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Dark Shadows Debuted 50 Years Ago- June 27th!!!

Gar1eth

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Gar1eth Grand Master

+ Gar1eth

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PS He is not too clear in that group photo, but David Selby is still quite the looker too. (Last saw him in person at the DS Fest 2011.)

 

I had a 'thing ' for Roger Davis as a child too. I've read he was not the nicest guy for the ladies to work with-a sexually harassing kind of guy.

 

Gman

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Gar1eth Grand Master

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The 'Introduction of Barnabas' episode...

 

 

He's a cousin from England they've never known about before. And isn't it peculiar how he looks exactly like that 18th century portrait hanging in the foyer. Oh well, just a freaky coincidence, I'm sure!!;)

 

Gman

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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He's a cousin from England they've never known about before. And isn't it peculiar how he looks exactly like that 18th century portrait hanging in the foyer. Oh well, just a freaky coincidence, I'm sure!!;)

 

Gman

The beginning of this episode is Barnabas making up fibs about the Collins blood breeding true etc to cover over just that stark coincidence.

 

Frid always liked to note in interviews that what people thought was his subtle portrayal of a just-awakened vampire's suppressed terror at having to improvise all these cover stories to survive was in fact Frid's own real terror at being thrown into performing on live-to-tape TV. Due to budget and time pressures, Dan Curtis never allowed retakes -- whatever happened during taping was broacast. Even a few times when an actor flubbed something so badly that the actor called out 'Stop tape!' still got broadcast.

 

Thus those exquisite blooper reels. :D

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Gar1eth Grand Master

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The 'Introduction of Barnabas' episode...

 

 

I was just thinking. Isn't this probably the second episode with Barnabas? Wouldn't the first be when Willy finds the coffin and removes the chains? Or does that episode never actually show Barnabas?

 

Gman

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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I was just thinking. Isn't this probably the second episode with Barnabas? Wouldn't the first be when Willy finds the coffin and removes the chains? Or does that episode never actually show Barnabas?

 

Gman

You're right. That episode does at least show Barnabas's hand coming out of the coffin to grab Willie's throat. I think the episode ends there, tho not sure.

 

PS thx, WmClarke!

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Decatur Guy Proficient

Decatur Guy

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I think I'm actually a little ahead of that now, I guess. This period of the show I'm in isn't as enjoyable as 1795 and the events leading up to the time travel. They're kind of all over the map. I understand it gets better and refocused, but that will take some time.

 

They've just resolved "the Dream Curse," and thank God. It was an epic fail and not scary. The period leading up to the seance that launched 1795 was so tight and focused. Loved it.

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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They've just resolved "the Dream Curse," and thank God. It was an epic fail. The period leading up to the seance that launched 1795 was so tight and focused. Loved it.

Oh lord, the Dream Curse segment. You can see how it's going to go from the moment they introduce it, then you have to sit through days and days and days of it working out.

 

The miracle is that the writing team got as many things right as they did, and managed to create so many moments, and several sustained narrative arcs, of genuine beauty.

 

More often they found themselves scrambling to sustain coherence, and to extricate themselves from their own story-arc blunders -- like messing up Victoria Winters as Barnabas's current-day Josette, then having to wedge in Maggie Evans as the fill-in. Etc., etc.

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Gar1eth Grand Master

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Oh lord, the Dream Curse segment. You can see how it's going to go from the moment they introduce it, then you have to sit through days and days and days of it working out.

 

 

Ok I haven't really watched it since I was about 9 except for an episode or two online very occasionally. But I'm vaguely remembering something about repeated dreams where there's a loud knocking on a door. If that isn't this arc, then it seems to me there is another arc where people hear knocking on the doors in their dreams.

 

More often they found themselves scrambling to sustain coherence, and to extricate themselves from their own story-arc blunders -- like messing up Victoria Winters as Barnabas's current-day Josette, then having to wedge in Maggie Evans as the fill-in. Etc., etc.

 

I'm trying to remember -Vicki goes back to 1795. But there's already Josette there, right? So at that point in time they couldn't be the same.

 

Then later on wasn't it helpful that Maggie was Josette since Kathryn Leigh Scott stayed in the show a lot longer than Alexandra Moltke?

 

I still remember Angelique giving Josette a charm to wear on her wedding dress to make her fly the coop.

 

I also remember Angelique repenting of having the bat bite Barnabas and trying to nurse him back to health. I remember her telling her henchman (? Thayer Martin) that if she couldn't keep Barnabas from dying, she wouldn't be able to stop the curse.

 

Later on I remember Nicholas resurrecting Angelique in the present day through the use of her painting.

 

Not bad for 46 year old memories-hunh?

 

Gman

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Decatur Guy Proficient

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Oh lord, the Dream Curse segment. You can see how it's going to go from the moment they introduce it, then you have to sit through days and days and days of it working out.

 

There were several flaws with the Dream Curse. The biggest: It simply wasn't scary. The effects were straight out of a junior high school's haunted house fundraiser. "Real life" things happening to the characters were much scarier than the weird dream with the free-standing doors and overactive fog machines.

 

But they did do many things right: The end of the Matthew Morgan storyline was great. I liked The Phoenix. And early Barnabas/Maggie's kidnapping/Dr. Hoffman was superb. Some people didn't like it, but I enjoy the Liz/Jason/basement story. There were a few over the top moments from 1795 (Angelique turns Joshua into a cat), but overall, it was a huge success.

 

1968 is kind of a mess, though I'm liking the Adam story more than I thought I would. Nicolas/Cassandra are just too much.

 

I think the Maggie kidnapping stands out, though. It was compelling on so many levels.

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Gar1eth Grand Master

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There were several flaws with the Dream Curse. The biggest: It simply wasn't scary. The effects were straight out of a junior high school's haunted house fundraiser. "Real life" things happening to the characters were much scarier than the weird dream with the free-standing doors and overactive fog machines.

 

 

However in the world of the characters being scared of the dreams make sense. Think about some of your dreams. Haven't you felt fear in some of them by events that made no sense, would be ordinary, or laughable in the real life?

 

 

I was just thinking. Isn't this probably the second episode with Barnabas? Wouldn't the first be when Willy finds the coffin and removes the chains? Or does that episode never actually show Barnabas?

 

Gman

 

Only his hand is shown.

 

You're right. That episode does at least show Barnabas's hand coming out of the coffin to grab Willie's throat. I think the episode ends there, tho not sure.

 

PS thx, WmClarke!

 

Yep--that's the end of the episode. What a cliff-hanger!

 

Apparently it wasn't Jonathan Frid's hand.

 

Timothy Gordon was an extra on the set of the original Dark Shadows. He played the one-time role of Barnabas Collins, but only to the extent of his left hand, which he used to choke John Karlen’s character, Willie Loomis

 

Gman

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Gar1eth Grand Master

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Possibly my favorite blooper of them all... :D

 

 

That's incredible. Louis makes incestors sound like a totally believable misspeak. We all do it occasionally.

 

By the way is it any wonder my childhood self had the hots for Joel Crothers?:rolleyes:

 

 

Gman

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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Several friends currently in attendance just reminded that a Dark Shadows Festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show's beginning is underway this weekend in LA.

 

Vanity Fair has nice coverage: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/dark-shadows-celebrates-50-years

 

http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/581394997574d7c951847667/master/h_606,c_limit/dark-shadows-50th-anniversary-03.jpg

 

I think the picture is from this year's earlier Festival held in Tarrytown, NY on the weekend closest to the actual 50th anniversary date in June. The Lyndhurst mansion of course in the background.

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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They've just resolved "the Dream Curse," and thank God. It was an epic fail and not scary. The period leading up to the seance that launched 1795 was so tight and focused. Loved it.

P.S. Fandom (of which I am only at the periphery compared with the religiously devoted who attend every one of the Festivals, a few of whom have become genuinely close personal friends -- not just creepy stalkers -- with those cast members who are likewise devoted to keeping remembrance of the show alive, for sentimental and cultural reasons [certainly not for the money in it, which is scant]) generally considers the 1795 sequence to be the high-water mark of the whole series.

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