"Cool Air." Night Gallery. NBC, 8 Dec. 1971
Here we end our look at Mr. Serling's sophomore effort, with the first ever adaptation of Lovecraft's "Cool Air"
An old woman (Barbara Rush) walks among the rows of headstones until she comes to a small marker bearing the name of Dr. Juan Munoz. Through voice over she remembers back to the day she first met him...
1920's New York, and Agatha Howard (Rush) has just arrived to see the good doctor (Henry Darrow). Her father recently passed away and while going through his effects she found a rather large number of correspondences between the two.
Greeting at the small boarding house is Munoz's landlady, Mrs. Gibbons (Beatrice Kay). Gibbons is rather shocked by Howard's appearance since Dr. Munoz never leaves his apartment nor does he allow anyone to enter.
Not that anyone would, given that the doctor keeps the room freezing all year long.
Howard introduces herself to Munoz and the pair hit it off. Munoz and her father often talked about postponing death via sheer force of will. Munoz felt it was possible, although something happened ten years ago to drive him from his native Spain and cause his wife to kill herself.
Despite this bit of news, Howard invites the doctor out for dinner. When he refuses, she has dinner there in his rooms. This starts off a series of dates. The doctor and former student grow closer during this time, but a sudden heat wave starts a disaster that culminates in Howard finding out just what happened those ten years ago...
Easily the best episode of the series. There is just the right amount of pathos and humanity and the direction by Jeannot Szwarc does the story justice. It's a pity that they didn't adapt more of Lovecraft's stories for Night Gallery.
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