I just became a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro even though I have seen none of his movies (and doubt whether they would prove my cup of tea)--thanks to his commentaries on the Night Gallery season 2 DVDs which I rented via a popular subscription service. I was stunned at how literate, even erudite, del Toro is about not just classic horror cinema, but the classic fiction of the 20s and 30s including some of the now obscure authors such as Seabury Quinn and Donald Wandrei. He is also a very astute observer of actors and bothered to research the careers of performers I love such as Barbara Rush who are now pretty much forgotten. (His remarks about Yaphet Kotto in the commentary on "The Messiah on Mott Street" shows great insight into qualities of Kotto's that would go right past the casual viewer.)
I'm sure that del Toro watched reruns of DS as a child in Mexico, and I'd be very surprised if he had not seen the films as well.
Last night, inspired by MB's new series of shots from NoDS, I got out my tape of NoDS (from the old laserdisc) and watched several scenes. I really can't get over the beauty of the camerawork in that film. The scene with Quentin on horseback slowly "tuning into" the flashback of Angelique's funeral could have been shot by Claude Renoir. In the funeral scene itself, I was started to catch a brief close-up of Clarice Blackburn I'd never noticed before. Always a treat to revisit a favorite film...
G.