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Night Gallery was a horror anthology TV series created by Rod Serling that aired for three seasons on NBC from December 16, 1970, to May 27, 1973. Its episodes included adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft short stories, along with segments that took a more light-hearted look at the Cthulhu Mythos.
Episodes[]
"Miss Lovecraft Sent Me"[]
Joseph Campanella and Sue Lyon in "Miss Lovecraft Sent Me"
The first episode of Night Gallery's Season Two, originally aired September 15, 1971, included a comedy sketch written by Jack Laird and directed by Gene R. Kearney. It stars Joseph Campanella as a vampire father and Sue Lyon (best known for playing Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation) as Betsy, the babysitter he hires. The most Lovecraftian thing about it is that the agency that sent Betsy to babysit is referred to as "Miss Lovecraft".
"Professor Peabody's Last Lecture"[]
The last segment of Season Two's eighth episode, written by Jack Laird and directed by Jerrold Freedman, is a Cthulhu Mythos parody about a college lecture on the Necronomicon that teaches more than is safe to know. First aired November 10, 1971, it stars Carl Reiner as Professor Peabody and Johnnie Collins III, Richard Annis, and Larry Watson as students named Mr. Lovecraft, Mr. Bloch, and Mr. Derleth, respectively.
- Main article: Professor Peabody's Last Lecture
"Pickman's Model"[]
The ghoul from Night Gallery's adaptation of "Pickmans' Model".
Season Two's 11th episode, first aired December 1, 1971, was an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's “Pickman’s Model”, directed by Jack Laird from a teleplay by Alvin Sapinsley. It stars Bradford Dillman as Richard Upton Pickman, and Louise Sorel as Mavis Goldsmith, a student of Pickman's who is in love with him. It also features Robert Prohaska as the Ghoul and Jock Livingston and Joshua Bryant in a modern-day framing story.
"Cool Air"[]
Season Two's 12th episode, first aired December 8, 1971, led with an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's "Cool Air", directed by Jeannot Szwarc from a teleplay by Rod Serling. It starred Henry Darrow as Dr. Juan Muñoz; Barbara Rush as Agatha Howard, a friend and potential love interest of Muñoz; and Beatrice Kay as Mrs. Gibbons, Muñoz's housekeeper.
Director Szwarc commented:
As it is written, Lovecraft is impossible to adapt because you can never find a visual equivalent of his style. He describes horrors that chill your bones. It’s the words and way he manipulates those words, and you can’t do that on film because film is almost too literal a form.[1]
"Last Rites of a Dead Druid"[]
Ned Glass in "Last Rites for a Dead Druid".
The 18th episode of Night Gallery's second season, aired January 26, 1972, and directed by Jeannot Szwarc, was written by Alvin Sapinsley as an extremely loose adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft/Hazel Heald story “Out of the Aeons”. "My final version was so far removed from the original short story as to be unrecognizable," Sapinsley says in Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour.[2] Sapinsley did retain the idea of an ancient priest surprisingly still alive in a rigid form. A more faithful adaptation of the story was written by Robert Bloch but rejected by the show.[3]
The segment stars Bill Bixby and Carol Lynley as a couple with marital problems, and Donna Douglas as Mildred McVane, the gallery owner who sells them a sinister statue.
"The Return of the Sorcerer"[]
The premiere episode of the third and final season of Night Gallery, directed by Jeannot Szwarc from a teleplay by Halsted Welles, was an adaptation of Clark Ashton Smith's story "The Return of the Sorcerer". It featured Vincent Price as John Carnby, a student of sorcery, and Bill Bixby as Noel Evans, hired to translate the Necronomicon from the original Arabic for him. Price also plays Carnby's twin brother, killed and dismembered but still returning for his revenge. Tisha Sterling also appears as Fern, Carnby's assistant, who has sorcerous powers of her own.
Other Lovecraftian Connections[]
Don Webb's short story "Casting Call" revolves around "strange doings on the set of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery TV show.
References[]
- ↑ Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour, by Scott Skelton & Jim Benson; quoted in Shadow and Substance, "Serling’s Re-Framing Efforts: Night Gallery’s 'Cool Air'”
- ↑ Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour, by Scott Skelton & Jim Benson; quoted in Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein, “'Last Rites for a Dead Druid' (1972) by Alvin Sapinsley".
- ↑ The Robert Bloch Companion; quoted in Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein, “'Last Rites for a Dead Druid' (1972) by Alvin Sapinsley".