Michelle Pfeiffer for 'Dark Shadows'?

MichellePfeiffer_PortAccording to The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle Pfeiffer (BATMAN RETURNS) is in negotiations to join the cast of DARK SHADOWS, the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp feature film version of the 60’s Gothic supernatural soap opera. 
Michelle Pfeiffer’s role would be that of  Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the matriarch of the Collins family,  which runs the major industries of  Collinsport, a secluded town on coast of Maine.
In the series, Elizabeth Stoddard (played by film star Joan Bennet) had become relcusive, rarely leaving  Collinswood, the family’s mansion, since the mysterious disappearance of her husband, Paul Stoddard.  
In the 1990’s NBC prime time revival, Jean Simmons played the role.
If Michelle Pfieffer signs, this would be the first time she and Tim Burton have worked together since she played Catwoman in the above mentioned BATMAN RETURNS (1992).
Already in the cast are Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, the melancholy vampire who returns from his 18th Century crypt to pose as his own decesendent.  He’s released by Willie Loomis, to be played by WATCHMEN’s Jackie Earle Haley.     
Australian actreess Bella Heathcoate is set to play Victoria Winters, a young woman with an unexplained tie to the Collins family, who becomes a focus of Barnabas Collin’s attention. However, there’s another woman in the equation, the witch who cursed Barnabas witch vampirism, Angelique DuPre. Eva Green (CASINO ROYALE) will be playing that role.

Joan Bennett, Jonathan Frid in period dress
Joan Bennett, Jonathan Frid in period dress

Sounds like a nice cast is being assembled for the project, which is being fueled in part by Johhny Depp’s long-time desire to play the tragic/heroic Barnabas, ever since seeing Johnathan Frid’s theatrical performance on the 60’s ABC series.  
DARK SHADOWS was created by Dan Curtis (with Art Wallace, Malcom Mammorstein, Sam Hall, and other writers contributing greatly). Dan Curtis made two 1970’s film with the daytime drama’s cast members, and produced the NBC/MGM Televison revival.

The new film is being made by Warner Brothers, which previously tried to relaunch the property as a new TV series for the WB Network.
The pilot for the rejected show has never been aired.

John Barry remembered; Pet Sematary reopened; Jeff Bridges, exorcist: Cinefantastique Round Table Podcast 2:6

cfq round table copy
Yes, once again it’s time for a weekly round-up of news, events, and home video releases brought to you by the Cinefantastique Round Table Podcast. With host Dan Persons missing in action, Steve Biodrowski steps into the driver’s seat, joined by regular contributor Lawrence French and by Arbogast, proprietor of the Arbogast on Film blog. This week’s topics of discussion include the death of Bond composer John Barry; the casting of Jeff Bridges as an exorcist in THE SEVENTH SON; the potential casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Willie Loomis in the proposed DARK SHADOWS remake; and the announcement of Rob Zombie’s THE LORDS OF SALEM; and Paramount Pictures’ plans to re-open the PET SEMATARY franchise. Also on the menu: the upcoming week’s theatrical and home video releases.

'Lone Ranger' Director Signs On

johnny_depp_piratesDeadline.com annouced that Gore Verbinski (PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN) has signed on to direct Disney’s THE LONE RANGER.
This will re-unite him with PIRATES star Johnny Depp, who also provides the voice of the starring lizard in Verbinski’s animated film RANGO. Depp, of Native American heritage, is set to play the Ranger’s trusted friend & partner, Tonto.
No start date or title character casting news has been announced as yet. Depp’s next project to go before the lens is likely DARK SHADOWS, with Tim Burton (SLEEPY HOLLOW).

'Dark Shadows' for Burton and Depp

JohnnyDepp_SHOLLOWAccording to The Hollywood Reporter, it looks as though Tim Burton and Johnny Deep’s next project will indeed be the long-expected DARK SHADOWS feature film.
As a child, Johnny Depp was a big fan of the the Dan Curtis produced Gothic soap opera, which featured the tragic and romantic vampire Barnabas Collins, played with theatrical  èlan by series star Johnathan Frid.
The ABC show was the cross-generational TWILIGHT of  the  late 1960’s – early 70’s, attracting children, and teens, who would rush home to watch its mix of monsters and the mundane, as well as the  adult women who were the usual audience for afternoon dramas.
Several years back, Warners Brothers had made an abortive pilot for the WB Network, which is now merged with the remains of of UPN  as The CW Network.
Now, after three or more years of development, Warners has set an April 2011 start date for the project. The screenplay was written by John August, with the latest draft by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Richard Zanuck, Graham King and Christi Dembrowski are set to produce.

1960's American Gothic
Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall — American Gothicism

In addition to the original half-hour daytime series, Dan Curtis made two modestly budgeted feature films HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970) and NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS (1971) for MGM.
In 1991, NBC ran a revived 60-minute version of the series starring Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins. Despite generally favorable reactions, the Dan Curtis/MGM Television show— often interrupted or pre-empted by Gulf War coverage—only lasted a single season.

Dark Shadows Delayed?

Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily tells us that the start date for DARK SHADOWS, Johnny Depp’s feature film version of the Gothic soap opera, may have to be pushed back to accommodate director Tim Burton’s schedule:

…any rumor that Burton may bail altogether is “definitely” not true, says my insider: “He loves the project”. But his helming of Alice In Wonderland for Disney — and people who’ve visited the set tell me it looks amazing — is demanding more time than originally planned. Now Burton is facing a hot delivery date for a March 5, 2010 release. And so he’s exploring pushing back the start date for Dark Shadows.
I’m told the postponement hasn’t yet been presented to Warner Bros. Another of my sources says the studio has already reserved stages. “It is our intention to still start the movie in the fall. We’re trying to work it out,” a Depp insider explains to me. “And Tim Burton is Johnny’s first and only choice to direct.”
Warner Bros purchased the film rights to the TV series from the estate of Dan Curtis (the creator, producer and director of Dark Shadows). Depp is both starring and producing through his Infinitum Nihil company which his sister runs. It’s true that Depp has had a long obsession with playing Barnabas Collins. Tim Burton signed on as director last June with John August scripting. Originally, a start date had been scheduled for August but then was pushed back to the fall.

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins

DARK SHADOWS was a daytime serial that became a hit in the ’60s, starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, a reluctant vampire seeking a cure for his undead existence. The show, which basically recycled old Universal horror movie motifs in a soap opera context, yield two feature films in the 1970s and was later remade in 1990, as a prime time series, with Ben Cross as Barnabas.

House of Dark Shadows returns – at San Francisco's Shock It To Me! Horror fest

COME SEE HOW THE VAMPIRES DO IT!
On Saturday, October 19 SHOCK IT TO ME! (San Francisco’s annual film festival, devoted to the Golden Age of Horror Cinema) will present two vampire film classics: Terence Fisher’s HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) and Dan Curtis’s HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970), both showing at the historic (and haunted) Castro Theatre.
Co-featured with HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS will be the follow-up film, NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, while Hammer’s CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN will be co-featured with HORROR OF DRACULA.
The DARK SHADOWS double-feature will also have special guest appearances from stars Kathryn Leigh Scott (Maggie Evans) and Lara Parker (Angelique).
Get full details on the two day event here: http://shock-it-to-me.com/
Meanwhile, let’s dig into the Cinefantastique vault of horror to bring you editor Frederick S. Clarke’s rave review on HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, taken from the second issue of Cinefantastique, first published in January, 1971.


FREDERICK S. CLARKE on HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS
The seventies have begun with an inordinate number of vampire films, chief among which are COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE, from AIP in June, MGM’s HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS and Hammer Films’ TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, both in September. This is not to mention THE VAMPIRE LOVERS in October, Hammer’s latest entry, THE SCARS OF DRACULA, in December, and the indie-exploitation release GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO COUNT DRACULA in August, as well as several titles which were in production in 1970 but will not appear until this year.
HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS is the superior film of the new crop, and less modestly deserves credit as the best vampire film since HORROR OF DRACULA, which began this modern trend back in 1958. These two films are, in technique, at opposite cinematic poles. HORROR OF DRACULA is slow and brooding, wonderfully suggestive of horror, and in that respect, remarkable as much for what it leaves out as what it shows. HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, on the other hand, is a fast paced, harrowing thriller, which shocks on the purely graphic level. These are, of course, grossly oversimplified generalizations, for both films utilize both techniques in some measure. HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS is, in fact, the culmination of the graphic trend begun in that earlier film. Although HORROR OF DRACULA is, in the main, of the suggestive school, it was remarked on, when it first appeared, more for its graphic scenes of horror; Dracula’s fierce encounter with Harker in the library; the branding of Mina with the holy crucifix; and Dracula’s destruction at the hands of Dr, Van Helsing. The success of the film sharpened the already existing debate that fantasy and horror of the suggestive school was the most potent form; opponents of this thesis now had, in the graphic scenes of HORROR OF DRACULA, some evidence to the contrary. HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS marks the pinnacle in the ascendancy of the graphic school and should remove any doubts concerning the power and effect that can be achieved by the graphic method in the horror and fantasy genre.
The film’s opening minutes are a fine showcase of the suggestive method, and go far in establishing a complicated array of interesting characters as well as setting a tone of violence and horror, which the film maintains throughout most of it’s 97 minutes. Collinwood and its bizarre inhabitants seem to be a serious embodiment of a Charles Adams nightmare in which fantasy belongs as part of the natural order. Young David is a warped little boy who delights in hiding and lurking about in Gothic ruins at Collinwood; he locks his governess Maggie in a room in an abandoned building and leaves her. Willie Loomis is a shiftless hired hand looking for lost Colonial treasure amid the ruins of the old house on the estate. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard is the matriarch of Collinwood, who rules over the estate and her weak-willed brother, Roger. Into this scene of decaying opulence, the entrance of their vampiric ancestor, Barnabas Collins, is appropriate.
The first shots of Barnabas show us his and ornate finger ring. He lurks in the woods surrounding Collinwood, his first victim Daphne Budd as she leaves the estate late at night. The camera focuses on the feet of dark figure, moving up to examine the black walking stick and his hand, protruding from the ruffled cuffs, firmly grasping its grotesque head. In this manner, anticipation in the audience of seeing the expected features of Jonathan Frid as Barnabas is well played upon, until they are revealed upon his first visit to Collinwood, as he looks upon his own portrait hanging there, as Mrs. Stoddard remarks how much this English cousin resembles their ancestor. Aside from the opening moments, the film is unparalleled for its type in presenting scene after scene of chilling horror. This fast-paced treatment of the subject matter is a welcome change from the usual vampire film, which, in spending most of its time in the suggestive mode to carefully build mood and atmosphere, frankly, becomes boring.  A case in point is THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, which contains some of the finest mood and atmosphere seen in any horror film, quite reminiscent, really, of the eerie imagery of Roger Corman’s heyday at AIP.  However, the eye soon leadens to all this wonderfully suggestive imagery, after 90 minutes of it and little else.
The first scene of graphic horror, tame in view of what is to come, has tremendous impact following, as it does, the slow and studied opening sequences. Barnabas, frothing with rage over the jealousy of his first conquest at Collinwood, Carolyn, impulsively attacks her before the horrified eyes of his lackey, Willie Loomis. The camera provides a truly chilling view of Barnabas gnashing voraciously at the bleeding neck of to hysterical and screaming victim and then tracks up to Willie, shaking with indecisiveness and screaming “No, Barnabas, no.” With an impulsive burst of energy, Willie knocks Barnabas free of the girl and the camera gives us a view of his evil protruding fangs, his blood spattered face contorted with rage as he yells “Get her out of here, Willeee!” The audience is struck dumb. As Barnabas, Jonathan Frid does excellently with one of the most difficult parts imaginable, for his Barnabas is at different times, now gentle and sympathetic, then the ranting incarnation of supernatural evil. It is no mean talent that manages to pull it off. In excellent support are members of the television cast, particularly Grayson Hall as Dr. Julia Hoffman, who cures Barnabas’s vampirism temporarily, and Thayer David as Professor T. Eliot Stokes, the Van Helsing figure. The latter will be fondly remembered as the deliciously sinister Count Saknussemm from JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH in 1959.
HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS is particularly successful in mixing the modern world with the world of superstition and fantasy, which aids greatly in suspending our sense of disbelief. Somehow, the standing philosophy of these films, that the establishment must pooh-pooh any supernatural manifestation, using reverse psychology on the viewer to force him to accept the supernatural element, has never worked. It is oddly reinforcing to the supernatural motif to see the Collinsport police accept the existence of vampirism when faced with the evidence, to see them each brandishing a large metallic crucifix, to see them loading their guns with silver bullets. One of the most effective scenes in the film has a cadre of uniformed officers, equipped with gleaming crosses, ringed about Carolyn, who is languishing fearfully before the dreaded symbols of Christianity. The officious, neatly uniformed police are such commonplace figures, that within the context of vampirism, they lend the scene an almost surreal quality.
The screenplay by Sam Hall and Gordon Russell is highly inventive, while borrowing selectively from the past. They invest the vampiric lust of Barnabas with some quite human motivations, making him all the more comprehensible for it. They wisely steeped the tale with an elegant sense of lore and history, which provides Barnabas a solid base in Colonial New England’s past, full, as it is, of wonderfully macabre associations with witchcraft and the supernatural.
However, credit for the film’s unqualified success must go to director Dan Curtis, who previously had exhibited his skill in the genre by producing, incomparably, the finest version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE on television several seasons ago. Curtis provides HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS with a stylistic flair indelibly his own, a restless, roving visual sense, never content in projecting a static image. Curtis directs Arthur Ornitz’s excellent camerawork not at a scene, but into it, through it, and around it with a hypnotically fluid ebb and flow of nightmarish montage. As little David walks toward the cold embrace of his vampiric sister, the deft editing hand of Arline Garson intercuts between a sweeping master shot in which the camera pans slowly with him as he walks, with various close-ups carefully matched with the motive sense of the master shot; the close-ups dissolve into and out of the long master shot, creating an exquisite sense of his being inexorably drawn toward her by some unseen power. Curtis is, however, at his peak with scenes of graphic violence. This is precisely where most films of the genre break down into laughable burlesque. It is one thing to suggest horror, the venerable technique of the classic cinema, yet quite another, and more difficult thing, to actually show it. Yet show it Curtis does, and with such conviction and unerring sense of composition that the result has an unnatural fidelity that thoroughly shocks; shocks in the finest Hitchcockian sense, as PSYCHO. On re-viewing HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, one becomes aware of the great tension within the audience during these scenes of graphic horror; the usual audience clatter of coughing, rustling candy wrappers and idle chatter is gone; this unusual silence lasts just beyond the scene, at which time the audience figuratively exhales, and their usual animation and noisiness returns.
The end-all of graphic horror is the climactic death scene of Barnabas, coming, as it does, after a series of gruesome encounters that leave nearly every major character in the film dead. The camera presents an eerie point of view shot as Jeff slowly descends a staircase, mistily enshrouded by creeping fog, slowly bringing into view the beckoning Barnabas, standing beside Maggie, lying unconscious on the sepulcher, dead Willie lying at his feet. But Willie, his degraded and weak willed slave, is not quite dead, and as Barnabas inches forward, smiling grimly and about to dispatch his last living antagonist, Willie gropes painfully to his feet and removes the large wooden shaft on which he is impaled. The camera presents us with a close shot of Barnabas baring his fangs, about to sink them into the yielding throat of Jeff, when Willie lunges and with his dieing hand plunges the shaft deep into the vampire’s back. Still in close shot, the head of Barnabas rears up in agony and confusion, blood and spittle gushing forth from his gaping mouth. Curtis wisely does these agonizing scenes of violence in slow motion to obtain the full impact from their fleeting existence. Broken from the vampire’s spell, Jeff maneuvers behind Barnabas who is groping and thrashing wildly, and pounds the stake through his body until it protrudes bloodily from his chest, and Barnabas drops limply to the floor. In slow motion, the grisly effect of the scene is unforgettable.
The superb gothic flavor of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS is the result of ideally selected filming locations, which are, far and away, more convincing than any set could ever be, yet as strikingly grotesque and haunting as anything imaginable. The credit for dressing up the location shooting and carefully matching it to interiors goes to production designer Trevor Williams and set decorator Ken Fitzpatrick, who have taken meticulous pains in detailing the musty abandoned buildings as well as the decorous drawing rooms of the old mansion, replete with a crackling fireplace, overstuffed chairs and other trappings of sumptuous living.
The music of Robert Cobert is familiar, and becoming, perhaps, a bit overworked by now, after appearing in both the DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE television special as well as continually on the DARK SHADOWS daytime serial, however, it does not suffer from familiarity, being so well suited and put to good use here.
The viewer leaves HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS with the affirmative sense that the horror film can also be a work of art, and that Dan Curtis is certainly one of the finest talents working in the genre. Once and for all, the film should stifle the argument that the suggestion of horror is per se always more effective and believable than its graphic depiction, a fallacy which quite naturally arose from everyone’s failure in the graphic mode, until recently. To actually show horror and the supernatural in graphic terms with any conviction and believability demands considerable creative genius; there is no wonder it has been so long in coming.
HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS Produced and directed by Dan Curtis. Screenplay by Sam Hall and Gordon Russell. Director of photography: Arthur Ornitz. Editor: Arline Garison. Production designer: Trevor Williams, Set decorator: Ken Fitzpatrick. Sound: Chris Newman & Jack Jacobson. Music: Robert Cobert.
CAST — Barnabas Collins: Jonathan Frid; Dr. Julia Hoffman: Grayson Hall; Elizabeth Stoddard Collins: Joan Bennett; Maggie Evans: Kathryn Leigh Scott; Jeff Clark: Roger Davis; Carolyn Stoddard: Nancy Barrett; Willie Loomis: John Karlen; Prof. T. Eliot Stokes: Thayer David; Roger Collins: Louis Edmonds; Todd Jennlngs: Donald Briscoe; David Collins: David Henesey; Minister: Jerry Lacy. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture. Released September, 1970. In Metrocolor. 97 minutes.

Sense of Wonder: Depp to cast Dark Shadows on the big screen

Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane in SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999).DARK SHADOWS fans – at least the ones I know – are rejoicing at the news (announced in Daily Variety and at a recent ShadowCon) that Johnny Depp has signed a deal to co-produce a feature film version of the 1960s Gothic soap opera.

Warner Bros. is teaming with Depp’s Infinitum-Nihil and Graham King’s GK Films to develop a feature based on the ’60s daytime supernatural sudser…
Depp has said in interviews that he has always been obsessed with “Dark Shadows” and had, as a child, wanted to be Barnabas Collins, the vampire patriarch of the series. The role was originated by Jonathan Frid.

I find my own enthusiasm considerably more muted, although I am willing to be pleasantly surprised. I suspect that, as a property, DARK SHADOWS truly is a relic of its era, and I’m not sure it can be updated without losing its appeal. Not for nothing have forty years of vampire cinema passed since the original show was an afternoon hit, and history provides a couple of reasons to suspect that turning DARK SHADOWS into a feature film and/or updating its story are far from surefire hit ideas. Continue reading “Sense of Wonder: Depp to cast Dark Shadows on the big screen”