Happy 50th Anniversary, Night of Dark Shadows

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting an observation about the previous still:

It's a amazing how unobservant one can be for over 50 years. I didn't realize until today that 1) in the above still in reply #772 Tracy and Quentin are entering the foyer, not the vestibule, as they do in the film, and 2) they're each carrying double the suitcases than they actually do in the film when they enter the house -

- because they've left some suitcases (and art supplies) behind the car -

But then, as I've pointed out before, this still (which I'd completely forgotten I had back when I was dealing with the Lobby Cards versions) of Carlotta greeting the couple is quite obviously also taken in the foyer -

(Click here for a 700X476 version)

- and as I've also pointed out before, Scene 28 was actually scripted to take place in the foyer -

...

... 28     INT - FOYER - DAY                                 28        ...

 - but apparently for whatever reason DC decided to shoot it in the vestibule - but not knowing that beforehand, the still photographer took his photos where they thought the scene would be shot...

...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting the differences in the subtitles/closed captioning and one bit of dialogue for Scene 28:

...

Carlotta greets Quentin and Tracy off screen with "Mr. and Mrs. Collins" - and then once she comes on screen, she adds "Welcome to Collinwood. I'm Carlotta Drake" - and the subtitles reflect all that exactly - but as we know the closed captioning often has a strange aversion to contractions so it has -

- and after Carlotta goes over to them, as she shakes Quentin's hand, he says "Thank you, Miss Drake" - and the subtitles also reflect that - but the closed captioning only has -

- not to mention the closed captioning jumps the gun and has Quentin's line on and off screen before he even says it - and similarly the closed captioning displays Tracy's reworked "How do you do" -

- before she says it and shakes Carlotta's hand - though the subtitles get things right by having it be on screen as -

- the end of Scene 28 crossfades into the beginning of Scene 29.

...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting the original slideshow:

... the original slideshow featured this line of dropped dialogue:

NoDS: Scene #28 - Carlotta: 'It's so good to have you here. I
do hope you'll find everything to your liking, Mrs. Collins.'

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting the Lobby Card versions associated with Scene 28, which, as I previously noted was scripted to take place in the foyer but was actually shot in the vestibule:

... I suspect all DS fans and certainly all NoDS fans are aware of the 11X14 sets of Lobby Cards for NoDS (and hoDS), but I wonder if all those fans realize that there's also an 8X10 set for each film with the same photos? Although, the photos are somewhat cropped for the 8X10 sets.

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11X14 #6

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(Click here for a 930X738 version)

...

8X10 #6:

(Click here for a 930X737 version)

...

Though as I've mentioned before, I prefer the version of the still revisited up in Reply #2115.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting how Scene 29 is scripted:

...

29     INT - DRAWING ROOM - DAY                          29        A Carlotta-led tour is in progress.  Tracy stands        at the piano, toying with the keyboard, as Quentin        examines a piece of sculpture with a professionally-        amused eye.  Carlotta is holding forth.

And that's when Tuesday's quote -

Page 9/Scene 29 - Carlotta: 'Mrs. Stoddard, before her death, served tea here every afternoon.'

- comes up, followed by Wednesday's quote -

Page 9/Scene 29 - Quentin: 'I'm afraid that's one tradition we won't keep.'

- coming up, followed by Thursday's quote -

Page 9/Scene 29 - Tracy (trying out one of the sofas): 'Oh, no! We can't let the house down. Why don't we call Claire and Alex. Tea in the drawing room with the lord of the manor.'

- coming up, followed by Friday's quote -

Page 9/Scene 29 - Quentin (to Carlotta): 'Oh, did you tell the Jenkins' we'd be here today?'

- coming up, followed by the script continuing with:

29     CONTD                                    CONTD    29

And that's when yesterday's quote -

Page 10/Scene 29 - Carlotta: 'I didn't know you would wish it.'

 - comes up.

End of scene.

And so far there are still no differences between the way DC's and Grayson Hall's scripts are written - and while there are no notations worthy of mention in DC's script, Grayson's has something that will be mentioned below.

And when it comes to anything different with the dialogue, as far as the first three quotes, the only thing that's different is a few words are rearranged or dropped here and there, but nothing that changes the point of anything - however, when it comes to Quentin's scripted line asking Carlotta if she'd told the Jenkins they would be arriving, that line is actually given to Tracy in the film - and when Carlotta doesn't reply because her attention is deeply fixated elsewhere (and we'll get into that below), Tracy delivers an unscripted "Carlotta, did you tell the Jenkins we'd be here?" - and after Carlotta shakes her fixation, what she actually replies is "No, I'm sorry. I didn't know that's what you wanted" - and then with a smile she follows that with an unscripted "Come, let me show you the rest of the house" - and Tracy replies with an unscripted "All right."

And so far as the directions and descriptions go, as can be seen in this capture -

- Scene 29 doesn't start off with Tracy standing at the piano, toying with the keyboard, or with Quentin examining a piece of sculpture because it's actually Quentin who sits at the piano and toys with the keyboard - and as alluded to above, at the point that Quentin begins to play the piano Grayson writes in her script "Q is playing chords on the piano. Moment of my recognition" (which certainly seems to point out that Grayson was aware when she made the notation that the sequence of Carlotta watching Quentin and Tracy's arrival and reacting to seeing Quentin's face was not going to be shot) - and as can be seen in the following capture -

- rather than trying out one of the sofas, Tracy actually comes over to the piano when she suggests they call Claire and Alex and invite them for tea - and after Carlotta suggests she show them the rest of the house, she moves to leave the room with Tracy following and Quentin gets up from the piano to also follow.

   And as far as "Tuesday's quote" goes, it was August 15th this time around, and "Wednesday's quote" was August 16th, and "Thursday's quote" was August 17th, and "Friday's quote" was August 18th, and "yesterday's quote" was the 19th.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting switching of the dialogue as well as unscripted dialogue for Scene 29:

When it comes to today's quote in the slideshow -

Page 9/Scene 29 - Quentin (to Carlotta): 'Oh, did you tell the Jenkins' we'd be here today?'

- as I'd explained -

Moving on to Scene 29:

- in the film it's actually given to and delivered by Tracy -

"Did you tell the Jenkins we'd be here today?"

- but just as with the previous examples, I didn't associate unscripted dialogue with its moment on screen, so I didn't showcase that when Carlotta doesn't reply because her attention is deeply fixated on Quentin's playing of the piano, Tracy delivers an unscripted -

"Carlotta, did you tell the Jenkins we'd be here?"

...

More unscripted dialogue from Scene 29:

After Carlotta says that she didn't tell the Jenkins they were arriving that day because she didn't know that's what they would have wanted, she changes the subject and says an unscripted -

"Come, let me show you the rest of the house."

- and Tracy's reaction to that is to practically whisper -

"All right."

...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting the start of the subtitles/closed captioning for Scene 29:

When it comes to Scene 29, for the most part the subtitles get everything right - on the other hand, the closed captioning doesn't:

Scene 29 begins in the Drawing Room with Carlotta walking over to Tracy as she says "Mrs. Stoddard, before her death, had tea served here every afternoon" - and to that Quentin remarks "That's one tradition we won't keep" - and both the subtitles and the closed captioning get all that correct - however,  the closed captioning also indicates that Quentin -

- and after that Tracy speaks up and says "Oh, no. We can't let the house down" - and the subtitles get that correct - however, the closed captioning has -

- with the "Oh, no" missing - and it isn't until after Tracy says that that the subtitles indicate -

- and then Tracy completes her point by saying "We can call Claire and Alex and invite them for tea in the drawing room with the lord of the manner" - and the subtitles get all that correct - but the closed captioning has -

- dropping the "in the drawing room" but they do go on to say "with the lord of the manor."

More to come....

...

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Continuing to revisit the subtitles/closed captioning for Scene 29:

...

When it comes to Quentin's scripted line asking Carlotta if she'd told the Jenkins they would be arriving, that line is actually given to Tracy in the film - and both the subtitles and the closed captioning get that right -

- and when Carlotta doesn't reply because her attention is deeply fixated on what Quentin is doing at the piano, both the subtitles and closed captioning reflect that Tracy delivers an unscripted -

- and speaking of Carlotta's fixation with what Quentin is doing at the piano, at the point that Quentin begins to play Grayson writes in her script "Q is playing chords on the piano. Moment of my recognition" (which certainly seems to point out that Grayson was aware when she made the notation that Scenes 25 through 27 dealing with Carlotta's reaction to seeing Quentin's face were not going to be shot).

More to come....

...

 

[Uncle Roger]

I guess they never got around to the afternoon tea. I hope that the house didn't feel too let down.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I hope that the house didn't feel too let down.

Hopefully not.

(I'm still rooting for the mooning with the lord of the manor. 

Re: Night of Dark Shadows Scene 29

 )

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting wrapping up the subtitles/closed captioning for Scene 29:

...

After Tracy's second question to Carlotta finally breaks through Carlotta's fixation on what Quentin is doing at the piano and Carlotta answers with a reworked "No. I'm sorry. I didn't know that's what you wanted," Carlotta then delivers an unscripted "Come, let me show you the rest of the house." - but the closed captioning has -

- as does the subtitles -

- which also jumps up to Tracy's unscripted response - and the closed captioning acknowledges the same response -

- after which Carlotta moves to leave the room with Tracy following and Quentin gets up from the piano to also follow.

End of scene....

...

 

[Uncle Roger]

I hope that the house didn't feel too let down.

Hopefully not.

(I'm still rooting for the mooning with the lord of the manor. 

Re: Night of Dark Shadows Scene 29

 )

Can you just imagine a Lyndhurst tour group stumbling onto the mooning sequence??

[Mysterious Benefactor]

   That would have been something - especially if it was David Selby, Kate Jackson, John Karlen and Nancy Barrett all doing the mooning to some villager extra!! 

Although, knowing how cheap DC was, he probably would have shot the sequence from the villager's POV so we wouldn't have to see the villager and he wouldn't have had to pay an extra. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Revisiting a still that pertains to Scene 29:

...

...

And a better version of the still:

(Click here for a 700X540 version)

...

And the only places I can recall it being officially published is in John Willis' Sceen World Volume 22 (which features all the films of 1971) and on page 23 of the Movie Soundtracks' booklet. Neither has a caption worth sharing because all both do is identify the actors...

...

And you'll probably recall the still is #20 in the NoDS Editor's Portfolio.

 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Before we move on to 30, I want to revisit ...

... something regarding the Blu-ray/DVD and VHS/Laser versions of the film that may only be an issue that I not only find interesting but also puzzling. Specifically, it's something about the transfers. Over the course of working to get screen captures and videos of the film I've noticed that whereas, unless there's an actual crossfade transition from one scene to another, as there is from Scene 28 to Scene 29, that's supposed to be apparent because it's seen by the audience, when it comes to the Blu-ray/DVD transfers most scenes lead directly from one scene to the next without any sort of transition effect, but that's not quite the case with the VHS/Laser transfers. When it comes to the VHS/Laser, regardless of whether there's a transition effect between scenes, there's seemingly always at least one frame that contains aspects of each scene.

Here are two videos I've created for the change from Scene 29 to Scene 30 that probably show what I'm getting at better than I can explain it (I've slowed down the individual frames so that each displays for 2 seconds rather than the 33/1000th of a second they normally display at):

Blu-ray:

Laser:

Like I said, it's puzzling to me why the VHS/Laser transfers seemingly created an intermediate frame between scenes that the Blu-ray/DVD transfers don't have. Shouldn't all scene changes of a film play the same and true to the actual film regardless of what video format the film was transferred to? Apparently not. At least not in the case of NoDS (and probably also hoDS - I haven't checked it).

Maybe if Darren Gross sees this post one day he'll be able to explain why there's a difference. Or if anyone reading this now knows why, please feel free to tell us because I would more than welcome an explanation.

And to go off on a tangent from the main point of this post, you've no doubt noted that I've brought up the Laser disc version of NoDS and shared frames from it. Well, that's because I've always wanted to own a copy of the Laser discs of the films and several months back I saw a nice deal on a never opened copy, so I bought it. But not owning a Laser disc player, that meant that I needed to find one that 1) wasn't strictly Japanese, which is the case with way too many available for sale online (Japanese players are 100V AC and would fry if used in the US because we have 120V AC) and 2) didn't cost a ridiculous and astronomical amount of money (just because good Laser disc players aren't readily available, that's no excuse to milk the public for all they're worth! - I'm talking to you, way too many eBay sellers!!). Luckily a few months ago I found one that got glowing reviews back in the heyday of laser discs and didn't cost an arm and a leg, so I bought it, and I'm more than satisfied with it.

And that all leads to how I'd always heard that the Laser disc transfers of the films are so much sharper than the VHS transfers. And I've discovered that's very true, as you can see in this side-by-side comparison of part of a frame from NoDS Scene 30:

Laser         VHS

And considering my VHS copy of NoDS is starting to show wear, I'm more than happy to not only have another copy of that version of the film, but one that's sharper than the VHS...

...