The Return of the Sorcerer

How did the script get approved? It's an aimless pile of twoddle. The episode leaps from scene to scene in an aimless and haphazard fashion; for example when we cut to the pair sharing an intimidate kiss with absolutely zero setup. Absolute amateur hour.

The performances are wooden, and, frankly, high-school-play quality. Price (the only person who actually delivers a line with any energy) is ok, but his edginess and hyper-reactivity exist in a vacuum, as the director doesn't provide adequate atmosphere for such behaviour to feel of-a-piece with the proceedings, leaving Price feeling abandoned.

Definitely the worst NG episode I've ever seen.

One bright spot is watching Vincent Price mug for the camera. He is in full scenery-chewing mode and seems to be having a lot of fun. However, let the viewer be forewarned: if enjoying dinner with a goat or kissing frogs is your thing, you might give it a shot. Otherwise, pass on this forgettable episode. It's rather boring, the plot in virtually incomprehensible, and excepting the aforementioned Vincent Price treat, the acting is somnambulistic. Bill Bixby is stone-faced and delivers his line with a stale monotony. Patricia Sterling is beautiful, but adds nothing to the story and seems to be here just to provide a female presence. She seems to be Vincent's wife, although she appears to be at least thirty years younger than he is. I have no doubt this episode was most depressing for Rod Serling.

Vincent Price can be relied upon to bring a level of class to almost anything, and in this tale from the Night Gallery he is joined by the excellent Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk TV show) and the enchantingly beautiful Patricia Sterling. However, despite this talented trio of performers, and some memorably bizarre moments, The Return of the Sorcerer fails to impress, the story a trite mish-mash of occult nonsense that makes little sense and which ends in a most unsatisfactory manner.

Price plays occultist John Carnby, who hires Arabic expert Noel Evans (Bixby) to translate some passages in an old book, texts which have sent two previous translators packing in fear. Sterling plays Fern, Price's sexy assistant, who has more power than anyone guesses. The good stuff includes an atmospheric location (an old mansion so creepy that even the hallways are swathed in mist), a dinner scene in which a goat is a guest, and an amusing moment where Evans meets what is left of Carnby's twin brother: a twitching dismembered foot and a crawling severed hand. It's just a shame that these fun elements weren't part of a better, more cogent story rather than this meandering mystical mumbo jumbo.

Clark Ashton Smith is an acquired taste. (It helps if you like the substitution of conspicuous ten-dollar words for plain old English that would have worked just as well.) One of his best and least effete stories is 'The Return of the Sorcerer,' on which this episode of "Night Gallery" is based. How faithful to Smith's tale is the small-screen adaptation? The mechanics of the plot are fundamentally the same, but the overtly horrific nature of the story is eschewed in favor of a languid, decadent atmosphere, with costumes and set pieces that look like something out of Théophile Gautier. (Tisha Sterling is essentially one of those set pieces. She's nice to look at, but there's really no reason for her character to exist...and of course the character did *not* exist in Smith's story. Bill Bixby is bland and inoffensive as the translator, and no one could have played John Carnby nearly as well as hammy, leering Vincent Price.)

But it works! Director Jeannot Szwarc took the bare bones of the short story and superimposed upon them the sinister/humorous aesthetic that was a trademark of "Night Gallery." It's a neat reimagining of the Smith tale, not at all like the clunky, uncomprehending adaptations to which Hollywood so often subjects the work of H. P. Lovecraft. All in all, 'The Return of the Sorcerer' is one of the better moments of the series' third and final season...by which time Rod Serling's involvement had, unfortunately, become minimal.

This is an obtuse story of a sorcerer who hires a translator, played by Bill Bixby, to read an ancient manuscript containing an ancient curse. Vincent Price does his usual mugging best as the sorcerer, who, with his beautiful assistant enlist the nervous Bixby. There are things that should have been left unsaid because when these words are spoken, things are set in motion, including a twin brother who has been dismembered by his own brother and moves around the mansion in pieces; a hand here and a foot there. His head is kept in a closet and the body parts want to get back together. At times, things become quite confusing but Price and the others keep it going and the die is cast.