When Shamus McCoy Met Pansy Faye

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey, gang,

While browsing through YouTube the other day, I came across a film I hadn’t seen in fifty years, “Shamus,”  starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. Burt Reynolds portrays Shamus McCoy, a down-on-his-luck Brooklyn detective, who is hired to recover some stolen diamonds.

While tailing a possible suspect, Shamus observes the fellow from a Manhattan book store run by a very attractive and a decidedly zaftig young woman, who is portrayed by Dark Shadows’ own Kay Frye, a/k/a “Pansy Faye.” Shamus, for obvious reasons, is instantly attracted to the comely bookstore owner and, after some brief but highly effective flirting on his part, gets to know the lovely young woman in the “Biblical sense.”

It’s somewhat remarkable how different Ms. Frye’s character looks in this gritty detective film than from how she looked while on Dark Shadows. While Pansy Faye was dressed in an especially garish manner with a lot of flashy
 jewelry and a ton of makeup on her face (not to also mention that Cockney accent of Pansy’s), the bookstore
owner wears glasses and looks like she had bought her conservative clothes at the ladies section of the local
Brooks Brothers’ store. That’s quite a contrast!

Incidentally, this encounter between Shamus McCoy and the beautiful bookstore owner in “Shamus” is a tribute
to a similar scene in Howard Hawks 1946 film, “The Big Sleep,” where private detective Philip Marlowe
(Humphrey Bogart) “encounters” a similarly voluptuous bookstore owner (Dorothy Malone).

In looking up Kay Frye’s acting career, she did not have a lot of credits. Ms. Frye appeared in some television
movies in addition to her work on DS and in this film. Ms. Frye’s year of birth is listed as 1928, which would
have made her about 41-years-old when she portrayed Pansy Faye on DS. She did not seem to be that old to
me on DS. Sadly, Ms. Frye died in 1991 of cancer at the reported age of only 63.

I very much enjoyed watching Kay Frye on DS as the saucy and irrepressible Pansy Faye. I think the DS writers made a big mistake when they killed her off so soon, almost immediately after Carl Collins brought her to Collinwood as his fiancee.
It would have been great fun to have seen how Pansy got on as sister-in-law to the “slightly” dour Judith Collins
and the “slightly” stuffy Edward Collins. However, I think that Pansy and Quentin Collins would have hit it off right from the
start as kindred spirits! 

“Shamus” also features a scene in which Burt Reynolds is threatened by a knife-wielding thug, portrayed by another DS alumnus, veteran stunt man Alex Stevens, who subsequently gets his arm broken and then slammed into a wall by Mr. Reynolds’ macho character.

Another DS alumnus who gets hit by a two-by-four piece of wood by Burt Reynolds, is actor Captain Arthur Haggerty, a huge and completely bald man, who was one of Angelique’s executioners in the second Dan Curtis DS film, “Night of Dark Shadows.”

If you have never seen this enjoyable 1973 detective film, you might want to check it out over on YouTube, if only to catch Pansy Faye, the werewolf and Angelique’s hangman in other screen roles!

[Annie]

Hey Bob, that’s interesting, I remember seeing Diana Millay on Perry Mason show.
I think I recall that film maybe not, but thanks for sharing this. Its always nice to
see our actors and actresses from DS.
Take care Anne 

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Anne,

There were a number of NYC-based films in the early 1970s, in which you would see DS actors appear. In “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” you see Kenneth McMillan (sailor Jack along, who tried to help Paul Stoddard get rid of Paul’s Leviathan tattoo), Sho Onodera (Olivia Corey’s business associate) and Isabella Hoopes (the feisty Grandma-ma Edith Collins).

In “Three Days of the Condor,” you can spot Hansford Rowe (one of Vicky Winter’s 1795 judges), Ed Cowley (one of the Collinsport policemen, who shot Willie Loomis around 20 times in the back) and, of course, one of my all-time DS favorites, Addison Powell (Collinsport Hospital emergency room physician/mad scientist and half
of the truly legendary DS comedy
team of Lang & Clark!). 

There are a number of other Big Apple-based films where you see DS alumni, including “Bananas,” “No Way to Treat a Lady,” “Joe,” “Love Story” and “Serpico.”

One exception to these early 1970s/NYC-based films is the 1972, San Francisco-based film, “Play It Again, Sam,” which features the great Jerry Lacy as the ghost of Humphrey Bogart, who attempts to aid the helpless Woody Allen with his feckless attempts to date women.

The film also features former DS actress Diana Davila (the beguiling 1897 gypsy woman, Julianka), who portrays an attractive, but spacy woman, Woody Allen tries to pick-up at an art gallery. He asks her, what is she doing Saturday night, and she replies, “I’m committing suicide.” To which Woody quickly replies, “Well, what are you doing Friday night?”