NIGHT GALLERY: SEASON 3
See Videography 13 for an explanation of the rating system for Serling’s Night Gallery segments.
“Rare Objects”
October 22, 1972, Length: 30 minutes
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “Collector’s Items”
2. Rod Serling, “Collector’s Items,” short story in Rod Serling, Night Gallery 2
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc
Cast: Mickey Rooney: Augie Kolodney; Raymond Massey: Dr. Glendon; Fay Spain: Molly Mitchell; David Fresco: Blockman; Regis J. Cordic: Doctor; Victor Sen Yung: Butler; Ralph Adamo: Tony
Synopsis:
Good evening. As the resident custodian of this museum, I bid you welcome and offer you the felicitations of our entire staff … most of whom are out and about at the moment, since they tend to be night people. Our artists and artisans take a rather pardonable pride in their work that you see hanging here. An example is this item here. It’s called “Rare Objects,” and represents that potpourri of collector’s items that some men are prone to acquire. But there are collector’s items … and collector’s items. Offered to you now, an excursion into the very strange, tonight’s offering in the Night Gallery.
In an Italian restaurant on Long Island, August Kolodney, the most powerful man in the world of organized crime, eats alone. In fact, he and a waiter, Blockman, are the only people in the whole place. Blockman refills Kolodney’s wineglass with shaky hands, nervous just to be in the man’s presence. Augie Kolodney has survived so many assassination attempts that they have become routine occupational hazards, but tonight his enemies have made their intentions obvious. His girl declined to join him, claiming a headache. The owner of the restaurant is out “sick” as well. And Blockman has already sent customers away to ensure that Kolodney would be the only one in the line of fire.
Kolodney confronts the waiter with these observations just as two men burst through the doors, weapons blazing. Kolodney dives behind a bar for cover, but he takes a bullet in his left arm. He returns fire and chases the two hitmen outside, and the gun battle continues in the street. The two men drive away. Augie Kolodney has survived yet another attempt on his life.
That night a discreet doctor patches up Kolodney’s arm and gives him some unsolicited medical advice: retire. His blood pressure is out of control, his heart races even when he’s sitting still. If he doesn’t get out of his business soon, he’ll likely do his enemies’ work for them by dropping dead of a heart attack. Kolodney yearns to walk away from his life, but he can’t. “They’ll find me,” he says. No matter where he goes, enemies will track him down. The doctor suggests that if Kolodney truly wants to get out and live a long, healthy life, he should see Dr. Glendon. His services are very expensive, but he can give Kolodney what he needs.
As instructed, Kolodney arrives alone at Glendon’s sprawling mansion without telling anyone where he was going. He follows the stately, elderly gentleman into a lavishly furnished study, filled with rare and extravagant paintings, statues, and books. Glendon pours Kolodney a glass of wine and begins the interview. But it is clear that Glendon already knows all about his visitor, including his enemies—and his supposed friends. According to Glendon, Kolodney’s right-hand man, Tony, is conspiring with one of his enemies right at this moment. Kolodney is surprised by this information and saddened by this betrayal.
Ultimately, Glendon is satisfied that his guest is a truly unique man. Kolodney is the toughest, richest, most powerful of his kind, yet also the most vulnerable. Glendon announces that he can help. His price: everything that August Kolodney owns. Kolodney still doesn’t understand exactly what’s going on, and now his vision has become blurred. The wine was drugged.
Glendon and his butler guide Kolodney up a flight of stairs as the doctor explains that the drug is a tranquilizer, necessary before they start the procedure. He will inject Kolodney with a unique cellular regenerating serum, the closest thing to the fountain of youth ever discovered. Kolodney will live a very long, healthy life. As they walk down the hallway, Glendon explains that behind the locked doors are other items in his collection—“one-of-a-kind things.” In one room is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who vanished in 1918. In another is Judge Joseph Boss Crater, who went missing in the 1930s. Another room holds Amelia Earhart. And in another is Glendon’s prized possession, Adolf Hitler, “captured in Argentina in 1947.” The doctor leads the drowsy mobster to a similar room and locks the gated door behind him. A plaque on the door already bears his name—Glendon had been expecting him. He could hardly wait to add another unique item to his collection.
“You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan”
November 12, 1972, Length: 30 minutes
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “The Vault”
Directed by John Badham
Teleplay by Rod Serling, based on J. Wesley Rosenquest’s short story, “The Secret of the Vault”
Cast: Ozzie Nelson: Henry Millikan; Harriet Nelson: Helena Millikan; Roger Davis: George Beaumont; Michael Lerner: Dr. Burgess; Don Keefer: Dr. Coolidge; Margaret Muse: Dr. Steinhem; Lew Brown: Detective Stacy; Stuart Nisbet: Detective Kimbrough
Synopsis:
For the benefit of those of you who’ve not visited art lovers’ soirees before, I am your guide, host, curator. I introduce the hanging goodies with just a few words of explanation as to how we secured them for our exhibit: sometimes a loan, sometime a direct purchase, frequently a shovel. Tonight we offer the sour fruit of a scientist-failure, for there are apparently some things that can’t be accomplished. And therein lies the tale and hangs the picture in this, the Night Gallery.
Dr. Henry Millikan, eccentric pseudoscientist, has gathered some of the country’s greatest scientific minds to witness a demonstration of the long-since discredited practice of alchemy. The audience is eager to begin the demonstration, but Millikan insists on waiting for his wife, who should arrive soon. On cue, Helena Millikan arrives and apologizes for having forgotten that the demonstration was scheduled for today.
Henry Millikan begins the experiment. On a table before him is a fluid-filled beaker in which is submerged an ordinary rock. Millikan announces that he will transform the rock into gold. He lights a flame beneath the beaker, the liquid begins to bubble, and the beaker explodes, showering the audience with glass shards and debris. This is not the first time one of Millikan’s demonstrations has gone spectacularly awry, and this latest disaster has cemented his reputation for being a charlatan and a carnival barker rather than a scientist.
Once his guests leave, the simpleminded and terribly forgetful Helena tries to comfort her husband with platitudes. He promises to “try, try again” immediately and again secludes himself in his basement laboratory. When he finally emerges several hours later, Henry is carrying a vial of liquid that he proclaims is his greatest scientific discovery. And the best part is that Helena will be an integral part of proving its success.
One week later, Henry’s nephew, George, whom Henry had put through medical school, interrupts Henry’s experiments with urgent news. Helena is seriously ill and not responding to treatment. She’s dying, apparently from some sort of poison for which George knows no antidote. To George’s shock and dismay, Henry is unconcerned. In fact, he seems downright cheerful about the situation, asking George if he has any guess about when she will die: “She’s been late with everything in her life—I suppose she’ll be late with her dying, too!” George directly asks whether Henry poisoned Helena. In response, Henry leads George back upstairs to ask her that question. Lying in bed, eyes closed and barely able to speak, Helena confirms that Henry gave her poison but explains that she drank it willingly. Why? “Because Henry is going to bring me back to life,” she says.
That night, after Helena has died, Henry carries her body down to his laboratory and injects her with a serum. He whispers to her a promise that she will return to life within five minutes. Then he goes upstairs and brings George down to the lab to witness her resurrection. When more than five minutes has passed, Henry whispers for Helena to wake up. He shakes her, but she does not respond. George is now seriously doubting his uncle’s sanity, and his uncle is finally beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation. The police are on their way, and George tells his uncle to keep his mouth shut when the police arrive so that George can lay the groundwork for an insanity defense. A distraught Henry retreats to his bedroom to contemplate his fate.
Two detectives arrive, and George confirms that Henry has killed Helena but claims that there are extenuating circumstances. He leaves them to wait downstairs while he fetches his uncle. He enters Henry’s bedroom and finds that he is dead, apparently a suicide. The detectives go to see for themselves while George sits on the sofa with a stiff drink.
From behind him, George hears the cellar door open. Footsteps click across the wood floor, coming closer. A hand rests on his shoulder, and he spins around to see Helena, pale and ghastly but alive. She asks about her husband and apologizes for being late—as usual.
**
December 3, 1972, Length: 30 minutes
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Rod Serling, “Suggestion,” short story in Rod Serling, Night Gallery 2
Directed by Gene Kearney
Cast: Burgess Meredith: Charlie Finnegan; Cameron Mitchell: Pete Tuttle; Barry Sullivan: Dr. Simsich; Kenneth Tobey: Warden
Synopsis:
Good evening, sports fans. In discerning circles, I’m known as the Howard Cosell of the crypt, which is to say I’m more or less a professional practitioner of art that tells a story and stories that dabble in themes that don’t lend themselves to dinner conversation.
Now here you have a study in penology—man imprisoned by his fellow man, caged in a barred cubicle and left alone far too long to contemplate both his sin and his sanity. This painting is called “Finnegan’s Flight.” It touches upon prisons, hypnosis, and the soaring wings of imagination—but as to the latter, a small warning: imagination can be a double-edged thing. It can take you out of the humdrum realities, but it can also fly you to a place much less pleasant. May I introduce to you now Mr. Finnegan in his first and last appearance in the Night Gallery.
Charlie Finnegan is serving a thirty-year sentence for murder, but this is not his first time in jail. The accumulated weight of all these years of imprisonment has suddenly crashed down on him, leaving him with the desperate need for the escape of fantasy. An observant fellow prisoner, Pete Tuttle, senses that Finnegan is on the verge of a breakdown that could be ugly and violent. Before prison, Tuttle had worked as a professional hypnotist, and he decides to try to hypnotize Finnegan for his own good and perhaps everyone else’s.
Tuttle finds that Finnegan can be hypnotized almost instantaneously and is incredibly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. And Finnegan finds that the only time he can bear his own existence is when he has been hypnotized into believing that he is free. Finnegan now wanders the prison yard in an almost constant state of dazed hypnosis. When the prison’s psychiatrist, Dr. Simsich, discovers what is going on, he asks Tuttle to demonstrate his technique.
In the psychiatrist’s office, Tuttle hypnotizes Finnegan as easily as ever. He demonstrates the effect of a few routine suggestions and then prepares something that is far from routine. He fills a paper cup with cold water. He tells Finnegan that the cup is filled with boiling water and tells him to dip his fingers into it. Finnegan does as he’s told, wincing in pain. Dr. Simsich is not impressed. Tuttle then shows him the impressive part: when Tuttle removes his fingers from the cool water, they are blistered and burned. The psychiatrist has never witnessed such a stark manifestation of psychosomatic suggestion. He decides that he and Tuttle will continue to experiment with Finnegan to study these effects.
When they are next in the yard together, Tuttle and Finnegan sit with their backs against the prison wall and look toward a jet airplane passing overhead. Finnegan has never been on a jet—they didn’t exist before he was incarcerated. He’s fascinated by the thought of traveling so fast, so high through the air. He can barely imagine feeling so free. When Tuttle and Simsich visit the infirmary for another session with Finnegan, Tuttle hypnotizes him into believing he is flying one of these incredible aircraft, enjoying complete freedom high above the clouds. Tuttle tells Finnegan that he is soaring ever higher through the sky, and Finnegan mimics the sound of the plane’s engines, the motions of his hands on the plane’s controls.
Finnegan again has a physical reaction to his mental state, gasping for air and cheeks blistering. Amazed, Simsich declares that Finnegan is experiencing hypoxia—his body is reacting to the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude. Finnegan foams at the mouth, and Tuttle frantically tries to talk him down. Finnegan is eventually convinced that he is flying at a safe altitude, but Tuttle realizes that Finnegan does not know how to land the plane and that he has retreated too deeply into his psyche to be woken him from the hypnosis. As Tuttle and Dr. Simsich watch helplessly, Finnegan’s plane crashes, setting off an explosion that leaves Finnegan’s hospital bed in flames.
A dazed and battered Pete Tuttle is escorted back to his cell, where a prisoner asks about a rumored explosion in the infirmary. Is Charlie Finnegan really dead? Tuttle confirms the rumor and Finnegan’s death. Asked how Finnegan died, Tuttle answers with the truth: Charlie Finnegan died in a plane crash.
Looking out his barred cell window, Tuttle sees medics loading a covered stretcher into the back of an ambulance. Though he mourns the loss of his friend, he’s not sure that he will feel any guilt. As he watches the ambulance drive away, he says, “Tell me, Charlie boy, what’s it like to be free?”
“Something in the Woodwork”
*
January 14, 1973, Length: 30 minutes
Directed by Edward M. Abroms
Teleplay by Rod Serling, based on R. Chetwynd-Hayes’s short story, “Housebound”
Cast: Geraldine Page: Molly Wheatland; Leif Erickson: Charlie Wheatland; Paul Jenkins: Joe Wilson; John McMurtry: Jamie Dilman; Barbara Rhoades: Julie
Synopsis:
Good evening. On behalf of the management, I’m authorized to tell you that your presence here gives them great pleasure. They’d all be here to greet you personally if not for prior commitments. Several are attending funerals and would’ve been here if it weren’t so difficult to get out of the box—which should give you some idea as to the nature of our art. Now this painting, for example. Stairway and spectre, cobwebs and darkness. It’s called “Something in the Woodwork.” It tells of what one might look for when purchasing a house, because that creak you hear in the dead of night is not always an errant rafter. Sometimes if you walk up those attic steps you’ll find yourself face-to-face with the very thing that goes thump in the night. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Night Gallery.
Molly Wheatland, divorced, pathetically lonely, and perpetually drunk, lives in a haunted house. Thanks to an incident that occurred before the previous owners could move in, the house had stood unoccupied and unsellable for thirty years before she bought it. Almost immediately after construction was finished, fugitive bank robber Jamie Dilman entered the empty house, climbed into the attic, and from the attic window engaged in a losing gun battle with police outside. In the three months that Molly has lived in the house, Dilman’s restless ghost has made itself known, tapping and knocking from behind the attic door. When a maintenance man rejects her desperate advances, she retreats to the attic in search of the ghost, pleading with it to show itself and to keep her company.
Molly has planned a surprise birthday dinner that night for her ex-husband, Charlie. She has lured him out to the house on the pretense that she needed to discuss something important with him, and he agreed to come out of pity. His much younger girlfriend waits in his car while he performs what he hopes will be a brief errand of charity.
Molly, wineglass in hand, greets him with drunken cheer, surprising him with a gift and a birthday cake. He tries to humor her but says that he has someone waiting and cannot stay for dinner. The mention of his girlfriend immediately transforms Molly from cheerful to belligerent, and a barrage of insults follows Charlie out the door.
Molly again retreats to the attic to talk to the ghost. This time, it responds. But it is not the response she had hoped for: “Leave me alone.” “I need you!” Molly cries, crumpling to the floor.
In the days that follow, Molly spends more and more time in the attic talking to Dilman’s ghost. He appears as a shadow, sometimes as a face in a reflection. He explains that he is unable to leave the house and wants only to be left alone. But Molly is as incapable of leaving him alone as he is of leaving.
One afternoon, Charlie returns and confronts Molly about making threatening phone calls to his girlfriend. She says that he no longer needs to worry about her intrusions or advances—she has her own friends now, including one very good friend in the attic. He lives in the woodwork. He’s only a shadow, but he has more substance than some ex-husbands she knows. “I’ll tell you something about shadows and empty rooms and dead men behind walls,” she says. “They don’t run out on you. They don’t turn you in for newer and nicer models.” Believing that Molly needs psychiatric treatment, Charlie says he will return that night with help.
Molly returns to the attic and asks Dilman’s ghost, “Can you pick up things? Can you hurt anything?” The ghost rejects her suggestion and yet again asks her to go away. She says that she needs his help to avoid being committed to an institution. And if he refuses, she says, she’ll burn down the house and “that immortal soul of yours will be out on the sidewalk.” The threat works. Charlie has a weak heart, and Molly asks the ghost to scare him to death.
Charlie returns that night and says a doctor will be arriving shortly. Molly greets him from the top of the stairs, again holding a glass of wine. She returns to the subject of her friend in the attic and dares Charlie to have a look for himself. Humoring her, he climbs the stairs. As Molly refills her glass, she hears his terrified scream from the attic, followed by the thump of his body dropping to the floor. She raises a toast to herself in celebration. But then she hears footsteps.
Tentatively, she approaches the stairs. Charlie shambles from the attic and across the upstairs hallway. Frightened, she asks if he is all right. He descends the stairs awkwardly toward her, but when he speaks, the gravelly, otherworldly voice of Jamie Dilman comes from his mouth: “Charlie is no longer with us.” The soul of Charlie Wheatland now occupies the attic. But Dilman is not happy about this development: “There was peace in the woodwork,” he moans. Molly backs against a wall, her eyes wide as she stifles a scream. “Why couldn’t you leave me in peace?” Jamie says, reaching for her throat.
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery Third-Season Tally
** 2
* 2
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery Final Tally
*** 16
** 13
* 9
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery aired its final episode on May 27, 1973. Jack Laird moved on to several other series, including Kojak, on which he had a successful run as supervising producer. He developed several serious illnesses and suffered a fatal heart attack on December 3, 1991, at age sixty-nine. The final episode that Serling wrote for the series, “Something in the Woodwork,” was his final television writing credit during his lifetime.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Night Gallery’s legacy can be found outside of what showed up on screen. Coinciding with the first two seasons, Serling published short story collections adapted from his scripts, Night Gallery and Night Gallery 2, and they contain his finest prose writing. While the stories contained in The Season to Be Wary, which largely provided the basis for the Night Gallery pilot film, often suffer from wordiness or lack of focus, most of the stories in these two volumes are tightly plotted and vividly drawn. “Lindemann’s Catch,” for example, begins,
The fog and mist that rose up from the sea drifted over the wharves, the spindly docks, and broken-down jetties, to mix with the gaslight over the cobblestone streets. It slipped through the reefed sails and riggings of shabby little fishing boats, as if beckoned to by the distant fog-call of a foghorn and faraway ship’s bells that rang out nervously as they groped through the night.
There was a big, orange, roaring fire in the hearth of the Bedford Village Inn, and the sporadic crack of burning logs mixed with the clatter of mugs and low voices of the men in the room. They were mostly local fishermen and a few sailors on leave from whalers—all men of the sea who sensed the tension of the fog-shrouded night and who sought out each other’s company in an unspoken thanksgiving that on a particular night they could anchor themselves to a tankard of rum instead of peering with aching eyes from a crow’s nest, wondering at what death-filled moment they might strike a reef or hidden shoal.
Both “Lindemann’s Catch” and “Clean Kills and Other Trophies” (which originated as a short story) are superior to their television counterparts (which are very good in their own right), and they demonstrate that Serling had grown much more comfortable with the short story form. Night Gallery also includes “Does the Name Grimsby Do Anything to You?,” which was adapted from an unproduced script, while Night Gallery 2 includes “Suggestion,” which proceeds from the same “hypnosis gone wrong” basis as the third season’s “Finnegan’s Flight” but is sufficiently different to qualify as one of Serling’s few original published short stories.
As outspoken as he had been concerning his relationship to the series during its three seasons on the air, Serling’s criticism of the show was generally limited to calling it inconsistent or bemoaning the fact that its stories were not more substantive. By 1975, however, he looked back on the series as being “piss-poor, by and large, though it had perhaps eight qualitative shows.”1 As usual, however, Serling was being overly harsh: he alone wrote twice that number of quality episodes. Clearly, Serling’s recollection of Night Gallery’s quality was based primarily on his experiences behind the scenes rather than on what appeared on-screen. Nevertheless, Serling’s frustration with the series can be easily shared by the viewer. Watching Night Gallery prompts frequent, frustrating thoughts of what the series might have been if Serling had been granted creative control.