Rod Serling: Good evening. And welcome to an art museum of the unique. Paintings offered up that infrequently find themselves hung in the more prosaic places. Paintings that are frequently as much formaldehyde as they are pigment. So upon viewing, if you sense a touch of the grave, the morgue, the concrete slab, count yourself more-or-less normal in terms of your taste in art. At least, this art.
Deliveries in the Rear
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Jeff Corey
Rod Serling: Number one entry. A painting that suggests a story replete with gaslight, handsome cabs, and cadavers. An all-star cast of corpses appearing in what we call: Deliveries in the Rear, delivered to you now on Night Gallery.
In Victorian London, Dr. John Fletcher (Cornel Wilde), a callous professor of anatomy at the Macmillan School of Medicine, meets with a pair of shabby-looking men at the school's back door, as they have been stealing and delivering corpses to Fletcher's lab so he can dissect them for his classes. Notably, the doctor doesn't ask his shady partners any questions regarding the source of the cadavers to keep himself from being an accomplice. Fletcher's supervisor Dr. Shockman (Peter Brocco) and the father of his fiancée, Barbara Bennett (Rosemary Forsyth), note the macabre rumors of murder and grave-robbing that have been circulating around town, prompting Fletcher to decree that if any such victims are among his cadavers, they were "scum" who deserved to die. When he's nearly caught with the dead body of an old woman's husband, Charlie Woods, and this woman threatens to get the police involved, Fletcher decides to use a female corpse for his next class. He enlists his unsavory partners to do his dirty work, but his callousness in the face of individual life crumbles to pieces when he sees who exactly is on the slab.
Tropes
- Card-Carrying Villain: Everything about Fletcher's partners, from their appearances, voices, and demeanors, is meant to establish that they're not at all decent men.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Fletcher discovers that the latest body he's working on is that of Barbara, leaving him heartbroken. Also, Mrs. Woods, who he tasked his partners with murdering, is still free to notify the police, bringing Fletcher's medical career to a very likely end.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dr. Fletcher takes note of one of his students, Mr. Tuttle, for nearly fainting at the sight of how "unappetizing" the cadaver he's dissecting looks, prompting him to note that the body isn't on a restaurant menu.
- Exact Words: Fletcher tasks his shady partners to get him a female corpse for his next class, refusing to name names to retain plausible deniability. Though he intended for them to murder Mrs. Woods, this causes the grave robbers to indiscriminately kill the first woman they can find: Barbara.
- Foreshadowing:
- One of the corpses Fletcher gets early in the segment is noted to have been dead for only two hours after having been bashed in the head by a statue, and it's subtly implied that the grave robbers are responsible. Come the end of the segment, they give this same treatment to Barbara.
- As he meets with Barbara, Fletcher tells her that until man finds a way to conquer death, she'll have to "share the man in [him] with the surgeon." She ends up murdered by his nefarious partners at the end of the episode and is put on the slab for Fletcher's latest class, horrifying him by making him eat his words.
- Grave Robbing: Dr. Fletcher uses a pair of shady "undertakers" to steal corpses for him to dissect for his classes, and they're also heavily hinted to have actively murdered some of the people they gave him beforehand. Multiple people are disturbed at the very possibility, but Fletcher defaults to "don't ask, don't tell" regarding his suppliers' sources.
- He Knows Too Much: Mrs. Woods, who threatens to get the police involved when she accuses Fletcher of hoarding her husband Charlie's body, causing him to rope his shady associates into killing her so her own corpse can be used for his next class. They instead bring him Barbara's corpse, as she was the first woman they saw and Fletcher wasn't specific about who it was he wanted to hide his association with them.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Dr. Fletcher vows that cutting into the dead will train the next generation of doctors and life-savers, but he hires grave-robbers to pilfer corpses for him to slice into, and even kill them ahead of time, to further his ghoulish goals.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The grave robbers who Fletcher hires to steal bodies for him end up killing and delivering Barbara when he tasks them with giving him a female cadaver. What's more, they ended up killing the first woman they saw instead of the woman who threatened to send the police after Fletcher, because he didn't give them specifics to retain his plausible deniability.
- Karma Houdini: Fletcher is mortified when he finds Barbara's corpse on his slab, having paid for his contempt for the dead thanks to what his "partners" brought him, but he and the grave robbers themselves receive no punishment for their illicit actions. However, that may change if and when Mrs. Woods, who accused him of holding her husband's body, follows through on her threat to get the police involved.
- The Needs of the Many: Fletcher argues that using peoples' corpses, regardless of how they were obtained, will train the doctors of the future to save numerous lives. That all goes down the toilet when he discovers that his latest cadaver is a certain someone he knows.
- No Name Given: The grave robbers.
- Oh, Crap!: Fletcher has a pretty huge one when he discovers Barbara's corpse under the sheets.
- Original Position Fallacy: Dr. Fletcher needs corpses for his classes, and he doesn't really care how his shady providers get them, arguing that the knowledge to be demonstrated on them is more important, and that one life isn't a true sacrifice if it saves many others. The segment ends with his horrified discovery that the grave robbers killed his fiancee Barbara when he tasked them with getting a female cadaver.
- Plausible Deniability: Dr. Fletcher doesn't ask where his suppliers get the corpses they give him to minimize his own involvement in their racket.
- Poor Communication Kills: In the midst of being accused by Mrs. Woods, the elderly woman who claims he has "Charlie's" body, Fletcher quickly tasks his "partners" with getting a female cadaver for his next class. Because he's not specific about who he wants, the grave robbers kill Barbara and bring her corpse to him.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Dr. Shockman, Fletcher's boss, tells him that Mrs. Woods who hinted that her husband's body is in his collection of corpses spoke to him about her theory, telling Fletcher that he should discontinue the act of dissecting corpses and having a good explanation if and when Charlie's body is found on school grounds.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Mrs. Woods, the old woman who accuses Fletcher of being in possession of her spouse's body and threatens to send the police after him, who sets up the Cruel Twist Ending when Fletcher sends his partners to get a female cadaver for his next class. Before that, she already went to his superior, Dr. Shockman, with her accusations, already tightening the vice Fletcher was getting stuck in.
- The Social Darwinist: Fletcher doesn't kill people himself, but he does hire a pair of sinister grave robbers to deliver their bodies to him, even under circumstances which suggest that they're not above murder to get fresh corpses to sell. He also argues that the bodies he gets are those of vagrants and scum, who are now of use to society for the first time in their existence.
- Tempting Fate: During what will come to be the last time he sees Barbara alive, Fletcher tells her that his one redeeming quality, which he and her father were "arguing" about, is that he loves her; a quality which no cadaver can change. This bites him in the ending, as his sole good quality is broken by the cadaver he's given for his next class.
- For bonus points, he opens this class with a lecture of how the cadavers the school gets are meant solely to serve a purpose in teaching students, and that no individual life is of consequence if it means saving multiple ones.
- Those Two Guys: The grave robbers Fletcher hires to procure cadavers for him.
- Wanting Is Better Than Having: After being confronted by Mrs. Woods, who claims he has Charlie's body and getting threatened with having the police called on him if the body is found in his lab, Dr. Fletcher orders his suppliers to get him a female cadaver so no one can pin anything on him. They end up killing his fiancée Barbara when he isn't specific about who he wants.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Fletcher is given harsh rebuttals for his callousness and his rumored complicity in grave robbing and murder by four separate people over the segment's runtime: his soon-to-be father-in-law, the old woman who accuses him of holding her husband's body, his superior at the school, and the detective who insists on viewing his latest dissection to check if the body is that of a woman like he says.
Stop Killing Me
Original story by: Hal Dresner
Teleplay by: Jack Larid
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Rod Serling: Painting number two in the Night Gallery, addressing itself to the strains and stresses of the married; having to do with the fact that there is more than one way to kill a cat... and more than one way to dispose of a wife. Our painting is called: Stop Killing Me.
The deathly nervous Frances Turchin (Geraldine Page) visits the NYPD to make a formal statement to Sergeant Stanley Bevelow (James Gregory). Frances claims that her husband Bernard has been reciting to her, at random intervals and wherever they are at any given moment, "I'm going to kill you, Frances.", simply because she refuses a divorce. As a result, she thinks Bernard is planting this idea in her mind so she'll be paranoid enough to kill herself in a freak accident, so she comes to the station to report her own impending death. As he takes Frances' deposition, Stanley, who has a highly-similar wife, begins growing from incredulous to invested in her case.
Tropes
- Awful Wedded Life: The Turchins, as Frances' husband Bernard employs a long-term Paranoia Gambit to trick her into killing herself when his divorce is refused. Before that, Frances claims he has a long list of "crazy reasons" why he wanted the separation, such as the fact that she's not a good cook, she's not as beautiful as she was when they were wed, he has nothing left to say to her, she clutters up the bathroom, etc.
- Stanley's wife, depicted in a picture frame on his desk, is hinted to be equally unpleasant to him (as indicated by the overly-dour grimace on her face), so he phones Bernard to teach him how he can play his mind game on her.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Bernard succeeds in making Frances kill herself through her paranoid fantasies, and he's likely more than eager to share his technique with Stanley.
- Bottle Episode: The segment is essentially an extended blackout sketch, as it's mostly set in one room with only two characters and feels one-note in nature.
- Death by Adaptation: In the short story the segment is based on, Frances survives. The TV adaptation has her ending up dead when she distractedly steps in front of a speeding car.
- Dirty Cop: Stanley, the police sergeant who interrogates Frances, phones Bernard to teach him how to pull the same trick he played on her on his own wife.
- Disproportionate Retribution: According to Frances, the only reason why Bernard is subjecting her to an agonizing and paranoid mind game so that she ultimately kills herself is because she refuses to grant him a divorce.
- Before that, she also brings up the list of petty insults that Bernard has made against her, like her horrible cooking, her faded beauty, her cluttering the bathroom, and the fact that he just has nothing more to say to her.
- Foreshadowing:
- As Frances introduces herself and reports that her husband Bernard is killing her, Stanley replies with a rather humorous declaration of "My wife is killing me." We learn at the end that his wife (as portrayed in a framed photo) is as overly stern and obnoxious as Frances appeared to Bernard, and he phones the man himself after Frances is run over by a car to teach him how to play the ruse on her. He also stares at the picture before noting to Frances that refusal of a divorce is a somewhat good-enough reason to resort to murder.
- One of the ways that Frances imagines that her supposed paranoia-induced death could come about is her being hit by a car, which does indeed occur at the end of the segment. She even notes that she was standing in the middle of a busy street thinking about her eventual death, and would have nearly been flattened right there if a young girl didn't pull her out of the way.
- Henpecked Husband: Frances' husband Bernard apparently thought of her as an overbearing nag, so he turns to a psychological mind game to get her to kill herself.
- Here We Go Again!: Once Frances accidentally kills herself, Stanley phones Bernard to ask how exactly he killed her so he can play the ruse on his own ball-breaker wife.
- Karma Houdini: Bernard gets away with killing Frances, and Stanley may likely follow in his footsteps when he kills his own wife.
- Large Ham: To contrast with how laid-back and snarky Stanley is, Frances spends the whole segment rapidly alternating between her frightened tone of voice and mimicking her murderous husband's threats, evil laughter, and even his snoring.
- Lighter and Softer: The segment is played for black comedy, as it concerns a frightened wife driven to near-insanity by her husband repeating a threat to kill her again and again.
- Motor Mouth: Frances dispenses her story to Stanley at a mile per minute, including seamlessly going back and forth between her regular voice and an impersonation of Bernard.
- Murder by Inaction: Bernard does this to Frances via his psychological game, allowing him to kill her through the power of suggestion alone.
- Paranoia Gambit: Bernard has been saying to Frances, wherever they are and without any warning, "I'm going to kill you, Frances." It works like a charm, as the fear and paranoia that builds up in Frances' mind causes her to get so distracted that she's hit by a speeding car.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Subverted. Stanley thinks that a marital dispute isn't worth his time, but decides that Bernard's repeated murder threats warrant a discussion, even if he's just trying to put an end to Frances' rambling. When she gets hit by a car, Stanley realizes that he can use Bernard's scheme to his own benefit.
- Running Gag: Frances brings up how Bernard randomly repeats his threat to kill her by pointing straight ahead and mimicking his voice.
- Stating the Simple Solution: As he's listening to Frances' story, Stanley notes that Bernard's motivation for divorce/murder could easily be solved by him and Frances just visiting a marriage counselor.
- Till Murder Do Us Part: Frances comes to the police station to report that Bernard is "killing" her by trying to "worry her to death". The story reminds Stanley of his own ball-buster of a wife, and after Frances is hit by a car, he phones Bernard and asks him if he can tell him how he set the mind game up.
- Title Drop: Frances fervently tells Stanley about how her husband is trying to worry her to death, and pleads that he call Bernard and tell him to "stop killing me!"
Dead Weight
Based on the short story "Out of the Country" by Jeffrey Scott.
Teleplay by: Jack Larid
Directed by: Timothy Galfas
Rod Serling: Here we have a cameo dandy. Problem: how to flee the coop; how to make tracks away from the police and unhappy peers; ship out to safer climes. The story of a chap who, if he had it to do over again, would have remained where he was. He finds out that he is precisely what is the title of the picture: Dead Weight.
Landau (Bobby Darin), a notorious criminal who recently stole a quarter-million dollars from a bank and shot a little boy and his mother in his getaway, comes to Mr. Bullivant (Jack Albertson), a peculiar exporter of goods, for his desperate need to flee the country. Having decades of experience in helping criminals on the run, Bullivant assures Landau that he has nothing to worry about, offering to smuggle him to Argentina for $15,000. After a celebratory drink, Bullivant does indeed ship Landau overseas, but not in the way he expected.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: Bullivant is eager to do business with all his criminal customers, and takes pride in his ability to ship anyone who comes to him out of the country. What they don't know is that he doesn't ship them out of the country alive.
- Bottle Episode: Much like the preceding segment, this one is set in a single room with only two main characters and is only a few minutes long, essentially making it another one-note blackout sketch. The difference is that this segment plays nothing for comedy.
- Death of a Child: The newspaper Bullivant reads, which reports on Landau's bank robbery, notes that he shot a six year old boy and his mother among his other victims.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The newspaper regarding Landau and his bank robbery calls him an "armed gunman".
- Disposing of a Body: Bullivant "exports" the criminals that come to him from the country by poisoning them and turning their bodies into dog food.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Landau notes that he accidentally shot an innocent six-year old boy and his mother during his getaway, and is clearly upset that it happened.
- Exact Words: Bank robber Landau is promised by Bullivant that he'll be taken "out of the country", never to see the inside of a prison cell, after he accidentally kills a little boy during his bank robbery and wants to flee the country to escape prosecution. He does so by being murdered, then getting his corpse ground up and made into Bullivant's brand of dog food, which is taken "out of the country" on a barge shipping it overseas.
- Human Resources: Bullivant is an exporter of goods on the surface, but his true business is helping murderous and reprehensible criminals like Landau flee the country. He does so by toasting to his clients' voyages and slipping them a potent poison, shipping them out of the country after they've been turned into his brand of canned dog food.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Bullivant poisons everyone who needs a quick getaway through his firm, then turns them into dog food to ship overseas. Given that all his customers are criminals who want to avoid the law, such as Landau, who shot a little boy and his mother, it's a fitting punishment for their misdeeds.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Bullivant chipperly turns people into dog food that he ships overseas for a living. While this would be a grievous thing to do to anyone, his clientele are remorseless criminals who have made stealing and killing their top priority.
- P.O.V. Cam: There are a few brief shots from Landau's point of view as the poison in his drink kicks in.
- Released to Elsewhere: Bullivant has a reputation for this among criminals, who often go to him when they need help escaping the country. It's revealed that Bullivant kills them, turns their bodies into dog food, and ships said dog food overseas.
- Slipping a Mickey: Before he sends them out of the country, Bullivant offers his clients a toast with a poisoned drink. As we observe with Landau, the poison activates within seconds.
- Villain Has a Point: As Bullivant is rebuking Landau for killing that little boy, the thief admits that there were bullets flying everywhere and he couldn't control where they were going to go. He also points out that the robbery took place at 10 AM, so it made no sense for a child his age to be on the street instead of in school at that time of day, prompting Bullivant to grimly note that such a fate is a steep price to pay for playing hooky.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Bullivant tells Landau that his firm has no negative reviews of its performance. This is later revealed to be because no one's been left alive to give it any reviews at all.
- Would Hurt a Child: Landau accidentally shot a six-year-old boy and his mother as he was escaping the cops. He's greatly dismayed about it (mostly for the kid), but he shrugs it off when he realizes that he can't do anything about it now.
