Here's the British pressbook for Jack Palance's Dracula (1973), directed by Dan Curtis (a television production). Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula has more to do with Curtis' movie version than Bram Stoker's novel. Curtis explored the romantic past of Dracula and his lost love.
By Professor Kinema
It was something unprecedented for afternoon programming. In fact, it was unprecedented for television programming for its time. Dark Shadows first aired on June 26, 1966 on the ABC network. Inspired by a dream, Dan Curtis created what would enter TV history as the first Gothic Daytime Serial, or as some would refer to it, soap opera. Even though it originally did not contain any supernatural elements, about 6 months into its run ghosts were introduced into the storyline. After another six months the ratings were sagging. At this point it was felt that yet a new and etremely unique element was to be added: a vampire.
Around show number 210 Barnabas Collins was introduced. Series creator Dan Curtis took his daughter's advice to "make the show scarier." At first, only Barnabas's hand was seen at the end of one episode. The character was a 175 year old vampire mistakenly resurrected and unearthed. As he was primarily concieved his character was to cause some mayhem, then be on the recieving end of a stake. However, viewers took to him totally, so the stake element was dropped. Due to the writing talent of the show, and the gifted insight of the actor playing the part, the entity of the Vampire was redifined. This metamorphosis reflected the times in which it was all happening. Such reinvention occurs regularly.
Although I wasn't entirely a fan of the series, I was definitely aware of its popularity. Friends who regularly followed it would state that they had to 'get home to watch Barnabas on TV after school.' On the magazine racks in local stationary stores Dark Shadows comics were turning up with the face of Barnabas adorning the covers. A minor cultural phenonema was happening.
I first saw Jonathan Frid 'in the flesh' during the summer of 1970. Friends and I decided to make the jaunt to the uncharted wastes of New Jersey. Our objective was to spend the day at the then still existing Palisades Park. On that particular day a beauty contest was occuring. The theme was 'Miss Vampire.' The contestants were dressed in various Goth-ish costumes. While being interviewed a few, getting into the spirit of the proceedings, added to their images by answering in bizarre, Germanic accents. When it came time for judging, the host introduced "...the one and only, Barnabas." Jonathan Frid walked out onto the platform and made a comic gesture, shielding his eyes from the vampire-damaging rays of the sun. He was not in costume but rather conservatively dressed in a suit. It was all in ghoulish fun.
In 1984 I was asked to be an 11th hour replacement for author Leonard Wolf at a Dark Shadows convention at the Gateway Hilton (again, New Jersey). The recommendation came from a friend of mine, Dr. Stephan Kaplan. Kaplan was a self proclaimed 'Vampirologist' who made appearances at such conventions relating stories of his investigations (and alleged deadly encounters) with 'real life' vampires. This was the second official Dark Shadows convention. Wolf, of the Count Dracula Society, was to talk about the Vampire in Literature. My presentation was, roughly, A Brief History of the Cinema Vampire. At the conclusion of our presentations, Jonathan Frid was brought out. We all sat down and fielded questions from the audience.
Since the room was jammed with hardcore Dark Shadows fans, naturally the focus of attention was turned to Barnabas himself. He would at times instruct the fans to address Dr. Kaplan and myself with other questions relating to what we were talking about earlier. The fans were respectful and did toss comments and questions our way, but after all...this was a Dark Shadows convention. The main fact Jonathan Frid was emphasizing was, "I was just an actor who was playing a part in a TV daytime series." Like many bonified media cult figures, he was truly baffled with his cult status.
I have a fond memory of that Dark Shadows convention, the organizers, the devoted body of fans who were there and, especially, Jonathan Frid himself. He was friendly and personable. An accout of this convention morphed into a chapter of a book titled True Tales of the Unknown, the Uninvited (1989, Bantan Books). In the chapter titled (what else?) Dark Shadows, Kaplan related the events of the day, our presentations to the fans, our involvement with Jonathan Frid, and how it all led him into an involvement with a real, bonafide vampire.
According to the obits, Jonathan Frid's career continued and flourished. Occasionally, he would be involved with other fantastic projects. He starred opposite Shelley Winters in the 1973 TV movie The Devil’s Daughter; the next year he played a horror writer in Seizure, Oliver Stone’s first feature. Returning to the stage, he played Jonathan Brewster — a role originated by Boris Karloff — in a 1986 Broadway revival of the macabre comedy Arsenic and Old Lace.
He makes a cameo appearance in Tim Burton's soon to be released Dark Shadows movie (along with several other DS alumni). Trained for the classical theater and adept at doing Shakespeare (for which he won awards) it may be possible that something ethereal and mildly diabolical was guiding his destiny.
After all, he left this realm on Friday the 13th.
Zombos Says: Excellent
For me, and many like me, the impact of Fright Night has not lessened over time, but the generation that I am part of, the one that can truly appreciate this era, is rapidly aging. It's not difficult to imagine a point in the not too distant future where Fright Night, and all the programs like it, may be lost to fading memories and a society no longer interested in such antiquities. (James Arena)
I'm not as big a fan as James Arena is, but his passion for Fright Night, a horror-hostless, near midnight showcase of the good, the bad, and the ugly in fantastic cinema, that ran on New York's WOR-TV from 1973 to 1987, is well shared in Fright Night on Channel 9 from McFarland Press.
I don't often read McFarland titles because they're awfully expensive and not all of them are well-written or carefully researched. Being a Brooklyn boy growing up watching Channel 11 and Channel 9's sumptuous telecasts of horror and science fiction movies, both foreign and domestic, I couldn't resist Arena's book. If you're familiar with Fright Night, or just love to read about television in the days before anyone could see just about anything they fancied anytime they chose, this book is a gem of interviews, anecdotal nostalgia, and glimpses into how the biz worked to bring packages of movies to affiliate stations on a regular basis. We're talking pre-video and pre-digital here, when stations ran 16 and 35mm prints, spliced up the film reels frame by frame for commercials, and did a little editing to run in allotted times and--more or less--to remove the occassional booby show, or overly nastiness, not fit for young eyes.
Within the two parts of Fright Night on Channel 9, Arena recalls the ritual of watching Fright Night regularly at the late-night hour as well as capturing that unique feeling of excitement of finally getting to see that movie you had heard was so awesome or so awful you just had to see it. Part One: The Story of Fright Night provides the history of the show, enriched by the interviews and the wheeling and dealing work involved to acquire "product" like Universal's horror pictures, Hemisphere's Block of Shock package of movies, and Samuel M. Sherman's Independent-International Pictures Corp. and his Euro-horror movies for the show's run. Part Two: The Films of Fright Night lists all the movies that were shown with airdates. Arena goes further than simply regurgitating plot synopses by adding his personal observations to the various entries, making this part enjoyable reading as well as informative.
Hanging onto the movies once they were contracted for play wasn't always easy. The highlight of the book for me is Samuel M. Sherman's recounting of a run-in with a bankrupt processing lab holding his 16mm prints of his Exorcism at Midnight and House of Doom. The WOR contract stipulated delivery of a specified number of movies and couldn't be fulfilled while the lab held onto them. Elements of the shyster lawyer, the payola-or-kiss-your-prints-goodbye scenario, and the eventual showdown, to strong arm the prints from the lab, is a wild and wooly story.
I read Fright Night on Channel 9 in one night. Half of my effort was made because I remembered the unique experience of watching the show, and others like it, which has shaped my horror habit of today, but the other half is because James Arena kept me up late with his vivid remembrance of a culturally significant "antiquity" that shouldn't be forgotten, nor the people who made it so.
The release of the zombies from the barn in last night's mid-season finale of The Walking Dead capped what, to me, has been an involving dramatic soap opera so far. It's telling that survive-at-all-costs-Shane sets them loose to "kill" them, but it's Rick who eventually shoots Sophia, surprising everyone when she staggers out of the barn. She's been there all along. That hurt. So it bothers me that some fans, a friend or two, and some critics keep asking "where's the beef-eating zombies?"
Readers of the comic book series ARE readers because it tells its story through the turmoil of the living, who live with the threat of being chomped on at any given moment. Zombies attack, but that's not the point nor should it be the focus of every issue, or in this case, every television episode. How many times, and in how many creative ways, can we feast our eyes on watching zombies attack? Sure, it's gruesome fun, but at the end of the day, it's the story that counts, not the kill-rate on either side.
Great classic television series always focus on the characters first, then the events happening around them, and their reactions to those events. Their turmoil, disagreements, sadness, happiness, agreements, and life or death defining moments simply can't be conveyed in every episode through a simplistic car chase action solution to tidy it up and provide eye-candy for short attention spans.
I recommend hunkering down and living the drama with Rick, Shane, and everyone else. The zombies will come when their good and ready. Me, I rather see how the living survive each other.
Zombos Says: Good
I don’t fully buy into the haunted-objects-causing-disturbances premise of Syfy’s new reality-based spook show, Haunted Collector: it smacks too much of Warehouse 13 and that Canadian television series, Friday the 13th (a deal with the devil produces cursed antiques), only they have Robey and Allison Scagliotti to emote dramatically. In Haunted Collector there’s only John Zaffis and his paranormal team, and they’re surprisingly so down to earth when finding possible culprits, you wonder what all the fuss is about. Zaffis doesn’t even lock up his collection of troubling artifacts. He keeps them in his basement. Can he sleep soundly at night without all that bad mojo giving him nightmares? I didn’t see him using any of that purple Warehouse 13 neutralizing goop, so I wonder.
I’m part skeptical and part susceptible: I had an incident with an old hand-crank Victrola back in the 1960s. Long story short, it came into the house, weird things began to happen (including shadows where none should have been), and my mom had it taken out of the house. Where it went I’m not sure, because it was placed in the trunk of a car—and that car disappeared shortly after that.
Two cases are investigated in the premiere episode: the first in a Louisiana home and the second in a Connecticut library.
In Louisiana, other-worldly irritations like footsteps, voices, and cold spots are upsetting Jill. When Zaffis arrives, his team pulls out the EMF detectors, and Beth—who is not a psychic, just very sensitive—focuses on a clown jar, which is creepy as hell (I’d have chucked it into the garbage immediately, EMF or not). An EVP question “do you want the tenants to leave” produces a clearly heard Yes, making Jill a lot more upset. A large cold spot on the kitchen floor has the team going under the house to find a box with a mud-caked 1950s gun in it. Jill has no qualms letting Zaffis add the gun to his collection.
In Connecticut, a library is so haunted the kids are too scared to go in. The usual claims of seeing apparitions, voices without bodies, and an old, non-electric typewriter that dings on its own have the team doing their EMF sweeps and investigating the library’s history. One interesting part of the investigation involved the team going old school and hanging rope around the typewriter, to see if the strands moved. Videotaping and EVP’ing also were employed, especially around the typewriter, which showed high EMF readings. I think at this stage, after so many episodes of Ghost Hunters, the constant explanations of EMF and EVP are superfluous and unwelcome time-killers. Maybe word balloons or some other informational popup instead of having Zaffis and his team explain them EACH TIME THEY USE THEM could be used instead.
What will keep me watching this series is the detective work: there’s a mystery to be solved in each case and a revelation of the perpetrator to be made. Zaffis and his team seem quite capable at handling that. And I’m hoping they run into an old Victrola: I’d really like to know what happened to it.
Zombos Says: Excellent
But whether naive or deliberate, pop or queer, Dark Shadows camp appeal is one of its strongest drawing points, one that many fans of the show appreciated immediately, while others "grew into it" as they got older (Harry M. Benshoff)
If words like diagesis (narrative), quotidian (commonplace), and metonymy (figure of speech and then some) give you frissons (chills) reading them, Harry M. Benshoff's academically-jargoned analytical look at Dark Shadows may not be for you. But I still recommend you give it a try: Benshoff keeps his usage of them to a minimum while the rest of his words, albeit quotidian, are well chosen, probing, and informative.
This pocket-sized book in the TV Milestones Series will initiate the merely interested reader and satisfy the devoted fan with its concise yet comprehensive coverage of this influencial, episodic Gothicmash of beasties and ghosties that originally aired from 1966 to 1971 on American television.
I was and still am one of those fans. As an impressionable kid, running home after school each day to watch the latest episode was an imperative. I was so hooked I even chose Barnabas as my Confirmation name. I blame actor Jonathan Frid for that; his memorable role of tormented vampire Barnabas Collins, with its romantically-tinged pathos overshadowed by his cursed sanguine darkness, propelled the series' unusual supernatural sashays into witchcraft, lycanthropy, Lovecraftian Mythos, hauntings, and vexing time travel well beyond 1960s soap opera pablum. Campy? Sure. Earnest in its low budget Gothic-noir intentions? Very much so. Groundbreaking in its use of the episodic soap dynamic to "sell" its spooky shenanigans to a wider audience of enamored housewives, counter-culture leaning teenagers, and easily seduced kids like me? Positively. Years after its initial run, Dark Shadows still thrives on DVD, through conventions and fan fiction, and in a planned movie reimagining courtesy of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.
Benshoff ably covers the cultural influences the show had (and still exerts), and details the daily business grind of producing it within budget and on time, which contributed to all those endearing flubbed line-readings, wobbly sets, and poorly chosen camera angles revealing smoke pots and fake trees. No other series on television has captured the giddy, slightly naughty fun radiating from the horror host pastiche of sly, self-referential cheekiness with horror as much as Dark Shadows. Not as blatantly campy as Adam West's Batman--the epitome of camp in the 1960s--but more subtle in its winking at the audience at a time when "there was a thriving "monster culture" in the United States."
From its generic story lines, full-throttle performances, cheap sets, and outlandish narrative events, Dark Shadows almost begs to be decoded as camp: what is meant to be frightening is also often ludicrously amusing.
But Dark Shadows was never played for laughs; whatever campiness emerged came from its stage actors and a serious approach to the "often ludicrously amusing" events. And to fans of the horreur fantastique like me, 'ludicrously amusing' is the bread and butter of our devotion to the genre.
In Chapter 4, Television Melodrama and Episodic Structure--my favorite section--Benshoff examines the series' daily format that maintained its "rigid narrative structure." His analysis of the voice-over during the opening credits, Robert Cobert's atmospheric music, the composition of shots, set design, thematic elements of episodes, and costuming is revealing and absorbing. In Chapter 7, Legacy, he rightly places Dark Shadows as the antecedent to the Gothic franchises of today, especially because of its "narrative importance of serialization." The two theatrical releases, House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows are also assessed here, along with the vagina dentata imagery to be found in Night's one-sheet poster.
Hippie appeal, the actors , fandom, and the possible queer subtext to be found in all the male and female bonding going on around Collinwood round out Benshoff's more-than-a-mouthful's worth of thought-provoking reading available in handy monograph size.
More Dark Shadows memories from Professor Kinema. Here's the VHS catalog from MPI Home Video. You remember VHS don't you? Just remember to rewind.
Continue reading "Dark Shadows 25th Anniversary
MPI Home Video Catalogue" »
Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch) attended the Dark Shadows Festival of 1984, with Jonathan Frid in attendance. The professor was a guest speaker, delivering a presentation on 'The Cinema of the Vampire." He was an 11th hour replacement for author Leonard Wolf. The convention and Jim are mentioned in the Dark Shadows chapter (#20) of True Tales of the Unknown, the Uninvited.
Here's the Festival Program (pdf), and Jim's mementos from the event.
Let me assure you, my friends, this is a thriller! (host Boris Karloff)
The first horror-tinged episode in the television series Thriller is The Purple Room, written and directed by Douglas Heyes. It first aired a little ahead of Halloween on October 25th. It also scared the Dickens out of me and many other viewers, a foreshadowing that Thriller would become one of the best horror anthology series--Stephen King in his Danse Macabre considers it the best--done for the small screen.
Have you any idea what it takes to scare you or me in-between commercial interruptions (when the series originally aired)? The producers and talent behind Thriller assuredly did, once they moved away from the crime story episodes and allowed Boris Karloff, the epitome of the horror mood, to introduce his kind of story. Recently released in a complete 14 disc DVD set that includes all 67 episodes remastered, with commentary and additional features added, Thriller can be savored like a fine, tingly-tart wine: take a sip from Robert Bloch's Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper; swish around a little of Robert E. Howard's Pigeons From Hell; then gulp down Donald S. Sanford's The Incredible Dr. Markesan. If your head should get a little fuzzy, go lie down in The Purple Room.
Duncan Corey (Rip Torn) inherits a Baton Rouge Victorian mansion, complete with threadbare carpets, dreary drapes, and tragic ghost story. The will stipulates he spend one year living in the house before he rightfully owns it; that is, one year after one mandatory night spent in the desolate house, which Norman Bates recently vacated (horror fans will immediately recognize it as the Bates Mansion from Psycho). Duncan smugly agrees, knowing a land developer will pay handsomely for the property. His cousins, Oliver (Richard Anderson) and Rachel (Patricia Barry), drive him to the mansion and make sure he's made as uncomfortable as possible by telling him all the sordid details of the death and madness that took place in the purple room. Hint: they will inherit the property if he doesn't.
With no electricity, candle-light and noir shadows make the atmosphere dramatically gloomy. Duncan tells his cousins he expects them to try and scare him. He warns them he's armed and shows his handgun. He even bangs the walls looking for the secret passages they might use to skulk around in. When they drink liquor from a decantor in the purple room, he exchanges drinks in case they try to drug him. After Oliver and Rachel leave, creepy sounds of doors opening, chains rattling, and things walking around--best left unseen--begin, causing Duncan to joke how amateurish their attempt to frighten him is. But are his cousins doing it? Duncan holds our attention as he alternates between cockiness and uncertainty, making us wonder if it's real or fake, until he walks into one of those best left unseen situations.
The intense black and white chiaroscuro and Boris Karloff's signature presence make this episode a thriller best left seen.
I haven't reviewed a DVD release before by starting with its extras, but with Dan Curtis' Dead of Night from Dark Sky I will because they are wonderful additions to this anthology first aired on television in 1977.
The standard photo gallery and unimportant clipped footage are here, but more pleasant surprises await fans of Dan Curtis' atmospheric approach to daytime television terror: the many Rober Cobert highlight music tracks and the pilot for the proposed Dead of Night series, A Darkness at Blaisedon.
Robert Cobert's orchestral compositions for Dark Shadows are identified more with Dan Curtis than him, but this association shows how integral Cobert's music is to Curtis' eerie, American Gothic atmosphere and its inhabitants. Cobert's string, wind, and percussive instrumentals amplify Curtis' romance-charged supernatural world of dark forces and dark beings, demanding an emotional response from us. You don't listen to a Cobert score, you dread its alarming tones, experience its mortifying portents, and anticipate its inevitable chilling denoument. The tracks included provide a good sampling of the tonal qualities and scales he used to produce his music's dread and terror tones.
A Darkness at Blaisedon, stars Kerwin Mathews as paranormal investigator Jonathan Fletcher. Along with his assistant, Sajeed Rau (Cal Bellini), both investigate the newly inherited--and very haunted--mansion now owned by Angela Martin (Marj Dusay). The American Gothic sets are elaborate, the pace 1969-slow (this would have been for daytime television, in the vein of Dark Shadows), and the premise would have provided for varied story ideas spread across the paranormal spectrum. Thayer David as the stone-faced caretaker provides the usual melodramatics as he struggles to keep the secret of Blaisedon from being discovered. If you've seen The Uninvited (1944), this will all seem familiar.
A Darkness at Blaisedon shows its age. In the opening, Fletcher and Sajeed examine a sarcophagus with a conveniently hinged lid, and throughout the production closeups are often executed abruptly. Still, Mathews in his cozy sweater and Bellini as the youthful and more daring assistant give it a charming dynamic that draws you into the mystery as they unravel it.
Of the three stories directed by Dan Curtis in Dead of Night, the first is from a short story by Jack Finney (screenplay by Richard Matheson) and the last two from Matheson directly, with his Bobby being the scary gem of the three. Finney's Second Chance shows his penchant for nostalgic time travel, mixing in a bittersweet twist at the end.
Ed Begley Jr. is the perfect choice to play Frank: both his look and demeanor say old-fashioned before he even speaks, and when he does speak, his voice makes you imagine he's wearing a straw boater while serenading with his ukulele.
Frank restores old cars and one day discovers a 1926 Jordan Playboy rusting in a barn. The owner tells him the tragic history, how it was involved in a fatal wreck back in 1926, when a couple of carefree young lovers tried to outrun a train.
Frank works his magic. In short time he restores the Jordan Playboy to its pre-wreck condition, including its green body paint and original license plate. He takes it for a spin on a quiet back road instead of the faster highway--he explains--because it was not designed for modern highways, but for leisurely rides through winding country roads. His late afternoon ride takes him all the way back to 1926, on the night those young lovers died. Second Chance is an unusually quiet and evocative story for Curtis to direct and he does it well. It relies on our fondly imagined yesterdays and picnic basket summers to weave its mystery. It isn't horror: it is a fantasy like the kind you would see on an Amazing Stories episode.
In the second story, Matheson brings us closer to familiar Dan Curtis territory with a period piece. Suspected vampire attacks on the wife of Dr. Gheria (Patrick Macnee), have alarmed the village and his butler (Elisha Cook Jr.). Dozens of garlic bulbs hung across doors and windows, wafting their eye-stinging odor throughout the rooms of the estate, have proven ineffective in stopping the blood loss. Dr. Gheria seeks help from one of his acquaintances, Michael (Horst Buchholz). They put up the coffee pot and stay awake in hope of stopping the vampire.
Or so it seems. There is a twist ending here, one reminiscent of an EC Comics' story, although not as lurid or shocking, and it unfolds like a Tales From the Darkside episode. Of the three stories, this is the weakest because it doesn't capitalize on the hystrionics of Elisha Cook Jr., ignores Patrick Macnee's natural gentlemanly charm, and Curtis' tepid direction adds little to spice it up. Without more stylized camerawork and pacing, and better use of his actors' talents, there is no suspense and little surprise when the truth is revealed at the end.
Dan Curtis territory (traveled by Matheson's dark road) is reached in the last story, Bobby, with suitably terrifying results. Joan Hackett plays a distraught mother whose son dies by drowning. She blames herself and will do anything to get him back, even drawing a magic circle on the floor of her beachside home on the cliff, lighting black candles, and commanding her son be returned to her with lots of "I command thees" directed at anyone listening in the netherworld.
It works. He returns. She lets him in, and like what happens in The Monkey's Paw, there is an awful price to pay for interfering with fate (not to mention the phone charges when dialing the netherworld).
That terrifying price starts with Bobby acting strangely and asking "Was I a good boy, mommy?" and increases when a sudden game of hide and seek and avoid the sharp objects ensues and she runs for her life. Handheld camerawork, dutch shots of Joan Hackett frantically seeking to understand what's happening, and Bobby's distant, giggling voice, effectively build tension until the revelation on the staircase. The stormy night and electricity going out are standard touches but help ramp up the scary atmosphere, and Cobert's score hits all the right notes for terror, hysteria, and the payout for that netherworld phone bill. Bobby is quintessential Curtis and Matheson, and it still retains its power to bring the terror to you.
Zombos Says: Sublime
MARTIN
(nods, slowly)
I see that now. But I don't understand. Why not?
ROBERT
(softly)
I guess because we only get one chance.
(a crooked smile)
Maybe there's only one summer to a customer.
The fifth scripted episode of the Twilight Zone, Walking Distance, written by Rod Serling, aired on October 30th, 1959. It concerns one Martin Sloan (Gig Young), age thirty-six, burned-out, fed up, and racing his expensive sports car into the distance where neither the direction nor time it will take is something he's sure of. He just wants out. What he wants out from is back there in New York City, the place he's racing away from. What he hopes to find is somewhere ahead of him, but it's still quite a distance away. How close he comes to finding it will be a little side trip; a brief moment of respite, bittersweet and soft to touch, but it will remain a little side trip nonetheless, because he still has quite a ways to go.
Call it the Golden Age, nostalgia, the uncluttered simplicity of childhood memories filled with cold ice cream eaten on hot summer days, endless bike rides, and sparse responsibilities making abundant time uniquely your own. We each have our own special slice of Golden Age pie gulped down deeply within us. Some may get a bigger piece, and for some it may not be as sweet, but it's there to be savored, especially during those grown-up times of inner turmoil and uncertainty when we long to go back for another taste.
For Martin Sloan, his unforgettable slice of pie is Homewood, the place where he grew up, filling his childhood days with shooting marbles, playing ball, and riding the merry-go-round. For me it would be Brooklyn, for you, who knows, it could be anyplace. He's driven back there by the 1950's Rat Race of mundane routine, his days now filled with endless meetings and warding off fierce competition to his successful status qou, driving him to seek his own personal status quo ante. He gets his chance when his car needs a few hours servicing. Homewood's only a mile and a half away from the gas station, walking distance for someone who's got some time on his hands. Strange that he doesn't recognize how close he is to the town where he grew up. Maybe it has been that long.
The time machine he steps into, cleverly designed as a drugstore complete with soda fountain, has him reminiscing over his love for three-chocolate-scoop sodas, only a dime each. The suddenly familiar counter-clerk makes him one. It still costs a dime. He steps out of the time machine and into Homewood; his Homewood. The one he remembers and can't forget. The one where you can down three-chocolate-scoop sodas and not worry about gaining weight. Ever.
What Serling wrote about in 1959, the longing we all succumb to when age bends us a little lower, and time twists us a lot tighter, remains as true today as it did then. Call it timeless. Only today you may be tempted to replace those ice cream sodas with something else that starts with an i, or maybe ends with an ii. But the sentiment is the same. Martin's sturm und drang is ours, today, tomorrow, always.
When Martin realizes he's fallen backward in time he desperately tries to stay. Wouldn't you? But his younger self is still growing older and riding the merry-go-round and gulping down all those dime sodas. There isn't room enough for the two of them. Martin realizes this eventually. Reluctantly. But his dad (Frank Overton) convinces Martin he must leave and let his younger and happier self enjoy the best time of his life. It's his summer now, only he doesn't know that because he's just a kid. How could he? Martin tries to make his younger self understand this, but winds up hurting both of them. Would that 'one summer to a customer' be as carefree and happy for you if you knew it wouldn't last?
For every idyll-personified summer there usually follows a winter of discontent. Serling tackles this inevitable seasonal change of sentiment again in A Stop at Willoughby, The Incredible World of Horrace Ford, and Kick the Can. But it is here in Homewood he's at his persuasive best in conveying the emptiness that leads to desperation that leads to a desire to return to the child grown over by the adult and those wonderful days of summer that grow regrettably shorter into the Fall.
NARRATOR'S VOICE
...And perhaps across his mind they'll flit a little errant wish...that a man might not have to become old...never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth.
(a pause)
And he'll smile then too because he'll know it is just an errant wish. Some wisp of memory not too important really. Some laughing ghosts that cross a man's mind...that are a part of the Twilight Zone.
The locals call us "The Bready." We happily employ 12 percent of Haplin's residents, and we are proud to make Haplin a place where the air is alive with the aroma of fresh baking bread, all the live-long day! Enjoy! (Our Daily, Baking and Confectionary, Haplin, MN)
Zombos Says: Very Good
Measure two fingers of sinister mystery from American Gothic, add a dash of Stephen Kingish small-town-hiding-dark-secrets, spice with serial murderer and missing people, stir in an all too quiet and aloof visitor, Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), top off with a more recent visitor who's way too anxious to ascend the staircase leading to the dark third floor of the boarding house she's staying at, and finally dabble assorted bitters of quirky townsfolk and a sheriff and his son in over their heads. Shake it all violently, garnish liberally with tidbits of plot, then knock back this new series on ABC called Happy Town: it's quite a rush given the promise shown in this first episode, In This Home on Ice.
Continue reading "Television: Happy Town
American Gothic Terror Returns to TV" »
