Writer Ron Sproat stayed with Dark Shadows too long, and fans of Danny Horn’s great blog Dark Shadows Every Day will have fond memories of his frequent denunciations of Sproat. It is true Sproat had many glaring weaknesses. For example, he was pretty bad at inventing stories to tell, which you might think would get in the way of building a career as a fiction writer. But one strength Sproat undoubtedly had was a sense of structure. There might not be anything happening in one of his episodes, but you can count on him to make it clear why it isn’t happening, where it isn’t happening, to whom it isn’t happening, and who isn’t making it happen. Today there are some events, and between Sproat’s script and the work of the actors, it is plain to see what purpose each of those events serves in keeping the story on track.
As the episode opens, Lieutenant Dan Riley of the Maine State Police is visiting instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank Garner in an office. Regular viewers will be confused; we’ve seen this set several times, with exactly these decorations, as high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins’ office at the headquarters of Collins Enterprises. We haven’t seen the set since #69, and Roger wasn’t there at that time. So apparently Frank has moved in.
Lieutenant Riley wants to pass along to Frank the information that the Phoenix, Arizona police have given him about a fire in Laura Collins’ apartment in that city. Laura is Roger’s estranged wife, and Frank is representing Roger in their upcoming divorce. It isn’t clear why Riley wants to tell Roger’s lawyer what he has heard about Laura. Later in the episode, Frank will tell well-meaning governess Vicki that Riley came to him because he is a “lawyer for the Collins family.” Perhaps that means he believed that Frank represented Laura. Throughout their conversation, Frank repeatedly protests that no one has any grounds for accusing Laura of anything, encouraging Riley in such a belief. I suppose it’s a lawyer’s job to collect damaging information about the opposition, but Frank does seem to be pushing an ethical boundary here.
The charred body of a woman was found in what was left of Laura’s apartment. Since the woman appeared to be the same age, height, and build as Laura, the room was locked from the inside, and everyone associated with the building other than Laura was accounted for, the body was initially identified as hers. Riley now tells us that the police have determined that the fire started in Laura’s apartment, and that a witness claims to have seen Laura in the building the day of the fire.
Laura checked into the Collinsport Inn the day of the fire and has been in and around town ever since, as many witnesses can testify. Riley says that there is no indication that Laura has been on an airplane recently, and it would seem impossible to travel from Phoenix, Arizona to central Maine in a few hours any other way.
The lieutenant goes on to say that because the room was locked from the inside and the woman who died in the fire made no attempt to escape, the police suspect murder. This is nonsense. An attempt to escape might have been evidence of murder, not the lack of such an attempt. And if the room was locked from the inside, how did the murderer get out?
Frank doesn’t raise these objections, but just blusters through a lot of verbiage as he protests against any suggestion that Laura should be suspected of murder. The lieutenant keeps pointing out that Arizona isn’t his jurisdiction, so he doesn’t have anything to do with it. He’s just a messenger.
Some scholar of acting really ought to make a frame-by-frame study of Conard Fowkes portrayal of Frank in this scene. He has plenty of dialogue, he’s challenging statements made by a policeman, he raises his voice, makes gestures, moves around the room, looks down moodily and up excitedly. Yet he is still so bland that it is difficult to remember a word he says. It is far beyond my understanding of the actor’s craft to explain how Fowkes manages to be so consistently dull no matter what the character is doing.
When Frank is a small part of an episode, I think of his blandness as a note of pure realism. He is just the sort of person you would expect to meet in a small-town law office in 1967, and indeed it is reassuring to think that someone who has obviously never thought of putting himself in the spotlight would handle your sensitive legal affairs. The last person anyone should want as a lawyer is some guy who habitually makes himself interesting to watch on television.
Today, Frank is the leading man of the first half of the episode, and comes back with a key part in the second half. Giving that much time to a performer with such a bland screen presence does serve a purpose. None of the characters has really committed to the notion that they have to worry about crimes and physical danger, much less that they are facing a challenge from the realm of the supernatural. As far as they know, the whole story today is about a couple of romances and a child custody matter. That’s the right speed for dull, amiable Frank Garner.
That the characters don’t yet know the true dimensions of what they are facing in the storyline is one of the points this scene has to make. The other is that we will be hearing more about the investigation in Phoenix, and that it will advance the plot.
I think an acting problem muddies this second point. Today Vince O’Brien takes over the part of Lieutenant Dan Riley from John Connell, who played him in #143 and #144. As Connell played him, Riley was an out-of-town cop, not the least bit awed by the Collinses of Collinsport. His matter-of-fact speaking and impatient listening made it clear that the family’s connection to the case in Phoenix was not going to result in the discreet, abbreviated treatment that the local authorities have given them. But O’Brien’s version of the character is noticeably quick to agree when Frank makes a statement. When Frank does a TV lawyer “may I remind you” about the elements of a murder charge (elements which he gets wrong, but hey, it’s TV, not law school,) O’Brien’s Riley is agitated. He shows defiance by declaring “You don’t have to remind me” in a harrumphing voice, but his wide eyes and trembling legs show that he is intimidated to be in a discussion with the representative of the mighty Collinses. There’s no point in bringing in an out-of-town character if that’s what you’re going for- the residents of Collinsport can show you what it’s like to live under the thumb of the people in the big house on the hill. And it introduces a doubt as to whether anything will come of the investigation, a doubt which leaves us wondering why we just spent so much time watching these two guys talk to each other.
Meanwhile, Vicki is visiting dashing action hero Burke Devlin in his hotel suite. Burke has asked her to come. Yesterday, she told him that she was suspicious there was something sinister about Laura, and he had listened attentively. Later, he met with Laura and the love he once felt for her had flared back into life. So today, he wants to tell Vicki that Laura is A-OK and she should do everything she can to help her.
Like the scene with Frank and Lieutenant Riley in Roger’s office, this scene has two points to make. First is to establish Vicki as a credible protagonist for the rest of the storyline about the danger Laura presents to her son, strange and troubled boy David. Second is to show that Burke is so smitten with Laura that he won’t be much help in protecting David.
Burke guides Vicki into his kitchen, a cozy space where people can confide in each other. Last time they were in this space, she made coffee for him; this time, he makes coffee for her. He’s remarkably dainty about it, sifting cream and sugar in separate cups. He makes a pitch about how remarkable Laura is, how he’s rethought everything they said yesterday, and how a fine woman like her deserves Vicki’s trust and support.
Vicki is unimpressed. She was in the room when Laura telephoned Burke yesterday, and heard him agree to meet her at one of their old places. She presses him to explain what has changed his mind, and he won’t give a clear answer. She asks how well he really knows Laura, and he looks dreamily off into space and says that he knows her better than anyone else. She asks if his feelings for Laura might be clouding his judgment, and he demands she change the subject. When Burke urges her to persuade David to grow closer to his mother Laura, Vicki replies “I’ll do what I can for David.” Burke says “You’re hedging.” Vicki replies coolly, “I can’t help it.” When he repeats his urging, he tells her she doesn’t look convinced. She replies, “I can’t help how I look, either.”
Vicki’s strength and intelligence and Burke’s dreamy infatuation should impress anyone watching this scene, but especially viewers who just saw yesterday’s episode. When Vicki is asking Burke what happened between yesterday and today to change his mind, she is waiting for him to talk about the meeting he arranged with Laura while she was right next to him. He never mentions it, and his repeated statements that all he has done is think more deeply implies that he does not remember that Vicki heard him talking to Laura. He is so captivated with Laura that the sound of her voice erases his awareness of everyone else, even of someone he is trying hard to persuade of an important idea.
Shortly after Vicki leaves, Burke receives another visitor from the great house of Collinwood. Flighty heiress Carolyn shows up. Carolyn is pouting because Burke hasn’t been paying attention to her since her Aunt Laura showed up.
This scene has one major point to make, which is that the budding Burke/ Carolyn romance is not going to be blooming this winter. Nancy Barrett’s Carolyn bursts off the screen as she bounces from one extreme to another, trying to attract Burke by pushing her breasts at him, trying to anger him by suggesting that her mother Liz and her Uncle Roger were right when they said he was just using her to get at them, trying to embarrass him by bringing up the obstacles between him and Laura, trying to break through his reserve by flinging her arms around his neck and pleading with him to love her.
Burke tries to let Carolyn down easy, smiling at her, caressing her face, hugging her, kissing her on the forehead. But signs of boredom and irritation keep slipping out. He tells her that the time has come for them not to see each other any more, and there can be no doubt he means it.
Vicki goes to visit Frank. Frank blabs everything to her that the lieutenant had told him.
Vicki is deeply concerned about the idea that Laura might be a murderer. Frank keeps telling her that there’s probably nothing to that idea, but Vicki resolves at the end of the episode to do whatever she can to keep Laura away from David. Having established Vicki as a character strong enough and smart enough to square off with Laura in her previous scene, this scene shows us her decision to do just that.
Acilius on Dark Shadows 