Thanks for the info, Luciaphil.  I just reserved a library copy, which was listed under the title "The Uninvited," not "Uneasy Freehold."

I really enjoyed Ray Milland, and when I mentioned who was in the movie to my mother, she said, "Oh, yes, Ruth Hussey.  She made a lot of good movies."  (I, on the other hand, had never heard of Ms. Hussey, nor of Gail Russell.  Imdb.com has quite a bit of info on both actresses.  Ms. Russell's life was definitely a textbook Hollywood tragedy. )

One more comment about the movie:  the foyer in the house reminded me of the Clampitt mansion on that other childhood favorite series of mine, "The Beverly Hillbillies."      

So sorry you weren't able to view the movie, Rainey.  I thought I was the only person who had never seen it.       If you can't find it to rent, you could probably find it fairly inexpensively to purchase (spoken by one of Barnes and Noble's best online customers   ).  I know I will definitely watch it more than once, so you may find it worth purchasing.

"BLEAK HOUSE?!!!"

Your favorite novel is "Bleak House"?  Lordy, lordy, you ARE a Dickens freak.  That one completely defeated me.  I've tried to start it 3 or 4 times, but the very IDEA of "Jarndyce V. Jarndyce" exhausts me!!  

However, I do use the term frequently....as in "....this ball game is taking longer than Jarndyce V. Jarndyce"....which produces blank looks from my companions, and a smug sense of superiority for me

Yes, very few people have even heard of "Bleak House," though it is certainly regarded as the greatest -- or one of the two or three greatest -- Victorian novels, and one of the top 10 novels of all time.  I would encourage you to give it another go-round.  I think as soon as you get to the minimalistic opening description that begins  "Fog everywhere.", you'll be hooked.  (I think you first have to get through a lengthy preamble about the Courts of Chancery, which I never fully understood.)  A very bittersweet, dark and tragic story.

The BBC did a nice -- albeit very understated -- rendering of the book some years ago that is available on video.  Diana Rigg in particular is superb.

I have heard that you only need watch most soaps on Friday, as nothing ever happens the rest of the time. Whereas, with DS, if you only watched one day of the week, you would have no idea what was happening by then!

LOL, exactly, kuanyin!

Interesting comments, Gothick.  I haven't seen any of the articles that appeared during the series' original run.  It would be interesting to read them.

Something else I was just reading jogged my memory about another point in the "New Yorker" article:  Most soaps are followed by people for whom the characters are "real" people; viewers do not think of themselves as viewing a fantasy but rather that they are viewing the lives of people they actually know.

The difference with Dark Shadows, at least for me, is that I am always aware that it is a fantasy -- and I love retreating into that unreal, fantastic world of Collinwood.

I've often drawn the parallel, for me, with the Land of Oz created by L. Frank Baum -- not that there is much similarity between those two imaginary realms!

OK, finally saw "The Uninvited."

Here are some of the similarities to DS I noted:  the name "Windward" for the house, which sounds similar to "Windcliffe" Sanitarium, not to mention "Little Windward Island" on DS; a "malignant" (or was that "malevolent") house, which is similar to how Daphne describes Collinwood in 1840 (and, also, incidentally, seems to echo Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables"); the sound of a sobbing woman late at night; flowers that wither suddenly; a woman in the past who falls to her death from a cliff near the house, and who now seems to haunt the mansion; the portrait of said woman; a floral scent accompanying a ghost's presence (cf. Josette's Jasmine, was it (one of my favorite teas, incidentally) and Daphne's lilacs) -- in this case, Mimosa (?), which I'd never heard of; an old book whose pages turn of themselves to reveal crucial information; and, last but not least, the perceived solution to a problem the family and friends are facing is to ... hold a seance!

I also noted that the male leading character's name was "Mr. Roderick," which seems to echo Edgar Allen Poe's Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher."  "The Uninvited" also seems influenced by Poe's story in having a brother and sister as inhabitants of the spooky mansion.  Interesting how unlikely a scenario that would be today (a brother and sister living together).

Not all of these similarities with DS would necessarily jump out at you, and some of them are probably stock events in haunted house stories.  Still, I'd agree with Luciaphil that the DS writers were inspired by "The Uninvited."

I enjoyed the movie, although not as much as I did "The Pit and The Pendulum," which I had watched the night before.

The ending of the movie seemed extremely rushed, and a significant element blatantly ripped off "Rebecca" (I'm hazarding a guess, anyway, that Daphne du Maurier's novel came out before the novel "The Uninvited" came out; at least the movie "Rebecca" preceeds the movie "The Uninvited" by about five years.)

And if I were to compare the movies "Rebecca" and "The Uninvited," I'd say I found "Rebecca" vastly superior.  I've seen that movie three times, and my appreciation for it grows each time.  Perhaps I'll need to do the same with "The Uninvited."

"The Uninvited" had quite a bit of unexpected humor, as well as actually dealing with the supernatural, and so the two movies are really doing two different things.  But the "Mrs. Danvers" character in "The Uninvited" was not nearly as effective, I thought.  The movie needed to explore this character more, and her relationship with her "best friend" who had foresworn ever having children (hints of a possible lesbian relationship lurk here, as in "Rebecca.")  And Hitchcock's direction of "Rebecca" is flawless.

The piece "Stella by Starlight" was lovely (if you have parents who were young in the 1940s, they're no doubt familiar with it).

It would be great to find a pianist who could play this at a gathering of DS friends ...

Just an FYI --

The current issue of "The New Yorker" magazine (I think the issue date is April 15) has an lengthy article on the soap opera format, specifically focusing on "As the World Turns."

There is some interesting background information on how the soaps got their start on radio and later TV.

One thing that I found interesting about the article was that in its depiction of soap operas, I realized how often Dark Shadows does NOT fit the typical soap opera "profile."  Just one example is the glacial pace at which soap operas have traditionally moved.  DS may have started out excruciatingly slow, but I think it left that aspect of the soaps in the dust once Barnabas came on the scene.

There were several other significant differences that I noted but don't remember offhand (since I didn't actually buy the magazine when I skimmed the article a few days ago).

After reading the article, I felt it would be inaccurate to refer to "Dark Shadows" as a soap opera.  And of course, it usually isn't referred to as such anyway.  The show was a one-of-a-kind and difficult to categorize.

BTW, Luciaphil, I forgot to mention ... I noticed in the opening credits that "The Uninvited" was co-written by Dodie Smith.  (In other words, either Leonard Maltin or I got it wrong -- as you said in another thread, Dodie Smith did not co-write "The Head That Wouldn't Die" or whatever it is!)

Someone may have been nipping the sherry ...

Fantastic websites, HeadofJudahZachary!

VAM,

Why the obscure list of names?

You can't have a list like this without including the greatest looker of all, Angelique!