March 2023 – Page 3 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 180: She’s out there somewhere

Yesterday, we saw four men visiting a crypt. They are parapsychologist Dr Guthrie, hardworking young fisherman Joe, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, and the unnamed Caretaker of the old cemetery. They witnessed an uncanny event when the ghost of Josette Collins opened the coffin of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge, who died (by fire!) in 1767.

The ghostly intervention was disturbing enough in itself, but when the four men saw that the coffin was absolutely empty they had to change their ideas. Before Josette took action, the Caretaker had vowed that he would die rather than let a grave be disturbed. After they have seen the empty interior of the coffin, Guthrie asks him about another grave he wants to dig up and the Caretaker gives him directions. Frank had shouted at Joe and Guthrie that they would go to jail if they didn’t immediately stop disturbing the crypt, but now he agrees to go to the other grave and help dig. Joe had joined Guthrie only with utmost reluctance and had wanted to stop when the Caretaker first showed up, but now he is the one who points out a toolshed from which he volunteers to grab some shovels.

The second grave is that of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe. In 1867, just one hundred years after the fire that killed Laura Murdoch Stockbridge, Laura Murdoch Radcliffe died the same way. What’s more, a woman initially identified as Laura Murdoch Collins died (by fire!) in Phoenix, Arizona earlier in 1967 and her body inexplicably disappeared from the morgue some weeks after her death. Evidently Guthrie’s hypothesis is that graves will both be empty, because the body of each Laura Murdoch disappeared after death. He also surmises an otherworldly connection between these three dead and vanished Laura Murdochs and the apparently alive Laura Murdoch Collins who has been hanging around the great estate of Collinwood for a couple of months.

Back in the crypt, the Caretaker is delivering a soliloquy. He thinks Guthrie, Joe, and Frank are wasting their time trying to learn secrets from the dead. He has information he could share if they would stay and listen to him. He remembers that there was something strange about the death of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe, and that a book about the Radcliffes is on the shelves in the crypt. He looks through the book and finds the information. “The child!” he exclaims.

Laura Murdoch Collins materializes in a dark corner and strikes up a conversation with the Caretaker. As her talk grows more and more mystifying, the Caretaker looks confused, as if he has never before been the least weird person in any room.

Laura’s appearance gave us (Mrs Acilius and I) two grounds for fear. Our first fear was that Laura might kill the Caretaker. We could easily imagine Guthrie, Joe, and Frank coming back to the crypt to find it in flames, the records kept there in ashes, and the Caretaker dead (by fire!) We like the Caretaker, and want to see him in future episodes.

Our second fear was that Laura would go to the grave of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe and interrupt the exhumation. What we dreaded about that prospect was that it would slow the story down. Yesterday’s show moved at a nice clip, and while today does not match it, at least some things are happening to advance the plot. In the last several weeks, the pace has alternated between glacial and dead stop. So the idea of yet another delay is well worth a shudder.

Laura Murdoch Collins examines the coffin of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge

There is a moment when it seems that Laura will go to stop the men. The Caretaker tells her that they have gone to the grave of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe, and starts to give her directions. She tells him not to bother explaining where it is. Laura doesn’t speak the line “I’ve been there before,” but Diana Millay’s eyes communicate the thought to the audience. Having already seen her inspecting the inside of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge’s empty coffin, we know that she is on a tour of her old neighborhood.

Laura Murdoch Collins doesn’t need directions to the grave of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe

For whatever reason, Laura does not interfere with Guthrie, Joe, and Frank. They dig up the coffin of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe. They open it and look inside. Guthrie asks “What do you see?” Frank replies “What you thought we’d see.” There it is, a bullfrog in a top hat singing “Hello, My Baby.” Oh no wait, I changed the channel there for a second. On Dark Shadows, the answer is “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. An empty box. It’s almost like it’s always been empty.” No wonder we’re still watching the show after all these years, where else can you find thrills like that.

The Caretaker is talking to Laura and looks down for a second. When he looks up, he is baffled. We cut back to the spot where she had been standing, and it is vacant.

Guthrie, Joe, and Frank return to the crypt. They apologize for having been away for so long. The Caretaker tells them they have only been gone for a minute or two. They are puzzled. They find the book about the Radcliffes, and discover that a portion of a newspaper clipping containing an account of Laura Murdoch Radcliffe’s death has been erased, as by an intense light generated by a fire. This leaves us wondering why Laura erased only that section of the clipping, calling attention to it, when she could just as easily have set fire to the book and destroyed the whole thing.

It’s a relief that the Caretaker survives to dodder another day, and a relief that Guthrie, Joe, and Frank complete their business in the cemetery and free us to move on to the next story point. As Guthrie, John Lasell was visibly bored yesterday; today his part is smaller, but he is back on his game, and the others are good too.

Daniel F. Keyes has some particularly good moments as the Caretaker. Yesterday he struck the heroic note when he told Guthrie and Joe that they would have to kill him before they could open the graves, and he made that a powerful moment. Today, he shows us both how lonely the Caretaker is, and why he cannot escape that loneliness. The feeling is painfully raw in his soliloquy about the information he could give if only the others would listen, and his exaggeratedly careful movements and other mimicries of a fragile old age give that rendition of helpless, desperate loneliness an extra punch. His interaction with Laura is even more interesting- while he lives too much in the world of ghosts and taboos to be at home with the living, he is too much a part of the this-world institution of the cemetery and of its rational, bureaucratic routines to know what to do when he encounters an otherworldly being face to face. He is entirely alone, caught in the interstices between the natural and the supernatural, unable to communicate with the denizens of either realm.

Today is the last time we will see actor Conard Fowkes and his character, Frank. I call him “instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank” because, while Fowkes consistently does an excellent job of embodying whatever Frank supposed to be at any given moment, he never gives the feeling that there is anything else under the surface. I keep wishing Frederic Forrest, who danced at the Blue Whale in #137, had been cast as Frank. Forrest could have created a convincing character while also giving a sense of a goofy, engaging personality inside whatever Frank is in any given scene, so that you not only appreciate each turn but also wonder what is coming next. Each time you see Fowkes, you can recognize that he presented exactly what he was supposed to present, but he never drops a hint that anything different might be coming. Still less does he leave you wanting more.

Today, Frank is supposed to be chastened by the sight of what Josette did and willing to join Guthrie and Joe in their exhumation. He is the very image of “Chastened.” Yesterday, he was indignant about Guthrie and Joe’s lawless behavior. A still of him from that episode would have been a fine illustration for a dictionary definition of “Indignant.” In #169, he was haggard and concerned about the mysterious illness gripping reclusive matriarch Liz. Again, he was a faultless model for “Haggard and Concerned.” When we first saw him in the offices of his firm in #92, he was so much the fellow you would expect to meet in a law office in Bangor, Maine in 1966 that you felt like you were reading a writ of replevin.

In a way, Fowkes was an excellent actor. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the way in which a regular member of the cast of a scripted television series ought to excel. The proper medium for him would be something more static, such as filmstrips or View Master reels, in which we could stop and look at him as he demonstrated various moods and personality types. I suppose he might also have been an outstanding mime. Fowkes was always pleasant, and in her scenes with him Alexandra Moltke Isles has a chance to show aspects of the personality of well-meaning governess Vicki that we never see in any other setting. So I’ll miss him, but I’d have missed Forrest a whole lot more.

Episode 179: The dead take their death with them

John Lasell is a tremendous actor, and was electrifying when he first appeared on Dark Shadows as parapsychologist Peter Guthrie in episode 160. But four weeks of endless recapping has taken its toll on him. In today’s pre-credits sequence, recreating yesterday’s final scene, we see what it looks like when John Lasell is bored.

Dr Guthrie and hardworking young fisherman Joe have arrived at the door to a mausoleum which houses a grave they plan to break into. Finding that he cannot turn the knob to the building’s front door, Guthrie says “It’s locked.” More precisely, he whines “It’s laaaakt.” The character has several sides, but this is the first time we’ve seen him as a cranky five-year old. As the two of them fumble about, Guthrie at one point lifts Joe’s tool box, gestures towards the inside of it, and says “Try this.” Try what, all of his tools simultaneously? When the door mysteriously opens, Guthrie takes a beat before he turns to look at it, and he never does get around to looking surprised.

They enter the crypt. Guthrie shines a flashlight directly into the camera. Characters on Dark Shadows do this so often that it must be intentional, at least to the extent that the directors resigned themselves to letting actors get away with it, but it always looks like a mistake. It’s especially jarring here, when John Lasell is himself looking into the camera when he shines the light in our eyes.

Hey Guthrie, are you a doctor of optometry?

Once Guthrie and Joe have found the vault housing the coffin of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge, they quarrel about whether to go through with their plan. They go through the same arguments they used in their scene in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood yesterday. As yesterday, Joel Crothers manages to put enough verve into Joe’s mixed emotions that he is interesting to watch, but Lasell simply cannot bring himself to commit to another tired rehash. The only thought his performance in this scene brings to mind is puzzlement as to what happened to Guthrie’s glasses.

Back at Collinwood, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank charges into the drawing room and demands that flighty heiress Carolyn tell him where Guthrie is. She replies that Guthrie swore her to secrecy. Frank says that Guthrie had called him shortly before to ask about a plan that might get him sent to jail. Frank asks Carolyn if Guthrie has gone to the crypt at the old cemetery. Faced with the prospect that Guthrie and Joe might land in jail, Carolyn admits that they are both there.

Guthrie and Joe try to pry Laura Murdoch Stockbridge’s nameplate off the wall of the crypt. They keep talking about how the whole thing might as well be a single block of stone. The actual wall keeps springing back in a way that only cheap grades of plywood do, undercutting this dialogue and requiring the actors to put more and more effort into keeping it from falling down. By the end of the sequence, both of Joel Crothers’ arms and one of John Lasell’s are holding the wall up, so that Dr Guthrie has to remove the supposedly massive nameplate with one hand. Even the blocking isn’t up to director Lela Swift’s usual standards- most of what we see in this sequence is the back of John Lasell’s coat. Considering what’s going on with the set, that may not be such a bad thing.

After Joe and Guthrie get the nameplate off the wall, Crothers flashes a look at Lasell that shows he is struggling to keep a straight face. Lasell’s boredom saves the take- if he had been intellectually available enough to notice Crothers’ twitching lips, he would have burst out laughing:

The coffin is quite large and apparently very heavy. Guthrie and Joe put all their strength into carrying it a few feet. They then place it on a miniature tea stand.

Guthrie fits a wedge under the lid and holds it while Joe swings a hammer. The elderly Caretaker enters and orders them to stop. If only for the sake of the tea stand, this command comes as a great relief.

The Caretaker tells Guthrie and Joe that they won’t open the coffin unless they kill him first. That doesn’t stop Guthrie’s efforts to win him over, but it is enough for Joe. Frank shows up. He apologizes to the Caretaker and yells at Guthrie.

Guthrie tries to explain himself to Frank. When Frank tells him that a court would likely respond to his hypotheses by committing him to a psych ward, Guthrie responds “Well, doesn’t that prove my point halfway?” When Frank asks how, Guthrie says “Wouldn’t a court… um… would a court be more sympathetic… uh… before the point? My reasons? Than after?” I’m sure that was not how it was phrased in the script, but I can’t imagine that whatever was written there made any more sense. Guthrie’s behavior is so preposterous today that it is understandable John Lasell didn’t bother to put in much of a performance. Still terribly disappointing, and quite unusual to see him as the weakest member of the cast. The rest of them all do very well in this well-paced, if not particularly well-mounted, episode.

The three men are about to leave the crypt when Joe says he detects a flowery scent. Guthrie asks if it is the scent of jasmine- the sign that the ghost of Josette Collins is near. Joe doesn’t know what jasmine smells like. The Caretaker can just about make out the scent of jasmine, far away, as if it were wafting in from the sea. In a reprise of a moment from #154, when the Caretaker told Vicki the same thing, Joe protests that the scent is not far away at all. It is flooding the room, is overpowering, is coming from behind an obstacle in the crypt.

The coffin opens itself, evidently the result of Josette’s action. The men gather round and look inside. It is empty- no bones, no dust, no sign that there ever was a body inside. Guthrie’s hypothesis, that the body of Laura Murdoch Stockbridge vanished after burial, is confirmed.

Episode 178: Bake me a cake

We open in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood. Visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie is trying to talk hardworking young fisherman Joe into helping him open a grave. Joe’s ex-girlfriend, flighty heiress Carolyn, is alarmed by the idea, but is on Guthrie’s side. Guthrie recaps the current storyline until he bores Joe into submission. Joe goes off to get his tools.

Guthrie, Carolyn, and Joe make their plans

As Joe, Joel Crothers does manage to hold the audience’s attention. While the other actors are starting to seem bored with the endless repetitions, his shocked interjections make him seem like someone learning these bizarre facts for the first time. With so much time spent selling old rope, it is genuinely surprising to find oneself taking an interest in anything about the dialogue.

We cut to stock footage of the Moon behind clouds, then see blonde fire witch Laura staring out the window of the cottage on the estate. This is the first time we see that footage coupled with the sight of a supernatural villain staring out a window, but it won’t be the last.

Laura’s estranged husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger drops in on her. They recap the same material Guthrie has been going over.

When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius became frustrated. Laura tells Roger that Guthrie is not simply a psychologist- he is a parapsychologist. Roger is appalled by this news. Mrs Acilius was appalled that Roger, who has always been presented as a reasonably intelligent person, is suddenly so dumb that he hadn’t figured it out yet. After all, Roger and Laura had both participated in a séance Guthrie had organized- wasn’t that enough of a clue for him?

My interpretation is that Roger isn’t being dumb. He has said time and again that he regards Guthrie as a quack. I think that up to this point, he has assumed that Guthrie was just making stuff up as he went along. When Laura tells him that Guthrie is a researcher specializing in psychic phenomena, he is stunned to realize Guthrie isn’t improvising- he is a committed to a systematic plan of quackery. The missus seemed to find that interpretation intriguing.

Roger is stunned deeply enough, in fact, that his resistance to the idea that there might be something seriously weird about Laura starts to break down. Roger runs through all the unexplainable occurrences that have taken place since Laura has come back to town, and insists she tell him anything she might be holding back. Roger usually responds to information that inconveniences him by declaring that he will erase it from his memory as soon as possible, but it seems that he can no longer seal off the warning signs about Laura.

As Roger talks to Laura, she realizes that he might be about to become a lot less manageable. Her look changes from irritation to worry to a brief, beautiful moment when she is clearly thinking of casting a spell on him. I missed that bit when we were watching the episode, and Mrs Acilius had to point it out to me. I must have been looking away- as Diana Millay plays the scene, the flickering thought is easily legible on her face.

Roger goes to the great house and acts like he owns the place. Carolyn and Guthrie play along with him. He orders Guthrie out. Guthrie goes quietly; it’s time for him to meet up with Joe anyway. Carolyn pleads with him to give Guthrie a chance. After yet more recapping, he breaks down and admits that it is possible that something supernatural might be going on.

We see Guthrie and Joe at the door of the building in which the crypt they want to open is located. They try vainly to open the door. They knock and get no answer. They are about to give up when the doorknob starts to turn. The door opens, and they peer inside with startled looks. This is a reprise of the ending of #153, when well-meaning governess Vicki and her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, came to the same door with the same result. Vicki and Frank had been led to the building by the ghost of Josette Collins, and did not know what they were to do there. Guthrie and Joe have decided to go there because Guthrie’s analysis has led him to the conclusion that they have to open the tomb of L. Murdoch Stockbridge. That difference in context doesn’t make today’s conclusion any more exciting than that one was, but at least it marks a certain measure of progress in the development of the plot.