The Diary/A Matter of Semantics/Big Surprise/Professor Peabody's Last Lecture

'The Diary' - Patty Duke stars as a heartless gossip columnist who targets an aging(but still beautiful) actress(played by Virginia Mayo) who is driven to extremes by the stress, including giving her a cursed diary which metes out a special kind of justice... Best of these four with the Duke character getting exactly what she deserves by the clever ending.

'A Matter Of Semantics' - Inept comedy short with no point at all.

'Big Surprise' - John Carradine plays a sinister-seeming man who plans a big surprise for a young boy. Not bad, but still all build-up with little payoff.

'Professor Peabody's Last Lecture' - Goofy in-joke comedy short with silly outcome.

Even though I am not really a big fan of horror movies in general, I bought "Night Gallery" last year for the famous movie and television stars in them. I really prefer the old black and white horror movies, where less is more, over the excessive gore shown in the movies from the 1980s to today.

Having said that, I am going to review the nine stories that were my favorites. This may seem to be another usual outing courtesy of Night Gallery with its odd humor, but what made "The Diary" fascinating to me was Patty Duke's outstanding performance in it. She is given a diary as a present but there's more to it than meets the eye.

Patty Duke is a mean gossipy tv show host who puts down actors past their prime. A comeuppance befalls her and it ends rather bizarrely and abruptly, which only adds to the eccentricity of this production and leaves you feeling like, that's it? Wow!

If you come across this on tv, do yourself a favor and watch Patty Duke at her best.

My other favorites, which will all have their own separate reviews, are ""They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" with William Windom, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," narrated by Orson Welles, "The Dark Boy," with Gale Sondergaard, "Camera Obscura," with Ross Martin, "I'll Never Leave You...Ever," with Lois Nettleton, "The Little Black Bag" with Burgess Meredith, " The House," with Joanna Pettet and "Certain Shadows on the Wall," with Agnes Moorehead, Grayson Hall, Rachel Roberts and Louis Hayward.

There were also some other good episodes for honorable mentions, but these listed were to me the best of the best. As of this writing, some of these other reviews may not have been written but will be hopefully sometime soon.

The Diary is another weak episode suffering from being a Twilight Zone rehash.

A Matter of Semantics is another comic piece that's short but has a weak punchline. I do like the random casting of Cesar Romero as Dracula.

Big Surprise is the only good segment of this particular hour. Great ending!!

Professor Peabody's Last Lecture is another weak attempt at comedy. It goes on and on without being funny. Carl Reiner gives an energetic performance that belonged in a better episode.

This was taken from Wikipedia, however, please keep in mind that, as Harlan Ellison has stated: "Wikipedia is to the Encyclopedia Britanica, what Dachau (WWII Nazi Death Camp) was to Health Spas."

(From Wikipedia) ... He (Spielberg) did another segment on Night Gallery "MAKE 'EM LAUGH" (some people claim that he also directed a short five-minute segment called "A Matter of Semantics" when the credited director (Jack Laird) had to back out for unknown reasons, but this has never been confirmed) ...

This may or may not be true. But if so, it's a compelling piece of Spielbergian trivia, and worth viewing by any true aficionado of his work.

But again, keep in mind, this is rumor and has NOT been confirmed !

Season 2-Episode 8 of Rod Serling's anthology series "Night Gallery" opens quite wonderfully with Patty Duke back in "Valley of the Dolls"/Neely O'Hara mode as a television gossip reporter who continually dumps on tippling faded star Virginia Mayo, who ends up committing suicide--but not before delivering a diary to Duke's TV tattletale that appears to be writing her future. Written by Serling and directed by William Hale, "The Diary" delivers the spooky goods; David Wayne is solid as a psychiatrist, Lindsay Wagner has two or three lines as a nurse, and Duke is terrifically hateful. Elsewhere in the hour, Cesar Romero plays Count Dracula visiting a blood bank (he's there to withdraw, not make a deposit); John Carradine is an old coot who entices three schoolboys to dig for "a big surprise" on his property; and Carl Reiner is a pompous college professor debunking ancient gods--while the skies outside grow increasingly ominous. Directed by Jerrold Freedman, this silly tale relies on a single visual joke at its finish line, although Reiner gives his reading a jolt of acting relish.