Night Gallery Season 3 Episode 7: You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan/Smile, Please (1972)

Well, here’s a Night Gallery in season 3 with two stories, which can only mean that one of them is from Jack Laird and, you know…

That said, “You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan” has some excellent stunt casting.

Henry Millikan (Ozzie Nelson) is an inventor who always has his creations explode right in his face. That happened again before his biggest competition, Dr. Burgess (Michael Lerner). Then, his wife Helena (Harriet Nelson, the wife of Ozzie and, of course, the co-star of Ozzie and Harriet) agrees to help him with his latest invention. She took some poison, and once she dies, he’s going to bring her back to life. As always, the invention doesn’t work, so Henry takes his own life. But the truth is, it did work. And, like always, Helena is running a little late.

Directed by John Badham and written by Rod Serling, based on “The Secret of the Vault” by J. Wesley Rosenquest, this is a playful Night Gallery that doesn’t feel like it came from Serling, but you can remain surprised.

“Smile, Please” is directed and written by Jack Laird. Cesare Danova and Lindsay Wagner excitedly hurry down a staircase, with her excited to be the first person to take a photo of a vampire. If you didn’t guess that the man is a vampire, you don’t know Jack Laird’s work on Night Gallery. The less said, the better.