charles delaware tate – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 896: Those who have been hidden shall show themselves

David and the Book

Strange and troubled boy David Collins has stolen an old book from an antique shop. He didn’t want the book, but had damaged it slightly and was terrified that he would be punished if this was discovered and his father had to pay for the rare volume.

David’s friend and fellow resident of the great house of Collinwood, Amy Jennings, catches him with the book in the drawing room. He tells her he is going to burn it in order to conceal his crime. She points out that this will make a bad situation much worse. As a creature of Soap Opera Land, David can have no higher calling than to make bad situations worse, so this does not deter him.

While Amy offers to take the book to the nearest grownup and to claim that she was the one who stole it, David opens it to a page depicting a group of intertwined snakes, a symbol the show refers to simply as “the Naga.” He is transfixed by the symbol. His whole manner changes. His posture becomes more rigid, his voice grave and authoritative. He tells Amy he no longer wants to burn the book. Instead, he will read it. Since the book is written in a script neither of them has seen before, Amy tells David he cannot read it, but he assures her he can. She asks him to read it to her, and he says that it is forbidden for her to hear any of it. She says that she doesn’t like the game David is playing and would rather turn to another; he says it is no game. She leaves him alone with the book.

The book was not in fact part of the antique shop’s merchandise, though it was on a display table there. The owners of the shop, Megan and Philip Todd, have been inducted into a mysterious cult led by David’s distant cousin, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins, and the book is one of that cult’s most sacred objects. The Todds flew into a panic when they realized the book was missing, and Barnabas told Philip that he faced a severe penalty for losing it. Those reactions make it hard to understand why Philip and Megan left the book on the table in the first place.

Longtime viewers know that many of the major plot-lines on Dark Shadows start with David. So we may suspect that the supernatural forces behind the cult, unknown to Barnabas or the Todds, caused the book to be left on the table and led David to take it so that he could become part of the story. Indeed, once he is alone with the book David intones a statement from it: “And then those who have been hidden so long shall rise and show themselves, and the others will know their time is ended and the time of the people of the Leviathan will begin.” Later, he goes to the mysterious cairn in the woods that is the center of the Leviathan cult’s ceremonial activity, and announces that he is one of them now. The stones at the bottom of the cairn part, revealing a small opening. David crawls into it. The words are solemn, the music melodramatic, the action of the boy stuffing himself into the little hole preposterous. It is the perfect Dark Shadows sequence.

David Henesy was nine years old when the show started, and was thirteen by this time. It would seem no one told the carpenters he had grown in the interval. That gap is such a tight fit for him that he has to wiggle his rear end at the camera for quite a while as he tries to wedge himself into it. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

We Actresses are Vain

As David is leaving to go to the cairn, he has to refuse a request from permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman. Julia wants him to go to the Old House on the estate and give a note to Barnabas. She keeps telling him that it is urgent, but he tells her he is already on his way to do something urgent.

Julia does not know about the Leviathan cult, much less about Barnabas’ connection with it. All she knows is that Barnabas has been her best friend for a year and a half, and when last they had a chance to spend time together they were concerned with the rakish Quentin Collins, whose whereabouts they do not know. Now it is 4:45 PM, and Julia is expecting a Mr Corey to come to the house at 5:00 and look at a painting she bought from the Todds a little while ago. She thinks this Mr Corey might be Quentin, and is keen for Barnabas to meet him.

When David cannot help her, Julia decides to take the note to the Old House herself. The show is usually fairly vague and inconsistent about the geography of Collinwood, but several times they have said that it takes about fifteen minutes to walk between the great house and the Old House. They stick with this today. Julia leaves at 4:45, and returns as the clock is striking 5:15. Barnabas was not at home, so she just turned right around.

Julia hears voices in the drawing room. They are heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard and another woman. Julia gathers that Mr Corey is actually Ms Olivia Corey. When she enters the room, she sees that Olivia is a dead ringer for Amanda Harris, a woman who lived in 1897. Julia became aware of Amanda in September, when she and Barnabas were traveling in time and met each other in that year. Julia did not meet Amanda, but evidently must have seen at least one of the many portraits of her that magical artist/ dreary goon Charles Delaware Tate painted. She mentions these portraits to Olivia, who claims that Amanda was her grandmother. Amanda was in love with Quentin, and Julia takes an excited breath when she asks Olivia who her grandfather was. Olivia gives his name as Langley. Quentin may well have used an alias, so that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Olivia may be his granddaughter, though Dark Shadows fans looking back in these later days will think of another member of the Collins family when they hear that name.

Olivia is a famous New York actress. Julia tells her that she has seen her on stage and has seen her photograph in the newspapers, but that she never noticed her resemblance to Amanda. Olivia asks where Julia heard about Amanda; she says that she must have read about her somewhere in connection with one of the portraits. She also tells Olivia that she isn’t likely to want the painting, since it is not a portrait. Olivia says that she wants any painting of Tate’s she can get. Julia tells her there is no portrait of Quentin Collins in the house; Olivia pauses for a fraction of a second, then blandly asks if she is supposed to know who that is.

Some of Tate’s paintings had supernatural effects. When Tate painted pictures of his ideal woman, Amanda came into being as their embodiment, like Galatea emerging from Pygmalion’s statue. And when he painted Quentin’s portrait, Quentin was freed of the effects of the werewolf curse. Like a Halloween version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the portrait turned into a wolf on the nights of the full moon, while Quentin remained human.

As long as the portraits of Amanda and Quentin are intact, they themselves will remain alive and well and youthful. So Julia’s hope that Quentin might still be traveling the world and using false names 72 years after the period when she and Barnabas knew him is not ill-founded, and her surmise that Olivia might be, not Amanda’s granddaughter, but Amanda herself, is also plausible.

Episode 888: The place that he disappeared

The Prowler

Yesterday, we spent a lot of time watching an unidentifiable man wandering around the estate of Collinwood. We only saw him from the back; he was wearing a dark coat and hat, and had silver-gray hair. Evidently we were supposed to expect his face would mean something to us when it was finally revealed.

At the end of yesterday’s episode, permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman caught the prowler coming out of the Old House on the grounds of the estate, home of her friend, missing person Barnabas Collins. She did not recognize the man, and he refused to identify himself. We see him in today’s opening reprise. His face would not be familiar to her, but it is instantly recognizable to longtime viewers. It is that of actor Dennis Patrick, who from March to July 1967 played seagoing con man Jason McGuire. Jason blackmailed reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard to the point of marriage. When Liz finally stood up to Jason, his scheme collapsed. On his way out of town, Jason went to the Old House hoping to steal jewels from Barnabas. That attempt also failed, and Barnabas strangled Jason.

We spend most of the episode wondering how Jason managed to rise from the dead. Near the end, Liz’ daughter Carolyn runs into the prowler. She gets a good look at him and talks to him for a few minutes, but does not recognize him. Carolyn would certainly recognize Jason, whom she was ready to shoot if Liz had gone through with the wedding. So Patrick must be playing another character. He does not give Carolyn his name, but his strong emotional reaction when she gives hers tells us that he has some kind of connection to her. We are again supposed to leave the episode wondering who he might be.

Unfortunately, word of that did not get to the people who make up the closing credits. Patrick is billed today as “Paul Stoddard.” Paul is Carolyn’s long-missing father, Liz’ ex-husband, and a close friend and partner in crime of the late Jason McGuire. This is not the first time on Dark Shadows the closing credits have identified a character whose identity was supposed to keep us guessing. For example, at the end of #124 we are supposed to be in suspense as to which of a few people a mysterious woman is, but the closing credits identify her as “Laura Collins,” a name which blows the secret completely for attentive longtime viewers. A mysterious little girl turns up in #255 and for a few episodes we are supposed to be in the dark as to who she is. But at her first appearance the character was billed as “Sarah Collins.”

It’s interesting to cast Patrick as Paul. Jason’s scheme was based on Liz’ belief that she had killed Paul, when in fact Paul and Jason had worked together to fake his death and swindle her of some money. Since Paul and Jason committed the two halves of the same crime, they merge together in the disastrous effects they have had on Liz’ life. So they may as well look and sound exactly alike.

Waiting for Barnabas

Barnabas vanished from his basement some time ago while he was involved with some supernatural doings. Julia has been hanging around the house for over a month, waiting for him to rematerialize. She explains to Carolyn that because he disappeared from the basement, it is the only place where he can reappear. They go into the house and Julia almost immediately suggests they leave. She is sure he isn’t there, because she locked the basement door. Evidently Julia has spent all this time waiting to hear Barnabas banging on that door demanding to be let out.

Carolyn points out that Barnabas might be unconscious, and if he is he would not be banging on the door even if he has come back. Julia exclaims “I hadn’t even thought of that! He- he could be down there now!” At this, my wife, Mrs Acilius, laughed and said “He could have been down there for a month!” By profession, Julia is a mad scientist. She knows how to cure vampirism, bring Frankenstein’s monsters to life, rewrite people’s memories at will, and travel back in time, but she has her blind spots.

Be that as it may, Julia checks the basement and finds Barnabas is not there.

The Antique Shop

Carolyn takes Julia to an antique shop that has just opened in the village of Colllinsport. Carolyn called the shop “divine” yesterday, and is still thrilled about it today. I suppose it reminds her of home- like all the unoccupied spaces in the great house of Collinwood, it is crammed with a lot of miscellaneous junk.

Carolyn may have a soft spot for the place, but she hasn’t lost all capacity for judgment. The proprietors, a young couple named Philip and Megan Todd, have just unpacked a painting they bought that morning. Philip says that when it came up for auction he couldn’t resist it. Carolyn widens her eyes, tilts her head back, and says in an incredulous voice, “Hmm, your taste must be quite different from mine, Philip. I could have resisted that.”

Philip mentions that the artist’s name is Charles Delaware Tate. At that, Julia perks up. She asks Philip if he is certain that it is an authentic Tate; he assures her that he is. He astonishes her by saying that it was painted only about twenty years ago. Julia says that Tate would have been in his 80s then. Seeing that the painting is about as good as anything Tate ever did, she says that he was still at the height of his powers despite his advanced age. She wonders if, having been in such good shape so recently, he could still be alive. Philip doesn’t know about that.

Julia asks for the price. When Philip says he will part with the painting for $300, Julia takes out her checkbook. Carolyn looks on, amazed to see her shell out so much money so quickly for a mediocre picture. When it is time to go, Julia asks her if she is ready. Still agape, Carolyn replies “Yes.. for practically anything!”

For eight months, from #701 at the beginning of March to #884 last week, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the year 1897. In the second half of that segment, Tate was one of the minor villains. He had made a bargain with evil sorcerer Count Petofi. Petofi made him a nationally famous painter whose works were very much in demand. Many of his paintings also had magical powers. The magical powers were the result of Petofi’s spell, but it was never made entirely clear whether Tate’s fame was the result of a talent Petofi gave him to paint well or if Petofi’s intervention was more direct and he simply bewitched people into admiring Tate’s paintings and wanting to buy them. Indeed, if we had to classify the works of Tate that we saw, the most secure categorization would be “Nothing Special.” They certainly do not stand comparison to the best of the portraits that the ABC Network’s Art Department prepared for the Collinwood sets. Carolyn’s reaction today clearly suggests that once Petofi’s influence receded, the paintings lost their charm.

Julia’s interest in Tate is not aesthetic. Julia traveled back in time for a couple of weeks in September. She knows that Tate’s portrait of Quentin Collins prevented Quentin from turning into a werewolf. The prospect that Tate might still be alive leads her to hope that her friend Chris Jennings, a great-grandson of Quentin’s, might also be cured of lycanthropy.

The audience is unlikely to find much ground for optimism in the thought of more Tate. As is usual for characters played by Roger Davis, Tate is hard to watch. He delivers most of his lines in a shout, and he amplifies his voice by clenching his rectal sphincter muscles. The result is what Pauline Kael used to call an “anal screech.” He also has what we might tactfully call a poor sense of personal space; indeed, two of the tags that most often appear together on posts on this blog are “Roger Davis” and “Abusive Behavior on Camera.” So I would just as soon Julia give up her search for Tate.

The Todds

Megan and Philip exult over Julia’s purchase. They are in the middle of talking about how it is a good sign for their new business, when Megan is suddenly seized with a fit of foreboding. She wants to close the shop early; Philip protests that they still have time to make a few more sales. Megan then says she has a premonition that if they stay in Collinsport something terrible will happen to them. She says she wants to sell the shop and move away. Philip tries to soothe her. He puts his head against hers and kisses her. She just looks straight on, her eyes full of dread.

Philip working his way to Megan’s neck while it dawns on her that they are now characters on *Dark Shadows*.

Megan is the third role Marie Wallace played on Dark Shadows. Her first two were Eve, the Fiancée of Frankenstein, and Crazy Jenny Collins, Quentin’s estranged and deranged wife. Miss Wallace had a lot of fun with those parts, but neither of them gave her much opportunity to interact meaningfully with her scene partners. Eve was unyieldingly nasty to everyone, whatever they might say or do, and Jenny was just one long mad scene. As Megan, she gets to listen to Philip and react to what he says. That ends when she ignores his kissing her neck, but while it lasts it’s good to see.

Philip is played by Christopher Bernau. Some fans say that Bernau and Miss Wallace lacked “chemistry,” but their last shot today shows how misguided that criticism is. The key to chemistry is for one character to initiate a kiss and the other to kiss back. Megan is supposed to be too preoccupied with her premonition to notice anything in her environment, even her beloved husband kissing her. If she had responded to him at all, the whole point of the scene would have been lost.

It is true that Bernau does not perfectly embody a romantic lead in Philip’s scenes with Megan. As a happy couple, Philip and Megan constantly make little jokes with each other. The jokes in the script aren’t very good, and Bernau tries to put some life into them by imitating Jack Benny. In the 1920s and 1930s, Benny’s persona struck people as a spoiled rich kid, and in later years he was so famous that it just meant Jack Benny. But by the 1960s, any man other than Jack Benny would send a very different message if he were to speak with that drawl and walk with that mincing gait. When the man in question is an antique dealer wearing a belted sweater that looks suspiciously like a dress, it does not seem especially likely that he will passionately in love with his wife.

I think Philip borrowed this from Maggie Evans…

Several times in his career Bernau proved he could be effective in love scenes with women, most famously as ladies’ man Alan Spaulding on The Guiding Light. I mentioned that role in a comment on Danny Horn’s post about this episode on his great Dark Shadows Every Day:

I was a kid when Bernau joined GUIDING LIGHT. My mother watched that show, and I had several times attempted to watch it with her, but it always defeated me after 5 or 10 minutes. It just seemed like a window into the deepest level of Hell, the frozen cavern where absolutely nothing happens. But Bernau caught my imagination. I could watch entire episodes if he was in them.

Years later, when I watched DARK SHADOWS on the Sci-Fi Channel, I realized what made Bernau so compelling on GUIDING LIGHT. He was doing a Jonathan Frid imitation. Within moments of first seeing Barnabas, I exclaimed “Alan Spaulding!” It was only years later that I learned Bernau had been on DARK SHADOWS.

Comment left 10 December 2020 by Acilius, on Danny Horn, “Episode 888: Little Shop,” 26 June 2016, Dark Shadows Every Day.

I’m very fond of John Gielgud’s story that from the time he first saw Claude Rains give a performance, his acting style consisted of imitating Claude Rains. Gielgud went on to say that this represented a great improvement over his previous style, which consisted of imitating Noël Coward. I doubt Bernau’s style ever depended entirely on either Jack Benny or Jonathan Frid, but he certainly learned a great deal by watching each of them.

Episode 883: The stone of justice

In the parts of Dark Shadows set in 1966 and 1967, the home of artist Sam Evans and his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town, was a frequent set. Sam and Maggie were important characters in several storylines, and in their cottage they represented the working class of the village of Collinsport, as against the rich people in the big house on the hill.

Now, the show is a costume drama set in 1897. In that year, the Evans Cottage is already an artist’s studio. It is occupied by Charles Delaware Tate, who became a nationally renowned painter by making a deal with evil sorcerer Count Petofi. Today, Petofi is staying in the cottage, and Tate is functioning as his goon.

Petofi is deep in a trance, trying to cast a spell that will cause him and handsome young rake Quentin Collins to switch bodies. Once he has accomplished this switch, he will cast another spell to take himself, in Quentin’s body, to the year 1969, leaving Quentin behind in 1897 to face the vengeance of Petofi’s mortal enemies.

Cockney showgirl/ mentalist Pansy Faye has caught on to what Petofi is attempting to do, and has sneaked into the cottage to stop him. He snaps out of his trance and declares he will punish her. She grabs his glasses and runs to the door; Tate enters and grabs her. At Petofi’s behest, Tate ties Pansy up. Petofi then sends Tate to the great house of Collinwood to fetch Quentin. He is to say that Petofi will kill Pansy unless Quentin comes within the hour.

At the great house, Tate finds that Quentin has fled and cannot be reached. Quentin’s friend and distant cousin, time traveler/ recovering vampire Barnabas Collins, insists on going back to the cottage with him. When he arrives, it occurs to Petofi that Barnabas’ body is just as well suited to his purposes as is Quentin’s. He lists some of the characters who are waiting for Barnabas in 1969, and predicts they will receive him “with open arms” when he arrives in Barnabas’ form. Regular viewers are perhaps chilled, and certainly intrigued, by the idea that the show might go forward with Petofi impersonating Barnabas in a contemporary setting while a Barnabas who looks like Petofi tries to make his way back from the past, though there are so few surviving characters and unresolved story points left in 1897 that it is hard to imagine many more episodes even partially set in this period. Petofi uses his magic powers to knock Barnabas unconscious, and goes into a trance to effect the body swap.

The door swings open, and someone called Garth Blackwood enters. The other day, Petofi had Tate draw a picture of Blackwood, a picture endued with magical powers. It brought Blackwood back to life. Some years ago, Blackwood was a jailer murdered by an escaping convict named Aristide. Petofi found Aristide and took him on as a servant. Aristide has recently proven to be unreliable, and Petofi has decided he wants to be rid of him once and for all. He was amused by the idea of resurrecting Blackwood to perform the task. Blackwood has killed Aristide, but Petofi found on Monday that there is more to him than his own magical powers created. He cannot lay Blackwood to rest. Now, Blackwood has resolved to kill Petofi and Tate.

Tate flees at the sight of Blackwood. Pansy, free, asks if he is the police. He identifies himself as the master of Dartmoor Prison. Pansy, being English, is impressed. She points to Petofi and tells Blackwood that he must act against him. Blackwood puts handcuffs on Petofi, then slaps him until he comes out of his trance.

Petofi pleads with Blackwood to drop all charges against him, since he was the one who gave him the chance to kill Aristide. Barnabas comes to and asks what is going on. When Blackwood asks if he testifies for Petofi or against him, Barnabas gladly pronounces “Guilty!” He starts to say that Petofi must be killed immediately, and Blackwood cautions him against giving opinions. The witnesses are to offer only facts. So he asserts that Petofi and Aristide traveled the world together for years and committed every possible crime. At that, Blackwood bids him and Pansy leave. Once he is alone with Petofi, Blackwood picks up a metal can, douses the place with fluid, and lights a fire.

Back at the great house of Collinwood, Barnabas and Pansy talk about what just happened. Barnabas says he is confident Blackwood will kill Petofi, but he thinks he and Pansy may have to fight Blackwood later. Pansy has a vision of Blackwood and Petofi struggling with each other amid the flames in the Evans Cottage. She also sees the portrait of Quentin burning there. Since this portrait has a magical charge that keeps Quentin from turning into a werewolf, that’s bad news.

Garth Blackwood and Count Petofi, battling in the blazes. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Petofi has been so powerful that it has long seemed likely that his destruction could come only as the result of his own action. When his right hand, the locus of most of his powers, was reattached to his wrist in #815, the show was giving hints it might wrap 1897 up soon. We kept hearing that the Hand had developed a mind of its own in the century it had been separated from Petofi; we could easily imagine it deciding to strangle him, and indeed in #841 it nearly did. But 1897 was such a big hit that they kept restarting it, and for some time now the Hand has done more or less what Petofi wanted it to do.

It would have been fitting had Pansy killed Petofi, since she is, in her present form, one of his creatures. The original Pansy Faye was killed in #771. In #819, Petofi erased the personality of minister’s daughter Charity Trask and gave Charity’s body to Pansy. Pansy’s light-heartedness and apparent harmlessness would have added to her suitability as the instrument of Petofi’s demise. The whole idea of the supernatural is that what appears to be weak is in fact irresistibly strong, so it would be fitting to have a tiny woman who is a character from very broad comedy conquer the great wizard.

Blackwood has only been on Dark Shadows since #878, was never previously mentioned, and is the shallowest character possible. But those weaknesses, too, give him a logical place as Petofi’s executioner. Petofi was never more smug in his self-assurance than he was when he used Tate to bring Blackwood into being in order to murder Aristide. Petofi has so easily defeated efforts by characters who had long records of dominating the action of the show, such as Barnabas and wicked witch Angelique, that we can understand why it would not occur to him that a day player could present him with any serious difficulty. That self-assurance leads him to carelessness, as he creates in Blackwood a being whose strength comes not only from him, but from the fires of Hell from which he came. Indeed, Petofi’s only thought when he brought Blackwood back from the dead was of the suffering he would inflict on Aristide, and his only feeling was delight in contemplating that suffering. Coming as the price of his overconfidence and his gleeful cruelty, it puts a moral at the end of the story when Petofi falls at Blackwood’s hands.

This episode marks the final appearance of the characters Petofi and Blackwood. It is also the final on-screen appearance of Pansy, though her voice will be heard once more, in an episode next week.

Episode 881: Voracious for the future

The dramatic date is November 1897. We open in an abandoned mill on the old North Road in Collinsport, Maine. The late Garth Blackwood, once the keeper of Britain’s Dartmoor Prison, is about to avenge his own murder. Blackwood was raised from the dead by sorcerer Count Petofi and Petofi’s stooge, artist Charles Delaware Tate. Petofi wants to be rid of his unreliable servant Aristide, and decided that Blackwood, whom Aristide killed while escaping from Dartmoor and has feared ever since, will be the one to slay him.

Blackwood is ready to strangle Aristide, who takes a moment to tell him that if he does so he will be endangering his own existence. He explains that there are others who conjured him up to perform the very task he is about to undertake, and that once he has completed it they will not need him anymore. Blackwood says that this is no problem. Once he has killed Aristide, he will kill them too. He pulls a chain tight around Aristide’s neck.

Tate is outside while this is happening. The set represents the exterior of the mill. The set is alternately in deep shadow and illuminated by lightning flashes. We haven’t seen it before, it is rather nice.

Tate hides while Blackwood leaves, then goes into the old mill and confirms that Aristide is dead. Aristide was a nasty and inept fellow, but Michael Stroka found so many ways to make him fun to watch that he will be missed.

Back in his studio, Tate tells Petofi what he saw. He also reminds Petofi that Blackwood has killed two other people, and that he will in all likelihood go on killing everyone he meets. Petofi doesn’t care about any of that. All that interests him is his plan to forcibly swap bodies with handsome young Quentin Collins and, as Quentin, to travel to the year 1969.

Blackwood storms in, declares that Petofi and Tate are his prisoners, and says that they are under sentence of death. Petofi tries to cast a spell to make Blackwood go away; he finds that there is more to Blackwood than his magic can control. He can only hold him at bay, and that only for a moment. Tate shoots Blackwood. The bullet wounds cause him to fall and briefly lose consciousness, but he is soon back on his feet. He leaves, and vows that he will return to finish what he started.

At the great house of Collinwood, Quentin is going through his belongings. Cockney showgirl/ mentalist Pansy Faye enters. Quentin explains that he will be leaving on the early morning train to get away from Petofi. Pansy is sad to see him go, but she well knows how dangerous Petofi is. Quentin further explains that he has been looking through all his old stuff to see if any of it is worth keeping. He doesn’t think any of it is, but she thinks a photograph of him at the age of ten is adorable, and is glad when he makes a gift of it to her. They share a really lovely moment, as she says that she still wishes they could have become lovers and he plays along. She says that if he’d married her, she’d even have given up her career for him. He says gravely that he never would have asked her to do that. Quentin never asked Pansy for any of what she wanted to give him, and her reaction to this line shows that it has reminded her of that fact. But she still cares about him, and it is still a sweet little exchange. They smile their unforgettable movie-star smiles at each other when they part.

Later, Pansy has a dream in which Quentin falls asleep and Petofi seizes his body the instant his guard is down. She awakes, and realizes she must rush downstairs to prevent this dream coming true.

Episode 877: Put down that sword

Throughout October 1897, which at 4 PM on participating stations of the ABC television network coincided with October 1969, 150 year old sorcerer Count Petofi occupied the body of handsome young Quentin Collins and banished Quentin to his own aging form. Last week Quentin broke that spell, and now the two of them are themselves again.

News of the restoration has not reached everyone, however. On Friday and Monday, Quentin’s lover, maidservant Beth, saw him at the top of Widows’ Hill. Thinking he was Petofi, she flung herself to her death on the rocks below rather than submit to whatever evil magic he had in store for her. Yesterday, Petofi’s unreliable servant Aristide went to Quentin, thinking he was his master, and begged for a task by which he could earn his way back into his good graces. Quentin sent him to murder Petofi, which he is trying to do when we open today.

The attempt takes place in the studio of artist Charles Delaware Tate, an unpleasant man who is tied to Petofi. Tate finds Aristide plunging a knife into Petofi’s chest. He stops the attack and gets through to Aristide that the swap is over and he is stabbing Petofi himself. Desperate to undo his latest offense, Aristide hastens back to the great house of Collinwood, intending to kill Quentin.

Petofi comes to and tells Tate that he intends to repossess Quentin’s body and use it to escape his enemies. When Tate tells him what Aristide has gone to do, he sends him to stop him. He does so, showing up in the drawing room at Collinwood in the nick of time and, at gunpoint, forcing Aristide to lay down the sword with which he was about to run Quentin through.

Back in the studio, Petofi instructs Tate to draw a magical sketch. The sketch depicts a man called Garth Blackwood, a cruel jailer whom Aristide killed when he escaped from prison in England. Petofi remembers meeting Aristide for the first time the night he escaped Blackwood’s prison. In #854 Petofi had said he met Aristide in an alley near the Thames in London, but this time we flash back to a meeting on the moors in the county of Devon. Petofi recalls that Aristide pledged his fealty to him in return for freedom from Blackwood’s ghost.

Once Tate has drawn his sketch, Blackwood will come back to life, determined to take his vengeance on Aristide. Aristide returns to the studio to resume begging for mercy, and Petofi takes great pleasure in showing him the sketch and telling him what is in store for him.

Episode 876: The gift again

In #425, broadcast in February 1968 and set in February 1796, the gracious Josette was near the cliff on the top of Widow’s Hill when she saw her lost love, Barnabas Collins. Wicked witch Angelique had turned Barnabas into a vampire, and Barnabas planned to kill Josette and raise her from the dead with the same curse. Angelique sent a vision to Josette of what her existence would be like after she rose from the grave to prey on the living. While Barnabas watched helplessly, Josette flung herself to her death onto the rocks far below the cliff.

Barnabas spent the next centuries telling himself that Josette’s suicide was the result of a misunderstanding. In #233, broadcast and set in May 1967, he was masquerading as his own descendant, a cousin from England come to visit the Collinses of Collinsport, Maine. He told heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard and well-meaning governess Vicki Winters that Josette jumped from the cliff because she did not realize that her lover had come with only good intentions for her. By that time, it seemed he might actually have convinced himself it was true.

Today, it is 1897, and rakish libertine Quentin Collins and his sometime lover, maidservant Beth Chavez, reenact Josette’s suicide. They, however, follow the script which had previously applied only in Barnabas’ head. For several weeks, sorcerer Count Petofi has been occupying Quentin’s body, having confined Quentin to his own aging form. Beth was for a time in thrall to Petofi, and is terrified of him. Petofi was still Quentin-shaped yesterday when he chased Beth onto the top of Widows’ Hill. He collapsed in the woods, and a moment later the spell was broken and the body was Quentin’s again. Quentin, restored to his own person, wanders up to the summit and is surprised to see Beth there.

Quentin tries to tell Beth that he is himself, but she is not disposed to listen. Thinking that he has come to do something worse than simply kill her, she leaps from the cliff.

Terry Crawford says that when they first did this scene, they wanted her to emphasize the drama of Beth’s suicide by really flinging herself down hard. Since the floor was only a couple of feet below the set, the springy mattress that she flung herself on bounced her back into the frame, and they had to retake the shot. I wish we had that out-take, it must have been hilarious.

Quentin returns to the great house of Collinwood, in shock. He doesn’t notify the police or anyone else of Beth’s death- apparently the seascape just isn’t complete without a dead maidservant or two strewn carelessly about.

Barnabas, who has traveled back in time from 1969 to 1897 and who is currently free of the effects of the vampire curse, enters. He has befriended Quentin, and is at war with Petofi. He knew about the body swap, and had urged Quentin to make the effort that reversed it. He does not know how that effort turned out. He is happy to hear that Quentin is himself again, unhappy to learn of Beth’s demise, and insistent that Quentin must go far away before Petofi can get at him again.

We cut to a studio occupied by artist Charles Delaware Tate, a stooge of Petofi’s. We can see that Tate stole the magical portrait that keeps Quentin from turning into a werewolf. He covers the portrait with white paint. A visitor enters. It is Petofi’s servant Aristide. Aristide’s face is covered with dirt. Petofi has turned against Aristide, who has been in hiding. Tate agrees to help Aristide get a bath and clean clothes, but will not intercede with Petofi on his behalf.

Aristide does not know that the body swap is over. He goes to Collinwood, finds Quentin, and assumes that he is Petofi. When he offers to do whatever is necessary to restore himself to his master’s good graces, Quentin tells Aristide to find the man who appears to be Petofi and kill him. Aristide, a sadistic fiend, is delighted to receive this sort of command. He goes back to Tate’s, finds the real Petofi there, and stabs him in the chest.

Aristide getting ready to stab Petofi. Still not using his favorite knife, “The Dancing Girl” (alias “The Dancing Lady.”) Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Episode 871: The twin of life

In October 1897, sorcerer Count Petofi has hijacked the body of Quentin Collins and banished Quentin to his own aging form. I call the villainous Petofi played by David Selby Q-Petofi, and the forlorn Quentin played by Thayer David P-Quentin.

Today, wicked witch Angelique explains to P-Quentin how she and mad scientist Julia Hoffman cured time-traveler Barnabas Collins of vampirism, created a Doppelgänger of Barnabas, and used that Doppelgänger to persuade Quentin’s family in the great house of Collinwood that Barnabas never really was a vampire. Later, artist Charles Delaware Tate mistakes P-Quentin for Petofi, and tries to kill him. Q-Petofi then enters and takes control of Tate, using him for a project of his own.

Petofi stripped Angelique of her powers in #865, and deprived Tate of his ability to paint in #851. Angelique has been such an important part of the show for so long that regular viewers are confident she will be back eventually, but the 1897 segment seems to be lurching towards its close, and after her last exit there was no urgent reason in the story for her to come back. It’s good to see that she is still part of this arc.

Tate’s continued presence is rather less good news. Like all characters played by Roger Davis, he has an obnoxious personality and a grating voice, with a disturbing habit of invading his scene partners’ personal space. Today, he keeps grabbing at Q-Petofi’s coat while Q-Petofi bats him away; this is so irritating that it is unclear whether the line “You’ve got trouble with your hands” was scripted for Q-Petofi or ad libbed by David Selby.

For the last couple of weeks, we have had grounds for hope that Tate would just go away. When he sold the portrait of the lovely and mysterious Amanda Harris in #864, he lost his last connection to an ongoing plot point. We saw in that same scene that he had a lot of paintings he could sell for high prices if he took them back to New York or another major city. We also know that he has no friends or potential sources of income in the small town of Collinsport. So evidently he is just sticking around to punish the audience for watching the show.

Episode 864: Shipwreck Point

Sorcerer Count Petofi is currently occupying the body of rakish Quentin Collins. When he is in this form, I refer to him as Q-Petofi.

Q-Petofi. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Lawyer/ Satanist Evan Hanley has displeased Q-Petofi. Q-Petofi has put the zap on Evan and made him dig his own grave. Evan begs for his life, but does so in a stilted, robotic voice that suggests he is struggling against Q-Petofi’s power. It is a neat job of acting by Humbert Allen Astredo.

Evan points out that it would raise suspicions if Q-Petofi were seen with his servant Aristide, especially inside the great house of Collinwood. Evan himself, however, is the Collins family’s attorney, trusted by everyone in the house. If anyone there has suspicions about Q-Petofi, they will confide in him. Q-Petofi decides that he may as well let Evan live, and orders him to keep tabs on wicked witch Angelique.

We cut to the foyer of Collinwood, where Angelique is staying. She is on the telephone trying to reach the local pharmacy, and is annoyed that the meds she wants are not yet available. Another houseguest, Cockney showgirl/ mentalist Pansy Faye, enters. Angelique hurriedly ends the call. Pansy taunts Angelique for the end of her engagement to Quentin. After Pansy exits, Angelique gets back on the phone and resumes talking to the pharmacist. Q-Petofi enters, and Angelique pretends she is talking to someone else, then hangs up.

Returning viewers know that Angelique is carrying on a medical intervention designed by time-traveling mad scientist Julia Hoffman, MD. Julia’s friend, vampire Barnabas Collins, made his way from 1969 to 1897, and she followed him. Julia had recreated an experimental treatment that put Barnabas’ vampirism into abeyance for a little while early in 1968 when she snapped back to her own time, vanishing from 1897. Shortly before Julia disappeared, Angelique agreed to complete the procedure and turn Barnabas into a real boy.

Angelique seems less powerful than usual today. Her dealings with the pharmacy are a logical consequence of her agreement to take over Julia’s plan, but she doesn’t usually have to get exasperated with people over the telephone, and not since her early days as a witch in the 1790s has she been so vulnerable to discovery by random passersby. Later, she goes to Barnabas’ hiding place, and Evan follows her. There have been times when Angelique could materialize and dematerialize at will, and it was impossible for any mere mortal to keep track of her whereabouts, but evidently she doesn’t feel up to that today. She does tell Q-Petofi she has a headache, maybe that’s true.

Pansy has a scene in the studio of artist Charles Delaware Tate. She tells Tate she wants to buy one of his paintings; he tells her that everything is for sale, but that his prices are high. She picks out a portrait of the lovely and mysterious Amanda Harris; he throws a tantrum and doesn’t want to sell it to her. When she reminds him that he said all the paintings are for sale, he names the ridiculously high price of $5000. That would be well over $150,000 in 2025. Without missing a beat, Pansy pulls out a few large-denomination bills and fans them under Tate’s nose.

Pansy’s only source of income was a cabaret act she recently did at the Blue Whale, a tavern in the village of Collinsport. We saw her there the other day shortly before nine PM, when she was the only person in the barroom. So it doesn’t seem likely she could have earned that quantity of cash there. Nor is there any apparent reason why Pansy would want a portrait of Amanda, whom she saw as a rival for Quentin’s affections. It seems likely that someone else put her up to buying it.

The obvious candidate would be Judith Collins Trask, owner of Collinwood and all the Collins family businesses. Judith is married to the odious Gregory Trask, whose late daughter Charity provided the host body through which Pansy, who died in #771, has been interacting with the world of the living since Petofi erased Charity’s personality in #819. Judith has persuaded Pansy to move back into Collinwood. Judith has herself recently returned to the great house after Trask had her confined to a mental hospital for a period of more than thirteen weeks. Her stuffy but lovable brother Edward told Judith that Trask spent much of that time trying to seduce Amanda, and Judith wants to get the facts about what went on in her absence.

Closing Miscellany

Director Henry Kaplan was not in good form in this one. In the opening, studio lights are clearly visible right in the middle of the screen, between Evan and Q-Petofi. The same thing happened in yesterday’s episode. The other directors might have made a mistake like that once, but I don’t think any of them would have done it two days in a row.

The camera is also frequently out of focus, as is typical of Kaplan’s shows, and it moves unsteadily. He must have been trying to get the camera operators to do something he hadn’t prepared them for, it looks really bad.

There are a couple of notable bloopers that aren’t particularly Kaplan’s fault. When Angelique makes a remark about Q-Petofi’s attitude towards brandy, David Selby says “Don’t you think it’s possible for one’s…change…or one’s taste to change in brandy?” That is followed by a silent beat, as both he and Lara Parker are stunned by the nonsense that just came out of his mouth.

When Tate lets Pansy into his studio, the shade falls out of the window. He looks at it for a second, then the scene goes on. It is one of the all-time great goofs.

Episode 851: Common cause

Rakish libertine Quentin Collins races to the train station to meet his fiancée, the lovely and mysterious Amanda Harris. He thinks he sees her, but it is actually another young woman wearing a remarkably similar outfit. She tells him the train to New York City left a few minutes ago; Quentin knows Amanda was on it, and that she thinks his absence means that their relationship is over. The young woman was quite miffed when Quentin first approached her, but by the time he offers his second apology her look has gone from indignant to concerned to yearning. The guy’s got game, you have to grant him that.

It’s been less than a minute since he made a bad first impression on her, and she’s ready to run off with him. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Quentin was detained by a fistfight with a repulsive little man called Charles Delaware Tate. Tate is an artist whose works sometimes have magical powers. His portrait of Quentin, for example, keeps Quentin from turning into a werewolf and ensures him against physical harm. Since Tate is obsessed with Amanda, he stole the portrait from Quentin when he learned Amanda was planning to leave with him. Quentin dared not leave without it, and went to Tate’s studio to demand its return. He very satisfyingly beat Tate senseless, but he did not find the portrait, and now he fears he has lost Amanda forever.

We cut to Tate’s studio. Tate is lying on the floor where he fell when Quentin finished hitting him. Unfortunately, he gets up. Sorcerer Count Petofi, who granted Tate the power to make magical artworks some years ago, enters. He tells Tate that it was stupid to steal Quentin’s portrait. Tate pretends not to know what Petofi is talking about, irritating him and us. Petofi says that he will have to be punished. After he forces Tate to draw a sketch of a pretty woman, he squeezes his wrists, helps himself to Quentin’s portrait, and says what sounds very much like a final goodbye. He exits, and Tate sits down with his pad and pencil. He discovers that he is no longer able to draw, not even a straight line.

These days, Dark Shadows is a costume drama set in 1897. Most of the time between 1966 and 1968, it took place in a contemporary setting. In those days, the set now used as Tate’s studio was the Evans cottage, home to artist Sam Evans, a drunken sad sack, and his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. In December of 1966 and January of 1967, the ghost of the gracious Josette compelled Sam to paint alarming images of Laura Murdoch Collins.

It turned out Josette was doing this because she knew the characters were not all that bright and she had to literally paint them a picture to explain that Laura was an undead fire witch bent on incinerating her young son David. Laura tried to thwart Josette’s plan by harming Sam. In #146, Laura caused a fire at the Evans cottage that burned Sam’s hands, temporarily depriving him of the ability to paint. Petofi’s disabling of Tate on the same set will bring this incident back to longtime viewers. Especially so, since Josette is in the air at this point in the show. In #844, a character named Kitty joined the cast. She keeps having mental flashbacks to things only Josette would remember, and Josette’s music box appeared on Kitty’s table at a time when Josette’s ghost seemed to be the likeliest agency to have put it there. Perhaps she will insert herself into Tate’s story for some reason.

When we were watching the scene between Tate and Petofi, my wife, Mrs Acilius, said that she very much wished someone else were playing Tate. Violet Welles’ script gives whoever is playing Tate a lot of opportunity to show what he can do in that scene. Roger Davis is a highly trained actor who has a long list of stage and screen credits, but he is almost always very unpleasant to watch on Dark Shadows, and he wastes the potentially fascinating dialogue Welles gave him. When Mr Davis is particularly trying, I usually try to make the scenes bearable by imagining what Frederic Forrest, who was a featured background player in #137, would have done in his place. But the echo of the story about Sam makes me wonder what David Ford would have done as Tate. Ford was in his forties, smallish and pudgy, so a David Ford Tate could not believably have had a fistfight with a character played by the very tall and fit 28 year old David Selby. But he might have been a subtle enough villain that such an exchange would not have been called for. Moreover, the incestuous undertone of Tate’s desire for Amanda, who is the product of one of his magical paintings and therefore a kind of daughter to him, would have been all the more disturbing had Tate been played by the man we knew as Maggie’s father in the 1960s and, when the show was set in the 1790s, as Josette’s.

Back home at the great house of Collinwood, Quentin receives a visit from Tim Shaw, Amanda’s ex and a would-be sleazy operator. He demands Tim tell him what he knows about Amanda’s life in New York before they came to Collinwood. Tim declares he will tell him nothing, to which Quentin responds by choking him and flinging him to the floor. Tim then burbles out everything he knows, which turns out to be nothing of the slightest use. Quentin picks Tim up and throws him out the front door in the most humiliating possible way. We cheer this on almost as joyously as we cheered Quentin’s beating of Tate Friday, but for the opposite reason. Mr Davis is a genuinely disagreeable person who ruins episode after episode, and it was him we were angry with. We chanted at the screen, not “Quen-tin! Quen-tin! Quen-tin!,” but “Da-vid! Da-vid! Da-vid!” hoping Mr Selby would pay him back for all his on-screen assaults on the women and children in the cast. But Don Briscoe was as nice a guy as Tim has become despicable, and he and Mr Selby enjoyed working together. You can see Briscoe’s joy in performance in the way he holds on to a little yellow piece of paper representing a note from Amanda all through the beating Quentin administers. Even the shot of Quentin shoving Tim out with his buttocks prominent is the product of Briscoe’s enthusiastic use of his body to demonstrate Tim’s total defeat.

Quentin throws Tim’s sorry ass out the door. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Quentin’s other fiancée, wicked witch Angelique, comes downstairs to ask what the ruckus was about. Quentin makes up a transparent lie about having a financial interest in some firm in Boston, and says that he and Tim were quarreling about the details of it. Angelique lets him go on with this for a while and to say that he is leaving for Boston, then insists that they set a date for their wedding. He begs off, claiming not to know how long he will be away.

Petofi enters, and tells Angelique about Quentin’s plan to go to New York and look for Amanda. He also tells her that they now have a common cause, and proposes an alliance. Each of them is so powerful, and so evil, that this is a sobering prospect.

When Quentin returns to the foyer, it is his turn to be alone with Petofi. Quentin knows that Petofi gave Tate both the power to create the portrait that freed him of his curse and the commission to do so, and that he is therefore beholden to Petofi for his continued humanity. Part of his motivation for fleeing to New York with Amanda was his hope that he could escape the slavery Petofi has imposed on him as the price of that benefice. When Petofi tells Quentin he has come to see him before he goes, Quentin is momentarily stunned, and then makes a brave little noise to the effect that Petofi can’t stop him. Petofi assures him that he does not want to stop him. It doesn’t matter in the least to him where Quentin is- he can control him from anywhere.

Petofi calls on Tim at his room in the inn. He deepens Tim’s misery by pretending he doesn’t believe what Tim told him about Tate’s magical powers. As he leaves, he takes a brooch that belonged to Amanda.

Quentin is at the train station. Angelique appears there, and tells him not to go. He says that he doesn’t care if she kills him. It will be consolation enough to have died walking away from her. She says that she will not harm him in any way. This causes him to open his eyes wide in terror as it dawns on him what she means. She produces Amanda’s brooch and a doll. She positions the pin of the brooch over the doll’s chest and says that no matter where Amanda is, she will die a horrible death when the pin impales the doll.

Closing Miscellany

The actress who plays the young woman Quentin meets at the train station is billed in the credits as “Amy Yaekerson,” the only person known to Google ever to be called “Yaekerson” and known only for this appearance. But in a comment on Danny Horn’s post about the episode at his great Dark Shadows Every Day, a commenter known as “miles” pointed out that there are lots of people named “Yakerson.” He went on to identify an Amy Yakerson born in New York City on 1 April 1946, and to find a 1966 notice of a play featuring an actress of that name and probably of that age in the New York Daily News. I followed that up with some Googling of my own; the only Amy Yakerson I can find who is online today was born in Connecticut in 1954, so I don’t know where Amy Yakerson, star of stage and screen, is now.

We saw some of Sam’s paintings in Tate’s studio Friday and today, twenty-some years before Sam was born. Tate hides the portrait of Quentin behind one of Sam’s seascapes, and Sam’s portrait of Maggie’s mother is on the floor next to him when we see him lying there in the aftermath of the fight. John and Christine Scoleri have the details in their post about Friday’s episode at Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Episode 850: That’s your train, lady

In June 1966, Dark Shadows opened with a train carrying well-meaning governess Victoria Winters and dashing action hero Burke Devlin from New York City to Collinsport, Maine. Vicki and Burke first met at the train station in Collinsport. When she found that no one was waiting to take her to the great house of Collinwood, Burke volunteered to drive her there. We haven’t seen the train station since, and all subsequent references to mass transit to and from Collinsport in the 1960s have been about buses. That is to some extent an adjustment to real-world history. In our universe, passenger train service to central Maine had already stopped by 1966.

Now, the show is set in 1897. Devastatingly handsome reprobate Quentin Collins has talked the lovely and mysterious Amanda Harris into joining him on the 6 PM train from Collinsport to NYC. Amanda and Quentin will remind viewers who have been with the show from the beginning of Vicki and Burke. Quentin is no hero, but he serves the plot function Burke did in those early days, antagonizing all the authority figures and fascinating all the women and children. Amanda takes part in some sleazy schemes, while Vicki was eventually forced to be an impossibly stainless model of virtue. But as Vicki was on a quest to learn the truth about her biological parents and felt she could know nothing about herself until she found out who they were, Amanda is tormented that she has no memories and no information about herself dating beyond two years into the past. And as in the first week Vicki was a savvy New York street kid who could keep smiling while she fended off the indecent advances of the lecherous Roger Collins, so Amanda sees right through the equally lecherous but toweringly hypocritical Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask.

Quentin and Amanda agree to meet at the train station. Amanda has to hide from Trask and from a repulsive little man named Charles Delaware Tate, and so she will spend the afternoon in a vacant house on Pine Road where a friend of Quentin’s is squatting. Quentin will settle his affairs at Collinwood. When they made this plan, my wife, Mrs Acilius, said that Dark Shadows has so consistently shown that when its characters leave separately they do not meet each other at their intended destination that it would be a surprise if they get on the train together. Indeed, from the time Amanda leaves Collinwood the suspense is not about whether their reunion will be thwarted, but how.

Tate steals a portrait of Quentin. He knows that the portrait has magical powers and is of the utmost importance to Quentin. Quentin discovers that the portrait is missing. He writes a note saying that he may not be able to get to the train station by 6 PM and asks his nine year old niece, Nora Collins, to take it to Amanda at the house on Pine Road. Nora agrees to do so.

Quentin goes to Tate’s and demands he give the portrait back. They get into a fistfight. Quentin knocks Tate out and searches the house.

Trask catches Nora on her way to the house on Pine Road. He forces her to give him the note. He reads it, and goes to the house himself. He and Amanda have a confrontation. She tells Trask that she first approached him as part of a con game she was ashamed to take part in, but when she saw him leering at her she decided that he deserved to be cheated. He furiously denies being a lecher and she calls him a liar. Trask can intimidate most people into silence, so much so that his scenes are often suffocating to watch, and it is glorious to see Amanda dump the whole truth on him and not back down.

Trask does get in one more lie. He claims that he just saw Quentin getting ready to go out on a date with his other fiancée, Angelique. Amanda doesn’t believe him but she does know about Angelique. She also told Quentin that she wasn’t convinced she was right for him, and that if he didn’t show up she would understand that he had decided they didn’t have a future together after all. So when at the conclusion the conductor sees Amanda standing on the platform by herself and tells her that it’s time to get on the train, we are to assume that she thinks it is over between her and Quentin.