Midnite!  you found it!

"Breathing... heaving breaths" and the way her hands move--it's soooo KLS in that snapshot!

cheers, G.

Garth baby, I for one got a good giggle out of what you wrote about dear Burke and his fate.

Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!  (or, in those case, those nasty "cures")

cheers, G.

To Nancy--thanks for sharing that fascinating anecdote about Peter Miner.  I just received the 4th set of the 1966/67 DVDs in the post recently and last night had a chance to view Bob Costello's interview, and he mentioned Peter Miner as one of the people he personally recruited in the original production unit.  Sy Tomashoff and Bob Cobert were also mentioned.  (It was interesting to learn that Costello was the one who recruited Cobert originally.)  Also Ramse Mostoller.  I recall Ramse mentioning in a letter to a fan that was published in a one-off collection some years ago that apart from Dan Curtis, she did enjoy working on DS.  It was implied that DC's temper and ego made things difficult for her personally--presumably why she eventually left, as did Costello, Ron Sproat, and some others over the years.

I well remember Joan Bennett in her autobiography describing how difficult it sometimes was to get through a scene because of the chaos that surrounded them on the set.  Nevertheless, I do think that she had some good times during her years on DS.

Best, Steve

I wish Todd Haynes had been attached to the Depp Shadows project as director.

I know, I'm way too weird-ass for my own good...

G.

I also enjoyed Tony George's work on DS, particularly some of his scenes with Frid--the two played off one another really well, I thought.

I have to confess, however, that once I got to see Mitchell Ryan in the part (this was much later on--I first saw Tony's episodes in the 1976 syndication of the '67 stories), I felt he "inhabited" the role much more believably, for whatever reason.

As I am sure I have mentioned on here before, Tony George became friends during his DS period with both Grayson and Sam Hall.  I don't know whether he and Grayson ever got a scene together during her time on OLTL in '82-'83.  I had never known that Tony George "hated" doing DS.  I wonder whether he gave any reasons in that article.

Apparently about a year or two after the show went off the air, Joan Bennett was on a talk show somewhere and also said she had not enjoyed working on the show.  The only reference I know of to this particular interview is on the Grayson Hall interview tape from March '73 where the girls are discussing various people who had worked on the show with GH.  GH response is characteristic:  "You gotta remember--she's an old lady!" and she added that she thought that Joan had enjoyed a lot about being on the series.

G,.

Anthony George does have some good episodes in Checkmate.  The stories vary from some that are more engaging to others that are pretty much cookie-cutter examples of early Sixties action shows.

One of the better episodes has Anthony George attempting to safeguard a very highly strung alcoholic dowager played by Joan Fontaine.  The shots of Joan in party frock staggering drunkenly around a party on this luxury cruise are hysterical.

I also liked the shows with Charles Laughton as a missionary and Joseph Cotten as a survivor of the French resistance.  There was a good one with, I think, Ricardo Montalban as an old buddy of the George character's.

Having read a good deal of official and unofficial Dark Shadows history over the years, I have a short answer to why Burke was written out--Dan Curtis made up his mind that Burke had to go, and he went!  Anthony George probably asked for a raise, a surefire way to get Dan to give you the boot back in those "good old days."

The writers would protest that storylines and audience expectations were being disrupted, and Dan would narrow his eyes, angle his golf club, and ask "are you writing the show, or not?  I can get other people to write the show if you don't want to do it."

G.

We have the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to thank for the fact that notes such as this now appear so routinely in the press.  Let's hope that the author of this little piece bothered to mention Keitel's appearance (as a barfly at the Blue Whale, wasn't it?) on DS because he thought it was cool. 

Philip Glenister, who originated the character of Gene Hunt on the BBC series of which this is a remake, was so scorchingly brilliant that even somebody of Keitel's calibre has his work cut out for him taking on such a role.  Keitel is something like 20 to 30 years older than Glenister, I believe.

I also find it hard to imagine anyone other than John Simms playing Sam Tyler--and I doubt whether the US series will be as gritty as the UK original. 

In other remake news, yet another story about a US incarnation of Absolutely Fabulous has shown up on Wikipedia.

G.

If you ever uncover anything about who actually wrote and recorded the music (i. e. the man/men/people behind "Score Productions"), I would love to read about it.  The music is one of my favorite things about the series... I have never been able to figure out if others love it too, or if I am in a minority.

I look forward to seeing the new goodies!  A closeup of Irene's kaftan--wow!

Best,

Steve