Charity Trask walks into the drawing room of the great house on the estate of Collinwood and finds a paper on the desk. It is a full confession to the murder of her mother, the late Minerva Trask, signed by her father Gregory and by Collins family attorney Evan Hanley. It also bears a red seal.
Trask enters and Charity tells him what she has read. He rants and raves for a while, claiming that she must be under the Devil’s power if she believes the confession. He forces her onto her knees and orders her to pray, then tries to destroy the paper.
Later, Gregory Trask is alone in the drawing room. It goes dark, a violent storm suddenly breaks out, the windows blow open, and the flames surge much higher in the fireplace than we have ever seen them. Trask cries out for Minerva to leave him alone. When he calls himself an innocent man, the storm rages more fiercely than ever.
The storm ends as quickly as it began, and a man appears in the doorway. He asks who Trask was talking to, and Trask denies that he was talking to anyone. Trask mentions the storm, and the man says there hasn’t been a bit of wind all day. Trask turns and sees that the window is closed and there is no sign of a storm outside.
The man identifies himself as Charles Delaware Tate. Trask recognizes the name as that of a nationally famous painter. Tate explains that the late Edith Collins commissioned him to paint a portrait of her grandson, Quentin Collins, but that Quentin has refused to sit for him. He asks Trask for a photograph of Quentin. Trask remembers that there is such a photograph in a drawer in the desk. When he opens the drawer, the confession falls out, undestroyed.
Returning viewers know that Tate is associated with a 150 year old sorcerer known as Count Petofi. We also know that Petofi is currently residing in the body of twelve year old Jamison Collins and is casting spells to expose the secrets of various people connected with Collinwood. Jamison’s distant cousin Barnabas Collins the vampire is doing battle with Petofi, and has locked Jamison/ Petofi in the prison cell in the basement of the Old House on the estate. That has done little to curb his power; from the cell, he was able to project himself into a dream of Evan’s, cast a spell on him, and compel him to draw up the paper Trask keeps trying to destroy. Jamison/ Petofi does seem anxious to get out of the cell, however. He offers to cure Quentin of lycanthropy if he lets him out. When broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi talks Quentin out of accepting the offer, Jamison/ Petofi growls a threat at her.
We do not know why Petofi wants Tate to paint a portrait of Quentin, but we get a clue at the end of the episode. Tate has rented a house which longtime viewers will recognize as the Evans cottage. For the first two years of the show, the Evans cottage was a frequent set. It was home to artist Sam Evans and his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. In December 1966 and January 1967, an unseen force compelled Sam to paint portraits of undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. Those portraits had supernatural powers. They were not alone. Portraits have been a prominent part of the show’s set decoration from the very beginning, and have been a gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead since #70. We may well assume, then, that Tate’s portrait of Quentin will also have uncanny powers.
Charity is visiting Tate in the cottage and looking at the portrait. He has only been working for a day or two, and he says it will take him about two weeks to finish. Yet the figure is almost finished now. As Charity studies it, Quentin’s face turns into that of the werewolf. In May and June of 1968, they did a story partly based on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and in #701, the very first episode in which he could speak, Quentin compared pictures and people, saying that one changes while the other stays the same. So we are prepared to see Quentin’s curse transferred from his body to his portrait.
We begin the part of Dark Shadows set in the year 1897 with an episode featuring a glittering script, a strong cast, and a hopeless director. Henry Kaplan’s visual style consisted of little more than one closeup after another. The first real scene in the episode introduces us to Sandor and Magda Rákóczi, a Romani couple who live in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. They bicker while Sandor throws knives at the wall. Thayer David really is throwing knives, but since we cut between closeups of the targets and of the actors we cannot see anything dynamic in that action. He may as well be whittling.
Magda ridicules Sandor’s pretensions as a knife-thrower and as a patent medicine salesman, and busies herself with a crystal ball. She tells him that when “the old lady” dies, they will have to leave Collinwood. He says he knows all about that. She wants him to steal the Collins family jewels so that they can leave with great riches. He eventually caves in and sets out for the great house on the estate, more to escape her nagging than out of greed.
Regular viewers will remember that we heard Magda’s name in December 1968. The show had introduced two storylines, one about the malevolent ghost of Quentin Collins and the other about werewolf Chris Jennings, and the characters were starting to notice the strange goings-on that Quentin and Chris generated. The adults in the great house had no idea that Quentin was haunting them or that Chris was a werewolf, so they held a séance in #642. Speaking through heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard, Magda mentioned “My curse!” and said that “He must not come back!” It was clear in the context of the episode that the “He” who “must not come back” was Quentin. Chris was a participant in the séance, and he broke the circle before Magda could explain what she meant by her “curse.” Séances held in #170 and #281 were cut short by the person whose secret the medium was about to expose; that it is Chris who interrupts this one would suggest to longtime viewers that Magda not only knew Quentin, but that the curse she is about to explain was the one that made Chris a werewolf. Carolyn and her uncle Roger Collins talked a little about Magda in #643, and psychic investigator Janet Findley sensed the ghostly presence of a woman whose name started with an “M” in #648. We haven’t heard about Magda since.
As the living Magda, Grayson Hall manages rather a more natural accent than Nancy Barrett had when channeling her concerns about “my currrrrssssse.” The exaggerated costumes Hall and Thayer David wear make sense when we hear them reminiscing about the old days, when they made their livings as stage Gypsies with a knife-throwing act, Tarot card readings, and a magic elixir. Even the fact that Magda is peering into a crystal ball during this scene is understandable when they make it clear that they are staying in the Old House as guests of the mistress of the great house, an old, dying lady who enjoys their broadly stereotypical antics. But there is no way to reconcile twenty-first century sensibilities to Hall and David’s brownface makeup. Some time later, Hall would claim that one of her grandmothers was Romani. If that was a lie, it is telling that only someone as phenomenally sophisticated as Hall could in the 1970s see that she would need to invent a story to excuse playing such a character.
Objectionable as Sandor and Magda are, their dialogue is so well-written and so well delivered that we want to like them. Moreover, the year 1897 points to another reason fans of Dark Shadows might be happy enough to see Romani or Sinti characters that they will overlook the racist aspects of their portrayal. It was in 1897 that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published, and it depicted the evil Count as surrounded by “Gypsy” thralls. The character who has brought us on this journey into the past is Barnabas Collins, and upon his arrival he found that he was once more a vampire.
In addition to the strengths of the dialogue, the acting, and the intertext, there is also a weakness in this episode that softens the blow of the brownface. Today the picture is so muddy that it is possible to overlook the makeup. That’s Kaplan’s fault. It would often be the case that one or the other of the cameras wasn’t up to standard, but when the director was a visual artist as capable as Lela Swift or John Sedwick, there would always be at least some shots in a scene using the good camera, and others where the lighting would alleviate some of the consequences of the technical difficulties. But Kaplan doesn’t seem to have cared at all. He had made up his mind to use a particular camera to shoot the Old House parlor with a subdued lighting scheme, and if that camera was not picking up the full range of color, too bad. He’d photograph a lot of sludge and call it a day.
Meanwhile, a man knocks on the door of the great house. He is Quentin, and the person who opens the door is Beth Chavez. We first saw these two as ghosts in #646. Beth spoke some lines during the “Haunting of Collinwood” story, but Quentin’s voice was heard only in his menacing laugh.
We already know Quentin as the evil spirit who drove everyone from the house and is killing strange and troubled boy David Collins in February of 1969. His behavior in this scene is no less abominable than we might there by have come to expect. He pushes past Beth to force his way into the foyer, does not bother to deny that he has come back to persuade his dying grandmother to leave him her money, pretends to have forgotten someone named “Jenny,” makes Beth feel uncomfortable by saying that her association with Jenny makes her position in the house precarious, orders Beth to carry his bags, twists her arm, and leeringly tells her that she would be much happier if she would just submit to his charms. David Selby sells the scene, and we believe that Quentin is a villain who must be stopped. But Mr Selby himself is so charming, and the dialogue in which he makes his unforgivable declarations is so witty, that we don’t want him to go away. He establishes himself at once as The Man You Love to Hate.
In an upstairs bedroom, the aged Edith Collins is looking at Tarot cards. Quentin makes his way to her; she expresses her vigorous disapproval of him. She says that “When Jamison brought me the letter, I said to myself ‘He is the same. Quentin is using the child to get back.'” Quentin replies “But you let me come back.” She says that she did, and admits that he makes her feel young. With that, Edith identifies herself with the audience’s point of view.
The reference to Jamison and a letter reminds regular viewers of #643, when Magda’s ghost caused a letter from Quentin to fall into Roger’s hands. It was addressed to Roger’s father, Jamison, and was written in 1887. It read “Dear Jamison, You must return to Collinwood. I need your help. You must intercede with Oscar. Only you can save me.” They’ve revised the flimsies quite a bit since then; now it is 1897, Jamison is 12, and we don’t hear about anyone named Oscar.
Not about any character named Oscar, anyway. Edith tells Quentin that “Men who live as you do will not age well.” Quentin tells Edith that she ought not to believe in the Tarot, because “This card always has the same picture and people change, even I.” On Dark Shadows, which from its beginning has taken place on sets dominated by portraits, these two lines might make us wonder what it would be like if it were portraits that changed while their subjects remained the same. Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray was published in serial form in 1890 and as a novel in 1891, and it was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. The dialogue is so witty that the characters must be well-read, making it quite plausible that Quentin’s remark was meant to remind Edith of the book. Especially so, since Wilde was released from prison in 1897, bringing him back to public notice in that year.
Edith tells Quentin that old and sick as she may be, she can still out-think him. She declares that all of her grandchildren will get what they deserve. All, that is, except Edward. Roger mentioned Edward in #697, naming him as his grandfather and Jamison’s father. Edith says that Edward is the eldest, and therefore she must tell him “the secret.” There is a note of horror in her voice as she says this; Quentin misses that note, and reflexively urges her to tell him the secret. She only shakes her head- the secret isn’t a prize to contend for, it is a burden to lament.
Isabella Hoopes plays this scene lying on her side in bed, a challenging position for any performer. Her delivery is a bit stilted at the beginning, but after she makes eye contact with David Selby she warms up and becomes very natural. I wonder if the initial awkwardness had to do with Kaplan. He held a conductor’s baton while directing, and he used to poke actresses with it. I can’t imagine a person in bed wearing a nightgown would have an easy time relaxing if her attention was focused on him. Once she can connect with Mr Selby, though, you can see what an outstanding professional she was.
Quentin goes to the drawing room, and finds Sandor behind the curtains. He threatens to call the police, and Sandor slinks back to the Old House. Magda berates him for his failure to steal the jewels, and he insists there are no jewels in the great house.
Meanwhile, Barnabas is in his coffin, trying to will someone to come and release him. In #210, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis had become obsessed with Barnabas’ portrait in the foyer of the great house, so much so that he could hear Barnabas’ heart beating through it. Barnabas called Willie to come to the secret chamber in the old Collins family mausoleum where his coffin was hidden. In his conscious mind, Willie thought he was going to steal a fortune in jewels. His face distorted with the gleeful expectation of that bonanza, he broke the chains that bound the coffin shut, and Barnabas’ hand darted out, choking him and pulling him down.
In the Old House, an image suddenly appears in the crystal ball. We can see it, the first time they have actually projected an image in such a ball since the first one made its debut in #48.
Magda notices the image, and tells Sandor to look. He recognizes the old mausoleum. She says that the jewels must be in “the room,” implying that they already know about the hidden panel and the secret chamber behind it. Sandor says it is absurd to imagine Edith going to and from the mausoleum to retrieve pieces of her jewelry collection. Magda ignores this, and urges him to go there. He reluctantly agrees to go with her.
The two of them are heading for the door when they hear a knock. It is Beth, come to say that Edith wants to see Magda. Edith wants what she always wants- to be told that Edward will return before she dies. Sandor says Magda can’t go, but Beth says she will regret it for the rest of her life if she does not. Magda tells Sandor to go on his way without her, and says that she will bring Edith some ancient Gypsy cards, cards older than the Tarot. When she talks about Romani lore, Magda taunts Beth- “but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Her sarcastic tone implies that Beth has tried to conceal her own Romani heritage.
Sandor opens the secret panel and looks at the chained coffin. He tells himself the jewels can’t be hidden there, then decides he may as well open it anyway- if he doesn’t, Magda will just send him back. Longtime viewers remembering the frenzy in which Willie opened the coffin in #210 will be struck by the utterly lackadaisical attitude with which Sandor performs the same task. Men’s lust for riches may release the vampire, but so too may their annoyance with the wife when she won’t stop carping on the same old thing.
When Willie opened the coffin, it lay across the frame lengthwise and he was behind it. When he raised the lid it blocked our view of his middle. We could see only his face when he realized what he had done, and could see nothing of Barnabas but his hand. The result was an iconic image.
Farewell, dangerously unstable ruffian- hello, sorely bedraggled blood thrall. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
When Sandor opens the coffin, its end is toward us. We see Barnabas at the same time he does. Barnabas’ hand darts up, and also for some reason his foot. The camera zooms in as Barnabas clutches Sandor’s throat. Unfortunately, the shot is so dimly lit that not all viewers will see this. My wife, Mrs Acilius, has eyesight that is in some ways a bit below average, and she missed it completely, even on a modern big-screen television. It’s anyone’s guess how many viewers would have known what was going on when they were watching it on the little TV sets of March 1969, on an ABC affiliate which was more likely than not the station that came in with the poorest picture quality in the area. As a result, the image that marks the relaunch of Barnabas’ career as a vampire is nothing at all. There is so much good stuff in the episode that it easily earns the “Genuinely Good” tag, but Kaplan’s bungling of this final shot is a severe failure.
Sarcastic dandy Roger Collins has remarried. His previous wife, undead blonde witch Laura Murdoch Collins, was Dark Shadows’ first supernatural menace, posing a threat to the life of their son David from #123 until she vanished amid a cloud of smoke in #191. The ghost of gracious lady Josette joined in the battle against Laura. Among other things, Josette compelled artist Sam Evans to paint a series of pictures warning of Laura’s evil plans. Laura responded to those paintings in #145 and #146 by causing a fire that burned Sam’s hands so badly it seemed he might never again be able to paint.
Roger’s new wife is also an undead blonde witch, though she wears a black wig all the time. This wiggéd witch calls herself Cassandra, but is actually Angelique, who in the 1790s killed many of Roger’s ancestors and turned his distant cousin Barnabas into a vampire. Angelique/ Cassandra has returned to the world of the living because Barnabas’ vampirism is now in remission, and she is determined to restore it.
Before he met Angelique/ Cassandra, Roger became obsessed with a portrait of her. Barnabas concludes that this portrait is essential to her power. He orders his servant Willie to steal it from the great house of Collinwood. Barnabas takes the portrait to Sam and commissions him to paint over it so that Angelique will look tremendously old. He doesn’t offer Sam any explanations, but we heard him tell Willie his theory that what happens to the painting will also happen to Angelique. If her likeness is aged to reflect her actual years, then she will vanish from 1968 and be confined to the past. At the end of the episode, Angelique’s hands have aged dramatically, suggesting that Barnabas is correct.
This is David Ford’s first appearance on the show since December, and he had shaved his mustache in the interim. The fake is not up to the makeup department’s usual standards. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
Portraits have been a very prominent part of the visual composition of Dark Shadows from the beginning, and a battlefield on which supernatural combat could be joined for almost as long. So it is hardly surprising that the show would eventually get around to doing a story based on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
It would seem Barnabas has little time to lose. Angelique/ Cassandra has distributed some malware to the minds of the people around Barnabas by means of a dream that one person after another will have. The first dreamer is beckoned into a Haunted House attraction by someone, opens some doors behind which there are scary images, is terrified, and cannot find relief until telling its details to the beckoner. That person then has the dream, changed in only two particulars, the identity of the beckoner and the image behind the final door. When everyone’s brain has been hacked, this worm is supposed to reset Barnabas as a vampire.
Yesterday, David had the dream, and Willie was his beckoner. Today, we open in Barnabas’ house, where Willie is paralyzed with fear. David has already told him the dream, and Willie knows he will have it. With all the previous instances of the dream, the audience had to sit through a highly repetitious dream sequence, then a scene in which the character agonizes about whether to tell the dream to the next person, and finally a speech repeating all the details of the dream. At least this time we skip the second and third of those rehashings.
Since Willie is so close to Barnabas, it seems likely that he will be the last to have the dream before it gets back to Barnabas and makes him a vampire again. So it’s no wonder that Barnabas decides it’s time for the high-stakes gamble of a burglary at Collinwood.
There’s also a scene in Barnabas’ basement. Barnabas’ vampirism is in remission because some mad scientists created a Frankenstein’s monster, whom Barnabas named Adam. They connected Barnabas to Adam in a way that drains the symptoms of the curse from Barnabas without manifesting them in Adam. Barnabas has no idea how to raise any child, let alone a 6’6″ newborn with the strength of several grown men, and so locks him up in the prison cell where he used to keep Sam’s daughter Maggie.
The imprisonment of Maggie was a dreary, unpleasant story, but Adam’s time in the cell is even harder to take. Maggie was established as a strong, intelligent person who knew her way around, she could speak, and she had many friends who cared about her. So we never quite gave up hope that she would get away and be all right in the end. But Adam has none of that. As a result, his scenes in the basement are a tale of extreme child abuse, made all the harder to watch by Robert Rodan’s affecting portrayal of the big guy’s misery.
Moreover, Maggie was a major character, introduced in the first episode and connected to everyone else. It’s unlikely they would kill her off unless the show had been canceled and they were going out with a bang. But only the people holding Adam prisoner know who he is, and Frankenstein’s monsters meet their deaths practically every time they feature in a story.
Worst of all, the show is basically very silly right now. A story about a child locked in a cell from birth can be made bearable only by joining it to some kind of deep insight into the human condition, and there is little prospect that anything like that will crop up among all the witches and vampires and other Halloween paraphernalia. My wife, Mrs Acilius, watched the whole series with me in 2020-2021. She was avidly rewatching it with me this time. But when they took Adam to the cell, she suggested I start watching it on days when I get home from work before she does. I’m sure she isn’t the only Dark Shadows fan who takes a pass on the Adam story.
This is the first episode credited to director Jack Sullivan. Lela Swift and John Sedwick took turns at the helm until #450, when executive producer Dan Curtis tried his hand at directing a week of episodes. Swift and Sedwick then returned to their usual pattern. Sedwick will be leaving in a few weeks; Sullivan, who has been with the show as an associate director since the third week, will be Swift’s alternate until November, and from #553 on will be credited as Sean Dhu Sullivan.
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