That looks suspiciously like a Metaluna Alien from This Island Earth behid jim at the Carnival House of Horrors. The Wild Wild West made a lot of subtle and not so subtle gestures to establish its science fiction roots.“The Night of the Glowing Corpse” takes place during the Franco-Prussian War. A French scientist develops franconium, a radioactive element that can kill millions. Such an element could win the war for France quickly, so they have naturally surrendered it to the United States to prevent such a thig from happening.
The franconium is promptly by an old woman and a native American with feet made of iron. Seriously. The episode becomes a mystery as to who was behind the theft and how the franconium can be recovered.
A red herring I thrown in by way of a French patriot who disagrees with the idea of giving up the franconium rather than using it to wipe Prussia of the map 48 years before its time. But when he winds up dead, all signs point to the visiting botanist as the culprit. Sure enough, se is a Prussian double agent. This marks the first time Jim does not get to smooch the lovely villain by the end.
“The Night of the Glowing Corpse” features the most contrived use of a conveniently held gadget since Batman just happened to be carrying shark repellant. Artie fashions a gas mask for Jim, who uses it in the very next scene when he is trapped in a makeshift cell with deadly pesticide beig pumped in. He manages to escape in time with explosive silly putty.
The reuse of sets has become blatantly obvious by this point, too. The hotel in the previous episode doubles as the French consulate here. Seeing the same locale back to back but as another place is amusing.
It is not a classic, but “The Night of the Glowing Corpse” is entertaining. It hits all the marks: pretty girls, neat gadgets, a villain with an odd gimmick--I this case, iron feet from a train accident as a child, and a high concept plot. It works, strangely enough.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
