ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY
(Wed., 10-11 p.m., NBC-TV)

Rosemary Forsyth in "Deliveries in the Rear"

Latest trilogy of spookers chalked up for Rod Serling's Grand Guignol are galley bows to O'Chney and Eqmmm in its flirtations with the macabre and the snappy ending. Devotees got their kick from latest edition expertly acted and directed. It's a thesp's field day; everyone got into the gory act.

"Deliveries in the Rear," which Serling wrote and which, directed with finesse by Jeff Corey, starred Cornel Wilde as late-19th-century surgeon-teacher instructing an anatomy class with aid of a corpse. Cadaver's widow, suspecting her late husband was grabbed by grave robbers, sends detective to investigate. Wilde's body snatchers pick up a woman's body to throw law off the track. Since Wilde has been courting Rosemary Forsyth, the clincher, when he unwittingly unveils the lady cadaver, is predictable.

Wilde, in a rare TV appearance, turns in neatly tuned performance, balancing the cold-as-steel lecturer-scientist and the romantic-but-pragmatic suitor. Miss Forsyth, Kent Smith, Walter Burke were definite assets.

Producer Jack Laird's "Stop Killing Me," from short story by Hal Dresner, featured Geraldine Page asking help from police Sgt. James Gregory. Miss Page, in tour de force, works herself up over threats by her hubby to do her in, and director Jeannot Szwarc beautifully catches the edge of madness.

Laird also wrote "Dead Weight," based on story by Jeffry Scott, with Bobby Darin as gangster paying exporter Jack Albertson to get him out of the country. Instead, Darin ends up going to the dogs in slight, light Hitchcockian bit. Timothy Galfas directed briskly.

(Daily Variety; February 11, 1972)