What a minute ... when did HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS open?

People like anniversaries. A solid date gives us something on which to hang our history and heritage, but neither of those concepts lend themselves well to fixed schedules. The milestones we love to recognize are often, in the words of Charlotte Brontë, "categorical horseshit."

Such is the case with the release date of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS. Yesterday, I marked the 45th anniversary of the film's release, using Sept. 9, 1970, as the date of its officially sanction debut. This is the date that IMDB prefers, citing a "premiere" that day in Detroit, Michigan, of all places. It specifies a broader roll out closer to Halloween.

While I don't know when (or even "if") HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS received a formal premiere, movies operated much differently in 1970 than they do today. Back then, little emphasis was placed on opening weekend grosses ... because there was rarely ever anything resembling an opening weekend. Movies were rolled out slowly, sometimes taking months to gain a proper toehold in theaters. Today, a motion picture will make as much as 50 percent of its total gross during the first three days of release. During the 1970s, though, you could expect a film to stay in theaters for months at a time. For example, John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN officially opened Oct. 25, 1978 in Kansas City, Missouri ... but didn't arrive in theaters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until the end of the following November.

Aug. 28, 1970.

So, the Sept. 9, 1970 "debut" of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS? It's absolutely wrong. In fact HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS started screening to audiences as early as August of that year.

On Aug. 28, 1970, the film opened at the Diane Drive-In in Gastonia, North Carolina. It was paired with Hammer's HORROR OF DRACULA from 1958 as the B-picture. To give you an idea of what kind of movies generally played at the Diane in 1970, the movies playing on these screens during the previous week were THE CHRISTINE JORGENSEN STORY and the 1968 Frank Sinatra thriller, THE DETECTIVE.

From there, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS trickled out to theaters around the country. While it got a boost from the Halloween holiday that year (which probably led to the myth of its October 28 release date) the film was in wide release by the end of September.

If you're looking for a date to recognize as the "official" opening for HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, Sept. 9, 1970, is as good as any. As with most anniversaries, though, the truth is a lot more complicated.

UPDATE: Film archivist and DARK SHADOWS fan Darren Gross found an even earlier showing of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS. He sent me a scan of a newspaper ad (which you can see above) for a preview of the film that took place Aug. 24, 1970, at The DeMille Theater in Manhattan. He says the October 28 date often referenced is when HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS opened in New York City and Los Angeles.

Note: The DeMille, following a few name changes, closed in 2007. The building was remodeled and served at the site of Famous Dave’s BBQ Restaurant, which closed in 2013. The building was demolished earlier this year.

DARK SHADOWS: THE FAVORITE FIVE

Last month, The Collinsport Historical Society asked you to name your five favorite DARK SHADOWS audio dramas from Big Finish. Every day this week we'll be revealing the results.

#1 The Night Whispers

While the character of “Barnabas Collins” has made scattered appearances in Big Finish’s line of DARK SHADOWS audio dramas, only once was he played by the actor who originated the role on television: Jonathan Frid.


In fact, “The Night Whispers” represents Frid’s only return to the role since the cancellation of the series in 1971.

“‘The Night Whispers’ was probably always destined to be Jonathan Frid's swansong,” said Stuart Manning, the episode’s writer. “There was a vague notion that it might be the first of many Barnabas stories, but I always expected it to be a one-off.”

“‘The Night Whispers’ was produced before I joined the DARK SHADOWS audio range, but I remember just how utterly exciting it was to hear Barnabas again,” said Joe Lidster, who today produces of the line for Big Finish. “A fantastic script by Stuart Manning that explores his relationship with Willie, three lovely performances and some beautiful sound design make it really something special.”

"The Night Whispers" received a great deal of attention outside of DARK SHADOWS fandom, as well, and won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for "Best Horror Soundtrack" in 2012.

Frid has been resistant about not only returning to the role of “Barnabas Collins,” said Jim Pierson, the marketing director and producer at Dan Curtis Productions. The actor also refused to take any role even vaguely similar.

“The art for Jonathan was in delivering the lines,” said Pierson, who directed Frid’s recording session. “He was in paradise when delivering his one-man shows like ‘Fools and Fiends,’ the ‘Shakespearean Odyssey,’ and all the variations of those performances — whether it was in a library, a theater or somebody’s living room.”

The audio dramas proved to be an easy transition for Frid, Pierson said.

“He resisted doing anything vampiric after DARK SHADOWS, and he turned down tons of things,” he said. “Everything from movies to tooth paste commercials. Because he was coming back to be with fans for the 40th anniversary of ‘Barnabas,’ it seemed to be a natural progression.

“He got his fangs wet again and really had a good time,” Pierson said.

Jonathan Frid and John Karlen

 “As detailed in the ‘Remembering Jonathan Frid’ book, the play took a long time to come together and it's really only due to the gentle persistence of Jim Pierson and Bobbi Jacobs-Meadway that it happened at all,” Manning said. “During the writing I listened to Jonathan's narration from the old Dark Shadows music LP on a loop, trying to get his vocal tics down, and those speeches are probably etched onto my psyche permanently as a result. I may well have been the first ever sufferer of Frid earworm.”

Darren Gross, co-director of “The Night Whispers,” said it took careful coordination to get the actors’ lines recorded. Because of the international nature of each production (Big Finish is headquartered in the United Kingdom) the participating actors sometimes never meet in the studio.

“Often the actors are recorded separately, sometimes months apart and thousands of miles away,” Gross said. “‘The Night Whispers’ was done in three pieces, with John Karlen, Barbara Steele and Jonathan Frid done in separate recording sessions.”

Frid in the studio for "The Night Whispers."

Frid’s session was recorded in Canada, while Steele recorded her lines in Burbank, California. Both sessions were supervised by Jim Pierson.

Gross directed Karlen’s performance, which was also recorded in Burbank.

“For this kind of piecemeal recording, I brought in Andrew Collins to read-in for Barnabas and the other characters, so that Karlen had someone to play off of,” Gross said. “You don’t know how the other actors are going to play their lines, so for scenes that are tricky or where there’s arguing, low key line delivery or some kind of intense moments, I would tend to get a couple of different versions to give Nigel Fairs or David Darlington latitude in the editing.”

The goal, he said, is to make sure the actors sound as though they’re performing together in the same room.

“It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it’s miraculous and very convincing,” Gross said. “We did the same thing for ‘Beyond the Grave,’ where most of the pieces were recorded in the U.K., except for the sessions with Kathryn Leigh Scott, which I recorded in Los Angeles, again playing off of Andrew Collins.”

Andrew Collins, who played “Barnabas Collins” in earlier DARK SHADOWS audio dramas from Big Finish, was a vital part of recording sessions, Gross said.

Barbara Steele as "Dr. Julia Hoffman" in the 1991 DARK SHADOWS television series.

“Andrew just makes these sessions fun, as he’ll do a dozen different voices as he jumps from character to character, feeding lines to his scene partner,” Gross said. “These sessions can be a bit of a challenge for the actors, as we’re frequently jumping from scene to scene, but it does create a very focused atmosphere, as we only focus on their character’s scenes.

“I’ve always felt blessed to have actors like John Karlen and Kathryn Leigh Scott, who can just turn on a performance like a light switch,” Gross said. “That kind of engagement in the material is invigorating."

“Honestly, I was just grateful that Jonathan played ball,” Manning said. “After 30-plus years, he finally agreed to be Barnabas again for a day, and that alone was a milestone. It was a little piece of history and I hope we did the old guy proud.”

DARK SHADOWS: THE FAVORITE FIVE

Last month, The Collinsport Historical Society asked you to name your five favorite DARK SHADOWS audio dramas from Big Finish. Every day this week we'll be revealing the results.


#3 The Crimson Pearl

Released in August, 2011, “The Crimson Pearl” is one of the most ambitious episodes in Big Finish’s DARK SHADOWS line of audio dramas. Beginning in 1690 with the arrival of the very first Collinses in the New World, the story spans not only centuries, but multiple timelines, as well.

It also featured one of the largest casts ever featured in a single episode, with 19 credited actors appearing.

“Initially, we figured that, with some creative work with the director Darren (Gross), we could get all that year's cast to record a short letter or two in character, the end result building up to a bonus release,” said writer James Goss. “I've always loved epistolary novels, and the idea of the various generations of Colinsport encountering a shared mystery seemed a great one.”

Big Finish producer Joe Lidster said “The Crimson Pearl” was part of a production strategy to make the dramatic readings more dynamic than they’d been in the past.

Christopher Pennock, records his dialogue for "The Crimson Pearl."

“Up until then they had mostly been two-handers, usually featuring two actors who had appeared in the TV series,” Lidster said. “So we looked at bringing in other actors to play smaller roles and we just played around with how things were written and recorded.”

Goss said the concept proved to be more challenging than they’d imagined. The roster of characters became so large that outside actors were brought in to help fill out the cast.

Ursula Burton and Jerry Lacy.

“I had a reasonably simple idea,” Goss said. “Joe turned up with the entire history of Collinsport, and the simple idea became more and more complicated and epic and, in the end, there were quite a few extra recording sessions. But, on the other hand, you got Roy Thinnes (“Roger Collins” on the 1991 DARK SHADOWS “revival” series) playing the founding Collins! You got gypsies and the alternative universe and those cunning Leviathans.”

“James was clever with the budget and I went crazy on which characters we could use,” Lidtser said. “I think it works as a real celebration of Dark Shadows - it’s scary and sad in places, but it’s also fun. And Nigel Fairs’s reworking of the theme tune is just glorious.”

HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS: Greek VHS art

DARK SHADOWS aficionado Darren Gross recently found a rare Greek VHS edition of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS. Released in 1991, this particular home video release was probably prompted by the 1991 "revival" series, but also followed the previous year's home video release of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS from MGM/UA. There's a wealth of promotional materials created for the film's theatrical release back in 1970, yet "Audio Visual Enterprises," the company that licensed the film for home video in Greece and Cyprus, opted instead to use what appears to be a photo of Castle Bran on the cover. Bran is located in Romania, and is often marketed to tourists as "Castle Dracula."

Gross is told the film's Greek title translates as "The House of Shadows." I guess the overseas distributors decided the "Dark" was implied.

UPDATE: Artist George Caltsoudas posted a translation of the film summary in our comments section. The movie's title translates as THE HOUSE WITH THE SHADOWS:

"The residents of the estate of Collinwood are startled by the arrival of their cousin Barnabas (VarnAvas) Collins from England. And this is because the newcomer relative bares an exact resemblance to the portrait of the founder of the tower, who came from the other side of the Atlantic to start a new life after the mysterious death of his fiancee...

What the don't know, though, is that he is the one and the same ancestor of theirs!
Because Barnabas Collins is a... vampire! And he has come here, to New England, from the underworld, with the intent to hunt the beautiful governess of the area, Maggie, who bares and incredible resemblance to his dead beloved..."