Sound a little bizarre? Well, it is. The ever popular Kathleen Cody appeared in a bizarre 1970's exploitation movie called Girls on the Road. It's also known as Hot Summer Week. Cody and her girlfriend are naive high school graduates who want to let their hair down and be as wild as a PG rating will permit. Soon, they are off on a road trip, causing middle-aged old guys to drive off the road by flashing them. Soon, they pick up Vietnam Veteran Michael Ontkean, who has odd flashbacks and is well versed in drugs. This eventually leads to a beach where political candidate Ralph Waite is in charge of a hippie love cult. And, just to keep things from getting dull, there's a mysterious figure strangling teenage girls! It's a very 1970's drive in movie that isn't quite sure what it wants to be. Ontkean and Waite went on to do much better projects. Cody is quite pretty. That's about it.

It just came to my attention that TwoMorrow's Publishing has issued a book called Monster Mash. It's a retrospective on "The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze in America, 1957-1972". It is a look back on the pop culture phenomenon that included Famous Monsters of Filmland, Aurora model kits and certain vintage TV shows. Dark Shadows is definitely included. The drawing of Barnabas from The Curse of Collinwood appears on the cover. There is an interview with Jonathan Frid, as well as John Astin, Al Lewis, Forrest J. Ackerman and Bobby Boris Pickett, among others.
TwoMorrow's Publishing puts out some very high quality books. I have a few myself. However, I do think that $39.95 is rather pricey for a 192 page book; it's a hardback and full color.
It's available through Amazon. The company website twomorrows.com offers a 15% discount for online orders.

Donna Wandrey will be appearing on stage in a play called Miracle on South Division Street. It will be at the Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield, New Hampshire from December 3 through December 20. For the performance schedule and tickets, the theater's websiteshakerbridgetheatre.org/html/shows.shtml

I saw Donna do a play here in Connecticut several years ago. She was excellent, and I'm sure she'll be just as good in this.

DS alumni Abe Vigoda will be making a return appearance at next month's Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, New Jersey. As before, he will be available only for professional photo shoots. No autographs. The cost is the same as it was the last time, $60.00. It is a very limited opportunity, as he is only appearing on Saturday, October 24 and will not be available until 4pm. chillertheatre.com

I stumbled across a Marvel Comics character that I hadn't encountered before. Her name is Catseye, a mutant with lavender hair and slitted eyes who transforms into a werecat. Why am I mentioning this? Because the character's civilian identity is Sharon Smith. Yes, she spells it differently from our beloved Sarah Collins but I thought that the coincidence was too delicious to pass up. Btw, I informed Sharon Smyth of this and she was quite tickled.

I wonder if Catseye ever met Sebastian Shaw.....

I am sad to report that longtime fan Diane Eckert, who posted here as adamsgirl passed away earlier today after a long illness. Longtime festival goers may remember Diane from her appearances in the costume gala and the Collinsport Players. Diane was always friendly and a lot of fun to be around. She will definitely be missed.

I had a great time at the Friends of the 1991 weekend in Norwalk, Connecticut. I'm no Prof. Stokes but here is my account of the weekend.

There was a bus trip to Essex on Friday. The town of Essex was used to represent Collinsport in the early episodes. The Griswold Inn is a quaint New England restaurant with great food at a reasonable price. You can indeed stay overnight there, if you so desire.

The Evans cottage is nearby. It's a private residence and, in the past, the owners were less than thrilled about having DS types descend on them. The surviving owner has had a big change of heart. She came outside and happily answered questions and posed for pictures.

The event itself took place at the Double tree hotel on the Norwalk/Darien line. It was wonderful to have the body of the event take place in air conditioning. (I don't care who's sponsoring it. Having an event in the stable at Lyndhurst is very second rate).
All of the announced guests showed up and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Beverly Hayes, who played early werewolf victim Donna Friedlander, had never been to any kind of fan event and was genuinely flattered that fans remembered her character. She said that they had to use some rather creative staging for her stalking sequence, as the werewolf was out sick.

Joanne Dorian played a small role as a nurse in one of the last episodes of the NBC revival. But she also played another role in the series. She read the part of Julia Hoffman in two of the auditions for Barnabas. One was Ben Cross. The other was Michael Stroke.

Christine Domaniecki talked about winning the Miss American Vampire contest in 1970. She made the costume herself, spending $4.00 on the material. She was thrilled to appear on DS as a barmaid in 1840. She spoke about how nice John Karlen was to her. But she didn't hit it off well with Joan Bennett. ("You're in my chair. Get out of it.") Christine became a professional makeup artist and especially enjoys working on horror films.

Donna Wandrey and Sharon Smyth Lentz are always fun. Donna is still active in theatre and was genuinely touched when several fans made a special trip to see her perform in North Carolina. Sharon has done a couple of independent horror films. They were asked about the Big Finish audiodramas. Sharon said that she would love to do one but she hasn't as yet been asked. Donna said that she would only be able to do one if it was a union job.

Jim Fyfe is now a history teacher. For the most part, he doesn't act any more, though he did a couple of things in Bulgaria that ended up on the Sci Fi channel. He was doing another project when he was cast as Willie Loomis and wasn't able to get to the shoot immediately. His first encounter with DC went like this: I waited a week for you. You'd better Be good.

In short, this was a small event, similar to the early days of the festivals in Newark. There was plenty of time to interact with the actors and to socialize with other fans