“I don’t know what is happening inside you, but it is evil.”
“Witchcraft!” cries Barnabas. “Of course I’ll help Quentin, I’ll do anything I can.”
He seems utterly shocked by the idea that Quentin’s been accused of witchcraft, even though everyone’s been talking about it for weeks. I know the dude only works nights, but seriously, how are you this out of touch? What have you and Julia been doing all this time?
I mean, I was under the impression that Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman were the stars of this television show. They’re the ones who traveled all the way back in time from 1970 to 1840, in order to solve the mystery of why the scowling spirit of Gerard Stiles wanted to destroy Collinwood and kill all their friends. They’ve seen the destruction that Gerard is destined to unleash — the madness, the property damage, the hallway full of zombies — and they know that their only chance of handling this calamity is to catch the next stairway to the mid-19th and personally avert it. But they’ve had boots on the ground since late September, and here it is December and I don’t think they’re any closer to their goal than they were at the start. The best thing you can say is that they’ve gotten over their jet lag; that’s pretty much their only achievement to date.
They started strong; I’ll give them that. They suspected Gerard, they tried to keep Daphne away from Collinwood, and generally participated and took an interest in things.
In fact, for a while, they were on the track of the actual villain, the previously-deceased two-parter Judah Zachery. Back when Judah’s huge and headless body was roaming the woods, hunting for governesses with sonar, Barnabas was one of the guys chasing around after it, while Julia went to Bedford to look for clues in old newspapers.
And then Julia was hypnotized by Judah’s legendary head, which was the correct role for a main character. It brought her back to her mad science roots, performing strange and unholy experiments by night in a basement crypt, right in the center of the action. If you wanted plot development, you needed to go through Julia to get it.
But then it all went wrong, somehow. The crypt burned down with Judah’s body inside it, freeing Julia from the spell, and Barnabas and Julia decided that the threat must be over, and there was nothing more to do. They were still stuck in 1840 and I suppose they still had some questions about Gerard and Daphne, but that was pretty much the end of their involvement. A few episodes went by with the legendary head hypnotizing Gerard, and Barnabas and Julia missed it entirely. They had no idea Judah continued as an active force in the narrative. They still don’t.
In fact, since early November, they’ve been sidetracked in their own three-person storyline cul-de-sac, hardly paying attention to the outside world at all. Barnabas decided he was in love with a random girl, a typical side quest for him, and then Angelique showed up and decided to pose as his wife so she could live at Collinwood and make him miserable. He insisted he was in love with Roxanne, so Angelique turned Roxanne into a vampire and kidnapped Julia, triggering a couple weeks of frenzied captures, escapes and vampire bites. This kept everyone busy and was fun to look at, but meanwhile, Quentin, Daphne and Gerard set up a radioactive mansion-destroying love triangle that was exactly the kind of thing Barnabas and Julia should have been spending their time investigating.
And then there was the dreaded eyelift, which removed Julia from the show for three weeks. Gerard — who was entirely possessed by dead wizards, at this point — was starting to assert himself in the direction of killing Collinses, and Julia was just on the verge of putting two and two together, when Grayson Hall decided she wasn’t happy with the bags under her eyes and took an unauthorized surgical vacation. And that pretty much took the main characters out of the storyline entirely.
The problem, really, is that Barnabas and Julia came to 1840 together, more or less, which means that they weren’t forced to rely on other characters as allies. In 1897, Barnabas was flying solo, so he had to recruit Sandor and Magda as buddies and blood slaves, which gave him somebody to talk to and a natural stake in other people’s storylines. In Parallel Time, he was connected to Will and Carolyn, and at the beginning of this 1840 adventure, Julia was assisted by Ben Stokes.
But then Barnabas joined her, which meant it was okay for Ben to get his head ripped off and die. Barnabas didn’t need to bite any of the locals to keep people away from his coffin, because Julia was there to protect him during the day. She had him and he had her, and Angelique came in as the spoiler, and the three of them were allowed to drift off into their own little story world.
While Julia’s been away, Barnabas hasn’t had anything to do or anyone to talk to. He’s only bothered to show up once in the last two weeks, and all he did was try to talk Daniel into forgiving Quentin, which didn’t even work.
So I have to say, it’s a relief to see Barnabas showing up three-quarters of the way through an episode, expressing concern about something pertinent. Desmond is signed up to represent Quentin at the upcoming witchcraft trial, which is the front-burner storyline and something that Barnabas needs to attach himself to.
Unfortunately, Desmond and Barnabas both agree that Lorna Bell and Mildred Ward were murdered remotely via magic spells, which is not good brand positioning for the defense. In a witchcraft trial, the place you want to start is by telling people that there’s no such thing as witchcraft. That’s pretty much square one. Admitting that evil warlocks exist, but your client doesn’t happen to be one of them, doesn’t leave you a lot of room to run.
“He certainly had reason to kill the jailer’s wife; she was an open enemy,” Desmond huffs. “Why did Quentin have to always dabble in the occult?” I assume this isn’t an excerpt from his opening statement.
Barnabas shoots him a perceptive look. “Gerard Stiles is a very clever man,” he observes, pointing himself straight at the target.
“You think so and I think so,” Desmond moans, “if only Quentin did. Bring me proof, he asks! Bring me proof that Gerard Stiles is behind all this!”
And bless his tiny cold heart, Barnabas knows the right response. “Then we shall have to find that proof,” he says, as the scene cross-fades to a fireplace. “Won’t we?” Then he gives Desmond a meaningful look.
This is the right stuff at last, the hero of the story pledging to battle the evil wizard, and rescue the handsome prince from his tower. Now we’re getting somewhere.
And then it falls apart, one scene later. Desmond’s gone by now, but Barnabas is still standing around in the Rose Cottage drawing room, drawing a paycheck and not doing a thing.
“I’m writing a book on poor dear Roxanne, you know,” Flora says, which puts the kibosh on any meaningful story progression. Flora doesn’t want to talk about useful things like Gerard and the witchcraft trial; she wants to talk about Roxanne rising as a vampire, which is exactly the spin cycle Barnabas has been trapped in for weeks. He was just about to merge back into traffic, and she’s decided to set herself up as his personal speed bump.
So they end up hosting an unnecessary seance to contact Roxanne, dragging her back on screen long after I thought we were finally rid of her. I don’t think a single person requested a return engagement for this specific subplot, but here we are, ending an episode with Roxanne ready to spill the beans on who vamped her, which we already know and were hoping to forget.
They used to be so good at this, figuring out what the audience wanted to see and delivering it with pinpoint accuracy. The best characters stayed on screen, and their concerns drove the action. If Barnabas and Julia didn’t care about something, then it didn’t matter, and if one of them disappeared, then the other would move heaven and earth to find their missing half and drag them back to center stage, where they belonged.
At least we’ve got Gerard, who’s pure box office and is currently the only reason the show still has a beating pulse. But if they insist on keeping Barnabas, Julia and Angelique in a bottle, then there’s only so much one man can do.
“I don’t know what is happening inside you,” Barnabas says, grabbing Angelique and paying no attention to anything else, “but it is evil, and I am determined to find out what it is — even if I have to go to the gates of Hell!”
“You may have to do just that, Barnabas,” she snaps, and as far as the writers are concerned, we can all go to Hell as well. And so we shall.
Tomorrow: In the Haze of History.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
After Roxanne appears at the seance, Leticia’s voice is picked up by Roxanne’s mic, which makes Leticia’s lines get the same echo effect as Roxanne’s.
When Barnabas gets up from the seance table to light the lamp, the camera swings too high, and you can see the top of the set.
In act 1, there’s a gap in Flora’s dialogue: “If there is another –, I will find her.”
Barnabas informs Angelique, “Angelique has — Roxanne has identified you!” Then he says, “Flora has written a book on vampirism”; what he means is that she’s currently writing a book. He also says that Roxanne’s spirit entered Leticia’s body, but Roxanne spoke for herself.
When Angelique scoffs at Barnabas’ warning, the camera pulls back too far and reveals the edge of the set, including a video monitor and a studio clock.
Angelique bobbles a word when she talks to Gerard: “Remember you told me once about a journal written by a nan — a man named Judah something or other.”
This one is beautiful: when Daphne tells Gerard, “Tad’s gone to bed, and that would mean leaving him alone,” you can hear footsteps in the studio. “Isn’t it amazing,” Gerard frowns, “how empty this house has become, since I’ve moved in here.” Then more footsteps.
Tomorrow: In the Haze of History.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
A little dash of Julia makes every episode 100% better. 😀
As to what she has been doing all this time, my theory is she made a quick trip to Manhattan to buy real estate and shares in Cornelius Vanderbilt’s new railroad. Naturally Barnabas managed to miss all the important things going on right under his nose while she was gone.
Off on a tangent – while watching Gerard cast a spell on Daphne to make her fall asleep and dream of him, I couldn’t help thinking: is this an occult version of Julia’s sedatives? And, how fortunate that every time he does this, Daphne happens to be standing by a convenient bed! And, hasn’t anybody noticed the governess now has sudden onset narcolepsy? Also, who’s doing the governessing while she’s taking these naps?
Governesses at Collinwood are largely theoretical – and as there are so seldom any actual children about to teach, there’s a lot of free time for them to stand near beds and become drowsy.
My tangent is to do with all The Defenders – so, Desmond doesn’t remember about being possessed by the fabled Head of Judah Zachery? Julia is also amnesiac about her enslavement to it? And Barnabas hasn’t put two and two together and figured out that they must find the magical noggin and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom (oh, wait, wrong story)?
And somewhere in this, shouldn’t B&J be concerned about preserving the inheritance of Gabriel and Edith so that the Collins family of the future will exist? Guess Julia should have brought a Polaroid snapshot back with her to check and see whether the images are fading out (wait, that’s the wrong story again).
Too bad Mary Poppins didn’t visit the Collins family every generation. Just think how she could have put things right with them.
Although, given all the multitude of Collins adults that fall in love with the governess– I have a feeling that would turn out very badly, even worse than what I normally happened.
A spoonful of arsenic makes the medicine go down.
A spoonful of rat poison makes the coffee taste funny …
Poor Mark Allen.
Except that it was tea. 🙂
I still feel bad for his pants.
I see, this is more in line with your take on her.
https://www.themarysue.com/disney-mary-poppins-returns-sociopath/
Or maybe you’re just thinking she would have met her match with the Collins dysfunctionality and atrocious parenting skills.
Extreme families require extreme measures.
“Too bad Mary Poppins didn’t visit the Collins family every generation …”
For example: Whenever Laura the phoenix tries to push her son David into the fireplace, the disembodied head of chimney sweep Dick Van Dyke (shown upside-down and in Chromakey) pops out of the chimney and hovers over the fire. He rescues the kid by blowing out the fire like candles on a birthday cake.
Then the director complains to Dan Curtis and gets Dick thrown off the show because his derrière is too big and his sooty pants are too baggy!
Dan Curtis: “For Chrissakes Lela, will you stop ogling Mary Poppins through the control room microphone??”
That’s very funny, Samantha.
By the way, I’m wondering where Priz is. Any idea?
His last post, “Episode 51: The Mind Plays Tricks” on his weblog DarkShadowsFromTheBeginning.com was almost a month ago on March 10th, which is why I am wondering …
https://darkshadowsfromthebeginning.com/2019/03/10/episode-51-the-mind-plays-tricks/
I would think Priz is OK because he posted several comments here on recent entries of Danny’s blog. Most likely Priz is just busy.
Indeed I am, Count. In fact, I’ve been working on the next post just this afternoon, for the past couple of hours. Believe it or not, I got stuck on a single paragraph — for 3 weeks! You know how there’s the intro for the post and then the “Read More” tag? Well, I wrote that part up over a month ago, and had a paragraph going beyond that but then got stuck. It only occurred to me last weekend, while out on an errand and just walking about during a beautifully tranquil spring afternoon, that I should take a different direction beyond the introductory part of the post as initially planned, and just like that inspiration was once again pouring like rain.
That’s the thing with these blog posts; you can’t just rattle them off like it’s a daily or weekly newspaper column. Dark Shadows is a deep-rooted passion, so writing about it has to be borne of inspiration. Every line, every word, has to be just so. I want Dark Shadows from the Beginning to be perfect.
Episode 52 is a landmark episode, so there’s a whole constellation of background source materials to draw on as well. I should be posting again sometime this week; I was thinking Tuesday, but maybe even Thursday.
Thanks for thinking of me, Count! 🙂 There should be plenty to comment on in this next installment.
I wonder if being fallen in love with by a Collins is a part of the selection criteria… 🙂
Actually, I’m surprised Barnabas hasn’t joined the queue of people falling in love with Daphne. She appears to be just his type!
Don’t forget Leticia! Judah had a whole stable of thralls and it all went POOF when he possessed Gerard. They could’ve rebuilt their precious coven entirely by now if he kept track of his toys.
I know it’s because Kate can’t change clothes that fast, but I find it highly amusing that most of the Collinwood crew just sleep fully clothed with their shoes on on top of the covers now. It’s like they’re acknowledging that nobody goes to bed in this damn house EVER.
Part of watching Dark Shadows (let’s admit it) fall apart in the 1840 timeline (soap opera separating from horror, the Governess who Fascinates the Big Bad achieving weary trope status on her third incarnation (Victoria, then Maggie, now Daphne–honestly, I get Gerard wanting her just because Quentin does, but why in hell would Judah want this prig when he could be revenging himself on Valerie?), all the kaiju world-shaker characters and the best actors too clueless and wandering the periphery) is re-remembering how good a TV presence Jonathan Frid is, even when he is deprived of anything whatsoever to do. He just brings an authority, a kind of assertion and flair that even the most helpless line-blubbery can’t completely undermine: he’s compelling. Thank heavens they went for a character actor with a whiff of high theatricality over just another soap-opera cutie for Barnabas; after weeks of wandering, all plot threads cut loose, among the bland Samanthas and posey Gerards (sorry!) and clueless Quentins and Daphnes, getting a Frid fix again is like an enchanted music box calling back the forgotten past–when we had better reasons to watch Dark Shadows.
Matt Hall, son of Grayson and Sam Hall, recalls a conversation he had with Dan Curtis in 1991 [and I quote here from Matt’s blog]:
“Dan told me the following story about Frid’s hiring:
“Dan had asked his casting people to find a vampire. Then he went to England. While in England, he received two packages of photos of two actors. One had the standard headshot, the other had pictures of an actor on stage. Dan chose the actor on stage, let the casting people know his decision, and continued his work in England. When he returned, Frid was on the set and Dan met him for the first time.
“Then he went upstairs, called his second into his office, shut the door and said: ‘That’s our vampire?! Jesus, he looks like Edward Everett Horton!’
“Which just goes to show—sometimes luck is better than intuition.”
[above excerpt from Matt Hall’s blog]
-Count Catofi
Good thing we didn’t get Bert Convey as Barnabas!
In a parallel universe, Jonathan Frid emerged as a game show host.
He would have been a natural for What’s My Line…
very nice, Michael E, and i quite agree.
I would like to know who (besides Dan Curtis) were the other people involved in the decision to cast Jonathan Frid as Barnabas while Dan was away in England.
Do we even know who they were? Bob Costello? Lela Swift? Somebody else?
I believe writer Ron Sproat may have had some influence in the casting of Jonathan Frid, given how he and Jonathan went way back with both having attended the Yale School of Drama.
At the very least, Sproat would have had a considerable influence in how the role of Barnabas was written. Frid didn’t want to be written as spooky (i.e., “bloodless”, like Bela Lugosi), so this may have opened the way for the portrayal of the “sympathetic vampire”.
Many have said how cold-hearted Barnabas was at first compared to later when he became more of a good-bad guy, but right from his first full episode, number 212, there is a certain depth of character in the yearning he shows when addressing Josette’s portrait in the Old House after having met cousin David for the first time: “Why didn’t you protect me…? Even from that very first soliloquy in that scene he expresses a longing for… stability,… understanding…, love, even.
That’s probably why he became such a compelling character, one the audience could root for as much as be frightened by: because he seemed to have the same hopes and desires as everyone else, punctuated by a sense of unfulfillable longing that aroused the viewer’s sympathy.
I would include Ron Sproat among the “suspects” who favored Frid for the role and for the reasons Priz provided above.
DS writer Malcolm Marmorstein has stated that another idea discussed was to cast a handsome blond actor as Barnabas the vampire, i.e. such as a Tab Hunter type.
Imagine a Tab Hunter type actor as the vampire: The ratings likely would have shot up, at least initially, due to the novelty of a vampire on a soap opera, no matter who was thrust into that role.
Would the blond actor have had sufficient screen presence to maintain viewer interest for the long haul, as Frid succeeded in doing? Hard to say.
Finding a younger blond actor would be the easy part. Finding another actor with Frid’s screen presence would have been difficult to duplicate.
Of course one never knows what might have been …
I saw the scene of Barnabas talking to Josette’s portrait recently and I realized that even at that very early point the seeds of the character were already planted.
There have been many slow points in DS, many less-than-riveting episodes, situations that make little sense, and I get frustrated by all of that and I complain and criticize. But I continue to watch. There is a core group of actors whose characters and performances keep me tuning in. Nancy, Louis, Karlen, Thayer and, especially Grayson and Frid keep me coming back. I can’t quit them.
I can’t cite the source but in my head is the following info:
Jonathan Frid had recently undergone a lot of dental work on his upper teeth, but not the lower ones. Someone, (a show writer?) thought that made Frid’s teeth visually interesting.
So, lacking a reference … I still think it’s a true factoid. When given the task to cast a vampire, wouldn’t the people be thinking about how the actor’s teeth would look? When you look at Frid’s teeth, it sure looks like the uppers were Hollywood perfect but the lowers are not.
shrug I don’t know. My dad had great uppers too because he fell and knocked most of them out when he was in the army. Plastic looks great from a distance.
I sometimes wonder if Frid didn’t have a bridge and he just swapped it for one with fangs. I base this on how good his enunciation was when wearing the fangs. On the other hand, most of the DS actors who wore fangs were better at talking with them in place than modern tv/movie vampires are. I don’t know what the DS secret was but somebody needs to pass it on to modern TV and movie vampires. Or maybe today’s actors need to learn to enunciate properly despite wearing fangs. (The ones on the new TV show What We Do in Shadows seem to talk just fine with their teeth in.)
As an aside, all those older New York actors on DS …uh, by today’s standard’s their teeth are a little stained. Of course, you wouldn’t notice on a B&W TV or even on a color console if you were a kid watching. OK, lastly … those old-timey Collinsport people sure had a lot of fillings. I’m pretty sure the Collins family kept that local hospital running in the 20th century and apparently they had made available rather futuristic dental care to all the citizens for the previous two centuries. Health care in Collinsport seems rather enviable – except for all the dying.
The source you’re referring to is producer Robert Costello; it’s one of the extra features interviews from the DVD set. In this clip, he talks about casting Barnabas; Jonathan Frid’s dentist made the fangs he used on the show, according to this interview:
I always used to wonder about JF’s teeth, like in that scene up in the tower room where in 1795 Bathia Mapes is trying to exorcise the witch’s influence and JF cocks his head back to exclaim a line and you can see his top teeth all the way back; how unusual to have no fillings, they just seemed too perfect somehow, and also didn’t extend that far back.
Costello talks about how JF was having a lot of dental work done on his top teeth. I would think that means he had them capped.
I like the way people’s teeth looked back in those days, meaning actors. Sure, you can tell from his bottom teeth that Jonathan Frid was a heavy smoker, but so what? Very often in those days actors were playing roles portraying ordinary everyday people, and ordinary everyday people do not have perfect teeth. Too much emphasis in recent years placed on the artificial cosmetic look. Although, perhaps, Joan Bennett for one seemed a bit self-conscious about her teeth; her uppers were far from perfect, and I believe this affected the way she smiled. If you notice, throughout her run on Dark Shadows she always smiles with a tight upper lip, never showing her upper teeth the way for instance Nancy Barrett frequently would. The one or two times Joan Bennett does let her teeth show, she just as quickly covers them again.
Anyway, a perfect smile is overrated. What counts is a face that can express character, and no dentist in the world can implant the sort of talent that emanates from within.
Thanks! That’s great!😃
I’m not complaining about the realism, just noting how the norms change. For many years I would see today’s whitened teeth as freaky and unnatural, but I’ve finally gotten used to them, Maybe it’s the dentist thing that allowed DS vampires to still enunciate… if a real dentist makes the teeth, they actually fit. If it’s a prop artist, maybe they don’t fit so well???
My foster dad was a dentist. He specialized in dentures because he didn’t want to do things that forced him to hurt people. He always maintained that if dentures were properly made, people wouldn’t need all the gunk like fixodent that was constantly advertised. (He was in Germany after WWII. I found out during his memorial service that much of the work he did was to ID the dead. I never got that story from him, although he did talk about a job he had when he was a teen. He cleaned the local funeral home in the evenings. He said the dead were neither quiet nor still and he learned to keep his head down and to work quickly.)
I was tempted but never had the nerve to ask him to make me a set of fangs. sigh Such a pity that I let my own emotional twistings stop me from asking. In retrospect, he might have gotten a kick out of it.
Just to confuse the conversation, I remember Lara Parker appearing on The Tonight Show. somewhere around the period when Angelique had returned as vampire; Johnny Carson got her to put in her fangs; she did; and she couldn’t speak with them in at all.
I thought the lore was that Frid would put in the fangs just prior to displaying them in biting scenes . . .
And just to ease the dismissal of poor old Bert Convy, forever dismissed in DS circles as the pretty boy bested by Jonathan Frid in the competition for the role of Barnabas, we should acknowledge that, despite his career swerve into game-show producing and hosting, he had a substantial stage career of his own, originating lead roles in Broadway classics like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof, plus runs in an all-star revival of The Front Page and a replacement gig for Raul Julia in Nine. Curtis was very taken with big, theatrical performers, and Convy had real theater cred. He was no also-ran.
But as Barnabas? No way. Never. That is indisputable.
As you were . . .
Indeed; I would like to peek through that door in the east wing into the Parallel Time where Convy had been hired, to see what he could have brought to the role.
Because whatever else anyone says about Dan Curtis, he seldom gave roles to boring actors.
Equally compelling would have been an east wing Parallel Time glimpse at Jonathan Frid as a TV game show host:
JF: Congratulations, Mrs. Naugahyde. For stumping the celebrity panel, you’ve won $2,000 plus a $1,000 bonus!
Contestant [jumping up and down]: OOOOOhhhhhhhh!!!
JF: Oh, lady! The sound of your voice irritates me! Now please go away and leave me alone. I want to meditate.
JF: Well, Mr. Shagbark, you’ve display– discovered our secret word. And because of that (turns toward camera) you MUST die!
Victoria Winters, announcer: What do you mean? I don’t understand.
Burt Convey was on a short lived sitcom in the 80’s with Patty Duke, Ken Howard, Jayne Meadows, and a teenage Helen Hunt.
As well as an episode of Night Gallery (They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar); a good actor, actually. He would’ve had to have had solid acting chops to be in the original Broadway production of Cabaret (1966):
I wonder if this is how he came to the attention of the Dark Shadows casting director.
I can’t imagine Burt Convy being anywhere near as sinister as Jonathan was when Barnabas was menacing Maggie. Some of those scenes still scare the crap out of me.
On the other hand, I think Convy was cuter and sexier. I’d rather have him bite ME than Frid.
Robert, did you ever catch the Bewitched episode where Convy starred as a mighty handsome Paul Revere? He kissed Samantha’s hand…what a gentleman. He was wearing a cape, of course, over his 18th Century costume. He would have looked great in 1795 Collinwood.
Samantha wrote, “… Convy starred as a mighty handsome Paul Revere … He kissed Samantha’s hand…what a gentleman. He wearing a cape, of course, over his 18th Century costume. He would have looked great in 1795 Collinwood.”
At the time of the Paul Revere episode, both Bewitched and Dark Shadows were basically over-the-hill and trending downward. At the time the Paul Revere episode aired in October of 1970, Dark Shadows was airing episodes 1114-1135 that same month (that would be the 1840 period with Gerard, Gabriel, Samantha).
So there’s three:
Samantha Collins … Samantha Stephens … and Samantha Harris …
🙂
If Bert Convy’s Paul Revere reminds us of Barnabas or Jeremiah, it could be an example of the Bewitched writers borrowing an already popular idea/character (i.e. the refined 18th century gent in a cape) from Dark Shadows.
Count, how did you ever guess? I use Samantha as part of my screen name as a tribute to the ever lovely, gentle and beloved Samantha Stephens. I really like Samantha Collins as well so, the name references both of my favorite TV shows.
“… how did you ever guess?”
It’s possible I might have been influenced by your mention of Bewitched. Perhaps it was also partly a hunch. And partly wordplay. However I honestly didn’t know. I suppose you could (?) have mentioned the Bewitched series in your past comments. But if you did, I can’t recall. I thought it’d be fun to mention that there are 3 Samanthas. I always used to enjoy watching the adventures of Samantha, Darrin, Endora, and both Mrs. Kravitzes (“Abner!!!”).
One of my favorite lines Samantha would speak to Larry Tate (after he’d seen evidence of witchcraft, and then she’d try to cover it up):
Samantha: “How about another drink, Larry?”
Yes. He doesn’t work as well for me in other storylines as he does for others on the board, but in this arc, he was frightening and perfect.
Definitely. Frid was very creepy and often downright scary in the beginning.
When I think of Bert Convey, I see his 70’s permed hair that he had on Love Boat. Not vampire material at all.
However, maybe earlier?
http://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/bert-convy-67149
Well, what do you know? I do believe they have a certain look in mind for the role of Barnabas.
People can make fun of those leisure suits all they want, and maybe they’re right, but if any male ever looked PERFECTLY AT HOME in one, it was Bert Convy.
Speaking of weird things, he also played one of Dick Miller’s accidental victims who end up as statues in Roger Corman’s BUCKET OF BLOOD.
Ohhh, Bucket of Blood! Great film!
@ Samantha Harris, who wrote “… did you ever catch the Bewitched episode where Convy starred as a mighty handsome Paul Revere? He kissed Samantha’s hand…what a gentleman. He was wearing a cape, of course, over his 18th Century costume. He would have looked great in 1795 Collinwood.”
You are absolutely correct to raise the issue of whether Dan Curtis and the DS writers might have incorporated into DS elements of “Bewitched” (1964-1972) and other very popular contemporaneous TV shows from the 1960s.
Short answer: Yes, they most definitely would have done it.
By the time all of us commenters are done commenting on Danny’s and Prisoner’s blogs, we may come to the conclusion that almost everything on DS was derivative as opposed to original material!
I’m beginning to wonder if the only original elements were Sy Tomashoff’s sets and Bob Cobert’s music!?!? Oh, and maybe also the Laura the phoenix story.
It warmed my heart to read the discussion above regarding Bewitched. I had no idea that Bert Convy was considered for Barnabas. I really would’ve liked to see that, but agree that Convy couldn’t have been anywhere near as menacing as Frid.
In the séance Roxanne’s ghost seems to appear front left of the table yet everyone looked to the back of the table while talking to her. But I suppose at this point nobody cared for realism.
And speaking of realism and Bewitched LOL…this same night ABC aired Bewitched Episode 211: “The Corsican Cousins” where Endora casts a spell on Samantha that whatever fun-loving cousin Serena feels, Samantha will too, which causes some embarrassing moments with a client’s snooty wife.
Also, this DS episode number is 1164 which is the house number of Darrin and Samantha’s house.