Now that we've reached still #21, I want to revisit the following two part of these early posts:
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... "Curse of Dark Shadows" (Only NoDS' working title even from the outset because it was even referred to as such when 16 Magazine announced the film) ...
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... a photo that I've lost track of just how many magazines went with to initially publicize the film. It was most probably more than a dozen. Though what's interesting is it wasn't a part of the first article on the film after production had begun. That article appeared in Flip magazine soon after the daytime DS went off the air and it features stills from some of the 1810 flashback scenes as well as the seance
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As I was going through things and planning out future things to share, two thoughts struck me: ..., and more often than I would have liked magazines chose to use a still from the NoDS Editor's Portfolio (which MGM provided with stills and background articles) that, if it was me making the choice, would have been the least likely one I would have chosen. Case in points, this:
It's really quite surprising how often that cemetery shot showed up in prerelease publicity in the various entertainment magazines rather than stills that featured actual stars from the film. Yes, as I've said, it's definitely true that the still of Tracy and Quentin entering the vestibule with their luggage was published more than a dozen times - but the cemetery photo had to come in as a close second. And one has to wonder why? Did the magazines think people might say to themselves, "Oh look, it's a photo of people in a cemetery, let me run to see that film!"? I tend to suspect few people would have. But then there is no getting around that MGM did include the photo in the set, so they had to believe it had some sort of selling point. And it's not even like it's the only cemetery still they used to promote the film because one of the Lobby Cards is a cemetery shot ...
At the time that I'd posted all that about the cemetery shot, I'd completely forgotten that it is still #1, so that definitely explains why it was one of the first stills to show up in magazines to publicize
Curse of Dark Shadows. Though why it was still being used after the film was retitled
Night of Dark Shadows, which was obviously before the Editor's Portfolio was made available, is anyone's guess because obviously plenty of much better stills had been made available to choose from...