Master of Dark Shadows
Original post date: 2 May 2019
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
My first question upon seeing this documentary about producer/director Dan Curtis and the phenomenon he spawned with his idea of a Gothic soap opera was: is this really directed by the guy who used to host Meet the Press on NBC? No, that’s not right. My first question was: why has no one made this movie before and what took so long? For the record, the filmmaker behind it, David Gregory, is not the well-known television journalist but rather the auteur behind 2008’s filmed-in-Connecticut Plague Town in which, according to IMDb, an “American family visiting their Irish roots accidentally stumbles on a horde of bloodthirsty mutant children.” In the past couple of decades, Gregory has made a slew of documentaries, long and short, about all kinds of topics relating to film and filmmaking with a particular emphasis on the outré. Now he has taken on a subject for which many of us have been waiting literally for decades: the career of the late great Dan Curtis. Unsurprisingly, much of the 92-minute running time is taken up with the phenomenon that was and is Dark Shadows. Much of the information and material has already been available through various books and videos made in support of fan conventions and home video releases, but this movie brings the highlights together in one watchable, professionally-produced package. If any other bona fides are needed, look no further than the film’s producer, Jim Pierson, longtime keeper of the Dark Shadows flame through books, festivals and audio dramas. The doc dutifully follows Curtis’s career from The CBS Match Play Golf Classic to his fabled idea of a series based on a dream he (literally) had, his struggle to break free of the supernatural genre, and his triumph at the Emmys with The Winds of War. There is plenty of interview footage with Curtis himself—and also his daughters—as well as more recent clips of surviving cast members, notably Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, David Selby, Jerry Lacy, Roger Davis and John Karlen. Because Curtis kept returning to Dark Shadows (two feature films, a 1991 NBC revival, an abortive 2004 WB revival), I had assumed Curtis had some obsession with the story that did not allow him to let go of it. The picture painted by this film is that he actually felt trapped by his supernatural success and kept getting pulled back unwillingly toward it. As for the actors, they all seem delighted to have been part of the phenomenon—even David Selby who was reported to be embarrassed by it when he was riding high as a star of Falcon Crest in the 1980s. It is poignant to hear Lara Parker talk about how she left New York for California with dreams of becoming a Hollywood star only to realize that the best role of her life had been as the beautiful enchantress Angelique. It is also good to hear from writer Malcolm Marmorstein and composer Robert Cobert, as well as actors Ben Cross and Barbara Steele (stars of the 1991 version). Additionally, Steele was a producer along with Curtis on The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and so, like many of the others, has plenty to say about his outsized personality and what he was like to work with. Perhaps the biggest surprise is to learn what a big fan Whoopi Goldberg is and that she was one of us who ran home from school every day to watch the show. Sure, I wish there could have been more time devoted to writers and actors who are no longer with us (notably, the likes of Grayson Hall and Thayer David), but in the end this movie (available on DVD and home video) is really Curtis’s story, and that is as it should be.
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
My first question upon seeing this documentary about producer/director Dan Curtis and the phenomenon he spawned with his idea of a Gothic soap opera was: is this really directed by the guy who used to host Meet the Press on NBC? No, that’s not right. My first question was: why has no one made this movie before and what took so long? For the record, the filmmaker behind it, David Gregory, is not the well-known television journalist but rather the auteur behind 2008’s filmed-in-Connecticut Plague Town in which, according to IMDb, an “American family visiting their Irish roots accidentally stumbles on a horde of bloodthirsty mutant children.” In the past couple of decades, Gregory has made a slew of documentaries, long and short, about all kinds of topics relating to film and filmmaking with a particular emphasis on the outré. Now he has taken on a subject for which many of us have been waiting literally for decades: the career of the late great Dan Curtis. Unsurprisingly, much of the 92-minute running time is taken up with the phenomenon that was and is Dark Shadows. Much of the information and material has already been available through various books and videos made in support of fan conventions and home video releases, but this movie brings the highlights together in one watchable, professionally-produced package. If any other bona fides are needed, look no further than the film’s producer, Jim Pierson, longtime keeper of the Dark Shadows flame through books, festivals and audio dramas. The doc dutifully follows Curtis’s career from The CBS Match Play Golf Classic to his fabled idea of a series based on a dream he (literally) had, his struggle to break free of the supernatural genre, and his triumph at the Emmys with The Winds of War. There is plenty of interview footage with Curtis himself—and also his daughters—as well as more recent clips of surviving cast members, notably Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, David Selby, Jerry Lacy, Roger Davis and John Karlen. Because Curtis kept returning to Dark Shadows (two feature films, a 1991 NBC revival, an abortive 2004 WB revival), I had assumed Curtis had some obsession with the story that did not allow him to let go of it. The picture painted by this film is that he actually felt trapped by his supernatural success and kept getting pulled back unwillingly toward it. As for the actors, they all seem delighted to have been part of the phenomenon—even David Selby who was reported to be embarrassed by it when he was riding high as a star of Falcon Crest in the 1980s. It is poignant to hear Lara Parker talk about how she left New York for California with dreams of becoming a Hollywood star only to realize that the best role of her life had been as the beautiful enchantress Angelique. It is also good to hear from writer Malcolm Marmorstein and composer Robert Cobert, as well as actors Ben Cross and Barbara Steele (stars of the 1991 version). Additionally, Steele was a producer along with Curtis on The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and so, like many of the others, has plenty to say about his outsized personality and what he was like to work with. Perhaps the biggest surprise is to learn what a big fan Whoopi Goldberg is and that she was one of us who ran home from school every day to watch the show. Sure, I wish there could have been more time devoted to writers and actors who are no longer with us (notably, the likes of Grayson Hall and Thayer David), but in the end this movie (available on DVD and home video) is really Curtis’s story, and that is as it should be.
Comments
Post a Comment