Hell’s Bells
At the end of the ninth episode of the
second season of
Night Gallery was a fun little short called “Hell’s Bells.” It stars John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. And it is written and directed by Theodore J Flicker — best known as the co-creator of
Barney Miller. He got his start co-writing
The Troublemaker with Buck Henry. So it shouldn’t be surprising that this is one of
Night Gallery’s funny stories.
Plot
Hell’s Bells starts with drugged-out hippy Randy Miller (Astin) driving down the road before crashing and dying. For a brief period we see his body flying past demonic faces shouting out what are apparently his sins, like idolatry. But then he falls into the waiting room of the afterlife. The room looks rather like the living room of a 1970’s suburban home. A woman pops in briefly to explain what’s going on and to admonish Randy for being a slob.
As he waits, Randy wonders just how bad hell can be. Then he has Gustave Doré’s images of Dante’s
Inferno flash through his mind. After that, a sign begins flashing, alerting him, “NEXT.” A “FIRE DOOR” opens and so he walks into yet another room that looks like it is in a suburban house.
To his delight, he finds that it is filled with vinyl music records. But he can’t can’t separate any of them, so he plays the record that is on the turntable. It is a fiercely inoffensive Lawrence Welk like song (so inoffensive, it doesn’t even have any accordion). Suddenly, he finds that an old man (Hank Worden) is in the room with him. He looks like the father in
American Gothic. The man doesn’t really converse so much as drone on.
By the time Randy figures out what’s going on with the old man, a couple of people dressed in matching Hawaii tourist clothes appear. They are all set up to show the “eight thousand five hundred slides” they took on their trip down to Tijuana, Mexico. Totally freaked out, Randy demands to see the Devil (played by director Flicker himself). The Devil explains that this
is hell for Randy. He also notes the irony that the exact same room is in heaven too, because it is wonderful for some people.
And so the story ends with Randy curled up in a fetal position, pounding the floor.