DEADLY DREAM

Lloyd Bridges

DEADLY DREAM (1971 telefilm). Director: Alf Kjellin.

Dr. Jim Hanley (Lloyd Bridges) is working on certain revolutionary DNA experiments that have the powers-that-be at his university nervous. He begins to have recurring dreams in which he is chased by menacing members of a group calling themselves the Tribunal. The spooky thing is that when he wakes up he has the minor injuries that he received running from the group in his nightmares. Then he starts seeing some of these men in his waking hours, also bearing scars from the dreams. A colleague (Carl Betz) tries to help him in one of his nightmares, but he is later killed in real life. Before long, Hanley is totally paranoid, suspecting anyone and everyone of plotting against him, including his own wife (Janet Leigh). He begins to wonder if his "real" life is just a dream, and the world of his nightmare is his true reality. Deadly Dream, an intriguing ABC "Movie of the Week," was probably inspired by the success of the previous year's Brotherhood of the Bell, which it resembles to a certain extent, although it goes off in its own direction and is not as good. The notion of unraveling DNA was ahead of its time, but not much is done with it. The movie is quite suspenseful and very well-acted by Bridges, Leigh and the rest of the cast, but some might groan a bit at the ending. Bridges really gives one of his best performances in this.

Verdict: Bizarre little telefilm with fine performances. ***.

ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY SEASON 1

A malevolent doll from the 5th episode

ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY Season 1. 1968.

After the telefilm proved a success, Rod Serling was given the go to turn Night Gallery into a weekly series, but apparently the network wasn't confident enough to order too many episodes, so the first season is pretty short [It was rotated with two other series on Wednesday night]. The series features macabre stories in the genres of horror, fantasy, suspense, and science fiction. Each of the six episodes features two or more stories. First, the good: "The Dead Man" is a Poe-esque tale about a young fellow whose body can instantly develop any illness or condition, including death. The trouble is that he has a yen for his doctor's wife...  Carl Betz, Jeff Corey and Lousie Sorel give very good performances in this. "Make Me Laugh" is an amusing black comedy about a mediocre stand up comic who only wants to make people laugh, to his ultimate regret; Godfrey Cambridge is excellent as the comic. "Clean Kills and Other Trophies" features an outstanding performance by Raymond Massey as a truly hateful, racist hunter who goads his more sensitive son (Barry Brown) into hunting deer with him. The wind-up is predictable but satisfying. "Paula's Voice," about a man haunted by his dead wife's shrill voice, is really just a quick gag of an idea, but Phyllis Diller proves surprisingly wonderful as the awful, nagging spouse.

Other segments are well-acted but merely mediocre or worse, stories about sinister dolls (with a fine John Williams performance), a Titanic survivor who is a flying Dutchman (an outstanding John Colicos), and a doctor's black bag from the future, among others [There are no black bags today let alone in the future!]. "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar," which boasts a fine performance by William Windom (and great support from Diane Baker, Burt Convy and John Randolph), is meant to be a poignant study of a man's mid-life crisis, but some of his actions make him unsympathetic and the whole thing just doesn't work. And what to make of "The Nature of the Enemy" in which a lunar expedition is attacked by -- get this! -- giant white mice. There's no point wondering how the mice can breath on the airless moon, as the story, while played straight, is another quick gag [the moon is made of green cheese, remember?] but it certainly is a tale that's not worth the time it takes to present it, as well as one of Serling's all-time most disappointing scripts.

This truncated season was followed by two more full seasons.

Verdict: Truly a mixed bag. **1/2.