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

Season 2-Episode 8 of Rod Serling's anthology series "Night Gallery" opens quite wonderfully with Patty Duke back in 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.

'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.

I adored the Night Gallery and was very pleased to have recently gotten the complete series.

Many of the segments are, frankly, mediocre, but some are classically terrifying. The episode with Roddy McDowell as the nephew who kills his rich uncle and Ossie Davis as the butler, the episode with Carl Betz as the doctor, "Camera Obscura" with Rene Auberjonois and Ross Martin (taken directly from the short story of the same name), and many, many others: all of these were good for a night of keeping the lights on. It's both good and rather sad to see all these great actors we grew up with who've since passed on. ~sigh~ I just finished watching "Big Surprise" again. And it's still as frightening and funny as ever.

There are four separate stories packed into this episode's fifty-one minutes, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that at least one of them sucks. The worst offender is tale number two which lasts just a few minutes and is essentially a one joke piece: a vampire enters a blood bank... to make a withdrawal. Badum-tish! For all I know, this might have been a new joke back in '71, but I've seen it printed in comics so many times over the years that it no longer has the desired effect.

Before this, we get a story starring Patty Duke and Virginia Mayo. Duke plays Holly Schaeffer, television's foremost 'hatchet lady', who uses her gossip show to make cruel comments about washed-up movie star Carrie Crane (Mayo). Crashing Schaeffer's New Year's Eve party (which features a dwarf in a nappy as the 'new year baby'), Crane delivers a gift to the cruel woman: a diary. After Crane leaves, Schaeffer opens the journal to find that the first page is already filled in, in her handwriting, and that it predicts Crane's suicide. Sure enough, the actress throws herself in front of a car moments later.

The next day, and there is another mysterious diary entry which foretells of the death of Schaeffer's one true love, Jeb (Robert Yuro); later that day, Jeb dies in an accident. On the third day, there is no entry, which leads Holly to believe that she is going to die. Her sanity slipping, she has herself committed for her own safety, living the rest of her days in a padded room, trying to beat the diary by completing the entries herself. I can't say I liked this one all that much, but that's not to say it's bad - just not my cup of tea. Look out for a young Lindsay 'Bionic Woman' Wagner as a nurse.

The third story is a bit of a weird one: John Carradine plays a creepy old man who tells young lad Chris (Vincent Van Patten) where he can find 'a big surprise'. Together with his friends, Chris goes to the location that the man told him about and starts to dig. The two friends eventually give up and wander off, but Chris continues until he finds a wooden box secured with a padlock. It's a creepy set-up, but the 'big surprise' waiting for the boy inside the box is just plain bizarre.

The last story is a lot of fun for fans of Lovecraft, and might even have been a source of inspiration for a young Sam Raimi: the brilliant Carl Reiner plays a Miskatonic University professor lecturing on the subject of superstition and ancient cults. As he recites from a copy of the Necronomicon (as in The Evil Dead), he mocks the 'great old ones', incurring their wrath, the man eventually transformed into an unspeakable monster. There are numerous Lovecraft references, Reiner hams it up a treat, and the ending is wonderfully silly. Now this one WAS my cup of tea!

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 !