Well, I'd say there's a lot in Karlen's onscreen performance that excavates lots of layers to Stefan's character as the film unfolds.  One of the best is his scene with Delphine Seyrig as they begin swapping stories about Countess Bathory.  I'm pretty sure that scene was done as was most of the movie in one take.  Incredible stuff.

If you get this DVD, you have to listen to Karlen's commentary.  I was struck that Anchor Bay also got the director to do a commentary so we also get to hear his side of things.

One of the many reasons why Anchor Bay is (or was) one of my favorite firms...  Too bad THEY couldn't have done the work on the 1991 DS!  but, I lacerate myself needlessly...

G.

Special thanks to MB today for the gorgeous shot of Julia in one of the prettiest bits of clothing she was ever allowed to wear on DS!  I still wonder whether Grayson just walked off the set wearing that coat, though tweed really was not the Divine One's style (there was a chic leather coat she did favor when was adopting what she fondly liked to call her "Bulgarian peasant widow" look--head scarf and huge insectoid dark glasses).

G.

I thought it was going to be on Saturday nights?  They've scheduled it opposite the dreary WB soap opera Schlongville, which my roomie tapes obsessively.  Oh well.  Sounds as if I am not missing much.

G.

Claude, such magnanimity! ... I ... I'm speechless!!

swooning, G.

The original Angelique had a set of very human motivations for her actions.  Some of the dialogue in Angelique's early scenes, especially the ones with Ben who is the only character to whom she was ever really honest (paradoxical as that seems), leads me to think that Angelique only wanted Barnabas in the first place because of the attraction between him and Josette.  She wanted everything Josette had--her position, her clothes, her wealth, perhaps most of all her respectability--her desire for Barnabas fit that pattern perfectly.  His rejection of her drove her mad, I think, because it was above all a blow to her pride.  The whole romantic thing about her putative unrequited love for him was something I always found difficult to fit into the way the character was established at the beginning.

I think they started out with a fairly clear vision for Cassandra, but the character ran afoul of the chopped-and-changed Adam subplot.  My guess is that Adam's role was beefed up because of all the fanmail I've read kids sent in who totally identified with the big lug.

I love Lara Parker's performance as Cassandra because it is so nuanced.  I thought she portrayed the character's inner conflicts, and even her vulnerability, really well.  I am also overweeningly fond of Cassandra, I suspect, because this was how I first saw the character but when I first started watching the show.

G.

I read an interesting story in the Inside the Old House zine several years ago in which that man turned out to have been ... Count Petofi!  Stokes' meeting with him nearly proves disastrous.

G.

Joan (as Margo Channing): To Hell with it all, Birdie, I need a DRINK!
Grayson (as Faithful Sidekick Birdie): Scotch is on the right, Sterno's on the left!

It's hard to limit myself to five, but I'll give it a shot:

(1)  Grayson Hall as Hoffman, the housekeeper in 1970 Parallel Time.  An amazingly subtle and well-crafted characterization, and very different from the rest of her work on DS.

(2)  Thayer David as Count Petofi.  Bravura acting at its most unforgettable.  I loved the subtlety with which Thayer suggested the Count's vulnerability beneath the mantle of arrogant superiority with which he enveloped himself.

(3)  Lara Parker as Cassandra Collins.  Too bad Tammy Wynette didn't record a theme song for Mrs Roger Collins: B-I-T-C-H!

(4)  Humbert Allen Astredo as Nicholas Blair.  Proving that evil is so much more fascinating to watch than good.

(5)  Nancy Barrett as Charity Trask possessed by the spirit of Pansy Faye.  Just ... superb.

There are MANY others but before I have time to think of them, I give honorary mention to Joan Bennett's 1966-67 work as Liz, and Jonathan Frid's extraordinary performance as Barnabas--both iconic characterizations that were THE faces of Dark Shadows at the time and in our memories for many, many years.

G.