With More Sex And Violence
January/19/1991 Filed in: TV Guide
TV Guide
January 19 - 25, 1991
Vol. 39, No. 3
Pages 7-8 & 11
With More Sex And Violence, A Re-Vamped Dark Shadows Sinks Its Teeth Into Prime Time
By Mary Murphy
Dozens of people are gathered in the basement of a 55-room mansion for the filming of NBC's Dark Shadows as actor Roy Thinnes (playing an 18th-century witch hunter named Reverend Trask) is walled up behind a stack of bricks. Smoke and cobwebs fill the room. Thinnes's eyes flash with terror. Ben Cross, playing vampire Barnabas Collins, is about to complete his victim's makeshift tomb. “I beg you, I implore you – don't do this!” Trask screams as the last brick is put into place, sealing his fate forever.
It's a spine-chilling moment, but as far as Dan Curtis is concerned, it just isn't convincing enough. Curtis, the co-creator of the original Dark Shadows and the director and executive producer of NBC's new version of the cult-favorite soap opera, paces up and down, his patience wearing thin, becoming more and more unhappy with the way things are going.
“We can do better than this,” he barks. “Let's just stop messing around.”
The tension on the set is a mark of the importance NBC is attaching to Dark Shadows. With prime-time audiences continuing to decline and no runaway fall hits to its credit, the network finds itself in need of a fresh success. And Curtis has been working his cast and crew to the edge of exhaustion trying to deliver one. What he's come up with is a far cry from the Gothic daytime drama so many baby boomers grew up with.
The original Dark Shadows, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, was an afternoon serial about the Collins family of rustic Collinsport, Maine. Its most notable member, Barnabas, just happened to be your basic bloodsucking creature of the night. Despite that fact – or perhaps because of it – a huge audience that included not only home-makers but schoolchildren, teenagers and college students as well made the series into such a hit that it still has a cult following today.
The new version, which retains virtually all the major characters from the original, plus its habit of jumping around from century to century, debuted as a four-hour TV-movie Jan. 13-14 and now resides on Fridays at 9 P.M. (ET). It has richer production values and more realistic special effects than its predecessor, and it's considerably more adult. “We're not doing 'Love At First Bite' [the George Hamilton Dracula spoof],” says costar Jean Simmons, who plays matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. The new Dark Shadows, in other words, is a lot sexier – and much more sanguinary.
Back in the 1960s, ABC's censors were understandably reluctant to accent the sexual elements of vampirism at an hour when lots of school kids were watching. What passed for eroticism back then were long, lingering looks between vampire and victim. The new Barnabas, however, stalks his prey with lustful abandon. Not surprisingly, NBC has chosen to cast the most beautiful young women as his victims.
And then, of course, there's the blood. Where once upon a time a pair of understated puncture marks were the only evidence of the vampire's attack, our antihero's newest victims (some of whom are clad only in their nightgowns when attacked) are often covered with blood. Times change, even for a long-in-the-tooth (200 years undead) ladies' man like Barnabas.
NBC first thought of reviving this particular vampire in 1988, when a Writers Guild strike threatened to bring all TV production to a halt. The network was looking at old series whose scripts it could film again, when executives stumbled upon Dark Shadows and approached Curtis with the idea of casting it in a new mold, with new scripts and new actors.
NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield sees the past success of Shadows as grounds for believing it will succeed again. “The advantages of putting on Dark Shadows are the same as putting on a big-name miniseries by Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins,” says Littlefield. “They get attention because of their familiarity, and due to the competitive nature of the industry now, this is more important than ever before.”
But with two decades having elapsed since the original Dark Shadows, will its name value have any impact? And with NBC choosing to air the show against CBS's Dallas and ABC's Perfect Strangers and Going Places, will it stand a chance of finding an audience?
According to one admittedly informal poll, it's doubtful the show will appeal to children. We held a screening of the miniseries for some friends and their families, and afterward, parents reported that their children suffered nightmares and sleepless nights. NBC might be better off finding a more adult time slot for Dark Shadows.
Meanwhile, what started out for Dan Curtis as “a job between jobs” has turned into 19 weeks of workdays that begin at 7:15 A.M and end at 10 at night. Ben Cross, for one, is clearly worn out. “I just want to rest,” he moans. “I want to get away from it all.”
Tiring as it is, the series could prove to be the long-hoped-for vehicle that will make Cross a star. Cross admits fame hasn't come to him as quickly as he'd hoped. After working for years on worthy, unknown projects, he got what he thought was his big break with the 1981 hit film “Chariots of Fire.” Only it didn't quite work out like that. “When 'Chariots' was finished,” he says, “I was a star. Then I went right back into obscurity.”
Unable to get the kind of leads he wanted in England, Cross made the move to California last year to star in Shadows. Now his career is largely resting on its success or failure.
Despite that, Cross doesn't seen unduly concerned about playing a role that has already been made famous by another actor (Jonathan Frid) in a serial enshrined by fan clubs. “I don't want to alienate anybody by playing this role,” he says, “but if I do, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I can't really identify with people who make clubs out of television series. I'm certainly not bearing them in mind while I'm performing. I've never seen the [original] series and I'm not the slightest bit interested in it.”
“People have tried to copy this show over the years,” says Curtis, “and they've always failed because they never really understood what it was that made it unique. They look at it as a horror show, and yet what it really is is a romance. If it appealed to viewers one time, it should appeal to them again.”
If not, it won't be for a lack of trying. On the set, the smoke machines have been turned off, and the bricks have come down, letting Roy Thinnes emerge, grinning, from his prison. (Reverend Trask may be dead, but Thinnes lives on – as Elizabeth Stoddard's brother, Roger.) While one group of technicians strips down the set they've been working on, another group is readying the next set for filming. Veteran makeup man Jack Petty is turning Ben Cross into a vampire for his next scene. Jean Simmons is preparing for another of the show's period sequences by climbing into an immense 18th-century dress and donning a powdered wig to portray Barnabas's mother. And Dan Curtis is pacing, shouting orders at carpenters, noticing a railing out of place, forever
worrying about the series that could heal NBC's Friday night wounds, or bloody them further.
January 19 - 25, 1991
Vol. 39, No. 3
Pages 7-8 & 11
With More Sex And Violence, A Re-Vamped Dark Shadows Sinks Its Teeth Into Prime Time
By Mary Murphy
Dozens of people are gathered in the basement of a 55-room mansion for the filming of NBC's Dark Shadows as actor Roy Thinnes (playing an 18th-century witch hunter named Reverend Trask) is walled up behind a stack of bricks. Smoke and cobwebs fill the room. Thinnes's eyes flash with terror. Ben Cross, playing vampire Barnabas Collins, is about to complete his victim's makeshift tomb. “I beg you, I implore you – don't do this!” Trask screams as the last brick is put into place, sealing his fate forever.
It's a spine-chilling moment, but as far as Dan Curtis is concerned, it just isn't convincing enough. Curtis, the co-creator of the original Dark Shadows and the director and executive producer of NBC's new version of the cult-favorite soap opera, paces up and down, his patience wearing thin, becoming more and more unhappy with the way things are going.
“We can do better than this,” he barks. “Let's just stop messing around.”
The tension on the set is a mark of the importance NBC is attaching to Dark Shadows. With prime-time audiences continuing to decline and no runaway fall hits to its credit, the network finds itself in need of a fresh success. And Curtis has been working his cast and crew to the edge of exhaustion trying to deliver one. What he's come up with is a far cry from the Gothic daytime drama so many baby boomers grew up with.
The original Dark Shadows, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, was an afternoon serial about the Collins family of rustic Collinsport, Maine. Its most notable member, Barnabas, just happened to be your basic bloodsucking creature of the night. Despite that fact – or perhaps because of it – a huge audience that included not only home-makers but schoolchildren, teenagers and college students as well made the series into such a hit that it still has a cult following today.
The new version, which retains virtually all the major characters from the original, plus its habit of jumping around from century to century, debuted as a four-hour TV-movie Jan. 13-14 and now resides on Fridays at 9 P.M. (ET). It has richer production values and more realistic special effects than its predecessor, and it's considerably more adult. “We're not doing 'Love At First Bite' [the George Hamilton Dracula spoof],” says costar Jean Simmons, who plays matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. The new Dark Shadows, in other words, is a lot sexier – and much more sanguinary.
Back in the 1960s, ABC's censors were understandably reluctant to accent the sexual elements of vampirism at an hour when lots of school kids were watching. What passed for eroticism back then were long, lingering looks between vampire and victim. The new Barnabas, however, stalks his prey with lustful abandon. Not surprisingly, NBC has chosen to cast the most beautiful young women as his victims.
And then, of course, there's the blood. Where once upon a time a pair of understated puncture marks were the only evidence of the vampire's attack, our antihero's newest victims (some of whom are clad only in their nightgowns when attacked) are often covered with blood. Times change, even for a long-in-the-tooth (200 years undead) ladies' man like Barnabas.
NBC first thought of reviving this particular vampire in 1988, when a Writers Guild strike threatened to bring all TV production to a halt. The network was looking at old series whose scripts it could film again, when executives stumbled upon Dark Shadows and approached Curtis with the idea of casting it in a new mold, with new scripts and new actors.
NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield sees the past success of Shadows as grounds for believing it will succeed again. “The advantages of putting on Dark Shadows are the same as putting on a big-name miniseries by Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins,” says Littlefield. “They get attention because of their familiarity, and due to the competitive nature of the industry now, this is more important than ever before.”
But with two decades having elapsed since the original Dark Shadows, will its name value have any impact? And with NBC choosing to air the show against CBS's Dallas and ABC's Perfect Strangers and Going Places, will it stand a chance of finding an audience?
According to one admittedly informal poll, it's doubtful the show will appeal to children. We held a screening of the miniseries for some friends and their families, and afterward, parents reported that their children suffered nightmares and sleepless nights. NBC might be better off finding a more adult time slot for Dark Shadows.
Meanwhile, what started out for Dan Curtis as “a job between jobs” has turned into 19 weeks of workdays that begin at 7:15 A.M and end at 10 at night. Ben Cross, for one, is clearly worn out. “I just want to rest,” he moans. “I want to get away from it all.”
Tiring as it is, the series could prove to be the long-hoped-for vehicle that will make Cross a star. Cross admits fame hasn't come to him as quickly as he'd hoped. After working for years on worthy, unknown projects, he got what he thought was his big break with the 1981 hit film “Chariots of Fire.” Only it didn't quite work out like that. “When 'Chariots' was finished,” he says, “I was a star. Then I went right back into obscurity.”
Unable to get the kind of leads he wanted in England, Cross made the move to California last year to star in Shadows. Now his career is largely resting on its success or failure.
Despite that, Cross doesn't seen unduly concerned about playing a role that has already been made famous by another actor (Jonathan Frid) in a serial enshrined by fan clubs. “I don't want to alienate anybody by playing this role,” he says, “but if I do, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I can't really identify with people who make clubs out of television series. I'm certainly not bearing them in mind while I'm performing. I've never seen the [original] series and I'm not the slightest bit interested in it.”
“People have tried to copy this show over the years,” says Curtis, “and they've always failed because they never really understood what it was that made it unique. They look at it as a horror show, and yet what it really is is a romance. If it appealed to viewers one time, it should appeal to them again.”
If not, it won't be for a lack of trying. On the set, the smoke machines have been turned off, and the bricks have come down, letting Roy Thinnes emerge, grinning, from his prison. (Reverend Trask may be dead, but Thinnes lives on – as Elizabeth Stoddard's brother, Roger.) While one group of technicians strips down the set they've been working on, another group is readying the next set for filming. Veteran makeup man Jack Petty is turning Ben Cross into a vampire for his next scene. Jean Simmons is preparing for another of the show's period sequences by climbing into an immense 18th-century dress and donning a powdered wig to portray Barnabas's mother. And Dan Curtis is pacing, shouting orders at carpenters, noticing a railing out of place, forever
worrying about the series that could heal NBC's Friday night wounds, or bloody them further.