Wow.  That scene between Jason and Willie is so brilliant it almost eclipses the suspense and harrowing emotional rollercoaster brought on by the steady progress of Maggie's "illness."

Again, I thought the camerawork throughout was brilliant.  All the more so given that they were flying by the seat of their pants on this show.  There are a number of beautifully accomplished shots, but the most haunting, for me, is the silhouette of Willie's battered face in the half-light of the Old House drawing room.  The contrast between the elegant setting and this memento of Barnabas' ravening violence is nothing less than stunning.  And Karlen's performance foregrounds the quiet pathos beautifully here.

G.

For the most part, I enjoyed it.  The two stars of the production were the photography and Marc Warren's performance.  I liked Warren simply because he played the part with a different twist.  Since so little of the dialogue or story from the book was used, it made it easier to accept Dracula being very different from how he was described in the book.

Mina seemed to have been inspired by the portrayal of Mina in the comic book series, The League of extraordinary gentlemen (not to be confused with the disastrous film of the same title).  I actually thought certain scenes may have owed a debt to Dark Shadows. Mina and Lucy's meeting with Dracula on the Whitby cliffs, for one.  (I don't think they actually filmed in Whitby.  For my money, Dan Curtis' use of Whitby locations was really quite imaginative in his version of this tale.)

G.

I love the scene where Julia tries to "tactfully" set Vicki straight about Barn's interest in her.  Vicki's display of naivete in this scene is practically beyond belief.

Either Vicki was being disingenuous in a way that practically defies description, or this is a little beyond the thin end of the wedge of Vicki Winters being turned into Little Miss I-Don't-Understand.

You're right, this is great storytelling, but the thought of witnessing some of this stuff in a real-life contacts is enough to make one writhe in embarrassment for the parties involved.

G.

Dracula looks interesting enough to make me want to tune in.  Thanks for posting this, Vlad!

G.

I'm always astonished at how beautifully they staged those Eagle Hill sequences in today's show.  The atmosphere was just as thick as the penetrating fog in the ancient cemetery.

I agree with Lydia; Jonathan Frid fiercely rules in today's show.  And Vinnie did a brilliant job with his makeup today, too!

G.

Hi Dom,

I can understand why you're confused.  What she means is that the old VHS release of the series (the tapes that started coming out way back in '89) were edited so that most of the Jason Maguire story was left out, and even non-Barnabas scenes of episodes featuring Barn were sometimes eliminated.  I guess that initially, MPI execs thought the only reason why anyone would buy the tapes would be to see Barnabas.  They had not yet figured out that there are fans here who want to see every second of DS--bloopers and all!

I don't own the new volume one DVD set from 1966, but from what I have been able to determine, a technical glitch led to ONE disc of that set getting a few seconds edited out of the closing moments of each episode.  (I actually think I have an idea of how it happened--the people producing the discs may have inadvertently forgotten to re-set the defaults on a day when they had just been processing something that involved a "mix" feature on one of their editing machines.  This happened to a friend of mine recently when he burned a CD for me.)

Just to add a further wrinkle of complexity, we've also been discussing how the DVD issue of the 1991 remake failed to include deleted scenes that were incorporated into the VHS release for that series.  In the case of 1991, the VHS release IS more complete, both in terms of deleted scenes and in terms of image presentation (the DVD of this show was cropped to turn it into a "faux widescreen" look).

Hope this helps!

G.

That's a gorgeous portrait of Frid.  Welcome to the boards!

G.

I've been noticing lately that the chairs in the OH drawing room move around  A LOT.  I know it's because they would put the furniture out different ways depending upon the day's blocking but it's been freaking me out.  I just wonder how I managed to watch this long without noticing!

Some years ago, somebody mentioned about the wall by the front door with Barn's portrait on it moving around--back, forwards, side-to-side--again, depending on blocking and the day's shooting routine.  I started paying attention to that and was again very surprised at how much it shifted around.

G.