Joan Bennett's love life gets the true crime treatment

 

Vanity Fair, V.F. and Cadence13 are teaming up for Love Is a Crime, a 10-part podcast about the 1951 scandal that mostly ended the career of Joan Bennett. The cast of the serial, which launches Aug. 17, includes Zooey Deschanel as Bennett, Jon Hamm as husband Walter Wanger, Griffin Dunne as agent Jennings Lang, Mara Wilson as Joan’s older movie-star sister, Constance, and Adam Mortimer as Joan’s turbulent father, Richard.

Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This) and filmmaker Vanessa Hope -- the granddaughter of Bennett and Wanger -- will lead listeners through the story of how Bennett found herself embroiled in a love triangle than ended with her husband shooting her agent. Believing his wife was cheating on him with Lang, Wagner decided to solve the problem by shooting Lang in the balls. Lang took a bullet to the inner thigh and Wanger spent four months in jail.

You can read more about Love Is a Crime at Vanity Fair.

Dark Shadows Lives!

For a television show cancelled in 1971, there are a lot of people talking about DARK SHADOWS today. Here's a roundup:

►The Dark Shadows Daybook dwells on the sadness of 1967, specifically the specter of a dead child looking for a playmate on the grounds of Collinwood in episode 292. Patrick McCray says: "Despite all of her talents, Sarah is a prisoner to the Collins estate, as are so many others for so many reasons, most of which boil down to relationships." Read the entire essay HERE.

►Dark Shadows Before I Die arrives at episode 539. This part of of John and Christine's summary should have been the published TV Guide summary: "I'm having a hard time believing that the kid who was able to figure out how to remove a bleeder valve from his dad's car to make the brakes fail when he was two years younger is now having difficulty working a tape recorder. Or that he would go to his evil stepmother for help with it. Where's his governess and why isn't she doing her job?" Read the entire post HERE.


►OK, this one's not new, but it's new to me: a cocktail named after our very own Joan Bennett. This one's been around for a while, according to Difford's Guide, which explains:

"Adapted from a Tiki drink featured in Jeff Berry's 'Intoxica' and originally created in 1932 at Sloppy Joe's Bar, Havana, Cuba. Named after Hollywood ingénue, Joan Bennett, who in the same year starred in Fox's Careless Lady. Years later she hit the news when her husband, producer Walter Wanger, shot her agent in the crotch after catching them in bed together."

You can get the drink recipe at Difford's HERE. And a shout-out to @joanbennettfan on Instagram for bringing this one to my attention. Also note "Served in a Collins glass."

►This Amazon fail is self explanatory.

amazon messed up the captions on this and confused "let go of her, adam" for "i have medical" and im dying at the idea of barnabas discussing willie's medical benefits #darkshadows pic.twitter.com/qWns92TJ8p

— Kaitlyn C-G (@Kaiitloaf) July 20, 2018

►Below is a video from Instagram. I made this and feel deeply embarassed by it. I also kind of love it. It's awful. And it's getting buried at the bottom of this post in hopes that fewer people see it. Don't judge me.

I can confidently say that this is the dumbest thing you’re going to see all day. #darkshadows

A post shared by Wallace McBride (@collinsporthistory) on Jul 19, 2018 at 6:24am PDT

Synapse to release new edition of Suspiria restoration in March

The 40th anniversary restoration of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA felt like it took forever to complete. In fact, it's arguable that its eventual "anniversary" release date was entirely coincidental. When Synapse Films first began teasing the restoration with screenshots showing off the work being done to the original print in 2015, the release date remained up in the air. Synapse founder Don May Jr. warned fans that the hi-def restoration would be released once his work had been completed, and that he had no intentions to rushing. I doubt anybody expected it would take an additional two years to complete, but reviews of the final product were glowing. The Digital Bits called it  "one of the most beautiful horror films ever made and this release is one of the most beautiful Blu-ray releases ever mounted by any distribution company, big or small."

Synapse released SUSPIRIA last fall in a steel-book edition limited to just 6,000 copies ... which quickly sold out. If you missed it, there's good news: Synapse has a mass-market edition of SUSPIRIA slated for release March 13 this year. You can pre-order it on Blu-ray and DVD at Amazon HERE.

Here's what the two-disc set includes:

• A new 4K restoration of the original uncut, uncensored Italian 35mm camera negative exclusively done by Synapse Films, with color correction supervised and approved by SUSPIRIA Director of Photography, Luciano Tovoli.
• Original 4.0 1977 English language LCRS sound mix not heard since the theatrical release in 1977, presented in high-resolution DTS-HD MA 96kHz/24-bit audio, with newly-translated removable English SDH subtitles.
• Italian 5.1 surround mix, with removable English subtitle translation.
• Two audio commentaries by authors and Argento scholars, Derek Botelho, David Del Valle and Troy Howarth.
• Do You Know Anything About Witches? - 30 minute SUSPIRIA visual essay written, edited and narrated by Michael Mackenzie.
• Suzy in Nazi Germany - Featurette on the German locations from SUSPIRIA.
• A Sigh from the Depths: 40 Years of SUSPIRIA - All-new anniversary retrospective on the making of the film and its influence on cinema.
• Olga s Story - Interview with star Barbara Magnolfi.
• Original theatrical trailers, TV spots and radio spots.
• "International Classics" English "Breathing Letters" opening credit sequence from U.S. release.
• Alternate All-English opening and closing credits sequences, playable via seamless branching.
• Reversible Cover Art created by Joel Robinson.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 30

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 662

Driven by portents of Victoria’s hanging in the past, Barnabas finds himself chronoported back to the year 1796 to prevent it. Briefly and painfully reunited with her in his cell, Barnabas goes on to encounter Nathan Forbes. Threatened to recant his testimony against Victoria, Forbes follows the path of history and prepares a crossbow bolt for Barnabas.

Nestled deep inside the series, right about at the halfway point, rests a perfect gem. The DARK SHADOWS movie isn’t necessarily HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS. For me, it’s made from episodes 662-666. Although it relies on milestones of Barnabas’ history, the “clip show” of episode 661 catches up viewers as to the events that he will alter in his mission through time. Other than a flashback to the 1940’s in the Leviathan sequence, this is the shortest substantive time trip in the series, and as a story, is far ahead of when it was written. Who doesn’t have the fantasy of going back to change traumatic, past events? Although Barnabas can’t stop his mother’s death, he can both exact extra vengeance on Forbes and save Victoria. It’s a perfectly Cyranoesque sequence, and the poignancy of his bravery is heightened by the fact that for all appearances, he’s just doing it as a friend.

Carolyn Groves, Joan Bennett and the cast of "Pleasure of His Company," 1960.

The brief appearance of Carolyn Groves as the third Victoria Winters is another highlight. No, we don’t have the the double-blind of seeing the actresses try the scenes side-by-side, and maybe I’m being blinded by novelty, but I’m nutty about her. She combines the fine-boned aristocracy of Moltke and the keen sense of awareness of Betsy Durkin. Beloved by viewers of the film THE POUND, where she played the “Pedigreed Bitch” alongside a young Robert Downey, Jr. in a heartwarming prison sequence, Carolyn Groves has a distressingly spare CV, although she also appeared in the Broadway play, THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY with Joan Bennett in 1960. She is generally known as a stage actress, on and off-Broadway, but Groves can also be glimpsed in the film version of John Guare’s SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION.

Carolyn Groves and Robert Downey Sr. on the set of POUND.

As Victoria Winters, Groves has an immediate chemistry with Jonathan Frid and projects determination and warmth as the character faces her darkest hour. She oozes an unusual degree of sensuality for the show, starting from the establishing shot of her prone, where she looks for all the world like DARK SHADOWS’ first Bond girl. Following Durkin and Alexandra Moltke, it almost seems as if the character is not just changing actresses. It’s as if she’s evolving to an increasingly mature woman.

Yes. I find her a delight. Because of her work, Chanty Binx. Because of her work, dammit.

This also marks the seventh episode directed by Dan Curtis, himself. He would direct this flashback personally, giving it even more of the feel of a DARK SHADOWS movie. Considering that ‘horror director’ would be the title he’d wear as much as producer as time went on, I think these early moments are important to note.

On this day in 1968, Frank Sinatra recorded the song, “My Way,” after allegedly reacting to the song with a characteristic, “What is this ‘and now, the end is near’ crap?”

Oh, just destiny. Just destiny.

Let Kathryn Leigh Scott stock your Dark Shadows library

Few celebrities give back to fans like DARK SHADOWS' own Maggie Evans, Kathryn Leigh Scott. A prolific author and publisher as well as an actress, Kathryn shares Christmas with fans by offering numerous special collections of mystery novels, autobiographical books, behind-the-scenes histories of the entertainment industry, and photos -- all bearing her personalized signature. 2017 might set a record for Kathryn, with six different gift bundles, all including her personal holiday card, and all offering -- honestly -- outstanding savings. A visit to her website finds various packages, and three are of special interest to DARK SHADOWS fans.

Her Hollywood Holiday package features two, rare, lavish coffee table books of classic cinema lobby cards, the first of which features a foreword by Joan Bennett. (I own both of the books, and in the age of Kindle uber Alles, they are increasingly rare and beautiful.) Both are available for only $39, which is astounding considering that, together, they’d be worth at least $90. Her Collinsport Collection, also for $39, is another opportunity to save. It contains DARK SHADOWS: THE COMIC STRIP BOOK, DARK SHADOWS: RETURN TO COLLINWOOD, a color photo, and her holiday card, all signed. The most amazing value, however, is the Barnabas Bundle, containing her novel, DARK PASSAGES (not necessarily backstage at the show, but a credible look at the making of a fictitious show that’s a lot like DS), the 35th anniversary edition of the DARK SHADOWS ALMANAC, a signed “mystery gift,” and four autographed photos. This is over $100 in merchandise for only $39! Kathryn reports that her home looks like Santa’s workshop, so it’s a great time to benefit. Everything is going fast at kathrynleighscott.com.

- Patrick McCray

Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA added to Amazon Prime

It seems as though I've spent the entire week writing about Amazon. First, they dumped some really terrific sales related to DARK SHADOWS as part of this year's Prime Day event, then they went and added a few dozen episodes of the original series to its Prime streaming service. In the middle of this storm, the company also dropped Joan Bennett's final feature film, SUSPIRIA, on Prime.

This is good news if you're familiar with the film. But it's even better if you've never seen it, because you get to watch Dario Argento's 1977 masterpiece for the first time. I've written lots about SUSPIRIA here over the years, so I won't waste time repeating myself.  If you haven't seen it, watch it. And if you have seen it, watch it again.

You can find it HERE.

"No Tears for Miss Bennett," 1967

"No Tears for Miss Bennett"

TV Guide, Aug. 26-Sept. 1, 1967

By Edith Efron

"I had murdered my husband," says Joan Bennett. "He was buried in the basement. A man moved into the house and blackmailed me into marrying him. At the last minute I backed out and confessed to the murder. When they went down to the basement — he wasn't there. It turned out I hadn't killed him, I'd just stunned him. So now I'm not a murderess any more. But somewhere in the world is my ex-husband."

The star of Dark Shadows, the ABC-TV daytime serial cast in the tradition of the of "Gothic novel," turns to the young man sitting in a corner of her living room. "What happens next?" she asks interestedly. Like most soap-opera performers she's kept busy just learning her Lines for each day's performance and is as curious as the viewer as to the story line. The young man, Dan Curtis, executive producer of Dark Shadows, grins  "I know, but I'm not telling." She chuckles. It's another one of TV oddities she is learning to live with.

Joan Bennett is me of the latest Hollywood women stars to move into TV. Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Ann Sheridan preceded her and for the same reason: "My film career faded. You reach a certain age in Hollywood — like Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers or myself — there's a shortage of glamour roles. A man can play leading roles until he's 60 — Cary Grant seems to be going on forever — but not a woman."

It's still a little strange to see Joan Bennett sitting there, calmly chatting about the latest soap-opera episode with a TV producer. She is one of the Big Names of the glamorous Thirties and Forties — a top-ranking Hollywood leading lady who made her stage debut at 18, just as talking pictures started, who appeared with Ronald Colman in his first "talkie," "Bulldog Drummond," and rapidly became a star. She has appeared in 78 films opposite such leading men as John Barrymore,  George Arliss, Spencer Tracy and Gregory Peck. She's a bona fide creature of another epoch — Hollywood's Golden Age.

Ronald Colman and Joan Bennett in BULLDOG DRUMMOND, 1929.

It's hard to forget it when one sees her. She looks very much the same after all these years: serene, brilliantly brunette, quietly gay.  She's older, but she has the Great Star secret of looking 20 years younger than she realy is — and she carries the mark of her glittering epoch: She reveals a touch of sad nostalgia for the past. "Almost all of the people with great taste are gone — it was glamorous and fun and exciting. It was really a beautiful world."

She doesn't care much for Hollywood today. "I'm glad that when I was in it, it was then, not now. There's an awfully funny group now — sort of beat. These filthy films; they're all over the place. It doesn't seem to be fun any more. The spirit has changed. I don't go to films now unless it's an Audrey Hepburn picture — glamorous, beautifully mounted. She and Cary Grant still represent the Golden Age." She laughs quietly. "The same goes for plays. Sam Goldwyn once made a wonderful remark. He said, 'If you have a message, send for Western Union.' He didn't like message plays. Neither do I. I like to go to the theater and movies to see pretty people and pretty things. Most plays today are depressing, messagey."

In fact, she's not entirely happy with the way America is today. "The sense of life, the gaiety, the fun seem to be gone. I wonder if everyone doesn't feel that way secretly. What I love is the ultra-elegant, aristocratic, luxurious strain in life. I think it's wonderful what they're doing in the Peace Corps — but I wouldn't want to do it." Then she sounds off violently — "I can't bear the hippies and the beats. I think they're ghastly — they're not clean. Why are the boys looking like girls and the girls like boys? All this LSD business and the trips — it's awful."

Most of the younger folk at ABC who deal with Joan Bennett manifest an intimidated respect for the ex-denizen of the world of romantic glitter. One ABC executive reports confidentially, "The people around here are in such awe of her they're afraid to approach her. She scares the network personnel, the press people, the photographers. We don't usually have people with that aura around. Because of the glamour buildup she's had through the years — you just don't go up to her and say 'Hi, Joan' and put your arm around her."

Jonathan Frid and Joan Bennet in a promotional image for DARK SHADOWS.

The truth is, however, that under the light cloak of glamour that does envelop her, she's a shy sort of woman, with no wildly unusual characteristics. Once married to Walter Wanger, she is now divorced, and leads a relatively quiet life — divided among work, family and friends. She's an extremely hard worker, according to producer Curtis: "Her attitude is excellent. We work the hell out of her. She's a very, very good actress. She has to carry a large load, and she's up to the job."

"There's much more work in TV than movies," Joan comments. "The other day I had to learn 24 pages of dialog. in films that would have taken a week, not a day." She finds TV work enjoyable: "It's a more spontaneous medium than the movies. You don't do something over and over and over again. I remember once, in 'Little Women' — I played Amy — doing 22 takes on one scene."

Mother of four daughters and nine times a grandmother, she is, above all, a family-minded woman. "My children are the most important thing to me. I'm very proud of them. I think I've raised them beautifully. They've all turned out so well."

Her children return the compliment. One of her daughters, Mrs. Stephanie Guest, an artist, raves about her mother: "She's marvelously candid. She seems very young. She was a good mother. When she was in pictures, she always came home from the set at night and put us_to bed. We had governesses, but I never thought of them as taking her place, because she was always there."

She is not a pretentious or temperamental woman. Her daughter says of her: "She has a strong character. There are thousands of people on a movie set who keep telling you how beautiful you are, how gorgeous, things like that. The remarkable thing about my mother is that she never let that worship, that adulation, turn her head."

Muriel Finney, an old friend, says: "She's a pretty happy person, generally. She's not a bit moody. Her children have given happiness. They're very, very, very close. She was pleased with their marriages, with the grandchildren. They're together on birthdays, holiday, even Valentine's Day is a big family day."

Joan Bennett with daughters Stephanie and Shelley.

The truth is that there's no earthly reason for the young network personnel at ABC to be terrified by Joan Bennett. On the surface, she's very much like their mothers and their aunts. In fact, she claims to be so close to the average middle-class woman that she verges on the disappointing. It's a solace to visit her apartment, glowingly clean and decorated in brilliantly gay, fresh colors, and to discover an authentic movie star's bedroom —huge, superlatively French, glamorous and expensive.

A refugee from the "Great Era," she is accepting her exile and professional demotion gracefully. "I'm enmeshed in an endless series of problems and mysterious murders," she says with determined cheer — and she's not altogether insincere. From her point of view, unraveling a skein of soap-opera worries is substantially more desirable than the choice that some of her once-glamorous contemporaries have been forced to make: "I feel very bad about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford," she confides quietly. "I don't like to think of them in these grotesque roles. I think it's too bad to take their images spoil them. I haven't gone to see them. It's a desecration of what they used to be."

Dark Shadows, she feels, is better. And it may well be. But still has an uneasy feeling, when screen, that she shouldn't there at all ... Ronald Coleman, George Arliss and John Barrymore are turning in their graves. 

A look back at Dario Argento's candy coated nightmare SUSPIRIA

(Note: Way back in 2013 I went on a bit of a Joan Bennett binge. A few of those were interesting enough to me for write-ups here at the Collinsport Historical Society. One of those was SUSPIRIA from 1977. As it happens, today marks the 40th anniversary of the film's premiere in its native Italy. My first instinct was to push my original story back to the top of the page today, but then I remembered it has since been heavily revised as part of our Monster Serial publications. So, without further adieu, here's the expanded version.)

By WALLACE McBRIDE

SUSPIRIA isn’t so much a movie as it is cinematic alchemy. There’s nothing about this movie that ought to work, from the lurching, deranged performances to the use of Technicolor film process to highlight the STAR TREK-like cinematography. The score sounds like the kind of stuff you’d find in the $1 bins of your local used record store*, the story makes no sense and the dialogue exists only because audiences have grown accustomed to hearing it since the release of THE JAZZ SINGER.

If “magic” is the art of causing change to occur in conformity to human will, then director Dario Argento is a sorcerer to be reckoned with. Because SUSPIRIA works, even when logic and reason tell you it shouldn’t. The movie is a candy colored nightmare brought to life, a film so hypnotic that it’s managed to stay vibrant and vital no matter how much audience tastes have changed over the years.

For much of its early life, SUSPIRIA was a movie that film fans could only hear about. My first experience with the 1977 film came from the pages of Fangoria about a decade later in a feature story that did nothing but add to the movie’s legend. “Here’s a great film you can’t see,” was the gist of the story, which was all the more galling because of the flood of miserable horror movies that were littering the shelves of video stores in those days.

The first time I saw the film, I was both impressed and disappointed. Nothing could live up to the years of ominous chatter about SUSPIRIA, and I was even a little saddened to have survived the experience with my mind intact. This was my generation’s “The King in Yellow,” after all. Was suffering a little madness too much to expect from a work of cinematic genius?

I also realized that, for all the rabid fervor for which fans had praised the film, nobody had said much about its story. There’s a reason for that: The story is complete bollocks. An American woman enrolls in a European ballet academy and comes to the slow realization that it’s run by a bunch of witches. The end.

But story is hardly the point of SUSPIRIA. Like his American soulmate George Romero, Argento couldn’t care less about character development. Argento used to be such a deft filmmaker that traditional storytelling elements simply weren’t necessary.

With SUSPIRIA, Argento takes audiences through such a tangled, wild path that it should have ended in disaster. Originally planned to be set in a dance school for children, Argento reportedly revised the concept in order to use older and more reliable actors. For reasons that are anybody’s guess, he kept the script’s original childish (and dumb) dialogue intact.

And that’s just the beginning of the bizarre creative decisions on display in SUSPIRIA. Characters are killed for no other reason that to populate the movie’s running time with as much gore as possible, while the coven behaves so insanely stupid that it’s amazing it could have survived into the 20th century. In one scene, the witches use a demon to murder a rebellious student, while in another they provoke a seeing eye dog to kill its master. The movie is so front-loaded with action that little is left over for the movie’s climax, which limps to a grinding, confusing halt.

And then there’s film’s title, which doesn’t mean a god­damned thing.

And none of this matters. I’m not sure anybody’s even been able to adequately explain why the movie works, but the film’s got a stunning 95 percent at Rotten Tomatoes and is universally beloved by critics. It’s a wet, stormy fever dream that has survived the years better than more pretentious counterparts like ERASERHEAD and CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

It’s difficult to evaluate the movie’s cast because of their incongruent presentation. Many of the actors are dubbed regardless of what language they’re speaking, while Joan Ben­nett, who is clearly American, is given dialogue that suggests she’s not. Early in the film she tells newly arrived Jessica Harper that lodging in town will cost “50 of your American dollars,” a line delivered with her upper class East Coast accent.

Cult icon Udo Kier makes a quick appearance, but is not only dubbed by another actor, but photographed in such a way as to mask his good looks. It’s a role that could have been played by anybody, and don’t be surprised if you forget he’s even in the movie. Meanwhile, Harper’s role is so vapidly written that it took a decent actress to do anything with it. While her performance didn’t win any awards, Harper’s inherent charm keeps us focused on her character. (Note: SUSPIRIA is Harper’s second stop in her trifecta of cult classics, landing between 1974’s PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and 1981’s SHOCK TREATMENT. In recent years she’s written a number of children’s books. If there’s a canonization process for cult icons, it’s high time Harper made the list.)

And then there’s Bennett. By 1977, the woman who was almost Scarlet O’Hara found herself delivering amazingly absurd dialogue in this low-budget giallo film. Her career progression didn’t happen all at once, to be sure. You don’t go from being Fritz Lang’s favorite leading lady to taking a supporting role in a movie like SUSPIRIA in a single bound. A combination of age and scandal (as well as a very public feud with Hedda Hopper) closed a lot of doors for her as the ‘60s began. Her appearance in HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, a film that might accurately be called an American giallo, probably made her decision to appear in SUSPIRIA less difficult.

None of this is to suggest that Bennett should have been ashamed or embarrassed by her appearance in SUSPIRIA. But, the 1970s introduced a new world of cinema, most of which probably looked alien to her, if not utterly offensive. I’ve never read any interviews with Bennett where she discussed this movie, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she’d never seen it. Her role in the 1945 film SCARLET STREET was shocking for its time (and led to at least one city banning it) but that film is tame when compared to the blood that splattered across the screen in SUSPIRIA.

(*Within context of the film, I actually quite like Goblin’s score. Hopefully, this little note will spare me some angry e-mails.)

The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 7

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1167

Gerard begins to manipulate Daphne’s dreams to influence her romantic inclinations toward him. Lamar pushes to involve Barnabas as a subject of the trail, and with Gerard, begins researching him. Given what has gone on at Collinwood with Roxanne, is there a vampire at Collinwood? They consult Flora, who is writing on the subject. She reminds them of the Collinsport vampire incident of the 1790’s, and Lamar notes that his father disappeared at that time. Curious, they ask Carrie Stokes if her Uncle Ben wrote about it, and she directs him to her diary. Meanwhile, Mordecai Grimes’ son, Jeremy, begins to romance her. From the diary, they learn that Lamar vanished while investigating the Old House basement. Could the Barnabas of 1795 and his “son” be one and the same? Remembering sounds he heard in the basement walls, Lamar decides to tear through it. There, in the Old House cellar, he finds his father’s skeleton, a letter, and a newfound hatred for Barnabas Collins.

You can never outrun the past because it’s probably somewhere in your future. In DARK SHADOWS, anyway. This is again one of the special treats the writers serendipitously afforded themselves by not only crafting such a rich mythos, but by using time travel so inventively. I know that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale are horror fans, and I can only hope that DARK SHADOWS was a part of their earlier TV diet. If so, it explains a lot about the BTTF trilogy. To those who feel that Barnabas is temperamental, and he is, the story has him pay the bill… often long after he’s learned his lessons. I love the symmetry of the 1840 storyline. Barnabas, a fairly passive man, comes into his own only through the events surrounding the witch trial of 1795. The irony of his final challenges as a man of action -- yet another witch trial, facing down the necessary deeds of his past and origin -- is one that can only exist in literature. The final kick in the cosmic pants? Trask’s course is set by Ben’s diary, which the manservant could only write having been taught by Barnabas. As is true in life, our good deeds tend to undo us as quickly as our sins.

Tom Happer, who plays Mordecai Grimes’ son and Carrie’s suitor, is a refreshing addition to the show, and it’s a shame they didn’t have more for him to do. He had some minor work afterwards -- including CRAWLSPACE (1972) -- but not enough as I would have liked. I like to speculate about what DARK SHADOWS would have been like had it continued into the 1970’s. Happer is a good example of a new generation being tentatively groomed.

It was on this day in 1990 that Joan Bennett died at the age of eighty. Was she the heart of DARK SHADOWS? Call me maudlin for saying so, but, well, yes. And its backbone, as well. I can think of very few celebrities about whom nothing bad has been notably said. Joan Bennett is one of them. At the same time, legends of her grace and moxie are innumerable. 

Here comes that SUSPIRIA re-make nobody asked for

By WALLACE McBRIDE

I've warmed to the idea of remakes in recent years. Part of this is from my wandering fascination with William Shakespeare, a man whose plays have been endlessly re-purposed over the centuries, often with interesting results. (I find it difficult to refuse an adaption of "Macbeth.") But my interest in slasher movies has also played a role in my change of heart. John Carpenter was correct when he said it's impossible to make a sequel to HALLOWEEN without essentially remaking that first movie, which is why he's avoided helming later installments of the franchise. That hasn't stopped me from watching them all, though.

On a fundamental level, every slasher movie is the same story. There's no real difference between FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN, BLACK CHRISTMAS and THE BURNING, except the vision of their individual directors. Horror fans will sit through dozens of iterations of this sub-genre (frequently to the confusion of our friends and families) just so see how the next director handles their familiar tropes. Nobody gets beaten up for staging "Hamlet" for the umpteenth time, after all. (Yes, I just compared FRIDAY THE 13TH to "Hamlet.")

So, go ahead ... re-make all the things. Adapting another movie is no less creatively bankrupt than adapting a book, television show or graphic novel.

That being said, it seems like a remarkably terrible idea to re-make 1977's SUSPIRIA, a film that has no business being as good as it is. Director Dario Argento managed to capture lightning in a bottle with that film, and it takes a level of arrogance level with Henry Frankenstein to think you can do that same trick twice. Even Argento hasn't been able to repeat that success in the years since (although PHENOMENA is pretty fun.)

But that's what director Luca Guadagnino intends to do, according to Variety. Attached to his new version of SUSPIRIA are Chloe Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson and Mia Goth. Amazon Studios is financing the production and will distribute the film.

At the moment, everything else about SUSPIRIA (2017) is pure speculation ... will this be a straight re-make, or will it be an In Name Only revival, such as Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD? Is Swinton playing "Madame Blanc," the role played by Joan Bennett in the original, or is screen shy villain "Helena Markos" getting a beefed up role? And can a Moretz-led remake of Oliver Stone's SEIZURE be far behind?

Source: Variety

Joan Bennett in STAGE DOOR, 1937

As an actress, Joan Bennett's calling was always the silver screen.

Her career was almost inevitable. The daughter of Richard Bennett, a world famous star of the "legitimate theatre," Joan's mother Adrienne Morrison and sisters Constance and Barbara were also actors. Unlike her father, though, Joan never had much interest in live theater. At the age of 18 she appeared on stage with her father in JARNEGAN, which ran for more than 130 performances on Broadway. Despite that success, though, almost a decade would pass before she'd agree to appear in another live stage production.

The opportunity presented itself with STAGE DOOR, a collaboration between Algonquin Round Table members George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. The early history of the play was turbulent: STAGE DOOR opened in 1936 and made headlines when actress Margaret Sullivan "deserted Hollywood" to take a lead role in the Manhattan production. It abruptly closed 22 weeks later when Sullivan became pregnant.

RKO Pictures then bought the screen rights to the film for $125,000 and cast Kathryn Hepburn and Ginger Rogers as the leads. By the end of 1937, STAGE DOOR was revived for the stage as a traveling production for Joan Bennett.

The offer to star in STAGE DOOR arrived shortly after Bennett's divorce from screenwriter Gene Markey. In her memoirs "The Bennett Playbill," Bennett said she accepted the role because it offered her a temporary escape from Hollywood. She soon found out there was no escape from the press, though. A young, attractive celebrity has a way of drawing attention without distinction, which earned her some occasionally creepy headlines. In October, 1937, The Harvard Crimson published a stalker-esque news brief about a sighting of the actress:

Star of "Stage Door" Was Traced Surreptitiously to Copley Hotel

October 25, 1937 

A wandering gentleman-in-the-making took his girl slumming in the Ritz Saturday night only to have her spot Miss Joan Bennett standing on the stairway resplendent in white fox. Miss Bennett, accompanied by a friend entered a cab and swirled off down Arlington Street pursued by the slummers in their own car. The quarry alighted at the Copley.

Knowing her whereabouts on lonely evenings, any red-blooded Freshman may now avail himself of this information.

"It sacred me half to death," Bennett wrote, "but I loved every minute of it. For me, there was another important factor, a factor that most Hollywood actors had to cope with, and that was the strong desire to make good on a medium from what they've been absent for a long time or had never tried."

Bennett joined the touring company two weeks before opening in Hartford, Connecticut. The tour lasted six months, with the final four weeks spent in Chicago. "The management asked me to extend the run, but there were some professional and personal reasons that called me home," Bennett wrote.

Children's SUSPIRIA Book & Record Set (record not included)

This is one of those Photoshop experiments I knocked together on a whim earlier this week. I dumped the original designs on Tumblr (which also includes fake "book & record" art for HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, THE EVIL DEAD and HALLOWEEN) but thought it might be fun to take a stab (har har) at the interiors. After gathering some text from various places around the Internet (thank you, Wikipedia) I built a few pages for some of SUSPIRIA's more memorable scenes. Enjoy!

Monster Serial: SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, 1947

 By WALLACE McBRIDE

Here’s SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR in a nutshell: A woman thinks her new husband might be responsible for the death of his previous wife, and worries that she’s next on the chopping block.
At that level, DOOR is a pretty traditional noir, and might have been a forgettable entry into the genre had it not been for director Fritz Lang. As it stands, the film is a little gross, but not in the way that the sexual politics of older films can be typically offensive.

DOOR goes a little deeper than that, probing into the nature repressed sexual desires ... and not the so-called “normal” urges that preoccupy most on-screen romances, either. These urges are lethal. SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR is wrapped in a flurry of messages, some of them possibly even a little mixed. Joan Bennett plays Celia, a wealthy young woman with too much time and money on her hands. Desperately looking to make a lasting emotional connection (and clearly unable to admit that she craves a little excitement in her life) she casually agrees to marry the attorney handling her late brother’s estate. Her attentions quickly turn elsewhere after meeting a mysterious architect while on holiday in Mexico.

Celia finds herself aroused while witnessing a vicious knife fight on a city street, during which she first lays eyes on the moody Mark Lamphere, played by Michael Redgrave. Bennett’s character is painted as a late-blooming thrill seeker, and her “romance” with Lamphere is clearly a terrible idea for all involved. Swept up in the adrenaline rush (and related sexual adventures, but we’ll get to that in a moment) she decides to marry Lamphere and mothball much of her former life.

It doesn’t take long for Celia to realize she’s made a mistake. Mark has a combative, possibly deranged son named David he forgot to mention during their brief courtship. He also neglects to mention having a deceased wife.

His secretary is a woman who hides a facial disfigurement behind an ever-present scarf, while his sister, Caroline, seems to be filling the role of mother and spouse to her brother. When Mark eventually joins her at their home, his behavior only grows more bizarre: he hosts a party for their friends and gives them a sinister tour of the residence, which has seen more than its fair share of murdered women. He stoically regales them with tales of their deaths as he struggles to hide the same kind of arousal Celia experienced during the knife fight in Mexico. It’s this sexual attraction to death that brought them together, but his unexpected “murder tour” suggests it will also tear them apart. Adding to the mystery is that one of these rooms on the tour is always kept locked, and involves a story that Lamphere refuses to divulge.

In every way that matters, though, SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR is a werewolf story. There are no silver bullets or gypsy curses on display, but DOOR has more in common with THE WOLF-MAN than thematic cousins like THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS or even THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Werewolf stories are almost always all about humanity’s inexplicable rage and violence and, once rendered to their essential components, are essentially myths to explain these phenomena. It doesn’t take much effort to connect characters like Bruce Banner, Norman Bates and the anti-hero of SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, Mark Lamphere.

The script is a bit of a mess, but its heart is in the right place. Lang’s usual fascination with the politics of sexual entanglement is front and center in DOOR, sometimes to its own detriment. It’s not a subtle movie, which makes for a visual treat, but also contributes to an occasionally obvious narrative. Lang abides by the Hays Code in a way that seems almost trollish, playing by the letter of the code, but certainly not its spirit. For the first half of the movie, Bennett and Redgrave do nothing but screw, and the constant “We’re not talking about sex, but we’re really talking about sex” innuendo and symbolism gets a little tiresome. Had Lang had the luxury to shoot all of the sex scenes that are alluded to in this film, it would have run longer than the restored version of METROPOLIS.

Also, it seems a little artless for a psychological thriller to comment so overtly on psychology as does SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR. Sigmund Freud is referenced often enough in the film to almost qualify for an on-screen credit, which runs counter to the movie’s expressionistic flourishes. One of the film’s most memorable moments is a delirious trial staged by Lamphere’s own imagination. It allows Lang to pull out all the visual stops, and lets Redgrave chew the scenery to splinters. It’s a great sequence, but undermined elsewhere in the film by attempts to explain his behavior via pop (and outright false) psychological theory. Why dabble in symbolism if you’re going to have your characters tell you what it means? It’s a little like telling a joke and then explain why it’s funny.
 

These problems don’t exist without purpose, though. Lang is fascinated by the reasons men and women come together, especially when they most certainly should not. And, while the movie’s sexual dynamics are a little dated, it makes them no less disturbing or compelling. Neither Lamphere nor his wife know how to escape their predicament, leading Bennett’s character to literally offer herself up as sacrifice to his violent compulsions. All of this would be a lot more profound if the film didn’t feel the need to constantly underline its own ideas at every corner, but the movie’s theme is as relevant as ever.

This column is among those featured in
 BRIDE OF MONSTER SERIAL, a collection of 
horror essays written by contributors to 
THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
Buy it today on Amazon!

These days, SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR exists in a kind of twilight, in that it’s a movie that’s neither entirely forgotten, nor especially well remembered. Ironically, had it been made by another director, DOOR might actually be a more interesting movie to cinephiles. It’s a psychological thriller tarted up in Universal Monster drag, which is a fascinating conceit ... but, for Lang, the movie is not one of his more inspired works. When you’ve got films like METROPOLIS, M, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE and SCARLET STREET on your credits, you have to do a great deal better than SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR.

All that aside, it’s a fun movie. Not only is it fucking weird by anyone’s standards, SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR genuinely earns its tension. Much like PSYCHO (a movie that owes a significant debt of gratitude to DOOR) it’s a film that relies on more than its bare premise to engage the audience. Lang understood that the mystery of Lamphere’s wild mood swings would only carry the story so far, and allows DOOR to not only embrace its bizarre pretensions, but ramps them up to a degree that might even have shamed Bob Clampett.


(Wallace McBride is the proprietor of The Collinsport Historical Society.)

DARK SHADOWS news digest

Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Parker on DARK SHADOWS, 1967.

A LOOK BACK AT DAYTIME TELEVISION'S FIRST "BITCH GODDESS"

There's an interesting editorial at The Huffington Post about Lara Parker. Here's a sample:

Now some 43 years after its cancellation, Angelique is still flying...or rather Lara Parker is flying, trading in her broomstick, for the comfort of jetliners around the country meeting new fans alongside her rival (on the series) Kathryn Leigh Scott who played Maggie Evans, Josette Dupres and several other characters on the show. Recently, the dynamic duo of good and evil have been making the rounds at conventions in North Carolina and Alabama. All this as they gear up for the official Dark Shadows Festival June 28 and 29 at the Lyndhurst mansion in Tarrytown, New York. The mansion was used as Collinwood in both of MGM's feature adaptations of the Dark Shadows saga. The event offers Dark Shadows fans a chance to meet "Angelique," get an autograph, purchase her books and maybe even convince her to "laugh" for them.

Via THE HUFFINGTON POST.

Grayson Hall in WHO ARE YOU, POLLY MAGGOO, 1966.

LISTEN TO GRAYSON HALL'S APPEARANCES ON "SUSPENSE" ON YOUTUBE

In 1962, Grayson Hall made two appearances on the radio show SUSPENSE, a popular radio program that launched two decades earlier in 1942. Both of Hall's episodes, SNOW ON 66 and WEEKEND AT GLEEBESS, are now streaming on Youtube. Intrepid explorers might even find these episodes available for download as MP3s on other sites. (Thanks to Roy Isbell for the links!)

SHARON SMYTH LENTZ, THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
SCHEDULED TO APPEAR AT MONSTERCON IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Um ... the headline pretty much tells you what you need to know about the Greenville, S.C., event scheduled for the weekend of July 18. Not only will Sharon be there, so will Butch Patrick and Pat Priest of THE MUNSTERS, making this a singularly amazing "monster kid" bash. I'm working to get the DARK SHADOWS fans from around the region to turn out for the MonsterCon event so, even if you are unable to attend, please tell your friends. LINK

TWO JOAN BENNETT FILMS TO AIR ON TCM JUNE 10
Turner Classic Movies is airing a pair of Joan Bennett/Edward G. Robinson/Dan Duryea/Fritz Lang collaborations Tuesday, June 10. At 8 p.m. EST is THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, which also features Raymond Massey. I haven't seen the film and can't comment on it, but the 10 p.m. film, SCARLET STREET, is terrific. Dark, funny and surprising, SCARLET STREET is the kind of film the Coen Brothers would have made in the 1940s had they been born a few decades earlier. The film is actually in the public domain and can be seen online for free HERE. See TCM's online schedule for more details.

Joan Bennett costume accessory sells for $2,500

Bonhams conducted an auction of classic movie memorabilia in New York yesterday. Dubbed WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF, the auction lot was curated by Turner Classic Movies and featured a staggering array of items for sale. In case you think the auction's title was just hype, they even had actual "Maltese Falcon" lead statuette available for bidding. It sold for a whopping $4 million.

Also up for auction was a cape worn by Joan Bennett in the 1939 James Whale adaption of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. The royal blue cape sold for $2,500. You can see the cape as it was presented for auction in the photo to your right, as well as how it was used in shooting of the film in the image below. (Special thanks to Will McKinley for alerting me to this auction. He spent much of yesterday live-Tweeting the event.)

A reader's guide to WOLF MOON RISING

The latest novel from Lara Parker, DARK SHADOWS: WOLF MOON RISING, is due out in two weeks. I'll have a review of the book posted soon, but it doesn't take a clairvoyant to predict that this book is going to provoke a great deal of debate. DARK SHADOWS fans are a fiery, opinionated lot, and I think we'll be talking about the strengths and weaknesses of WOLF MOON RISING for quite a while.

Over at TOR's official blog, Parker has this to say about the novel:

"In search of a missing portrait two teenagers travel back in time to the twenties during prohibition, where the young Elizabeth is smitten with the never-aging Quentin. He is suffering under a werewolf curse, but, true to his character, he is also a bootlegger, and the Collins family is consorting with the Mafia. When I read about the Ku Klux Klan, I knew I had found what might be the long-suppressed secret of the Collins family."

You can read the entire essay HERE. If you're interested WOLF MOON RISING, it's well worth your time.

For Parker, the "hook" to the Collins family is its inherent corruption. The family had issues long before vampires, werewolves and witches staked their claims to Collinsport, and this perspective is reflected in the twisted company the Collinses keep in the novel's 1920s flashback. WOLF MOON RISING isn't a disposable tie-in novel designed to keep you acquainted with the characters until the next movie is released. There's a lot of forward momentum in the story, and absolutely nothing is off limits.

There's also a lot going on under the surface. WOLF MOON RISING isn't a book you're going to want to dive into cold. It's likely that casual fans of DARK SHADOWS will be a little confused by the changes in  relationships of many its lead characters. Some of these men and women suffered (ahem) radical changes of fortune in Parker's last novel, THE SALEM BRANCH, which also introduced two new characters integral to the plot of  WOLF MOON RISING.

None of this is meant to suggest that there's "required reading" to enjoy WOLF MOON RISING. But, if you want to get the most out of the novel, here are a few good places to start.

THE SALEM BRANCH: Parker's first DARK SHADOWS novel, ANGELIQUE'S DESCENT, was published in 1998, and almost a decade would pass before the follow-up hit stores. Unlike its predecessor, THE SALEM BRANCH extended the continuity of the original series and takes place not long after the show left the airwaves in 1970. At the start of the story, Barnabas Collins is adapting to life as a mere mortal about as well as he took to life as a vampire, and looks upon his mortal frailty as yet another curse. If he didn't have enough (mostly self-created) problems, a woman bearing a disturbing likeness to Angelique moves into the Old House. It's a fun, complex novel that not only gives us an uncomfortable look at 1970s Collinwood, but also the early relationship between warlock Judah Zachary and the woman who would become Angelique Bouchard. If you 're interested in WOLF MOON RISING, then THE SALEM BRANCH is essential reading.

THE BENNETT PLAYBILL: First published in 1970, Joan Bennett's memoirs have long been out of print, but inexpensive copies of the book aren't difficult to find online. The Bennett family had a long and storied career on the stage and screen, and Parker pulls from Joan's early life to devise an alternate history for Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard in WOLF MOON RISING. While you won't need to read THE BENNETT PLAYBILL to understand the new DARK SHADOWS novel, having a little background on Bennett's family will shine some light on the novel's extended "flashback" sequence.

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
DARK SHADOWS is famous for riffing on classic literature. It sprang to life in 1966 as an homage to Charlotte Bronte's JANE EYRE, and later assimilated stories as varied as DRACULA, REBECCA and FAUST into the narrative. So, it makes sense for Parker to seek inspiration from a story like THE GREAT GATSBY, especially when you consider it shares many themes with DARK SHADOWS.
The character's lead, Jay Gatsby, is a wealthy New Yorker of ambiguous wealth, known best to his neighbors as the host of lavish weekend parties thrown at his Gothic mansion. Gatsby is suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other skullduggery, a plot point that easily finds its way into WOLF MOON RISING.