I can't understand DC's problems with Monica Rich.  I thought she was very effective in what we do see.  Her closeups were incredibly intense and poignant. 

G.

Just parking this link here--it may come in handy.  Hope it proves to be irrelevant to your purchase.  Congratulations!

http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2014/04/warning-bootleg-dark-shadows-boxed-sets.html

Best,

G.

My personal take on all this has always been that most, if not ALL, of those notes in Grayson's script represented her own thoughts on how she was going to play this out.

Grayson was a great believer in something called sub-text.  In a theatrical context, this means information that an actor brings to a given scenario or action.  Ordinarily, this would be augmented or perhaps changed outright by the director's notes.  DC was still fairly green at this time, though, so I don't know how much he contributed to all of this.  I know he was into things such as tracking shots and whip-pans.  LOL.

I do remember the story of him yelling at Thayer David to hit the stake HARDER in a certain scene in hoDS.  Frankly, that seems about DC's speed during this period of his life as a director.

Of course he went on to win an Emmy... which was invariably prominently displayed in every video interview he did, in later life.  I always had the feeling he worked his butt off getting that thing.

Wonderful captures, MB!  And wonderful job of annotating all this for us.

G.

Grayson said in a magazine interview once that Julia attended Cornell and majored in haematology (I think this was Grayson's little joke).

Grayson said several times that Magda was her favorite character on the show.  Grayson had some Romani presence back in her bloodline.  I think I read somewhere that Sam created Magda because Grayson was so bored playing Julia, who she regarded as a "straightass."

In another interview, either Thayer or Grayson said that their accents for Magda and Sandor came from the fact that both of them had been in productions of the Molnar play Liliom.  Their surname, Rakosi, is Hungarian.  It was the surname of an important figure in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which resulted in a lot of people fleeing to the US (including the family doctor my Mom worked for in the 1960s and 1970s). 

I've wondered if a core element of Magda came from a play Grayson did in the early Sixties, THE BUSKERS--the photo published in the NY Times of her in the role really has a Magda look to it.

Yes, some of us are just a bit hung up on Grayson.  Because, you know, she was THE GREATEST ACTRESS TO EVER WALK THE EARTH.  (I'm quoting no less an authority than Danny Horn there--LOL).

G.

That's cool.  I am not familiar with WHISPERING SMITH.   A couple of months ago, I saw one of Diana's interviews for the DVDs several years ago where she spoke of doing a lot of television in the early to mid 1960s.

G.

Grayson Hall, GODDESS.

No wonder Danny Horn once proclaimed Grayson Hall the Greatest Actress who Ever Walked the Earth!

G.

Another fab Carlotta capture today!

Anyone paying attention AT ALL should have realized that that tightly pursed pout means ALL HELL is gonna break loose!

G.