OT: CHILD OF GLASS (1978)

[Gothick]

Fans, a friend sent me the short review pasted in below of the DS TV movie CHILD OF GLASS earlier today.

I had never heard of the film, and I thought what he had to say about it was quite interesting.

If nothing else, worthy of note since Denise Nickerson was involved.

Best,

G.

Review by the Conjure Doll:

A couple of days ago I revisited the Walt Disney made-for-tv movie CHILD OF GLASS, with an eye toward the elements it shares with DARK SHADOWS.  Shot in late 1977 and released in 1978, the film is nominally based on Richard Peck’s book THE GHOST BELONGED TO ME (but the adaptation is an extremely loose one).  The production is by no means a Disney version of DS.  However, I am of the firm opinion that its screenwriter, Jim Lawrence, was aware of DARK SHADOWS, and scavenged bits and pieces of it while crafting his adaptation of Peck’s novel.  In particular, he borrowed liberally from Sam Hall’s presentation of Sarah Collins. [Note by Gothick:  I think the ghost of Sarah character was originally created by Malcolm Marmorstein--I just wrote to the Conjure Doll and explained about this.  Sam did write some or all of the episodes involving Sarah as a little girl in 1795.]

CHILD OF GLASS begins with a family moving into an old plantation house, and the ghost in the production is a young girl who died during the house’s glory days.  She implores the son of the new owners to help her break the curse which binds her to the house, so she can move on.  Obviously, she dresses in period costume, but she also carries a doll, and her appearances are typically marked in the musical score by a signature tune – Frer Jacques (not the same as Sarah’s London Bridge, but certainly quite close).  The film also features a drunken caretaker (in the mold of Matthew Morgan), a party which everyone attends dressed in garb from the time in which the house was first built, and a teenage girl played by DS’s Denise Nickerson (she’s actually the first person to utter a line in the film).  If the connections to DARK SHADOWS in this film are coincidental, they certainly are striking ones.
 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Very interesting. I don't think I was even aware that DN did this film. Or if I was at the time it was on, I didn't watch it. And that alone seems odd because I always caught all the supernaturally themed TV movies. Maybe because it was Disney I thought it would be too juvenile.

Thanks for the info, Gothick! 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I just checked IMDb, and I see that David Hurst (1841PT's Justin Collins) is also in the movie.

[Gothick]

As I said, I had never heard of it, so I found what he had to say about it interesting.  I'll have to let him know about David Hurst.  I don't know if the Conjure Doll has ever seen PT 1841. 

I was living in a dorm room without a television set in 1978 and had to walk all the way across campus if I wanted to see anything. So, I saw very little television that year, or generally during the period from 1976 through much of the 1980s.

G.