Reflections on “Burnt Offerings”

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey, gang,

I recently saw Dan Curtis’ 1976 thriller, “Burnt Offerings” on dvd. I had seen the film back during the 1970s, but I didn’t remember much of it.

In the film, Karen Black and Oliver Reed play a marrried couple, Marian and Ben Rolf, who rent a mansion for the summer along with their 12-year-old son, Davey. Bette Davis plays Oliver Reed’s Aunt Elizabeth, who moves in with them. I won’t reveal the whole plot, but the beautiful mansion turns out to be a living entity, which eventually takes over the Rolfs’ lives.

The dvd includes a commentary by Dan Curtis, Karen Black and the film’s screenwriter, author William Nolan. The mansion used in the film is called Dunsmuir House, which is located in Oakland, California. The mansion sort of reminds me of the McGruder Mansion on DS.

The great Eileen Heckart and the great Burgess Meredith appear as the Allardyce siblings, who rent the mansion to the Rolf family. Their aged mother is a recluse, who lives in the attic and is never seen. Marian Rolf agrees to leave meals for Mrs. Allardyce outside of her room.

Another eerie character we see in dream sequences is a silent hearse driver, played by veteran character Anthony James. He is best known for his roles in, “In the Heat of the Night,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate.” Anthony James was a tall, thin man with bad complexion; he excelled at playing wired characters. I think he would have been great on DS, as either a Leviathan or one of Judah Zachary’s satanic followers.

In the film, there is a dream sequence, where Oliver Reed’s character, remembers standing at his mother’s grave during her funeral service. The young boy looks back from the gravesite to see that creepy hearse driver (Anthony James) smiling at him. Dan Curtis said that when he was a young boy in Conneticut, he was at his mother’s funeral service at a funeral home, and he noticed that the hearse driver and the pallbearers were off to the side, laughing and joking among themselves. This shocked and angered DC very much and he never
forgot it. DC said he thought that would be a good scene in “Burnt Offerings.”

On the dvd, DC mentions that he saw Karen Black in a Broadway show, while DS was in the air. He was so impressed by Karen Black’s performance, that he wanted to cast her in a role in DS. Ms. Black expressed regret that she  ever did appear in DS. Although she did appear in several other supernatural films. William Nolan opined that Karen Black would have REALLY been cast as a horror film actress if she had appeared on DS. I don’t think that Ms. Black or Mr. Curtis appreciated that blunt remark.

At the end of the film, as the Rolf family is in their car and about to finally leave the spooky house, Marian Rolf decides to say goodbye to the aged Mrs. Allardyce in her attic room. Dan Curtis was at a sneak preview of the film, and he said the theater audience all shouted out, “Don’t go back in the house!” Sadly, Marian dies go back into the house with disastrous results. DC said he forgot that “Night of Dark Shadows” had a similar ending, when Quentin Collins went back into Collinwood to retrieve one of his paintings. (And, we all know how that film ended!)

There is a scene in the film, where we see a number of photographs of all the poor, unfortunate people, who stayed at this creepy house. One of the photographs is of Dan Curtis himself, wearing a suit that looks like the suits Quentin Collins wore during the 1897 storyline in DS. Mr. Curtis said he wanted to “immortalize” himself on the silver screen.

Overall, I think that “Burnt Offerings” is an enjoyable supernatural film with an excellent cast.

[Uncle Roger]

I saw the movie when it came out. Read the book too. Thought that it was okay. The filming must have been quite an experience, thanks to the presence of Bette Davis. Davis was deep in her cantankerous phase and didn't like most of the other cast members and the director. I don't think that she really enjoyed doing yet another horror movie but that's about all she was being offered back then. Oliver Reed's drunken carousing bothered her. And she didn't care much for Karen Black either, as she didn't feel that Black paid her the proper respect. And she particularly loathed DC. Their styles clashed and Davis was less than polite when Curtis' daughter passed away. Not quite the same level of animosity that she felt for Faye Dunaway but close. She did, however, like young Lee Harcourt Montgomery.
The theater that I saw Burnt Offerings in turned the theater lights back up after showing the family portraits at the end, so I never got to see DC until the movie showed up on TV.
The moral of the story? Never rent a house from The Penguin!!

[McTrooper]

It sounds like it might be a good watch, but I instantly thought of Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining. 

Perhaps it is a common theme or premise to have a family encounter danger while living somewhere unfamiliar temporarily  . . . Could probably include moving to a new house.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Just for the record, both the Burnt Offerings book (1973) and the film (1976) predate Stephan King's book The Shining (1977).

I read the book and loved it. I saw the film back in the day and didn't. I don't recall exactly what it was that I didn't like about it but I'm guessing it was because for me it didn't live up to the book - that happens a lot when I've read the book first. Though it could have also had something to do with the terrible reviews the film got. Normally I don't let that sort of thing influence me because I like to make up my own mind, but to this day I still recall the headline of Variety's review calling the film "trite" - and they were far from fans of DC's work on the film, saying he was heavy handed and made the script, which he co-wrote, too formulaic. But I do have to say that too many reviewers didn't grasp that the title is metaphoric and not literal. They expected the house to go up in flames and were confused when it didn't. They never realized that the characters were the offerings and the house in a sense burnt, as in consumed, them.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

On that dvd commentary, Dan Curtis also mentioned that the late, great Robert Cobert wrote the music for “Burnt Offerings.” DC also said that when Mr. Cobert first came to him with the music he had written for “Dark Shadows’” theme song, he actually whistled the song for DC! Imagine trying to whistle that haunting tune?

Mr. Cobert was quite a man. He lived to be almost ninety-four and he once told the fans at a Dark Shadows Festival,  “To don’t grow old.” He also flirted shamelessly with some of the young women at the festival, to their great delight!

Another veteran actor in “Burnt Offerings,” was the inimitable Dub Taylor, who appeared in dozens of cowboy films over the years. Dub portrayed a handyman at the “living” house.

Uncle Roger, DC also mentioned that the great Bette Davis was a “challenge” to direct in the film. I remember seeing her on “The Mike Douglas Show” many years ago. Someone asked her what she thought of the dashing Errol Flynn, and she replied that “he was the worst actor I ever worked with. But, he was so handsome, that he could get away with it:” During the filming of “Elizabeth and Essex,” Bette Davis played Queen Elizabeth to Flynn’s Earl of Essex. She was supposed to slap Errol Flynn in one scene, and since she was already annoyed
with Flynn’s narcissism and ego, she REALLY let him have it when she slapped him.

On her former co-star Ronald Reagan, she quipped, “Little Ronnie Reagan actually became President of the United States. I can’t believe it!” Ms. Davis did very much like her two British co-stars, the distinguished Claude Raines ( the “Invisible Man”) and the distinguished Herbert Marshall (who I “enjoyed” seeing crush David Hedison as a man/fly in the sci-fi classic, “The Fly”).

As to screenwriter William Nolan, he was a prolific author, who wrote “Logan’s Run” and “Trilogy of Terror” with Dan Curtis. Mr. Nolan also wrote the plot for “The Norliss Tapes,” another scary Dan Curtis TV movie, starring Roy Thinnes (later a particularly pompous Rev. Trask on the 1991 DS) and the beautiful Angie Dickinson (the unrequited “love” of Uncle Junior on “The Sopranos”).

One other 1970s supernatural flick I recently saw after many years, was “ The Resurection of Peter Proud,” starring Michael Sarazin, Jennifer O’Neill, Margot skidded and the strikingly beautiful Cornelia Sharpe, who also portrayed Al Pacino’s comely girlfriend in “Serpico.”

In the film, Michael Sarazin portrays Peter Proud, a college professor, who is haunted by terrifying dreams of a young man’s murder. He finally discovers that he was that murdered young man in a previous life. He goes on a long search to discover the story of this other guy’s life and he goes to a country club to speak with the club’s resident tennis pro, who knew the murdered young man. That tennis pro was portrayed by the-one-and-only Addison Powell (a/k/a DS’ own irrepressible Dr. Eric Lang!).

I tell you, I wish that Roger Davis could have portrayed Peter Proud in this film; it would have been a joyous reunion of “Dark Shadows’l own legendary comedy team, Lang & Clark! Alas , what might have been 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The Reincarnation of Peter Proud is one of those rare films for me where I liked the book and the film. But it probably helped that writer Max Ehrlich adapted the screenplay from his own book.

Unlike Burnt Offerings, I recall that Variety was quite complementary to The Reincarnation of Peter Proud particularly to Margot Kidder's performance.

(And if you wonder why I remember a lot of Variety's reviews, it's because I subscribed to Daily Variety back in the '70s.)

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I must be having another “Ezra Braithwaite moment,” it’s “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud” not the “Resurrection.” 

My brother told me that Max Erlich was a very prolific horror writer. I’ve never read any of his books.

I remember the late Michael Sarazin portrayed the Frankenstein monster in the NBC miniseries based on Mary Shelley’s novel. I think Leonard Whiting portrayed Dr. Frankenstein and Jane Seymour portrayed “the Bride” ( minus Elsa Lanchester’s trademark “Paulie Walnuts wings”).

Like the creepy Anthony James, another actor, who was great at those weird roles, was the late Reggie Nalder. He portrayed the cold-blooded assassin in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” with James Stewart and Doris Day. Mr. Nalder also played various ghouls in shows like “Thriller” and he was the head vampire in the CBS miniseries of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot.” Mr. Nalder should have been on DS, with his truly menacing looks and that aristocratic Austrian accent of his.

[McTrooper]

Just for the record, both the Burnt Offerings book (1973) and the film (1976) predate Stephan King's book The Shining (1977).
 . . .

So it could The Shining was inspired by Burnt Offerings or just a coincident. 
Good to know. 

I understand the book vs. movie thing.  Even Jurassic Park was better as a book, yet the movie was good.
Thought there’s definitely exceptions like Swiss Family Robinson and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

[Gerard]

So, today, as I was sitting in my comfortable efficiency apartment in assisted living, I'm channel surfing and just by chance I land on the Comet network when guess what is just starting?  What are the odds of that?  And I did look for DC's photo in the collection of sacrifices offered throughout the years and decades to keep the house, including "Mrs. Alerdyce" alive.

Gerard

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Gerard,

That was serendipitous that “Burnt Offerings” was on the Comet Channel when you tuned in. Maybe Comet will air “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud” sometime soon? I enjoyed watching it, especially after I saw one of my favorite DS actors in it, the esteemed Addison Powell.

I remember seeing some photographs of Addison Powell and Joel Crothers at a DS event in NYC during the early 1980s. I wonder how the people there treated Mr. Powell? I hope they didn’t ask rude questions, like, “How come you kept messing up your lines?” Or, “Didn’t you realize that that tape recorder was actually off when you delivered that long monologue to Dr. Hoffman concerning the varied possible outcomes of the life force exchange experiment as you were about to depart this mortal coil?”

I remember at the 1988 DS Festival at the WTC in NYC, an obviously inebriated, middle-aged woman asked Lara Parker, “how she ‘enjoyed’ working with that vacuous pretty boy, who played your husband, Sky Rumson?” Ms. Parker, very diplomatically, replied that actor “Geoffrey Scott was much better looking than Tom Selleck.”

Years later, actress Betsy Durkin, who replaced Alexandra Moltke as Vicky Winters was at a DS Festival. Many DS fans did not like Ms. Durkin’s portrayal of Vicky Winters, referring to her as the “Icky Vicky.” However, Ms. Durkin was so charming and friendly, that the fans responded very positively to her. When she teared up as she related that her father was killed as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in Germany during World War II while she was a baby, everyone felt very bad for her.

As my late grandfather used to say, “It doesn’t cost you a nickel to be nice.” So, I hope that the DS fans always act graciously and with great civility. Try to be more like Dr. Dave Woodard and less like 1970 PT Quentin Collins. 

[Uncle Roger]

I wasn't at the Manhattan Shadows event where Addison Powell and Joel Crothers attended but since it was the early phases of fandom, I hope that those in attendance treated the actors politely 
I do remember an extremely awkward moment during one of the big star panels. One of the opening questions was Why isn't Grayson Hall here? Grayson had been dead for several years at this point. And, of course, it was almost an annual tradition to ask Jonathan Frid and/or Louis Edmonds Are you married and do you have children. If you have to ask the question. ..
I found Betsy Durkin to be an absolutely delightful person. She really lit up when I told her that I knew about her songwriting career.