Going to camp with DARK SHADOWS

In 1966 my neighbor was addicted to Dark Shadows. There was no point even trying to talk to her between 4 and 4:30. Dark Shadows came on and she shut out the world. I, on the other hand, was not a fan of the show. I’ve never cared for vampires. I’m easily frightened. In the case of Dark Shadows I was frightened by the boring story and melodramatic acting. It just wasn’t for me.

Dark Shadows is an American gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show was created by Dan Curtis. The story bible, which was written by Art Wallace, does not mention any supernatural elements. It was unprecedented in daytime television when ghosts were introduced about six months after it began.

The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared a year into its run. Dark Shadows also featured werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles (as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor). Major writers besides Art Wallace included Malcolm Marmorstein, Sam Hall, Gordon Russell, and Violet Welles.

Dark Shadows was distinguished by its vividly melodramatic performances, atmospheric interiors, memorable storylines, numerous dramatic plot twists, unusually adventurous music score, and broad and epic cosmos of characters and heroic adventures. Now regarded as something of a camp classic, it continues to enjoy an intense cult following. Although the original series ran for only five years, its scheduling as a daily daytime drama allowed it to amass more single episodes during its run (1,225) than most other science-fiction/fantasy genre series produced for English-language television, including Doctor Who and the entire Star Trek television franchise. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Now with the looming debut on May 11th of the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version of Dark Shadows there will probably be a lot of talk about the original show and its fans. For those who are hardcore fans from the 1960s I think they might end up offended that comedy is front and center in this version. There were a lot of us who thought the original was funny, unintentionally funny.

I found this tv tie-in book at my post office book exchange table. There were thirty-two books in the series.

Dark Shadows Books (1966-72)

The Paperback Library began releasing novels based on the TV series Dark Shadows in December 1966. There were thirty-three novels released through to 1972, all of them written by Dan Ross under the pen name Marilyn Ross.

All of the novels, with the exception of House of Dark Shadows were part of one shared continuity separate from the history supplied in the original television series. House of Dark Shadows was an adaptation of the MGM film, House of Dark Shadows and as such, represented a separate continuity.

Many of the 1st printings of the novels featured covers with production stills from the television show. Invariably, the photographs represented on the covers had little if anything to do with the actual stories inside. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To see a list of books click here.




Click on any image to see it larger.

The one actor I remember from the show is Jonathan Frid who played the vampire Barnabas Collins. Wondering what became of him I found that he died just a few weeks ago from an accidental fall. Sad that he won’t be around to revel in the reintroduction of the character he created.

I will admit that I watched the NBC remake of the show in 1991 with Ben Cross as the vampire. Ben Cross was the reason I watched the show, though after a few episodes I was again having trouble with the whole story. I’ve never been a fan of gothic romance. I’ve never been able to imagine myself as a lady running away from a dark castle. I would have been too clumsy for that and would most assuredly have fallen and been caught by the vampire. And I’m not fond of blood dripping from someone’s neck, most especially my own.

Now que the creepy music.

MAURICE THOMAS meets Barbara Cartland

It would be too easy for me to write a snarky post about author Barbara Cartland. To those that didn't like her writing she became a caricature of the whole romance novel genre. She cranked out books like McDonalds cranks out burgers. Her physical appearance was of thin blond cotton candy hair, a ton of makeup, a sagging jowl, and pink; everything was pink. But people loved her.

Dame (Mary) Barbara Hamilton Cartland, DBE, CStJ (9 July 1901 – 21 May 2000), was an English author, one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century. As Barbara Cartland she is known for her numerous romantic novels, but she also wrote under her married name Barbara McCorquodale.

She also became one of London's most prominent society figures and one of Britain's most popular media personalities, appearing often at public events and on television, dressed in her trademark pink and discoursing on love, health, and social and political issues. She is widely regarded as having originated the phrase: "I'm bringing sexy back", as popularised by singer Justin Timberlake.

Cartland is the seventh most translated author in the world and published 723 books. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

I can still remember a tv show doing a piece about her which had me shaking my head. It showed Cartland relaxing on a settee, in full Cartland garb, dictating a novel to a secretary. I was dumbfounded by how this stuff just rolled off her tongue.

"No! No! Alex…no!”

The protest was not vehement, and the man whose lips were very close to Romina’s smiled a little smile of triumph before he answered:

“Why fight? You love me—I know you do. Stop fighting, Romina, and let us be happy. I will teach you what love really is—glorious, wonderful, overwhelming.”

The deep voice with its faint accent was hypnotic. So was the soft, experienced touch of his hands, and Romina felt herself drifting into a No-Man’s-Land of warmth and feeling. (from Danger by the Nile)

For those who need more of Barbara you'll be happy to know she has a website.

This book is another one from the cabin. I have never read it.

What about the illustrator of this book cover, Maurice Thomas? He actually gets credit on the copyright page. I know I've done a post about some of his work, but now can't find it. He was known for doing romance novels and pulp fiction covers. If I ever figure out which post from the past contained information about him I'll add a link to this post.

In the meantime here is a link to a site showing another one of his illustrations, including an original.

This book was published in September of 1967.

MIGNON G. EBERHART and a crazy woman

Another vintage paperback from the cabin. This one was published in 1966. I never saved any of these to read, just for the covers. Since I don't believe there's a market for these old books, I'll probably eventually tear the covers off and throw the remains away to be recycled. But before doing that....

There's no information given about the illustrator. I really don't know what it has to do with the storyline since I haven't read the book. Of course I'm thinking of the Hitchcock thriller The Birds. Was this book in some way inspired by that film?

So who was Mignon G. Eberhart? Turns out she was rather famous and prolific.

First off the woman has been dead since 1996, but she has a Facebook page. It doesn't look like her books are being published anymore so if you choose to read something by her you'll have to look through used stacks. This book goes for 1 cent up to 20 cents on Amazon. Okay, there is one seller claiming to have a "brand new and has never been opened" copy and they're charging $58.28. So looking at my copy I'm guessing mine is in the 20 cent range. Looks good, probably only read by one person, some scuffing.

Personally I've never heard of this writer, but then she writes in a genre, romance mystery, I gave up on back in high school. I used to love reading Mary Stewart books and some Phyllis Whitney. Now I run the other direction preferring Sue Grafton or the good old hardboiled stories of Chandler and Cain.

Mignon Good Eberhart (July 6, 1899, Lincoln, Nebraska - October 8, 1996, Greenwich, Connecticut) was an American author of mystery novels. She had one of the longest careers among major American mystery writers.

Mignonette Good was born July 6, 1899, in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a teenager, Good often wrote short stories and novels to occupy herself. From 1917 to 1920 she attended Nebraska Wesleyan University but did not complete the coursework for a degree. In 1923 she married Allan Eberhart, and began writing short stories to combat boredom. Within several years she had begun writing novels, and in 1929 she published her first novel, The Patient in Room 18. Her third novel, The Mystery of Hunting's End received the $5000 Scotland Yard Prize in 1931. Four years later her alma-mater presented her with an honorary doctorate degree.

By the end of the 1930s, Eberhart had become the leading female crime novelist in the United States and was one of the highest paid female crime novelists in the world, next to Agatha Christie. Known as "America's Agatha Christie," she wrote a total of 59 novels, the last published in 1988, shortly before her 89th birthday. Eight of her novels were adapted as movies, beginning in 1935 with While the Patient Slept. The last adaptation, based on the book Hasty Wedding, was the movie Three's a Crowd released in 1945.

The normally prolific Eberhart delivered fewer books in the 1940s, possibly due to upheaval in her personal life. After twenty years of marriage, Eberhart divorced her husband and remarried in 1946 to John Hazen Perry. Within two years she had divorced her second husband and remarried Allan Eberhart.

Eberhart was one of the founders of the modern romantic suspense novel. In an unusual twist for the time, her mysteries featured female heroines. The year after her first novel was published, Agatha Christie followed her lead and introduced another female detective, Jane Marple.

Her works often featured female heroines, and tended to include exotic locations, wealthy characters, and suspense and romance. Her characterization is good, and her characters always have "genuine and believable motives for everything they do." Her "writing is spare but almost lyrical."

In 1971 she was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Eberhart also served as president of the Mystery Writers of America. In 1994 she received the Agatha Award: Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In 2007, a posthumous collection of her short stories, Dead Yesterday and Other Stories, was edited by Rick Cypert and Kirby McCauley, and published by Crippen & Landru. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

The following is from the site girl-detective.net and pretty much convinced me that Eberhart books are probably not for me.

You have to be in the right mood to read Eberhart. Though plucky and well-bred, her heroines are some of the silliest in the mystery genre. The anonymous phone call bidding her hightail it down to the boathouse where murder has struck once before? She always answers on the first ring. Strange sounds in the attic of a house where murder walks the shadowy corridors? Sure, she's got five minutes to--er--kill; she'll just powder her nose and be right up. The smoking gun or bloody knife beside the still warm body? Never does the Eberhart heroine fail to pick it up and press her dainty little fingerprints all over it. Forget about the HIBK (Had I But Known) school, these chicks are at the top of the Why The Hell Would She class. They never have a decent alibi and they always have motive galore. (SOURCE: Girl Detective)

To see more about Mignon G. Eberhart:

Mignoneberhart.com where you'll also find a photo of the author

Mystery Net.com

Mockingbird Creighton where you can also read a "selection" from one of her books.

gadetection

The net has allowed me to add a little biographical information to this piece of ephemera that's been on a shelf for years. Never a priority item, but now not just a cover image. Hopefully, I've accomplished what I intend this blog to be for, which is to expose myself to something new by looking at something old.

PS: About that NIGHTMARE

Was this book better than its cover? I don't know because I've never read it. This is just another book that spent over 30 years on the bookshelf in the family cabin.

Funny thing is, according to the back cover copy, the story took place at a cabin in the California mountains. Maybe that's why I never read it. On moonlit nights walking through the snow from the parking lot to the cabin, around a quarter-of-a-mile, the last thing I wanted to think about was murder.

This book, as far as I can determine, is no longer in print. This edition was published in June 1968. The author, Dolores Hitchens, died in 1973, only a few years after this book took up residency on the cabin shelf. I'm not finding much about the author online other than Wikipedia, a nice piece at Mystery File (see D. B. Olsen), and a brief piece at Vintage Hardboiled Reads.

Julia Clara Catharine Dolores Birk Olsen Hitchens (1907–1973), better known as Dolores Hitchens, was an American mystery novelist who wrote prolifically from 1938 until her death. She also wrote under the pseudonyms D. B. Olsen, Dolan Birkley and Noel Burke.

Hitchens collaborated on five railroad mysteries with her second husband, Bert Hitchens, a railroad detective, and also branched out into other genres in her writing, including Western stories. Many of her mystery novels centered around a spinster character named Rachel Murdock.

Hitchens wrote Fool's Gold, the 1958 novel adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964). (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Click on the source link above to see a list of Hitchen's books.

No information is given about the cover illustrator.

ENSIGN PULVER Was Quite a Guy

One of my favorite movies is Mr. Roberts. I can watch that one over and over and never get tired of it. The cast of Henry Fonda, William Powell, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon as the hysterical Ensign Pulver, are perfect. Lemmon will always be the true Pulver. Nobody else can inhabit that character. Plus, the little flat island shown in the background in the opening shots is Midway Island where I once lived.

Somewhere around this house I do have a copy of the book Mr. Roberts, but it is not a movie tie-in having been printed decades after the movie. The book shown today is for the follow-up movie Ensign Pulver which starred Robert Walker, Burl Ives, Walter Matthau, Millie Perkins, and once upon a time husband to Nancy Sinatra, Tommy Sands.

I know I've seen this movie, but have only vague memories of it. It's not one I'll rush to see because Jack Lemmon WAS Ensign Pulver, not Robert Walker.

I'm sure I bought this book, and yes I bought it when the movie came out, hoping for more Ensign Pulver shenanigans. Don't ask me about the book. No memory of reading it. It's in pristine condition.