DARK SHADOWS: VAMPIRE NOSTALGIA

To American baby-boomers who rushed home after school to catch their beloved DARK SHADOWS (1966-1971), the ABC daytime vampire drama seemed entrancing and different — as different as a young adolescent feels on the first day of seventh grade — and therein lay its charm. Middle schoolers arrived home too late to see the gothic D and S of the title lettering (font was not a word commonly used back then) and missed the opening images of waves crashing against the rocky coast of Maine accompanied by otherworldly music. But the swiftest made it home in time to follow the story of Barnabas Collins, an alluring 18th century ladies man transformed into a vampire by a jilted witch and chained in a coffin until his unwitting release into modern day "Collinsport."

Barnabas was an infusion of fresh blood into a pallid series, at first struggling in the Nielsen ratings. When he began his search for a lost love, Josette, and fought to save the wealthy descendants of his family, the series caught on, spawning two theatrical films, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970) and NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS (1971). Barnabas's cultish fans stayed through 1,225 episodes on TV — followed much later by a release on home video – thus proving that vampires can survive in daytime after all.

The actors played it straight back then. Even when the flimsy sets quavered or an actor went up on his lines, the show created by Dan Curtis took itself dead seriously. Most of its teen-age fans in those years weren't into conventional soaps. Those recycled plotlines of marital infidelity, interminable hospital stays and social climbing were intended mainly for stay at home moms.

Not so DARK SHADOWS. The gothic melodrama was as different and twisted as suburban life seemed to the post-war generation that had graduated from the subversive slapstick of Soupy Sales, America's previous after-school TV hero. Faster than it took to replace the old black and white TV with a new color set, the DARK SHADOWS cohort traded up from puppets, song parodies and pies in the face to spit curls, fingernails and fangs.

Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton were among those young fans (though probably of re-runs of the show; Depp was only three when it premiered). "It was a real thing for me, I had to watch it, and it was tough because you'd miss the beginning — it started at like 3 p.m., but that's when we got out of school," Depp told the Chicago Tribune's Geoff Boucher at London's Pinewood Studios. "And then it moved later because all the kids wrote in letters. When you met someone who knew the show and loved it, there was an instant connection."

Depp discovered that connection with Burton early in their collaboration, but it has taken until their sixth film together to bring it to the screen. DARK SHADOWS opens May 11 and Warner Bros. executives are hoping that garlic, silver bullets, wooden stakes and prickly reviews are in short supply. Meanwhile, the movies' obsession with vampires just won't die.

Dedicated filmgoers will never forget F.W. Murnau's German expressionist classic NOSFERATU (1922), or DRACULA (1931) starring Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor who created the title role onstage in the 1927 American premiere of Hamilton Deane's adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. Some still shiver at the sight of Christopher Lee in those Hammer Horror films beginning with DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1965). Others camp it up with George Hamilton in LOVE AT FIRST BITE (1979) or swoon for heartthrob Robert Pattinson in TWILIGHT (2008) and its sequels.

Depp stands on the caped shoulders of giants, the many notables who sank their teeth into the role of vampire: John Carradine, Tom Cruise, Louis Jourdan, Klaus Kinski, Frank Langella, David Niven, Gary Oldman, Jack Palance and Brad Pitt among them. His earliest inspiration for Barnabas Collins was the Canadian actor, Jonathan Frid, who died last month at age 87 and performed a small cameo role in the new film. Depp freely acknowledges the debt.

"I think that what Jonathan Frid did with that character and that… classic, iconic look he created – I'd find it very difficult to stray very far from that," Depp told MTV News. "It's going to be somewhere in that arena with maybe just a couple of different touches here and there. There's something about the idea of this vampire coming back after 200 years into this modern world with maybe a tendency to wax a little poetic now and again. I've got a good feeling about it. But Jonathan Frid's Barnabas was so special."

Frid trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and received a graduate degree in directing from the Yale School of Drama, yet he was a notoriously slow study and, consequently, a nervous wreck on the original DARK SHADOWS set. Frid considered it a miracle that the role of Barnabas was, at least as he saw it, "extremely nervous like myself...very unsure of himself, as he emerges from his coffin almost 200 years after his ‘burial', and having to assume a posture of unbelievable nonchalance as a contemporary cousin of the family with whom he had been ‘out of touch.' (Being from ‘England' helped)."

As Frid recalled in a recent blog posting, "Barnabas was to have none of the easy going swagger of a ‘Mr. Perfect' Hollywood leading man but, oh, what a liar, plain and simple, while surviving under the most preposterous of circumstances. Had I been called upon to play cocksure ‘swagger', I would have been out of a job in three days."

By 1991 America was ready for a second bite of DARK SHADOWS with Ben Cross as Barnabas in prime time on NBC. That lushly-mounted remake lasted 12 episodes and had more than a hint of swagger. Co-starring Joanna Going and Jean Simmons, the series won Emmy Awards for its costumes and hairstyles and was shot in the landmark Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills. Known as Greystone, Barnabas' not-so-final resting place happens also to be the original home of the American Film Institute! The location was used again in the unreleased 2005 television movie starring Alec Newman, a rising Scottish actor and the only fair-haired Barnabas to date.

The conveniently named Andrew Collins portrayed Barnabas in a series of British audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions in 2006. Perhaps the best evidence of the story's evolving nature and remarkable staying power comes from the Internet. The original DARK SHADOWS was listed in the Independent Movie Database (imdb.com) as "Drama/Fantasy/Horror." When Cross played the role, the show's category switched to "Drama/Horror/Romance." The Johnny Depp version? "Comedy/Fantasy." What frightened moviegoers in 1966 and seemed nestled in nostalgia in 1991 is now, judging by its trailer, fresh again and very funny.

It is hard to imagine a project more tailor-made for Burton and Depp than DARK SHADOWS. Their shared enthusiasm for the original soap might well be the "Rosebud" key to their growing gallery of gothic characters, all nonconformists out of step with their times. Viewed in that light, Barnabas Collins becomes the precursor to EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990), ED WOOD (1994) Ichabod Crane in SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999), Willy Wonka in CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005) and SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007).

The creation of classic film characters depends on an elusive and magical amalgam of great writing, directing, production design and superior acting, the actor and character becoming one. The very best of what audiences see on screen is deathless and destined to live forever… like a vampire… perhaps a vampire named Barnabas Collins.