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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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