DS Discussion #4 Oh those moving walls!

DS was shot on a low budget and also essentially taped live. Boo boos happened.

What did you notice? Was there anything that you thought was especially funny? Anything especially touching as one actor struggled to help out another?

What did YOU see out of the norm??

Those infernal shaky bannisters used to drive me nuts! There were a lot of Ed Wood moments. How about when the grass rug in the cemetery moved under Victoria's foot when she and Burke Devlin went to find Maggie? (episode #218 or 219)

The actors did flub or forget lines on a regular basis. Poor young David Henesy had a rough time of it in general, but you were never really sure when it was happening with Jonathan Frid, the consumate stage pro.

The other two actors I thought always seemed nore natural than acting were Dennis Patrick (Jason McGuire) and Joel Crothers (Joe) whom I learned died in 1985 from cancer. He was handsome, too.

John Karlen (willie Loomis) improved as he went on to a long career in episode television, and the last time I remember seeing him was as a regular on Cagney and Lacey. He made a good, tortured, miserable ,whiney ghoul on DS.

Was that great or what? That's exactly what I thought when I saw that part---shades of Ed Wood!

I would also notice background noises that shouldn't have been there as well---a door would slam shut but it had nothing to do with the action at the time---everyone would just keep rolling like they never heard it.

What about those sound effects? I keep laughing at the footstep sounds whenever someone walks in the parts where Maggie is locked up in the dungeon of the house. They just sound so fake for some reason-*L*.

I agree also that Frid seemed the best at covering his flubbed lines----"cut and print, we're moving on!"

Did anyone listen to the Dan Curtis interview? It's on the disc I just finished watching. He mentioned the first show they just had an album of some kind for the music and how they were scrambling for everything because they had no budget----shades of Ed Wood again!

I also enjoyed the character of Willie and Jason, I thought their characters added to the drama.

I'm little bored with the storyline of Mrs. S. and Carolyn and the dead father. I actually zipped through that episode to get to the next one. I just ended where Barnabas is "chasing" Maggie through the bottom part of the house when she escapes----again, those fakish footstep sounds-*L*

-Donna

I thought Frid was amazing, really. I watched him work with the younger cast, esp David and he was so patient and concerned. You could see it.

My fav Ed Wood moments are when the doors stick or the walls move when one is slammed. I loved it when Caroline and Victoria where up in Josette's room and a door slammed and two walls about fell down.

I"ve only watched 3 shows so far, but in one scene Carolyn (the blonde and the rocker), she walks into a room and needs to turn on each room light as she enters! LOL...Haven't seen THAT on TV in a really long time.

There were also a lot of dark shadows in the shots, (is someone there? )and a few times I saw the boom mic.

Yeah, I remember seeing the shadow of the mikes, stage hands looking through doors but the one episode I remember was when the doctor of Barnabus (I am horrible with names) her real name was Grayson something, was saying her lines and then she stopped looked around and said "What?" Completely out of context, just reacting to whatever the director was saying.

I watched and fast forwarded 10 episodes last nite and the wind and rain effects outside the bar were not believable and the sound effects were a bit cheap but when comparing other popular series of the era "The Fugitive" or "Ben Casey" to DS-similar production methods and mistakes were common.

Right away I noticed that even though the wind is always howling and whistling whenever there is an "outdoors" shot, the foliage is barely moving at all.....

Rose

These are all so great to see---I know I never noticed any of these when I was younger, so watching the DVDs now I'm able to see all of these. Just goes to show what a long way TV has come since then.

-Donna

At the bar, outside the window, the fluttering sheet is supposed to be wind, I suppose.

Between Buzz's motorcycle sound, and him actually knocking on a door, there's a what would you call it... a gap in the sound. Nothing. 2 seconds.

You all have really paid attention!! I've got to go back and rewatch some of this!

I meant to post this with this thread:

http://www.darkshadowsonline.com/dso-dark-three.html

Really Spectacular Lapses -- The Bloopers
In her 1970 autobiography, The Bennett Playbill, Joan Bennett discussed her Dark Shadows experience. She coyly mentioned the occasional on-camera faux pas: "I found television an infinitely more spontaneous medium (than movies)," Joan wrote. "As our executive producer Dan Curtis says, altogether too cheerfully, 'We work the hell out of them! It's death in the afternoon and panic in the streets every day on the set. If somebody blows a line, that's too bad.' Although the show is taped ahead of time, it's a 'live' tape technique, there's no way of going back to correct mistakes and, occasionally, there's a really spectacular lapse."


In the 1970s, Joe Dante (later a successful horror movie director) was a reviewer for Castle of Frankenstein magazine. He wrote about his affection for Dark Shadows: "The budget apparently doesn't allow for re-taping, so every fluff, camera misdirection, visible crew-member and production error is left in, endowing the show with some of the excitement and human interest which made live TV so much fun back in the dear, dead Fifties. Nothing arouses audience empathy more than the sight of a harried actor groping for forgotten lines while trying to steal a discreet glimpse of the cue card. Despite the occasional mistakes, or maybe because of them, DS is highly enjoyable."


Dante was right. These "spectacular lapses" -- also known as "bloopers" -- are one element that makes watching Dark Shadows so much fun. Props fell apart, actors went up on their lines, Jonathan Frid had a habit of reading his co-stars' lines from the teleprompter, and sometimes a stagehand would even wander into a scene. But the show went on.

"Jonathan Frid had a habit of reading his co-stars' lines from the teleprompter"

Oy, that must have made him popular with his castmates!

The cameraman was meant to close up on Maggie in the cell, then *thunk* the camera hits the cell door!