acting – Page 7 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 764: A primitive tribe

Odds and ends today:

The Kindest, Warmest, Bravest, Most Wonderful Human Being I’ve Ever Known in My Life

The show is doing an homage to The Manchurian Candidate this week, with schoolteacher Tim Shaw brainwashed into becoming an assassin when he sees the Queen of Spades. We open with the plan going awry. Lawyer/ warlock Evan Hanley did the brainwashing with the intention that Tim would kill someone else, but when he shows Tim the card, Tim tries to kill him. As Evan, Humbert Allen Astredo shows us a man suddenly becoming frightened and just as suddenly making up his mind to be brave. In other episodes, Astredo has already shown us Evan responding to fear in other ways. He really was a remarkably good actor, and it is a pleasure to see how much variety he can find in his parts.

Later, we see Judith Collins, the mistress of Collinwood, playing solitaire. Tim comes to the house. We know that each episode ends with a cliffhanger, and so this leads us to expect that we will end today with Tim’s hands around Judith’s throat. But that is a misdirection. In fact, Judith turns the Queen of Spades away from Tim at the last second, and he leaves the room without attacking her.

Slight Enough to Vanish, But Too Dense to Live

Tim’s brainwashing is a B-story on the show right now, and it would throw off the rhythm of the week to end two consecutive episodes with cliffhangers from it. The A-story is about the rakish Quentin Collins, who has been cursed to become a werewolf. There is a full moon tonight, and the sheriff’s department is roaming the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood with guns looking for the wolf who walks like a man. Joining in the search is Quentin’s distant cousin, Barnabas Collins, who is, unknown to all but a very few people, a vampire. Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897, and among the things he is hoping to do is to learn how the werewolf curse that has afflicted his friend Chris Jennings in the 1960s first began.

Barnabas learned in 1969 that in 1897 Quentin and a woman named Beth Chavez paid a man named Ezra Braithwaite to make a silver pendant in the form of a pentagram and that a baby boy was buried in that year wearing that pendant. Tonight, Ezra telephones Barnabas at the great house of Collinwood and tells him that Beth just came in, ordered such a pendant, and told him to send the bill to Quentin.

Barnabas knows that the pentagram was an amulet meant to ward off werewolves. Beth is Quentin’s girlfriend, a fact that is no secret to anyone, not even Barnabas. So you might assume Barnabas would have figured out that Quentin is the werewolf. But apparently he has not. He materializes inside Beth’s room and demands she tells him who the werewolf is. When she refuses, he bites her. That bite is the cliffhanger.

Dear cousin Barnabas. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas occasionally makes remarks about how he wants to keep the original timeline intact so that the people he knew in the 1960s will still be there when he gets back. But he’s been feasting on the people he meets in 1897 with abandon. Beth is the fourth resident of Collinwood he has bitten, and he has killed at least two young women in the village. Moreover, his approach to every problem he encounters or imagines is to confront the most powerful person associated with it and antagonize them immediately. It’s hard to see how he expects anything to remain unchanged after he inserts this rampage into the history of the late Victorian age.

But You Wouldn’t Know Anything About That

Judith tells Barnabas today that Beth came to Collinwood as a lady’s maid two years ago. Beth claims to have a cousin in town to Judith today while lying to cover up her trip to Braithwaite’s, and when Barnabas asks Judith if Beth is from Collinsport she mentions this cousin as her reason for believing that she is. Judith clearly knows very little about Beth, and cares less.

The lady who brought Beth as her maid was Quentin’s then-wife, Jenny, who was secretly a member of the Romani people. In #701 it was hinted that Beth was concealing a Romani origin of her own. Casting the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, pale Terrayne Crawford as Beth would seem to indicate that they were not committed to following up this hint, but in today’s scenes with Judith they do go out of their way to emphasize that Beth’s background is a mystery.

The Woman Who Never Left

Beth has been helping the family hide the fact that Jenny went mad and bore twins after Quentin left her. Quentin murdered Jenny in #748, eliminating the need for a servant to cover up her existence, and the twins, about whom Quentin does not know, are firmly ensconced in the care of a woman in the village named Mrs Fillmore. In #750, Judith fired Beth, but it didn’t take. Beth never left the house, and after a while the family started giving her orders again. Today Beth tells Judith that Mrs Fillmore reports that the boy twin is feverish, and asks to be kept on staff until he gets well. Judith agrees.

Judith tells Beth that she has decided to tell Quentin about the twins. She hopes that is what will prompt her brother to cast aside his selfish ways and become a mature adult. Beth is horrified and begs her not to do so. Judith, puzzled, says that Beth has always urged her to tell Quentin. She asks why she has changed her mind, and she makes up something obviously false about Quentin being unable to cope with the news that his son has a fever.

Yesterday, Beth learned that Quentin’s curse is hereditary. Returning viewers might wonder if she is afraid that Quentin will also learn that, and that if he does he might kill his children to prevent them passing it on. He does keep saying that he would rather be dead than have the curse, so he might talk himself into regarding such a murder as an act of mercy.

Featuring Edward Marshall as Ezra Braithwaite

Edward Marshall plays Ezra, a part played in #684 and #685 as an 87 year old man living in the year 1969 by Abe Vigoda (who was 48 at the time, but he and the makeup department both knew their business well enough that he was entirely convincing.) Mr Marshall appeared in #669 as unsightly ex-convict Harry Johnson, a part originally created by the not-always-stellar Craig Slocum. Mr Marshall gave Harry the same attitude and many of the same mannerisms Slocum had given him, but was so much more fun to watch that I wanted to see a lot more of him.

Parts of Harry’s costume and most of his surly demeanor are recycled in the 1897 segment in the character of dimwitted groundskeeper Dirk Wilkins, played by the repulsive Roger Davis. Whenever Dirk is on screen, I imagine Mr Marshall in Mr Davis’ place. I recommend that bit of mental recasting, it goes a long way towards making Dirk bearable. Unfortunately this is Mr Marshall’s final appearance on Dark Shadows.

Episode 763: An afternoon of cards, a night of murder

Schoolteacher Tim Shaw was introduced in #731. The name “Shaw” is common enough that few viewers are likely to have found any significance in it at the time. It is true that Dark Shadows is at this point a costume drama set in 1897 and that George Bernard Shaw was coming into his own as a playwright in that year. The show was written, acted, and directed largely by theater people, and is so self-consciously stagy that it is possible there might be a reference of some kind to Bernard Shaw in a character’s name. But there doesn’t seem to be anything especially Shavian about Tim.

Today we learn the reason Tim was called Shaw. Satanist Evan Hanley gives Tim a potion that robs him of his will. He holds up a deck of playing cards and tells him that when he sees the Queen of Spades he will know it is time for him to murder someone. In Richard Condon’s 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate, soldier Raymond Shaw was brainwashed into becoming an assassin when he saw the Queen of Hearts; in the John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film based on the novel, Raymond’s trigger was the Queen of Diamonds.

Frankenheimer’s film is one of the supreme examples of a movie that shouldn’t have worked, but did. No part of the plot stands up to rational analysis for one second, but when the tale is told through stark black and white imagery that puts us deep in the world of a nightmare it is spellbinding. Unfortunately, the irrationality of the plan the villains carry out and of the other characters’ responses to their evil deeds in The Manchurian Candidate are on full display in this homage, without the paranoid verve that makes the movie compelling. All by itself the potion puts Tim so deep in Evan’s power that he gladly goes to witch Magda Rákóczi to buy poison and insists she sell it to him even after she has pointed out that it is useful for nothing but murder. It doesn’t seem there is anything left for the card to add to the control Evan has over him.

It gets worse. Evan is acting as the agent of the evil Rev’d Gregory Trask. Trask is unhappily married to a woman named Minerva, and is blackmailing Evan into sending an assassin to kill her. When Evan shows Tim the card today, he confirms that the intended victim is a woman. But why not have him kill Trask? As my wife, Mrs Acilius, points out, if Trask dies, Evan will be free of the threat of blackmail. So if he is prepared to be a party to murder, you’d think he would forget Minerva and commit the crime he has a motive to commit.

The highlight of today’s episode doesn’t have anything to do with Evan, Tim, Minerva, or Trask. It is a scene between Magda and sometime maidservant Beth.

Beth has come to the Old House on the great estate of Collinwood to plead with Magda to lift a curse she has placed on Beth’s boyfriend, rakish Quentin Collins. Quentin murdered his estranged wife, Magda’s sister Jenny, and as revenge Magda turned him into a werewolf. Magda is unimpressed with anything Beth says until she tells her that in spite of everything, she will marry Quentin and go away with him. Magda marvels at this and asks Beth if she will really go through with it knowing that any son Quentin might have will suffer from the same curse. Shocked, Beth asks Magda if she means what she has said, and she repeats that Quentin’s son will also be a werewolf. Beth replies that in that case, Magda has laid a curse upon her own kin.

Magda dismisses this, saying that Jenny had no children by Quentin. Beth says she is wrong, that Jenny bore twins, a boy and a girl. Beth lays the story out systematically, and it dawns on Magda that she is telling the truth. Magda calls out to Jenny’s spirit and begs forgiveness, saying she did not know. Beth says that it is time to lift the curse, and Magda tells her to get a pentagram and make sure the boy wears it all the days of his life. Beth has her own moment of horrified realization. “And… you can’t end it? Can you?”

Beth realizes Magda does not know how to undo the curse.

Terrayne Crawford had some weaknesses as an actress that severely undercut her in her first weeks as Beth. But this scene is right in her wheelhouse. She is flawless as she portrays Beth’s progression from weepy begging to methodical explanation to utter shock. And Grayson Hall of course brings great power and vivid color to Magda.

We’ve been waiting for this scene since #642, months before Magda first appeared in #701, let alone before she placed the curse on Quentin in #750. In that episode, back in December 1968, the show took place in a contemporary setting. The characters had noticed some strange goings-on, and held a séance as part of their inquiry. The spirit they reached was Magda, who spoke regretfully of “my currrrse!” It’s taken more than 24 weeks, but Magda has finally learned what she already knew when we first heard from her.

Episode 762: You called the Devil, and you got me

In December 1967, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s. In that month it introduced the Rev’d Mr Trask, a witch-hunter from Salem, Massachusetts, came to central Maine* to drive witchcraft out of the village of Collinsport and off the estate of Collinwood. Trask was bad at this job; wicked witch Angelique easily deceived him into blaming well-meaning governess Victoria Winters for her own crimes, leading to Vicki’s hanging and exacerbating the consequences of Angelique’s evil spells.

Now the show has relocated to the year 1897, and a descendant of Trask is among the villains. He is the Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask, and he runs a boarding school along lines dictated by his own sadistic delight in punishing innocent children.

Fans often say that while the original Trask** was a sincere believer who did harm because of his fanaticism, Gregory is a hypocrite who uses a pretense of religion to enable his perversions and his greed. I think the truth is more complicated, and more interesting, than this. In #441, the original Trask found the strangled body of a professionally agreeable lady named Maude Browning in his bed; it had been placed there to frame him for Maude’s murder. Trask’s principles, were he to follow them, would seem to imply that he should go directly to the authorities. If the worst happened and they hanged him, to the extent that he was targeted because of his Christian witness his death would win for him an everlasting crown of martyrdom. But fear got the better of Trask. He enlisted a man named Nathan Forbes to help him hide Maude’s remains, and went on from there to expand his conspiracy to suborn Nathan’s perjured testimony against Vicki. Considering the emphasis the Reformed movement put on the Ten Commandments, Trask could not have been unaware of the sinfulness of bearing false witness against a neighbor.

I think Trask’s fanaticism led him to overestimate the importance of the success of his mission in this world. It is not enough that he will be vindicated in the courts of God; God must be vindicated through Trask’s success in the courts of Massachusetts. Thus it is his very sincerity that turns Trask into a hypocrite. Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer was one of the most influential publications of the 1960s; Trask, the fanatic-turned-hypocrite, could easily have found a home in its pages.

Gregory Trask is certainly a hypocrite. Today we hear Gregory’s wife Minerva talk about women he has dallied with over the years. Gregory comes upon Satanists Quentin Collins and Evan Hanley in the act of summoning the Devil; Gregory’s response is to blackmail Evan into using his command of the black arts to cast a spell to brainwash hapless schoolteacher Tim Shaw into murdering Minerva. We have seen in previous episodes that Gregory has plans for spinster Judith Collins and her enormous fortune; Minerva’s death, if it can be arranged just so, will leave him well-positioned to marry Judith and become the Master of Collinwood.

Trask tells Evan the price of his silence. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As his ancestor’s very sincerity turned him into a hypocrite, so Gregory’s hypocrisy occasionally turns him into a sincere believer in his own powers, if not exactly in God. We saw in #735 that Gregory does not take the same pleasure in reading the Bible that he does in leafing through his “Punishment Book,” a ledger which evidently details his abuse of the children attending his school. But he does read it and quote it, and when in #726 he encountered a case of possession, he immediately and with untroubled self-assurance set to work performing an exorcism. The possession was real, and so far as Gregory could tell his exorcism was successful. He reacted to that apparent success with a serenity that betrayed no suggestion that he had ever doubted that he was the right person to cast out the spiritual forces of darkness.

As the original Trask was a stranger to the routine play-acting that makes ordinary social life bearable and therefore gave himself permission to become a party to the most horrendous deceptions, so Gregory wears his mask so tightly that his face grows to fit it. Dark Shadows was often very self-conscious about showing characters who were acting; its greatest success, vampire Barnabas Collins, won over the audience when they saw him trying desperately hard to play the role of a living man native to the twentieth century. In the Trasks, we see men who do not know that they are acting and therefore cannot manage the effect that the parts they play in everyday life have on their personalities.

Gregory does have a tight mental focus on his projects. When he goes to Evan with his blackmail demands, Evan has learned of his eye for the ladies, and is hoping to use that information to lower his price. So his opening gambit is to describe himself as a man who drifts from one idea to another as other men drift from one woman to another. Three times he says the word “woman,” in each case as the last word of a sentence, in each case about twice as loudly as the words before it. Gregory is unimpressed, and Evan realizes he doesn’t have anything definite to use against Gregory. He crumbles and agrees to Gregory’s extreme demand.

Gregory’s academic standards seem considerably less exacting than are his expectations of his co-conspirators. He mentions to Tim today that when he was a young teacher, the first class he ever taught was in elementary Latin. He challenges Tim to translate the words amo, amas, amat; Tim wearily replies “I love, you love, he loves.” “Very good!” exclaims Gregory. Traditionally the first words students learned on the first day of Latin class were amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant– I love, you love, s/he loves, we love, you (plural) love, they love. “Very good!” would seem to be an outrageously inflated appraisal to apply to someone who has merely recognized the first three of those six words.

Gregory sends Tim to Evan’s house to read a Latin document that has some bearing on a legal matter that has come up in Evan’s work as an attorney. As it happens, I went to graduate school in ancient Greek and Latin at the University of Texas at Austin, and local attorneys would sometimes call our department asking for someone to help them translate Latin they had found in old Spanish legal documents. They would usually refer those calls to the ablest Latinists among us, since the legal Latin used in the Spanish Empire in the days it ruled Texas was rather a specialized form of the language. Tim can virtually speed-read Evan’s document, suggesting that “amo, amas, amat” was not a particularly stringent test of his abilities.

*Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1821.

**Who is never given a first name. One of the Big Finish audio dramas refers to him as “Vilorus Trask” and actor Jerry Lacy once said he thought his name should have been “Orville.” Neither of those sounds like a very plausible name for a junior-grade Puritan divine of the late eighteenth century. So we are left calling him “the original Trask.” My wife, Mrs Acilius, points out that this seems to suggest that Gregory should be “the extra-crispy Trask.” Maybe he will die by fire, as others have done.

Episode 759: It’s not our fault, what we are

Dark Shadows‘ first supernatural menace, on the show from December 1966 to March 1967, was undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. In those days, we learned that at intervals of exactly 100 years Laura incinerated herself and her young son, always a boy named David, and that she (but not the Davids) rose from the ashes as a humanoid Phoenix. Well-meaning governess Victoria Winters led the resistance to Laura.

The story came to its climax as Laura she tried to take her son, Vicki’s charge David Collins, to the fate that had claimed David Stockbridge in 1767, David Radcliffe in 1867, and who knows how many other Davids in the preceding centuries. At the final moment, David Collins ran from the burning shack to which Laura had brought him and found his way to Vicki’s arms. With that, he chose Vicki and life over his mother and death, and Dark Shadows 1.0 reached its conclusion.

Dark Shadows 2.0 picked up immediately after, and focused on another supernatural villain, vampire Barnabas Collins. There isn’t an established mythology for filicidal humanoid Phoenixes, so the writers had leaned heavily on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and on stage and film adaptations of the novel for the structure and details of the Laura story. For example, in many scenes they went out of their way to show that Laura never eats or drinks. They eventually established that Barnabas doesn’t eat or drink either, but when he first came on they had to show that they were not just repeating what they had done so shortly before. So in #221, Barnabas clearly drinks a cup of coffee.

The original plan had apparently been that Barnabas would wreak terror for thirteen weeks while Vicki gradually figured out what was going on, organized a force to do battle with him, and then staked him in #275, destroying him in the last episode the ABC network was likely to air before cancelling the show. But Barnabas brought a new audience with him, prompting ABC to renew for another thirteen weeks. So his destruction had to be postponed indefinitely, and Vicki wound up on the margins of the story. She became Barnabas’ friend and stalwart defender before ultimately disappearing altogether.

Since then, Dark Shadows has been reinvented several times. Version 3.0 ran from November 1967 through March 1968; it was a costume drama set in the 1790s, to which Vicki had been transported by the mysterious powers represented by the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah. Version 4.0 ran from March through November 1968; it was a Monster Mash in which a variety of vampires, Frankensteins, witches, and other refugees from the Universal Studios back catalog stumbled over each other in an ever-more futile search for a coherent plot. Version 5.0 began in November 1968 with two stories revolving around nine year old Amy Jennings. These were the Haunting of Collinwood by the malign ghost of Quentin Collins, who represented a special threat to Amy, and the Werewolf Curse on Amy’s big brother Chris. I don’t know what was in the original flimsies, but I suspect this portion of the show was originally meant to be much shorter than it is and to serve as a prologue to Version 5.0.1, a costume drama set in 1897, when Quentin was alive and the werewolf curse began. It shows signs of having been greatly extended when Quentin’s ghost started to attract a large and fervent fan-base and the producers were unsure whether he could keep that following as a living being.

We finally went back to 1897 in #701, twelve weeks ago. Barnabas, who at the beginning of the Monster Mash period was freed of the effects of the vampire curse, tried to save Amy, Chris, and everyone else at Collinwood by doing some mumbo-jumbo, and found himself transported back in time. Having traveled to the past, he has once again become a vampire.

Among the many people Barnabas has met during his uncertain and frightening journey to the past is another iteration of Laura. It turns out that he remembers her from 1767, when he was a child and she was married to his uncle. She at first accepted his story that he was the great-grandson of the original Barnabas. He was a small boy when she burned that time, and all she can see is that her new acquaintance has a family resemblance to that boy. But he knew that she was planning to incinerate her children, among them the ancestor of the Collinses whom he knows at Collinwood in the 1960s, and he has been flagrantly aggressive in his opposition to her. She has learned that he is a vampire, and has tried to destroy him.

The highlight of today’s episode comes when Laura enters the foyer of the great house and Barnabas pops up to greet her. He calls her Laura Stockbridge, and she begins talking about what he was like as a boy. She refers to their similarity, implying that she is herself a type of vampire. She tells him he shouldn’t oppose her, and he says that he would want her to stop him if he were about to do what she is planning. She says that he cannot know what her plans are. He assures her he does know, and she lists all the people with whom he may have discussed her, dismissing each in turn as an unreliable source. Barnabas keeps smiling. For a thrilling moment, we wonder if his key informant was Vicki. Perhaps she told him about her encounter with the Laura of 1966-1967, and he knows everything she figured out in those days.

Hello, Auntie! Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Alas, it is not so. Barnabas opens a door and reveals the slumped figure of Laura’s dimwitted thrall Dirk. Earlier Barnabas, in bat form, had attached Dirk to prevent him bringing a letter to the house that would have exposed Barnabas’ secret. Barnabas tells Laura he hasn’t killed Dirk, merely bitten him and questioned him. In the first two-thirds of the episode, Dirk, played by the always-regrettable Roger Davis, kept grabbing Laura and pawing at her; at one point Diana Millay does an adroit little judo move to block his hand before he can put it on her left breast. As a result of these scenes and countless others in which Mr Davis engaged in similar behavior, many in the audience will groan with disappointment when Barnabas says that Dirk is not dead.

Millay and Jonathan Frid are wonderful in this scene. Laura’s lines are perfectly suited to display Millay’s gift for subtle emotional transitions, and Frid’s delivery shows what he can do when he has time to learn his part and the lines do not require him to verbalize the character’s every thought. Mr Davis is also well within his range, playing as he does an unconscious and apparently dead body. He should have specialized in that, it’s the first thing we’ve seen him do really well in all of his many appearances on the show.

Episode 755: So many strange habits

Every character we see today is a trespasser at the great estate of Collinwood. Libertine Quentin Collins was banished from Collinwood the year before by his grandmother Edith, but came back shortly before Edith died and left the estate to his sister Judith. He then accepted $10,000 from Judith on condition that he would leave, but he did not keep his end of the bargain. Judith is too afraid of scandal to take Quentin to court for an eviction order, so he’s still living in his old room.

Judith fired maidservant Beth Chavez the other day. Beth never did leave, and now the family has given up and started giving her orders again.

Quentin and Judith’s distant cousin Barnabas was ordered to leave Collinwood forever by his father Joshua. That took place almost a hundred years before. Barnabas then became a vampire. Now he’s back, masquerading as his own imaginary great-grandson.

Quentin and Judith’s brother Edward is estranged from his wife Laura. Quentin and Laura had an affair, and she followed Quentin to Egypt upon his banishment. When she came back to Collinwood several weeks ago, Edward ordered her to leave. She threatened to make a scandal, and he caved in, agreeing to let her stay in the groundskeeper’s cottage on the property. Today she is in the great house, and Beth tells her that she has orders from Judith and Edward that she is to see to it that she leaves the house and does not come back. They quarrel, and Beth leaves her in the drawing room. Later, Laura comes back to the house and demands Beth let her back in the drawing room, and for some reason Beth feels she must comply.

The only person we see who has a legitimate reason to be in the great house is servant Dirk Wilkins. Dirk has been bewitched by Laura and now is her cat’s paw. She orders him to let himself into the Old House on the estate, where Barnabas is staying, and to steal any papers that might shed light on Barnabas. Dirk and Laura certainly know that neither Judith nor Barnabas would want them to do this, so Dirk winds up not only as a trespasser in that house, but as a burglar there.

The end of the episode takes us to an old graveyard for an even more egregious example of trespass. Dirk found an old document written by the late Ben Stokes confirming that Barnabas has a secret, but ending with Ben’s vow to take that secret “to the grave.” Laura takes this expression literally, and orders Dirk to dig up Ben’s grave. Sure enough, they find more papers hidden in the coffin.

Here it is, the secret he took to the grave! Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Diana Millay was a fine actress, capable of subtle psychological drama and unsurpassed at dry comedy. But her delivery of today’s opening voiceover is stunningly bad. Between her first tour of duty as Laura in December 1966-March 1967 and her current run, Dark Shadows changed from a Gothic drama aimed at adults to a supernatural thriller popular among preteens. This left little room for what she did best. She may well have been frustrated by the new situation. If so, that frustration might show in her decision to deliver the summary of the plot so far as if she were a nursery school teacher reading to a group of groggy three year olds.

Episode 750: Hold back the night

Magda at Jenny’s grave. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The name “Magda” was first mentioned on Dark Shadows in #642, broadcast and set in December 1968. At that time, the residents of the great house of Collinwood had noticed unaccountable goings-on, and as they often do they held a séance to appeal to the spirits of the dead for guidance. The spirit they reached in that one identified herself as Magda. She repeated two things- “My curse!” and “He must not return!” Magda said enough to suggest that she had cursed someone and regretted doing so, and that she knew that the Collinses were threatened by the return of someone from her own period, but that was all. Since the Collinses of 1968 had never heard of anyone associated with their house named Magda and could find no record of such a person, those suggestions remained vague and useless to them.

They meant a good deal more to regular viewers. We already knew that the malign ghost of Quentin Collins had appeared in a room in the long-deserted west wing of the great house, that children David Collins and Amy Jennings were falling under the ghost’s influence, and that Quentin lived at Collinwood near the end of the nineteenth century. We therefore assume that Quentin is the one who “must not return!,” and that Magda, whoever she was, must have known Quentin and therefore also have lived sometime in the 1890s.

Among the participants in the séance was Amy’s older brother, mysterious drifter Chris Jennings. Chris broke the séance off before Magda could go into enough detail to help the others. The show had long since established that the person who ends a séance prematurely is the one who harbors a dreadful secret that the voice from beyond might uncover. Even the characters have caught on to this pattern; they treat Chris with suspicion. They do not know what we do, that Chris is a werewolf. So he is indeed under a curse, and we can take it that his curse originated when Magda placed it on one of his ancestors.

Over the next few months, Quentin’s power steadily grew, and at the same time Chris’ periods in his animal form grew longer and more frequent. These two developments moved in such close tandem that we had to suspect that there was some causal relationship between them. This suspicion was reinforced when, in #683, another ghost associated with Quentin, that of a tall, thin, blonde woman named Beth, led Chris to what proved to be the unmarked grave of an infant. That infant was wearing an amulet meant to ward off werewolves. The records of the silversmith who made the amulet showed that it was commissioned and paid for in 1897 by Quentin Collins and Beth Chavez. Thus we learned that a werewolf was active in the area of Collinwood when Beth and Quentin were alive, and that they cared about a baby who died at that time. The logical inference would be that the curse under which Chris labors originated at that time, that Beth and Quentin had something to do with it, and that the baby was related to someone who became one of Chris’ ancestors.

Now, the show has become a costume drama set in 1897. Quentin and Beth are alive. Beth is a maidservant who first came to Collinwood in the train of Quentin’s estranged wife, Jenny. Quentin left Jenny and was banished from the house the previous year; word was put about that Jenny responded to the desertion by going away and leaving no forwarding address. When Quentin returned to Collinwood in #701, he was surprised to find Beth still on staff, and he set to work trying to seduce her.

In #720, Quentin discovered that Jenny had not in fact gone so far away as he and everyone else had been led to believe. She turned up and stabbed him. He then learned that Jenny had become violently insane when he left her and that his sister Judith and brother Edward had responded to her illness by locking her up in a room hidden inside the great house. They kept Beth in their employ because she was the one entrusted to care for Jenny.

Now, Beth has given in to Quentin’s charms. The other night Jenny was hiding in Beth’s room while Beth and Quentin shared a tender moment, and she reacted by coming at them with a knife. Quentin disarmed Jenny, restrained her, and then put his hands around her throat. While Beth pleaded with him to stop, he choked Jenny to death. He keeps protesting that, because Jenny at one point had a knife, this was an act of self defense, but the audience and Beth both saw what happened, and she won’t agree with him any more than we will.

Edward and Judith have decided to shield Quentin from the legal consequences of his actions, and in the village of Collinsport the will of the Collinses supersedes the laws of the state of Maine. But Quentin finds no comfort in his immunity from criminal prosecution. Just hours before he murdered Jenny, Quentin discovered that he knew nothing about her origins. He thought she was some kind of Anglo, but she was passing. She was actually a Romani woman. Her sister is one of the neighbors, broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi.

In Wednesday’s episode, Edward convinced Magda the police and courts would do nothing to punish Quentin, and so Magda threatened to place a curse on him to avenge Jenny’s death. Edward, a rational-minded modern man, dismissed Magda’s threat as “words.” But Beth and Quentin know things about the universe they occupy that Edward does not know. When Beth heard Magda’s threat, she looked wide-eyed at Quentin, walked backwards away from him, and ran off. Quentin, who is obsessed with the occult, was immediately terrified, and has been dissolving into a puddle ever since.

Yesterday, Quentin fell into a trap Magda set for him and brought a curse upon himself. Today, Magda stands with her husband Sandor by Jenny’s grave, watches the full Moon rise, and recites an incantation specifying that Quentin’s male descendants will suffer from the same curse he does. So far as Magda knows, Quentin does not yet have any descendants, male or female, and so that proviso is just an abstraction for her.

We know more than Magda does. Not only have returning viewers heard her spirit say that she regrets the curse and been led to the conclusion that it fell on Chris Jennings, but even those who are watching the show for the first time today know that Quentin and Jenny are the parents of twin infants whom Judith is paying a Mrs Fillmore to raise in her home in the village of Collinsport. Mrs Fillmore’s name was first mentioned in #707, and it comes up today when Judith is firing Beth.

Judith explains to Beth that, since Jenny is no longer around, she no longer has any work to do at Collinwood. She indicates her dissatisfaction with Beth, and says that it is only through Edward’s influence that she included a severance payment with her letter of dismissal. Beth mentions her task of taking money to Mrs Fillmore to pay her for taking care of Jenny and Quentin’s children; Judith does not see a need to retain an employee simply to carry an envelope full of cash to the village every now and then.

Beth objects that Judith is terminating her employment because she has become involved with Quentin; Judith takes that as an opportunity to castigate her for the impropriety of that relationship. Joan Bennett plays Judith’s reaction to Beth quite effectively; in a comment on Danny Horn’s post about the episode at Dark Shadows Every Day, “Rev Velveteen” writes:

I wanted to mention a Judith Collins, er, Joan Bennett acting moment I found particularly entertaining here. When she’s giving Beth the boot and the servant attempts to “innocently” inquire as to why she’s being let go, Judith turns around and gives her SUCH a look! Huge eyes, a stifled gasp, then bright pursed lips…Her expression goes from incredulous (Are you freaking KIDDING me?) to amused (Just how stupid does she think we are?) to triumphantly satisfied (Fine, we shall just both play out this little charade and I’ll soon be rid of you.) Her chin goes up as she turns away snarkily-“Let’s just say that now Jenny’s gone, your services are no longer needed,” which everyone on and off screen knows is a total lie. It’s such a sweet piece of work by Ms. Bennett, I need to keep an eye out to see if she repeats that expression because it just sums up the whole character of any Collins she plays when as the perpetual straight man, she’s faced with yet another absurd situation. And is also just stunning in that gorgeous green dress.

Comment left by “Rev Velveteen” at 12:43 am Pacific time, 25 June 2020, on Danny Horn, “Episode 750: Gypsy Ascendant,” 18 October 2015, Dark Shadows Every Day

Yesterday, Judith gave the penniless Quentin $10,000 on condition that he leave Collinwood forever and induce Sandor and Magda to do the same. Quentin had hoped to use the money to bribe them into forgoing Jenny’s vengeance, but they only pretended to take it to lure him into bringing the curse on himself. Magda contemptuously threw the cash at him after he did so.

Quentin has told Judith that Magda took the money and agreed to go. Today, Magda comes to the house to ask for Jenny’s things. Judith starts in with lecture about how she must go at once, since she and Sandor have been paid so well to leave, and Magda reveals that she did not take the money. Enraged at Quentin’s childish lie, Judith demands he return the $10,000. He tells her to sue him, and stalks off. Judith fumes, knowing that she has been cheated and that she cannot assert her rights without creating the public scandal that she fears above all else.

Quentin finds Beth packing Jenny’s things. He tells her he has to leave tonight, and announces that she will be coming with him. She responds in a mild tone that she doesn’t seem to have any say in the matter. She tells Quentin that she has lost her job, and says that she will give him her decision in the afternoon.

Sandor comes for Jenny’s things. Quentin offers him the $10,000 all for himself if he can lift the curse. He says he doesn’t know how. Quentin says he will give it all to him if only he will tell him what form the curse will take. Sandor shakes his head at Quentin’s desperation and says that knowing that would be of no benefit to him.

As night falls, Quentin goes to Beth’s room. She agrees to go with him, but insists on running a personal errand first. Even though she just told him that they have to be honest with each other, she will not tell him what it is. She is still honoring Judith and Edward’s decree that Quentin must not know that Jenny gave birth to his twin children after he left her, and that they are in Mrs Fillmore’s care.

Quentin keeps saying there is no time left to do anything but run. We might wonder why he didn’t stop by Beth’s room earlier. She is on her way out the door when Quentin cries out and collapses in severe pain. Regular viewers recognize Quentin’s pains as the same Chris had when he turned into a werewolf. When we see the rising moon and hear the baying of the hounds, we know who Chris’ forebears are, and why Magda came to regret her curse.

Episode 749: The kiss of death

In the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s, Louis Edmonds plays Roger Collins, younger brother of matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. In 1966 and 1967, we saw that Roger had squandered his entire inheritance. He was reduced to living as a guest in Liz’ house and working as an employee for her business. Roger was the show’s first villain. His villainy was confined to a storyline known as “The Revenge of Burke Devlin.” That story never really caught on, and by #201 even Burke Devlin had lost interest in it. Roger receded to the margins, and for the rest of the series Edmonds’ gift for sarcastic dialogue kept the character alive as occasional comic relief.

From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s. Edmonds, a costume drama specialist in his years on Broadway, came into his own as haughty overlord Joshua Collins. Joshua’s focus on moneymaking and his determination to preserve the glamour of the Collins family name at all costs placed him at the opposite pole from Roger, a blithe spendthrift pathologically lacking in family feeling. Joshua used his power to cover up all of the tragic and horrible events we saw in the 1790s segment, and imposed a false history in its place.

Now, the show is set in 1897. Edmonds plays Edward, the stuffy eldest brother of the adult members of the Collinses of Collinsport. Edward has Joshua’s imperious demeanor and his determination to conceal the family’s disgraces, but like Roger he finds himself penniless, dependent on his sister’s largess. Yesterday he learned that his youngest brother, libertine Quentin, had killed his estranged wife Jenny. So far, Quentin has been a breezily amoral wastrel, easily recognizable to longtime viewers as a kindred spirit of his great-nephew Roger. But Quentin shocked himself when he murdered Jenny, and he had a terrified look on his face as he tried to sneak out of the house afterward.

Edward intercepted him then and forbade him to go. Edward had learned from Quentin’s girlfriend, Jenny’s former maid Beth, what happened. Edward was in a high dudgeon about the mess Quentin had made, but did not seem particularly surprised or at all grieved. He was quite confident he would be able to hush the whole thing up, and fabricated a story about Jenny falling down the stairs and dying shortly after from a head injury.

What did shock Edward was Quentin’s revelation that Jenny was the sister of one of the neighbors, Magda Rákóczi. Magda is a member of the Romani people, an ethnicity against whom Edward and the rest of the Collinses are violently prejudiced. “You married a Gypsy!” he exclaims in utter disgust. He remained convinced that he could keep the whole thing quiet, and drilled Beth and Quentin in the lies they were to tell Magda and her husband Sandor.

Magda did not give Edward a chance to direct the little play he had written. She found physical evidence indicating Quentin had murdered Jenny, and accused him. When she threatened to go to the police, Edward asked her what she imagined the authorities would do when asked to choose between the word of a Collins and the word of a “Gypsy.” At that, Magda dropped her plan to go to the police and vowed to place a curse on Quentin. Edward dismissed that as “words,” but Quentin is deeply involved in the occult. He is helpless with fear.

Today, Edward calls on Quentin in his room. He finds that Quentin has not slept all night. He continues to regard Quentin’s fear of Magda’s curse with total contempt, but perks up when Quentin says that he has thought of a way to escape it. Returning viewers already know that there is one way wide open to Quentin to escape the curse. He can go to the police and confess that he murdered Jenny.

This, of course, is not Quentin’s idea. He wants to offer Magda $10,000. Neither he nor Edward has that kind of money, but their sister Judith, whom their grandmother chose as her sole heiress, does. Edward says that he might be able to persuade Judith to give him that sum on one condition. Their grandmother’s will left Quentin no property or income, but it did guarantee him the right to live in the great house of Collinwood as long as he might wish. If he will sign documents renouncing that right, Judith might give him the money.

Edward embarrassed by Quentin’s craven mewling. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Quentin drifts off to sleep. He has a nightmare. Sandor and Magda show him Jenny’s body and tell him he can escape punishment if he blesses it. He does so, and Jenny comes back to life. She asks for a kiss. Quentin gives it, and Magda and Sandor laugh. They say that the kiss has sealed his fate- it is “the kiss of death!”

Edward returns with word that Judith will give him his $10,000, but that she has added a condition. Not only Quentin, but Sandor and Magda too, will have to leave the area forever. Quentin promises to make that happen, and signs the papers.

Meanwhile, Magda and Sandor are at home in the Old House on the grounds of the estate. Magda has mixed a potion and told Sandor that “a very old Gypsy woman” once used it to place a terrible curse on someone called “Count Petofi.” All they have to do is trick Quentin into drinking the potion, and the same curse will befall him. Sandor disdainfully replies that he had thought Magda might have come up with a plan that had a chance of working. He can’t imagine Quentin drinking anything they might give him.

They look out the window, and see Quentin coming to the house. They are pleasantly surprised that he is delivering himself. He knocks. They open the door, and he bursts in. Magda makes a great show of telling him he is not welcome and demanding he leave. He tells them about the nightmare, and says he knows that it is part of the curse. He offers them money to lift it. Magda is at first openly offended, while Sandor behaves as if he is tempted. Quentin shows them the money, and Magda plays the part of a woman succumbing to greed. She asks Jenny’s spirit to forgive her, and takes the envelope. She makes a gesture that Quentin takes to be an act of spellcasting. While she counts the money, Sandor says they will have to share a drink to complete the deal. Quentin happily agrees.

Once Quentin has taken the drink, Magda tells him that he has been fooled. The nightmare was not part of any curse, but was simply the voice of his own conscience. She tells him that the drink brought the curse on him, and that he will begin to suffer its effects tonight. She throws the money at him and tells him to take it. He reels away, dazzled by the horror of it all.

Magda’s curse shows the limits of the Collinses’ power. Their prestige and connections enable them to intimidate the authorities so that they need not worry about an insistent police investigation. But their freedom from that concern has allowed Quentin to travel so far into depravity that he has committed murder and brought a curse upon himself. When they encounter someone who will not be intimidated, their only recourse is to money. Magda’s unwillingness to sell her sister’s vengeance for any number of dollars means that the rich Judith would be as powerless against her as are the impecunious Edward and Quentin.

Not only has the Collinses’ station led Quentin to indulge himself in one vice after another until he is so far gone he cannot imagine good behavior, it has led him to assume that everyone assigned to a humbler place in the world can be bought. Sandor and Magda are quite good actors, almost as good as Thayer David and Grayson Hall, and they look very much like people who are tempted to take the bribe Quentin is offering. But even to make the offer shows a complete lack of perspicacity. Jenny has not been dead for twenty four hours, and he somehow supposes her sister is ready to bargain away her memory.

Quentin cannot say he wasn’t warned. His dream told him that Magda and Sandor would trick him into bringing the curse on himself by leading him to believe they were giving him a way to escape the curse. He is so far gone in the symptoms of his over-privileged background that he cannot even interpret this message. Thus we see that the real curse of the Collinses, the obstacle that blocks the sunlight and casts all the dark shadows that shroud them, is their wealth and power. The first ten months of the show made some feints towards developing a social drama about the relations between the Collinses in their house on the hill and the working people in the village below. The village is mentioned nowadays only as a source for victims of the various monsters bred at Collinwood, but the price everyone pays for the Collinses’ exalted position is always front and center.

Episode 747: Triumphant life behind a locked door

Madwoman Jenny, estranged wife of libertine Quentin Collins, is on the loose again, and she is the object of a madcap search by Quentin’s sister, spinster Judith, his girlfriend, maidservant Beth, and his distant cousin, secret vampire Barnabas. Quentin makes two contributions to the process. The less important is to serve as the bait in a cockamamie trap Barnabas and Judith lay for Jenny. The more important is to keep up a running commentary mocking the other characters for the silliness of their activities.

The trap itself involves a moment of intentional humor. Barnabas has returned to the year 1897 to prevent Quentin becoming a ghost who will ruin things for everyone on the great estate of Collinwood in 1969. One of the things Quentin did in that year that terrified the characters and tried the patience of the audience was to cause the strains of a sickly little waltz continually to resound from the walls of the great house. When the show became a costume drama and we got to know the living Quentin, we found that he too played a gramophone record of that same tune incessantly, annoying all and sundry. The trap requires Quentin to play the recording over and again until Jenny hears it and comes. After it has been going for half an hour, Barnabas tells Quentin that the plan didn’t work and they should stop playing the waltz. Quentin asks “Are you tired of hearing this music?” Barnabas speaks for all of us when he replies “Frankly, yes.”

Not only is this a successful comedy, it also gives the cast an opportunity for some of their best dramatic acting. As Judith, Joan Bennett at one point stops, looks at Barnabas, and asks “Can we trust you? Really trust you?” She apologizes for the bluntness of that question, then admits that she has long been busy putting a prettier face on the Collins family than the dark secrets Barnabas has discovered make plausible. “I’m not really very trusting. I try to pretend we’re nicer than we really are.” In the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s, Bennett plays matriarch Liz, whose whole personality is about denial and the pretense that the Collinses are nicer than they really are. Liz latched onto Barnabas as soon as she saw him, and refuses to see any evidence that he is not quite normal. Nor does she ever really face her own habits of concealment and their implications. In this little exchange, we see Bennett playing a character whose superficial similarities to Liz point up her profound differences from her.

Joan Bennett had one of the most distinguished careers of any American actress of the twentieth century. Terrayne Crawford stands at something of the opposite pole, and her performance as Beth leads most fans to declare that she is the weakest of all the members of the cast of the portion of Dark Shadows set in the year 1897. I don’t really disagree with that, but she is fine today. Miss Crawford’s great limitation was that she could play only one emotion at a time, and she was on the show in a period when the scripts gave every character complex motivations in almost every scene. But today, all Beth has to play is Anguish, and Miss Crawford does a fine job.

Beth took care of Jenny during the year Quentin was away from Collinwood, and became very close to her. In the nine and a half weeks since Quentin’s return, she has fallen in love with him. In a scene at the close of today’s episode, Beth tearfully admits to Quentin that she wishes something would happen to Jenny so that he would no longer have a wife. Beth collapses into Quentin’s arms. Jenny has been hiding in a corner, eavesdropping; she comes out, holding a knife. There have been occasions when we might have rooted for Jenny to succeed in killing Beth, just to spare us the embarrassment of Miss Crawford’s flat, tedious performances. But this time, we want to see more of her, and the prospect that Beth might die makes for an effective cliffhanger.

Episode 744: Sometimes he makes himself invisible

The House by the Sea

In September and October 1967, well-meaning governess Vicki and her depressing boyfriend Burke wanted to buy a long-disused property that everyone referred to as “The House by the Sea.” Collinsport is a coastal village, so many of its houses would lie by the sea, but at that point only that one was so designated on Dark Shadows. It was important that The House by the Sea lay on the other side of Collinsport from the great estate of Collinwood. When it was first introduced, matriarch Liz was eager to go there, signaling that the show was done with an old and unproductive theme presenting Liz as a recluse. And Burke was willing to live there with Vicki, whom he is determined to get away from Collinwood and the Collins family.

The house belonged to the Collinses, and the show suggested that it might be haunted in such a way that if Burke and Vicki lived there they would become possessed by the unquiet spirits of its former occupants, Caleb Collins and his wife, whom we know only by the initials “F. McA. C.” When Liz found in #335 that for legal reasons she would not be able to sell Vicki and Burke the house for a few years, the whole story vanished without a trace. We did not hear the phrase “The House by the Sea” again until #679, in January 1969.

At that point, the show was in fact running a story about ghosts taking possession of the living, a coincidence that leads me to wonder if the writers were making an inside joke about a story that was in the flimsies early in 1967, that was reflected in the talk about “The House by the Sea” that autumn, and that went nowhere. At the beginning of January 1969, strange and troubled boy David Collins was intermittently possessed by the ghost of his Aunt Liz’ great-uncle Quentin, and when Liz questioned him about some of his odd doings he made up a story about The House by the Sea to persuade her that he was just being silly.

In between those two stories, we did hear a great deal about another place called “A House by the Sea.” From #549 in August 1968 until #633/634 in November, this house was rented by suave warlock Nicholas Blair. At first it was said to be located at some distance from Collinwood, and it seemed that it might be the house Burke and Vicki had been interested in. But as we saw it, we could see that it was in quite a different architectural style. And as time went on, the house moved closer and closer to Collinwood. After a while, the opening narrations referred to it as “Another house on the same great estate.” That did not stop Big Finish Productions from conflating Vicki and Burke’s “The House by the Sea” with Nicholas’ “A House by the Sea” in their 2012 drama The House by the Sea, but the houses remained distinguishable on the show as of early 1969.

Now, Dark Shadows has become a costume drama set in the year 1897. Well-meaning time-traveler/ bloodsucking fiend Barnabas Collins has gone to that year, when Quentin was a living being, in hopes of preventing the events that made him into the all-destroying evil spirit of 1969. Barnabas does not have the slightest idea what those events were, and in the absence of that information he has decided that the best course of action is to antagonize as many people as possible.

Among the enemies Barnabas has made is the evil Rev’d Gregory Trask, head of a boarding school/ abusive cult called Worthington Hall. Another of Barnabas’ new enemies has, for reasons of her own, burned Worthington Hall to the ground. Trask has captivated the current mistress of Collinwood, spinster Judith Collins, and in #739 Judith offered Trask the use of a “small house on the estate” as a temporary base for the school until she can finance the restoration of the previous site. Today, Judith instructs a servant to take steps to prepare “the house by the sea” for this purpose.

Perhaps this means that Trask’s cruelty center will occupy the house Burke and Vicki wanted to buy. That Judith said it was “on the estate” would suggest that it is the one where Nicholas lived, and they have decided that so few people remember the dead-end storyline of autumn 1967 that they no longer need to keep the two houses distinct by calling only one of them “The House by the Sea.”

No More Knife

While Quentin was haunting Collinwood in late 1968 and early 1969, he showed himself to be a peculiarly corporeal sort of ghost. In addition to the usual ghostly business of materializing and dematerializing inside closed rooms, possessing children, and making noises resound from everywhere and nowhere all at once, he also poisoned one person, choked another, and came and went through a secret passage. Occasionally this served to show that Quentin’s power started small and grew steadily until he was irresistible, but it also left the impression that Quentin simply enjoyed feeling like he had a body. Now that we see Quentin as a living being, the impression that he revels in the flesh is frequently confirmed.

Quentin’s estranged wife Jenny has gone mad and is being kept prisoner in the great house by Quentin’s sister Judith and brother Edward, with the assistance of a couple of the servants. Quentin learned of Jenny’s continued presence at Collinwood only when she escaped and stabbed him a few weeks ago, and he still can’t figure out where in the house she is locked up. He has vowed to kill her once he does find her.

Jenny is on the loose again today. Judith has a close call in the drawing room. She finds Jenny there. Jenny menaces Judith with a knife; just as she gets Judith into a helpless position and it looks like she is about to stab her to death, Jenny picks up a candlestick and knocks Judith unconscious. Shortly after, Quentin comes in and finds Judith recovering from the blow. Judith tells him what happened. He gets a gun and goes out to hunt Jenny down.

Jenny makes her way to the Old House on the estate. She knocks on the door, and Barnabas answers. They introduce themselves to each other. His name means nothing to her; he arrived only nine weeks ago, long after she lost her marbles and was consigned to a hidden cell. No one has told her that Judith invited a distant cousin from England to stay in the Old House. But Barnabas knows exactly who Jenny is, and he listens to her every word and watches her every move with vivid interest.

Jenny announces that she has come to find Quentin. Barnabas says that Quentin is not there, and invites Jenny to search the house. As she walks through the front parlor, Jenny announces that “Sometimes he makes himself invisible.” That line will strike a chord with regular viewers who remember the ghostly Quentin of the 1960s, though Jenny is apparently thinking of a psychotic break she had earlier in the episode when she hallucinated his voice coming from various pieces of furniture in the drawing room. Nonetheless, Jenny is confident that she will know if Quentin is nearby.

Jenny talks about her “children”; Barnabas visited one of her former cells, and saw that there were dolls there. He asks twice if the children she is talking about are dolls, and each time she angrily insists that she has real live children and that they are in her room at Collinwood. She sings a lullaby in a minor key; she forgets the lyrics halfway through, and asks Barnabas if he knows them. She has a lovely voice, and he seems to be sincere when he says he is sorry that he cannot help her finish the song.

As Jenny talks about her children, it dawns on Barnabas that she may in fact have had children who were taken from her. His reaction to this is an important moment. In 1969, Barnabas learned that in 1897 a baby died and was buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds of Collinwood with an amulet meant to ward off werewolves. So far in his trip back to that year, he has found no babies and there is no werewolf. His response to Jenny’s talk of her children looks like a man making a wild surmise. If the baby in the unmarked grave was one of Jenny’s children, the werewolf must be coming very soon.

Jenny is sitting on the staircase for part of this conversation with Barnabas. Ever since Barnabas first met David in #212, he has had his most human moments while standing on the floor and talking to people on that staircase, and his talk with Jenny is an outstanding example. He talks to her very gently. Perhaps he has the presence of mind to try to befriend someone who might be useful to him, but whatever he is thinking he shows a real warmth.

Jenny tries to stab Barnabas; he takes the knife from her. She cowers in a heap on the floor, wailing that now he will kill her. He throws the knife in the fire and tells her she has nothing to fear. Of course, a metal blade could not harm a vampire, so it was easy enough for Barnabas to remain unruffled during the attack.

Barnabas vetoes Jenny’s demand to search the basement, where his coffin is, and takes her upstairs to a bedroom once occupied by his lost love Josette. In 1967, he restored that bedroom to the condition it was in when Josette lived there, and for some reason he has done the same this time. By the time they get to Josette’s room, Jenny thinks that she and Quentin are on their honeymoon and that Barnabas is a bellhop. She apologizes that she has no money to give him as a tip.

Jenny looks into the mirror and is revolted by the terrible person she sees there. Barnabas points to an assortment of lady’s toiletries and assures her that the terrible person will go away if she uses them. He locks her in the room and calls for his servant Magda.

Jenny is so crazy we can never be sure what she will make of any set of facts she encounters, and Barnabas is, for once, keeping his thoughts to himself throughout his scene with her. But however much ambiguity may be built into Barnabas and Jenny’s interactions with each other, there is no question what Marie Wallace and Jonathan Frid are doing. She is supposed to play Jenny without restraint, and she makes the most of that opportunity to be larger-than-life. He also seizes his chance to show what he can do when he has time to really learn his part. He is not only letter-perfect with his lines, but also subtle and precise in his characterization of Barnabas’ reactions and intentions. It is a fascinating performance.

Jenny hears Barnabas calling Magda’s name. She not only repeats it, but also says the name of Magda’s husband Sandor. Magda and Sandor have been in the Old House for quite some time, well before Barnabas showed up and forced them into his service, so it is no surprise that Jenny remembers them. It is interesting that she seems to have strong feelings about them, though. Before she left the great house, Jenny was talking to herself, saying that her father was “a king in India.” Sandor and Magda are Romani, and the Romani people originated in India. Their ethnicity may be what brought that part of the world to Jenny’s mind.

Magda and Sandor are out. The sun is rising. Barnabas leaves a note for Magda, and goes to his coffin for the day. Quentin enters, brandishing his pistol. He finds the note and a key, and goes upstairs. We close with him standing outside Josette’s room. He and Jenny talk to each other through the locked door. He tells her that he is coming to her and that they will never be separated again.

In a comment about Danny Horn’s post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, David Pierce makes an interesting observation:

My favorite line was from Quentin to Judith when he wants to know how Jenny escaped: “What, did she leave by fasting and prayer?” He was misquoting Jesus from the New Testament, Matthew Chapter 17, verse 21 “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”
David Pierce, comment left at 12:01 PM Pacific time 13 January 2021 on Danny Horn, “Episode 744: Crazy Little Thing,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 9 October 2015

Quentin does paraphrase the Bible quite often, a habit which, combined with his penchant for Satanist ceremonial practice and his gleeful libertinism, suggests that he won’t pass up any potential source of delights.

Episode 743: A person of the supernatural

Rakish Quentin and time traveling vampire Barnabas have each been fighting undead blonde fire witch Laura, and today they agree to team up. This marks the beginning of their friendship, which will be central to Dark Shadows for the next 90 weeks.

The script has some problems. The dialogue between Quentin and Barnabas runs in circles, and there are scenes where, for no apparent reason, the two of them go back and forth between Barnabas’ house and the cottage where Laura is staying. But the episode is still fun. The actors deserve a lot of credit for that. David Selby and Jonathan Frid both turn in such fine performances that even the most unnecessary scenes between Quentin and Barnabas hold our interest, and Diana Millay finds ways to make Laura intriguing even when she is saddled with the disagreeable Roger Davis as her only scene partner.

There is also a happy accident with a special effect. Barnabas has called on Laura to appear in his house as a ghost; she is before him as a transparency when Quentin enters. Quentin’s presence breaks the spell, and she vanishes. In the cottage where she has been staying, a male servant whom she has bewitched is waiting for her. She reappears there; she materializes and passes out. The image of her overlaid on the picture is a little too small and a little too high in the frame, so that when she collapses she doesn’t quite reach the floor.

The result turns out to be better than it would if the effect had worked as intended. Laura’s appearance and her fainting seem to play out in a window briefly opened between one world and another.

The episode ends with Laura sending a telepathic message to Quentin’s estranged wife, madwoman Jenny. The scene plays out with Laura in voiceover while Jenny is alone in the cell where Quentin’s brother and sister have been keeping her. Laura wants Jenny to escape and kill Quentin. Again the dialogue is awkward and repetitive, but Millay and Marie Wallace save it.