Thank you so much, Dreary One! Hope happiness and spook-tacular times prevail at Dreadful Manor this Halloween!

cheers, GothEEEEEEEEEK!

Great shot of Carl today. Such a good role for Johnny Karlen, and showed how versatile and nuanced an actor he was. Well, when he wasn't hysterically swinging on rubber tombstones, LOL.

MB, for some reason I thought you'd started watching DS right from episode 1 in 1966. I didn't start until June of '68 so you were still well in advance of me!

G.

Lovely shot of Nicholas today. He handled that moment very smoothly ... as was his wont.

G.

Lovely to see a shot of Keith Prentice and Grayson on today's entry. I know most fans do not like 1841 PT (to severely understate), but the last time I viewed it--which was far too many years ago--I found plenty to enjoy.  James' caustic exchanges with Julia are some of the parts that made me smile.

G.

Nice to see Horace Gladstone appear in yesterday's slideshow, though the shot (presumably the best available for the line) wasn't a terribly clear portrait of him.

And I'd forgotten about Beth's spirit appearing to "dear Gregory" at a crucial moment in 1897...

Wonderful series, Midnite and MB!

G.

A friend sent me this short note about the brief clip from an episode of DS on SUPERNATURAL this past week. Here's what he wrote:

Thanks, also, for the tip on the DARK SHADOWS homage in the latest episode of SUPERNATURAL.  I watched it last night, and the DS connection, while amusing, didn't amount to much.  Basically, in one scene, Sam and Dean break in on a couple of vampires who are watching an episode of DS.  We actually see a brief clip from the episode (one the installments from the 1795 storyline) and hear some dialogue between Jonathan Frid and Thayer David.  Before Sam and Dean interrupt the proceedings, one of the vampires muses to the other, "How come on TV vampires live in mansions, but we live in this dump?"  Now that SUPERNATURAL is in its final season, it's doing a lot of this sort of "fan service," throwing in extraneous touches that are amusing but don't really add anything to the story.  In fact, this episode has an even bigger shout-out to the movie GHOSTBUSTERS.  I've enjoyed SUPERNATURAL immensely, but after 15+ years I think it's time for the series to bow out gracefully. (end quote)

So there you have it. I think the series has actually been doing a lot of self-referential stuff for years now, from what a friend who watches regularly has told me, but it's nice to see that they acknowledged DS.

G.

That's interesting about Sam Hall's obsession with Lord Kitchener, MB. I'd never heard of that.

G.

Hi Gang,

According to the internet, it was on this date in 1941 that the film The Maltese Falcon had its premiere. I just watched a clip from this film of a dramatic confrontation scene featuring arch and enigmatic villain Kasper Gutman (played by the immortal Sidney Greenstreet) and his accomplice, the rather fey but lethal Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre). And I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I've been aware for years that the original characterizations of Count Petofi and his fey but lethal accomplice Aristede must have been inspired by these two. Particularly the Petofi characterization--in an interview, DS writer Violet Welles, who invented the character of the Count, mentioned that she'd thrown in a reference to him in an early 1897 script, and the character sort of grew and grew until he more or less demanded to be brought onstage.

Needless to say, the casting of Thayer David as the Count was a must--and resulted in some of the most brilliant and eccentric scenes of DS.

Count Petofi,wherever you are, I salute you! Remembering your words: "I know but one god... and his name is Petofi!"

G.