ATTENTION "DARK SHADOWS" FANS

[Pumpkin_Man]

My parents never had a problem with us talking about our dreams, but they believed that dreams were nothing more then the thoughts that occur to us during our sleep. They didn't believe in dream interpretation. My parents didn't really hate fantasy or superstition, but were highly skeptical of anything outside the teachings of the Catholic Church. They very much believed in God and such, but again, the era in which they grew up in, was one of the coldest and hardest realitys ever faced by Americans to date. My father, who was 11 years older then my mom was out of work for 18 months during the Great Depression. My mom was born in 1920, so her late childhood and teen years were more or less influenced by grinding poverty, and seeing her father (My maternal grandfather) reduced from being the president of the Heartman Furnature Company, which went belly-up, to being a junior clerk typist at the Chicago Police Department. He got that job because of some one he knew. HE had to buy records and learn how to type in his spare time so he could do the job.

Both of my parents, during the World War II ere lost loved ones, and my uncle James, who faught at Guatle Canal, did come back, but there was a lot of worrying in the mean time. That didn't leave very much time for horror or fantasy stories. So when shows like "Dark Shadows" finaly came along, they were neither totaly adverse or totaly infavor of them. Television in our house, allways cand AFTER our school work and our household chores. So if my room was messy, or my grades slipped, I didn't get to watch tv until I made it right.

As for pshcyic ability, I think my mother also had some of that, or perhaps she had the ability to feel our pain more or less. One time I dropped a heavy rock on my instep, and she actualy felt pain in her foot.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

My mother graduated from high school in 1932, and the Depression hit her hometown very hard, because it was largely a railroad town, and the railroads came to a halt during those years. She has told me almost unbelievable stories of the poverty of that time. Yet her own family came through OK, because her father owned an advertising company, and businesses advertise when they are trying to drum up customers. Her family wasn't rich, but they didn't suffer as much as some they knew.

Since my father died when I was so young, I don't know much about how that era affected him. He was several years older than my mother and was already a practicing lawyer when the Depression hit. I have no idea, really, how it affected his law practice.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Many people, including doctors and lawyers lost their businesses when the Great Depression hit.

My parents did have a hard time of it, but both tell me that they were some what better off then most of their neighbors. My father worked in my grandfather's auto shop while he was laid off, and my mom was only a kid at the time.

Mike

[Pumpkin56]

I remember reading about the guy from Dark Shadows passing away and of course Dick Clark's passing was all over the place. I've always heard these things come in 3's. Should we form a protective circle around Christopher Lee?

[Murfreesboro]

There have been quite a few celebrity passings already this spring. Whitney Houston, for one. Levon Helm, Mike Wallace, Thomas Kinkade.

Pumpkin, it says a lot about our different generations that Frid was simply "the guy from Dark Shadows" to you. Obviously, for those of us who were old enough to have seen that show in its first run, he made an indelible impression.

[Murfreesboro]

Speaking of Frid, I found this Washington Post blog from last week that includes an interview he gave back in 1968 about the popularity of Barnabas:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/art ... _blog.html

I had had no idea that this sort of thing was going on during his time on the show. I do remember seeing a sort of fan magazine with pictures of him in a local pharmacy when I was a kid.

The interview makes it sound as if he had lots of grown women turning onto him. In my experience, the show was appealing mainly to children and young adolescents, like me. I do remember an older cousin of mine, who was in college, saying that she had friends who watched. But I had the feeling that they watched it more for the camp. I wasn't into camp at all at that age. To me, it was a serious story.

I don't know that we've discussed it here, but Frid had very serious training as an actor. He had a graduate degree in theater from Yale, and he had studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London. He had had supporting roles on Broadway and had appeared in lots of regional theater, usually in Shakespeare. He was on the verge of leaving the profession to become a college professor of theater/acting when his agent called him with the offer of Dark Shadows. He took the job, which was supposed to last for only a brief story arc, so he could make some quick money before transitioning into his new life. But of course, the role of Barnabas changed everything for him.

I have always believed that he was actually better than the material he was given on Dark Shadows and in some way elevated it. It was his training and instinct as an actor that led him to probe the conflicting elements in Barnabas's character, and it was that complexity that made the character so unforgettable.

[NeverMore]

I'm sorely tempted to put those old Dark Shadows disks in my netflix queue but there's so many. I was watching an episode every night before bed, before we had the flood last year, but I dropped the streaming plan when they split it off.

Anyways, I don't even know what happened to my tablet computer. Most everything I own is still in boxes. I guess I could watch them on my iPad but I don't feel like ripping all those episodes. Maybe there's a way I can hook a DVD drive up to the iPad? Or set up an airplay system when I get around to rebuilding my entertainment center.

Hmmmm...

[witchy]

I can't wait to see the new one with Johnny Depp!!

[Murfreesboro]

I'm pretty sure I'll go to the DS movie, but I'm glad I've sort of been forewarned by the trailers. They appear to have gone in the direction of camp comedy. That's OK, but I didn't experience it like that the first time I saw the series. I think older viewers were laughing a good part of the time, but I wasn't.

What happened with the original TV show really was lightning in a bottle, as I've said before. It drew its power in part from the dearth of good afternoon, after-school entertainment for kids. And the character of Barnabas was riveting because he was literally the first conflicted vampire. It was a seminal role in that regard. No one had ever seen anything else remotely like it. Because the budget was so low, the production values were almost non-existent, and I daresay most of the actors didn't have the serious background Frid had (though Joan Bennett, as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, had been a movie star in her day, and I believe Grayson Hall, as Dr. Julia Hoffman, also had some Broadway credits, etc.).

The original series walked a fine line between serious entertainment and OTT camp. I don't think they were deliberately aiming for camp, though, which is what will be different about the new movie. Now, the prime-time series from the early '90s, which was also a Dan Curtis project, did take the story seriously, and the production values were much, much better than they had been in the '60s soap. But even though it was well made, it didn't really catch fire. I've been watching it recently on Hulu, and I have enjoyed it, but Ben Cross (an actor I like) doesn't do for me in the role what Jonathan Frid did.

[Pumpkin56]

I'm excited to see the Dark Shadows movie too, Witchy. One a similar note, I noticed The Raven is getting p*ss-poor reviews. That's terribly disappointing.

[zoltan hound dracula]

I remember reading about the guy from Dark Shadows passing away and of course Dick Clark's passing was all over the place. I've always heard these things come in 3's. Should we form a protective circle around Christopher Lee?

WELL PUMPKIN56,HE WAS BORN ON THE 27TH MAY,1922,SO THAT MAKE"S HIM 90,YEP PROTECTIVE CIRCLE INDEED

[Pumpkin_Man]

I think Johnithan Frid will all ways be the archatypical Barnabas Collins, just like Bele Lugosi was the archatiypcal Count Dracula. And you are right. Johnathin Frid was, in fact, a Shakespearian actor, and had a high degree of training and education in the field. Ben Cross, IMHO did a pretty good job of portraying Barnabas, and I really did enjoy the revival series, but it's like all the other actors who portrayed Count Dracula ove rthe years. They all did a good job, and they all put on the character in their own way, but no one did it quite like Lubosi. It's the same deal with Barnabas Collins. Ben Cross did a very nice and unique interpretation of Conflicted vampire Barnabas Collins, and I'm sure Johnny Depp also did a pretty good job on his own rendition of that character, but to me, Barnabas Collins will allways be Johnathin Frid.

EVerything from the diction used by Barnabas Collins, to the house he lived in, the cloths he wore and his 18th century manerisms. I do plan to see the movie when it's out, but I am not expecting it to be the same as the tv show that I knew and loved when I was a boy racing home from school on my Schwin to get to the tv before the opening prologue began.

Mike

[Pumpkin56]

I remember reading about the guy from Dark Shadows passing away and of course Dick Clark's passing was all over the place. I've always heard these things come in 3's. Should we form a protective circle around Christopher Lee?

WELL PUMPKIN56,HE WAS BORN ON THE 27TH MAY,1922,SO THAT MAKE"S HIM 90,YEP PROTECTIVE CIRCLE INDEED

I noticed he's listed in the cast for Dark Shadows (I think Tim Burton loves him like he loves Johnny Depp). That already makes this movie worth the price of a ticket.

[Murfreesboro]

I think the new Dark Shadows movie could be a lot of fun, as long as people like me don't become too "purist" about it. It's obvious that Burton & Depp have taken a different direction from the original material. They should have the freedom to do that. After all, those of us who loved it way back when can always view the original series, or even the '90s re-make.

[Pumpkin_Man]

From what I've read, it's a comedy, and when I first heard that, I was a little upset, but then when you look at both the original series and the 1990s remake, it was pretty 'campy' in someplaces. I almost busted a gut laughing when in the 1990s remake, old Joshuah Collins inspected Victoria Winter's teeth.

Mike