Tag: inverted mystery

Episode 51: A tricky light

We open with well-meaning governess Vicki and flighty heiress Carolyn screaming as they look down from a cliff at a corpse on the beach a hundred feet below. Returning to the drawing room of the mansion where they live, they tell reclusive matriarch Liz and Liz’ ne-er-do-well brother Roger what they saw. Liz and Roger refuse to believe them, and send gruff caretaker Matthew to investigate. Since we had a clear view of the body, the audience is likely to be exasperated at Liz and Roger’s unwillingness to face the facts Vicki and Carolyn have brought them.

After Matthew reports that he found nothing on the beach, Vicki asks Carolyn if he would have a reason to lie. Separately, Liz asks Roger the same question. Vicki and Carolyn resolve to go back to the cliff to see for themselves. Liz goes to Matthew’s cottage to talk to him about it. It comes as quite a relief to see that Liz and Roger’s reflexive denial won’t be the end of the story.

Liz’ visit to Matthew’s place is the first time we’ve seen her out of the house. Matthew is startled to see her at his door, and regular viewers are startled to see her venturing into a place which, for all it may be her property, is someone else’s territory. She and Matthew talk about the prospect, unwelcome to both of them, that word might get out about what the girls saw, bringing visitors to the estate and adding to the legends surrounding it. Further, they are both worried about what may have happened to plant manager Bill Malloy, who has been missing for more than a full day.

Liz and Matthew go to the cliff, and see nothing but seaweed. Back at the house, Liz tells the girls they needn’t go back out. Vicki nonchalantly mentions to Roger that his son David had looked into his crystal ball the previous day and announced that Bill Malloy is dead, that he was killed, and that Roger is the killer. Roger is stunned by this news.

Screenshot by Dark Shadows from the Beginning

The episode moves along quickly enough to be interesting on a first viewing. The second time through the series, it is considerably more interesting. Knowing how the mystery will be resolved, we keep an eye on the characters who know more than they are letting on. It becomes like Columbo or another “inverted mystery” where we see the story from the villain’s point of view and find ourselves rooting for him to come up with some new dodge to fool the detective and keep the story going. After the vampire is introduced, of course, Dark Shadows will adopt the villain’s point of view, eventually going to an all-villain cast. For now, though, the central figure is still the virtuous Vicki.

Episode 16: This is no place for young people

Dark Shadows begins its first mystery story as the characters try to figure out who tampered with Roger’s brakes, sending his car off the road but causing him only minor injuries. It is an inverted mystery, of the type that would a few years later be stamped with the name of Columbo. The audience knows who committed the crime, the suspense comes from wondering how and when the perpetrator will be caught.

In this case the would-be killer is the victim’s nine year old son David, a boy whose father openly tells him that he hates him and who is frantic with terror that he will be “sent away,” which to him brings up something frightening and unexplained about his mother. David removed the distributor valve from the brake system of his father’s car so that the brakes would fail at the moment when the car approached a particularly dangerous turn on the side of the steep hill leading down from the house.

David has kept the valve, intending to use it to frame someone else for his crime. His first choice of patsy is his governess, the point of view character for this part of the series, Victoria Winters. That plan was foiled when Vicki caught him trying to plant the valve in her underwear drawer. Later, David will try to plant the valve on someone else, but for now he is stuck keeping it in his possession.

I made some remarks about this episode on John and Christine Scoleri’s Dark Shadows Before I Die:

A few disconnected thoughts:

1. The dancers at the Blue Whale are so bizarre in this one it really feels like watching footage from an alien world. Considering that so many members of the cast came from Broadway or were on their way to Broadway, it is baffling that the extras defined “dancing” as something you do by violently jerking your shoulders from side to side while wearing a huge grin. A few years before, aspiring Broadway players might have assumed teenagers dancing to rock ‘n’ roll in a Maine fishing village would look like that, but by 1966 there were enough people in the New York theater world taking pop music seriously that it’s hard to explain what we see in the background of these scenes as anything but sincere ineptitude.

2. Carolyn’s fantasy about being hit over the head and dragged out of Collinwood goes a long way towards explaining the men she gets involved with later in the series…

3. This is only the second appearance of the kitchen/ dining area that was introduced in episode 5. I think we see more of it in this episode than in any other. Between Mrs Stoddard’s comings and goings, Vicki’s business with the tea things, and the scenes with Matthew, it’s established as a substantial space.