It is a nice performance hard and demanding, Crawford never asks for pity, but nevertheless earns it with the story's nifty twist ending. In Spielberg's "Eyes," Joan plays a ruthless millionairess who happens to be blind, but has the chance to briefly see again by buying the eyes of a living person who is in desperate need of money. But if Roddy McDowall could make loathsome characters inexplicably likable, than Joan Crawford had the knack for negating any trace of sympathy that her characters might possess. "The Cemetery" is nicely written by Serling and tightly directed by Boris Segal, but it is Roddy's one-man show. Roddy was undoubtedly one of the most intrinsically likable stars there ever was, so much so that he could play the most despicably evil characters and still make the character a delight. I can think of no other actor who so obviously loved to act more than McDowall and here he plays evil to the hilt. The story is slight, even silly, but boy, oh boy, does Roddy know how to chew the scenery. In this southern Gothic creeper, Roddy McDowall murders his wealthy uncle, but finds that enjoying his newfound inheritance is a bit difficult since a painting on the wall seems to suggest that Uncle is buried, but not dead. The first and best is "The Cemetery," a variation on the classic ghost story. The TV movie itself stands alone, though the trio of tales unfold in descending order. It was an excellent start, though the resulting series proved to be a pale imitation of "The Twilight Zone," a peculiar hodgepodge of styles and concepts, some classics and some just plain silly. Conceived by another legend, the brilliant Rod Serling, the concept of the film and subsequent series was meant to be a variation on his classic "Twilight Zone" series, varying tales of supernatural horror, each tied to a grotesque painting and each introduced by Serling, acting as the gallery's curator. Steven Spielberg's first professional directing job was segment two of this anthology, which also proved to be one of Joan Crawford's last acting efforts, certainly her last worth noting. This remarkable trio of spooky stories served as a pilot to the not-quite-so remarkable TV series of the same name, though now it is just as likely remembered as the point where two screen legends passed at opposite trajectories of their careers.
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