From the Podcast Talking Pictures with Nolan Hendricks and Harris Walker (Part One first episode, 7/16/2016)
Nolan: This is Nolan Hendricks
Harris: And I'm Harris Walker
Nolan: Welcome to 'Talking Pictures'
Nolan: In Part One of this episode, we're going to discuss the 1969 British horror film 'The Dark' [1]
Audio of the original 1969 trailer for The Dark is played.
Nolan: It's very much a proto-slasher movie.
Harris: Yeah.
I'll admit that 'The Dark' didn't reach my radar when it came out and I never watched it until you sent me the KL Studio Classics DVD of the film and told me we were gonna talk about it because I'd worked with Michael Armstrong, the director. Sam Westwood, my long-suffering second half--
Both men laugh before Harris continues talking
Harris: Sam remembers Jill Haworth telling him back in the day that she was going back to England to make a film. It's too bad she's gone now, it would have been nice to have had her here with us.
Nolan: Jill Haworth is definitely one of the
best things about 'The Dark' and when I did my books on forgotten films, she was really nice to me. We had a chat about 'The Dark' because I'd wanted to cover it.
Harris: I never understood why Jill
didn't have a better career. She had some
big breaks.
Huge. This is someone who played Sally Bowles in the original Broadway production of 'Cabaret'.
Nolan: She was very underrated. While this
is a good movie, I feel like she should have been doing 'A' films after 'Cabaret'. Jill couldn't really pinpoint what went wrong.
Harris: When Sal Mineo started directing in the late '70s, he would put her in his films. She had a supporting role in 'Trial' which you know, Sam and Carol Lynley starred in--
Nolan: That was such a frightening side to Sam. In real life, he is
nothing like that character.
Harris: No. He's one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. I...
uhh...I can't watch that movie.
By the time we started dating, Sal and Sam had developed more of a
professional relationship as opposed to friendship. Again, Sam went into further detail in the documentary. I wasn't around when whatever happened
happened. Sal was...
Sal.
Nolan: 'Trial' got held up--
Harris: When Sal got stabbed,
yeah. It was released about a year later than it should have been.
Nolan: Going back to 'The Dark', the other two names were pretty impressive; Ian Ogilvy, who
later played James Bond after Roger Moore left the series is second billed, And of course--
Harris: David Bowie!
Nolan: 'The Dark' is also notable for being David Bowie's film debut.
Harris: I apparently met Bowie in the early '70s at Max's Kansas City.
Nolan: Apparently?
Harris: I only
know we met because there was a photo taken
(laughs)
Nolan: You did meet Bowie again later though. I remember you being really excited.
Harris: Oh yeah! Later on in the '80s. I was in talks to direct a music video for him but it fell through. I was rather choked when he passed away recently.
Nolan: I remember when you came into my life,
one of the things we bonded over was our love for David Bowie.
Harris: Yes we did!
And I'm gonna be honest, the best thing about this movie
was Bowie.
Nolan: I feel like his presence
did help beef the film up. As did Jill Haworth and Ian Ogilvy.
Harris: I liked that they threw some cabaret scenes in for Bowie.
Nolan: What intrigues me about the film is it was released
right before the end of the 1960s when things turned sour. The Polanski murders, Altamont. Because it is
so dark, it was like a harbinger of things to come.
Harris: And Bowie playing a musician who--
Nolan: Don't give away the spoilers, Harris! (laughs)
Nolan continues
I'll just say that Bowie's character fits in
with the general mood of the last half of 1969. I think the film could have had a better run had it not been released a month
before the Polanski murders. From what I gather, Columbia pulled it after the murders took place. They'd had a hit with 'Night Of The Living Dead' and it made sense that they would release something like 'The Dark'. While 'Night' was more gritty and a 'message movie'. 'The Dark'
does remind me of the climate of the time. You could transplant it to Los Angeles and it would have been
a lot like what was happening.
Harris: Oh yeah. I was there.
Everyone was scared shitless. Some of that was discussed in Sam's documentary. He was filming 'The Grifters' and I was staying at his place on the couch at the time of the Polanski murders. I think he thought I'd be built-in security. But, I was scared to death, we
both were. I was walking around with a baseball bat. Sam's dad bought him a gun but
I wasn't gonna use it.
Nolan: It wasn't the simpler time people say it is. You know, when there is nostalgia for the '60s--
Harris: I'm not sure if there was ever such a thing
as a simpler time. Things are just less scary sometimes.
Nolan: There is some interesting stuff about the production on 'The Dark'. AIP
and Columbia were both interested. But AIP wanted Michael Armstrong to use Frankie Avalon or Fabian to play Chris, the Ian Ogilvy role.
Harris: Good old AIP!
Nolan: Columbia
weren't going to interfere with the casting so Armstrong was able to cast Ian Ogilvy. He wanted an actress named Jane Merrow to play the role that went to Jill Haworth.
Harris: As someone who
made films for AIP, I feel like it would have been a complete
disaster in their hands. It would have been like
Carnaby Street Beach Party Massacre! Hell--
(Harris laughs)
Nolan: Americanizing Ogilvy's role would have resulted in serious miscasting. Frankie Avalon wasn't the
worst actor, though--
Harris: I have
no ill will towards Frankie Avalon or Fabian. They just
both had an image that I can't picture working in a horror film that takes place in swinging London. Maybe if they had done something like 'Food Of The Gods'
or if the setting had been switched to California--
Nolan: 'Food Of The Gods' was your own AIP horror film.
Harris: Yes. For Burt I. Gordon. It got me on 'Mystery Science Theatre'
(laughs)
Harris continues
AIP was
bad for butchering films. It was a schlock factory. I don't remember making 'Food Of The Gods' because I was
loaded the whole time. I just remember Ralph Meeker was in even
worse shape. Wish I had more anecdotes about working with Ralph Meeker because 'Kiss Me Deadly' is a classic. He was good in
that movie--
Nolan: Jennifer Jones said years later that she liked working with you.
Harris: Which is
generous because I don't remember working with her.
Nolan: Going back to 'The Dark', Michael Armstrong has gone on record saying that AIP wanted several scenes rewritten. They wanted a part for Boris Karloff who would have been dead before the film was finally released, they also wanted a red herring written in, which Armstong says would have been an older ex-lover of the character played by Gina Warwick. They
also wanted a drunken musical number set in a pub--
Harris: All of that sounds
dreadful. I worked with Michael later on, ironically for AIP, and he was
very protective of his material. I would suspect that is why. I mean if someone tried to screw up this vision you had it would make one become protective of future projects. Michael dodged a bullet there.
[1] Tried to keep this in line with details about Armstrong's original vision for this film before AIP meddled with it. A lot of info about this film is available
here.
The Dark (TRIGON/COLUMBIA, JULY, 1969)
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
SCRIPT BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
MUSIC BY REG TILSLEY (With additional songs by David Bowie)
PRODUCED BY TONY TENSER
Cast
JILL HAWORTH as SHEILA
IAN OGILVY as CHRIS
DAVID BOWIE as RICHARD
MARK WYNTER as NIGEL
CAROL DILWORTH as DOROTHY
GINA WARWICK as SYLVIA
VERONICA DORAN as MADGE
RICHARD O'SULLIVAN as PETER
JULIAN BARNES as HENRY
CLIFFORD EARL as POLICE SERGEANT
Plot (No Spoilers)
In swinging London, a group of twenty-something friends are attending a dull party thrown by their friend Chris (Ogilvy) following a performance in a nightclub by cabaret singer Richard (Bowie, who performs
"Silly Boy Blue" and
"Love You Til Tuesday"). Richard suggests the group gather for kicks at a supposedly haunted mansion where he used to play as a child.
They have fun exploring the mansion, even holding a seance before separating one by one by candlelight. While all the partiers are alone, one of them, Nigel (Wynter), is brutally stabbed to death. His body is discovered by the panic-stricken Dorothy, his date, and the others. Since some of them have criminal records, the group ringleader, Chris convinces them to leave the body far from the home and to pretend that Nigel left and no one knows where he went. They are all shaken by Chris' assertion that one of them must be the murderer.
During the next few weeks, the survivors are possessed by tension and guilt, and after Nigel is reported missing, they are further shaken by questioning from the police.
Dorothy calls the survivors together to ask to confess. However, Chris convinces them to return to the house to discover who among them is the killer before they all succumb to a gruesome death. At the mansion, Dorothy becomes hysterical, prompting several of the group to depart, leaving just Chris, Sheila, and Richard. One of the three is the murderer, but
who--and
why?
*Thank You to @Guajolote for the poster!
