NIGHT GALLERY / "The Dead Man" - 1970

In today's creepy story, at his home, Dr. Max Redford is experimenting on a young man, John Fearing, that can mimic the symptoms of any disease. Unfortunately, him and the doctor's wife Velia are having an affair, and that creates some problems...

Rod sets the story up for us. This one stars Carl Betz, Jeff Corey, Louise Sorel, and Michael Blodgett. Carl played Dr. Alex Stone on THE DONNA REED SHOW in the fifties and sixties among other things and died of cancer at age 56. You will remember Jeff (with 237 acting credits) as Mr. Lomax in THE OUTER LIMITS episode, "O.B.I.T." Louise was on a ton of  TV dramas, usually playing a villainess and meddler, and did many daytime soap operas. Michael was in movies like THE TRIP, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and THE VELVET VAMPIRE.

Dr. Redford calls his friend Dr. Talmadge to show him what he's been up to. His patient can change from healthy, to having symptoms of many different deadly diseases.

John has been hypnotized to respond to taps with an object and can change back and forth depending on the tapping patterns. 

The doctor finally brings John out of the trance, and viola, he's back to normal. And he's as handsome as ever!

At dinner that night, Dr. Talmadge remarks on how vibrant Velia was looking.

Max doesn't seem that thrilled about his wife's change, and it shows.

Velia and John go for a walk after dinner, that's when Max tells Talmadge about his wife's affair with his patient. He's in a pickle and does not want to upset John and lose him as a patient, it could be a tremendous breakthrough in medicine and he wants credit for the years of work...

The next day, Max calls Talmadge in to show him a new trick. The doctor confirms that John is actually dead! Max laughs and taps his pattern... No response!

Talmadge screams, basically... KID, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!

Now the train goes off the rails, for real. Max is in panic mode and is trying to get an injection ready for John, when...

Velia comes into the room to discover her lover, dead!

Ho boy, Velia watches as a bevy of doctors and nurses parade out of the house, meaning, they tried everything they could to save John, but alas. And after the burial, Velia walks by herself back to their place, through the graveyard!

Months later, Max asks Talmadge to come over and take all of his tapes and notes to review, and see where he went wrong. Talmadge listens to some tapes and discovers what went wrong...

Max had (for some unfathomable reason) tapped three times and then once, but should of tapped three times and then twice! Holy freaking scheiss!!!.. Ricky!!

And guess what?! Right! Velia walks in while Talmadge was drilling that point into Max's thick skull! She runs through the graveyard to John's tomb. She pounds the correct pattern out on the coffin lid. Boy, don't you think something bad is about to happen?

Max chases after his wife while Talmadge grabs a flashlight before following, but he has trouble finding the tomb in the dark. But when Talmadge does find it, he pans the room with the light. First, he notices that the coffin lid is open...

And then finds Velia in shock, against a wall.

Max is dead on the floor, choked to death, he's been attacked by John's corpse.

At least John still has a nice head of hair! So, I guess we'll be back Wednesday, we'll just have to wait and see. Just kidding, we'll be back no matter what, even if it's the end of the world!!

And, we want to say goodbye to Sean Connery, the Real James Bond!! He freaking hated to wear suits, I'm with you Bro ~