Another top "gay" moment in DS is the scene in Parallel Time 1970 where Roger and "Alexis" are having a gossip and Roger smirks that mentioning Maggie Collins in the same breath as Angelique is like comparing a sable to a mouse.

Edmonds' delivery, and Parker's admiring smirk of response, make this one of the cattiest scenes in the entire show.  I've always thought that PT Roger was meant to be a twisted gay character in the vein of the late, great Clifton Webb in the classic 1940s film noir Laura.  Roger didn't just admire Angelique--he wanted to BE her, on at least one level.  Edmonds played PT Roger with an air of ruined grandeur in the scenes where he was alone soliloquizing to Angelique's portrait that definitely had a Forties feel to it.

I realize that today's viewers may vehemently deny that there's anything remotely "gay" about PT Roger--I'm just offering my opinion here.

G.

Hi Nancy!

I do vaguely recall our having discussed "The Secret Room" zine.  If memory serves, when that zine was being launched I had attended all of one DS Festival and had more enthusiasm than discrimination when it came to the world of Fandom.

Thinking of Barnabas spending two centuries trapped in his coffin in the secret room could indeed seem like the ultimate "closet" tale.  I also thought of Julia's story on the show as preparing a gay viewer for experiencing the pangs of unrequited love for an unavailable man.

cheers, G.

Heather, Darling, that snapshot of Our Favorite Brain Surgeon/Psychiatrist/Obstetrician/Haematologist is truly DIVINE!!!!!  You just made my day!  Thanks so much, sweetie!

For the record, I am "the gay guy" who wrote that essay about the appeal of DS to gay men that's 'floating around on the internet."  Unfortunately, the essay was a DRAFT that I sent to a fan I won't bother to name here as a POSSIBLE contrib to his short lived zine The Secret Room which was meant to be a mag for gay fans of DS.  Well, not only did this character use my DRAFT in his publication as a finished piece of work, he failed to respond to any of my letters, and never even sent me a copy of his bloody zine! And then he had the audacity to post my work on the internet without, of course, bothering to ask my permission!  If I ever run into this individual at a Festival, believe me, darlings, the bitch-slap Julia gave Cassandra is going to look like a little love-tap Miss Sally bestowed upon the Do-Bee of the week with her magic wand by comparison.

Anyhow, I'm glad that this very rough piece of work was deemed interesting reading by a student of literature and human character.  Thanks for the kind words.

Another essay I wrote about the Leviathans storyline for yet another zine is also "floating around on the Internet."  That editor also never bothered to ask my permission or inform me that he was posting my work on his website.  Dontcha just FEEL THE LOVE in our wonderful world of DS fandom?

But, I digress.  This is an interesting thread.  I just hope that the straight dudes among the fans don't feel that their masculinity is too "threatened" by the prevalence of gay/bi DS fans in the group. We know from today's mass media that straight masculinity is something of a fragile, delicate little flower, needing much pampering and coddling to manage to achieve even a modicum of vigor.  At least that's the impression I get from some of the tempest in a teapot debates online...  Again, I digress.

One of my favorite "gay, gay, GAY" things about DS are the scenes where it's the middle of the night and the girls are all in bed with their high heels on.  And there's more than one scene where Liz rises from her bed in full street makeup with her hair down but sprayed and lacquered into a solid shiny mass, her nightgown ironed, pressed and starched, and the requisite heels... I'm afraid I can't explain just why this seems so FABULOUS.  I note with distress that the word "gay" has come to be a synonym of "stupid" among schoolchildren. What times we do live in.

cheers, G.

Fans, last weekend I had checked out of the library the 2006 DVD edition of the 1968 bomb THE MAGUS.  This film, adapted from a novel by John Fowles, was issued as part of three pack entitled THE MICHAEL CAINE COLLECTION.  The other two films in the set are DEADFALL (notable for a great John Barry soundtrack and entrancing theme song sung by the legendary Shrley Bassey), and the mid 1970s homage to 1940s gumshoe flicks, PEEPER.  The trailer was on the disc as an extra and was narrated by Thayer David doing his best Humphrey Bogart impersonation (I wonder whether he got Jerry Lacey on the phone to let him know that he was poaching on Lacey's turf!).  It did feature one clip from Thayer's scene(s) in the movie (I'm not sure he had more than the one) and I was impressed all over again by Thayer's powers of concentration, as he had some very complicated piece of dialogue to deliver while a vulture meant to be his character's pet was being fed morsels of raw meat!

I've meant to track this movie down since, basically, forever, and now that I know there's a DVD out there, will try to make it sooner rather than later.

G.

Oh, there are impending actors and directors strikes?  The idea of a director's strike is rather amusing.  (I need that line of Gregory Trasks about taking charge of the inmates in the asylum and the animals in a zoo.)  I always thought that if there were no TV in America, we might get some real changes because people would actually have to start paying attention to what's going on around them.  I'm no longer that optimistic, though...

In all seriousness, my former boss just returned from a lengthy stay with her daughter and son-in-law who are TV writers and she says that the ripples from the strike are crippling the economy in certain districts of LA.  If further sectors of the entertainment industry shut down, it's going to get quite ugly out there.  I'll keep our cousins who live in the greater LA sprawl in my thoughts and prayers.

I have to agree with the MB that the original screenplay of hoDS would be fabulous to see, particularly if they tweaked it and made the denouement something more interesting than the 1970 bloodbath.

G.

Fans,

A friend informed me yesterday that Grayson Hall's episode of The Man from UNCLE, "The Pieces of Fate Affair," is available for viewing on this site for free:

http://www.guba.com

I haven't tried this yet but am posting here in case anybody who hasn't seen it wants to have a go.  Her role as Jody Moore, "literary critic and assassin," is my favorite of the guest roles Grayson did on episodic TV (of the ones I have been able to see, that is). 

I don't know whether her episode of The Girl from UNCLE, "The High and Deadly Affair," is available on this site; it might be worth checking out.

cheers, Steve

I really feel for Jean Simmons too, being given so little to do as Elizabeth.  OTOH, after seeing what they made Blair Brown do in the WB pilot in the role, I realize now that it could have been so much worse.  Brown's turn in the part is like the Saturday Night Live skit on Dark Shadows.

The role of Laura was going to be played by Lysette Anthony and I believe the plan was to combine the characters of Laura and Cassandra (maybe they got the idea from the fact that the two wore the same dress successively in 1967 and '68?), which is why they describe Laura as a Witch rather than a Phoenix.

The character of Daphne came from hoDS (the movie) as does the jerky pacing of the first few episodes.

There's a lot of material available on the 1991 series, including a book, Dark Shadows Resurrected, with a companion video (which should have been included as an extra on the DVD set but wasn't because MGM was both cheap AND incredibly incompetent, hacking out visual content in the image to make the series convert to faux letterbox, as the Mysterious Benefactor's screen captures above show clearly).

cheers, Steve

I agree of course about both the Leviathans and Parallel Time 1970.  Both heralded a very different shift in tone and atmosphere and for at least awhile the shows they gave us explored new horizons for the series.  I can actually recall being intrigued by the whole set up of the Leviathans, Barnabas' icy demeanor towards Julia and fake solicitude towards others, etc., back in '69-'70.  It's such a wonderful story for the Yule season and the theme of encroaching darkness--and of course, the birth of a mystical child.

It would be interesting to see the original outline for the story, which I think was supposed to last five or six months, before DC panicked because of the dropping ratings and hate mail and made them do the "everything including the kitchen sink" routine with the plot.  (Although, I still love the episode where we go from Bruno orgasmically flogging the werewolf to Barnabas "conferring" with Megan.   Also love, love, love the scene where Julia finds out that Barnabas has "talked" to Megan and her reaction--this stuff is better than heroin!  Why, it's better than two sticks of Land-o'Lakes, lashed together in a rough-hewn manner!)

But I digress...  (btw, PT 1970 may have given us the finest performances for two of my top favorites--Grayson Hall and Thayer David--both had such wonderfully understated, nuanced characterizations in those shows.)

G.