Jonathan Frid's decision not to appear in the second film has been well documented but what about Joan Bennett? She's certainly not right for any of the existing female characters but could there have been an appearance in an earlier draft? Maybe Angelique decided to dispose of Elizabeth in a pre titles sequence?

I suspect the movie was written after they knew if Joan Bennett and Jonathan Frid would be in it. Had Joan consented to be in the movie, think they would have written a decent role in terms of screen time. Again that's complete speculation on my part.

Thanks for the compliment, Mysterious Benefactor.

If you listened to Carolyn Fox on 94 WHJY you might enjoy hearing some of her shows on the archive. When I moved to Texas, we lost our rock station there. So when I came home to Portsmouth, I rigged up a VHS recorder to tape off of the radio. At SLP, I got up to 6 hours and change of rock radio. It's mostly Carolyn Fox and her cohort Rudy Cheeks (memorable for his writings in The New Paper, The Phoenix and other local papers. I also have some parts of Amy Hagen's shows. She tended to be on vacation when I was home, so there are a lot of appearances by her substitute .

Carolyn Fox was infamous for an  April Fool's prank in the 80's. She announced that the City of Providence was shut down for the day. She told people to call a number if they had questions. The number was to rival station 92 PRO-FM.

Here's a link to my review of Smithy on Amazon. I'll post the text here as well, in case the link doesn't work.
https://www.amazon.com/Smithy-Amanda-Desiree/dp/1950301214/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=smithy&qid=1627216560&sr=8-1

   The Doctor and K9
5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling and Compelling Page Turner!
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2021
Verified Purchase
This novel is fascinating because of the meticulous research that was put into the subject of the study of language acquisition in apes. I've read extensively about this subject, focusing on the chimp Washoe and the gorilla Koko. Ms. Desiree has her facts down cold, grounding the novel in a bedrock of gritty realism that pulls the reader relentlessly in. There are never any moments of skepticism that thrust the reader out of the world she's created. The chimp, Webster, or Smithy to his friends, is lovable and draws the reader into his world.

As a bonus, Ms. Desiree has faithfully recreated my hometown, Newport RI. The characters exist in the place where I grew up. Her research was impeccable. She stated that Labor Day, 1975 was rainy. I looked it up. There was indeed a half an inch of rain on that day. I would not have called her out on it, had she used dramatic license, but I was impressed that her book concurred with what actually happened. I suppose this could have been a lucky guess on her part. Either way, her research into the history of the town was spot on. Her descriptions of the settings were immediately recognizable to me as places I've visited since I was a child.

The story is character based, and the plot is laid on layer by layer. The tension builds gradually as we see it grow through the eyes of the various students conducting the research. It's an epistolary novel reminiscent of Dracula. Both set up realistic worlds in which sane and reliable narrators report fantastic events in credible manners. We buy into the story because we believe and trust them.

The novel is both creepy and thought provoking. It's one of the best novels I've read in a long time.

Thank you for that!!! I was looking back over some older posts/threads and saw a link to your Shadowcon material on Archives, and then realized it was you who also posted this when I followed the link and saw the other items there!

'The Bells' with Frid and Parker was wonderful!

I still need to dig through some more of the things you uploaded. Thanks again for doing that!

You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying the archive!

Hello DS Forum cousins,

I haven't posted in awhile, but thought I'd pop in to say "hi."

Sometime in the late 80's or early 90's, I remember calling this hotline to hear Jonathan Frid read a very short version of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'. Someone put it up on Archive.Org...

https://archive.org/details/07FridMCILegendOfSleepyHollow

The person who posted that was me. I'll post the link to my archive page below. Other items of potential interest is the item mentioned later by Gothick, "The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe. I have Jonathan Frid reading Dark Shadows fan fiction in Genesis of Evil. There's a reading from the 1991 Festival.. This is a transfer from Jonathan's personal copy of the VHS tape. I bought it at a Dark Shadows event. There are many other things related to Dark Shadow on that page. If anyone is from New England, if you remember Carolyn Fox from 94 WHJY, I have some of her shows. She's joined by well known local author Rudy Cheeks. I edited together two animated Buffy movies from the video games. I also have links to my novelization of Night of Dark Shadows.I also included all the issues from my online fanzine, Inside the Old House. Feel free to view and download any of these items. I hope you enjoy them  https://archive.org/details/@the_doctor_and_k9

I don't know if I've ever seen this NoDS still:

Pinterest: Kate Jackson as Tracy Collins in the 1971 movie, Night of Dark Shadows!

I've seen many of her on horseback - but I'm not sure if I've ever seen this one of her dismounting...

Is that a still or a screen capture from the film? I'm fairly certain I've never seen it either.

So MB, you were ok with the Leviathans but it was the threat of Phillip Todd being hung that made the storyline ridiculous... LOL.

This always bothered me as well. It's lazy writing when proper research is not done. Maybe my experiences are skewed because I was around a lot of talk about capital punishment and I was aware that my home state, Rhode Island had pretty much abolished capital punishment since the early to mid 1800s. There was one provision. IF a person was serving life without parole and IF that person killed again, that person might be executed. No one had been in all that time. I was also well aware that Maine had no death penalty either since long before 1897, so Minerva Trask's threat to Rachel was also sloppy writing.

What always bugged me was how, in TV and movies, people were much more likely to get the ultimate penalty than they were in real life. Even on Star Trek, Spock is facing DEATH for going to Talos IV. This made no sense. Let's have a death penalty for going there. We won't tell anyone why, just don't go there. Let's make it forbidden fruit. Wouldn't it make more sense to just keep quiet about it, and label it hazardous?

The real reason of course is the mistaken idea that this kind of lazy writing leads to more SUSPENSE. I can tell you, I found the episode Court Martial just as "suspenseful." Kirk was not facing the death penalty. He was facing the loss of his career and disgrace.

This is a round about way of getting to your point, it doesn't matter if a plot is totally impossible and absurd in the light of day. The more realism you inject into the story, the easier it is for the viewer or reader to immerse him or herself into the situation. Stephen King knows this, as did Bram Stoker. Works like Dracula and Salem's Lot seem more realistic and vivid because they exist in a world that's just like ours except for the vampires.

That's my take on it anyway.

Well, I had already seen the one answer from the previous post by The Doctor, but I think I would have known it anyway.  There were a few towards the end where I wasn't sure, but got them right.

I'm going to be more careful in the future about spoilers. I wish I'd not given away the answer and don't intend to make that mistake again.

It's annoying when you know an answer but get caught up in the moment and don't think about it or check your work. I did that all too often in school.