There's an announcement in the latest Shadowgram email stating that MPI is about to let the 1991 series videotapes go out of print.

It mentions that the first volume in the series includes 15 minutes of footage not aired on the original NBC b'cast.  I have no idea whether Sci Fi aired the "restored" version during their b'cast of the series a few years back.

The tapes are available "for a limited time only" at $9.98, so get thee to MPI's website if thou so desirest...

feeling Elizabethan,

G.

By all the Gods, these are GORGEOUS.  I'm slowly working my way through the different parts.  Don looks so close, it's as if I could touch him (or take a lick of that yummy tongue).

I agree with you about that first outfit G is wearing.  I have a lovely portrait of her wearing that outfit, that I bought at the last DS Festival.

You've got me wishing I could afford to buy the DVDs!

Thanks, Steve

Well, the draftsmanship alone is superb.  You deserve an A just for that.

FWIW, there is a photo of Jonathan Frid wearing a tight pair of bathing trunks, with Louis Edmonds on the beach.  It's in Craig Hamrick's biography of Louis, BIG LOU.  Looks as if it dates to around 1968-69. Those trunks show that a coffin in the basement wasn't the only substantial secret dear Barnabas kept tucked away at the Old House.

G.

Guess I figured out what I'm reading on my next bus trip to Canada!  Thanks, Raineypark, and all the others who have commented on this.

I've been thinking about Willie's backstory as I have been watching the very first batch of Willie episodes; the ones with James Hall.  The character got a radical retooling once Karlen "the Boss" took over.

It's weird to watch the early scenes between Jason and Willie.  The dynamic between the two seems s-o-o-o slashy.  I just found an interview with Dennis Patrick (taped a little over ten years ago, I guess) where he said he liked to play it as if Willie was "his" and he and Karlen had a lot of fun spicing up their scenes together.  He also said that JK kept sliding into the brogue when they were rehearsing and DP would say, "Now, Johnny, *I* do the brogue and *you* do the vampire bites!"  funny stuff...

G.

Stuart--what you say about the DS pilot sounds like Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, with a Dario Argento edge in the visuals.

I personally find this very different from DS, which I thought had a more muted quality to it, despite the occasional forays into the realm of Grand Guignol (Garth Blackwood--arrrrghhhh!)

I wish I had the chance to see the pilot and judge for myself.  I'll be surprised if it isn't eventually released on home video.

Steve

Hi Vlad,

actually, the idea of a color corresponding to a specific "level" in an initiatory progress seems to me to have its roots in Magickal techniques for working the Tree of Life in the Qabalah.  I recommend this site for more details:

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/

(Note:  Christian mystics spell this word cabala; Jewish scholars prefer kaballah; and Pagans and Witches like myself prefer Qabalah or Qabala.  I don't know how people who normally can't agree about anything managed to agree to keep these spellings separate.  I suppose it has to do with the source materials used by people in the various traditions.)

The use of Color in mystical and magickal symbolism has a far ranging application.  When Poe was writing, French mystic Eliphas Levi was publishing books that recorded his experiments with the occult, which were to have a far-reaching impact upon what eventually became the modern Occult movement.  In fact, I believe it was Levi who came up with the idea of using the word "occult" the way we use it today.

It sounds to me as if you need to get your Masque of the Red Death DVD exchanged.  As for Giuliana's dream, the motif of ritual death and rebirth is central in virtually ALL initiatory traditions.  A persistent bit of lore states that full initiation into the ancient Egyptian priesthood involved lying for 3 days and 3 nights in a sarcophagus.  There's a much more elaborate version of this in which the initiate survives several near-encounters with a spectacular painful and messy death during his ordeal

Best,  Steve

That's a great montage.  There are some wonderful shots of Barbara Steele in there.

G.