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Messages - Gothick

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6076
Current Talk '03 II / Maggie Collins, as seen by Grandma Moses
« on: July 10, 2003, 09:15:29 PM »
Well, the arrival of Mrs. Maggie Collins' studio portrait from Paris (in a box that looks like it came from a Coney Island stall) certainly tells one a lot about the taste (?) of her husband.  I've seen far better efforts by a 6th grader armed with a decent assortment of crayola crayons.

We need a poll for worst portrait on Dark Shadows.  It might be a toss-up between this one and the original Charles Delaware Tate portrait of Quentin, which made one of the most attractive men on Earth look as if he were dying of dyspepsia and sunburn.

For best portrait, I'd probably vote for Sam's sketch of Betty Hanscombe.  The portrait of aged Quentin is a fun example of a very particular genre.

any other thoughts?

Gothick

6077
Testing. 1, 2, 3... / Re:Iron...
« on: July 10, 2003, 07:59:50 PM »
AAGGGHHH!  I just suddenly had a flash of THE HORROR if one were to open the Forum to the shrill, sound-barrier-blasting accents of Hallie Stokes screeching "HUUUUUUUUU ARE YUUUUUUUUUUU!"

I'm *so* not ready for the Summer of 1970 to hit the fan...

Gothick

6078
Testing. 1, 2, 3... / Re:Iron...
« on: July 10, 2003, 06:36:36 PM »
Thanks, Midnite, for that tip.  I just LOVE the screen capture of Grayson and Louis together on the July page!  What a treat. This is one of my favorite scenes, and this image beautifully captures two of the characters who make this storyline so memorable for me.  I just watched this scene a couple nights ago.

I remember well a few years ago that I wrote a short review of Louis' brilliant thesping in the role of PT Roger Collins.  Guy Haines was kind enough to make a printout of the review and show it to Louis.  Imagine my delight a few weeks later when a copy of the printout arrived with a short, handwritten note from Louis himself thanking me for my kind interest in his work!

Louis Edmonds was a true gentleman, and I still miss him.  He always brought a special quality to the annual Dark Shadows gatherings.

Gothick

6079
Testing. 1, 2, 3... / Re:Whats Happening
« on: July 10, 2003, 05:33:02 PM »
Hi Terry, the switching around of handles is the latest game a certain EEE-vil presence among us is playing in the Which Witch sWitch sweepstakes.

Let's pray that if we're patient, everything will be back to normal at some point!  My handle has already changed twice today.

Gothick

6080
Current Talk '03 II / Re:The Loomis boy gets his first love-bite...
« on: July 10, 2003, 04:23:24 PM »
I agree that an onscreen scene of Barnabas nuzzling Will's neck would have been VERY hot ... hmmmmm....  but it's HIGHLY unlikely that anything like that would have been shown on network TV at this time (1970), though just a few years after this those of us with Public TV got to see Ian McKellen performing a very sensuous kiss with another man in a BBC production on Edward II (that I really wish would come out on home VHS).

If you have Kathy Resch's 1967 concordance, you'll have seen the letter from ABC's standards and practices office about some sarcastic dialogue given to Jason Macguire in a scene with Willie during the early Barnabas storyline.  Apparently, s & p were worried that Jason's crack about Willie's light housekeeping duties would be seen as an inference that Willie and Barnabas were in a gay relationship!

And some people think we go overboard when we talk about homophobia as a mental disease!  ::sigh::

Gothick

6081
Current Talk '03 II / Re:Lost Blooper - Does Anybody Know
« on: July 10, 2003, 03:13:37 PM »
Isn't this weird?  today my name is showing up as "Donna."  I would have at least expected "Prima" before the title... would even settle for Seconda... but no, I'm just plain old Donna.  Please, don't expect me to do the Donna Reed thing though.  When I'm on my knees I prefer other activities besides polishing the woodwork.

I think we've all experienced remembering things that weren't there on DS episodes.  Some of the most amusing are the ones that KLS reported in her book My DS Scrapbook Memories, which do not seem to have made it to the actual broadcasts  Having a lamp shatter while she was writing a letter can't have been much fun.  One I was actually looking forward to seeing was the one that Terry Crawford reported about her death scene as Beth Chavez.  She jumped off Widow's Hill, then promptly bounced back into camera shot off the trampoline or whatever they had on the set there.  Fortunately that camera wasn't on feed at the time.

Gothick the Donna

6082
I really love The Night Strangler.  Great character roles for Wally Cox and John Carradine, and a superb cameo by Margaret Hamilton ("Human blood, of course!").  The only thing about that flick is that I find the character of Kolchak so annoying in it, I keep hoping that the Strangler will just put him and us out of misery with one good twist!

btw, does anybody remember seeing this great movie of a similar style and vintage, directed by cult favorite Curtis Harrington Jr., entitled The Cat Creature?  Gale Sondergaard was in it.  And there's this moment where she's reading the tarot cards for the protagonist and turns over the Death card, with great relish, that always reminds me of the story that she was approached at one point about a role on DS.

Gothick

6083
I've read in one of Kathy Resch's books--it may have been in the PT1970 concordance--that Worldvision, the agency that still seems to handle the DS broadcasts for Sci Fi, had decided not to release the final year of DS' episodes for syndication back in the Eighties. I don't recall a reason being given for this decision. So, presumably, if the NJ network had continued running the shows, they would have gone back to the "introduction to Barnabas" 1967 sequence that used to be the starting point for every DS syndication.

It wasn't until the Sci Fi channel run that the final year of the show was rebroadcast for the first time since 1970-71.  Even more unusual was Sci Fi's decision to run the series from the 1966 start point, which I believe they first did on their second rotation through the episodes.  For years, most DS fans I met did not even express much interest in those shows.  Of course we now know what wonderful gems they are--many people regard 1966 as the high point for the series!

G.

6084
This is a great topic.  Thanks, Vlad, for posting about this.  Maybe you will inspire more folks to see this fabulous film.  I'd love to see it on the big screen some day.

The film version of NOTI has a *cartload* of differences from the original stage version by Tennessee Williams.  The screenplay was adapted by John Huston and another writer.  A copy of the screenplay was auctioned on eBay a while back, and I would have loved to have been able to read it--it would be interesting to know how the finished film differed from the script.  Huston always shot his scenes in the order they were written, I believe he had a theory that this helped sustain the narrative mood for the actors.  (my brain is barely functioning at the moment, so pardon my mangled English).

As for Grayson's stage training, she had been acting all over the Northeast for over twenty years on various stages, and had done two films (both of which she subsequently deleted from her "official" filmography) before her appearance in Iguana.  She'd also done a fair amount of television, much of it now difficult to track down as she did small supporting roles that weren't well documented in published credits of 1950s drama anthology shows.

I've read a lot of the press coverage of the filming of Iguana, and it seems as if Grayson got along very well with nearly everyone.  She managed the remarkable feat of making friends with both Richard Burton *and* Elizabeth Taylor.  Elizabeth's daughter Liza became a friend of Grayson's son Matthew.  One of my favorite anecdotes about her trip to Mexico was that she got this scopion venom antidote kit and insisted upon carrying it all around the country with her.  I remember Matt mentioning at a Festival interview after she had passed over that that scorpion kit was STILL in the medicine cabinet at his parents' house.

Another bit worth mentioning is that Grayson had a bit part (basically a 2 minute scene) in an episode of Route 66 that was aired early in 1964.  That episode was filmed in Florida and I've always wondered whether Grayson did it on her way home from Mexico.

G.

6085
Calendar Events / Announcements '03 I / Re:Briscoliciousness Alert!
« on: July 05, 2003, 11:04:04 PM »
Well, yesterday I finally got to watch the tape of Don's appearance on Jeannie.  Was this 1966?  I'm thinking that was the year.

In the version of the episode that appeared on TV Guide, Don appeared only in one scene, as one of three air force officers interested in courting new "secretary" Jeannie Jeannie.

Don did have a couple of lines, but appeared in long shot throughout, and most of the time, his back was to the camera.  There was a nice moment as he was exiting where he flashed the Larry Hagman character one of his gorgeous smiles (we didn't get to see those very often on DS--I remember one he pulled on a fade-out in a scene with Grayson, where I always think she was sticking out her tongue at him, or making one of her outrageous faces).

Thanks again to John for alerting us to this.  It was great to finally get to see it.  I had missed several previous broadcasts.

G.

6086
Current Talk '03 I / Re:Classic Blooper edited out on MPI DVD#6
« on: July 03, 2003, 05:06:13 PM »
Just speaking up against any kind of altering of the episodes.  Just starting on this could open up a real can of worms.
What would be eliminated next?  Roger's line about incestors, such a clever and unintended reference to the Laura storyline?  The fly landing on Barnabas' nose as he's informing Julia that she is going to die?  Quentin bumping his head on the door to the kitchen?  Greggie Trask, Minerva and Judith rushing past exorcising warlock Evan Handley as Trask lets flie the mumbled exclamation, "Jesus!"?

Good luck to the MPI technical dept for keeping track of further "improvements" of this type. Frankly, only a diehard fan would be able to recognize this sort of thing when going through the tapes.  Even I have less than perfect familiarity with some weeks of the show, and there are whole swatches of 1966-67 that I've still not seen.

G.

6087
Current Talk '03 I / Re:Farewell to Don Briscoe !
« on: July 03, 2003, 04:50:46 PM »
Ah, the sadness!  it's always a moment for donning (pun intended!) the black crape and having a good bawl (ahem!).

Sorry I missed the Farewell DB montage, although if it's the same one as was posted the last time, I think I have a copy of it stashed away somewhere.

For those who are interested, a zine edited by Sue Mascola (I think?) titled Fangs for the Memories contains an interview with Don Briscoe dated ca. 1990.  One of the interesting things he mentioned was how upset he was by Dan Curtis' insistence that he smoke a cigarette in an episode of Shadows DC personally directed.  He felt it was showing a bad example to all the children who watched the show so faithfully--me among them.

I don't know whether it was posted here or not, but the episodes involving Larry Chase were originally written for Don Briscoe's character, Chris Collins.

Goithick

6088
Current Talk '03 I / The Elephant in Dr. Longworth's Lab
« on: June 26, 2003, 08:01:38 PM »
Hi all, had the show on briefly today.  Enjoyed the duelling beehive aspect (Bruno vs. Alexis--who had the biggest hair at Collinwood???)

I realize that as a gay man, I am prone to watch DS in a certain way, but I really found myself wondering--whatever the writer and director intended--whether David Selby, Lisa Richards and Chris Pennock had intended to play the scene in Cyrus' lab today where Cyrus "returns" and "explains" about his "working relationship" with Yeagar, as if Sabrina and Quentin suspected Cyrus of having had a sexual fling with Yeagar that the latter then chose to turn to his own nasty advantage.

Blackmail was a very real force in the typical male homosexual's life in the !960s.  Threats of blackmail, and dealing with the repercussions thereof, feature even in soft core porn novels written for the consumption of the nascent gay communities in the big cities (NYC, San Francisco, Boston, etc.) as well as the more literary productions of the period such as John Rechy's City of Night.

Quentin's expression throughout the scene looked as if he'd lifted a stone and found something foul--a common mainstream straight-male reaction to insinuations of homosexuality then as now.  And Sabrina looked as if she was ready to burst into tears at any moment (which is kind of Sabrina's default setting).  Although I thought Richards brought out an element of anger at one point that felt very real--it seemed as if the penny had dropped and Sabrina was thinking, "so, you neglect me for THIS?"

I know that the text was that Longworth had run into trouble getting illegal substances for his experiments or some similar underworld thing with Yeagar, but the SUBTEXT seemed to turn around "so this is Cyrus' dirty little secret."  I thought Pennock did a GREAT job with both roles today, as well.

I've always enjoyed the symbolism implicit in the names Yeagar and Longworth.  The latter clearly emphasizes the good doctor's unworldly, simplistic moralism.  Yeagar is another spelling of the German word Jaeger, which means "hunter."  Pennock's body language in the role suggests a half-wild beast of prey very much on the prowl.

On another note, poor Damian Edwards, trapped in the leisure suit from Hell for all eternity.  And Nicky thought Cassandra had it bad getting exorcised wearing a purple butterfly caftan.

Gothick

6089
Current Talk '03 I / Re:PT's Superior Technological Advantage
« on: June 26, 2003, 07:38:54 PM »
Wasn't a TV seen on a set in one of the 1966 episodes?  I seem to have a half memory of that...

Kosmo13, on the Sci Fi Channel's DS Lighter Side board, wrote this hilarious crossover between The Rockford Files and Dark Shadows, in which the residents of Collinsport kept professing total ignorance whenever Jim Rockford referred to television.  I think the story was called Tombstone Every Mile.

Gothick

6090
Calendar Events / Announcements '03 I / Re:Briscoliciousness Alert!
« on: June 26, 2003, 03:39:31 PM »
Hi John!  I just double-checked the timing for the Jeannie/Briscoe broadcast (try saying THAT phrase three times fast).  Hope I can catch it.  I am away in Canada from tonight through next Thurs. so will have to have one of my housemates take care of getting a tape into the VCR at the right time--I'll pre-program, of course.

Oh, haven't I mentioned the story about Don Briscoe's Colt magazine layout?  I was told about this years ago from a fan who knew Keith Prentice and some other people from the old days.  I always wanted to go to that shop in NYC, Hidden Treasures or Gay Treasures or something like that, that sells old magazines of a certain stripe (!) to see if I could peruse some issues from the mid to late Sixties.  I know that DB didn't get much work between 1966 and 1968 so it's very possible that he supplemented his income with modeling work, as needed.  There is a collection of materials of this kind at Cornell University--I've always wanted to visit there (Grayson always said that she did some courses there, and reportedly gave acting seminars there in the Seventies).  It would be fun to try and track down DB's Colt layout.

Keep cool, despite the steamy temps *and* subject matter!

Gothick

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