My favorite scene is when he tells Carolyn and Vicki the story of Josette's death! It's a huge piece of dialogue and he's so good.

Scott, I've been thinking of that scene too, and was planning to post a separate thread asking if anyone has access to that speech.  Somone posted it on the forum several years back.  I would love to have a copy of it again!  Anyone?!?  A phrase that might be searched on google, perhaps?  I remember something about the bloodless body at the foot of Widow's Hill.

Frid did a superb job in that very effective scene!


*******

Regarding KLS, I'm sure she meant no ill will and has expressed her fondness for JF too.  She seems to tell anecdotes that will entertain an audience -- a few years back she was interviewed for a tabloid about DS, and some of her memories, while hilarious, are known not to have been accurate (for example, I think she repeated the story of someone jumping from Widow's Hill and bouncing back up into the frame).

Did you also catch the monster reading Milton's "Paradise Lost", Goethe's "Sorrows of Werter" and Plutarch's "Lives"?  Did they have old copies of those books at your book exhibit?

I do hope that the Hallmark's production will include most of these literary mentions as well as  depict that the monster acquired some learning and was an intelligent being.

Thank you for your message, VW, and for the links to the reviews, MB.

I'm not able to post or even read the board regularly right now but hopefully circumstances will let up eventually ...

Your comment about "Paradise Lost" reminded me that I tried to read that work after being introduced to it in Mary Shelley's novel ... I think I was about 10 or 11 at the time ...   I don't remember the references to Goethe or Plutarch - they were obviously over my head when I first read "Frankenstein", and even my reading of it as an adult was quite a few years ago and I don't recall those references, though I do recall references to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."  I note that the new production incorporated the references to the Creature reading Paradise Lost, which was nice.  I'm not sure if the occult texts were mentioned or not as I haven't been able to watch the new adaptation too closely but I do have it on tape.

BTW, the exhibit I saw didn't have those literary texts as part of the display, too bad they didn't include them.  I'll try to include a link here to the exhibit that shows the cities it has been/will be in.  http://www.ala.org/ala/ppo/currentprograms/frankenstein/frankensteinexhibit.htm

The adaptation has had some good moments, and the location work is very nice.  The creature is portrayed as intelligent and articulate, as in the novel.  Overall the adaptation follows the novel loosely, but it seems somewhat drawn out and I don't find the additons to be an improvement.  I think "Terror of Frankenstein" directed by Calvin Lloyd is a more taut adaptation and remains extremely faithful to the novel, and it's location work is perfect.

I recently had the opportunity to see a rare book exhibit at a Wisconsin university relating to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."  Of particular interest, I took note of one glass case in which were enclosed occult texts printed centuries ago.  I wrote down several of the titles:

- Agrippa, Three Books of Occult.  London, 1651

- Albertus Magnus.  (Didn't get the title)  1495

- Paracelsus, Prognosticatio.  France, 1560 (this was in Latin)

- Secrets of Albertus Magnus, Of the vertues of herbes, stones & certain beasts - whereunto is newly added a short discourse of the seven planets, governing the nativities of CHILDREN.

- Paracelsus, Of the supreme mysteries of nature: of the spirits of the planets, occult philosophy, the magical, sympathetical & antipathetical case of worries [not sure of my handwriting here] & diseases, the mysteries of the 12 signs of the zodiac.  London, 1656.  (This was in English.)

It was fascinating to view these centuries-old, fragile yellowed books, most of them quite small, with their tiny, fine diagrams, schemata, and occult symbols.

It wasn't until later that I remembered that in the novel, before he begins his scientific studies, Victor dabbles in the occult, even attempting to raise the dead (albeit he is only a teenager at the time).  The only movie version to portray this, as far as I know, is "Terror of Frankenstein," a Swedish-Irish co-production directed by Calvin Floyd, which portrays this quite well in one brief scene.

I consulted the novel and found that the books mentioned include the very ones displayed in the exhibit.  Namely, in Chapters 2 and 3, Victor speaks of his early interest in Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus.

It will be interesting to see whether Victor's early dabblings are included in the upcoming Hallmark production of Frankenstein with "our own" (well, almost) Alec Newman as Victor.  So far, Calvin Floyd's is the only version faithful to the novel, but I'm hopeful the Hallmark production might be the second.  I've taken another look at the production stills, and it looks very promising.  And I have no doubt that Newman's acting will be an improvement over the actor in the other film.  Hope I remember to watch/tape it.

Be bold, be bold ... be not too bold!

(Spenser, Faerie Queene)


Seriously, Josette, please keep us posted.  I still haven't downloaded -- haven't wanted to take the time to deal with it.

See, I'd disagree with that - I find a lot of the best periods of the show very fairytale...  Not in a twee Disney sense, but more in a dark, dangerous Brothers Grimm way.  I think 1897 in particular has that quality of slightly morbid whimsy, wonder and grand horror a great deal.

Not sure if you're disagreeing with my first or second post.  There was one specific instance in the past that I described on the VantageNet forum as a "dark fairy tale," and that had to do with the Roxanne storyline; also the visit of Barnabas and Julia to the elderly Charles Delaware Tate's home in whichever storyline that was (the one where his head falls off or whatever) has a sort of fractured fairy tale quality.  But those instances stood out as unique, at least to me, from much of the rest of DS.  I'm not sure I can pinpoint now the precise qualities that made me think of and describe these as dark fairy tales (but I tried to do so in the past).

How that translates into the pilot is a bit more difficult to explain, but it's definitely there, and from the clips shown, it really seems to work.  On the surface it doesn't sound too faithful to the original, but I think it's a much closer sibling to it than the 1991 series was.

It really has that quality of a haunted neverland.  The stylised colours and lighting really bring out the claustrophobia and enclosed sense of the original show...  not literal claustrophobia, but a dramatic feeling of it.  It's like the environment reflects how desperately these people are trapped by their own secrets and history.

What you described in your article and characterized as a fairy tale quality or something beyond that -- a haunted fantasy -- does seem to me a new quality from the original DS.

There may well be other aspects of the show that remind people of fairy tales but it does sound like you see a lot more of that in the original show than I do.

[No, I haven't been on board here for the last 12 hours straight - must have forgotten to log off before turning off my computer and leaving for the day ...  ]

Great photos, Stuart - the actors seem to really express their characters in those shots - I'm impressed.

I read your description of the pilot, too - everything you described sounded intriguing and visually this must have been stunning.  The terms "fantasy" and "fairytale" sound somewhat different from the DS we know, but potentially could have been a smart new direction to take a new version of the show.

Guess we'll never know ...

I'm aghast at your report that reviewers have been dismissing the R. Corman/V. Price Masque film as "trash"--when I was a young'un, the movie was widely regarded as the high point of the Corman Poe AIP series, beautifully stylised with exquisite images and a literate, provocative screenplay.  Only The Tomb of Ligeia surpassed it because it was just a bit more finished and had a more understated approach to the subject matter.  Perhaps today's critics regard Ligeia as trash, too.

I just did a quick survey of reviews of Corman's "Masque of the Red Death" on the Internet trying to find the one or two negative reviews I came across last week, but couldn't find them now.  One review might have just been someone posting on imdb, but I know that one was definitely on a "review" type of site that had a cache of fairly extensive reviews.  Happily, I see now that most reviews are positive and intelligent, such as the one on dvdverdict, whose reviews seem to be consistently high quality.

The site that dismissed Masque as "trash" (the term used might have been "garbage") reminded me of a similar one I've seen for "Eye of the Devil."  I know there is always difference of opinion, but then there is such a thing as obtuseness.  Even "Variety" isn't immune from that disease.  Last year I looked up Variety's review of "Eye of the Devil".  I can understand that the concept behind that movie might go over a reviewer's head, but there doesn't seem to be any excuse for blindness to its filmic qualities.  Highly original camera work was dismissed as "overly mobile" and inspired by TV commercials (I'm afraid I don't remember any particularly avante garde TV commercials in the late '60s).  No notice was made of the hallucinatory sequences (or the trance theme for that matter), though those sequences were to inspire Roman Polanski in "Rosemary's Baby" (Gothick, maybe you pointed that out to me).  No mention of the striking location work in the Aude department of France, nor of the highly original music score by Gary McFarland, which mixes elements of "classical" and modern  -  for example, the harp solo at the beginning (which is later echoed by bells), reminiscent of Ravel; the haunting vocals with a touch of early medieval polyphony; and modern symphonic sound, unusual enough for a film score.  (Sadly, McFarland only did one other film score before he was poisoned in a Greenwhich Village bar and died a couple of years later.  A handful of his jazz-influenced albums have been re-released on CD in the past few years but seem to have disappeared already.)

A footnote to the discussion above about the seven rooms of different colors in Prospero's palace in "Masque."  I happened to pick up a book yesterday that recounted a description by Manley Palmer Hall (probably from his Secret Teachings of All Ages) of rites associated with the cult of Odin which he believed followed the pattern of the ancient Mystery religions' rites of initiation, which involved the seeker passing through nine rooms until reaching the inner sanctum, where the initiate symbolically confronts  . . .  himself.  This is exactly what happens in Masque when Prospero confronts Death in the initiation chamber (I won't say anymore than that to avoid spoilers).  This seems more than a coincidence to me, even though the number of chambers differs.

I take it that Giuliana's    nightmare vision at the last stage of her initiation is the result of her conscience getting the better of her since part of her still holds back from giving herself over wholly to Satan.  On the other hand, the reviewer at dvdtalk, another solid site, views this as Giuliana becoming victim of a macabre joke for her malice after turning herself over wholly to evil.  (My thought is that she still retained some goodness and had truly tried to help Jane Asher escape.)

BTW, Death's voice is supposedly dubbed by Christopher Lee.  I admit it does sound like him in the final scene, so it's possible he dubbed it, though another source says it was John Westbrook.  I don't think IMDB provides a credit.

An aside about the DVD.  Mine seems to skip in several places which is distracting (as if a frame or two were missing here and there).  The film didn't do that when it aired on AMC a couple of years ago so I don't know if my disk is defective or what.  I haven't had that happen with any other DVD.

Re:  Ligeia:  I rank Ligeia as the best of the Corman Poe pics, with Masque probably at number 2.  The double-sided DVD pairing of "Tomb of Legeia" with Price's one-man dramatic readings of Poe (made for TV in the '70s) is sublime!

If my mood was dark in an early post, in addition to contemplating the effects of war and pestilence, I had been reading about witchcraft executions in Lorraine, which reached some of the highest levels in Europe.  I was reading about a nine year old boy who was executed by strangling after providing a full confession of his sorcery.  Of course the same thing happened in Sweden and elsewhere.

I'm trying to see if the DVD is available anywhere, but not having much luck so far.

The DVD of "Martin" was released by Anchor Bay in 2000.  Everyplace lists it as out of stock.  Then I found it at my old standby for VHS tapes, Critics Choice Video (ccvideo).  Strangely, after placing my order and getting a "Thank you for your order" e-mail message, I still haven't received a confirmation number for my order, which I was supposed to receive "soon."  I've e-mailed ccvideo, and they seem to have no record of my order (even though I copied and pasted their "Thank You" email in my message to them).  In the meantime, "Martin" no longer appears on their website!

However, a google search (man, I must really want this movie ...) lists "Martin" as scheduled for release on DVD on Nov. 11 from Artisan Entertainment.

I tried to find Artisan's website, but they have just been taken over by Lions Gate.  When I finally tracked down a Lions Gate/Artisan webpage listing upcoming DVD releases, "Martin" was not mentioned.