Tag: collinsport english

Episode 313: You must rest

This one is an exercise in nostalgia for people who have been watching Dark Shadows from the beginning.

We remember the days when high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins was the show’s chief villain, a man with so little sense of family loyalty that he openly hated his own son. That son, strange and troubled boy David, repaid his father’s hatred by trying to murder him. Roger has been off-screen for over six weeks; when he comes back today, the first thing he sees is the sheriff’s car in the driveway, and the first thing he hears is that the sheriff has come about David. He stiffens, and in a voice dripping with distaste asks “What about David?” When well-meaning governess Vicki explains that David is not suspected of a crime, but is missing, Roger scolds her for failing to earn her pay by keeping track of the boy. He seems to be far more irked by the money wasted on Vicki’s salary than by David’s disappearance.

When heiress Carolyn and hardworking young fisherman Joe come to report on their fruitless search for David, Roger turns his disdain on them, berating them for letting him get away in the first place. Seeing Joe and Carolyn together brings back memories of the early months of the show, when the two of them were dating and there was a whole storyline about how bored they were with each other. For that matter, we were reminded of the first 40 weeks when Vicki hesitated to tell Roger that she had been on a date with her depressing fiancé Burke Devlin- Burke had been Roger’s sworn enemy until he decided to peace out in #201.

Roger agrees to go with Joe on a search of the countryside. When Vicki and Carolyn are left alone in the drawing room, they have a conversation about how tired they both are. Each of them urges the other to take a nap, and each responds that she can’t sleep. Writer Malcolm Marmorstein was fired off the show a few days ago; he was perfectly capable of taking a conversation like that and making a whole episode out of it. Today’s episode is filler from the point of view of the overall plot, but the ludicrous pointlessness of this conversation is a rarity in the post-Marmorstein era.

Roger and Joe’s search is represented in a couple of shots done in front of a green screen showing outdoor locations. That casts our minds back to the black and white episodes, which occasionally spliced in location inserts. Most of that footage was taken before the series started principal photography, and none of it can be reused now that the show is in color. The last of these inserts came in #275, when Carolyn took a walk on the beach. Now Dark Shadows is shut within the doors of 442 West 54th Street forever, and its only memory of the outside is in these green screen shots.

Joe and Roger in front of a green screen. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
A less successful use of the same process. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Roger continues his flagrant display of indifference to David throughout this sequence. When he sees men in blue uniforms searching for David, he makes some acerbic comments about the incompetence of the local police.* When Joe points out a nearby cemetery where odd events have been taking place of late, Roger remarks on its dreariness and on the generally low aesthetic standard of cemeteries in central Maine. When Joe suggests searching there, Roger is appalled, and joins him only with loud reluctance.

After Roger says “down” meaning “up,” which is a feature of Collinsport English we heard in #12, In the cemetery, we get another reminder of the show’s past. The Caretaker, a doddering old fool played hilariously by Daniel F. Keyes, had a significant part in the story of Roger’s ex-wife, undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, appearing in #154, #157, #179, and #180, and appeared again in episodes #209 and #211, which dealt with the introduction of vampire Barnabas Collins.

When we find him today, the Caretaker is inspecting the area around the Tomb of the Collinses. Unknown to him, there is a secret chamber hidden inside this tomb. David is trapped in that chamber. The Caretaker opens the door to the visible part of the tomb and asks if anyone is there. He hears David’s voice calling for help from the other side of the wall, and jumps to the conclusion that he is hearing a bunch of ghosts. “There is no help for you!” he cries out. As he hurries away, he shouts, “You must rest!”

David is nothing if not obedient. A minute after the Caretaker told him he must rest, he sits down and falls asleep.

The Caretaker runs into Roger and Joe. He asks them if they are alive. As “You must rest!” harked back to his constant refrain in his previous appearances that “The dead must rest!,” so this greeting echoes his first line in his first scene, when he asked Vicki and her instantly forgettable boyfriend Frank if they were alive. Frank responded to that one calmly; with his personality, it was a question he probably got from a lot of people. By contrast, Joe is disbelieving and Roger scoffs.

When they tell the Caretaker they are looking for a boy named David, he replies “Yes, he is here,” then describes the death of a boy named David who is buried in one of the graves. His compulsion to tell us the circumstances of people’s deaths is another trait of his we remember from the Laura days, especially in his oft-repeated phrase “died by fire!”

The Caretaker tells them that he heard the voices of the dead in the tomb. He urges Roger and Joe to stay away from it. Roger tells him he will be happy to oblige, but Joe insists they search there. Roger declares that he is embarrassed by the very idea of going inside such a place, and says that if anyone finds out he did he will blame Joe. Again, Roger can barely restrain his eagerness to give up the search for David.

David is too deeply asleep to hear Roger and Joe in the outer chamber. Since they are there, Roger decides to take a moment and look at the plaques naming the people buried in the tomb. After all, they are his “incestors – incestors! I mean ancestors.” This is one of the most famous bloopers in the entire series. If Louis Edmonds hadn’t stopped, glanced back at Joel Crothers, repeated “incestors,” and corrected himself, I doubt many people would have noticed it. It was a suprisingly unprofessional moment, but who would have it otherwise? To the extent that the episode is a retrospective of Dark Shadows so far, it wouldn’t be complete without an attention-grabbing mess-up. If the camera isn’t going to drift away from the mark and show a crew member eating a sandwich, “incestors” is the least we can expect.

Since the episode is so much a review of the show’s bygone themes, it is understandable that some viewers are disturbed by a line in the first scene. Roger mentions to Vicki that, while he has just returned from a trip to Boston, matriarch Liz is staying on in that city a while longer. The Dark Shadows wiki objects: “Elizabeth has decided to stay in Boston. This is incredible, since she was still afraid to leave Collinwood a few weeks ago, even hesitant to go to the Old House.”

I don’t find it incredible. Liz’ hesitation about going out was last mentioned in #280, and by #298 she was not only quick to accept Burke’s suggestion that she go with him to inspect a property on the other side of town, but she was the one who talked Carolyn into coming along with them. Neither Carolyn nor Burke expressed surprise that Liz was the one who was enthusiastic about getting out of the house. With that, Dark Shadows told us that it had no further use for the “Liz is a recluse” theme. They may be taking us on a stroll down memory lane today, but they aren’t going to take us all the way to that particular dead end.

*In all fairness, the Collinsport police are exceptionally incompetent.

Episode 208: From generation to generation

Friday’s episode ended with an important scene. Strange and troubled boy David Collins cheerfully escorted dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis around the great house of Collinwood, giving him little lectures about the portraits of the Collins ancestors. David pointed to a portrait in the foyer and spoke a name we hadn’t heard before, identifying it as Barnabas Collins. Willie, then played by frenzied Mississippian James Hall, became fascinated with the jewels Barnabas wore, so much so that for the first time on Dark Shadows his thoughts became audible as a recording playing on the soundtrack. After Willie left the house, we heard a heartbeat coming from the painting and saw Barnabas’ eyes glow.

When Willie’s associate, seagoing con man Jason McGuire, first entered Collinwood in #196, an optical trick made it look like a portrait was hanging on the spot where Barnabas’ portrait is now. While the face on the painting would have to wait until the actor was cast, the rest of the work on it was already done at that point, so that trick, inconspicuous as it would have been to the audience, was a sign that the production staff had decided that Jason’s role on the show would be to precipitate the introduction of Barnabas. And the opening voiceover of #2o2, the episode in which Willie joins Jason as a houseguest at Collinwood, referred to Willie as “one who is to awaken and unleash a force that will affect the lives of everyone.” The special effects surrounding Willie’s first encounter with the portrait would suggest that Barnabas represents that force, and that the portrait is a means by which that force is expressed.

Today’s episode begins with Willie taking another look at the portrait, and will end with him staring at it again. In between these two sessions, we learn that among the many impulses Willie is unable to control is a fascination with shiny objects.

We also see the ninth and tenth iterations of Dark Shadows’ dreariest ritual, in which seagoing con man Jason McGuire makes a demand of reclusive matriarch Liz, Liz resists, Jason threatens to expose her terrible secret, and Liz gives in. The first time comes after the opening credits. In the pre-credits teaser, they raised our hopes that we might see a conversation between them which does not conform to this pattern. Liz tells Jason that Willie can no longer be a guest in the house, and Jason agrees. But as soon as we return, he demands that she give Willie a parting gift in the form of $1000 cash. She refuses, and says she will call the police rather than bribe Willie to leave her home. After Jason threatens to send her to prison and lowers his demand to $500, she capitulates.

When Jason breaks the news to Willie that he is to leave immediately and take $500 with him, Willie notices a diamond-encrusted emerald pin and slips it in his pocket. Minutes later, Liz finds the pin missing and tells Jason she will have to call the insurance company. Jason confronts Willie in the kitchen and demands he hand the pin over. After a tense moment, Willie admits that he took the pin, not because he thought he could get away with stealing it, but because it was so pretty. He goes on about how supremely beautiful fine jewels are, saying that he can judge the beauty of a gem simply by touching it. He begs Jason to let him touch the emerald again. After Jason leaves him alone in the kitchen, Willie looks like he has had a new idea and is resolved to act on it.

Willie’s compulsion to touch the emerald creeps Jason out

Willie starts the scene with angry defiance, proceeds to humiliated dependence, and ends with a look of brisk resolve. John Karlen takes Willie through all of these emotions without any apparent discontinuity of feeling. He is still the defiant man even while he is begging, and still the begging man even while he is making up his mind to follow his new plan. That is as different as can be from Hall’s interpretation of Willie, who frightened us largely because of his extremely mercurial temperament. His moods shifted so wildly from second to second that you had no idea what he might do. It is remarkable that two performances can be so utterly unlike each other in every way, yet be equally effective at conveying menace and equally exciting to the audience wondering what comes next.

Jason tries to convince Liz that Willie didn’t take the pin, but that it simply fell to the floor. This effort collapses immediately. Liz is no longer disposed to give Willie any money; she is planning to call the police and let the chips fall where they may. Jason does not believe Willie will go quietly unless he gets a substantial sum of cash, and is afraid of the trouble Willie can make. So he again threatens Liz, this time focusing on the effect of a potential scandal on her daughter Carolyn and on David. Liz looks away in despair, unable to refuse Jason’s demand.

Willie depresses some characters and enrages others. The only exception is David, who brightens and chatters gladly when he sees Willie. David leads Willie into the study, where he shows him pictures of the Collins family’s eighteenth century ancestors and goes on about their fabulous jewels. He identifies one ancestor as his “great-great-grand-uncle.” “Grand-uncle” is a bit of Collinsport English that we will hear again later in the series. David suggests that some very valuable items might be found buried in out of the way places around town. David’s tales send Willie back into the foyer to stare longingly at the jewels in Barnabas’ portrait.

As we heard Willie’s interior monologue on the soundtrack while he stared at the portrait Friday, so today we hear a recording of Willie’s speech to Jason about his love of jewels while he studies the jewelry in the portrait. As his words come to an end, the heartbeat plays again and the eyes glow again. This time, Willie sees and hears and reacts. He has found his destiny.

Episode 12: You can still hear the widows

Roger and Vicki encounter each other on the peak of Widow’s Hill. Roger remarks it is the highest point in the area. At the end of their conversation, Vicki will call to Carolyn, inviting her to join them “down here.” This may seem to be a blooper, but since we hear “down” used to mean “up” in a later episode, I speculate that it’s a peculiarity of Collinsport English.

Little happens to advance the plot in this episode, but between Roger’s announcement that he and Vicki are standing on the highest point in the area and Vicki’s invitation to come “down here,” we hear a lot about the ghostly legends of the place. After the scene in episode 11 where the ghosts are troubling Elizabeth while David is doing something mysterious involving motor grease and little pieces of metal, it seems that the show is using the ghosts as a sign that something big is happening. Certainly the “Widow’s Wail” is a striking sound effect, and Louis Edmonds does a good job of selling the idea that Roger really does believe in all the legends about the house that his social position might require him and Elizabeth to ridicule publicly.

It’s a bit jarring that Carolyn drifts into the scene asking what Vicki and Roger are doing- “planning a suicide pact?” She had just told Vicki about the legend that a third governess would die by jumping off the cliff, and the series story bible still calls for Roger to throw himself to his death from it. So you might think it would be in questionable taste to bring that particular topic up just now.

There’s also a scene in the Evans cottage where Maggie (Kathryn Leigh Scott) tries to get Sam (Mark Allen) to tell her what’s been bothering him. In episode 11, Conrad Bain had triumphed over a weak script and Mark Allen’s relentless whine to turn what might have been a lot of tedious recapping into a compulsively watchable scene. At the beginning of this scene, Kathryn Leigh Scott is mustering such powerful emotions that it looks like she might be about to accomplish the same feat, but Allen has switched from whining all his lines to bellowing them. So the scene is a dead loss.