Marcos!  Many happy returns to an Artist and a Gentleman!

Best, Steve

Grayson and Debs had a number of scenes together in Noti.  Miss Fellows is not actually in the scene but I love it when Hannah (Debs' character) is chopping up the fish for dinner and is venting just a wee bit about Miss Fellows and chops the head of the fish off with a big WHACK.  Fabulous moment--and I write that as a vegetarian for the last 26 years.

I also loved Debs in Casino Royale, and she was wonderful opposite Niven again in Eye of the Devil (a hauntingly shot 1966 film that deserves to be more widely known--same themes as The Wicker Man but much more understated and quietly creepy).

She had a flair for memoir as well, as her diaries about the shooting of Noti, published in one of the glossy magazines in 1963, show brilliantly.

G.

Fans,

A friend of mine who has cable has alerted me that Fox Movie Channel will be running the 1968 thriller Pretty Poison with a featured role for Clarice Blackburn. I checked the website and there are showings on Oct. 27 and 28.  The Oct. 27 showing is scheduled at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  There was also a showing listed in early November.

The same friend mentioned that they're running The Vault of Horror, the 1973 flick Fox released in a mutilated print on DVD a few weeks back.  I would presume that since the studio claimed that the butchered version was the only one available to them, that is what they will be running on their TV station.  I had heard that a pristine laser disc of this film was released in Japan many years ago (early 1990s?) and that a fullscreen version came out on DVD in the UK of the complete print.  I guess Fox can't pay shipping charges for overseas materials??

cheers, Gothique

The ironic thing about hoDS historically is that from what I have read (not my own research), the movie did boffo box office business.  So, even if it was a failure on other levels, commercially it was a huge hit--in an industry which has a history of total myopia beyond anything other than commercial success.  By market dictates, DC got it right on the money.

I do think the movie benefited from the cinematography of Arthur Ornitz.  He gave the proceedings a very lush visual style (although I think there were a couple of gaffes--notably the first shot in which we see Barnabas full-face, which is poorly, awkwardly framed and not properly lit at all--I'm quite sure that the speed with which they churned it out is to blame for this).
And, of course, Robert Cobert's score, not to mention Lela Swift's uncredited work as AD helped a great deal with atmosphere and tone.

Wasn't the axing of a lot of the introductory stuff the result of pressure from the MGM suits?  I believe that Dan deleted the later sequences establishing Barnabas and Julia's relationship before he delivered the final print to the studio, but I thought that on Darren's old site there was material about cuts that the suits wanted for the sake of conserving their 90 minute running time for drive-in showings and double bills.

hoDS and NoDS weren't the only films of that period ruined by excessive cutting.  Dr Phibes rises again is another example although I think it still holds up pretty well.  There are others that could be mentioned.

Another irony is that Hammer studios was on very shakey ground in 1970-71.  I think it was around this time that Warner Bros. decided not to renew the deal to distribute Hammer's product in the US--now that I think of it, I think this came a bit later, in '73?  I know this is why some of the final Hammers such as Satanic Rites of Dracula and To the Devil, a Daughter, took so long to play in the US and weren't exhibited very widely.

G.

Hi buzz, welcome.  I'm a huge fan of Luciaphil and her column as well.  Unfortunately, she abandoned the column a year ago (no doubt due to very legitimate real-life responsibilities) and hasn't been able to resume.  She wrote some hysterically funny fan fiction as well--I remember a number involving Julia and Roger that still make me giggle. And a fascinating novella, The Education of Judith Collins, with a marvelously fleshed-out portrait of Grandma-mamma Edith.

You might want to check out a thread on this Current Talk board called something like "So, I'm finally doing 1840."  I think you might want to take a break and go back and watch the 1966 shows and then come back and finish watching the last year of the series.  It does get somewhat better once they go to 1840 but it is still a mixed bag.  I gave my views on the remainder in that thread.

Hope you continue to enjoy Dark Shadows!  Keep in touch.

Best wishes,

Gothick

I have the impression from my reading that women like Abigail Collins were a dime-a-dozen in households of the 18th and 19th centuries.  When I visited Herman Melville's homestead some years ago, the elderly but vigorous tourguide took a certain relish in relaying to us how the rooms of the house swarmed with female relations who had nowhere else to live (a common circumstance--"little women" eventually became not so little spinsters) and how Melville himself was the only person in the house with his own room--a study in which he wrote his novels.  The guide's eyes gleamed as she pointed out that the door had a lock on it and only Mr. Melville had the key (but I doubt whether he wore it round his throat on a locket).

G.

Golly, Gary Russell is still around and stiill writing Doctor Who stuff... *quickly checks to make sure it's not 1987*

The cover of the book is stunning, Stuart.  Congratulations!

G.

Very interesting.  Some of us have other views on the real story behind the cancellation of DS--we've gone over that so many times here that I'm sure the threads could be easily found if you search the boards.

I found it fascinating when I learned that the ratings for the series were actually going up in January-February of 1971.  It makes me wonder whether the show could have found a whole new audience had it continued into the Seventies.

On the other hand, conjuring up the image of David, Quentin and Roger in those loud polyester Seventies outfits with platform wedgies and ties wide enough to serve as bibs makes me grateful NOT to have had to live through all that.

G.