Product Description
-------------------
Prepare for the unexpected as Season Two of Night
Gallery comes to DVD! This 5-disc DVD set contains 61 stories,
created and hosted by the master of mystery: The Twilight Zone's
Rod Serling. With guest performances by Hollywood legends that
reads like a roster of Who's Who in Hollywood, you'll be sure to
see s to amaze! Featuring audio commentaries,
behind-the-scenes featurettes and a gallery presentation of the
paintings from the series, this collector's set is the classic
anthology of timeless, spine-tingling entertainment you don't
dare to miss!
Bonus Content:
Disc 1 - Night Gallery Season Two:
* Episode 4 Podcast Commentary: "A Fear of Spiders" with Authors
and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 4 Podcast Commentary: "Junior" with Authors and Night
Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 4 Podcast Commentary: "Marmalade Wine" with Authors
and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 4 Podcast Commentary: "The Academy" with Authors and
Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
*
Disc 2 - Night Gallery Season Two:
* Episode 5 Audio Commentary: "The Phantom Farmhouse" wtih
Guillermo Del Toro
* Episode 5 Audio Commentary: "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" wtih
Guillermo Del Toro
*
Disc 3 - Night Gallery Season Two:
* Episode 12 Podcast Commentary: "Cool Air" with Authors and
Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 12 Podcast Commentary: "Camera Obscura" with Authors
and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 12 Podcast Commentary: "Quoth the Raven" with Authors
and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 13 Audio Commentary: "The Messiah on Mott Street" wtih
Guillermo Del Toro
* Episode 13 Audio Commentary: "The Painted Mirror" wtih
Guillermo Del Toro
*
Disc 4 - Night Gallery Season Two:
* Episode 16 Podcast Commentary: "Lindemann's Catch" with
Authors and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 16 Podcast Commentary: "The Late Mr. Peddington" with
Authors and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
* Episode 16 Podcast Commentary: "A Feast of Blood" with Authors
and Night Gallery Historians Jim Benson and Scott Skelton
*
Disc 5 - Night Gallery Season Two:
* Revisiting the Gallery: A Look Back
* Art Gallery: The Paintings in "Rod Serling's Night Gallery"
* NBC TV Promos
* Episode 22 Audio Commentary: "The Caterpillar" with Guillermo
Del Toro
* Episode 22 Audio Commentary: "Little Girl Lost" with Guillermo
Del Toro
* The Night Gallery
.com
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Submitted for your approval, the second season of Night
Gallery, Rod Serling's atmospheric anthology series that more
often than not was in the Zone. Each week, Serling, acting as "an
undernourished Alfred Hitchcock," played the role of host and
curator of "a palladium of art treasures that range from the
kooky to the uncommon, from the bestial to the bizarre."
Comprised of original works and short story adaptations, Night
Gallerys palette had many colors: touched-by-an-angel fantasy
(the holiday fable "The Messiah on Mott Street"); the macabre
("Green Fingers"); the darkly comic ("The Late Mr. Peddington");
and the haunting ("The Tune in Dans Cafe," which spawned the
surprise country hit, "If You Leave Me Tonight Ill Cry"). Night
Gallery has long resided in The Twilight Zone's shadow, but great
art demands a second, closer look. At its best, Gallery featured
superb writing (Serling's body snatcher gem, "Deliveries in the
Rear") and great performances (Orson Welles as the narrator of
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow"), but it was also a director's
showcase for moods and aesthetics. A series benchmark is the
terrifying, "The Caterpillar," starring Laurence Harvey as a man
who gets an earful of earwig. In addition to Harvey, Gallery
featured a stellar roster of actors who did not ordinarily do
television, including Edward G. Robinson ("Mott Street"), Patrick
O'Neal and Kim Stanley ("A Fear of Spiders"), and Geraldine Page
("Stop Killing Me" and the classic, "The Sins of the hers").
It also featured familiar faces in atypical roles, such as
Laugh-In's verrrry interesting Arte Johnson as a womanizing radio
disc jockey in "Flip Side of Satan," Pat Boone as a callous
her considering a very special school for his delinquent son
in "The Academy," and Rudy Vallee as a committed doctor, or at
least one who should be, in "Marmalade Wine." Comic vignettes and
blackouts between offerings are more miss than hit (in one,
Death, riding in a crowded elevator, chivalrously removes his
skull in the presence of a female rider), but they are brief and
can be easily skipped. Museum goers who like audio tours to
enhance their appreciation of the exhibits will appreciate
episode commentaries by Jim Benson and Scott Skelton, who
literally wrote the book on the series (Rod Serling's Night
Gallery: An After-Hours Tour, and Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy
director Guillermo Del Toro. A series retrospective and a
featurette spotlighting the artist who created the Gallery
paintings featured in each episode make this DVD set one that is
suitable for framing. --Donald Liebenson
.com
The second season of Night Gallery offers 22 more terror-filled
tours for those "whose tastes in art run lean towards the
bizarre," as host Rod Serling described its viewership; a wealth
of extras spread across the set also makes this sopre journey
into darkness a worthwhile one for series devotees and TV horror
fans in general. Though Serling was the face and frequent author
of Night Gallery's episodes, his creative control over the series
was fading by the second season (1971-1972); frequent clashes
between Serling, the network and producer Jack Laird over the
tone and direction of the show left the accled television
scribe feeling powerless over a series that used his Twilight
Zone pedigree as its calling card. And while the hit-and-miss
nature of the second season is unquestionable--episodes like "The
Flip Side of Satan," "Professor Peabody's Last Lecture" and
"Hell's Bells" are embarrassingly bad, as are Laird's short comic
vignettes--but there are an equal number of terrific and
memorable stories to be found in the set as well. Chief among
them is the Serling-penned "The Caterpillar," a gruesome tale of
revenge that stands as one of the most horrifying tales ever
presented on television; Serling also provided the moving
Christmas fable "The Messiah on Mott Street," which features one
of Edward G. Robinson's last screen appearances, as well as
"Class of '99" with Vincent Price and "The Academy," with a
surprising and effective turn against type for Pat Boone. Other
standouts include two H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, "Cool Air" and
"Pickman's Model," and "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," which earns
its chills from a combination of dreamlike visuals and narration
by Orson Welles. For a show disregarded by critics and fans of
Serling's early work (as well as by the man himself) the second
season of Night Gallery offers more than its share of
small-screen es. Nearly all of the 22 episodes from Night
Gallery's second season are contained in this five-disc set; two
comic shorts, "Witches' Feast" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed," are
missing or presented incomplete, respectively, though their
absence has little to no impact on the set's value. Scott Skelton
and Jim Benson, authors of the invaluable companion guide Rod
Serling's Night Gallery: An After Hours Tour, provide a wealth of
background information on the show in audio commentaries on three
episodes, while director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's
Labyrinth) discusses the show's influence on his work in
fascinating detail on three additional episodes. Revisiting The
Gallery: A Look Back is a half-hour featurette that includes
interviews with show contributors ranging from director John
Badham and theme composer Gil Melle to actress Lindsay Wagner,
while Art Gallery offers a glimpse at the show's evocative
paintings with commentary by their creator, artist Tom Wright. A
small battery of TV promos for the show round out the exemplary
set, which should please fans who were disappointed by the lack
of material in the first season presentation. --Paul Gaita
