Ah, but Roger Collins wore HIS ascots "with a difference"!

I'm fascinated by the notion of (RT) Roger Collins as a closet homosexual.  It would actually explain a lot about the character.  In some ways he is very much in the vein of stereotypical "killer queens" in the more lurid 1950s paperback--the sort that came along in between Gore Vidal's "The city and the pillar" (1948) and John Rechy's "City of Night" (1963) (James Barr's "Quatrefoil" published in 1950, evokes the "twilight world" of closeted gay men of that time with a vivid clarity).  I am thinking now particularly of the original concept of Roger as seen in the first year of the series.  With Jason's appearance on the scene, Roger segues more into the snooty rural country club squire type--the kind who would characterize the rough trade his niece was dating as a "cheap, insufferable pig!"  (lol)  I always wondered whether Roger got written out of the Summer of 1970 storyline simply because the writers had run out of things for him to do.  I would guess that the real reason is that Louis Edmonds was doing theatre and needed a break.

The gay man who desires the glamorous woman of wiles appears most obviously in Laura, but in All about Eve the character of Addison is the same, and I still find his scene where he claims "Eve Evil, little Miss Evil" for his very own unutterably delicious.  In my younger days I found this scene just plain confusing because, like Eve herself, I couldn't imagine what Addison was actually planning to DO with her.  Presumably, become a trophy wife who would put paid to those persistent rumors regarding his true nature.

Fascinating speculations in this thread...

G.

Warmest welcome to our beloved Marie!  That's so nice of you to stop by.

We wish you all very best with your current projects.  You know you are a fan favorite!

cheers, Steve
who will never quite forget the day Professor Stokes announced that Eve was the reincarnation of "the most eee-vil woman who ever lived"!

MSC, you always seem to choose scenes for these posts that I absolutely ADORE!  That scene between Burke and Miss Hoffman is better than HEROIN (not that I know what Heroin is like, but if I did, it would be BETTAH).  It's a Land-o-Lakes moment like two sticks of BUTTAH lashed together in a rough-hewn manner!

I love how Miss Hoffman gets treated by Burke "just like one of the boys" and the two of them discuss the future of his courtship with Vicki.  The dialogue may be occasionally banal but the way the two actors play this scene is absolutely priceless.

As for the firetrap thing--I've heard Marie Wallace tell the story more than once about how, in one of the scenes where Eve travelled back in time to revisit her 18th century life as Danielle Roget, her wig caught on fire and Irene Hamalain had to frantically rush in and douse the flames.

G.

I personally blame the writers and directors for a lot of the clumsiness, one-note performances and odd (or, in some cases TOTALLY LACKING) transitions in the 1991 series.  From what I can recall of the circumstances of the time (I was actually living in China when it was being produced and broadcast so this is all very second-hand), I suspect that the real villains were some of the NBC network supremos--"the suits"--who, I seem to have heard, kept interfering and micro-managing.  I know I read somewhere that they were the ones who demanded that during the 1790 story, they keep switching back to show what was going on in 1991.  That leaves even less time to work out an already crowded & compressed storyline for 1790.

Just to cite a specific example--I just re-watched episode 6 and there's a scene at the beginning of the show between Willie and Carolyn that is a re-staging of a scene originally played in the film, house of Dark Shadows.  In the 1991 version, neither actor appears to have been directed, and Barbara Blackburn, who plays Carolyn, doesn't seem to be doing anything at all--literally sleepwalking through the scene.  And not in a way that relates to what is supposed to be happening.

At the end of this episode, I find it clumsy, poorly paced and a complete mood-breaker when Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as David comes into the room and makes his little announcement.  That scene desperately needed a rewrite but, as seems to have often been the case, they probably ran out of time.

I know that the actors cast in the series were an exceptionally talented group.  I have seen Lysette Anthony in other work produced in England and know she has chops.  I really feel sorry for her at the embarrassing antics she had to put on as Angelique--it's really at the level of cheap panto.  But at least, from what I can recall from an interview I saw from her at the time, she had fun doing it.

G.

Yeah, in those first shows, there's kind of a Miss Havishamesque quality to the fact that Liz, who has not left the house in 18 years, is dressed as if to attend Bobby Darin's big concert in the Rainbow Room at Caesar's Palace.

It's too bad we didn't get to see, oh, say, Liz grilling frankfurters at the stove in full tiara 'do, drop earrings, stunning cocktail gown and high heels, glaring with a coldly imperious look in her eyes as she turns the recalcitrant franks.

ROGER:  Liz, why do the hot dogs have to ALWAYS be well done?

LIZ:  Because I CHOOSE to cook them so!

G.

I am revisiting the 1991 series mainly to enjoy Barbara Steele's performance again.  IMNSHO by far the best bits of that show are Steele's scenes with Ben Cross.  Between them they packed *a lot* of subtext into a show that was otherwise poorly scripted and directed.

G.

This is by and large a pointless observation, but I'll make it anyhow.

In the original 1967 storyline, Barnabas' great love for Josette was [spoiler]finally revealed to be a complete will-o-the-wisp.  In a conversation between Julia and Barnabas in an October '67 episode, Julia ALMOST gets Barnabas to admit that Josette never really did return his love.  He certainly gets very annoyed with her "poking and prying."  It's implied that the only love Barnabas really knew as a human was from Sarah.  Remember how, when he was with Miss Winters in the Old House during his initial arrival, he laughs bitterly at the notion of there ever having been any "love" in that house.

All this implies that Barnabas' original story was much more tragic--and emotionally twisted--than the romantic narrative eventually revealed in the 1795 storyline.  Of course, the original story would have been a lot less satisfying, emotionally, for the audience, had they kept to it for Vicki's time travel back to the past.

Montague Summers reports a number of versions of the folk tradition that a suicide may return as a vampire, as a nosferatu, and I wonder whether Art Wallace had intended this as the original backstory to Barnabas' existence as one of the living dead.[/spoiler]

G.

I don't mean at all to rain on the parade, but does anyone know how Mr. Frid feels about this?  I have heard that he is a fairly private person and basically wants to be left alone at this point in his life.

I thought of this because shortly before this topic was posted, I was both amused and said to hear that Ennio Morricone (I think--my short term memory is in tatters these days) is going to receive an honorary Oscar this year, and he is upset about it because he never wanted one in the first place.  (I just checked the IMDB news item on this and it seems that he isn't THAT unhappy about it after all.)

Just thought I'd ask.

G.