Night Gallery S02E04 (Fear of Spiders - Junior - Marmalade Wine - The Academy)

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The name of there's a place you to commend your accidentally out of the range is the Night gall Welcome back art lovers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast. I'm Father Malone and with me here in the gallery are the projection booths, Mike White, I hate spiders and as always, the culture casts Chris Dash you. I like marmalade Wine, though who doesn't. And on this episode we're gonna be discussing Night Gallery Season two, episode four, which aired on October sixth, nineteen seventy one, and was broken into four segments. Those are a Fear of Spiders, Junior, marmalade Wine, and the Academy.

I have to say this episode brings together so many of our other podcasts, Chris, Yes, Yes, this is amazing. This is like the Rosetta Stone of Chris and mice Mic podcasts. It's true, from Theodora Flicker to Patrick O'Neill to Jeff Corey Yeah, and Robert Morris even. It's they're all there in folks. Wally, Yeah, yeah, I have involved in this, gentleman, because many, many, many of these people were also involved with Benichick for all of us.

Really, it's a weirding way thing, folks, which might make all four of these segments a little bit more palatable. Yes, actually, I no, I had a good time with this one. Anyway, here we go. The story behind this offering A word which we've coined us for the UK arectnophobia. It means, for our purposes, a special distaste for those crawley little beasties with the multi legged, hairy bodies.

In other words, a fear of spiders. The title of our first painting in this the Night Gallery Fear of Spiders Now. This was written by Ron Serling, based on a short story by Elizabeth M. Walter, and was directed by John Aston, who took over directing duties three days before filming was to commence because Sammy Fableman was overworked and didn't want to shoot this episode yet. Steven Spielberg was initially the director of this particular episode and bowed out, leading Jack Lair to say that kid will never work at Universal again.

And he didn't he and he faded into anonymity, and there you go. This one stars Patrick O'Neill, Kim Stanley, and Tom Petty. I'm going to mention Tom Petty right out the gate here. He's one of my favorite character actors of all time, most specifically from the taking Pellam one to three Kazz Dolowitz, that voice, yeah yeah. Anyway, this episode, this story can turns an arachnophobe or Arachnidfobe.

Good work coining the phrase Rod who has a little use for humanity until he runs a foul of a particularly inhuman foe. Chris, what do you think I liked it better when Creep Show did it, like a decade later. They're creeping up on you the the superior version yet, Yeah, because well, what a what a what a weird and ultimately forgettable way to open this episode, because not only is Patrick O'Neill effectively wasted, but the the the climax of this story is it's behind a closed door and it has zero emotional impact on the story. It's not a good segment, and it's this the longest segment in this in this episode two, which is you know, great in and of itself, d you Mike. I kind of enjoyed it.

I like the big fake spider behind the door that we see at one point, and just how those spiders keep increasing in size and his sink and I'm like, are you noticing this that they're getting bigger and bigger here? The whole relationship between him and the Elizabeth Croft character, I'm just like not really picking up everything that they're laying down here. So I was like they describe him as a misanthrope, and I'm just like, Okay, he seems like an okay guy to me, very well spoken, very erudite, but just doesn't like spiders, okay. And then Tom Petty I appreciate, especially his music work, I mean Running Down a Dream notwithstanding, I really I loved when he showed up and just how he's just like what do you want from me?

Yeah, he's so good. I've really liked him. And just I mean, you know, why don't you go to a hotel or something rather than being tortured by spiders? And then also, sorry, who is yelling at at the beginning of this episode? Is this this house cleaner or housekeeper that he's yelling at?

Because he keeps yelling to somebody that we never see. That's the upstairs neighbor. That's that's really, that's the lovelorn woman. Yes, she lives directly above him, so at first he's yelling at her from above to leave him alone. And then when she comes to the door.

Yeah, wow, Okay, was not picking up on that. It really is a rod Serling episode segment, isn't it. That's what That's all you can say when I was watching it yesterday. I saw that his name was on it, and I just went, oh, good, it's gonna be terrible. And you know what, it's not great.

I think I liked it more than you did, But I can't say that I loved this one. What the story that they're telling. I appreciate what they're getting at, Like you, what are mentioned like a guy who has no use for people, and he's so absorbed with his work and he wants to just work and he can't be bothered by a lovelorn woman or his you know, his his his asshole landlord, and he can't be bothered by anything. Fine, but I completely sympathize with that, right, Like yeah, But at the same time, like, to what end are you telling a story about his rejection of humanity? Because it doesn't go anywhere, And by the end of the story, I guess one could say that he makes the right choice in rejecting humanity because the woman who he confides in throws him into the room with the spider and it kills him.

Turns out he was right all right. Now. I liked it much more than you, Crisp, and probably probably on par with you, Mike, Like it's it's an okay episode. I like the actors in it a great deal. Patrick O'Neill manages to pull off this thing where they've they've snacked the deck in against his character.

They make him he's a he's a food critic and an interior designer. That apartment they've appointed, it's like an apothecary Jarmanian in there. Did you see the size of the giant salt shaker beside his door? It's insanity, right, So even under all of that, he manages to bring a bunch of steel behind all of all of his performance, you know, like they go so far is and this was I thought weird where they made Tom Petty effectively call him a queer. Yeah, it was like Patrick O'Dell's coded gay character, is he not?

Yes? Yeah, definitely you don't like women because you're too busy, you're gay? Which one is it? Like? Make a choice, Rod, because I get what you're laying down here, but why what is the what's the meaning of that subtext in the story?

And yeah, it's completely out of nowhere And that's what I'm saying. Patrick O'Neal sort of like resists it and gives it like a grounding that they weren't allowing because you know, he doesn't sort of play into the stereotype that they were just constructing all around him, which I liked. And then on top of that, Kim Stanley. I love Kim Stanley. If you've never seen a movie called Sounds on a Went Afternoon, go watch them.

Oh God, she's great. She's always struck me as like a much more reasonable Shelley Winters. Yeah, plays a little closer to the vest. Yeah yeah, yeah, Like she's she wants to go to the moon, but like knows that gravity is a thing like that, And I think she's really great here. And evidently John Aston got in trouble with the with the Brass because he was allowing her to improv a lot, and he defended her like all down the line, Like it's weird that like even for John Aston, Like the writing was on the roll for Rod Siling here, where it's just like, sorry, we're not we're not paying attention to your thing.

We're making it better if we can. So I liked like their performances in it on a fundamental level. You mentioned it, Mike, this guy who is a he's petrified of spiders, looks into his room and there's a great Dane sized spider in there. He closes the door and locks it and then his only the only thing he can think to do at that moment is go talk to the super. The Super blows him up, and now his only option is the love Laurence Spinster upstairs, who he spurned and like has a grudge against him.

He's that's it. He's a successful writer. Like you said, go to a hotel and turned with a pistol or a rick acts something. Oh yeah, dare you inject logic into an otherwise illogical story. It seems like it was completely set bound and that even extended to the logic of the episode.

Yeah, it's a stage play, but a stage play would have had a better looking spider. Look the spider I actually really like. But I think maybe had the original director of the episode directed this one, it would have been genuinely scary, Like, even as bad as it was, he would have figured out a way to make it, to shoot it to creep us out. Because I don't know why they kept cutting to that same horrible shot of the spider either, like they showed it a lot, a lot. Yeah, could they have just like zoomed the shot in or something.

Anyway, the best part of this would have been after she closes the door. You hear Patrick O'Neill get you know again, we're assuming he gets killed by the Spider. It would have been better if the door than open and it was just Patrick O'Neill in a spider costume, just a giant spider Man, not spider Man, but a man spider Man dressed up like a spider. And that's it. Along those lines, Chris, I thought the episode should have ended with him going up and she was the Spider, you know what I mean, like slowly transforms into a spider and like and then gets her revenge like that would have been horrifying.

Did either of you bother to read the short story by Elizabeth Walt? I did not know? Okay, very similar. The plot is the same, Obviously, it's fleshed out more because it's a pros. In this, he sees the Spider briefly and freaks out and doesn't know if he's if he had actually seen her or not, and that's why he goes up to her.

And she isn't as persistent, like she's just the girl upstairs that he's avoiding because they had a relationship and now he doesn't want to deal with her anymore. So he goes up there like could you come down and check? And they end up just having a night together where she sort of lays out all the horrible ways he treated her and she and then he sleeps there and in the morning wakes up and he's like, oh, let's go see if that spider was real or not, and goes into the room. She sees the spider, pushes him in, closes the door, and locks it. They had slept together the night before, so now she's going to have his child.

He us out a window and kills himself rather than be attacked by the spider. So it's much more was it even there to begin with? Kind of a thing as opposed to he was eaten by a spider at the end of the episode, way more effective. I don't know why they changed it. Actually I do know why they changed it, because this is actually a remake of a Twilight Zone episode written by Rod Starling called The Thing about Machines, which is the basically the same story, except The Thing about Machines has a scene in the middle where they're trying a little bit of conflict where he injected a repair man, and so the character that doesn't exist in the short story the Repairman, the dialogue between Tom Petty and Patrick O'Neill is virtually identical to the original Twilight.

So how why is he complaining that he no longer is in control of the show when he's just plagiarizing himself. Right, ladies and gentlemen, if you will come with me on a journey of my laziness on scripts for all to see, it would? It feels so fucking disingenuous at this point with the show, like Rod Serling, just leave, just go. It's okay. Other people can work on your show.

You get nothing other than constantly cashing residual checks for the rest of your lifetime for all the shows you've created. But you couldn't just leave well enough alone. It's like, at some point, when do you start tarnishing your own legacy? Here? Right?

That's my yeah, It's like it was here to stop. It was in the interviews following this show that he sort of tarnished his own legacy because he could have just sort of shrugged and nobody would have noticed. We would have been like, oh, you know, it was the end of his career. Whatever. He could have been like, hey, you know whatever, the show is what it is now, and I was involved within the first season.

There you go anything past that I wasn't involved with, Like, that's what I would say, and just let them hang themselves with however much rope they want, Like, I don't need to do it for them. Rod wanted to keep working, so he wanted to like shift all the blame immediately so he could get another Yeah, it's it's you know, it's it's not cool. I do want to point out a couple of things in this episode that I liked. A filigreed typewriter, yeah please, There's a line of dialect that I thought was very odd, which was when he's talking, when they're both talking and he says about the size of the spideriss. Perhaps it's a mutation.

There's a lot of that going around. Is that a the Litamide reference? Do you think? I mean it's right around the time, anyway, it is around the time. Yeah, I didn't pick up I mean I picked up on how odd that line was about I didn't think of the the Litamide thing at all.

But well, that's why I was like, what could they possibly talk about in nineteen seventy when there's a lot of mutations going along. Oh that's horrible. I mean, it's also the era of giant monsters attacking, so you know this whole thing of like ants and spiders and you know we've already had that in the fifties. But the seventies, Yeah, the seventies was kind of like a resurgence of the giant monsters are gonna get you because it was radiation the fifties and now it's environmental revenge in the seventies. Like that movie Prophecy that was around this time.

Yes it was, and I tell you yeah, and The Night of the Lupin's, which was written by one of the writers on this show. I forget who now, but I know it was written by one of them good IT shows. I thought they were referencing Spider Man. That's what I thought they were referencing, because you know, that's where I come at the show from. Again, Spider Man would have existed at this time, it's not.

It's not like it wouldn't. Of the absolutely, I don't know that these elder statesmen of the of the old Rob No Rod had good. Give zeros shits about anything like that. That's lowbrow entertainment. That's like interviewing Martin Scorsese about Marvel movies today.

Pish posh, not right, Marty. We got questions for you, primarily how do you feel about Marvel films? Not any of the movies you worked on, but how do you feel about movies you will never make, which people just keep insisting on doing. I don't understand why ask him what he what his thoughts on to. Yeah, you've been in this business for over fifty years, had made all of you.

But yeah, we want to ask your opinions about these stupid trends and that our next segment, which doesn't get you're not you didn't hear an introduction by Ron Starling because he's petty. This is called Junior, written by Gene R. Kearney and directed by Theodore J. Flicker Gentleman, who's Theodore J. Flicker.

He's the credited co creator of Bernie Miller, though apparently he wasn't welcome on Arnold knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it, and he didn't need no Theodore Flickers input at all. Apparently, right, but he's he's got one hell of a career, or had one hell of a career. I mean theater, sculpture, TV, you know film as well. So yeah, he he was had his hands on a lot of stuff. Yeah, we mostly know him, Chris and I from watching him every single week we see his name up on the screen for Bernie Miller, The Three of Us a Share a theater flicker moment he directed at a segment from Twilight Zone eighty five that was act break with James Koko when he ended up writing all of Shakespeare's players.

Oh yeah, nice, that's not a playboy gag. Speaking of this one stars Wally Cox. Uh, this is just a blackout sketch. Look, I'm just gonna lay it out. A guy.

Guy and his wife for sleeping. They hear their kid calling for water. He goes into the wife says it's you, it's your baby, and then he has to go bring the kid water. He goes into the crib. It's Frankenstein.

It's Frankenstein sprawled in the think and then he pours water on. You have left out the best part, Daddy, Daddy, the fucking voice. That is the moment you know something is wrong and in a big way, as they would say, Yeah, it's very it's very weird. And again I I knew that, you know when you watch a segment like this that it's going to be they show you something funny and that's it, and that's exactly what it is. But I wasn't expecting Frankenstein in the crib.

I just wasn't. I just wasn't. Well, so was it effective for you? I mean, it was funny and it was about like it was. It was about a minute and a half long, so automatically better than Fear of Spiders because it doesn't overstay.

It's welcome. Here's here's the question, the question that roused in my mind that I want to pass on to you from watching this episode. Do you guys wear socks to bed? No? No, nor I, But Wally Cox does, and I thought that was weird.

I think I might have when I was a kid, but I amn't for decades. At a certain point, you gotta let your feet free. Come on now. The only other thought I had was now that Frankenstein was played by a guy named Bill Svano, who was who was a who's a folk singer the rooftop singers, um he created the story for Fatal Beauty that WHOOPI Goldberg movie. Wow, yeah huh.

And I this is my prayer that if anything came of this particular segment, I hope he spent the rest of the day terrorizing Burback. I mean, the makeup is great for this. They give him that same gag from Airplane. He has a drinking problem. That's what I thought of.

When he's like, I was like, oh that okay, airplane. He's just a baby. He doesn't know him. He could have given him a sippy cup like that would have been better, I guess. In the night Gallery we call it marmalade Wine.

Look at it if you will, with gentlemen restrained eyes, the way you would look at a maniac in the woods, because that's the story. It tells whole, not your glasses. Don't get ready for a very special nightcap. This segment is called Marmalade Wine, written by Gerald Friedman, based on a short story by Joan Aiken, and was also directed by Gerald Friedman and stars Robert Morrise and Rudy Valley. It's an abstract Impressionist appointed tale of a man lost in the woods and the man who takes him in what do you think, Mike.

I love the way that this was shot, that opening with Robert Morse going through that very let's say impressionists or sorry expressionistic setting and the fake trees and him slipping and sliding everything. I really liked the way that this was shot. The story itself maybe not so much. It was nice having this little what was it sweet smell of success? Is that the movie that Morrison to thank You, Thank You, How to succeed in business without really trying?

So having both Morse and Rudy Valley in here, and man, I mostly know Rudy Valley through his singing that is acting what a strange guy like, even stranger than Robert Morse, who is was always just amazing. And I know that we saw him in some twice eighty five as well Late Cupid. Yeah, yeh ye, gods yeah, um. I mean I saw the joke coming a mile away as far as the twist of the episode, but I was just what the hell is going on here this whole Like, oh, by the way I happened to be able to predict things, I'm like, where did this come from? This is bizarre And just the way that their dialogue goes.

I think I really liked this, even though I was still pretty perplexed by the end of it. How about your grit? Yeah, it's interesting. You know. I was watching it yesterday um with a friend of mine, and her and I were sitting there watching it, and I didn't know what the twist was.

And when he there's there's a scene before the twist and he's standing there talking to him, He's like, oh, you know you you passed out, you were drunk, you know you're here, give me some more predictions. I was like, they cut his feet off, right, that that's what happened here. And my friend was like, she was like, no, no, no, that's that's not it. And then at the end he's like, I cut your feet off. I was, of course that's what it was.

There's like nothing else it could have been with something like this, the way that they just the I guess it's in my mind. The reason it was easy to tell what the twist was was the way the camera was positioned there in that scene. The just the shot of him standing at the foot of the bed, touching the foot of the bed a lot. Rudy Valley. I don't know it it works in almost in spite of itself, they decide to do something very different from what they've done in the show up until this point, very stylistically different.

I think it works. I don't know if it would work again if they kind of do this weird minimalist thing that they're going for, abstract minimalism, but I like this. I think it also really works because it's like obviously clearly a stage play. It's just it's a stage play like and the dialogue is well written. It works rather well, but it doesn't overstay.

It's welcome, which I think is the best thing about any of these kind of there's like blackout sketches, short sketches, and then everything else. These short sketches tend to work when they don't overstay, they're welcome and they don't go too high concept. Yeah yeah, I mean this isn't full length. You know, this is actually pretty brief as an episode, but I'm going to echo both of you. It is beautifully shot.

The sort of monochrome abstract like flats they have, which you know ordinarily would just see in like a theater. You don't see it that often shot for film, but when it is, it's always striking, and that's no if I think if that had not been the case, had they shot it like traditionally and it looks sent bound in any way, shape or form, I would not like this episode at all. But I think this actually elevates it all because I had the same questions you did, Mike, which was this is this is what I wrote down as my note. I love the set, love the performers. Why the fuck is he lying about it being a psychic?

What is he doing there to begin with? What is happening here? So then I read the short story, so please phill us. In Joe Nakin's short story concerns this guy named Blacker who she frontloads, and it's a big part of the opening of the story that all of his friends know him as the liar and that's been his thing and he's trying to work against it, but like he always needs to like one up someone in a conversation or like he works for a like a like a flea bitten kind of like bottom of the barrel newspaper, like a like a tabloid, and everyone around him is better and he's off running down this stupid story and gets lost in the woods and finds this guy and runs into the doctor and as they're getting drunker like, he just becomes he starts to feel like smaller and smaller and smaller in the face of this guy who's a you know, at one point thought to be a genius surgeon.

And so he just starts like spilling this thing like, oh, yeah, well, you know, I used to be psychic when I was a kid. I had moments and whatever, and then it leads to this we don't get any of that here, which we just get a guy. Which is why this, which is why this wouldn't have worked if it hadn't been shot so well exactly if this was the script that they were used saying, then this is the only way to save it is to do this thing with the with the way that they had shot it, because none of it makes any sense. Now having said that, I really liked it. I really liked it, like you know, all of those little problems can be papered over if you have absolutely charismatic leads, which we do here, and the filmmaking is confident and has an actual vision.

And the other thing I want to say is as horrific as the situation ends up for Robert Morris. I have no doubt in my mind that he could easily overcome Rudy. That likely. Well, but that's that's the thing about this versus the short story. In this he's a successful photographer, so why does he have to lie?

Right? I just if he a success photographer, he doesn't even know how to work for Canberra, right. I don't know who he is or was it the doctor was familiar with his photography? He says as much. Doesn't here am I am?

I literally thinking of something else? No, he just says like, oh, wonderful for you. That must feel fantastic being able to shoot a picture. He doesn't say like I know who you are. It's it's all one sided there by the way in pros you can get away with a character sort of early on going what was the other thing I know about this?

Right? And then later on going oh my god, I just remember. You can't have a character asking himself out loud over and over where is it I know this guy from? Like he like laid out the guy's entire biography to him, and he's like, but you didn't follow up? You didn't you just stop caring after learning everything else about him, right, he doesn't know the one thing he needs to know.

Okay, the one singular piece of information he needs to know. He doesn't remember it until he's halfway to bedsted by the guy. So yeah, it's still fun, it's still good, like you know, but there are problems. The other thing I wanted to point out is the painting at the beginning of this one. Tom Wright, I just want to mention him.

He does all the paintings. Um, it's a really simple still life. It's just it's effectively a bottle of wine, the marmalade wine and like, yeah, some fruit and sunch. But apparently his motivation for just making it a still life was because that's how the character ends up, which I think is really cool. That's fair.

Again, I think this is a good short segment. It works in spite of the kind of inky right Gerald Freeman. I mean, we've seen him do at least two things before memory serves, because I want to say he did both of you. That really odd one right where it's the yeah, the guy looking down the whole cuckolding thing. He did the flip side of satan one from the last time that we spoke.

He's going to do at least one or two more coming up here, but this was pretty early in his filmography. This was like he had just done a couple episodes of TV TV before this, but he's going to go on to do A Cold Night's Death, which is a really fascinating TV movie, kind of predates a lot of stuff from The Thing. I remember watching that when I was doing an episode on the Thing, just to kind of see what this is. And then Chrissy ends up doing a couple X files later, very late in his career. It's there again this episode.

It's weird. This episode has a lot of and we're going to even talk about it with the next segment. It has a lot of ties back to stuff that we have, like spent lots of time talking about or referencing on things that we've talked about. Is won't like them? For the Pedi Guides of Launch, you a little something to be fond of the drawer alongside the old school ties picture if you will, a very special school, whether students don't matriculate and rather are ruined, whether scholars are not in a roll but rather sentenced.

The painting is called the Academy. The final segment of this episode is called the Academy. This one was written by Ron Serling, based on a short story by David Eally, who was the author of Seconds, which was adapted into a film featuring Jeff Corry and directed Jeff Corey. Now, guys, this the second season of the of Nike Gallery. I've been trying to spotlight a few people who are sort of behind the scenes or in front of the scenes.

In this case, it's actually Jeff Corey. I want to talk about. So Jeff Corey. He was a stage actor, television actor, film actor in the nineteen thirties. The war comes, he enlists in the Navy, where where he's stationed on the Yorktown and he's a motion picture combat photographer.

He wins a citation from the Navy for quote his sequence of a kama kanzi attempt on the carrier Yorktown, done in the face of grave danger, is one of the great picture sequences of the war in the Pacific and reflects the highest credit upon Corey and the US Navy Photographic Service. I watched the footage. It's bananas. He's standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier that is being strafed and attempting a Kama Kanzi's attempting to crash into it, and he does not flinch in the eighth and the shots Arbut okay, so what a patriot, right, ha ha ha, I know what's coming. Yeah.

House un American Activities Committee pulls him up because he had at one time been a flirtatious member of the Communist Party. He refuses to name names and is blacklisted for a decade. During that time, however, he starts his own professional Actor's Workshop is what it ends up being called. Even though he can't appear on screen, all of the studios are sending him people to get them trained so they can't they can be So he's still being utilized. But some of his students just randomly here, James Dean, Rita Moreno, Peter Fonda, Jane Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Leonard Nimoy, Jack Nicholson, Robert Town, Robin Williams and not a great actor.

But Corey's best friend Pat Boone also a member, and I'm bringing him back because Pat Boone is one of the stars of this episode. It stars Pat Boone, Laif Ericson, and Larry Lynnville, and it concerns a father evaluate a military academy for his son's potential enrollment. Pat Boone went to where I went to college. Pat Boon is a unt alumni, apparently, unbeknownst to me, also a massive from the sound of it, not a person I would think either of us, any of us, would want to spend any amount of time with. But that's fine because he plays that role in this perfectly.

Yeah, he was pretty infamous for a while of taking black people's music and then redoing it as safer white people versions of it. Yeah, and I did not know this, but evidently he was associated with milk and white shoes somehow, Like that was some sort of Pat Boon trademark, which is a joke in this, like a leaf Ericson like offers him a glass of milk when he first comes in, Like apparently that was a like a nod in a wink. I guess all I thought when he offered him a glass of milk, was my god, your grown men put milkdown? I thought it was your both grown men split that milk together with two straws. It's it's an interest.

It's an interesting segment only because I feel like the twist is pretty obvious from the moment you see anyone other than you don't even you see like some younger people. But then it's pretty apparent the moment they walk into that first room, all the people they are essentially adults, and it's like, okay, like that, if it's not apparent what they're kind of telegraphing with the twist, they're gonna make it even more obvious the moment they go outside. Leave ericson he was the one that actually discovered America. Correct, Yes, okay, this guy is the one in this episode. Yeah, he was the son of Eric the Red.

I think I believe that it's true. Okay, all right. True fact which I found odd is that he divorced Francis Farmer the same day he married Margaret Hayes. That is, in fact, signed that divorce paperwork and then just turn right around and married somebody else. He doesn't even need another pen.

He's going to use the same pen exactly. Jeff Corey. Jeff Corey also is in Barney Miller by Yeah, yeah, just recently, like literally, I think we just talked about it with Is he playing a x con who can't hack it in the real world? Right? Yeah?

Hey, and Larry Lynnville was in the night Stocker and then he was in uh Cole Jack the knight Stocker and Chopper. That's right, yeah, two roles. Yeah, he was that doctor character in one and yeah yeah and U and a police He wasn't a captain. He was like a low level policeman. If memory serves.

Evidently the casting director here on Night Gallery who cast Larry Lynnville would eventually go on to cast Mash and that's how he got that. I mean, he was perfect in that role. He was wonderful as Frank Major Frank Burns um geez. I liked Stanley Waxman most of all in this episode. He was the trigonometry professor.

When they walk into the trigonometry professor's remedy goes, this is trigger a tree, I was like, Jesus Christ, sure is. Yeah that was a little odd I mean, this whole segment is just like flirting with oddity. But I liked it. I really enjoyed this one. I was like, oh, okay, especially when Patpoon just sells his son out.

He's just like, he's not a good kid. Yeah, let's put him here at the academy. I like that. The statue kind of looked like Laife Ericson. Is that on perfect?

I hope, I hope it means he's been there forever. Yeah. I love that whole thing where it's just like, oh, shouldn't the statue be facing the other way? It's like, oh, no, we're not out. Oh no, rod Sterling, don't you dare do anything subtle?

It has to knock you over the head with a mallet. God damn, rod Sterling. We need some subtlety here, man, here's the subtlety. Okay. They mentioned that the patpoon's wife died under mysterious circumstances.

It was voting accident. Um. Now is the implication outright is that the sun was somehow involved? But did you guys detect that maybe the dad killed her and is now pawning it off on the sun and is now getting rid of the sun so we didn't have to deal with any of that shit anymore. I kind of thought that way too.

The way he acts at the end would lead me to believe. So. I like how this entire premise could be completely disassembled in a matter of minutes when the only person guarding the gate is It's like a It's like a chain it's like a chain like at like a like a a fucking amusement park that people just jump over. And that's what we're being led to believe is kept all of these indigence that are now perfect members of a military society. That's all that's kept them in that.

That and the inherent yearning for giving up their livelihood and freedom to go and live at a military academy for the rest of their lives. No, they've been broken. Yeah, it's like they know that they they're bad people, and they're just accepting this, which I found really odd. Like is there a moment where we see somebody that's fresh off the boat coming in and just hanging their spear broken and being subjected to probably torture and the stuff. No, they we just see all of these very sedate men that have just been there for years and decades, and they're just yeah, they accept their fate thrilling and like you know, discipline, discipline, discipline, and like now they have a purpose, Well, what is their purpose.

It's worse than there, It's worse than there being kept there. They've now just want to be there, they just want to do this. Now it's much more insidious I think I agree, Sure, it's it's okay, it's I don't think the episode works overall, but I like what was going on behind it. Yeah, I don't think it works either. I think the premise is interesting, but just to what end, Like, yeah, okay, this guy gets rid of his son, and like, all right, but I know it's a shorter segment because this entire episode it has essentially been shorter segments since a fear of spiders.

But just a little just give us a little bit more. Marmalade Wine gave us even a interesting look. This is just very very wrote nothing wrong with that, but it's just kind of wrote did you all admire the crew and the tollbooth window in the final shot of this episode. I don't know if I caught that or not. Oh boy.

So the limo pulls away and then we follow a group of Cadence running past that toll booth, in which a at least two crew members I don't know who they were, but they're leaning against what looks to be a VW microbus. And then the camera pans on past that and we follow the two percent. I just went, the fuck, God, you're supposed to keep me in the stars. Part of Rod Serling's script. He had that note in there.

Break break the break, break the magic. Please show the crew. We're gonna play a preview of the next episode, and we'll be right back to wrap up. From this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story of love, but that's precisely what it tells about. The emotion as old as men, but the object of the emotion this is not quite as familiar.

It's title Phantom Farmhouse, offering number one in the ninth Gallery for our laws to offer you the ninth Gallery, a painting that brings to life a literary classic from the pen of Conrad Aiken. Fragile lovely pointed, it's titled Silent Snow, Secret Snow. That's right on the next midnight viewing will be we'll be taking a look at season two, episode five. That's broken into two segments, the Phantom Farmhouse and Silent Snow, Secret Snow. Until then, Where can people find you, Chris Stashu, Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

That's where this show, and well all the shows we work on, that's where they all are. Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. How about you, Mike same thing. Thanks Chris, thanks you just all my whole thunder here Chris gosh sorry or all of us all right then, until next time, ladies and gentlemen, the gallery is closed or something that's a sign off