Night Gallery (1969) (TV)

Directors:

Boris Sagal
Barry Shear

Writer:

Rod Serling (written by)

Release Date:

8 November 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller | Sci-Fi

Plot:

In the pilot of the television series "Night Gallery" (1970), Rod Serling introduces three separate paintings...

Plot Keywords:

Painting | Nazi | Blackmail | War Criminal | Butler

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Joan Crawford	...	Miss Menlo
Ossie Davis	...	Portifoy
Richard Kiley	...	Strobe
Roddy McDowall	...	Jeremy
Barry Sullivan	...	Dr. Heatherton
Tom Bosley	...	Resnick
George Macready	...	Hendricks
Sam Jaffe	...	Bleum
Norma Crane	...	Gretchen
Barry Atwater	...	Carson
George Murdock	...	1st Agent
Tom Basham	...	Gibbons
Byron Morrow	...	Packer
Garry Goodrow	...	Louis
Shannon Farnon	...	1st Nurse

Also Known As:

Rod Serling's Wax Museum (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Iceland:12 | USA:Unrated

Company:

Universal TV

Trivia:

The "Eyes" segment was Steven Spielberg's professional debut as a director. This was quite an auspicious beginning, considering that he was to direct screen legend Joan Crawford, winner of an Academy Award who had been acting in films since 1925.

Goofs:

Factual errors: During the "Escape Route" segment, Israeli agents hold a photo of wanted war criminal SS-Gruppenfuhrer (Major General) Helmuth Arndt. However, the photograph shows Kiley wearing the one-of-a-kind uniform worn by Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Making of '1941' (1996) (V)

Enjoyable 3-part TV movie that launched "Night Gallery"

Very well made TV movie, with 3 different stories. the first stars Roddy McDowall as a bastard nephew who kills his uncle to take his money, then is haunted by the ghost of the uncle (or so he thinks) to death. Ossie Davis also stars in this episode, and he's wonderful. This is my personal favorite of the three. Roddy is snide and sly as the nephew, and when he starts to come unhinged he's marvelous. The second stars Richard Kiel as a WWII concentration camp captain hiding in some South American city, where he becomes strangely fixated with an idyllic painting of a man fishing in a mountain lake. The painting hangs in a museum, and he spends day after day in there just staring at it and eventually feels himself drawn into the painting. It's a relief to be hounded no longer by the war crimes police when he's in the painting. But back in reality he's recognized as a Nazi who was condemned after the war, and a former camp inmate tells the police about him. Kiel runs to the museum, intent on going into the life in the painting for good. But he makes a big, big mistake and will spend eternity paying for it and his crimes against humanity. The last episode stars Joan Crawford in a pretty much one-woman play. She's a blind rich woman, living in a huge penthouse apartment in NYC, who pays a loser for his corneas so that she can have them transplanted in her eyes. The kicker is that she will only be able to see for about 8 hours, and she doesn't care a bit that the man she takes the corneas from will be blind forever. She has the operation, and when the time comes to take the bandages off, the instant she does the city is plunged into a blackout. She spends the 8 hours trying to get out of the apartment building in the dark stairwells, and finally makes it back to her apartment when the sun comes up. She finally sees the sun, but it's the last thing she does.

I love this movie; and I also loved Night Gallery, but this film has 3 different viewpoints and would appeal to a large audience. All the performances are excellent. Steven Spielberg directed the Joan Crawford segment, "Eyes"; it was one of his first director assignments.