The Haunting Of Orly Manor

The Haunting of Orly Manor
March 18, 1980
Story: G.J. Young
Teleplay: Mark Jones & Robert E. Feinberg & Howard Liebling
Director: Daniel Haller

I wonder who G.J. Young was. Young is credited with the story of the MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO episode “The Haunting of Orly Manor,” and it is his or her only television or film credit. It was rewritten by three different LOBO staff writers into a haunted house episode that aired several months too late for Halloween.

Lobo (Claude Akins), Perkins (Mills Watson), and some sexy parapsychologists (including a hot young Delta Burke) are trapped during a thunderstorm in a spooky old house where a young woman named Rachel Stone was poisoned to death a hundred years earlier. Lobo’s plan to auction the house to Mr. Avery (Stu Gilliam) for a fee seem to be foiled when Birdie’s (Brian Kerwin) girlfriend Sarah (Leann Hunley) shows up to make a bid. To scare Sarah off, Lobo convinces Perkins to pretend to be a ghost. Yes, Hollywood was still using this hoary plot in 1980.

Noises in the attic, secret passages, séances, and dusty corpses dot this episode that plays a lot like a Bowery Boys programmer from Monogram with Akins and Watson doing Slip and Sach. Most of it takes place indoors, except for some establishing shots of the PSYCHO house on the Universal lot. Filmed late in the 1979-80 season, “The Haunting of Orly Manor” was helmed efficiently by Daniel Haller, who was probably under orders to shoot as cheaply as possible. Not even a shred of the series’ trademark vehicular mayhem is on display in this hackneyed but fun episode.