Classic Horrors Club

We’ve mentioned The Wide World of Mystery several times as we’ve discussed the TV movies The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr.Hyde, The Invasion of Carol Enders, and The Werewolf of Woodstock. Also buried within the first year of ABC’s efforts to counter program Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show was a set of five movies collectively known as “The Classic Ghosts.”

Kino Lorber, under its Kino Cult banner, has released these films on Blu-ray for the first time, “restored and rediscovered.” They were found at the UCLA Film & Television Archives on some uncatalogued 2-inch quadruplex videotapes and restored to a quality that surpasses the picture and sound of the transfers four the three TV movies mentioned above, at least at the time I watched them.

In a February 10, 1973 article in “The New York Times” entitled, “Distaff TV Production Team That’s More Than Tokenism,” Bernadine Morris writes, “Practically everybody involved in the production is a woman.” This was a big thing at the time, hence an article about it in “The New York Times.” It began when executive producer, Robert Berger, hired Jacqueline Babbin to produce the series.

Babbin then hired an all-female crew of associate producer, two directors, associate director, production assistants, casting director and sound supervisor. She apparently thought women could do the job best. “They have an eye for detail, they don’t bother jockeying for position, they cut through the nonsense,” she said. “A lot of men in the business are just in it for the paycheck. Women are doing this kind of work because we enjoy it.”

Read the entire article here.

While this was what made “The Classic Ghosts” newsworthy at the time, what makes it particularly interesting for me now is the number of crew members from my beloved Dark Shadows, which had ended it’s run two years earlier. Although Dan Curtis produced and/or directed some of the other movies for The Wide World of Mystery, he wasn’t involved with this endeavor.

However, directors lela Swift and Henry Kaplan, writer Art Wallace, music supervisor Sybil Weinberger, and technical director J.J. Lupatkin were.  There may very well have been more. These movies have a distinctly Dark Shadows vibe about them, not just because of the gothic settings and supernatural goings-on, but also because of the soap opera-like details of the acting and plots. That may also have nothing to do with Dark Shadows…

Later in her career, Babbin became producer, then executive producer, of All My Children for four years from 1982-1986 (coincidentally at a time that I was watching) and ended her career with Loving for two years from 1990-1991. Also, Gloria Monty, director of two of these movies, is the person credited for reviving, and sending General Hospital to new heights when it was on the verge of cancellation.

For the next five weeks, beginning tomorrow, we’ll take a look at one of the five movies in “The Classic Ghosts” series. First up will be The Screaming Skull, a 1973 thriller starring Vincent Gardenia, Carrie Nye, and David McCallum. Make sure your windows are closed tight so an unexpected wind won’t blow out your candles, then join us tomorrow…