Rod Serling: Good evening. In another world, inhabited by ghouls, goblins, gremlins, and the generally grotesque, it's occasionally possible to put the sundry and marriott cruel on canvas. And this we do, in this arcade of the outrageous.
The Miracle at Camafeo
Original story by: C. B. Gilford
Teleplay by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Ralph Senesky
Rod Serling: Painting number one; a small item of hope and faith and despair. An excursion into the eerie in which we touch base with that fraternity of the dispossessed, who seek out something miraculous in the way of cureage, and in the way of hope. Our painting is called: The Miracle at Camafeo, and it's offering number one in this, the Night Gallery.
The Mexican village of Camafeo is home to the Nuestra Senora de Camafeo, a holy shrine where sick and disabled pilgrims travel in the hopes of being miraculously cured of their ailments. Joe Melcor (Ray Danton), an American con artist, had previously faked being hit by a bus to score a major insurance settlement against the transit company, and after pretending to have been paralyzed ever since, he travels to the village in the hopes that the Nuestra Senora can "cure" him so he can stop pretending and get away with the cash. Following Joe and his wife Gay (Julie Adams) to the village is Charlie Rogan (Harry Guardino), an insurance investigator, who seeks to catch Joe and have him either forfeit his settlement or face jail time for his attempt to defraud the company. Little are both men aware, the powers that be don't like it when people attempt to use miracles for personal gain.
Tropes
- Asshole Victim: Joe, the abusive con man who robbed a transit company out of $500 grand through a Frivolous Lawsuit, tries to be cured by the Nuestra Senora so he can stop pretending to be paralyzed. The Nuestra Senora can't stand his modus operandi, and wastes no time in robbing him of his sight, giving it to the young blind boy.
- As You Know: Charlie's conversation with Gay in the first eight minutes of the segment reveals how Joe pretended to be crippled after getting "sideswiped" by a bus, and sued the transit company for a $500,000 insurance settlement.
- Awful Wedded Life: Though she initially supports Joe when confronted by Charlie, Gay can't stand her husband's unscrupulous ethics and how "not right" they are. Joe himself is strongly implied to be physically abusive to her, threatening to "play handball against the wall" with her and noting that she'll need to visit the Nuestra Senora herself to make her bruises go away. In spite of this, she refuses to join him when he pretends to leave the shrine a cured man, but she doesn't want to sign a deposition to testify against him.
- Children Are Innocent: The formerly-blind boy who is granted Joe's sight gives Joe the sunglasses he no longer needs.
- Determinator: Charlie, who follows Joe all the way to Camafeo in the name of getting him arrested or making him lose the settlement, and before he defiles the Nuestra Senora by praying to have his false paralysis healed.
- Divine Intervention: Joe's sight is taken away through this, symbolized through the Nuestra Senora being reflected off his new sunglasses
- Everyone Has Standards: Gay has serious doubts about defrauding the Nuestra Senora after her abusive and villainous husband already defrauded the transit company, and later quits their partnership, though she still refuses to rat him out.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Joe has a notable deep voice to illustrate his status as a con man who nabbed half a million bucks by pretending to be crippled.
- Exact Words: During their conversation, Gay notes to Charlie that the doctors who examined Joe testified under oath that he wasn't lying about his injuries. Charlie quickly retorts that they actually said they couldn't be sure that he wasn't lying.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Joe made one a year earlier, after pretending to have been hit by a bus. Even though the doctors who X-Rayed him noticed that nothing on the inside was damaged, Joe claimed to the press that he couldn't move, and sued the transit company to score $500,000 in an insurance settlement. Charlie's mission is to stop him from reaching the Nuestra Senora so he can be "cured" and stop pretending to be paralyzed to spend the cash to his heart's content.
- Foreshadowing: The blind boy who gets Joe's sight is met by Charlie halfway through the segment, the investigator offering to carry him up the hill to the Nuestra Senora's resting place. Charlie also prays that the child will see again, which is just what happens at the end of the segment.
- Good Is Not Nice: The Nuestra Senora heals the sick, lame, deaf, and blind, but the powers that be have no patience or respect for those who fake their ailments, as it takes Joe's sight away and uses it to heal a blind young boy.
- Have a Gay Old Time: Joe's wife is literally named "Gay", most likely in its older meaning of "happy".
- Holy Ground: The Nuestra Senora de Camafeo, where the Virgin Mary once traveled. As such, the deaf, blind, lame, and sick travel from around the world to be miraculously healed in its presence.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Joe had previously pretended to have been paralyzed after getting hit by a bus to collect a $500,000 insurance settlement, then plans to pretend he was cured by the Nuestra Senora. At the end, he loses the ability to see, and this time, it isn't pretend.
- Miscarriage of Justice: Charlie views Joe's act of faking paralysis and suing the transit company of the bus he claimed hit him out of half a million dollars as a glorious joke. He gets even more sickened at Joe's sacrilegious plan to take advantage of the Nuestra Senora, a holy shrine on holy ground, to pretend to lose the paralysis he never really had and escape with his money.
- Obfuscating Disability: Joe pretended to have been hit by a bus in America, and faked being crippled to sue the transit company in the name of collecting a big fat settlement. A year after the incident, he visits the Nuestra Senora de Camafeo, a shrine with reputed miraculous healing powers frequented by sick and infirm pilgrims, intending to be "cured" and walking away scot-free in front of insurance investigator Charlie. As he saunters out, a miracle does occur: a blind child gains sight again just as Joe is simultaneously stricken blind.
- Real Men Love Jesus: Charlie's reason for coming to Camafeo is to stop Joe from tainting the religious significance of the Nuestra Senora through his con.Charlie: (...) When he robs me, that's fraud. But when he robs the kingdom of Heaven, that's sacrilege.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Though Charlie notes his contempt with Joe and his phony claims of paralysis, he notes to Gay that he has nothing against her, and he's largely followed her and Joe to Camafeo because he has an assignment to complete.
The Ghost of Sorworth Place
Based on the short story "Sorworth Place" by Russell Kirk.
Teleplay by: Alvin Sapinsley
Directed by: Ralph Senesky
Rod Serling: A bit of gossamer and lace, as befits a beautiful woman. Fragile and ephemeral, in keeping with the soft mystery of the female. But to the gentlemen amongst you, who, like all your male predecessors since the beginning of time, have been mystified and miffed by a female counterpart, this one is for you. A beautiful lady in a strange house, also inhabited, alas, by: The Ghost of Sorworth Place.
Ralph Burke (Richard Kiley), an American hiking across Scottish countryside, meets the beautiful Ann Loring (Jill Ireland) in an old manor in the town of Sorworth, which doesn't appear to be on his map. When meeting Ann for tea the next afternoon, Ralph has learned from the manor's staff and the locals of Sorworth that Ann has all kinds of rumors circulating around her, such as the fact that she's a widow who killed her late husband Alistair (John D. Schofield). Bringing the rumors to her attention, Ann reveals that Alistair was a wicked man, sleeping with the chambermaids behind her back and assaulting her when denied sexual activity, so she got rid of his vitally-needed medicine as revenge for his evil ways. Before he died, Alistair vowed that he would come back for her exactly one year after his death, and when Ralph sees Alistair's ghost trying to get inside the manor, he vows to do whatever he can to save Ann from his wrath, having fallen for her himself.
Tropes
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Ralph, the wannabe ghost hunter who tries to protect Ann, becomes a ghost himself, taking Alistair's place in returning a year after his death for Ann.
- Awful Wedded Life: Alistair was an abusive, alcoholic ogre who cheated on Ann with the manor's chambermaids, and assaulted her when he was denied sexual activity. It got so bad that Ann had to kill him just to end the torture, and likely to keep from being killed herself.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The ghost of Alistair doesn't manage to kill Ann himself, but he does manage to make Ralph kill himself, and he gets to pass on while Ralph's ghost takes his place.
- Downer Ending: Alistair's ghost manages to dupe Ralph into throwing himself down the stairs to his death, and as a result, Ralph's ghost takes his place, waiting another year to kill Ann. Since Ann earlier established that no one in Sorworth would enter her manor or side with her based on what happened between her and Alistair, it's very likely that she has no further protectors to save her from Ralph.
- Dying Curse: Before he died, the abusive Alistair vowed that he would return to Sorworth Place and get revenge on Ann exactly one year later, which he does at the climax of the segment.
- Evil Tainted the Place: Innkeeper Mr. MacLeod tells Ralph, deathly seriously, that Alistair Loring's dastardly deeds tainted Sorworth Place, and it's for this reason that everyone in Sorworth stays the hell away from the manor, with the exception of Ann and her waitstaff. Mrs. Ducker similarly tells Ralph that she's seen the blackness that Alistair's evil left on Sorworth place, advising Ralph to leave and not return.
- Failure Hero: Ann grows attached to Ralph because she heard her own voice telling her that he's the one who's meant to stop Alistair. Not only does he fail, his ghost ends up replacing Alistair's.
- Haunted House: Sorworth Place, where Ann murdered her abusive husband Alistair. His ghost returns one year after he was murdered, as he declared he would, and by the end, Ralph's ghost takes his place.
- The Heartless: Ann notes that she has "no love in her", and it's the reason why Alistair kept cheating on her.
- Here We Go Again!: Ralph takes Alistair's place in haunting her, vowing to come back and kill her in a year, just as the latter did.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Ann may be seen as a reluctant savior to herself, but she doesn't trust any of the locals to protect her from the ghost of the husband she murdered.
- History Repeats: Alistair died by falling down the stairs at midnight on his and Ann’s wedding anniversary, and he returns in a year to kill Ann, the wife responsible for doing so. The end of the segment has Ralph tumbling down the stairs himself at the same time and day, and he ends up taking Alistair's place to come after Ann in a year.
- Karma Houdini: Alistair may have been killed by Ann, but his ghost manages to kill Ralph and make him take his place.
- Kubrick Stare: Alistair's ghost gives Ralph one as he spies him from the window he forced open.
- Love Martyr: Mr. MacLeod implies that Ann is one of them, as she stays in the empty and chilled manor where the abusive husband she killed lived when she can pick any other house in the countryside. She also wanders around the house aimlessly in an almost-mindless desperation to see Alistair again, fueling the theory.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Ann doesn't know what exactly Alistair's ghost intends to do once he comes back for her, which terrifies her a great deal.
- Staircase Tumble: Ralph tries to lunge at Alistair's ghost in the climax of the segment, but the ghost disappears as he's in motion, resulting in Ralph fatally falling down the stairs. Alistair himself was killed when he fell down those stairs, weakened after Ann poured his medicine down the drain.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Ann confirms to Ralph that the rumors that she killed Alistair are true, but notes that she did so only because he was a brutish and heavily-diseased thug who abused her when denied sex and slept with the chambermaids behind her back, and could've likely killed her if she didn't do so first.
- Time Skip: A week passes after Ralph meets Ann, has tea with her, and learns of Alistair's ghost coming back for her. Housekeeper Mrs. Ducker even lampshades if Ralph's friends know if he's been coming to Sorworth Place for a week straight, to which he replies that he's basically alone in life.
- Town with a Dark Secret: A partial case with Sorworth, as the repercussions of Alistair's abuse and his murder by Ann are widely known and feared by the townsfolk, but not to outsiders like the American Ralph.
- Vengeful Ghost: Alistair Loring was an abusive brute in life, but when Ann killed him by getting rid of his vitally-needed medicine, he returns from the grave a year later to return the favor.
