"Wo alle Wege enden" (Where all Ways end) is the 1973 German TV version of the "Night Gallery" episode: "The Waiting Room" (episode # 2.51) 1/26/1972. After his death, Sam Dichter (Steve Forrest), a fast-draw gunslinger from the Old West with a "taste for death," meets other doomed souls in a saloon, a Waiting Room (hell). One by one, they leave the Waiting Room and go outside to relive their death. The standout is Albert Salmi as Bristol; his face is shown in close up, and Albert (star of many Westerns) epitomized the Old West. As Bristol, Albert Salmi delivers the most important lines in the show. When the gunslinger idly refers to him as "brother," implying they are all the same, Bristol snaps: "Don't call me brother... I'd sooner be kin to a vulture bird." Indeed, even though they are all doomed, they all had their different reasons for killing (dueling, robbing, unethical doctor) and winding up in hell; they are not brothers. And when the gunslinger acts like he doesn't know why he's in hell, Bristol tells him, "The problem with you, Dichter, is you got no memory for things... Now dip into that muddy swamp you call a brain and try to stir up a few recollections." For indeed, there would not be much point to hell if people didn't know why they were there. Soames (Buddy Ebsen), sums it all up: "All of us were doomed from the moment we took up firearms." (This particular sentence would likely produce goosebumps for Albert Salmi's fans, for the saying "Live by the gun, die by the gun" might have a tragic meaning to them. It was by the gun he lived in these TV dramas and westerns, and by the gun he died in real life. He, too, was doomed from the moment he took up firearms.) Another thought-provoking Night Gallery, written by the creative force behind "The Twilight Zone," Rod Serling.
P.S. This story should not be confused with the German novel "Wo alle Wege enden" which is about the lovely Jade stranded on a desert island with Pieter.
P.S. This story should not be confused with the German novel "Wo alle Wege enden" which is about the lovely Jade stranded on a desert island with Pieter.