DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '26 I => Current Talk '09 I => Topic started by: Watching Project on March 25, 2009, 10:34:13 PM
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Robservations #744
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Every time I see these episodes I have to wonder if they paused tape to fix Marie's hair or just filmed the scenes in reverse order.
I still don't understand why Dirk told Jenny to wait. To see if the coast was clear so to speak? Why give her the weapon right then when she could use it on anybody? Why not wait until she's at the door to the Old Hous
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I don't think they stopped it. There was a significant amount of time for the stylist to get the wig off and pull her regular hair back. Who knows! They didn't stop tape for much. BTW...can someone tell me the ep when the stage caught on fire. I think I have seen it in the early Barney eps recently when Joan and Alexandra were talkling. It sounded as if you could hear fire extinguishers going off. They were troupers...sorry to get off topic...
Onto the review...744...
I personally think the magic of this period (of DS) is quite palpable! Who turned on the lights in the foyer during the opening theme? LOL "Hello Quentin, have I told you how gorgeous you are lately?"
"Then how did she get through door by prayer and fasting?" QUENTIN to Judith LOL I love Q's smart ass mouth! And his mouth in general. It's quite lovely! :SWOON: No wonder the Christian community printed tracts against this show. I really wish someone had one of those to post. Did anyone see the boom when they did the shot through the staircase?
Barnabas knows…about the children. Such a wonderful constructed plotline. Someone coughed (a common blooper) when Barney threw the knife in the fire!! I think almost everyone smoked on that show. It's seems people in general smoked more back in those days. I guess people didn't know how bad it is for ya. Not judging here as I am a former smoker.
Wonder who's portrait hangs in Josettes room? It's quite lovely. Wonder what Jonathan really wrote on his letter. It would have been lovely if things such as those had been saved. No one realized the phenomenon DS was destined to become.
Good episode. It was revealing and furthered the plotline!!
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They didn't stop tape for much. BTW...can someone tell me the ep when the stage caught on fire. I think I have seen it in the early Barney eps recently when Joan and Alexandra were talkling. It sounded as if you could hear fire extinguishers going off. They were troupers...sorry to get off topic...
"Then how did she get through door by prayer and fasting?" QUENTIN to Judith LOL I love Q's smart ass mouth! And his mouth in general. It's quite lovely! :SWOON: No wonder the Christian community printed tracts against this show. I really wish someone had one of those to post.
You just made me imagine, say, Selby and Joan Bennett actually on fire, while still delivering their lines, with DC offscreen (audibly!) yelling "Keep going! Keep going!"
That is a good Q line. It was about time DS had ironic humor and sarcasm, it had gone for years without. And I really, really want anti-DS screeds online now. I want to wallpaper my bedroom in them actually. I expect that that's a passing whim.
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I think it was Alexandra and Joan in the early Barney black and white eps. It is on the bloopers DVD...and they are obvously disturbed but trying to hold it together...sorry for getting off topic!!!
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I think it was Alexandra and Joan in the early Barney black and white eps. It is on the bloopers DVD...and they are obvously disturbed but trying to hold it together...sorry for getting off topic!!!
If it was Alexandra and Frid, then it was #290. The story was told at an early Festival (before they were even called that, I imagine) that the small fire was in Alexandra's view but not Frid's, but since the taping was never stopped the actors somehow (barely?) kept it together. When the extinguishers started Frid began to stumble with his lines and Alexandra seemed to not want to look directly at him-- it's a pretty amusing mess.
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Thanks for the heads up. I will go back and watch. I knew it was Alexandra and someone!
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Marie Wallace is really wonderful. She is meancing with the knife. I recall she scared our socks off when we were kids watching. Jenny is one of those girls that think that once they find a guy and get together they will live happiliy ever after and she can't accept the reality that it didn't. Barnabas is so clueless. He bumbles around eveything and needs someone else to put the pieces together.
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I still don't understand why Dirk told Jenny to wait. To see if the coast was clear so to speak?
I'm guessing it was to set up the Sunset Boulevard-ish scene with Jenny's "I'm coming to kill you" closeup. As if the audience had any doubt by now that Jenny is insane. [easter_rolleyes]
Why give her the weapon right then when she could use it on anybody? Why not wait until she's at the door to the Old Hous
Because it might make him look guilty if he disappeared from the big house or failed to complete his duties? [idontknow]
There was a significant amount of time for the stylist to get the wig off and pull her regular hair back.
Was Marie wearing a wig when she played Jenny? I thought she was one of the few actresses who didn't wear hairpieces, but I could be wrong. False lashes for days, though.
Did anyone see the boom when they did the shot through the staircase?
And MW tripped, poor thing.
Wonder who's portrait hangs in Josettes room? It's quite lovely.
It's interesting that the Old House is filled with portraits of females, but portraits of the male ancestors seem to predominate at Collinwood. Does that make Collinwood masculine and the Old House feminine?
Wonder what Jonathan really wrote on his letter.
"Dear Mother, ..." Just kidding! [easter_wink]
At this point, there's no doubt that Quentin was intent on murder.
Q: She's an animal with a knife.
Judith: You're an animal with a gun.
Awesome.
Did anyone else find it odd that Q&J were married in a Church?
Now we know where Angelique got her clothing in 1897. Cuz that first dress that Jenny touched in the trunk was Ang's poison green number.
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I think it was Marie's real hair. I remember reading a story MW related where sh was riding the subway once when a woman recognized her from DS. MW was surprised the woman knew who she was because on the show her hair was always teased out to the ends.
I too found it odd they were married in a church. Wasn't it established that Q just kind of showed up with Jenny? Maybe Jenny insisted. Maybe the family insisted it be a "proper" affair? (No pun intended).
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Ok coming in late here. Interesting that in the voice over, JB refers to Laura letting Jenny out. Well, I guess, from a certain point of view (as an old Jedi once said....).
Good point about Dirk giving her the knife too soon. Everyone seems to have their own little delusions that an unpredictable madwoman will do just what they need her to do. And once again, roughing her up when a little reason might have gotten her to go quietly. Does it strike anyone else as odd that Dirk goes through the entrance to the servants quarters (which we know also goes to the kitchen) and comes back with a dagger. Wouldn't a kitchen knife or butcher knife make more sense? Most people don't just have daggers lying about for convenient use -- but a fully supplied kitchen on an estate with a gamekeeper would have quite a selection of knives for the dressing of fresh game.
Nice touch with the reference to the "House by the Sea". Don't remember if they mentioned it by name before in this storyline, but it ties the past and the present together nicely. And nice type of loyalty Dirk has -- Judith could have been killed because he didn't fess up that Jenny was in the Drawing Room.
But poor Jenny -- was what she was hearing her own delusions, or Laura inspired to egg her on? (I'm thinking her own, but it would be an interesting point of discussion.) Judith was blind lucky she changed her mind and used the candlestick instead of the knife. And Quentin was blind UNLUCKY wanting to come in right then. Of course, he might have had the pure bad luck for Jenny to have already been in the vestibule when he opened the door, and once again he would have ended with a knife in his chest. Makes you wonder what Barnabas would have done to bring him back to life THIS time.
Interesting choice in having Jenny go on about her father being a King in India [spoiler](since that's where it's theorized the Romany originated. Wonder if there was anything to that other than pure coincidence?)[/spoiler]
Another interesting point here with Quentin not coming in the house. What exactly are we to suppose he saw? When he opened the door, did he know Jenny had a knife? Did he hear voices, or know someone was in there with her? Did he shut the door and wait, KNOWING Judith was alone with a madwoman with a knife? At this point in his character evolution. I think he's quite capable of doing that, without a second thought, if he thought it would save his own skin.
In the scene with Judith, the irresponsible, let everyone else clean up his messes Quentin shows a sense of responsibility, dark, twisted and without compassion though it is. He caused the problem, he's going to fix it. Yet Judith's solution is the better one (though maybe he doesn't believe she'll go through with it). Ship Jenny off to an asylum hundreds or more miles away and that should keep him alive. Maybe that's the key: Quentin may fully believe that the family (especially Judith) would rather see him dead than chance someone finding out that Jenny was mad. Rid herself of two problems at the same time. It's what I've been calling the "Little Foxes" type mindset. Not killing someone inconvenient oneself, but standing there and letting an external factor do the dirty work for you, and not lift a finger to prevent it.
Scene with Barnabas and Jenny is quite interesting. Barnabas opens to door to an irrational woman who's looking for Quentin, he knows Quentin's mad wife is on the property, and he doesn't put it together (judging from when we see the sudden flash of fear in his eyes) until she says her name is Jenny? He's not normally that slow on the uptake.
There's probably been a thread on this somewhere but I do get the feeling that the writers are trying to show Jenny as having multiple personalities. The way she suddenly forgets she's met Barnabas, and her change in attitude, even in tone of voice. Marie did a wonderful job playing Jenny as realistically "mad" (or whatever other general term one chooses to use for her mental disturbance). She has an internal logic, but it doesn't connect with the rest of the world.
Oh just spotted a minor interesting little filming thing [spoiler]The bit where Jenny is singing the lullabye, framed by the spokes of the staircase -- the framing is almost identical (at least to me it looks so) to the shot in 1995 of the mad Quentin shot through the banister. Artistic preference, or a throwback in 1995 to the poetic justice of Quentin's being driven insane? Of course, I'm probably giving the show too much credit there.[/spoiler]
Another clue to the whys and wherefores: Jenny's statement that "they were afraid some harm would come to them" being the reason the babies were taken away. Are we to connect this with the broken doll (head I think) that was mentioned in an episode? From what we see, IF Jenny was mad when the children were still with her, though taking them away probably made her much worse, I can't see that they had a choice to keep the babies safe. If she went through one of her violent personality swings, she could have killed one or both of them without even knowing it. So, some partial credit to Edward and Judith. They had enough humanity to not want Quentin's children killed, even inadvertantly.
On the marrying in a church. Maybe it's a delusion of Jenny's maybe not. It might have been the quickest way to get married in that time and place, and everything we know about Quentin points to him marrying her on impulse, whereever they were. And in the later scene with Barnabas Jenny mentioned them being married two months before going to see his family. Presumably they were travelling around during that time, from the way Jenny takes Barnabas for a bellhop. Nice period touch, the wife wouldn't deal with money, it was the husband's job (not to mention he's the one with the fat allowance from grandmamamamama).
The "animal with a knife" "animal with a gun" scene is a good one. Also nice foreshadowing of what comes later. I notice that she didn't resist him very hard when he moves her arm to go by.
Barnabas sure developed a sudden skill for knowing what would motivate Jenny. Makeup and girly things and pretty dresses. And LOL on Dirk and Quentin's verbal pissing match.
I DO think that's Marie's hair by the way. I think she mentioned something in her book about teasing it up to play Jenny.
Poor poor Jenny, primping and all vulnerable and hopeful for her meeting with the "animal with a gun". And does anyone else wonder how Quentin knew which room is Josette's room?
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Every mischievous child in Collinwood seems to know Josette and where her room is just by stories being circled around the family over and over again. I wouldn't be surprised if Quentin and David have a connection there.
On Marie's hair, I think it's her own. Besides the interviews that she's given mentioning that her hair was teased to the ends,
[spoiler]the one episode in the Leviathan period where MW plays Jenny and Megan, Megan's hair seems a bit more poofier than normal.[/spoiler]
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I think it was Marie's real hair. I remember reading a story MW related where sh was riding the subway once when a woman recognized her from DS. MW was surprised the woman knew who she was because on the show her hair was always teased out to the ends.
Which still raises the question (yours, actually [ghost_grin]), did they need extra time to comb all that teasing out? When I teased my hair back in the day (a rattail comb was my friend), I remember it taking ages to get out all the snarls. I am not going to provide photos, so don't ask! I don't think the ep was taped in reverse because Marie has said she created the pincurl bangs overnight.
And btw, I would bet money that Roger's hair was teased when he played Dirk.
Does it strike anyone else as odd that Dirk goes through the entrance to the servants quarters (which we know also goes to the kitchen) and comes back with a dagger. Wouldn't a kitchen knife or butcher knife make more sense? Most people don't just have daggers lying about for convenient use --
Since it's the servants quarters, maybe Dirk's room is back there too. And I definitely think Dirk would own a dagger. It's scary to think what else he might keep in his room. [ghost_tongue2]
Another interesting point here with Quentin not coming in the house. What exactly are we to suppose he saw? When he opened the door, did he know Jenny had a knife? Did he hear voices, or know someone was in there with her? Did he shut the door and wait, KNOWING Judith was alone with a madwoman with a knife?
I think that seeing Jenny and not having anything for self-defense (which for cowardly Quentin means a gun) was probably enough for him to cut and run.
There's probably been a thread on this somewhere but I do get the feeling that the writers are trying to show Jenny as having multiple personalities. The way she suddenly forgets she's met Barnabas, and her change in attitude, even in tone of voice.
But what we don't see in those changes in attitude and voice are separate and distinct personalities. Jenny's confusion and forgetfulness (which are not the result of blackouts) and her mood swings, delusions, paranoia, withdrawal (in #745: [spoiler]Jenny didn't seem at all unhappy with her exile to the tower),[/spoiler] and in particular her hallucinations seem to me to be more in line more with schizophrenia than to dissociative identity (multiple personality) disorder. And as I mentioned before, her view of an unintegrated "good self" and "self bad" (#719) are more likely the symptoms of a personality disorder than DID/MPD.
Barnabas sure developed a sudden skill for knowing what would motivate Jenny. Makeup and girly things and pretty dresses.
Barnabas the sexist. [ghost_rolleyes]
Do you suppose that Edith knew about mad Jenny and her babies?
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This is a bit off topic: However, Barney had me fumming in his early days with his sexist remarks towards Julia. I know he is a man of the 18 century but I didn't like it~~~at all! [ghost_mad]
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Happy 1200!
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[spoiler for #745 --admin]
now I'm not sure if the school fire where my VHS starts again is 734 or 736. Anyway, more remarks on these ten ep's after that...
Barnabas must be keeping a checklist of all the women he's dressed up as Josette. I picture him with a clipboard, checking them off. I forget who else, but it was Jenny this time.... "Wouldn't you like to put on a nice dress and make yourself beautiful, Jenny?" Too bad he couldn't I Ching a Poloroid camera back to 1897 with him... As far as I know cameras don't have astral selves....
Jenny beans Magda, Madga falls down, but she puts her hand on her wig to keep it from falling off!
Jernny's thought process: Whatever thought occurs to her becomes total absolute reality instantly. She could stop to think for a moment about how frightening a tornado or hurricane might be, say, and would in an instant be convinced that one's coming right now and is about to kill her. That's a horrible way to exist.
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I'm really angry with myself, because I had to write this post twice! [ghost_mad] I inadvertently lost it the first time, when I wanted to check something in Robservations. I was posting on the bottom of Page 2, and I had to get to Page 1 to click on the Robservations link. In the future, I'm going to copy my post into a document before I do that again. Oh, well... Live and learn...
It was delightful to watch Barnabas talking to Jenny like she was a child. He was very patient and gentle with her. [ghost_smiley] I thought it was strange that Barnabas threw the knife into the fireplace, though. Knives don't burn, do they? [ghost_huh]
I like the way Quentin described to Judith what he would do about Jenny. "I'll see to it that she leaves..." And then, after Judith asked him what he meant by that, he replied, "What do you think I mean, sister dear?" Great lines! [thumb]
MW did an excellent job, as usual, with Jenny in this episode. [clap2] Jenny was all over the place, emotionally. Sometimes in the past, sometimes in the present. It was cute when she treated Barnabas as if he were a bellhop. Sometimes, she was very scary, such as when she thrust the knife into the air and had that insane smile. Oooh! [ghost_shocked] Other times, she was very childlike, and she was very pretty after she fixed herself up. One of the best lines on DS -- Jenny: "If she is in the mirror, then where am I?" When Jenny was afraid of her reflection, she seemed like a wild animal.
It's figures that Quentin would find the note, take the keys, and throw the note in the fire before Magda saw them. I'm not surprised that he would know where Josette's room was. I'm sure that he had loads of fun when he was a kid, exploring the Old House. [ghost_wink]
I thought the picture of the sunrise at the end of the show was gorgeous. [color] There were no credits, just the screen that shows "Dan Curtis Productions". I guess the show ran too long.
----- Sally -----
[snow_bigglass] [hippy2]
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Sorry to hear you had to rewrite your post, Sally. Instead of copying and pasting the text into a doc, you could try just copying it. Then when you return to the post reply page, you could paste it back in if needed. It's just a suggestion, but I'm all for saving time and extra steps.
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My favorite moments are those where a character's individual and different point of view is explored and played around with. The Jenny line, if she's in the mirror then where am I, was a nice one. I like being called upon to try to live in Jenny's head.
I can't tell you the number of times when I've had posts that I've worked long and hard on obliterated by some quirk of the Internet, which is especially hard to take considering my eye and concentration problems... it's just too painful for the work to be wasted. Still... usually now I find that when that happens, it seems to be for a reason. There's usually something mis-spoken or not explained clearly enough in those posts, the first time around, and the snafu gives me a chance to fix things.
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... usually now I find that when that happens, it seems to be for a reason. There's usually something misspoken or not explained clearly enough in those posts, the first time around, and the snafu gives me a chance to fix things.
I agree, Magnus. [thumb] I often find that happens to me, too. Usually, the second time around, it's a better post. [ghost_wink]
Sorry to hear you had to rewrite your post, Sally. Instead of copying and pasting the text into a doc, you could try just copying it. Then when you return to the post reply page, you could paste it back in if needed.
Thanks, Midnite. [ghost_smiley] That's a good idea, except I wouldn't be able to copy something else in the meantime. That's what I did yesterday. [ghost_rolleyes]
----- Sally -----
[snow_bigglass] [hippy2]
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You're welcome, Sally. I didn't know you were doing any copying within the Robservation post, but in that case you'd probably have to get posts from different threads copied into your post first. I would open a new tab in order to do some navigating before I'd open a text program, but that's me.
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That's what I do. I open a second (and sometimes a third or fourth) tab, I pull from there to paste into my original post or reply. It works really well for me.
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Personally, I just use a Word Processing program and type my review, and it saves as it's going. Then when I have all the grammar and spelling correct, I copy and post! :)
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I sometimes open more tabs, too, Midnite and Dom. [thumb] ... And yes, sometimes I've even typed my review on a "TextEdit" document, Taeylor. [ghost_wink] But I don't do it that way very often. [ghost_rolleyes] It's a great idea, though. [ideag] ... I like the convenience of the Quick Reply at the bottom of the posts, so I like the idea of opening more tabs. Yeah, that's what I'll continue to do. [ghost_smiley] Thanks for all the input, everyone! [ghost_cheesy]
----- Sally -----
[snow_bigglass] [hippy2]
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My favorite moments are those where a character's individual and different point of view is explored and played around with. The Jenny line, if she's in the mirror then where am I, was a nice one. I like being called upon to try to live in Jenny's head.
Me too, Magnus. Love the character development moments; they're always great writing, and sometimes at their best they lift you up and make you look at a character in a completely new and different way. Those moments of character revelation are key if you want to write fanfiction that people would want to seek out and read.
I can't tell you the number of times when I've had posts that I've worked long and hard on obliterated by some quirk of the Internet....
LOL me too. I had one like that recently, must have been a three screen post on an ep. All I did was hit the wrong function key when I aimed for the shift key -- and there went the whole post. I now do what Taeylor does and draft the long posts like episode comments in Word, then play with them with the forum open so I can work the comments on other comments into the post. And I do with word what I do at work -- autosave every min and hit save after every change.
Glad your posts get better when you have to rewrite them. it doesn't feel to me as if mine do. I just KNOW I have stuff that was made more clear, details I got one time that I glossed over if I have to watch the ep again, etc. when I have to rewrite a long detailed post.
Jeannie
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Someone coughed (a common blooper) when Barney threw the knife in the fire!! I think almost everyone smoked on that show. It's seems people in general smoked more back in those days. I guess people didn't know how bad it is for ya.
Usually when I notice somebody coughing, it's on a day when Grayson Hall's on the show. Coincidence, I'm sure. As for people not knowing how bad it was for them...they knew. I don't know how many times my parents told me when I was growing up: "Don't EVER smoke cigarettes!"
I thought it was strange that Barnabas threw the knife into the fireplace, though. Knives don't burn, do they?
No, but it was a very effective way of saying to the madwoman, "Knife all gone."
Interesting choice in having Jenny go on about her father being a King in India
Yes, I started wondering[spoiler]about Magda's exact parentage. When she's dealing with King Johnny I don't remember getting a feeling of her being of an important gypsy family.[/spoiler]
It seemed to me that when Jenny was in Josette's room, we got as close as we would get to a flashback to Quentin's and Jenny's newlywed days. Then when Quentin came knocking on the door, it was as if two time periods were colliding.
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I think the King of India reference was that gypsies originated from India, or it could be that being mad she may have had delusions of grandeur. My great-aunt who lived in Fergus Falls MN would write to my grandmother telling of her tea's with the Queen of England.
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Oh my goodness re: your great aunt, alwaysdavid!
I agree with what you said. It was probably another symptom of her schizophrenia.
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As for people not knowing how bad it was for them...they knew. I don't know how many times my parents told me when I was growing up: "Don't EVER smoke cigarettes!"
I'm thinking it's something people suspected, but didn't really know till the early 60s. But of course by that time a lot of people had been smoking for years, and were too hooked to realistically stop. In my family only my grandfather smoked, but I do remember my mother, when going out, taking cigarettes and saying she essentially nursed one all night on the same principal as social drinking. Society saw it as something "cool" (think James Dean and Bogart) and one tended to do it to fit in.
Yes, I started wondering[spoiler]about Magda's exact parentage. When she's dealing with King Johnny I don't remember getting a feeling of her being of an important gypsy family.[/spoiler]
The sense I got with [spoiler]King Johnny[/spoiler] was that Magda was dealing with him more as a supplicant.
It seemed to me that when Jenny was in Josette's room, we got as close as we would get to a flashback to Quentin's and Jenny's newlywed days. Then when Quentin came knocking on the door, it was as if two time periods were colliding.
That makes a lot of sense. We see Jenny the needy, insecure girl, married to someone we know is an immature, self centered, needy beneath the tough guy mask, boy. Talk about a recipe for disaster, Jenny's madness notwithstanding.
Jeannie