Happy 50th Anniversary, Night of Dark Shadows

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And asnother post definitely worth revisiting:

And speaking of something that's very rarely seen, I almost forgot to share the color version of the first still from above:

(Click here for a 1600X2000 version)

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And this is what Darren wrote on his Restoration Web sie regarding Scene 150:

A selection of scenes cut from the 129-minute version that have been recovered:

...

After Quentin slams the tower door on Tracy, he works on continuing Charles' unfinished portrait and embraces the ghostly Angelique.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

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And you will no doubt recall, especially considering its number is written on its bottom right corner, that still is #17 in the NoDS Editor's Portfolio. The interesting thing about it, though, is that, unlike most of the other stills that are a part of that portfolio, I don't recall it ever having been published anywhere back in the day, or even today...

...

When I wrote that I was thinking of magazine articles and such, not foreign promotional materials. But today it dawned on me that Still #17 was used as part of the Italian Lobby Cards (note how it also features NoDS Editor's Portfolio Stills #25 & #42) -

- how soon I forget. 

An interesting thing about the Italian title of the film is that it translates as The House of the Cursed Shadows, which seems more like the film's working title, Curse of Dark Shadows, than it does the release title, Night of Dark Shadows. I wonder if that's because the Italian title was decided upon before the film was renamed Night of Dark Shadows? If so, it's sort of like the Curse of Dark Shadows title lived on...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting how Scenes 151 & 152 are scripted:

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...

CUT TO: 151    INT - CARD ROOM - NIGHT                            151        Through the door of the Card Room, Tracy can be seen        coming down the stairs.  Large in the F.G. of the SHOT        is the telephone.  When she reaches the bottom of        the stairs, she tries to decide what to do.  Looking        in the direction of the telephone, she crosses to it,        picks it up and starts to dial a number.  HOLD ON HER        as she listens to a ring. 152    INT - COTTAGE - NIGHT                              152        The room is in darkness as the SOUND OF THE TELEPHONE        can be HEARD ringing...ringing...ringing.

...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

With regard to Scenes 151 & 152, this is what Darren wrote on his Restoration Web site:

The following is a list of scenes that are still lost and which are not present in the 129 min version recovered in 1999.

...

INT.CARD ROOM. Tracy dials the phone. INT.COTTAGE. Phone rings in the empty cottage.

Interestingly, there may be evidence that those two scenes were shot because Scene 151 appears on the call sheet for April 5, 1971 that I've previously shared, most recently in Reply #1686...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting how Scene 153 is scripted:

Moving on to the next scene (which is one of my favorite scenes in the entire film):

DISSOLVE TO: 153    INT - GALLERY - DAY                                153        as Tracy, in deep thought, sits staring at Angelique's        portrait, Carlotta ENTERS, carrying a vase of freshly        cut flowers.                              CARLOTTA                  Oh, Mrs. Collins, I thought                  these might brighten the room.        She puts them on the mantel before Angelique's portrait.                              CARLOTTA                  Aren't they lovely?                              TRACY                       (ignoring the question)

And that's when today's first quote -

Page 72/Scene 153 - Tracy: 'Carlotta, where is Mr. Collins?'

- comes up, followed by today's second quote -

Page 72/Scene 153 - Carlotta: 'Oh, didn't he tell you? He's just left for town. He needs some supplies. You do know he's painting in the tower, don't you?'

- coming up.

And so far as differences with the dialogue go, Carlotta's first line is actually delivered as "Oh, Mrs. Collins ... I thought these might brighten the room" - and Tracy actually asks "Carlotta, where's Mr. Collins?" - and the first part of Carlotta's reply is actually delivered as "Oh...didn't he tell you?"

And so far as the differences with the descriptions and the directions go, Scene 153 does not begin with Tracy staring at Angelique's portrait because it actually begins with a vase of daffodils -

- being carried into the Gallery - and because Angelique's portrait is not hung above a mantel, Carlotta actually carries the vase over toward the table that's below where the portrait actually hangs - and after Tracy asks where Quentin is, I do love how Carlotta barely covers a series of facial expressions -

- as she's hardly able to cover her glee that Tracy doesn't know where Quentin is - and a shot of Tracy is actually on screen as -

- Carlotta says "You do know he's painting in the tower, don't you?".

And Grayson's script has several notes for this section of the scene. She writes that Carlotta is feeling well loved and happy - and that Carlotta will remove the dead flowers from the vase and handle one flower lovingly - and while she does handle one flower lovingly, there's no need for her to remove the dead flowers from the vase because the fresh flowers are already in a new vase, so she simply switches vases.

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   And as far as "today's" quotes go, it was on April 22nd this time around.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting how the differences in the opening of Scene 153 play across the various versions of the film:

And here's another example of a music cue that rightfully doesn't play as part of a scene on the VHS but does in every other release of the film. We've already dealt with two such cues: one at the end of Scene 103 when Scene 104 was cut in the 94 and 97 minute versions of the film but does appear in the 129 minute version, and another at the opening of Scene 117 when Scene 116 was cut in the 94 and 97 minute versions of the film but does appear in the 129 minute version. And this time around we're dealing with the opening of Scene 153:

Here we have the Laser version:

And here we have the Blu-ray to represent every other version:

The cue heard on the Blu-ray and others other than the VHS/Laser is obviously a segue from the end of Scene 150 (which only appears in the 129 minute version of the film - all other versions go from Scene 149 to Scene 153, as can be seen in the Laser and Blu-ray clips) -

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(ADMIN: Edited to replace VHS video with Laser video)

And as you can see, since the above post was originally made, I've replaced the VHS video with video from the Laser Disc...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

   A post worth revisiting that's related to the previous one:

Yesterday I forgot to share the full music cue that should play and likely does play over Scene 150 and into the opening of Scene 153 in the 129 minute version. On the Movie Soundtracks CD it's entitled "Quentin's Daydreaming (Quentin's Theme)," no doubt because it first comes up in the film during Scenes 33 through 38 while he muses, has a vision, and recovers. So, here it is to help get a better idea of how Scene 150 plays in the 129 minute version and how the music cue transitions to Scene 153:

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I also forgot to mention, though I have mentioned it with regard to other scenes, but it really is a shame how much of a blow out there is when it comes to the windows as they're seen on the VHS and even the Laser Disc as opposed to how most of the details of the windows show up much clearer on the Blu-ray/DVD.

And there's also something else about the previous two videos that I want to get into - but I'm going to hold off until we reach Scene 169...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting more of how Scene 153 is scripted:

Continuing Scene 153, with Tracy's response to Carlotta questioning whether or not she knows Quentin is working in the tower:

TRACY Yes, I know.

And that's when today's first quote -

Page 72/Scene 153 - Carlotta: 'Is something wrong, Mrs. Collins?'

- comes up, followed by today's second quote -

Page 72/Scene 153 - Tracy: 'Yes, something is wrong, Carlotta.'

- coming up.

And so far as differences with the dialogue go, Tracy actually delivers her quoted line as "Yes, Carlotta, something is wrong."

And so far as the differences with the descriptions and the directions go, there aren't any in this section of the scene so there's nothing to be different - though Tracy does move up in her chair and she leans forward to help emphasize the point when she says that something is wrong. And beyond that I also have a few other observations because 1) I love how Tracy nervously -

- plays with her hands before she answers that she knows Quentin is back to painting in the tower - and 2) I also love how Carlotta smiles down and continues to handle one of the dying flowers lovingly because -

- it's a fascinating gesture given that the flowers are, well, dying and are no longer fresh (so given that she specifically wrote in her script about it, what might Grayson have thought the gesture signifies in Carlotta's mind?) - and 3) I also love how Carlotta first tilts her head to the right -

- and then to the left -

- as she asks Tracy if anything is wrong.

...

   And as far as "today's" quotes go, it was on April 23rd this time around.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

A post definitely worth revisiting, including a still related to Scene 153:

This line is not quoted in the current version of the slideshow, but it did appear in the original version -

NoDS: Scene #153 - Tracy: 'Yes, I know.'

-  because it was the quote for November 10th on the Fest 1999 Movie Calendar.

And interestingly enough, this still of Carlotta -

(Click here for a 700X1028 version)

- is most closest connected to Scene 153 by how Carlotta can hardly cover her glee that Quentin is painting in the tower again and Tracy doesn't know where Quentin is...

And a cropped version of that still appears on page 179 of the DS Movie Book, and a cropped to just a head shot version appears on the back cover of the movies soundtrack case...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

A post more than worth revisiting for a reason that soon becomes obvious:

Something peculiar about the still of Carlotta in Reply #524 is that there appears to be a pink flower petal near the waistline of Carlotta's dress. And it doesn't just appear in the copy of the still that I have but also in the copy that's in the DS Movie Book. And the reason why I say it's peculiar is because in the copy that Stuart Manning shared on his old Web site, the pink flower petal doesn't appear:

Who knows?

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Speaking of the Italian Lobby Cards, which I did back in Reply #1712, I figured we should probably revisit them:

...

(Click here for a 1000X709 version)

I do wish, though, if they felt they had to colorize the B&W stills, they would have checked to see what the correct colors should have been. But, well...

And considering that one of the points I was making was that the Lobby Card in question used stills from the NoDS Editor's Portfolio, here's a breakdown of which number still was used in each Italian Lobby Cards:

| #42, #11 |	| #42, #15 |	| #42, #17 |
| & #39    |	|  & #9    |	| & #25    |
|==========|	|==========|	|==========|
| #42, #36 |	| #42, #37 |	| #42, #32 |
|  & #6    |	| & #33    |	|  & #7    |
|==========|	|==========|	|==========|
| #42, #31 |	| #42, #22 |	| #42, #26 |
| & #14    |	| & #16    |	| #40 & #34|

[Mysterious Benefactor]

More related to the Italian Lobby Cards that's worth revisiting:

I have a couple from Speedway and they feature Nancy Sinatra in an outfit that she did not wear in the movie, a bikini that was not standard attire for the IRS agent that she's playing. It's also been recolored. The bikini is white but appears as an odd shade of green on the lobby card. Her other outfits have been recolored as well. Seemed pretty random.

Weird. 

The colorizing is bad enough, but my biggest pet peeve with the colorizing in the lobby cards is there's little consistency. In two Tracy's jacket is red -

- and in two others it's blue -

   The funny thing, though, if you notice, Gerard's jacket is consistent...

And something that I didn't notice until today is how in the one that features Still #11 Quentin's pajamas are colorized so that the bottoms are blue and the top is yellow -

- maybe they were trying to cover both colors of pajamas that he wears in the film. 

[Uncle Roger]

The Italian lobby cards give Gerard a more prominent place than he has in the actual film.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I have shared the One Sheet of the Italian Poster -

(Click here for a 1152X1600 version)

- but I haven't shared the Italian Insert Card -

- and one thing I do find very interesting is that there is a Blu-ray/DVD version released in Italy that has very similar packaging to the US release -

(Click here for a 751X1000 version)

(Click here for a 795X1000 version)

- right down to the tag line "ONE BITE IS NEVER ENOUGH" on the back, as well as the summation of the plot - but there's also a different 2012 DVD release in Italy that uses the artwork of the US A Poster -

(Click here for a 796X1120 version)

(Click here for a 837X1120 version)

(Click here for a 825X1120 version)

- and the back cover not only features different photos, but the summation reads, "Quentin and Tracy, husband and wife, inherit an ancient castle and spend their holidays there. But a tragic past weighs on the manor and in Quentin a man who lived two centuries ago, thirsty for revenge, is reincarnated. Excellent horror directed by the specialist Dan Curtis who manages to create good anxiety, supported by a cast of good actors (Hall is commendable)."

Who knew Quentin and Tracy were only spending their holidays at Collinwood? But I definitely agree that Grayson's performance is commendable.

It's also interesting how, like its US counterpart, the Blu-ray release uses the billing in the film's opening credits, however, the Italian DVD uses the billing from the closing credits, but only up to Nancy Barrett.

And it's even more interesting that apparently the DVD is the 4X3 print that was released on the VHS and Laser Disc and not the 16X9 version of the Blu-ray...