I got to see a video of the Louis Jourdan version many years ago, and I'd love to see it again.  The ending is the closest to the book ever filmed, I believe.

Apart from that, some of my other favorites:

The Lugosi Dracula--the first fifteen minutes or so show you everything you ever need to know about Gothic horror.

The Jack Palance Dracula; some wonderful moments.

I think of the Hammers my current favorite is the 1969 Taste the Blood of Dracula, because it's been so beautifully restored on DVD, and Anthony Corlan (aka Higgins) makes a lusciously beautiful hero; Ralph Bates has a wonderful bit in the beginning, as well.

I've been meaning to screen again the Lee version directed by Jesus Franco, El conde Dracula.  I last saw it in the mid Seventies.  Klaus Kinski's disturbing realism in the part of a viciously deranged Renfield stood out.

G.

Christopher Isherwood in his novel The World in the Evening has a section where two of the characters discuss "camp."  I believe that this predates Susan Sontag's much better known Notes on Camp.  The Isherwood novel is one of the first mainstream texts to discuss what began life as a very gay concept (I am using the word "gay" here to refer to homosexual people and our culture, not "stupid" as has become the meaning of the word in  high schools and chatrooms around North America).

In it, Isherwood distinguished between high (or highbrow) camp, and low camp, as saying that high camp is like a production of the Tschaikovsky ballet Swan Lake--so stylised as to have a certain ridiculous grandeur, which only really "works" if everybody involved performs their parts with the utmost seriousness.  Isherwood would have argued that something like a production of Swan lake by les ballets trocaderos de Monte Carlo (a celebrated all male ballet troupe with some brilliant dancers in their own right) was low camp if not burlesque because they are deliberately "sending up" the material.

I think the increasingly outre storylines of Dark Shadows required a more "elevated" stylistic positioning of actors and direction.  There is also the factor that so many of the people involved in DS had worked either in theatre or from a tradition (such as Fifties Playhouse 90 or Studio One type anthology television) that was more informed by theatre.  In my opinion there is an over-emphasis today on "naturalistic" performance due to the fact that it requires far less technique to bring this off than a really stylised performance of complicated material such as the typical DS script presents.

Besides, YOU try and find a "natural" way of saying this line:  "Nobody and nothing will stop me from letting everyone know exactly What You Are!"

G.

I can't help mentioning that my "wicked" side thoroughly enjoyed both "Aristide asks Tim about Quentin" (and, hmmm, did their chat involve Quentin's linguistic abilities, specifically with the French and Greek tongues?  Hell's Bells, I just came close to using one of those damned smilies!!) and "Tim tells the hand it's exactly what he needs"--I imagine a dialogue caption from this one reading, "hallelujah, my days of mail-order from Fredericks of Hollywood's are OVER!"  Briscoe's expression in the latter image was truly priceless!

Seeing Julia turn up in the July 17th show was a real treat for me when I watched this show last weekend.  I'd forgotten she appeared in it.

I thought it was hilarious that they actually made Karlen and Frid pick up Dennis Patrick's body and hoist it up those stairs.  Apart from everything else, fanciers of vampire lore would expect that with his great strength, the Undead Barnabas would have easily been able to sling Jason up those steps singlehandedly.  Of course, Karlen's bit when he has to touch Jason's dead body provided the emotional highlight of the entire episode.  What a brilliant thespian!

Thayer, of course, was wonderful as well in both of those shows.

G.

Thanks for posting these.  It looks a little better than I had expected, and Townsend seems to have grown up quite a bit--not the pouty ingenue of just a few years back any longer.

I guess they completely bought out the rights of Jeff Rice, the original author of the novel in which the Kolchak character first appeared, to his material.  The character now sounds a lot more like the Sebastian Spence role in First Wave, a late Nineties Sci Fi channel thing.

The scene where they were examining the tracks rang a bell; wasn't there a line of dialogue in there that sounded an awful lot like: "but what kind animal would attack humans for their blood?"

G.

MB, I thought both the caption re propositions and the choice of shot (especially the expression on Burke's face) were HIGHLY salacious.  I can just see the dialogue running along these lines: "Haskell, believe me, I'll make it worth your while.  You keep going on and on about that boat you say you want.  I'm offering to pay you extremely well for something you're going to enjoy anyway." heh!

I thought today's 1967 episode had some great moments.  The scene between Liz and Carolyn played so plausibly, although I think it would have been even better if the writer had not chosen to have Liz under sedation for that first scene.  And the wind-up with Willie and Jason is wonderful payback for us viewers after having to squirm through how horribly he treated Liz over the preceding months.  Grand stuff.

It would be interesting to speculate on just why Claude North dropped so suddenly out of the scene in PT 1970.  He was set up to be the central figure in the next arc of the PT story.  One can only presume that DC initially planned to have the PT storyline continue through much of the summer, and then abruptly changed his mind, leaving his writers to take on the task of tidying up some extremely botched plot-threads.  It's often forgotten that sudden switches in plot direction were dictated directly by DC in story conferences the writers were required to attend.  I've always wondered whether DC paid himself the Head Writer's salary because of this.

Wonderful work again, MB!  thanks!

G.

This reminds me of another passage in the original DS Almanac that still gives me a headache everytime I think about it:  they quote an interview with Grayson Hall about a time when she and Jon appeared together at some event and the crowd of screaming teenagers literally broke through the police barricades. GH is quoted as saying something like "Now, I'm an old warhorse, but that was enough to rattle even me."

In all my research for the biography, I never could find the interview where Grayson recalled that incident, nor have I ever seen a photograph or other reference to GH and JF appearing together at such an event.  I asked Jonathan about it once, and he recalled a time when he was being chased and had to run into a building to take shelter (sort of like the start of A Hard Day's Night, I guess).
It was not clear to me whether this was on the same occasion, however, or whether he was gallantly attempting to remember SOMETHING from the blur of all those public appearances to give a good answer to my query.

I figure that Malia might have done a listing of all JF's recorded public appearances, but unfortunately, I don't own her book (which I hear is excellent).

Sorry to natter on and on about this.  I periodically post here hoping somebody will have a clipping, or something, to provide further info on this.  I have sort of figured out that the interview must have been one that Melody Clark (one of the authors of the original DS Almanac) did with GH when she was running her fan club--as such, the material may never have seen the light of day, apart from this snippet.

G.

I agree with everything you write here.  I thought this was an excellently played and written story.  I am still missing some of the episodes from this period.  The one I especially want to see is the one where [spoiler]Mrs Johnson learns that Matthew was responsible for Bill's death.  I'm sure Clarice Blackburn's performance was wonderful in this sequence.[/spoiler]

There were a couple of ingenue-kidnapping storylines in later DS.  Probably the most disturbing of the later ones was [spoiler]Maggie Collins' kidnapping by John Yeagar during PT1970.  The way that was portrayed bordered on shocking for 1970 TV, particularly the scene where Yeagar was fondling Maggie's things and licking her pearls, etc.  I had to wonder whether Pennock improvised some of that.  He was really disturbing in that role.[/spoiler]

Gothick

Is #1055 the one with that marvelous 365 degree pan around Roger while he's talking to Maggie?  I thought that was one of the more spectacular bits of camera legerdemain on DS.

Too bad that Liz's Forties gown with the "boa" cuffs didn't read better in the captures.  As fate would have it, I just watched this episode earlier this afternoon.

G.