hackett – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 257: If you feel it, sit it

For almost 13 weeks, seagoing con man Jason McGuire (Dennis Patrick) has been blackmailing reclusive matriarch Liz (Joan Bennett.) Time and again, Liz has capitulated to Jason’s demands lest he reveal that she murdered her husband Paul Stoddard 18 years ago and he buried Stoddard in the basement. When Liz gave in to Jason’s demand that she marry him, her daughter Carolyn (Nancy Barrett) vowed to prevent the marriage.

Today, it looks like Carolyn may have found a way to fulfill that vow. She has announced her engagement to motorcycle enthusiast Buzz (Michael Hadge,) whom Liz cannot stand. Liz considers going to the police to keep from gaining Buzz as a son-in-law.

We spend the first half of the episode in the great house of Collinwood. Buzz has come to see Carolyn. The opening sets up a charge of comic energy that raises our hopes for another installment as funny as Buzz’ first star turn in #254. Buzz knocks on the front door, Liz opens it, and greets him with a disgusted “Oh.” She closes the door in his face, then goes inside to tell Carolyn that he is there. Carolyn goes out to meet Buzz, who is smoking a large cigar.* They kiss, and Carolyn lets Buzz in. He takes a seat on the staircase.

Instead of building on the comic potential Buzz brings with him, we then grind to a halt with a Buzzless scene in the drawing room. Carolyn recites teen-rebel cliches at Liz, punctuating her dreary lines with a few random pokes at the piano. Nancy Barrett’s all-in style of acting often exposes values that another performer might have left buried in the script, but when the writing is as tired as this not even she can dig up anything interesting.

Carolyn chose Buzz to mock her mother’s relationship with Jason. She defies Liz to find a reason for regarding Buzz as an unsuitable partner for her that would not cut at least as strongly against Jason. Buzz mirrors Jason in another way so far as the audience is concerned. Dennis Patrick was a gifted comic actor, and Jason is appealing when he gets to be a comedy villain. But most of the time he is stuck repeating the same deadly dull threat to Liz time and again.

Buzz is a villain only in Liz’ imagination, but he is funny all the time. His incongruity with everything else on Dark Shadows automatically produces a laugh whenever he is on screen. Michael Hadge’s near-total incompetence as an actor limits Buzz’ future on the show sharply, but within those limits he’s irresistible.

Jason comes down the stairs and finds Buzz blocking his way. They have a little confrontation which Jason wins by threatening to break Buzz’ shin. Not even Dennis Patrick can make that funny.

We are subjected to a second Buzzless scene in the drawing room. Liz tells Jason that she has yielded to his demands because she was afraid the truth would ruin Carolyn’s life. If Carolyn’s life is going to be ruined anyway, there is no point- she will just go to the sheriff and have done with it. Joan Bennett does have a couple of moments in this scene when she seems like she is about to get some comedy going, but the somber Dark Shadows musical cues ring out and darken the mood before Patrick has a chance to respond.

Jason goes to Carolyn’s room to try to talk her out of marrying Buzz. Since Carolyn’s whole motivation is her hatred for Jason, we may wonder what influence he has that will enable him to do this. It quickly becomes clear that he has none. This is followed by another scene between Liz and Jason in the drawing room. Liz tells Jason that it was obvious to her all along that his talk with Carolyn would produce no results. That is to say, we have a scene the point of which is to explicitly acknowledge that the preceding scene was a waste of time.

The second half is set in the Blue Whale tavern. Buzz and Carolyn are there on a date, and Jason comes to try to bribe Buzz into leaving her. The musical score behind this part comes from the jukebox. That music is much more suitable for comedy than is the heavily melodramatic stuff we hear when the action is taking place at Collinwood.

When we get to the tavern, Carolyn and Buzz are dancing. As a true Collinsporter, Carolyn’s style of dance consists of thrashing about as if she’d had a brain injury. Buzz, by contrast, moves quite gracefully. He must be from out of town.

Carolyn does the Collinsport Convulsion, while Buzz executes a fine Beer Stein Shuffle

Carolyn is in the ladies’ room when Jason shows up. He asks to join Buzz at their table. Buzz replies with that rallying cry of the 60s counterculture, “If you feel it… sit it!” I can only wish that had been the title of a spinoff of Dark Shadows featuring Buzz, it would have been great.

Buzz’ back is to the camera while he delivers his immortal line

Buzz tells Jason that Carolyn is from a family that “makes a lot of noise,” while he is from a family that “makes a lot of money.” Then he laughs. Buzz was credited as “Buzz Hackett” in his first appearance in #252, and is credited that way again today; in #254, he was credited simply as “Buzz.” We never hear him called “Hackett.” In #223, we’d heard about an unscrupulous local businessman called Hackett, but Buzz made a laughing reference to his lifelong poverty in #252, so I don’t think we can suppose he really is from a family that makes a lot of money. In view of Buzz’ laugh, the likeliest explanation is that this is a joke of some kind. A confusing joke, poorly told, but considering that it is a line written by Malcolm Marmorstein and delivered by Michael Hadge, that is to be expected.

Jason tells Buzz that Carolyn is using him to get back at her mother. Buzz blandly replies that Carolyn has told him all about that, and he’s having a great time with her whatever her intentions. This is reminiscent of the relationship between Carolyn and dashing action hero Burke Devlin in the early months of the show. Carolyn continued seeing Burke even after he tacitly admitted that he was using her to pursue revenge on her family. After Burke renounced his revenge, they met at this same table and had a soulful conversation about what they had been to each other (#213.)

Jason offers to buy Buzz a new motorcycle if he will stop seeing Carolyn. Buzz flatly refuses the offer, declaring “I like the bike I got, and the chick I got!” Carolyn returns to the table, and Buzz tells her about Jason’s attempt to bribe him. They laugh at Jason and leave the tavern. He staggers into a corner, looking bitter.

This also harks back to an incident involving Burke in the early days of the show. In #3, Burke met hardworking young fisherman Joe in the tavern. Joe was at that point dating Carolyn. Burke offered to buy a fishing boat for Joe if he would spy on her family. Joe refused, and reported the contact to Liz. While Buzz is Joe’s opposite in many ways, regular viewers will see that the two men are equally honest.

*It appears to be a robusto, though it could be a corona gorda.

Episode 252: I know we swing, and that’s all I have to know

Frustrated that her mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, has decided to marry seagoing con man Jason McGuire, flighty heiress Carolyn spends the day and night with motorcycle enthusiast Buzz Hackett.

Buzz is modeled on the biker dude villains of Beach Blanket Bingo. Some of his mannerisms, such as speaking in a Beatnik slang that was a decade and a half out of date by 1967 and wearing sunglasses when he rides his motorcycle at night, would have been a little too broadly comic even for that movie, and are ludicrously out of place on the rather solemn Dark Shadows. The very sight of Buzz therefore raises a laugh.

Nancy Barrett’s acting style was to throw herself unreservedly into whatever the script had her character doing that day, and seeing her present Carolyn as a newly minted biker mama is hilarious from beginning to end. When Carolyn and Buzz show up at the Blue Whale tavern, she’s already sloppily drunk. They see well-meaning governess Vicki and hardworking young fisherman Joe at a table, and Carolyn insists they go over and greet them. Vicki and Joe give Buzz and Carolyn frosty stares, which are of course the main ingredients of drawing room comedy.

If Vicki put on a police uniform, Carolyn wore a big feathered headdress, and Joe were a construction worker, they could make beautiful music together

As Danny Horn points out in his post about the episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, Buzz is actually pretty nice. That’s a good comic move- the obvious outsider is the one who knows enough to be uncomfortable, while the one who has been a central member of the cast from the first week is oblivious to the social awkwardness surrounding her. If it were the other way around, we might feel sorry for Buzz or be angry with him, but since we know that Carolyn’s place is essentially secure we can laugh at her uninhibited behavior, no matter how much it may make others squirm.

Buzz takes Carolyn home to the great house of Collinwood, parking his motorcycle a few feet from the front door. That isn’t a sign of inconsideration- there only are a few feet in front of the door, they’d be off the set if he parked any further away. It’s still pretty funny to see.

Inside the house, Buzz jokes about riding his bike up the main staircase. Carolyn laughs, then urges him actually to do it. He refuses, clearly appalled that she would want such a thing.

They go into the drawing room. Carolyn picks up a transistor radio and finds some dance music. Buzz is ready to dance, but takes a seat when Carolyn goes into the violent, rhythm-less jerks people in Collinsport do when music is playing. Buzz watches her, apparently ready to provide first aid.

As Carolyn’s performance of the Collinsport Convulsion ends with her falling face first, Liz comes downstairs. She protests against Carolyn and Buzz making so much noise at 3 AM. For the first time, Buzz is rude. He does not stand up when Liz comes into the room, and when Carolyn introduces her as “Mommy,” he greets her with “Hiya, Mommy!” Liz orders him to go.

Before Buzz has a chance to comply, Carolyn starts taunting her mother, yelling at her that her name will soon be “Mrs McGuire!” Liz retreats up the stairs as Carolyn taunts her with repetitions of this name. When Liz is on the landing, Carolyn and Buzz clench and kiss passionately. While they kiss, we see Liz above and behind them, trying to exit the scene. As it happens, the door she is supposed to go out is stuck, so she has to struggle with the knob until she’s out of the frame. Thus, the longest period of intentional comedy on the show ends, not with a break into angry melodrama, but with a huge unintended laugh. It is one of the few truly perfect things ever seen on television.

As Buzz, Michael Hadge really isn’t much of an actor- he shouts his lines and goes slack whenever he isn’t speaking. That doesn’t matter so much today. Nancy Barrett’s high-energy performance, the other cast members’ skill at comedy of manners, and the mere sight of Buzz combine to keep the audience in stitches throughout.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what might have been. Yesterday, vampire Barnabas Collins threatened to murder his blood thrall, the sorely bedraggled Willie Loomis. Viewers watching on first run might have wondered if Buzz was going to be his replacement. They might have, that is, if Buzz were played by an actor in the same league as John Karlen. With Mr Hadge in the role, that suspense never gets off the ground.

One of the little games I play in my head when the show gets boring is to ask who else might have taken a part and to imagine how it would have changed with that other actor in the cast. So, if Harvey Keitel was available to dance in the background at the Blue Whale in #33, then surely Mr Keitel’s friend Robert De Niro would have taken a speaking part in #252. Actors inspire screenwriters, and if Mr De Niro had played Buzz I would have wanted to write this line for him to speak to Liz: “Mrs Stoddard, you got me all wrong. You think I want to hurt you, or take something from you, but that’s not the way it is. Me and Carolyn, we’re just trying to have a good time.” Mr Hadge’s shouting wouldn’t have made much of a line like that, but delivered by Mr De Niro to Joan Bennett it could have started a scene between Buzz and Liz that would have expanded his role beyond comic relief and earned him a permanent place in the cast.

It may be for the best that it didn’t work out that way. A De Niro-Buzz might have been such a hit that Dark Shadows never would have got round to becoming the excursion into sheer lunacy that we know and love. And Martin Scorsese might never have been able to get soap opera star/ teen idol Robert De Niro to answer his phone calls.

Closing Miscellany

There are some other notable moments today. We might wonder why Vicki and Joe are sitting together in the Blue Whale, when Vicki has been dating dashing action hero Burke. In fact, the script originally called for Vicki to be out with Burke, but actor Mitch Ryan showed up too drunk to work the day they taped this one and was fired off the show. Burke gave up on his big storyline over ten weeks ago and there hasn’t been a reason for him to be on the show since. Besides, the same cast of characters cannot indefinitely include one whose type is “dashing action hero” and another whose type is “vampire.” The vampire is already pulling in bigger audiences than anything else they’ve done, so Burke has to go. Still, Ryan was such a charismatic screen presence that he was a high point in every episode he appeared in, so it’s sad we’ve seen him for the last time.

The bartender brings drinks to Vicki and Joe’s table and Joe calls him “Bob.” They have settled on this name by now. The same performer, Bob O’Connell, has been playing the bartender since the first week, but in the opening months of the show he had a long list of names. My favorite was “Punchy.”

There is some new music in the jukebox at the tavern and more new music while Carolyn and Buzz are outside the front doors of Collinwood. In the tavern we hear something with brass, and at the doors we hear a low-key saxophone solo.

The closing credits give Buzz’ last name as “Hackett.” We heard about a businessman named Hackett in #223, but Buzz doesn’t seem to be related to him. In the Blue Whale, Carolyn says that her mother has more money than Buzz will ever see, to which Buzz laughingly replies “That isn’t much!”

Patrick McCray’s post about this episode on his Dark Shadows Daybook is fun. I especially enjoyed his description of Michael Hadge’s performance as a merger of “Russ Tamblyn with Truman Capote.”

Episode 223: She isn’t watching over us anymore

Strange and troubled boy David Collins is in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood with his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz. David laments to Liz that he can no longer feel the tutelary presence of the ghost of their ancestor Josette Collins. For more than 24 weeks, from #70 when the Old House was introduced to #191 with the conclusion of the storyline centered on David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, the Old House had been Josette’s sanctuary. Now it is “a new house, a new place,” and she’s gone. David is particularly sad that the house’s new occupant, the newly arrived Barnabas Collins, has removed Josette’s portrait from its place above the mantle in the front parlor and plans to hang a portrait of himself there.

Back in the great house on the estate, David sees dashing action hero Burke Devlin. He sits on the stairs with Burke and talks about his feelings concerning Barnabas, Josette, the portrait, and the Old House. Burke suggests he ask Barnabas to give him the portrait. David is thrilled by this suggestion, and declares that he will go to the Old House at once to ask him. Burke points out that Barnabas probably isn’t home. That doesn’t make an impression on David, but he does stop before going out the door. Burke asks if he is afraid to go there alone, apparently preparing to volunteer to go with him. David says he isn’t afraid, but doesn’t explain what feeling he does have that is holding him back.

David goes to the Old House and calls to Barnabas. No one answers. The howling of dogs fills the air from every side, frightening David. He calls to Josette. He does not feel her presence. The doors slam shut on their own; when he runs to them, he cannot open them. We conclude with a closeup of his terrified face.

Those three scenes might have appeared in a good episode, but this is not that episode. In fact, it is a real stinker, very possibly the single worst we have seen so far. There is one funny line, when Liz remarks that Willie Loomis’ “illness appears to have caused him no end of convenience.” And the actors and director do what they can. But the script defeats them all.

As David Collins, David Henesy appears to be delivering the lines Ron Sproat actually wrote when he says things like “If I blame [Barnabas] for anything, it’s for changing things around [at the Old House]… I just hope he hasn’t changed [the Old House.]” Some of the words that come out of his mouth may be flubs, but most of it is of a piece with what the adult actors are saying in response to him, and nothing anyone says is close to intelligible. This is one of the rare episodes when Henesy winds up roaming about the sets declaiming like some kid actor in a 60s TV show.

As well-meaning governess Vicki, Alexandra Moltke Isles is trying so hard to remember her own pointless lines that she stands stiff as a board every time she is on camera. Vicki and David’s scenes were the heart of the first 39 weeks of the show, often in spite of writing nearly as bad as what the cast is stuck with today, but their conversation on the stairs today is terribly dull to watch.

Joan Bennett and Mitch Ryan each had star quality in abundance, and so they manage to hold their scenes together. The opening scene between Liz and Vicki has some snap to it, David’s conversation with Burke is appealing, and when Liz and Burke have a scene in the study arguing about a business deal she made with a man called Hackett* things start to crackle. But even in that scene Bennett and Ryan stumble over Sproat’s awful dialogue and wind up in the ditch more than once. Her frequent glances at the teleprompter and a couple of alarmingly long pauses from him turn the crackle to a fizzle well before it is over.

Burke and Liz argue about the Hackett deal

The scene between David and Liz in the Old House is another defeat for Joan Bennett. David Collins’ nonsensical lines and David Henesy’s flailing attempts to find some kind of through line in them leave her standing in mid-air, and the scene goes on so long they repeat every point they have to make at least twice. By the third time through the sparse material they have to work with, not even she could make it interesting.

Moreover, regular viewers will be puzzled when Liz tells David over and over that the Old House and its contents belong to Barnabas. On Monday, in #220, Barnabas and Vicki had a conversation in the foyer of the great house about the fact that he was not going to own the Old House. There hasn’t been any indication of a change in that plan, but Liz goes out of her way to say three times, not that Barnabas is staying in the house, but that it is his. We are left wondering what she is talking about.

Burke and Vicki spend some time together. They stand in front of the portrait of Barnabas Collins in the foyer of the great house talking about Barnabas’ decision to hire Willie as his servant. Burke remarks that “Cousin Barnabas doesn’t seem too bright.” That’s a fun moment, but then Vicki sticks up for Barnabas and they have nowhere to go with it. The scene doesn’t end until they’ve spent a few more moments standing there jabbering.

Burke and Vicki sit on the sofa together in the drawing room. The nonverbal communication between them raises the question the show has been teasing for some time, whether Burke and Vicki are dating. As with Burke’s paternal moment with David, it shows that the actors and directors can create little stories to keep us interested when they can keep the dialogue out of the way.

Burke says he’s going to talk with Liz about a business matter that he can’t tell Vicki about. He then tells Vicki why he is concerned about the matter. These mutually contradictory lines are no better than David being upset that Barnabas has changed the Old House, and just hoping that he hasn’t changed the Old House. For a moment, friend Burke doesn’t seem too bright.

*A name we have never heard before on Dark Shadows.