Hey, gang,

While browsing through YouTube the other day, I came across a film I hadn’t seen in fifty years, “Shamus,”  starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. Burt Reynolds portrays Shamus McCoy, a down-on-his-luck Brooklyn detective, who is hired to recover some stolen diamonds.

While tailing a possible suspect, Shamus observes the fellow from a Manhattan book store run by a very attractive and a decidedly zaftig young woman, who is portrayed by Dark Shadows’ own Kay Frye, a/k/a “Pansy Faye.” Shamus, for obvious reasons, is instantly attracted to the comely bookstore owner and, after some brief but highly effective flirting on his part, gets to know the lovely young woman in the “Biblical sense.”

It’s somewhat remarkable how different Ms. Frye’s character looks in this gritty detective film than from how she looked while on Dark Shadows. While Pansy Faye was dressed in an especially garish manner with a lot of flashy
 jewelry and a ton of makeup on her face (not to also mention that Cockney accent of Pansy’s), the bookstore
owner wears glasses and looks like she had bought her conservative clothes at the ladies section of the local
Brooks Brothers’ store. That’s quite a contrast!

Incidentally, this encounter between Shamus McCoy and the beautiful bookstore owner in “Shamus” is a tribute
to a similar scene in Howard Hawks 1946 film, “The Big Sleep,” where private detective Philip Marlowe
(Humphrey Bogart) “encounters” a similarly voluptuous bookstore owner (Dorothy Malone).

In looking up Kay Frye’s acting career, she did not have a lot of credits. Ms. Frye appeared in some television
movies in addition to her work on DS and in this film. Ms. Frye’s year of birth is listed as 1928, which would
have made her about 41-years-old when she portrayed Pansy Faye on DS. She did not seem to be that old to
me on DS. Sadly, Ms. Frye died in 1991 of cancer at the reported age of only 63.

I very much enjoyed watching Kay Frye on DS as the saucy and irrepressible Pansy Faye. I think the DS writers made a big mistake when they killed her off so soon, almost immediately after Carl Collins brought her to Collinwood as his fiancee.
It would have been great fun to have seen how Pansy got on as sister-in-law to the “slightly” dour Judith Collins
and the “slightly” stuffy Edward Collins. However, I think that Pansy and Quentin Collins would have hit it off right from the
start as kindred spirits! 

“Shamus” also features a scene in which Burt Reynolds is threatened by a knife-wielding thug, portrayed by another DS alumnus, veteran stunt man Alex Stevens, who subsequently gets his arm broken and then slammed into a wall by Mr. Reynolds’ macho character.

Another DS alumnus who gets hit by a two-by-four piece of wood by Burt Reynolds, is actor Captain Arthur Haggerty, a huge and completely bald man, who was one of Angelique’s executioners in the second Dan Curtis DS film, “Night of Dark Shadows.”

If you have never seen this enjoyable 1973 detective film, you might want to check it out over on YouTube, if only to catch Pansy Faye, the werewolf and Angelique’s hangman in other screen roles!

Anne,

I wonder if the Collins family will be having the traditional ham for Easter dinner? And, will Mrs. Johnson charbroil the ham to a virtual cinder? 


 

Bob

Requiem aeternam, Rick

Actually, I think he’s busy trying to sign-up Harpers Bizarre and the Bay City Rollers for the next “My Music” special on PBS. 

Yup, Bob, Part III was, shall we say, not a cinematic gem.  Having Coppola's untalented daughter playing a pivotal role certainly didn't help.  When she got it while in crossfire and succumbed, I thought the audience was going to applaud.

I would find it interesting if Barnabas, when asked about watching the latest chill flicks hitting the theaters, would respond:  "I don't like those kinds of movies.  I'm into westerns myself."

Oh, your comment about Sofia Coppola is cruel, but quite true!


Actually, I got a bad case of “agita” when I saw that eternally-tanned and unfailingly vacuous pretty-boy, the
seemingly ageless George Hamilton, portraying the great Robert Duvall’s apparent/ersatz replacement as the Corleone family consigliere. Ugh! 

There’s a scene in Godfather III, where you see Andy Garcia and Sofia Coppola in an old-fashioned bar on Mulberry Street; it’s not too far from the very good Grotta Azzura (Blue Gritto) Restaurant also on Mulberry
Street. I was in that bar once with my girlfriend, who was working in that part of lower Manhattan. In fact, I
believe that same bar was also used as gangster Johnny Sac’s NYC headquarters on “The Sopranos.” You’d
often see Johnny Sac and Tony Soprano negotiating over their crooked construction site schemes in that tavern.

I like your idea that Barnabas would express a liking for classic Western films. Barnabas would probably pop over to Collinwood, when he knew that TCM was airing “High Noon” or “Rio Bravo.” Although, I think Barnabas might pass on, one of my personal favorites, “Billy the Kid Versus Dracula,” which the great John Carradine (as the Transylvanian count) said that B-the-K vs D, was THE worst film of his long and distinguished acting career.
 

Bob

I haven’t seen “1923” with Harrison Ford and Dame Helen Mirren yet. However, if “Yellowstone” is any indication, I suspect that appearing in “1923” is strictly a “money movie” for the venerable Dame Hellen and “Indiana” Jones. 

“Yellowstone” is sort of like a contemporary version of the renowned and beloved “Bonanza,” but without the
redeeming
characters. While Ben Cartwright was a sage and honorable man, John Dutton is an arrogant and callous individual. And, what can I say about John Dutton’s “lovely” daughter, Beth? She’s a particularly nasty and dipsomaniacal person, who makes DS’s own Judith Collins-Trask seem like Mother Theresa by comparison.    As to Beth’s “beloved” husband Rip Wheeler, he’s sort of new millennial, Neanderthal version of DS’s Adam. 

I’ll wait to comment on “1923” until I get a chance to see several episodes. I do hope that it’s much better than “Yellowstone,” a tv show that’s as kitschy as “Baywatch” and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

Beam me up, Buffie Harrington! 

Happy Birthday, Anne! 

I understand that David Selby is absolutely delighted that it’s the birthday of his greatest fan! 

Bob