dark shadows – Page 87 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 165: It feels like someone was here

Our point of view character is well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki believes that her charge, strange and troubled boy David, is in danger from his mother, blonde fire witch Laura. Today we see several weaknesses in Vicki’s position against Laura.

The opening sequence shows that physical force is useless to Vicki. David comes down the stairs in the great house on the estate of Collinwood carrying a small cardboard suitcase. Vicki sees him and asks where he is going. He tells her he is going to the cottage on the estate to spend the night with his mother. Vicki tells him he is not. She grabs at his suitcase.

Vicki is not given to clutching at David or his possessions. The last time they had a physical confrontation comparable to this was in #68. In that one, David was throwing a tantrum, and Vicki’s attempt to restrain him only led him to escalate his violent behavior:

From episode 68. *Screen capture by* Dark Shadows from the Beginning

Today, Vicki’s intrusion into David’s personal space backfires just as badly. She inadvertently knocks the suitcase open, dumping his pajamas on the floor. She is shocked to see what she has done:

She tries to undo the damage by picking up the contents of the suitcase. That requires her to crouch down before David, destroying whatever authority she may have had over him at the beginning of the encounter:

Making matters even worse, David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, shows up and stands over Vicki while she and David are on the floor. Roger wants David to go away, and since Laura wants to take him he is working with her. As David’s governess, Vicki has no legal right to oppose the wishes of his parents, and in a conversation that begins with her in this position it is going to be psychologically difficult for her even to voice her objections:

Vicki does insist Roger meet with her alone in the drawing room while David waits upstairs, and she makes her case valiantly. But that conversation only shows that Roger is as useless to Vicki as is brawn. He ignores every consideration that does not advance his own interest, and his interest now is getting rid of David.

Flighty heiress Carolyn comes into the room and supports Vicki. Roger won’t budge. He gives a long speech about his position as David’s father, a speech which actor Louis Edmonds takes straight off the teleprompter. He delivers it with as much conviction and brio as if he had actually learned it. At the end of his dramatic reading, Nancy Barrett and Alexandra Moltke Isles bite their fingers and Mrs Isles finally turns her back to the camera, so we don’t see either of them laughing.

In Laura’s cottage, David complains to his parents about Vicki’s attempts to keep him from his mother and mentions that his father stood up for him. Roger, rather surprisingly, rises to Vicki’s defense, denying that there was any need for standing up to anyone- he claims that Vicki simply did not realize that he had given David permission to spend the night with Laura, and that they had talked about improving communication to avoid similar confusions in the future. Laura isn’t fooled by Roger’s covering up his conflict with Vicki- she clearly knows that Vicki is her adversary. Nor is the audience encouraged to believe that Roger will support Vicki when it counts. He simply thinks that he has her under control.

When Roger leaves David and Laura alone in the cottage, he says good night. He turns and walks out the door as they watch him. Neither of them says anything. This is the sort of thing that often happens in plays, less often on screen, and almost never in real life. I suppose it’s hard to make the sorts of fumbling exchanges people actually have in those moments fit into a drama, but still, it would have avoided a distracting moment to have Laura and David say good night in reply.

Back in the great house, Vicki talks with Carolyn and visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie. They tell Carolyn that Laura was lying when she denied having seen Carolyn’s mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, on the day when Liz was stricken with the mysterious ailment that has sent her to the hospital. Dashing action hero Burke Devlin has told Vicki that Liz came upon him and Laura in Laura’s cottage shortly before Liz’ first attack, and that Liz and Laura were still together when Burke left them.

Carolyn has been madly in love with Burke, unable to think about anything else when she is reminded of him. She does initially react to his name with “You talked to Burke?” in the same dreamy tone of voice she has used hithertofore, but quickly resumes her focus on the business at hand. Her feelings for him have not vanished, but she has matured sufficiently that she can set them aside while she deals with a crisis.

That is not to say that Carolyn is entirely grown-up in her behavior. When she learns that Laura has lied about Liz, Carolyn wants to march down to the cottage at once and confront her with “absolute proof that she is responsible for my mother’s illness.” Vicki points out that Laura’s lie is by no means proof of any such thing, and Guthrie says that he doesn’t want Laura to know how much the three of them know.

Having learned that Vicki and her allies have nothing to hope from either physical force or from Roger, we then discover that they can’t count on the writers either. Carolyn asks why Guthrie wants to hide their knowledge from Laura. The audience knows that they are in conflict with Laura and will have to be careful with any information that might enable them to catch her off-guard at a strategic moment. That Carolyn does not know this makes her sound like an idiot.

Guthrie’s response makes this bad situation worse. He makes the nonsensical claim that they should try to keep Laura from realizing that they are suspicious of her. Carolyn is openly hostile to Laura, Vicki has had to tell Laura repeatedly that she is trying to keep her son from her, and Laura treated Guthrie frankly as an enemy when they met yesterday. Considering that the only thing that has happened so far this week is that Dr Guthrie has been brought up to date with the story, seeing him presented to us as someone unable to hold onto information or process it gives the audience the feeling that we’ve just wasted a whole lot of time.

In the course of this miserable conversation, Guthrie does disclose a fateful plan. He says that he is considering organizing a séance. That marks the first utterance of what will, in the years to come, become perhaps the single most important word in all of Dark Shadows. In this instance, it is obscured by Guthrie’s inexplicable idea that Laura might agree to join them as a participant in their séance.

In the cottage, Laura’s behavior towards David is quite peculiar and seems to unsettle him. He was sitting next to her on the couch she has made up for a bed when she suggested he go get a book and read to her. When he found the book and sat down where it had been, she at once pleaded with him to come back and sit by her again. After expressing his puzzlement, David humors her. She squeezes him while he holds a smile. In an extended closeup, that smile shows several emotions- pleasure and self-satisfaction are in there, but so are confusion, discomfort, and loneliness.

David drifts off, and a visitor comes to the cottage. Laura calls to her before we can see her. “Josette! I know you’re here!” David has a friendly relationship with the ghost of his ancestor, Josette Collins. Apparently Laura is also on a first name basis with Josette. For some time now, the show has emphasized that Josette never appears to more than one person at a time. Though Laura and David are both in the room, Josette manifests:

Laura orders Josette to go away, and she does. After she has gone, David wakes up. He says that “It feels like someone was here.”Laura tells him no one was, and he goes back to sleep.

Laura has her back to Josette, and David is unconscious. So perhaps that’s why she is able to break her usual rule and appear when more than one person is in the room.

Or perhaps there isn’t more than one person in the room. We know that Laura is not quite human, and not exactly alive. In her previous star turn, when she rescued Vicki from the crazed Matthew Morgan in #126, Josette was accompanied by the ghosts of beloved local man Bill Malloy and the Widows of Collinsport. Perhaps we are to conclude that Laura, like them, has erupted into the narrative from the supernatural back-world.

As we opened with a demonstration of the protagonists’ weaknesses, so Josette’s retreat exposes a further weakness. Josette has been established as the mighty supernatural protectress of David, Vicki, and the rest of the household. Yet Josette cannot overpower Laura. If there is to be a happy ending for David, Vicki will have to marshal her forces with care.

Episode 164: Beyond caring that it might destroy her too

We open in the drawing room of the great house on the estate of Collinwood. Well-meaning governess Vicki tells parapsychologist Dr Guthrie that she is frightened at the thought that some unknown evil stalks the estate. So he says he wants to leave. He wants to spend the day in the town of Collinsport.

In their cottage in Collinsport, drunken artist Sam Evans is bickering with his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. Sam’s hands were burned in a fire some weeks ago, which he believes and the audience knows was caused by blonde fire witch Laura Collins. He can’t paint and is trying not to drink. When he refers to his belief that Laura caused the fire, sensible rational Maggie scolds him. He laughs a little, as if he is starting to doubt that Laura is to blame. Maggie leaves for her shift running the restaurant in the Collinsport Inn.

Vicki and Guthrie meet Maggie at the restaurant. They represent Dr Guthrie to her as “Mr Guthrie,” and tell her that he is a connoisseur of painting who wants to meet Sam. Maggie is thrilled by this idea, but worried that Sam may not make a good impression.

Dashing action hero Burke Devlin enters. Vicki introduces him to “Mr” Guthrie. Burke asks to speak to Vicki alone. Guthrie volunteers to call on Sam by himself.

After some awkward and pointless back-and-forth at the Evans cottage, Guthrie tells Sam that he is investigating the strange goings-on concerning Laura Collins. Sam realizes that for the first time he has an ally who takes his ideas seriously, and begins talking calmly and in depth about what has happened to him. He tells Guthrie that he doesn’t really know anything about Laura, but that some mysterious force compelled him to paint pictures in which her likeness embodied “evil incarnate.”

Back at the restaurant, Burke tells Vicki that Laura is the most wonderful woman in the world. The audience doesn’t know how much of Burke’s infatuation with Laura is native to his psychology and how much is the result of a spell she may have cast on him, but we can see plainly enough that Vicki, Dr Guthrie, and others who stand in opposition to Laura can expect no help from him.

Vicki tells Burke that she was reluctant to sit down with him, because she was afraid they would “have the same conversation all over again.” Perhaps she’s been watching the show- the three episodes immediately preceding this one consisted entirely of recycled dialogue.

Events may not move forward rapidly today, but there are some signs that the story will soon get moving again. Sam may not tell Guthrie anything that is new to regular viewers, but some of it is new to Guthrie. More importantly, we can see what Sam’s attitude towards his situation has been, and can see indications that it might change. Since he does hold crucial pieces of more than one of the puzzles the characters are trying to solve, that raises the prospect of plot development.

Moreover, Burke gives Vicki a vital piece of information. Reclusive matriarch Liz has been carted off to the hospital because of a sudden and mysterious ailment. Laura has been telling everyone that she hadn’t seen Liz the day before she was stricken. Burke casually mentions to Vicki that he and Laura saw Liz very shortly before her initial attack. He doesn’t know that he is exposing Laura in a lie- in fact, he boasts that he and Laura have nothing to hide. Vicki takes Burke’s information to Guthrie. We don’t see them planning their next moves, but this is the first moment all week when we have any reason to suppose that anyone will have a next move.

Episode 163: Poor relation

At the end of last week, reclusive matriarch Liz left the estate of Collinwood for an extended stay in a hospital. It would seem that she took all of Dark Shadows‘ plot points with her. This is the third episode in a row in which we see nothing but characters reprising conversations that didn’t advance the story the first time we heard them. Writers Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein have been in charge of the scripting for twelve weeks, and they are clearly in big trouble.

This one has a bizarrely dumb opening. Yesterday, strange and troubled boy David took Dr Peter Guthrie, visiting parapsychologist, to the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. Dr Guthrie told David that he would leave him alone in the parlor for a few minutes to try to summon the ghost of Josette Collins. David stared at the portrait of Josette over the mantelpiece until it transformed. It became a painting of David and his mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, in flames.

Today’s episode picks up at that point. Dr Guthrie finds David standing on what returning viewers will recognize as the exact spot where he had left him two or three minutes before. Even someone who had never seen Dark Shadows before will look at the set and see that David occupies what must be the most conspicuous location in the entire house, between the foot of the staircase, the fireplace, and the front door. Inexplicably, Guthrie comes downstairs calling “David! Da-a-a-vid!” and announces “I was looking for you!” In a later scene, David will tell Laura that Dr Guthrie is nice but not very smart. After this senseless exchange, that line draws a laugh from the audience.

A conversation between Laura and her estranged husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins includes a couple of interesting remarks. Roger wonders whether Laura will succeed in what they both want and persuade their son to leave with her after their divorce becomes final. Laura’s assurance that she can win David over after a single night alone with him (“That’s all I need, Roger–one night…one night alone with him and you’ll never be troubled by him again…because he’ll belong to me…completely”) is delivered in the same jarringly sensual tone she had used talking to David in #159. Considering that David has already tried to kill his father, the suggestion that the danger Laura presents to David is something to do with Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex is not far to find.

Roger says that when they lived together, Laura’s receptiveness to other men’s attention made him jealous. She contradicts him, saying that the only reason he ever wanted her was that his nemesis, dashing action hero Burke, wanted her. We’ve seen time and again that neither Roger nor Burke is ever as excited about anyone else as they are about each other, and we’ve been invited to wonder what exactly went on between them before they became enemies.

When David comes to Laura’s cottage, the two of them talk about the idea that he might leave Collinwood and live with her. He brings up a point he hasn’t in their previous discussions of this matter, saying that well-meaning governess Vicki will lose her job if he does that. When Laura says that Vicki can get another job, and will probably get married and have children of her own soon, David insists that Vicki loves him more than she does anyone else. This is a touching moment for regular viewers, who saw David move from hatred of Vicki to friendship for her in the one narrative arc of the first several months of Dark Shadows that worked every time we saw it. The Laura story, whatever else it may be, is the grand finale of that theme, and therefore the logical conclusion of the show as we have known it so far.

Mrs Acilius and I agree that the best part of the episode comes in the four seconds after Laura hears someone knocking on her door. As we’ve seen several times, she is sitting motionless, staring into the fire, and only after the second knock does she stir. This time Diana Millay does a particularly good job of looking robotic while Laura tears herself away from the flames.

It registers on Laura that someone is knocking on the door

The best thing about the last two weeks has been the addition to the cast of John Lasell as Dr Guthrie. As of this writing,* it would appear that Mr Lasell is still alive; I’ve found addresses for John Whitin Lasell, Jr, aged 95 years, in both Los Angeles and Orange, New Jersey. Oddly enough, there’s also a Post Office Box in his name in Franklin, Maine. Franklin is about 40 miles from Bangor, down towards the coast where Collinsport would have been.

IMDb says that Mr Lasell was born 6 November 1928 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wikipedia agrees about the date, but says that he was born in Williamstown, Vermont. The 1940 US Census records the 11 year old John W. Lasell, Jr, as a resident of Northbridge, Massachusetts and gives his birthplace as Massachusetts. There is a memorial to John W. Lasell, Sr, in Northbridge, commemorating his heroic death in the Second World War. So I think we can be confident that John Junior was a Bay Stater by birth. I’m inclined to think Wikipedia’s claim that he was born in Vermont is the result of confusion with dairy farmer John Elliot Lasell. John E. Lasell actually did live in Williamstown, Vermont, and does not appear to have been any relation to the actor. Also, Mrs. John W. Lasell, Sr, the former Frances Sumner, lived into her 97th year, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that her son is still around in his mid-90s.

*3 February 2023

Episode 162: Already told you that

In the first few months of Dark Shadows, events moved along at a leisurely pace. When writers Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein took over the scripting, that pace slowed further. Yesterday, the story ground to a complete halt, and all twenty-two minutes were taken up with conversations recapping previous episodes. We are still stuck in place today. Not only is it nothing but recapping, the recaps are embedded in reprises of conversations we have already seen.

In the drawing room in the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki tells visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie about the relationship between strange and troubled boy David and the ghost of Josette Collins. This is all recycled from conversations Vicki has had with her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank.

In a cottage elsewhere on the estate, David is talking with his mother, blonde fire witch Laura. They are having the latest in what is coming to be a long series of conversations about whether David wants to go with her or stay at Collinwood with his father. They just review facts already familiar to us.

David returns to the great house and meets Dr Guthrie. They talk about the ghosts David has seen. Dr Guthrie is the first character to react to David’s stories calmly and without disbelief from the beginning. Still, we’ve heard David tell all these stories before. Vicki now matches Guthrie’s attitude completely, and his way of putting questions to David is the same as that of wildly indiscreet housekeeper Mrs Johnson.

If the episode has a high point, it comes in the middle of this conversation. When David first meets Dr Guthrie, he stands stiffly in front of him. Indeed, throughout the episode the actors are quite stiff, determined to stay afloat when they know the script hasn’t given them a drop of water. When it becomes clear to David that Guthrie is going to take him seriously, he relaxes. He grabs a footstool, sits in front of Guthrie, and starts gabbing away. At that moment, the actor David Henesy transforms into the character David Collins.*

Vicki goes to visit Laura in the cottage. For the last few days, Vicki has been in control of the house, control she has maintained in part by lying to everyone. Lying is what protagonists do in soap operas, and Vicki has risen to the occasion admirably. At first she tries to lie to Laura, telling her that she isn’t trying to keep David away from her, but only insisting that he stay current with his studies. Laura bats that story away easily. Vicki is pretty sure that Laura is a creature of the supernatural, and apparently concludes that there isn’t much point trying to lie to her. So she tells her part of the truth, which is that her boss, reclusive matriarch Liz, has ordered her to keep David away from her. This was a fairly interesting scene the first time they played it in #152, and not entirely without interest when they revisited it in #159. This third time, Laura ends the conversation with an overt threat. That adds to a long list of indications we’ve already seen that Laura is at once growing in power and running out of time.

David took Vicki to the Old House on the estate to see the ghosts in episode 70, and took his mother there to see them in #141. So he takes Dr Guthrie there today. In #70, we saw that Josette’s portrait above the mantelpiece in the Old House glows when her ghost is present, and in #141 David explained that Josette appears to only one person at a time. Today, both Vicki and David explain this same point to Dr Guthrie. He leaves David alone with the portrait. David has a conversation with the portrait modeled on the one he had with it in #102. The portrait does start to glow, and transforms into the painting of David and his mother immersed in flames that dominated the show for a couple of weeks. Evidently Josette is still trying to warn David about the danger his mother represents.

By the standards of the first year of Dark Shadows, the transformation of the portrait is a major special effect. Coming as it does at the end of an entire episode spent reworking scenes that weren’t exciting the first time we saw them, it shows the limits of what special effects can do to make up for bad writing. In a suspenseful installment, even an effect as modest as a spotlight shining on the portrait while the theremin plays can be effective. This time, we’re left waiting to see if Josette has any more slides to show David.

*I owe this point to Mrs Acilius.

Episode 161: Something in the atmosphere

This episode consists entirely of conversations in which the characters recap events we have already seen. To the extent that it has a point, it is that while flighty heiress Carolyn seems to be in charge of the house, well-meaning governess Vicki actually is. Vicki made her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, take the idea of the supernatural seriously enough to call in an expert on the subject, Dr Peter Guthrie of Dartmouth College. Vicki then made Dr Guthrie agree to conceal from everyone else information he would normally share freely. She has made Carolyn go along with Dr Guthrie’s activities. Today, Carolyn’s uncle, high-born ne’er-do-well, Roger, asks Carolyn about Dr Guthrie. Carolyn tells Roger that it was her idea to call Dr Guthrie in. She directs Roger to cooperate with Dr Guthrie, not mentioning Vicki, but invoking the authority her ailing mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, has entrusted to her.

To explain how the performances and the visual composition keep it from being excruciatingly dull, you’d have to go over the whole thing frame by frame and analyze each of hundreds of decisions the actors and director made that held the episode together. Impressive as their efforts were, the result is far from exciting. So even if I had the expertise to provide that kind of commentary, I would not for a moment consider doing it.

One thing I will mention is that we see a lot of the kitchen at Collinwood in this episode. Usually this set is one where the characters exchange story-productive information. No such information is exchanged today. The scenes play out in a way to soften that disappointment for us.

The kitchen is typically a small space where the characters share a meal, giving rise to a natural intimacy. There’s no meal today- Vicki and Carolyn are sitting in front of the coffee things, but it isn’t until Dr Guthrie enters that it becomes clear that there is any coffee. There certainly isn’t any food to be had. Nor does the space seem particularly small. The plants are as extravagant as we ever see them, creating a sense of luxuriant growth. In the course of her conversation with Vicki, Carolyn manages to move around the room so much that she gives us the feeling of a large space. Even for someone as short as Nancy Barrett, there are very few patterns of movement that can leave us with that impression. She and the director* worked out one such pattern, and she executes it flawlessly.

*There seems to be some question as to who directed this episode. John Sedwick has the credit on screen, but the Dark Shadows wiki says it was Lela Swift. Sometimes the wiki is edited by people who have seen the original paperwork from the making of the show, so occasionally it is right and the credits are wrong.

Episode 160: Another moment in this house

Reclusive matriarch Liz is in a catatonic state, and her doctor is at a loss to explain why. Well-meaning governess Vicki has confided in her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, that she thinks Liz is the victim of blonde fire witch Laura. Frank has sent for a Dartmouth psychology professor, Dr Peter Guthrie, whose research concentrates on reports of paranormal phenomena.

Keeping vigil in Liz’ room, Vicki tells Liz’ daughter, flighty heiress Carolyn, that she and Frank have sent for another doctor. When Carolyn asks what Dr Guthrie specializes in, Vicki claims not to know. A few minutes later, Dr Guthrie shows up and has a brief conversation alone with Vicki. He asks her if she knows what he specializes in, and she immediately gives the correct answer. Now that the audience knows without doubt that Vicki was lying to Carolyn, she asks Dr Guthrie what she should tell the others in the house if they ask about him. He says that he is in fact a psychologist who studies psychosomatic ailments, so she can tell them that. When he says that he is uncomfortable with secrecy, Vicki asks him if he understands why absolute secrecy is necessary in this case. She doesn’t leave him much choice but to agree.

Dr Guthrie takes his first look at the drawing room

The whole episode is very awkwardly written. There’s so much repetition, unnecessary dialogue, and unexplained change of attitude from scene to scene* that it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it could have been five minutes long. But the actors make me glad it went the full twenty-two minutes. It’s interesting to see Vicki manage Dr Guthrie in the same way Liz manages everyone- at first she is understated and demure, and before you know it she is so fully in command that you would feel like a ruffian if you were to disobey her.

John Lasell’s performance as Dr Guthrie is tremendous. He disappears into the character- I’ve never had a harder time recognizing the same actor in two roles than when I found out that the same man who played the quiet, methodical, entirely trustworthy scientist from upper New England in Dark Shadows also played the floridly romantic, flamboyantly sinister, and emphatically Southern John Wilkes Booth in the Twilight Zone episode “Back There.” Every fine muscle of his face and eyes represents a well-thought-out acting choice. When it is Lasell’s turn to take the spotlight, he not only commands the screen, but creates a whole new atmosphere- when he’s on, the show suddenly feels like a primetime broadcast or a feature film. And when he’s around, the whole cast, even Joan Bennett who spends the entire episode being absolutely still, is obviously having fun giving a performance.

*For example, a few minutes after acquiescing in Vicki’s insistence on secrecy, Guthrie demands of the apparently reluctant Vicki and Carolyn that they maintain secrecy. In the interval, we saw Guthrie so absorbed in his examination of Liz and the young women so distraught about her condition that it doesn’t feel like a contradiction, but that’s a credit to the actors, not to the script.

Episode 159: No absolute values

Strange and troubled boy David has tried to murder his father, is in danger because of his fascination with his mother, and has dreams which, if interpreted correctly, will explain his problems. Today, his mother tells him with coquettish gestures and a purring voice that a man should know how to tend a fire, and tells him he can put a log in her fireplace any time he wants. There is something somehow familiar about this storyline, as if it were making a reference to a theory that was influential among highly literate New Yorkers in 1967.

The episode begins with well-meaning governess Vicki and her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, recapping recent events that suggest to them that David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura, is a creature of the supernatural. Frank thinks of Dr Peter Guthrie, a professor at Dartmouth College who specializes in the paranormal. He identifies Dr Guthrie as a parapsychologist, suggesting that he would be housed in Dartmouth’s Department of Psychology and Brain Science. Evidently that department was known in those days for its faculty members’ adherence to the thought of someone called Sigmund Freud. I suppose I should look that Freud fellow up and see what his ideas were.

As Conard Fowkes plays him, Frank is utterly believable as someone you would meet in a lawyers’ office in central Maine in the mid-1960s. He is so much a citizen of the daylight world of facts and logic and the recognized laws both of nature and of the state that it is surprising that he is willing to acknowledge evidence suggesting that he is in the presence of supernatural forces. Surprising, but not interesting- Fowkes shows us Frank simply accepting the facts once he has seen them and agreeing with Vicki’s interpretations once he has heard them. He does nothing to suggest that any particular emotional process is making it difficult for Frank to take a place in a world with ghosts and witches, still less that there is any unknown side of his personality that has prepared him for this information. In the hands of a livelier actor, the fact that Frank has the name and phone number of a parapsychologist at his fingertips would be a revelation that would leave us wanting to know just what else Frank knows that Vicki might find exciting. As it is, Frank generates all the dramatic interest of a search through the Yellow Pages.

Episode 158: Never tell with women

Blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins has returned to Collinsport, Maine, after a long absence. She wants to divorce her husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, and to go away with their son, strange and troubled boy David. Roger is delighted by this prospect, but he is dependent for his living on his sister, reclusive matriarch Liz, and Liz is adamant that David must stay with her in the great house of Collinwood.

Last week, things came to a head between Laura and Liz. Liz declared that she would never let Laura take David, and Laura responded by casting a spell on Liz. As a result of the spell, Liz is bedridden and given to bouts of confusion.

Well-meaning governess Vicki suspects that Laura is connected with the supernatural. Yesterday, Vicki and her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, came across some documents that she interpreted to support this suspicion. Frank is one of Liz’ attorneys and Vicki is for all intents and purposes a member of the Collins family. Further, the ghost of Josette Collins has intervened a number of times to guide Vicki to become the protagonist in the story about the dangers Laura poses. So it would seem that a potent alliance is taking shape against Laura.

Today, another member seems to be joining this force. Liz’ only acknowledged child, flighty heiress Carolyn, initially reacts to the doctor’s recommendation that her mother be moved to a hospital in Boston by agreeing to talk her into it. Then it dawns on her that it would be very convenient for Roger and Laura if Liz were away from the house. She makes some pointed remarks to each of them in turn. She does not say that she thinks Laura is responsible for what happened to Liz, but she is hostile enough that she is unlikely to discourage Vicki’s efforts.

As Liz, Joan Bennett has a lot of screen time today, all of it in bed. You can see why she was such a big movie star in her youth- all she really has to work with are her eyes, and with those alone she holds what could have quite a dreary episode together.

Liz considers the idea of going to the hospital, and tells first Carolyn, then Vicki, to stand up to Laura. When each points out in her turn that, as David’s parents, Laura and Roger have certain legal rights to which they must yield, she declares that they are too young to fill in for her in her absence, and resolves to stay in the house.

Vicki leaves the room and Laura appears, sitting on the foot of Liz’ bed. Liz is outraged and demands to know who let her in the house. Laura assures her that no one else knows she is there. The first time Laura insinuated herself into the house, lighting effects made her look like a ghost. She interacted only with David, in circumstances that suggested the whole thing might be a dream he was having, then vanished. Now she is very corporeal, and after her talk with Liz she heads downstairs to talk with Roger and Carolyn in the drawing room. She seems to be gaining strength, becoming able to sustain her form and assert her personality for longer periods. The alliance forming against her will have its work cut out.

Carolyn goes up to Liz’ room while Roger and Laura talk about what Liz’ absence might mean for their divorce. Roger says that as long as Liz can speak, she can keep them from getting what they want. Laura says that may not be as much of a problem as he thinks. At that, they hear Carolyn scream. Roger runs up to Liz’ room and finds that she is catatonic. In the drawing room, Laura smiles.

Episode 157: Exactly 100 years

In episode 10, reclusive matriarch Liz had napped in a chair in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood. Her sleep was troubled by unpleasant dreams; we saw her shifting in the chair and heard her muttering about ghosts. Strange and troubled boy David awakened her when he came in, having just sabotaged his father’s car in an attempt to murder him.

Today, we open with well-meaning governess Vicki sleeping in the same chair, showing the same signs of discomfort, and muttering in her sleep words she had heard Liz say in a mad scene at the end of yesterday’s episode: “fire… stone… bird…”

Vicki awakens, not to find David returning from a homicidal errand, but to be overwhelmed by the presence of the ghost of Josette Collins. She smells Josette’s jasmine perfume, and the picture is out of focus. She walks around the room talking to Josette, whom we can neither see nor hear. She agrees to some instruction from Josette only she can hear.

Vicki’s boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, shows up. He is complaining that Vicki called him at 5 AM, asked him to come over at once, and still won’t explain why.

Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, appears at the top of the stairs and demands to know what Frank is doing in the house. Vicki claims that she wants Frank to take her for a drive in the country to help her clear her head. This makes sense to Roger. Liz is in a very bad way, for no reason the doctors can determine, and it has been a rough night in the house. Roger tells Vicki that he thinks it would be a good idea if she and Frank did take a drive. He is going to need a lot of help today, and the more relaxed Vicki is, the better able she will be to provide it.

The audience knows what Vicki has come to suspect, that Roger’s estranged wife Laura is a blonde fire witch who is responsible for Liz’ condition. Laura is staying in the cottage on the estate and she and Roger have begun the process of divorce. Laura and Liz clashed about guardianship of David, and Laura responded by casting a spell on Liz. With something like this in mind, Vicki wants Frank to take her back to a cemetery where they found some clues about Laura last week.

It is interesting to see Vicki with Frank in this episode. She is usually very demure, rarely looking anyone directly in the eye and consistently using a soft, delicate voice. She is that way today when Roger is around. But she looks straight at Frank and tells him in a crisp, candid tone just what they are going to do and why they are going to do it. That’s one of the reasons I keep wishing someone other than Conard Fowkes had played Frank. Fowkes is so dull that he simply could not survive on a show like Dark Shadows, but Frank is a character who gives us a chance to see a seldom-glimpsed side of Vicki.

Frank and Vicki visit the Caretaker of the cemetery outside town. In the archives of his building, Vicki smells jasmine and feels Josette’s presence. The Caretaker catches a distant whiff of jasmine too, but only Vicki’s nose can lead her to where Josette wants her to go. Josette pushes a book off a shelf and opens it to a page about a Laura Murdoch Radcliffe, who died by fire in Collinsport in 1867. Since they already know of another Laura Murdoch who died by fire there in 1767 and of someone who is medically indistinguishable from Laura Murdoch Collins who died by fire in Arizona earlier this year (1967,) Vicki finds great significance in the interval of 100 years. She tells Frank that the Laura Murdochs who died in Collinsport in 1767 and 1867 and the woman who died in Arizona this year are parts of the same corporate entity that is represented by the woman staying in the cottage.

Patrick McCray and Wallace McBride of “The Collinsport Historical Society” gave up writing daily episode commentaries around the time Ron Sproat joined the writing staff of Dark Shadows, but McCray does have a post about this episode. As usual, his remarks are thought-provoking:

We are about fifty episodes away from the introduction of Barnabas Collins, and you can feel the show straining with the need for it. We are at least watching a supernatural show, now. Going back to something less exotic will take the charm of a Dennis Patrick to pull off. He and Laura have something new that they are bringing/will bring to the show. One of the problems with the first six months of the show is how sad it is. The villains are wracked with guilt, somewhat grating in their personalities, and driven by necessity. Laura changes that. Her contribution to the show is less supernatural than philosophical. She likes who she is. She likes what she’s doing. She is demented enough to see that burning David alive is just dandy. Contrast this with Roger. He just wanted to be left alone, like a quietly queeny, ineffectual Hulk.
The Dark Shadows Daybook, 24 January 2018

I’m not at all sure Laura “likes what she’s doing.” Most of the time, what she’s doing is sitting motionless by the fire. She is stirred from that position only when someone calls for her, and then only with difficulty.

The only times happiness registers on Diana Millay’s face are when Laura is talking to David and telling him about the blissful life that awaits in the fantastic realm she comes from, not about the path she must take to approach that realm. At other times, her dominant mood is weariness and her manner is so distant as to be inscrutable. With characters other than David, she is energetic and immediate only when she flies into a rage.

We don’t even know how many of her there are. Vicki tells Frank at the end of today’s episode that Laura seems to be made up of four components, but the audience also knows of ghostly apparitions that seem to travel with those corporeal Lauras and to be at least partly independent of them. Maybe somewhere in that complex there is a spirit that delights in the idea of taking David into a pyre, but we don’t see that delight.

McCray goes on:

Burke? He just wanted to even the odds. I get that. But his victory would mean shutting down Collinwood, and that gives any viewer mixed feelings. As much as I like Burke, his storyline misfired because you’re left with nobody to root for. If Burke wins, the show has to end, and that’s not going to happen. For Burke to lose, justice must elude him once more, and a character we like goes away. I suppose that the show originally was so Vicki-centric that we weren’t supposed to care for either Team Burke or Team Collins compared with Team Winters. With the arrival of Laura, all of this changes. (I say this because Matthew was a loon and couldn’t take pride in his wrongdoing.) Like Burke and Roger or not, everyone is pitted against/used by the first in a series of Gloucesters employed by the series to delight viewers.
Ibid

McCray is exactly right that Burke’s original storyline could never be resolved. The character had an even bigger problem that prevented the writers from coming up with a new storyline for him. That problem is his type. As a dashing action hero, sooner or later he’s going to have to rescue someone. Yet he never gets to save anyone from anything.

The first three rescues on the show are all rescues of Vicki. David locks her up and leaves her to die in the abandoned part of the great house of Collinwood. Burke doesn’t have access to that part of the house, so she ends up being rescued by Roger, of all people. That adds some complexity to Vicki’s attitude to Roger, keeps her from catching on to some plot points she isn’t supposed to understand yet, and most importantly enlarges the obstacles keeping her from befriending David, thereby enriching the one narrative arc that works every time we see it.

Next, gruff groundskeeper Matthew tries to break Vicki’s neck in the cottage. Liz saves her that time. It would have to be her, since she is the only person Matthew listens to. That’s the in-universe reason. Also, Joan Bennett is the biggest star on the show, the origin of the relationship between Liz and Vicki is supposed to be the biggest secret in the show, and the mostly-female audience of a daytime soap might be interested in a scene where a female character saves the day. So it is more satisfying all around to have Liz rescue Vicki from Matthew than it would have been to have Burke barge in.

When Matthew is holding Vicki prisoner in the Old House on the estate and is about to swing an ax at her head, Burke is in the area looking for her. But it is the ghosts of Josette and the Widows, accompanied by the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy, who rescue Vicki then. Burke and Roger show up after the fact and walk her home. The show has spent so much time building up the ghosts and the supernatural back-world behind the continuity in which the characters operate that it would be a cheat if they did not come forward at this point and bring a story to its climax. Again, Burke is left on the outside looking in.

Now David needs rescuing, but since the show’s most reliably interesting storyline has been the budding friendship between David and Vicki, she is the only one who can be his rescuer. Burke is got out of the way by having Laura entrance him with the memory of their old love. Since the threat to David is supernatural, this is also an opportunity to bring the ghosts back into play.

When the vampire story begins, Burke will become entirely superfluous. A dashing action hero can’t allow a bloodsucking fiend to run amok. But stop the vampire, and you stop the first ratings generator the show has ever had. So that will finish Burke once and for all.

Further:

I may be so-so on the Phoenix as a big bad on the show, partly because she was such an out-there villain, grounded in an unclear mythology. Nonetheless, she ushered in a sentient, supernatural threat and a new school of evil that finally gave viewers a moral compass to lead them through Collinsport.
Ibid.

It may be pedantic to point this out, but it is the nature of supernatural mythologies to be unclear. Once you pass the point where the laws of nature that we can examine out in the open apply, it’s up to the audience to guess at what the alternative structure of cause and effect might be. The storytellers can guide our guesses. Vicki’s discovery that the three Laura Murdochs died by fire in 1767, 1867, and 1967 leads her to tell us that the hundredth anniversary of the previous fire has the power to cause the next one. The power of anniversaries will indeed become a major part of Dark Shadows’ cosmology, coming up in several future storylines, and is the inspiration for my posting these blog entries at 4:00 pm Eastern time on the 56th anniversary of each episode’s original broadcast.

When you get to vampires and witches and Frankensteins and werewolves and other relatively familiar monsters, you can draw on horror movies produced by Universal Studios in the 1930s and endlessly shown on television since the 1950s, and beyond those on the plays, novels, and folklore from which those movies derived some of their imagery. That reduces the amount of explaining the protagonist has to do. We all know what blood and bats and wooden stakes and crosses and mirrors and daylight signify in connection with vampires, for example. That creates an impression that there are clear and logical rules, but when you hang out with the vampire for a thousand episodes you start to realize just how little sense any of those rules really make.

Laura is interesting precisely because she starts without any of that unearned sense of clarity. The show has to build her up to the point where she makes enough sense that we are in suspense, but not to go beyond that point and explain so much that we can’t avoid realizing how disconnected she is from the world we live in. I’d say they strike that balance quite well.

Moreover, because we have so little information about Laura, she is the perfect adversary for the supernatural beings we have met so far on the show. The ghosts of Josette and the Widows are definitely around, but they are deep in the background, seldom seen, even more seldom heard, and when they do intervene in the visible world their actions are brief and the consequences of them ambiguous. These vague, distant presences are credible as a counterforce to a figure as undefined as Laura, but have to evaporate when a menace appears that calls for a dynamic response sustained over a long period. Since the show has spent so much time hinting around about Josette and the Widows, it would be a shame if they hadn’t come up with a supernatural adversary for them to engage.

Back to McCray:

This episode is rich in atmosphere and menace, but anything involving the mysterious Caretaker will do that. It serves up Collins history as a net that strangles generation after generation… and the place where the answers to today’s mysteries will be found. The show has always been about the past… Paul Stoddard, the car accident, Vicki’s parentage… but (Widows notwithstanding) never beyond the lifetimes of the protagonists. By having our heroes deal with ancient dangers that still long to cause harm, DARK SHADOWS truly begins.
Ibid.

I demur from lines like “Dark Shadows truly begins” at some point other than episode 1. The whole wild ride of improvisation and reinvention is what I find irresistible. Each period of the show has some connections to the one immediately before it, but as time goes on there is absolutely no telling where they will go. Watching this part, the so-called “Phoenix” story, you can just about see how it follows from the moody, atmospheric showcase that Art Wallace and Francis Swann’s scripts provided for fine acting, ambitious visual compositions, and evocations of Gothic romance in the first 20 weeks of the series. And you can just about see how the period of the show that comes after it is resolved follows from the Phoenix. But when you look at the stories they will be doing in 1968 and later, all you can do is ask how they could possibly have found their way from here to there. Going along for that chaotic, meandering journey is the fun of it, and you deny yourself a little bit of that fun every time you ignore or downgrade an episode.

I also have reservations about the remark that “This episode… serves up Collins history as a net that strangles generation after generation.” The 1767 incarnation of Laura Murdoch married into the Stockbridge family, and the Caretaker told us they were great and powerful. The 1867 version of her married into the Radcliffes, and the Caretaker is shocked to find that her parents are not listed in his records- the Radcliffes were so high and mighty that none of them would ever have married someone whose parents were not known. So the history that strangles generation after generation is not the history of a single family, but something about the part of central Maine where Collinsport is. “Laura Murdoch” is a curse that falls on each prominent family in the region in its turn.

Episode 156: Why is my baby crying?

At the end of Friday’s episode, we saw reclusive matriarch Liz start to fall down the stairs, then saw her sprawled on the floor below. Today begins with a recreation of that scene, but instead of merely starting to fall, actress Joan Bennett tumbles far enough forward that she must really have gone down. It’s an impressive stunt.

Dark Shadows first stunt performer: Joan Bennett

Most of the episode is taken up with Liz’ demented condition and the reactions of the members of the household to it. The audience knows that Liz’ troubles are the result of a spell cast on her by blonde fire witch Laura. At moments Liz is almost able to figure that out herself, but no one else has a clue what is going on. The whole episode is full of standout moments for Liz. If there had been Daytime Emmy Awards in 1967, this would have been the episode Dan Curtis Productions would have sent to the voters to get Joan Bennett her Best Actress award.

At one point, Liz begins to recover her memory and is about to take action against Laura. Before she can reach anyone, a ghostly figure appears in her room. Afterward, she has a mad scene, indicating that she has been rendered powerless.

The ghostly sighting raises some questions about Laura. Is it Laura’s ghost she sees? Or another ghost allied with Laura? Or has her abuse of Liz’ brain led it to produce this hallucination on its own? The show is very indefinite about what exactly Laura is and how she operates, giving us the chance to have a lot of fun speculating about her.

This episode is replete with notable firsts. In addition to the first real stunt of the series, it features the first scene in which Bob O’Connell, as the bartender in The Blue Whale, has lines to deliver.

In that same scene at The Blue Whale, we hear music coming out of the jukebox that we haven’t heard before. It is a medley of Lennon-McCartney tunes rendered in “smooth jazz” style by Bud Shank.

It’s also the first time a conversation on the landing at the top of the stairs leading up from the foyer is photographed straight-on. Several times, we had seen characters talking to each other up there, but always before the camera had been angled up from the floor below. That had created the sense that the conversation was removed from the main course of the action. Today, it’s just another part of the set.

It is the first time we see Liz’ room. Two notable firsts take place there. A favorite prop of Dark Shadows fandom, the so-called “Ralston-Purina lamp,”* has been seen several times in the Collinsport Inn. In Liz’ room today, it makes the first of many appearances in the great house of Collinwood.

The ghostly figure in Liz’ room is played by Susan Sullivan, who has been acting in primetime on network television more or less continuously for the last 55 years. During the other hours, she writes plays and performs in Dark Shadows audio dramas.

A play she wrote under the title “What Friends Do” was produced by Smartphone Theater and posted on Youtube. The cast is made up of Dark Shadows alums Susan Sullivan, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Mitch Ryan, and David Selby. It’s about four friends in a retirement community during the Covid pandemic, and it’s terrific. The Q & A after includes a lot of stuff that Dark Shadows fans will find irresistible, including a little bit about today’s episode.

The voice that says “Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis production” at the end of the closing credits does not sound like ABC staff announcer Bob Lloyd. It’s higher-pitched and faster than his delivery, and the vowels are flatter than he articulates them. Perhaps it’s a tape fault distorting Lloyd’s voice, or perhaps he had a cold that day. If it was someone else, it’s another first. The Dark Shadows wiki doesn’t say anything about it, so I assume the surviving records and the published books that use them don’t say it was someone else.

*So-called because its red-and-white checked pattern looks like the logo of the Ralston-Purina animal food company.