From Films in Review: Shocker of a Story About Sam & Grayson

[David]

http://69.195.124.61/~filmsinr/2014/11/16/the-shadows-on-the-halls/

Written by noted film historian and journalist David Del Valle.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, anyone who has read Sam's interview in the DS Files series of books from back in the '80s shouldn't be surprised by most of that. And truthfully, Sam is hardly the only source that has had less than flattering things to say about DC. So...

[David]

The extent of Sam's bitterness and the allegations regarding his sexuality were not previously known, though.
Hall's alleged snobbishness is what I'd expect.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

When it comes to Sam's bitterness, that was pretty much known. As for the other, well, I'd say the personal opinions the writer stated about Sam himself, while they may or may not be true, were expressed in a very similar manner to the way Sam was criticized for expressing his opinions about DC, so the writer hardly comes off looking better than his subject...

[David]

why was Sam bitter? Jealous of Grayson's fame?
Curtis, for all his faults, gave Sam a career and revived Grayson's then sagging career.

[David]

I did think the writer's anecdote that Sam urged the hot hunky camera guy to strip down to his shorts and "take advantage" of the pool hilarious. I've seen many queenie older men do that.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

When it comes to Sam's bitterness toward DC, his reasons are pretty well expressed in that DS Files interview (and there are corroborations in some other interviews from the books, such as with Art Wallace, Robert Costello , ...). And the interview and many of the things Sam had said have been discussed a few times on the forum...

[David]

I swear I missed all that. I better do some homework.
And yet, Sam came back for the 1991 revival.

I do take issue with Sam being compared to Barbara Cartland--he did some brilliant writing on DS.

[Gothick]

I'm sure Sam made a lot more with his work on OLTL than he ever did for DC and Dark Shadows.  So I hardly think Wildercliff was "the house that Dan Curtis built."  What a profoundly stupid and RUDE thing to say. 

G.

[Gerard]

Although this is being picky, the concentration/death camp scene with Sir John Gielgud was in War and Remembrance, not The Winds of War.  In TWOW, the character was played by John Houseman; in WAR, he was played by Gielgud.

Gerard

[Nancy]

Nothing new in that article.  The gossip (and that's all it is) regarding sexualities has been around for as long as I can remember (and is creepy the way it's all handled in this piece).  As MB has pointed out, the rest of the material has been brought up by Sam Hall or others in the past decades.

[David]

I definitely take issue with the author's claim that Sam Hall was a "hack", Sam did a lot of brilliant writing on DS.
But David Del Valle's credentials as a journalist and historian are impeccable. Likewise, Films in Review has a long and respected history of intelligent and intellectual film writing.
I suspect the portrait of Sam painted by Del Valle is far closer to the truth than many people would care to admit.
Along with many fans, I prefer to hear the truth--including about sexualities--from a real journalist. Because the truth tells me who these people really are/were, and that offers insight into the making of DS which enhances my enjoyment of it.

[The Doctor and K9]

Despite the fact that I was a fairly obsessive DS collector, I passed on many of the Files Magazines. I've checked the ones I did buy and can't find the Sam Hall interview. Does anyone know the volume it in which it was published?

[Gothick]

Doctor and K9, I think MB means the DS Files book edited by Edward Gross (no relation to Darren Gross, so far as I recall).  To me the most interesting selection in the book was an interview with Grayson, which Gross claimed was the last interview she ever did before her illness.

The last I heard, the book, which is out of print, was selling for outrageous prices on the internet, but some diligent fan might have scanned at least some of the material.

G.

[The Doctor and K9]

Thank you Gothick. Yes there were several of those Files Magazines, and I have a number of them. Unfortunately, I don't have the one with Sam Hall's interview. Does anyone know which edition has the interview? I've seen them on EBay and Amazon with variable prices from fairly reasonable to outrageous. I have 3 or four of them, counting the "Tribute" book that was widely released and achieved an almost official status when it was heavily promoted by Walden Books and B. Dalton Books around the time the NBC series was airing.