Author Topic: Happy 50th Anniversary, Night of Dark Shadows (Read 104307 times)

Mysterious Benefactor · « **Reply #75 on:** August 29, 2021, 03:32:19 PM »

If you want to learn about or refresh your memory concerning the background of Saturday's quote -

Page 11/Scene 33 - Quentin: 'Is this one of the family?'

- and/or today's quote -

Page 11/Scene 33 - Carlotta: 'That's Angelique Collins. She died in 1810.'

- check out -

Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on January 26, 2016, 08:00:53 PM

And more of Scene 33:

- this post...

Mysterious Benefactor · « **Reply #76 on:** August 29, 2021, 06:16:46 PM »

Before continuing with the 25th, I want to jump ahead briefly to today because 50 years ago today was the last time I saw NoDS is a theater.

It's a bit odd that we chose a Sunday to go because, as you may have noticed, there was no discount at the Durfee Theatre on Sundays, tickets were $2. And while $2 would be a pittance to see a film today, it was a bit pricey back in the '70s - especially for kids who still only had an allowance. (For example, I saw literally hundreds of films at the local mall back in the '70s and I never paid more than $1.25 a showing.) Not to mention we'd only paid $2 a car when we went to the Ponta Drive-in.

But price was actually the smaller part of the oddness of the decision because buses didn't run on Sundays where I lived, and our parents all had commitments that Sunday and couldn't give us a ride, so we had to walk. And the funny thing is I remember that walk as if it was just yesterday - but then I've already said that I remember all the circumstances surrounding the three different days I went to see NoDS.

Though the good thing is we weren't going to have to walk home because my mother said she would pick us up at the theater around 9pm on her way home from the party she was going to, and that timing was perfectly fine with us because it meant we'd be able to see NoDS three more times that day.

And it probably won't surprise anyone that I still have the ticket stubs from all three trips to see NoDS:

Mysterious Benefactor · « **Reply #77 on:** August 30, 2021, 01:48:19 AM »

And now, what awaited discovery in the outer lobby of the Durfee Theatre:

You may wonder why the outer lobby was so big or why there even was an outer lobby. Well, that was because the Durfee Theatre wasn't just a movie theater, it was also a stage theater. In between films, traveling stock plays and musicals sometimes played the theater, more often than not featuring big name stars. (Though sadly none of the plays Joan Bennett did on tour during her times away from DS ever played there. It would have been a huge hoot if one had.) And it wasn't just plays/musicals because in 1969 Lillian Gish hosted a retrospective of her silent films at the Durfee. The outer lobby was so big because that's where audiences gathered to wait before being allowed into the box office lobby to present their tickets for plays/musicals or to purchase tickets for plays/musicals/films.

But we're more interested in what the outer lobby's purpose was with regard to films, and that use was as a place to display lobby cards for the current film and to advertise posters for upcoming attractions. And something that dawned on me as I was preparing material for this post but foolishly never dawned on me back in '71 was that rather than sitting around wondering when NoDS was going to open, we could have simply checked out the outer lobby to see if NoDS was being advertised.

During business hours the outer lobby was always opened to the public regardless of whether or not you intended to see a film or you didn't. And if you check out the photo, you'll notice a glass case in the middle of the wall on the left side. that's where the coming attractions posters were displayed.

But for the purposes of this post, we're more concerned with the case on the far right of the photo because that's where a film's lobby cards were displayed. And that's where I first saw the eight NoDS lobby cards. Most of you have probably also seen them. But I'm going to share them for those who may not have. But I'm going to post them in the order the scenes they feature come up in the film rather than in the order they're numbered. Here are the first four: