singing ghost – Acilius on Dark Shadows

Episode 288: Feminine vanity

At the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki is in a stupor, staring out a window and dreaming of a time when she will again be central to the plot.

Ever since #191 when she rescued her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins, from his mother, undead fire witch Laura, Vicki has been hanging on to narrative relevance by her fingernails. Now Dark Shadows is built around vampire Barnabas Collins, and Vicki longs to play a major role in his storyline. He plans to make her his next victim, but is moving so slowly towards that objective that we’ve started to wonder if he ever will strike.

David comes into the room and calls Vicki’s name several times. When she finally comes to, she admits that she has been zoning out a lot lately, and says that it is a habit she needs to break. David says that it frightens him when she gets that way. She doesn’t look like herself when those spells come over her. He gets the feeling that she’s turning into someone else. Vicki can’t deny that David is onto something, and only when he insists on sticking with the subject after she has clearly become uncomfortable does Vicki become defensive and retreat behind claims that David is letting his imagination run away with him.

Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has insinuated herself into the house, concealing her true identity and pretending to be an historian writing a book about the old families of New England. David shows her an album of family portraits. He identifies one portrait as his namesake, David Collins. During the Laura storyline, a great deal was made of the fact he was the first member of the family to bear the name “David,” and that Laura insisted on giving her son this name would ultimately become evidence that her evil plans for him were in place long before he was born. So David’s remark about a previous “David Collins” is a significant retcon.*

Though David has looked through the book many times, he finds a portrait in it that he has never seen before. It depicts Sarah Collins, who lived from 1786 to 1796. Sarah’s ghost has been busy in the area in recent weeks, and the clear implication is that she inserted the page. That in turn would suggest that Sarah might have more powers than we have seen her use so far.

Julia and David find a photograph of Sarah Collins, d. 1796.
Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

David has seen Sarah and played with her on more than one occasion, and he recognizes the portrait. He wonders aloud if the girl he has met is Sarah’s ghost. Julia laughs off the suggestion. Vicki returns. She also recognizes the picture of Sarah. The police circulated a drawing of her when Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, was missing. Since Julia is actually a doctor who found out that supernatural doings were afoot at Collinwood when she was treating Maggie, she has heard several facts about Sarah, and by the end of her talks with David and Vicki she knows enough to be sure David is right about her.

We cut to the Blue Whale tavern, where Vicki is on a date with her depressing boyfriend, fake Shemp Burke Devlin. Burke sullenly complains about Vicki’s wish to help Julia with her project, complaining about Vicki’s “interest in the past.” “Interest in the past” is at this point synonymous with “a function in the story,” and Burke lost the last trace of that months ago. It’s as if Burke and Vicki know that they are fictional characters, and he resents her for holding on to a place in the action while he has settled in once and for all on the discard pile.

Vicki mentions that the night before, she had been awakened by the sound of a small girl singing. She says that after she got up and lit a candle, she could still hear the singing, but could not see the girl. Burke is too busy grumbling and making nasty remarks about Vicki’s mental health to ask her why she lit a candle rather than flipping the light switch. Vicki has to press on with more details and then volunteer that she wasn’t sleeping in her own room. She was sleeping in the Old House at Collinwood, home to Barnabas Collins.

Burke is upset by this news. Unfortunately Vicki doesn’t let him believe she went to bed with Barnabas. She tells him she was in a guest room, and that Barnabas was “a perfect gentleman.” Burke demands Vicki never go to the Old House again, and she refuses to make any such promise.

Julia takes the book of portraits to the Old House and insists that Barnabas look through it. While he grudgingly complies, Julia opens her compact. She finds that Barnabas does not cast a reflection in its mirror. This confirms her suspicion that Barnabas is a vampire. In #241 and #278, we had seen his reflection, but perhaps those were slip-ups and they were planning all along to use the idea that vampires do not cast a reflection.

Barnabas catches Julia studying her mirror and angrily asks what she is doing. She smiles and chirps that even historians have their share of feminine vanity. He glowers at her. The camera holds on his menacing look for quite some time, leading us to think that Julia has signed her own death warrant. But she doesn’t seem to think she is in any great danger. She is still smiling when she leaves.

Back in the great house, Vicki wanders up to the portrait of Barnabas that hangs by the front door. Apparently she is planning to stare at it as she resumes her dream of having something to do on the show. It worked for dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis- after a couple of long sessions staring at the portrait, Barnabas summoned him and next thing he knew he was securely established as his sorely bedraggled blood thrall, a core member of the cast. So Vicki is trying to take a proven path to success.

Before Vicki can get any high-quality staring done, Julia enters. Vicki asks her how it went with Barnabas, and Julia exults that she may have learned everything she needed to know.

*My wife, Mrs Acilius, noticed this and had a lot to say about it. I will refer to her insights in later entries, as they would contain spoilers at this point in the run of the show.

Episode 258: Secret friend

Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, is giving up hope. Vampire Barnabas Collins locked her up in the jail cell in the basement of his house some time ago, and everyone she knows is coming to believe that she is dead.

The other day, a little girl in eighteenth century clothing appeared outside Maggie’s cell. The girl did not respond when Maggie tried to get her attention, nor did Barnabas’ sorely bedraggled blood thrall, Willie, see her when she walked past him. Only on her second or third visit to Maggie did the girl interact with her, and then only to warn her not to tell her big brother that she had seen her. Maggie suspects that the girl was a hallucination of hers.

We know that the girl is real, because we saw her interacting with someone else. Outside Barnabas’ house, the girl talked with strange and troubled boy David Collins and played catch with him. If we’ve been watching the show from the beginning, we also know that there are many ghosts in and around Barnabas’ house, and that they have a special rapport with David. Further, this girl gives her name as Sarah and says that everyone she knows went away a long time ago. We’ve been told that Barnabas had a sister named Sarah who died in childhood, so we know that Sarah is the ghost of that sister.

Today, the girl appears to Maggie again. This time she shows up in the cell itself. At first, she tosses her ball in the air, sings “London Bridge,” and ignores Maggie’s repeated questions. Eighteenth century kids didn’t have mobile phones, apparently they had to resort to a ball and “London Bridge” when they wanted to tune out the grownups. Sarah finally comes around when Maggie puts her hand on her shoulder.

Sarah explains that she came because Maggie was crying. She asks what Maggie is sad about, which Maggie doesn’t try to explain.

Sarah won’t answer many of Maggie’s questions. Sarah says that she has been looking for her parents, and she is puzzled as to where they and everyone else have gone. She says she does have one friend. If that is a reference to David, it would show that Sarah can learn information during one apparition and retain it during subsequent apparitions. It is unclear whether she knows that she is a ghost, and her understanding of Maggie’s situation is remarkably slight.

Maggie and Sarah play catch and sing “London Bridge” together. Sarah vanishes a moment before Barnabas arrives. Maggie reacts to him with terror, but when it becomes clear that he isn’t planning to kill her right away her excitement at Sarah’s visit comes bursting out. She tells him that she has a secret friend who visits her in her cell and plays with her. When he asks what she’s talking about, she tells him it’s a secret. She babbles in a gleeful, childlike way.

Barnabas reacts to this with discomfort. He keeps his eyes on Maggie and edges away from her, speaking to her in a pitying tone. Bleak as Maggie’s situation is, this is a laugh-out-loud moment- she’s become too weird for Barnabas.

Upstairs, Barnabas tells Willie that Maggie isn’t working out. In a moment of wild hope, Willie asks if that means he’ll let her go. Barnabas sourly replies that of course it does not mean that- they will have to kill her. His plan is to kill her in such a way that no trace of her will ever be found, “because there will be no trace.”

Willie takes a meal to Maggie and demands she stop pretending to be crazy. It isn’t helping her, he says. She denies that she is doing any such thing, and babbles cheerfully that “I do whatever anyone tells me to do.” Willie leans in, putting his face close to hers, and screams and shouts that she has to be her usual self if she is to have any chance of survival.

After Willie leaves, Maggie starts crying again and telling herself that there is no little girl. But then she looks at the floor and finds a doll Sarah left behind. Maggie smiles, knowing that her secret friend does exist.

Maggie’s mad scenes are fascinating. Even though she believes that Sarah is real and we know she is right, seeing Sarah has the same effect on Maggie a psychotic break might have. It takes her out of the reality that she shares with Barnabas and Willie, and gives her an affect that is neither continuous with her usual personality nor intelligible to them.

The three adult actors are all on the top of their form today, just superb. Nowadays, when Sharon Smyth Lentz describes her performance as Sarah, she says that “The first word that comes to mind is ‘clueless.’” But that works out surprisingly well. We know so little about what, if anything, is going on in Sarah’s mind that the keynotes of the performance would have to be “lost,” “confused,” and “vague,” and she had those three things down pat. Things sometimes get rocky when Sarah has a long stretch of dialogue or when multiple actors are moving at the same time, but neither of those is a problem today.

Joe Caldwell started making uncredited contributions to the writing of Dark Shadows early in 1967, and I am tempted to attribute every good thing in a script by Malcolm Marmorstein to him. But Caldwell’s name is showing up in the credits now, and this episode is excellent. So maybe Marmorstein could rise to an occasion every now and then.

My wife, Mrs Acilius, points out that this is the first episode set entirely in the Old House.

Episode 126: Do not be afraid

In the long-abandoned Old House on the estate of Collinwood, fugitive Matthew is sharpening the ax with which he plans to kill his prisoner, well-meaning governess Vicki. In the great house on the same estate, strange and troubled boy David is struggling with himself. His hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, and his idol, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, are waiting for him to tell what he knows about Matthew and Vicki, and he keeps asking for assurances that he won’t be punished if he tells.

While David’s pathological fear of punishment keeps her rescuers at bay, Matthew finishes sharpening his ax. In the secret chamber where she is bound to a chair, Vicki receives a visitor- the ghost of Josette Collins. The ghost tells her she need not be afraid. Vicki asks why not. The ghost simply repeats herself and vanishes. It is by no means clear that the ghosts mean to save Vicki from Matthew, or that they could keep him from killing her if that is what they want.

David finally tells Burke and Roger where Vicki is, and they get some shotguns. David delays their departure still further by pleading to go along with them. Meanwhile, Matthew is in front of Vicki, starting to swing his ax at her head.

Matthew hears ghostly voices and breaks off in mid-swing. He runs out of the hidden chamber to the parlor, where the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy comes strolling in to the room, singing one of the more family-friendly verses of “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” Matthew starts swinging his ax wildly at the ghost, which laughs at him. Four more ghosts, representing the famed “Widows,” follow, and he swings at them.

Bill and the Widows. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

In her place of confinement, Vicki can hear Matthew screaming, but cannot hear the ghosts plaguing him. She calls out to Matthew, who falls silent. Burke and Roger come in, she calls to them, they find her and release her from her bonds. Matthew in a chair in the parlor, dead of fright.

With its six ghosts, this is one of the most spectacular episodes of the entire series. It is also one of the most effective. It’s no wonder Patrick McCray resumed his posting about episodes with this one after skipping a couple of months’ worth.

It is notable that Burke and Roger do not actually save Vicki- the ghosts of Bill and the Widows do. When Matthew first tried to kill Vicki in episode 111, it was reclusive matriarch Liz who saved her. Now, it is again a female-led effort, though as the victim of Matthew’s first homicide Bill does get a chance to help. I suppose that fits with the nature of the genre- daytime soaps are addressed to a predominantly female audience, so it only makes sense that female characters will drive most of the major plot points. It doesn’t bode well for the future development of Burke- he’s a dashing action hero, after all, and if all the dashing actions are going to be precipitated by women, girls, and feminine ghosts he’s likely to be left out in the cold.

Episode 125: Someone will die at Collinwood tonight

Matthew Morgan, killer of beloved local man Bill Malloy, has been hiding out in the long-abandoned Old House on the great estate of Collinwood for many days. He has been keeping well-meaning governess Vicki a prisoner in a secret chamber there. Strange and troubled boy David Collins believed that Matthew was an innocent man and has been helping him; now, David has found Vicki, and Matthew knows that the crisis is upon him.

In the great house on the estate, David calls for his hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. Roger does not answer, but the ghost of Bill Malloy appears and tells David to help Vicki. David is used to seeing ghosts, and tries to engage Bill in conversation about the circumstances of his death. He asks him whether Matthew really killed him, or if, as he has been hoping all along, it was Roger. All the ghost will say is that he must help Vicki.

The ghost vanishes when Roger comes in. David tells him he has something important to say, but that he won’t tell him unless he first promises that he won’t be punished. When Roger will not give such a promise, David tells him that something terrible will happen tonight, and it will be his fault. Roger snaps at him, and David replies that he hopes he gets pneumonia and dies. David’s pathological fear of punishment led him to try to murder Roger in the first month of the show; now it leads him to resign himself to Vicki’s death and to wish for Roger’s.

In the woods, Matthew sees Bill’s ghost. The ghost tells him that someone will die at Collinwood before the night is out. This message is not immediately helpful to Vicki; Matthew interprets it to mean that the ghosts want him to kill Vicki. Indeed, the first time he heard a ghostly voice, Matthew’s immediate response was to leap up and put a knife at Vicki’s throat. Bill’s encounter with David would indicate that he’s trying to help, as would his previous apparition to Vicki in #85. He just isn’t very good at it. We aren’t sure about the other ghosts yet.

Bill’s ghost confronts Matthew. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Vicki manages to get loose and makes it as far as the front door. Matthew meets her there. He is relaxed and cheerful, and asks her why she is frightened. He calls her “Miz Stoddard,” indicating that he believes she is reclusive matriarch Liz. Vicki plays along, but Matthew breaks out of the delusion before she can get away. He shoves her back into the chamber and ties her up again. He goes to get an ax to kill her with.

Back in the great house, David places a phone call to dashing action hero Burke Devlin. He leaves a message telling Burke that he has an urgent message about Vicki. Burke comes running. He and Roger bicker, and David won’t tell what he knows unless he can be assured he won’t be punished. Matthew is moving slowly, but David’s phobia and Roger’s angry interference combine to keep the potential rescuers from moving at all.

Episode 85: What do you do with a drunken sailor?

The final episode written by Art Wallace is the first to feature actors singing. It’s also the first to feature a talking ghost.

The song is “What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?” It is sung first in the tavern, where drunken artist Sam Evans and dashing action hero Burke Devlin are reminiscing about their late friend, beloved local man Bill Malloy. Bill worked on the fishing boats for many years, and sang that old shanty all the time. Sam and Burke croon a few of its more family-friendly lines.

We hear the song again, sung by the ghost of Bill Malloy. Well-meaning governess Vicki is, for reasons far too tedious to repeat, imprisoned in a disused room. Bill’s ghost manifests itself in the doorway, takes a step into the room, and begins singing. Draped in the wet seaweed that covered his body after it washed up on shore, he warns Vicki that she will be killed if she does not escape. He turns back towards the door and vanishes into thin air. Vicki tells herself that the apparition was a dream, but finds wet seaweed on the floor where Bill had stood.

Bill Malloy manifests himself. Screen capture by Dark Shadows Before I Die

As the representative of the business operations that support the ancient and esteemed Collins family in their old dark house on the hill, Bill Malloy had been central to the rational, daylight logic side of the show. He came to the house to keep reclusive matriarch Liz updated on the operations of the cannery and the fishing fleet, and he discussed financial affairs with her. There had been a couple of indications that he once had a crush on Liz, suggesting the possibility that they might fall in love, complicating their business relationship and giving rise to a rather tame soap opera romance. For the last couple of months a mystery story about his death and the investigation into it has kept us mindful of evidence and witnesses and the sheriff and other symbols of explainable, shared reality. When Art Wallace, who wrote the series bible and was credited with the first 40 episodes, moves Bill Malloy into the supernatural back-world of Josette and the Widows, he forecloses any possibility that Dark Shadows will be a conventional soap opera with plots about slightly inconvenient love affairs and struggles over the ownership of a sardine packing concern. We’re going to be seeing “ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night,” to repeat a quote Sam delivers today.

It’s also worth pointing out the type of ghost Bill is. He is mostly spirit, but there is a corporeal side to him as well. He enters the room at the closed door. Since he is insubstantial enough that wooden barriers won’t stop him, he isn’t a revenant or a zombie or any other kind of reanimated corpse. On the other hand, he is substantial enough that he moves from one location- somewhere on the other side of the door, apparently- to another. So he isn’t a pure phantom. Unlike a true revenant, he vanishes into thin air, but unlike a pure phantom he leaves behind clumps of the wet seaweed with which he was festooned. We will see more ghosts in the years ahead, and most of them will be a mixture of the spectral and the bodily.

Art Wallace’s name is on every episode of Dark Shadows under “Story Created and Written by,” but he had nothing to do with it after this episode. He will be missed. He wasn’t perfect- this week has been pretty grim, with the unwelcome story of Vicki’s confinement, and with Wednesday’s episode and Thursday’s having been utter stinkers- but he was usually quite good. He and Francis Swann both had a firm understanding of what actors can do and how writers can enable them to do it. After Swann leaves the show late next month, they won’t have another writer of whom that can be said until Joe Caldwell comes aboard next summer.