Night of Dark Shadows ** (1971, David Selby, Grayson Hall, Kate Jackson, Thayer David) – Classic Movie Review 10,800

‘Hung as a witch 200 years ago, Angelique comes back to Collinwood. Her return from the grave is just the beginning of their lust.’

Producer-director Dan Curtis’s 1971 studio-butchered and thus unsuccessful film release Night of Dark Shadows is the rather poor, boring and clichéd sequel to House of Dark Shadows (1970) that is a pale shadow of its stylish predecessor, with John Karlen and Nancy Barrett (as vampires Alex Jenkins and Claire Jenkins), Grayson Hall and Thayer David the only links to the original film, but all playing different roles.

Annoyingly, the original vampire theme is largely abandoned this time, and that is replaced by tale of Gothic romance and supernatural reincarnation. Curtis had wanted to make a direct sequel and to revive the vampire character Barnabas Collins, but Jonathan Frid, who played him in 596 TV episodes from 1967 to 1971 as well as the first movie, refused to play the role again for fear of being typecast, so Curtis and Sam Hall invented a new story based loosely on the parallel-time sequence of the TV series and centered on the show’s other popular male lead, Quentin Collins, played by David Selby in 312 episodes of the TV series, and Kate Jackson, who played Daphne Harridge /  Daphne Collins in 71 episodes of the TV series.

David Selby stars rather smoothly as Quentin Collins, an artist who moves with his new wife Tracy Collins (Kate Jackson) into the Collinwood Mansion in Collinsport, Maine, his inherited New England house that turns out to be haunted by ghosts, in particular Angelique (Lara Parker), who had lived there 200 years ago. Grayson Hall plays housekeeper Carlotta Drake, who comes from a long line of domestic servants working for the Collins family at Collinwood. She played the different role of psychologist Dr Julia Hoffman in House of Dark Shadows, while John Karlen and Nancy Barrett played Willie Loomis and Carolyn Stoddard in the original. Thayer David played Professor T Elliot Stokes in House of Dark Shadows (1970), but plays the Reverend Strack in the sequel.

Night of Dark Shadows was shot in six weeks on a budget of $900,000 and released on 4 August 1971 after the TV show had ended. It was considerably less successful than its predecessor, though it still grossed $1,400,000. The storyline is very muddled and disjointed in its original studio-enforced release version at just 93 minutes. However, it is still a good-looking movie, stylishly photographed and well made by director Curtis, with striking performances relishing some good dialogue.

The screenplay is by Sam Hall and the story by Sam Hall and Dan Curtis.

Grayson Hall recalled how MGM studio head James Aubrey called her husband, Dark Shadows writer Sam Hall, and told him that he would have to fly out to California and edit around 30 minutes from his latest film, then at 128 minutes. Sam Hall and Dan Curtis were given only 24 hours to re-cut the film, and Aubrey approved his 97-minute version, which was press screened, but later another four minutes were cut without Curtis’s consent. The 128-minute version was considered lost and destroyed for decades, but film historian Darren Gross recovered much of the excised footage in August 1999, though without sound.

Plans for restoration and release of this version are being made. Presumably the film would make proper sense with the cut 35 minutes restored in the director’s cut (128 minutes) and, judging from descriptions of the 16 never-before-seen sequences, this version would be enjoyable and worthwhile.

It is the feature film debut of both David Selby and Kate Jackson.

Also in the cast are Lara Parker, James Storm, Thayer David, Christopher Pennock, Diana Millat, Monica Rich and Clarice Blackburn.

Dark Shadows was revived on TV in 1991 for a 12-episode series with Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins.

It is followed by Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows (2012) with Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and Helena Bonham Carter.

RIP Bob Cobert, House of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows and The Winds of War composer, who died at 95 on 19 February 2020.

RIP John Karlen, who died on 22 January 2020. The Emmy-winning Cagney & Lacey and Dark Shadows actor was 86.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,800

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com