment benefits by a top-notch performance from Edward G. Robinson, (one of his last), who plays an elderly man literally on his death bed that refuses to wield to his inevitable demise so that he can stick around long enough to take care of his grandson. Thus the summoning of the messiah of the title takes place, taking the form of Yaphet Kotto's mystery man who seems to be the antithesis of the angel of death. It is an uplifting tale that forgoes malevolence and instead presents an otherworldly scenario where miracles are possible, and on Christmas day no less.
(1971)
Dir - Gene Kearney
Overall: MEH
Writer/director Gene Kearney adapts Donald Wandrei's 1937 short story "The Painted Mirror", material that is ideally suited for Night Gallery yet also unsatisfactory in its condensed form. Taking place in an establishment where two elderly people who do not get along also sell antiques, the mirror of the title arrives just in time to present an ideal opportunity for Arthur O'Connell to rid the world of Zsa Zsa Gabor. The two characters are thinly drawn, (O'Connell is good, Gabor is bad), and the supernaturally charged mirror fails to phase Gabor in any way shape or form when she nonchalantly enters into it to call out to her dog about nine thousand times in two and a half minutes. Even though it has a macabre finale that is satisfying enough, the tale could have worked better if it played up its camp appeal.
(1971)
Dir - John Meredyth Lucas
Overall: MEH
Rod Serling does a tweak on his own famed Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder" for Night Gallery's "The Different Ones", something that makes it satisfying to a point yet also redundant. Set in an undisclosed period in the future, Dana Andrews grows more and more concerned for his physically grotesque teenage son Jon Korkes who lives an isolated existence of increasing bitterness. He then jumps at the opportunity to sign Korkes up for an exchange program with another planet, conveniently one where his aesthetic handicaps are more optically pleasing to everyone there. The twist is predictable, (largely because the aforementioned episode of The Twilight Zone easily comes to mind even before it happens), but it may still pack a clever punch for the uninitiated.
(1971)
Dir - Jeff Corey
Overall: MEH
Penelope Wallace's 1967 short story "Tell David..." is another Night Gallery installment that could have easily fit into Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone since there are no overt horror elements present, yet it still utilizes an otherworldly scenario to tell a cautionary tale of sorts. Adapted to the small screen by Gerald Sanford, it transports Sandra Dee's young married mother into the future during a freak occurrence, though the true identity of the couple that she meets there during a rain storm is not revealed at first. There are clear signs that we are dealing with a clashing of eras, due to a number of details that seem foreign to Dee, particularly the concept of jealousy having no part in her new friend's relationship. The segment gets by to a point on its contemplative premise where a more ideal society may await us, one which has broken the cycle of some of our less agreeable human ailments.
(1971)
Dir - Jeannot Szwarc
Overall: MEH
Night Gallery ventures into the realm of voodoo for "Logoda's Heads", an adaptation of August Derleth's 1939 short story of the same name, here brought to the small screen by genre heavyweight Robert Bloch. The results sensationalize the mystical practices of "primitive" cultures as stereotypically as any Westernized work of fiction from the time period, bringing the white man deep into the jungle against powerful and mysterious forces that they fail to understand or respect. They encounter a feared witch doctor who grants them an audience while simultaneously hiding something, and as the title would suggest, said witch doctor also has a collection of shrunken human heads at his disposal, heads that play a part in some likewise gruesome business by the finale.
(1972)
Dir - John Badham
Overall: GOOD
Originally published in 1968 in the Third Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories collection from R.C. Cook, Rod Serling adapts "Green Fingers" for Night Gallery with both Cameron Mitchell and Elsa Lanchester along for the ride. Mitchell portrays an odious real estate tycoon who tries and fails to buy Lancaster out of her family home where everything that she grows in her garden effortlessly springs to life. This provides the tale with a ghoulish climax that turns Mitchell's hair stark-white and also forces him to break the forth wall while overacting into the camera. Both he and Lancaster are ideally cast as stubborn opposing forces, and the supernatural element is equally ridiculous and satisfying for a tale that is determined not to let a capitalist monster get what he feels he cannot go without.
(1972)
Dir - John Meredyth Lucas
Overall: MEH
Bringing his own 1955 short story to small screen life, Richard Matheson channels his inner goofy monster kid in "The Funeral". Who the funeral is for in an upscale establishment for the recently departed is revealed in the opening scene, which would have been a sufficient place to end it since the rest of the segment merely slams home the one-note joke. Superfluous and silly with its barrage of ghouls, vampires, witches, and a hunchback servant and werewolf who arrive for a wake where the person being laid to rest is the one inviting everyone in the first place, and sparing no expense in the process. Still, it would have worked better as a brief vignette, merely coming off as a better and longer version of Night Gallery's usually poorly-executed blackout sketches.
(1972)
Dir - David Rawlins
Overall: MEH
This adaptation of Shamus Frazer's short story "The Tune in Dan's Café" is not so much egregious or poorly executed as it is just moderate. It begins when Pernell Roberts and Susan Oliver's unhappy married couple who are in need of a break from the road, (and each other), have ventured into the haunted establishment of the title, but this particularly haunting is a curious one. That is to say that the place seems isolated at first and perhaps trapped in a bygone era, (which may still be the case by the tale's end), where a jukebox will only play one song no matter how many times another song is selected or how many times the owner has replaced and fixed the machine. Said song winds up having a direct link to a previous deadly crime that was committed there which we witness in flashback, all of which gives Oliver and Roberts pause as to the state of their unhappy marriage. Sadly though, the segment never gets spooky, atmospheric, or gripping.
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