Night Gallery (1970 series)

Rod Serling, hosting Night Gallery (1970 series)...

Night Gallery

Summary

Jack Laird's 1970s anthology Weird/fantasy/horror series, hosted by Rod Serling as our guide through the "Night Gallery", a collection of bizarre and unsettling paintings, sculptures, and anthology TV teleplays based on stories written by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, August Derleth, and others.

Details

• Release Date: 1970-1973
• Country/Language: USA, English
• Genres/Technical: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, anthology television series
• Starring: various guest stars
• Director: various
• Writer: Jack Laird, Rod Serling, et.al.
• Producer/Production Co: Jack Laird, Rod Serling

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: TV-PG (mild 1970s TV violence, gore, and creepiness)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; could be a very loose adaptation)

The series as a whole was not particularly "Lovecraftian", but two of Lovecraft's stories were adapted for the series, as well as a number of stories from other members of the "Lovecraft Circle", resulting in a series that had a relatively large number of weird fiction stories in it.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• (needs review!)

Suggested Episodes/Segments

• "Cool Air (1971 short)", by H.P. Lovecraft
• "Pickman's Model (1971 short)", by H.P. Lovecraft
• "Return of the Sorcerer (1972 short)", by Clark Ashton Smith - A sorcerer (Vincent Price) hires a translator to decode an ancient Arabic manuscript that's connected to his twin brother's death.
• "Miss Lovecraft Sent Me" - A comedic vignette about a vampire count who hires a babysitter."
• "Professor Peabody's Last Lecture" - "A comedic vignette about a professor who gives a lecture on ancient cults that turn out to be real.
• "Brenda" - A lonely girl falls in love with a slimy creature she traps in a quarry.
• "Big Surprise", by Richard Matheson - A strange old man persuades a group of boys to dig for a big surprise.
• "The Dead Man", by Fritz Leiber - A physician's experiment in hypnosis comes to a terrifying conclusion.
• "The Sins of the Fathers" - A young man must cleanse his father's sins by feasting in front of the father's corpse.
• "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" - A boy's fascination with snow lures him into a fantasy world.
• "The Dark Boy", by August Derleth - A teacher tries to reach a strange fourth-grader.
• "The Painted Mirror", by Donald Wandrei - An antique dealer uses a mirror reflecting an alien landscape to get rid of his hateful business partner.
• "Lindemann's Catch" - A strange metamorphosis occurs when a sea captain captures a mermaid.
• "The Doll", by Algernon Blackwood - A hideous doll is used for revenge against an officer in the colonial forces of Queen Victoria.
• "The Caterpillar" - A British expatriate in Borneo plots a gruesome assassination of a romantic rival.
• "Last Rites for a Dead Druid" - A woman is tempted to buy a statue that resembles her husband ...and is modeled after a satanic sorcerer.
• "Whisper" - A young wife in a remote country house finds herself in thrall to strange and insistent voices of the dead.

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• fiction: "Cold Air (fiction)"
• fiction: "Pickman's Model (fiction)"