Freebie Film Tip #26: The Divil and the Piper
Created | Updated Nov 26, 2014
Freebie Film Tip #26: The Divil and the Piper
Ah, bonnie Scotland. Ah, 1950s US TV. Mostly, one hopes they never meet. But in this episode of Lights Out, the show with the creepily goggle-eyed announcer, all manner of people turn Scots. This happens in The Devil in Glencairn, and it's better than you expect it to be. Well, it would have to be, wouldn't it?
J Pat O'Malley plays one of the Highland characters. Okay, at least he's Irish. But Richard Carlson actually manages to surprise. For one thing, we didn't know he could act. We were used to seeing him in I Led Three Lives, that horrible anti-Communist series that even Gene Roddenberry wrote for. Here he's doing a creditable, though not exactly accurate, stage Scots.
To keep his land, the piper has to get a receipt for his year's rent. Unfortunately, the Laird has died and gone to you-know-where. He gets directions from Jonathan Harris, who played Dr Smith in Lost in Space. Harris knows the way, you seeā¦
Okay, the whole thing is one long joke about how far a Scotsman will go in a financial matter, but it's a quaint little bit of supernatural storytelling. And no bagpipes were mutilated in the process. And yes, one of the characters is named O'Haggis.