Cool Air/Camera Obscura/Quoth the Raven

Another Lovecraft episode finds Henry Darrow putting off death by maintaining a level of cold in his apartments. Unfortunately, he is at the mercy of an aging refrigeration device that runs non-stop. The poor man has lost his wife and begins a relationship with a beautiful young woman who is willing to come to his rooms and dine with him He tells her of his experiments and the necessity for him to remain in this frigid environment. Sadly, one day the thing stops working and the temperature begins to rise. He calls the young woman and she desperately tries to find someone to fix it. This is a terrifying tale and the acting is excellent.

Also outstanding, is the second story, "Camera Obscura." Ross Martin, playing a kindly old man, is visited by a loan shark, played by Rene Auberjunois. The guy is only interested in assuring Martin that he will be ready to pay off his usurious loan the following Monday. We find out this man and his father before him are incredibly heartless, not caring what happens to those they destroy financially. Martin who is quite rich, with masterpieces of art on his walls, goes to bat for a friend of his who is about to be done in by Auberjunois. He is unyielding, though Martin makes it clear he has an opportunity to be compassionate. During the visit, Martin shows the shark a camera that can look back in time. After all this, he excuses himself and tells Martin that he had better have the money. As he retreats, he goes out a back doorway, and finds himself years in the past. Now he must confront the evil he and his father have done.

"Quoth the Raven" has Marty Allen, a comedian I never found funny, playing Edgar Allen Poe with writer's block. Nothing much here.

This was one of my favorite episodes of a generally uneven but watchable classic series from 1970s TV. "Cool Air" as written by Rod Serling takes a number of liberties with H.P. Lovecraft's original tale, not the least of which is substituting a female visitor (capably played by Barbara Rush) to the enigmatic rooming house boarder Dr. Munoz, in place of the male fellow renter who meets and befriends his mysterious neighbor via a medical emergency. However, in spite of the the artistic license, the story is well written and well acted; veteran TV character actor Henry Darrow does a nice job as Munoz, though he's not exactly as I would have pictured him from the Lovecraft story. He seems younger, and his voice is a bit too lively and vibrant. Also, in light of Munoz' unique physical malady, it's rather odd to see him sipping coffee or tea at dinner with Rush's character. All in all, though, the story is beautifully filmed and paced, and the haunting acoustic guitar soundtrack provides a very moody backdrop to the gradual eerie build-up to the horrific climax.

This story was redone about 10 years ago as part of the "H.P. Lovecraft Collection" with another veteran actor, Jack Donner, playing Dr. Munoz much closer to how I would have visualized him. The story is very faithful to the original tale, with the main character once again a male (and apparently meant to be a surrogate Lovecraft). Nevertheless, the Night Gallery version is very well done and well worth the watch.

This is one of Night Gallery's best and creepiest episodes during its run! All the stories(except the Edgar Allen Poe story at the end) are in my Night Gallery Top Ten list! Cool Air was a very good story with a strong horror tight and well acted performances! And the second story, Camera Obscura, was also very creepy and reminded me of movies like Night of the Living Dead or Lemora: Child of darkness!And they were creepy with having to use any blood, gore, sex or CGI! I recommend watching ONLY the unedited version of Camera Obscura! The syndicated version ruins the story by adding scenes that that have nothing to do with the show and making it far more predictable! Camera Obscura to me is the best story of this bunch!

Overall, I did enjoy Camera Obscura and the stars Ross Martin and Rene Auberjonois, who play a struggling businessman and money lender, respectively. During the first half of this episode, we get to see the odd layout of the house/business, and the dark stairs plus the weird shadows remind me a bit of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from many moons ago. Ross Martin portrayed the elder Ginggold with perfection, and was rather creepy when he got angry with Mr. Sharsted for refusing to help an old acquaintance of his, and therefore set Sharsted to his private hell. I wasn't totally enamored with the odd green hue which followed shortly, but the ghouls which tormented Sharsted made up for the odd green background.

Regarding the disappointing short vignette entitled Quoth the Raven, it begins with a silly painting of producer Jack Laird, and I'm not sure why the artist even bothered. Marty Allen portrays the writer, who appears to be suffering writer's block, as he can't think of a word to go with "weak and...", and we have an annoying and loud crow chirping during the barely 2 minute episode. Unless you're a Poe aficionado, and I'm clearly not, then maybe you'll understand the ending, in which the crow yells "weary, dummy; the word is weary" to finish the quote that Poe could not and soon after, Poe throws his wine glass at the bird, unfortunately missing. The only aspect I liked was the interior of the room, but otherwise, this is a turkey.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Jeannot Szwarc; Produced by Jack Laird for the Universal TV series "Night Gallery"; Broadcast by NBC. Screenplay by Rod Serling, from Story by H. P. Lovecraft; Photography by Leonard South; Edited by David Rawlings and Sam Vitale; Music by Robert Bain; Art Direction by Joe Alves. Starring: Barbara Rush, Henry Darrow, Beatrice Kay, Larry Blake and Karl Lukas.

"Cool Air" is a good adaptation by Rod of an atmospheric HPL opus. Barbara is very convincing and great hand-held, first-person camerawork delivers windblown action at start and finish to create a bittersweet mood for this tale of artificially preserved life after death, and a woman's reaction to the realization and loss accompanying her discovery of her lover's malady/final demise, as well as her recalling these events with a chill. Jeannot uses slow-motion and stylized white-out for the climactic scream scene. The haunting Spanish guitar score is excellent.