And in today's capture, perhaps the sound track should be Julia struggling to get out the words to that song "T-T-T-Touch me" from Rocky Horror Show!

Creature of the night, indeed!

G.

Dear Fans,

On Friday, I was able to browse a copy of Boze Hadleigh's newish book, Broadway Babylon.  There are a couple of paragraphs devoted to Keith Prentice in the section of the stage and film productions of Boys in the Band. Nothing was said that was new to me, and I do feel obliged to warn potential readers that Mr. Hadleigh's assertions are not always to be taken as gospel (!) truth. 

The 1969 film of Boys in the Band is being released on DVD this November--a bare bones release without any extras, apparently--and there's a rather grainy copy of an original trailer for the movie now on YouTube.  At least a couple of brief Keith Prentice scenes occur in the trailer, for those who have never seen it. Bear in mind that he did this BEFORE he was on DS.  Hadleigh mentions that Prentice went on to work in another soap after the cancellation of DS--I can't recall which one.

In unrelated news, I'm heading off to spend my annual week at a Farm owned by a lovely gay couple who are friends of mine.  I spend a week living in a tent in a field, well off the grid and far away from phones, computers, and all the rest of the so-called modern conveniences.  HEAVEN.

Still, I'll probably think of some favorite DS scene at least once.  Perhaps while I'm skinny dipping in the pond I'll remember Grayson's scene in End of the Road where Stacey Keach digs her out of the sand at the beach and she giggles in her memorable gurgling drawl and exclaims, "Hi there!"  A bit of summer fun from 40 years ago...

cheers!  G.

Dear Fans,

Today, August 7, is the 23rd anniversary of Grayson Hall's passing.  If you think of her at some point during the day, lift your glass and wish her spirit honorable repose!

"They speak of the divine discontent of the artist ... well, let me tell you, darling ... it's not so divine ..."

Here's to one gutsy broad (as I think Bob Costello once described her)!

G.

Thanks to a buddy with a netflix subscription, over the weekend I got to see some of the new DVD of The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972), starring Shirley Maclaine, Michael Hordern, and a very young Perry King.  I was intrigued because I had really wanted to see the movie back in the day but was too young (I think it was rated R).  Anyhow, I found out when the opening credits were running that our very own Lovelady Powell and Peter Turgeon have roles in the movie.

Check it out--the hairstyles and early Seventies clothes in the opening party sequence are a freak!  Shirley Maclaine has on false eyelashes above and below!

G.

Last month, I received the DVD sets volumes 20 and 21.  Last night I finally had the chance to sit down and watch a little bit.  I was intrigued to see that Joe Caldwell was interviewed twice (as was Paula Laurence--her interview made me regret never having gotten to meet her, particularly since she was a friend of Grayson and Sam Hall's). 

It turns out that Joe Caldwell got the gig of writing for DS because he was at Yale and knew Ron Sproat.  When Ron started writing for the series, he wasn't always to get his assigned scripts done, so he would turn some of them over to Joe. Eventually Dan learned what was going on and liked Joe's work well enough to invite him to join the staff, which happened around the time of the first Laura Collins story.

Among the best writers for DS so far as I am concerned were Francis Swann (an author of Gothic novels, some of which you can buy cheaply enough on eBay or Amazon vendor), Malcolm Marmorstein, Joe Caldwell, and Violet Welles.  Violet also got her start ghost writing for a member of the regular staff--Gordon Russell.  I suspect that Violet wrote all of Gordon Russell's final batch of scripts for the series as well, because she mentions going back to the show at the very end and all those shows have Gordon's name on them.  I don't know whether Violet was interviewed for any of the DVDs.  Violet, according to a print interview that I believe was published by Dale Clark many moons ago, created the character of Count Petofi.

G.

Fans,

Most of us prefer not to think of DS in the "soap opera" category; yet, historically,this was the format under which it was produced and the lens through which its home network of ABC viewed it.  (Two of the most entertaining clips on the DVDs are interviews with a gentleman who was put in charge of publicity for ABC's daytime schedule during the mid to late 1960s. His story about what happened when a couple of board members insisted on watching an episode of DS and were subsequently baffled by "Uncle Barnaby's" teeth is hysterical.)   

One of the mainstays of the soap opera format is the Bitch character that audiences love to hate.  I believe the most celebrated of these women in the entire genre was played by an actress (probably retired now) who is famous for having been nominated for an Emmy 20 times but never winning.  If memory serves, this actress had to go mano a mano with Sarah-Michelle Gellar when SMG was a deceptively innocent-appearing young actress on the soap. 

I was thinking about Angelique (known to a certain circle of my friends as "the WB," short for "Witch Bitch") and how she does, and does not, conform to the soap opera stereotype of the Bitch.  Probably the original portrayal of Angelique in 1795 comes the closest to the archetypal Bitch although in a more literary way than I think is common on soaps.  Ang doesn't just want Barnabas; she also wants the entitlement, privileges and status enjoyed by her mistress--"all the pretty things I have been denied" (there's a wonderful scene with Ben Stokes where she goes on about how she's going to have it ALL).   Her occult powers add an extra edge to her role as the conniving villainess, but initially, the character is a wronged woman who has been stepped on (if only in her own mind) by others and is determined to get revenge.

Cassandra upgraded the bitch elements an extra knotch.  She wore clothes that were more chic and fashionable than even Joan Bennett's, manipulated her husband outrageously, was two-faced and duplicitous. and went through some turn-on-a-dime mood swings.  When she crashed and burned, she ravaged the scenery brilliantly.

Probably the most classic soap bitch of all the Angelique characters was the PT1970 version.  A friend who's a huge Angelique fan actually refers to this one as "certifiably insane."  The whole Angelexis business allows for even more blatant instances of duplicitous, equivocating, manipulative behavior.  Manoeuvring Maggie into wearing the same dress she herself had worn at last year's ball was a classic Bitch sequence. 

The thing I find compulsively watchable with how DS handled the "bitch" stereotype is that the writing and acting always gives insights into why these women behave this way.  So, they never degenerate into cardboard cutout stereotypes.  With other "bitches" on the show such as Laura Collins, Minerva Trask, Samantha Collins, and the superbly unforgettable Suki Forbes, we've always understood that each woman had her own take on what had happened to her and a good reason (even if only in her own mind) for acting the way she did.  I think it's one of the aspects that sets DS apart from other soaps. of that day or any other.

cheers, G.

Fans of classic British horror films, and fans of the DS Judah Zachery storyline, will want to see the new DVD release of the 1965 Amicus studios production, "The Skull."  The movie boasts a stellar cast that includes Uncle Peter Cushing in the lead, Uncle Christopher Lee as a wealthy aristocratic occultist, the unjustly neglected Patrick Wymark as a seedy dealer in occult relics, and juicy roles for Michael Gough and Patrick Magee.  The score by Elizabeth "twelve-tone Lizzie" Lutyens is evocative of Bob Cobert's subsequent work on DS without really sounding like something that influenced Cobert (whose work tends to be more lyrical).  And, as if all that weren't enough, one of the demons mentioned in the film is Balberith, the name given in some sources for the dark Master of Nicholas and Angelique in the 1968 storyline's forays to the Underworld.

The DVD finally allows us to see this movie in something closer to the correct aspect ratio, though I'm not sure they managed to get it completely right.  I'm hoping to see a write-up by Tim Lucas with technical critique.  I also wonder who was really responsible for the screenplay. Milton Subotsky got the onscreen credit but the dialogue seems far too literate and complex to come from the hand of a hack producer.

G.

Fans,

My copy of the 14th DVD set arrived last night, and despite my busy schedule, I was able to test-drive the first two discs in the set, watch some favorite scenes (gotta love Magda getting in Barnabas' face all the time--and grabbing her wig in that one scene!), and look at the set.  One thing that bemused me, however, was that in the booklet that comes with the discs, [spoiler]in the short description of the episode in which Jenny is murdered by Quentin; it says "Quentin ACCIDENTALLY kills Jenny," or words to that effect.

Now, I remember having a lengthy back-and-forth with a dear friend of mine the last tme Sci Fi broadcast these shows (it was her first chance to see them since her childhood viewing) and we both commented about how typical it was of Q to claim that Jenny's death was an accident when, the way Selby played the scene, it was quite clear that Q killed her very much in cold blood.

I can't recall whether Ann Wilson's episode guide in the DS Memories book (which I regard as the best of all the various episode guides available) also implied that Q killed his ex-wife "accidentally."  In general, Q's relationships with his past lovers do not paint him in at all an attractive light.  He obviously hated Laura at first sight upon her return (and she cordially returned the favor---the scenes betweeen these two have to be among the finest moments in the entire series!) and was even more vicious towards Jenny.[/spoiler]The original characterization of Quentin seems to have played off the late Sixties theme of the anti-hero--something that is very much out of fashion these days.  With Quentin even more so than with Barnabas, once the teeny-bopper adulation and the 16 magazine interviews began, they really seem to have softened and "rehabilitated" Q's character.

btw, on the first disc in this set, there's a great interview with Selby where he reveals that some more insistent fans were camping out in the lobby of his apartment building, demanding that he adopt them!  Great stuff.

G.