Original subtitles

Starring tonight: David McCallum,

David Carradine,

Linda Marsh,

and the voice of Orson Welles.

Good evening.

We offer you an evening sojourn

amongst the wild, the wooly,

the unbelievable, sometimes made believable,

as our first painting suggests.

From this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story of love.

But that's precisely what it tells about.

The emotion as old as man.

But the object of the emotion, this is not quite as familiar.

It's title, Phantom Farmhouse.

Offering number one in the Night Gallery.

Do we have to have that guitar?

Every session!

Every session, plunk, plunk, plink, plink!

What's the hassle? If it keeps him cool...

It may be soul music to you,

but it's Chinese water torture to me.

But Gideon needs it.

That's his way of talking.

So let him shut up.

Dr.J., can't we eliminate the guitar?

Gideon.

Can we eliminate the guitar?

Listen, you junkie, the doctor asks kindly.

Can we eliminate the guitar?

Sure. Okay, no problem.

I'd like to ask Gideon a question.

Gideon is taking the Fifth.

We were being silly yesterday, and reverting.

And I said to Gideon, "Let's play Bean Porridge Hot."

And he wouldn't hold out his hands.

Now you know you're supposed to

hold out your hands, palms out.

He wouldn't. He got all uptight.

Why, Gideon?

Gideon is taking the Fifth.

Why are you taking the Fifth on that, Gideon?

What are you hiding?

Why don't you know?

My parents are paying you $39,000 a year

to keep me locked up for my own good,

and you can't come up with an answer?

Why don't you go take care of the Sheriff.

He's here again.

Wants to know why you murdered your own patient.

Found this note this morning.

Didn't find it before because the ground was...

Well, it was all ferns. It was so torn up, we missed it.

Any idea who could've written it?

One of my patients.

Can I talk with him?

Well, you can try.

Did you write that?

Why?

Because Mr. May was getting out?

Because you wanted him to meet Mildred?

So you wrote him a little note of introduction, hmm?

Drew him a map how to get there.

He was in love with her. He was a sick sap, sickly in love.

How could he be in love with her?

He'd never seen her. He'd never even been off the grounds.

I've never seen her. I'm in love with her.

Betty's never seen her, she's in love with her.

You've never seen her, and you're in love with her, aren't you, Doc?

I don't hallucinate, if that's what you mean.

Mildred is super-groove.

Her father and mother are heavy.

Big-hearted. Honest. Sturdy.

Good old American stock.

Not like people today,

all cringing and cruel for money.

And where do they live?

Over there, in the forest.

From my window, I can just see the top of the chimney.

It's a 200-year-old house with a white picket fence,

and an old-fashioned well.

And the water in the well, fantastic!

So cold, so clear.

Well, what's their name?

Squire.

Croquet, anyone?

This fellow you wrote the note for,

was he a good friend of yours?

He was just a freak like the rest of us.

I didn't like him.

He was a big-shot in a think tank.

I hate think-tankers.

Think-tankers and psychiatrists are killing this country.

Why did you want him to meet Mildred?

She's shy and deliriously beautiful.

She's got a face like a dream.

She wears a real funky Gibson Girl frock, white one,

Alice blue trimming.

And a natural straw hat with Alice blue ribbons.

Why shouldn't I want him to meet her?

I want everybody to meet Mildred.

Okay, Gideon. Thank you.

Croquet, anyone?

He hallucinates.

He's always talking about this house and these people in the forest.

I let him go on

because it's the only subject that seems to bring him out of himself.

There is a ruins there.

Just a chimney, all alone.

But there are no people?

No, no. Not a soul.

Here's a patient you've dismissed.

First thing he does when he's free,

he parks his car, walks along this logging road

to see a girl that doesn't exist.

Next thing, we find his body,

ripped and shredded, drained of blood.

It's a wild coincidence.

Can Gideon get out at night?

No, no, no. He's got a drug problem.

We don't let him alone for a second.

He arrived in manacles. He's never been off the grounds.

Some patients you let off the grounds?

Oh, yes.

Don't stop now, Doc. You're almost there.

I must be dreaming.

Is anyone home?

Hello? Is anybody there?

Pierre, who lives in the house in the forest?

What house?

You go in on the old logging road,

there's a house with a white picket fence.

No house. No one live there.

There's no house there? No.

Oh, come on, Pierre, what is this, a gag?

Years ago was burned down.

Stands now only a chimney and three graves.

Are you sure we're talking about the same place?

You go in at the crossroads.

The house is right there in the forest.

In the forest, yes. But no house. Ruins!

I see.

Okay, thanks.

Did you meet Mildred?

What?

You saw the house. Did you meet Mildred?

I don't know what you're talking about.

I just went for a walk.

Oh, come on, Doc. Don't fight it.

You'll just lose in the end. Give in to it. Get with it.

Shakespeare asked me to give this to you.

Okay, Gideon. Play your little games.

"Men of science say miracles are past,

"and give reasons for things supernatural.

"Therefore, we dismiss our terror

"by finding safety in false knowledge,

"when, instead, we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."

May I...

May I trouble you for a drink of water from your well?

I'm a doctor at the sanitarium.

I've been out walking.

Surely you may drink from our well.

And you may rest yourself, if you like.

This one is mine, I tell you! You go do your own hunting!

We're great hunters here, you know.

The season is just in,

and my father and I have the worst quarrels as to whose game is whose.

It's incredible. It really is as cold as a glacier.

And so light, I hardly feel I'm drinking!

Now, will you rest?

There's an extra chair for you on the porch.

No, it's getting late. I must be getting back.

Young man, would you like to come up and rest on the porch?

This is my father, Mr. Squire.

And my mother.

I'm Joel Winter.

Oh, I shouldn't have shaken hands. They're so stained.

We're putting up fox grapes.

The stain just won't wash off. It has to wear off, you know.

Yes. Well, thank you very much for the drink.

Maybe I could call in some other time?

Please do.

Better wait until after dark.

Of course, we'd be glad to see you anytime.

But we're so busy these fall days,

we haven't got much time for company.

You never told me your name.

You seem worried about something.

Do I make you nervous?

No, no. No, it's just...

Ever since I've been a child,

I always get a sort of shivery feeling.

I mean, at dusk, and so deep in the forest.

And yet, I like the feeling.

The shivery feeling.

And you. I like everything about you.

These days, with girls so outspoken and rugged,

it's so wonderful to find someone

so gentle

and shy.

My name is Mildred.

Goodbye, Mildred.

Hi, Tom. Joel.

Betty.

Gideon left these books for you.

Books about what?

Books about lycanthropy.

The study of werewolves.

I've marked several places for you.

Here.

The index finger is longer than the middle finger,

and bright red nails.

Joel, are you interested in lycanthropy?

Hmm?

Oh, no. No, no, no, of course not.

I'm just humoring Gideon.

It's an endocrine imbalance case, hyper-pineal type.

Normally an autumn affliction.

What?

Don't tell me you believe this stuff.

No, not really.

Look!

Pointed ears, elongated upper cuspids,

eyes turn red at moonrise.

Come on, Gideon. It's all a put-on.

Put-on!

What do you think May saw before he was torn to pieces?

Gideon.

Do you have Sieber's book there?

He's the world's foremost authority on hormone-created insanity.

It's a little-known aberration

of a little-known ductless gland.

It appears to enable the victim to control his shape.

Oh, here we are.

"Hyper-pineals are allergic to silver.

"Also to monkshood or wolfsbane.

"Any aconite, anti-spasmodic,

"reduces the violence of the seizure."

Dr.J., I found out why Gideon keeps his palms closed.

He was asleep on the croquet court and I looked at his palms.

And in each palm was a pentagram.

You mean you thought there was a pentagram?

No, it was clear.

There was clearly a circle,

and clearly a five-pointed star in the circle.

Oh, Betty, you have to be hallucinating.

No. No, I'm not.

But supposing she did see a pentagram.

What could that mean?

Historically, it would mean that Gideon is a warlock,

and is in league with the werewolf.

In league?

He provides the victims.

And that's why he gave May a note to Mildred, right?

Of course.

You believe now, Doctor? Is loup-garou.

You know what is loup-garou?

Sure.

Werewolves.

Exact. Years ago in that house lived terrible people.

The travelers, they stop there for the night.

But no one leave the place once he go in.

So, all the farmers, and Adrien and me,

we set the place on fire.

What happen? The loups-garous come running out.

And what happen?

We shoot them with silver bullets!

I'm sorry, Pierre, I just don't believe you.

He says last night he set a trap.

This morning is sprung.

But strange is the fur in the trap.

And strange, the footprints.

All around are footprints like little hands.

A little hand with the first finger so long.

Pierre, I'll... Pierre, I'll be seeing you.

No, no, Doctor, no. Not to the forest. I'm worry for you.

If you have to go, please take with you the crucifix.

It's silver. It's protection.

No, I'm... I'm sorry. I'm just not superstitious.

Those sheep were killed by dogs.

Or wolves. Real wolves.

Hello?

Mildred?

I've been thinking about you.

I haven't stopped thinking about you.

I've been thinking about you, too.

Oh, you feel so nice and warm.

Hello, brown-eyes.

Oh, don't do that!

You've got to go now.

Your father and mother aren't here.

Why don't we sit on the porch?

I shouldn't.

I shouldn't,

but I want to be with you so.

Why did he have to send you?

What?

You were beautiful in that white dress.

But you're beautiful in blue jeans, too.

And I love the way you wear your hat with blue jeans.

You can't see me again.

Please, Joel.

For my sake.

But why?

Tell me why!

Because I love you.

Dr. J.!

I'm worried for you in the forest.

No, I wasn't in the forest.

I went into town, had a few drinks.

Have to get out of this place once in a while,

you know, or I'll be proposing myself for membership.

And Miss Betty?

What about her?

You have not seen her?

But she was with me in the meadow.

Adrien was worried for his sheep, so we leave her.

She say she wait for you.

You left her in the meadow?

How long have you had the pentagrams on your hands, Gideon?

Who says I got pentagrams?

Just tell me how long you've had them.

Three months after I came.

I used to watch the top of the chimney from my window.

Then I started to see the people,

and the farmhouse.

I got to love the parents,

and crave the girl. And... I don't know.

One morning, I had the marks. It scared the wits out of me.

I mean, man, I lost my cool for keeps.

Why did you send May to Mildred?

I told you, I hated him.

I hate brains for hire.

Did you hate Betty?

She was a snoop. She was too good.

I hate people that are too good.

They make the rest of us sinners.

Do you hate me?

No, I don't, Doc.

But you were... You were so sure I was hallucinating.

I thought if I could get you to see the people

and the farmhouse.

But I was wrong.

Now...

Now, I got you into it, I don't know how to get you out.

Run, Doc.

Go away. As far and as fast as you can.

Because anybody that's seen the farmhouse is marked as a victim.

Betty didn't see it.

Yes, she did.

She saw it from my window.

Mildred?

I've begged you not to come.

Something... Something terrible has happened.

I have to ask you.

No!

Mildred, I love you.

Why can't we talk?

No! Never!

Your hands are like ice!

Let go of my hand.

And run. For pity's sake, run.

Don't you feel anything for me?

Of course, I feel for you.

You're tearing me apart!

You're tearing me apart.

I don't know what to believe anymore.

I don't know what's true.

I don't even know who I am, I love you so much.

Look at me.

Why can't you look at me?

Could you love me?

I do love you.

More than my life.

Then let me hold you.

Let me ask you about something that has happened.

Tomorrow morning, just before sunrise,

come back here.

And bring a prayer book.

What do you mean? I don't have a prayer book.

Find one. Stand right over there,

where those three graves are in the ferns,

and read the services for the burial of the dead.

But why?

Oh, God, have pity.

My love, do it.

Please, I'll have peace.

All right, I'll do it.

And all the time you're reading,

no matter what you hear, don't look around.

Keep reading quickly.

All right.

"Lord, thou hast been our refuge

"from one generation to another.

"Before the mountains were brought forth,

"or ever the earth...

"Thou turnest man to destruction.

"Again thou sayest, come again ye children of men.

"Thou hast set our misdeeds before thee

"and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

"For when thou art angry all our days are gone.

"We bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is...

"Is...

"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and..."

But where is the house?

What house? Is no house.

Mildred!

Mildred!

Mildred!

Mildred.

Mildred!

For our last offering in the Night Gallery,

a painting that brings to life a literary classic

from the pen of Conrad Aiken,

fragile, lovely, haunting.

It's title Silent Snow, Secret Snow.

Just why this thing should have happened at all,

or why it should have happened to him,

Paul Hasleman could not, of course, possibly have said.

Nor, perhaps, could it ever have occurred to him to ask.

We gradually move northward into...

It was really nothing, just an idea.

But why should it become so wonderful, so permanent to him.

That was the mystery.

It was pleasant, possibly foolish,

but above all, this thing was a secret

and something to be preciously concealed.

Who wants to tell us exactly what the equator is?

Dierdre?

The equator is a line that runs around the middle of the globe.

Oh, I see. The Earth is wearing a belt?

Or a sash? Or somebody drew a line around it?

No, not that.

Don't you mean that the equator is an imaginary line?

Yes.

It was as if, in some delightful way,

his secret gave him a fortress,

a wall behind which he could retreat in heavenly seclusion.

All he needed to do was to think of that morning.

The first morning, and then, of all the others.

It was only a moment or two after he had waked up,

or perhaps at the moment itself,

that the thing had happened.

For no good reason, suddenly he had thought of the postman.

Perhaps there was nothing so odd in that.

After all, he heard the steps of the postman

almost every morning of his life.

His heavy boots could be heard

clumping round the corner of the little street,

drawing progressively nearer, progressively louder.

There was the double knock on each door.

The crossings and re-crossings of the street,

until finally, the clumsy steps came stumbling to his door.

And the tremendous knock came, which shook the very house itself.

But on that particular morning,

the first morning this mystery had begun.

He had, for some reason, waited for the postman.

But when, at last, the steps were heard,

they were curiously different.

They were softer, had some new secrecy about them.

Besides, they had not come round the corner at all.

They were already at the first house when he heard them.

And he had understood the situation at once.

Of course, that was why the postman's first footsteps were inaudible

and the later ones faint.

Nothing could have been simpler.

There had been snow in the night.

Such as all season he had been hoping for.

How beautiful.

How lovely!

Even now, it must be snowing.

The white ragged lines, drifting and sifting,

whispering and hushing,

seething and getting deeper and deeper,

silenter and silenter.

Queer, the effect this extraordinary surprise had upon him.

All the following morning, he had kept with him a sense

as of snow falling about him.

A secret screen of new snow

between himself and the world.

If he had not dreamed such a thing,

and how could he have dreamed it while awake?

How else was one to explain it?

He could not now remember whether it was on the first or second morning,

or was it even the third?

That his mother had drawn attention

to some oddness in his manner.

Paul?

You don't seem to be listening.

What's come over you?

Now, does anybody know the difference

between the North Pole and the magnetic pole?

Was it on the second or third morning?

Or even the fourth or fifth?

He could not now remember

just when the delicious progress had become clear.

All he knew was that at some point or another

the presence of the snow was a little more insistent.

The sound of the postman's footsteps more indistinct.

Gradually, the snow was becoming heavier,

the footsteps more and more muffled.

When he found each morning, on going to the window,

that the roofs and street were as bare as ever, it made no difference.

This was, after all, only what he expected.

It was even what pleased him, what rewarded him.

There, outside, were the bare streets.

And here, inside, was the snow.

Snow growing heavier each day,

muffling the world.

Hiding the ugly and deadening increasingly the steps of the postman.

Geography? That's a favorite of mine.

Hey, you know what we ought to do some weekend?

Have a field trip.

Look for fossils, what do you think?

I'd like to go to the North Pole.

The North Pole? Why the North Pole?

How was one to explain?

Would it be safe to explain?

Would it merely mean that he would get in some obscure kind of trouble,

and how could he explain his new world?

Its beauty was beyond anything.

Beyond speech, beyond thought. Utterly incommunicable.

It was irresistible, it was miraculous.

Paul.

Paul.

If this goes on, we have to see the doctor.

At times, he positively ached to tell everyone about it.

Only to be checked by the mysterious power of his secrecy.

We can't have our boy living in another world, so far away.

No, it must be kept secret.

That more and more became clear,

at whatever cost to himself.

Whatever pain to others.

Perhaps you can come out of your daydream long enough

to answer the question, Paul.

Paul?

It was now what we call the Hudson River.

He thought it was the Northwest Passage.

He was disappointed.

Thank you.

On the walk homeward, which was timeless,

it pleased him to see through the accompaniment,

or counterpoint of snow,

the items of mere externality on his way.

Further on, there was something further on that was calling him now.

Something that was assuming a sharper importance.

Something which teased at the corners of his eyes,

teasing also at the corners of his mind.

Something un-nameable, something deliciously terrifying.

He knew what he was going to look at next,

it was his own house, his own little street.

His silent, his secret snow.

This morning. Could he be mistaken?

It was just about the seventh house

that he had first heard the postman's footsteps.

The seventh house. His house.

The only knock he had heard that morning

had been the knock on his door.

Did that mean he might never hear the postman again?

The realization gave him abruptly,

and a little frighteningly, a sense of hurry.

He was being hurried, he was being rushed.

Was it all going to happen at the end, so suddenly?

Or indeed, had it already ended?

Ah.

Good.

Now you just pop this under your tongue.

After supper the inquisition began.

Could you get me a book? Any book'll do.

How silly this all was.

As though it had anything to do with his throat or his heart or eyes.

Here, Paul, just read.

"I was a king and the son of a king.

"And when my father died, I succeeded to his throne,

"and governed my subjects with justice and beneficence."

Good.

We could have his eyes looked into.

This was all such a nuisance.

It would serve them right if he were merely to bark or growl.

I can't think of anything we've done, or forgotten to do.

No more than anybody else.

I'm not a shrink, Frank. I really don't know.

Some things just happen.

Even here, even among these hostile presences,

the snow was waiting, out of sight.

With a voice that said,

"Wait, Paul. Just wait till we are alone together.

"I will tell you something new.

"Something cold, something sleepy,

"something of cease and peace

"and the long bright curve of space.

"Banish them. Refuse to speak.

"Go upstairs to your room. I will be waiting for you.

"I will tell you a story better than the Snow Ghost.

"I will surround your bed, pile a deep drift against the door,

"so that none will ever again be able to enter."

I say, Paul,

is there any particular thing that might be worrying you, my boy?

Speak to them.

No.

I don't think so.

Give yourself a minute. Don't answer so fast.

Paul, you are making this very difficult for your mother!

Now, what is this all about?

I'm... I'm just thinking.

About what, my boy?

About what? Yes, Paul. About what?

About...

About the snow.

What snow?

Just snow! I like to think about it! You know what snow is.

Can I please go to bed?

No! We are going into this now.

Hurry, Paul! Hurry!

These last few precious hours.

No!

Look, I've had enough of this.

Listen to us, Paul. Listen.

We have come to tell you the story we told you about. Remember?

In this white darkness, we will take the place of everything.

Paul? Paul, dear.

Paul!

Mother, go away!

Paul, please.

I hate you!

And with that final effort, everything was solved.

The seamless hiss advanced once more.

"Listen," it said.

"We'll tell you the last, most beautiful and secret story.

"A story that gets smaller and smaller.

"That comes inward instead of opening like a flower.

"It is a flower that becomes a seed.

"A little cold seed, do you hear?

"We are leaning closer to you."