"Eye of the Devil" airs Wednesday afternoon on TCM.  In my time zone (central), it's at 4:30 p.m.  I won't attempt to adjust the time for Eastern or Pacific time zones for fear of getting it wrong.

The final scene of this movie appears to me to have inspired the final scene in "Night of Dark Shadows."  Without wanting to give too much away, just think of the mansion (or chateau in "Eye"), the car about to depart from it, and someone going back inside ...

One of my favorite things about this movie are the many dream/trance/hypnotic states that thread the movie from nearly the first scene to the last.

This will likely be my only post until May, but I came across this recently and wanted to share it here.

The following link is to a mansion built on mid-coast Maine in 1795!

It bears no resemblance inside or out to Collinwood, but it could easily be seen as a model for the Old House.

I recommend taking the tour, and especially viewing photographs of the Main Hall/Entry, the Staircase landing, the kitchen, and the bedrooms.  Also check out the dining room for a hint at what the one in the Old House might have looked like!

http://www.knoxmuseum.org/montpelier.html

-Vlad

The name "Angelique" would seem to be very rare in French.  I wonder how the DS writers came up with it?  It would be impossible for me to separate DS associations from the name itself, but it is a beautiful name.

On Thursday this name came up in a surprising context that I wanted to share - I was meeting my friend at a coffeehouse.  We both have an interest in family history, and, rather surprisingly, we both have exactly the same countries of origin, which happens to be a rather unusual mixture whether in this part of the country or elsewhere.  Both of us have a great grandfather from France.  Anyway, my friend was showing me the results of his recent genealogical research, and I probably startled half the patrons near me (not to mention my friend) when I shouted "Angelique!  You have an Angelique?!"  One of his great-great grandmothers bore that name.

Although my friend has a favorable opinion of DS, he hasn't seen much of it and didn't know the significance of the name until I explained.  I was a little embarrassed by my outburst, but I remain somewhat envious, I can't help it.  As I told my friend, I would give anything to have an "Angelique" in my ancestry!

(The closest I can come, though, now that I think of it, is a great-great grandmother in the French line who was named "Marguerite."  Now if I should discover that she practiced witchcraft, that would be very interesting!)

At one point Count Petofi (or is it professor Stokes?) comments on how he enjoys Chartreuse (a pale green liqueur made only in France).  Recently while in a liquor store I saw this for the first time ... I was looking for a liqueur called Absente, a modern version of the still-banned-in-the U.S. absinthe.  Absinthe is an anise-flavored liqueur that was the rage in Europe in the late 1800s and was a favorite of Van Gogh and Oscar Wilde.  I'm certain Quentin Collins was familiar with it.     A friend and I have been interested in this, but it is close to $40 a bottle, about the same price as the Chartreuse.  Now I'm wondering whether to buy the Chartreuse instead (if I buy anything - and if my friend also pitches in  ).  Has anyone tried either of these and able to testify to the Count's refined taste?

I don't have any of my DS resources to consult and I was wondering if someone would be willing to briefly recap for me what role the plague played in 1841 PT.  I remember it being mentioned several times, but I don't remember if the writers reallly went anywhere with it.  Did the plague end up being significant in the events of 1841 PT?  Or was its significance perhaps in the past when the two lovers lived, [spoiler]whose bodies I think were being kept in some odd state of preservation deep in the bowels of Collinwood and were accessed through a secret panel at the back of the "lottery" bedroom?[/spoiler] My memory on all of this is hazy, especially since I missed the last part of 1841 when it aired last time.  I remember I really liked this last storyline.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of a "plague."  The first I remember hearing the term was when an elementary school teacher either read us, or told us the plot, of Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death."  I'm not sure why I've had the fascination, but perhaps I'm not alone as the concept does come up in books and films on rare occasions.  The most memorable to my mind being Bergman's superb "The Seventh Seal," set in medieval Scandinavia.

Recently I re-watched one of my favorites of the Roger Corman Poe adaptations, "Masque of the Red Death."  He clearly borrowed from Bergman the "Death as a hooded figure" motif who interacts with some of the characters -- and to very good effect, IMO.  I'd be curious if anyone has pinpointed exactly what each of the hooded figures represents in the final scene ... e.g. I think the yellow one may stand for cholera, etc. but haven't looked into it further than that.  (I'd also be curious if anyone has an explanation for the three figures that appear in Julianka's Satanic-inspired vision.  One appears to be an Aztec, one an Egyptian priest, and one an Egyptian pharoah.  Unfortunately there is no director's commentary on the DVD, although Corman does provide a good interview.  Also, who was the old man said to have been left alive in the village, and why was he spared?)

The subject of the plague recently came up for me in a way that hit closer to home than I would have guessed.  From time to time I pick up the threads of my family history research, and I only recently learned that the Moselle department of France where my direct bloodline originates was devestated by the plague in the mid-1600s.  (This immediately following the Thirty Years War, which had alone killed off half the population.)  The bishop in touring the area where my family is from recorded that there were only 10 people still alive.  It has been disturbing to know that my own ancestors lived through something so terrible, but it also raises the question of whether they survived the plague through immunity, or whether they were among an influx of people who repopulated the area sometime later from neighboring regions, or if they simply moved back after the plague had passed.

Could someone who is computer knowledgeable answer this question?  I know it's not DS related but perhaps it could be helpful to others who use computers to access this forum .. 

I have had so-called "Dell Service Alerts" pop up on my laptop from time to time.  These aren't dated items and it took me a while to realize that some of them were just general information about the computer.  Now, however, I have gotten a couple of these Dell Service Alerts regarding Windows SP2.  They say I should download and install this.  Since these aren't dated messages, I have no idea if this is something new or not.  I could swear that I downloaded something called "Service Pack 2" for Windows back in February.  I remember the "SP2."

However, I cannot find that anywhere on my system.

For more information the Dell message said to go to Microsoft's page.  So I went to that page, and it scanned my system and said I needed to download and install it, a process that would take over an hour.

However, I don't want to do that if it's already on my computer.

Also, if it's really that important, I should have gotten a Windows Update message automatically, and I've never gotten one of those.

Does anyone know what the heck this SP2 is all about, and if it's something that has just come out, or might I have indeed installed it last February?

How important is it?

Thank you in advance, anyone who can help ...

 

Relevance to DS:  DS did their take on "Frankenstein" with the Adam storyline!  

I am interested in only two movie versions of "Frankenstein":  "Terror of Frankenstein" (aka "Victor Frankenstein") directed by Calvin Floyd in a coproduction of Ireland and Sweden.  I used to promote this version whenever the subject of movie versions of Frankenstein came up as this is the ONLY movie version that follows the book faithfully (a few things are left out, such as the Justine subplot).  However, on viewing it for about the third time (it's available on a cheap DVD, which at least looks a heck of a lot better than the print I had taped from a TV airing a few years back), I'm not sure I can enthusiastically endorse it to anyone other than those who have a great interest in Mary Shelley's novel, or perhaps to a class that is studying the novel.  The settings, scenery, and atmosphere are good, but the acting is pretty dreadful, and the Swedish accents are, well, it's hard not to laugh, especially at the Creature's accent (my apologies to any Swedes out there)!  The late British actor Nicolas Clay (Lancelot in "Excalibur") gives the film's best performance as Henry Clerval.

Dan Curtis' version, well, I bought the tape from MPI, but I just couldn't make it through the tape ... the only other film I remember not being able to make it through (though I finally did with gritty determination and at least 3 tries) is "Citizen Kane," but that's another story ...  Maybe it got better after the first hour; some day I'll give it another try when I have absolutely nothing better to do or to watch.

The version I am most enthusiastic about at this point is the 1973 NBC-TV late night two-part adaptation "Frankenstein: the True Story" with Leonard Whiting, Michael Sarrazin, Jame Mason, and Jane Seymour (and delightful cameos by Agnes Moorhead, John Gielgud, and others).  I remember being sorely disappointed in this version when I saw it while in grade school -- I had just read the novel upon my aunt's recommendation, and although the novel's philosophical themes went over my head, it was clear that the "True Story" was anything but a faithful adaptation of the novel.  Still, I remained curious about it over the years but never saw it again until a couple of years ago when the complete mini-series aired on cable.  As I watched it again and did some reading on it, I saw that this was a highly original and interesting re-visioning of the novel.   I've since learned that the characters were actually molded on the real-life circle of the Shelley's:  Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Dr. Polidori, Claire Clairmont, et al.  So the story works on several levels.  All of this had certainly gone over my head as a kid, as did the homoerotic elements and other aspects.  I've been reading the script recently which is somewhat different from the version that aired on TV, at least in some introductory scenes with Mary, Percy, Byron, Polidori, et al.  I feel that this script, which was widely available as a mass-market paperback at the time (I think I remember seeing it at supermarket checkouts, that type of thing) inspired whomever wrote the movie "Gothick" which picked up on the Shelley circle (in a rather bizarre movie that I didn't care much for).  The script, by the way, was co-authored by Christopher Isherwood, who apparently was dissatisfied with the way the TV production was toned down or changed from his script.

I have a question regarding the recent (maybe 2 yrs ago) airing:  does anyone recall what station aired it?  I think it was AMC but can't be sure.  The airing was completely unscheduled ... people here were anticipating the Dan Curtis version, which is what the station had announed it was showing.  I know people here were disappointed at the time, but they actually were treated to a version that has been highly praised by critics and which many, many people would have given a lot to have known it was airing (people had been searching for the film or waiting for a re-airing for 30 years at that time).  I would like to contact whichever channel it was that showed it and request a re-airing so I could tape it again (I missed the very beginning last time).  Apparently this appeared on VHS a few years back in a very shortened form that completely destroyed the film's integrity.  It has not been made available on DVD.

"The Love Letter" with Campbell Scott and Jennifer Jason Leigh, directed by Dan Curtis, re-airs at 8 p.m. CT tonight on the Hallmark Channel.

This is a decent made-for-TV movie with a love-across-the-centuries fantasy angle.  Curtis borrows from DS with letters crossing the centuries through the hidden drawer of an old desk.