DIG THAT CAT... HE'S REAL GONE (1989): Starring Joe Pantoliano, Robert Wuhl, Kathleen York, and Gustav Vintas
Directed by- Richard Donner
Moving right along with Season One of TALES FROM THE CRYPT (and not acknowledging my nearly-year-long absence), episode three opens as carnival performer Ulrich the Undying (Pantoliano) embarks on what will be his most dangerous stunt- being buried alive. Once he's lowered into the ground, Ulrich begins to narrate the story of how he became the famous entertainer he is now.
Once homeless, Ulrich was approached by a doctor (Vintas) who had developed a method of extracting a gland from the brain of a cat and grafting it onto the brain of a human, thus giving the human subject nine lives. He performs the operation on Ulrich, and then proposes a way that both he and Ulrich can exploit the experiment for money. After pitching their idea to a carnival owner (Wuhl) Ulrich is soon set up as "Ulrich the Undying"- the only performer in the world who actually dies before his audience. The act is an instant success, and brings prosperity to the flagging carnival and fame and fortune to Ulrich. However, Ulrich decides he's tired of sharing his profits and stages a fake car accident in which both he and the doctor are killed, wasting one of his lives. Now collecting all the profits from his dying act for himself, Ulrich intends for the burial to be last performance, leaving him one life with which to retire. But there may still be a few things Ulrich doesn't know about his new talent...
I love just about everything about this episode. In fact, this one is my personal favorite out of the first season. The story (along with its twist ending) is decpetively simple, and goes along at a very entertaining pace. The entire episode maintains a very seedy, nasty feeling all throughout, but manages to deliver it in a fairly humurous tone, which perfectly suits the carnival setting and the character of Ulrich.
There are however few odd editing choices (several lines are repeated back several times for some reason...) and a few visuals which don't quite work (a LOT of wide-angle lense shots in this one), but those actually manage to add to the episode for me. If I've got one complaint about TALES FROM THE CRYPT as a whole, it's that a lot of the episodes look and sound failry similar. They're all shot and edited in more-or-less the same straightforward, flat manner. Because of this, the ones that try something different seem to stick out like a sore thumb, and this episode is no exception.
Another thing this episode has going for it is its cast, which is phenomenal. Robert Wuhl is effectively insincere and smarmy as the carnival barker. Everything he does just highlights the overall cheap and fake atmoshpere of this carnival's entertainment (which does bring up the question of why Ulrich and the doctor couldn't find a nicer venue for their act...). Gustav Vintas is extremely funny and over the top as the Doctor. Kathleen York is also fairly good as Ulrich's showgirl girlfriend, but after a little while, her voice can tend to wear on the nerves and ears... But of course the real star of the show is Joe Pantoliano, and he damn well earns that position. You have to admire an actor who can bring across the nature of a character in something that's so relatively short as an episode of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and that's what Pantoliano does here. We know everything there is to know about Ulrich from the moment we see him on screen. We know exactly the type of person this character is- bitter, greedy, resentful- smiling and hamming it up for his audience, but vicious and conniving backstage. It's a hell of a performance.
Overall, this episode comes with my highest recommendation, and I think it would make a good introduction to the show. Want to know what TALES FROM THE CRYPT is all about? Then give this one a watch.
My rating: * * * * out of * * * *
