Jessica Chastain was almost shockingly brilliant in CRIMSON PEAK.  Hiddleston and Mia (I have given up trying to remember how to spell Mia's last name) are both very good, but Jessica steals every scene she's in.

My criticism of the movie, for what it is worth, is that it was overproduced to an absurd degree.  I told a friend after I saw it last November that it would have been much better if del Toro had spent 30 million less on it.  I could make the same comment about the Burton Depp Shadows disaster except there wasn't all that much to salvage from the latter.  A vast improvement would have been made if Depp had never appeared onscreen.

And that's all she wrote.

G.

That's such a fab shot of Grayson delivering what may be my favorite line in the entire film.  (Too bad Lara's "Laura my darling" got cut--it was such a bitchy line.)

I don't remember ever seeing the shot featured today of David and Kate. 

I am struggling to make myself order the two film DVDs in time for Horrorween.

G.

Somewhere, maybe on a Facebook DS group, I saw Frenchy's very first DS drawing from 1967.  It was really well done and included Roger and Elizabeth, I think.  I don't believe she ever featured them much in the work she did from the later period, which is the material more often seen on Shadows fan sites.

It would have been really fascinating to have Gloria Stavers guest at a Shadows event.

G.

Another extra that should have definitely been included in the TGG set was that "making of" documentary that I guess was included in the VHS set.  (It might have been a separate tape; I honestly can't recall.)  A fan did share that with me several years ago.  I finally checked Amazon just now and the TGG set is currently going for $60 to $65.

Certain fans might snitch to DCP or whoever because they want to have a market for their sale of bootleg merchandise at fan events.  Including material that was originally to be intended to be shared among fans FOR FREE. 

As the Countess du Pres might have put it--c'est la guere, cheri!

G.

Dear Fans,

Those who enjoy the 1991 DS nighttime series might find this note which I received from a friend of mine who has been revisiting that show.  My friend writes:

Speaking of aspect ratio issues, I have good news regarding DARK SHADOWS (1991).  It was released on DVD at least 3 times here in the U.S. with the aspect ratio butchered.  However, last year a company called TGG Direct quietly issued a box set of the series in its original fullscreen format.  Print transfer quality is excellent, and it’s great to finally see high quality prints of this show in the ratio it was intended to be viewed.  The only drawbacks are that they still failed to include the extended cuts of the first and last episodes which Dan Curtis prepared for MPI’s VHS releases.  And the color timing on the day-for-night sequences is still faulty, causing those scenes to appear far too bright (almost full daylight).  So the only releases that display those accurately are still MPI’s VHS iterations.  TGG Direct’s set appears to have gotten a very limited release, and even though it is only a year old, I believe it is already out of print.  Sealed copies are still available on Amazon, but the manufacturer is no longer offering copies, and the few copies still for sale on Amazon are going for double MSRP.  I broke down and bought one as a birthday gift to myself this year (as prices are sure to go even higher once the remaining copies sell out).  On the other hand, the same prints have recently been issued in the U.K. and Germany, and imported copies of those can be had for under $20.00.

One more tidbit before I run.  I recently dug out my personal VHS captures of the original 1991 NBC airings of the series, and isolated all of the network-specific material (promos, previews, bumpers, etc.) that were left out of the VHS and DVD releases.  I turned them into one continues DS bonus feature, and posted it to YouTube last week.  Here’s a link, if you’d care to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr5iiLihmxQ

Since I’m an incurable completist, I’m eventually going to post not just the promos for each episode, but all of the commercials that ran during each broadcast.  (end of his letter)

I don't know if this upgraded release of the series was reported here.  It may well have been, since I don't always pay attention to topics relating to that redaction of DARK SHADOWS.

Best,

G.

That theory only works if you ignore about 90 percent of what actually happens in the movie.  Such as--if that were the case, why would Carlotta kill herself?  Did the writer think her death had been faked?

The theory sounds a lot like a couple of Boris Karloff THRILLER episodes I vaguely recall.  I always enjoy revisiting those.

G.

Just a note about the original series voiceover opening "My name is Victoria Winters."  I had it in the back of my mind when this came up again that there were probably a couple of precedents for this.  And I think most if not all of them were from the glorious years of "old time radio." 

One example was a 1950s radio soap, "This is Nora Drake," which started each show with the titular protagonist declaiming just that line:

https://archive.org/details/ThisIsNoraDrake

Several of the regular actors on the show did radio.  Thayer had quite a career doing commercial radio voiceovers.

G.

This one, from 2001, seems to be the standard print available now.  I just bought some of the Corman Poe films on DVD and they looked great.  THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM was done in a letterbox format that made it kind of small on my computer screen, but I think you can improve that by changing settings.  I still found it quite watchable and enjoyed seeing it again so much.  There was a note on Amazon about the redaction of this film included in a five movie Vincent Price set that I recently bought.  Of course, now everything is moving to "streaming" but I find that physical media play much better for me, because of my ISP or the fact that I don't have up to date tech--don't really know and don't much care, at this point...

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/2143/fall-of-the-house-of-usher-1960-the/

G.