Death in the Family/The Merciful/Class of '99/Witches' Feast

"A Death in the Family" Starring EG Marshall as a funeral home proprietor and Desi Arnez Jr. as an escaped convict really brings home why I love 'Night Gallery' so much. It really encapsulates the best of the series, along with several other stories, the great mood that good horror writing has. To paraphrase an author whose name escapes me, "Horror is the realization" In other words, its not th blood and guts that makes horror so good, its the full realization of what is really happening. This episode fills that bill perfectly as we see what is REALLY going on in the Soames home for funerals. Not easily forgotten, this episode.

A Death in the Family sees Mr. Soames (E. G. Marshall), owner of a funeral parlour, resolving his loneliness by creating a 'family' of corpses to keep him company. The latest addition to his family is to be fatally wounded criminal Doran (Desi Arnaz Jr.) who breaks into the funeral home. It's a macabre but touching tale -- kinda like if Ed Gein was well-meaning and misunderstood -- and the sight of cadavers assembled around a table wearing party hats is wonderfully ghoulish (and would be repeated for the 1981 slasher film Happy Birthday To Me).

The Merciful is one of those pointless, supposedly amusing horror shorts that are used to pad out an episode. A woman bricks up her husband in the basement, or does she? It's predictable stuff.

Class of '99 stars Vincent Price as an examiner, grading students on their knowledge and ability to react to situations in the approved manner. It's not exactly thrilling stuff, that not even Price can save, but it's always fun to see an inaccurate 'futuristic' prediction of a year that has since passed.

Satisfaction Guaranteed doesn't satisfy. Victor Buono plays a wealthy man looking for a secretary, but she must meet his very exacting criteria. Another black comedy short, this one is plain daft.

Brandon deWilde, Vincent Price and Randolph Mantooth gave fine performances. They all did, and so did the Asian guy (Mr. Chang"?)who was part of the dialogue, and his was not a bit part. Yet the production people chose to ignore him. Hollywood racism at its best, you must make noise to get a fair shake.

It should also be noted that when the student recited an equation for momentum (m*v) of a rocket, he cited a correction factor for fuel loss, ln(e). I don't know what these guys were smoking but that smart Asian kid would tell you that ln(e^x) = x

So 8 for the acting and 4 for the writing.

To start with, this viewer must say that he watched this episode on DVD, where the final 'Witches Feast' segment was replaced with another story entirely, 'Satisfaction Guaranteed'. He cannot comment on the episode as it originally aired back in '71.

As for the rest:

'Death in the Family'. The wonderful E.G. Marshall (whom horror fans know as Upson Pratt in "Creepshow") is Mr. Soames, a funeral home director accosted in his place of business by young murderer Doran (Desi Arnaz, Jr.). Doran is in for a surprise when he sees that he sees that there is actually no safe haven here. Mr. Soames, you see, is an eccentric who has certain ideas about what to do with dead individuals. Scripted by Rod Serling, based on Miriam Allen DeFords' story, this is pretty good, but delivers no earthshaking revelations. Some good atmosphere, in any event.

'The Merciful'. An "original" by series producer Jack Laird (this is obviously inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), this has a loving wife (Imogene Coca) walling up her husband (King Donovan) for supposedly compassionate reasons. The revelation is amusing, if not a great one, and this at least represents something of an improvement over a previous Laird-scripted comic vignette, 'Miss Lovecraft Sent Me'). Ms. Coca is a delight.

'Class of '99'. This is far and away the standout segment of this episode, and is a Serling original, showing off his great ear for dialogue and talent for intelligent rumination on the idea of human nature. Vincent Price is an officious professor, presiding over the final exam for his students. Brandon de Wilde, the young boy from "Shane" all grown up, is one of them. It's worth it all just for Serling's delicious reveal, which may actually catch the viewer by surprise. The episode really cooks once we get to a confrontation between two students, one white and one black, and we think about instinctual reactions to being provoked.

Finally, 'Satisfaction Guaranteed'. Another original by Laird. Victor Buono plays a pompous schlub who wants a young woman for some unknown purpose, while an employment agency proprietress (Cathleen Cordell) parades some efficient young ladies before him. Once a certain character comes through the door, and Buono's eyes light up, you see what he's really going for. Overall, this short segment is amusing, and shows that Laird was showing some (very mild) improvement in terms of his writing. But Buono is the real reason to watch.

Look for various familiar faces turning up throughout: James B. Sikking, Hunter von Leer, Randolph Mantooth, Soon-Tek Oh, etc.

The *real* twist here is that all four of these segments were directed by the same man for once, Jeannot Szwarc ("Jaws 2", "Somewhere in Time"), who worked on 19 episodes of the series in total.

Seven out of 10.

Let me say right from the jump that E.G. Marshall is terrific as Mr. Soames, a funeral director who takes his job rather seriously, even to the extent of helping an escaped prisoner, played decently enough by a young Desi Arnaz Jr, who's on the run from the authorities. The funeral parlor and house are very creepy looking on both inside and out and makes for a fine setting; this show is known for the old mansions which appear in many episodes. Marshall is very convincing as the lonely director, whose work appears to be his life, although he could use some singing lessons. After being stopped by the police near his home and questioned about seeing the loose convict, they let him go back home; soon after, the escaped, injured, and very wet convict(Arnaz Jr.)breaks through a window carrying a gun and requests to be able to lay down on the sofa to rest. Soames is more than happy to have the young man stay, and you sense that he is fattening him up for the kill. It turns out that the director has a newly dead family propped up on a dinner table, and I wish they would've used dummies or something other than real people just staring into the camera. Soames and the convict neither had a family of their own, so the director wants to add to his make believe family, although against the young man's wishes. Other than this downer, this is still a solid episode of the best season of Night Gallery and has a fine atmosphere.