Fans,

In the wake of the Banana Splits being "re-booted" as a slasher thriller, apparently Fantasy Island is now a big budget feature film from some outfit called Blumhouse, re-configured as a horror mystery adventure. The blurb:

The enigmatic Mr Roarke makes the secret dreams of his lucky guests come true at a luxurious but remote tropical resort, but when the fantasies turn into nightmares, the guests have to solve the island's mystery in order to escape with their lives.

It sounds more like the old ABC Movie of the Week Haunts of the Very Rich, which in turn was kind of a horror update of the old play and film, Outward Bound.

It seems ironic that these old shows have been re-booted as horror, while DS was rebooted by Burton-Depp as comedy; go figure.

G.

Fans,

Last night I watched an interesting short video interview with Christopher Pennock. In my DS DVDs, it's on collection 19, disc 3, which comprises episodes 962 through 971. Perhaps it was included on the "coffin set" as well.

Chris discusses his impressions of fellow actors Jonathan Frid, Grayson Hall, Thayer David, Don Briscoe, and Kate Jackson. For me the most interesting were his comments about Thayer. He described Thayer as being very humble in his work on the show and quite collegial in his interactions with the directors and his fellow players. He also described Thayer as an artist who was constantly honing his craft and improving as an actor. He described Thayer as his "inspiration." Lovely memories.

G.

Fans,

A friend who follows various contemporary artists sent me this image from an online gallery featuring the work of artist Pat Rocha. I'm not sure if these are paintings, or images generated via software.

If you look carefully towards the back left of the image, one of the TV screens has an iconic shot of the Dark Shadows title screen. I wouldn't have noticed this at all if my friend had not pointed it out to me.

http://www.101exhibit.com/exhibitions/pat-rocha#works-7

Other images from the period featured in this work include Captain Kangaroo, Walter Cronkite, and a Turtles LP.

G.

This article was originally published in the Shreveport newspaper The Times on February 17, 1970. It was found in an online newspaper archive by a researcher who shared it with Grayson's fan club on social media. I prepared this transcription from the original scan.

G.

'Dark Shadows' Gypsy Finds the Look Messy

by Florence de Santis

Whenever Grayson Hall Is called on to play her gypsy character, Magda, on the ABC-TV serial, "Dark Shadows," she has great fun, but she finds the authentic gypsy look more messy than fashion.

"I think what designers have done lately with the gypsy idea is very pretty; but most women, including me, wouldn't want to wear the real thing for very long," said Grayson.

We were talking on the set of Dark Shadows, between the morning rehearsal and the afternoon taping. Workmen were setting up the different sets for the day's shooting all over the vast, barnlike interior.  Grayson Hall wasn't being Magda today, as Dark Shadows had jumped back to the present day, in which she plays Dr. Julia Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman looks like Grayson herself.

The actress has short auburn hair, is smaller than she looks on screen. She was wearing a distinctly non-gypsy costume of a grey, two-piece tunic dress with pleated skirt, the color carried through in her stockings and shoes. The only gypsy-like touch was in the rings she was wearing. There were five narrow ones from Buccellatti, worn on one finger as a collar ring.

"My husband Sam, who is one of the show's writers, gives me new rings all the time. I love stones, which Is probably the gypsy in me, but colored stones, not diamonds. They don't look well on me."

Grayson Hall's gypsy costume on Dark Shadows is no designer's idea of a gypsy, but a costumer's copy of the real thing. It has two elaborate full skirts, one floorlength, the other a little shorter. The longer skirt is flounced in green, while the top skirt is elaborately embroidered in wool. A velvet bodice with a stomacher point has a low neckline filled in with lots of lace ruffles. A velvet jacket in what Grayson calls "muddy purple" is decorated with gold braid, and she "lays on as much junk jewelry in chains, chatelaines, rings and bracelets as I can."

The messy look is carried through in the hair, which is made up of no less than three hair pieces, a wig, a fall, and a braid. They're all glossy black and look as if they're rarely combed.

"Yes, I like the fashion gypsy look. I have a three-layered summer gypsy skirt myself. But my real favorite in exotic styles is the Moroccan djellaba. I have a bunch of them, mostly bought in Mexico. It seems they imported some djellabas and copied them. In Mexico , they call them galabias."

Although Grayson Hall laughs at the idea that her gypsy character is a fashion image, and says she really doesn't pay all that much attention to clothes in her life.

"I know my own style and stick with it. I've just gotten a long dress, in green plaid, with a long green cape lined in red. Simple, but dramatic."

Fans,

Here's a note about an August Derleth story from 1951... I wonder if it was one of the ones that the DS writers had on their note cards (Sam Hall mentioned in a couple of interviews that they all read a great many horror tales and had notes about them as sources for plots on the show).

August Derleth - A Knocking in the Wall: (Weird Tales, July 1951). No one could be inside the wall, yet the knocking came from there ... polite, diffident, but determined. Hobart Maclain, 50, corporate lawyer and world's least imaginative man, is forced to concede that the house he recently moved into is haunted. Maclain learns via automatic writing that the ghost is that of Mrs. Elizabeth Hopper, drugged and walled-up alive by want-away husband Kilvert in May 1933. The killer has since relocated to Canada. The persistent knocking gets on top of the lawyer but fortunately for him Julia Bennet, his faithful secretary, takes command of the situation. Miss Bennet unearths Mrs. Hopper's bones and frees her vengeful spirit to do what it must. (Note from the pen of fan author Kev Dimant on the Vault of Evil web forum.)

cheers, G.

Dreary Ones,

Penny Dreadful's Halloween Special for 2019 is available FOR FREE right here!

https://vimeo.com/370013307

The most glamorous Horror Host of all Eternity is back for more fun, more thrills and more skull-duggery! Yay!!!!

Best Halloween Witches,

G.

Fans,

This is a Halloween themed radio show from a Detroit public radio station last year. Around the 11 minute mark DJ Jon Moshier plays a 1965 track, Terror-vision Time, that seems somewhat prophetic of DS's rise to fame.

https://wdet.org/posts/2018/10/29/87468-jon-moshiers-annual-halloween-radio-spook-show

This is a very cool show--looking to see if I can download the file. Lots of cool Sixties novelty tracks, and thus far I don't think I have heard any of them before.

G.