Happy Birthday!

The casting of Jonny Lee Miller is quite a coup.  I just saw JLM in a "live" broadcast of the National Theatre (of London)'s production of Frankenstein, playing opposite Benedict Cumberbatch.  Fabulous actor and perfect presence for Roger (although who knows how any of these characters will appear in this new iteration of the series?).

No mention of Josette in that plot outline... interesting...

G.

Whoa, I can't believe they included that link to a Wikipedia article on the hanky code.

Straights aren't supposed to know about these things!

G.

Darlingest MB,

I played a clip of HBC dolled up to the nines on the red carpet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the annual statuette affair and she said, and I quote, "Yeah, I'm doing Dark Shadows.  I couldn't turn down playing an alcoholic psychiatrist."

I admit she didn't display a signed contract, but since she is married to the director?  (Kind of like Grayson being married to the Head Writer on DS and OLTL.)

G.

I wouldn't be surprised if that date gets revised for May 2013.

Remember, you read it here first.

G.

City of the Dead is better known in the US under the title Horror Hotel.  By far the best version of the film was released on DVD here under the British title, City of the Dead.  It was from a print crafted by archivists at the British Film Institute--they restored a crucial scene early in the film involving Patricia Jessel and Valentine Dyall (who is just as great as Christopher Lee, with this booming sepulchral voice).

Patricia Jessel was a very gifted actress who died in her late 40s or around 50 I believe.  She acted in the US and did a play with Thayer David and Louis Edmonds in the early 1960s, something called Catstick.  I think it was in the Southern Gothic melodrama genre. 

Another DS connection is that Grayson was cast in Patricia's role in the 1961 NYC production of a play by a young writer named Kenneth Jupp called The Buskers.  Grayson played Agata, who was an earthy sensual gypsy.  Sound familiar?  And the publicity for that play was handled by a young woman named Violet Welles, who went on to write for a certain daytime drama we all love...

Janet, in the Coolidge Corner neighborhood of Brookline here in Boston, there is or was a store called Cassandra Wigs.  I always wanted to take a picture of that and post it here sometime.

G.

To MB and/or Midnite, I would be interested to hear more about the context for the past two or three days' images in this series.  I keep meaning to set aside time to watch this episode and the following one on hulu but have yet to manage to do that.

Also, is there a reason why it's the second week of May and we're still looking at material from episode 4?  I had thought it was going to be one month per episode for a total of twelve?

Thanks again for working on this series; I have been enjoying it more than I expected to do so. 

G.

It truly boggles the mind that enough people must have purchased volume one that they are actually moving forward with the second volume.

Re-mastered, re-digitized, re-upholstered rubbish is still rubbish... by any other name.

G.