Dan Curtis
1927 - 2006Dan Curtis (August 12, 1927 – March 27, 2006) was an American director and producer of television and film, probably best known for his miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and for his afternoon TV series Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows originally aired from 1966 to 1971 and has aired in syndication for nearly 40 years. Curtis was responsible for the 1991 remake of Dark Shadows, which was canceled due to low ratings. He was the executive producer for Dark Shadows for The WB Television Network; however, it was canceled before the pilot episode aired.
His series of macabre films include The Night Stalker (which inspired the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker), Intruders, The Night Strangler, House of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows, Burnt Offerings, Trilogy of Terror, The Norliss Tapes (a 1973 pilot for an unproduced series starring Roy Thinnes), Curse of the Black Widow, Dead Of Night, Scream of the Wolf and others. He worked frequently with sci-fi/horror writer Richard Matheson. Curtis was producer and/or director of a number of television adaptations of horror-related productions including Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Turn of the Screw, all made between 1968 and 1975.
In 1978, Curtis made a departure from his usual macabre offerings, when he wrote, produced, and directed the sentimental NBC television film When Every Day Was the Fourth of July. Although fictionalized, the film was semi-autobiographical, based on his childhood growing up in Bridgeport, Connecticut in the 1930s. The film was originally intended to be a pilot for a potential series, but when the series was not picked up by the NBC network, Curtis produced and directed the 1980 television movie sequel The Long Days of Summer, this time airing on the ABC network.
His miniseries The Winds of War was nominated for four Emmy Awards.
He also directed the War and Remembrance mini-series which was the continuation of The Winds of War. This mini-series was 30 hours in length and was split into two segments, Chapters I-Vll and Vll, the final chapter. This series received 15 Emmy Award nominations and won for best miniseries, special effects and single-camera production editing. The miniseries was nominated for Emmy Awards for best actor (John Gielgud), actress (Jane Seymour) and supporting actress (Polly Bergen).
Curtis died of a brain tumor in his home on March 27, 2006, two weeks after the death of his wife Norma.
Curtis' rights to Dark Shadows remain with his estate, who have signed a deal with Warner Bros. for a new Dark Shadows movie. The film will star Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins and is set for release in 2012.
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St. John in Exile
Dan Curtis
Dean Jones
Dean Jones is Saint John in this intimate, inspiring one-man presentation of John in exile on Patmos. Full of humor, strong in spirit, and resolutely committed to Christ, John shares his account of the events that changed the course of human history---and challenges us with his last words before his death: "Little children, love one another."
St. John in Exile
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
Daniel Anker
Gene Hackman, Norma Barzman
Daniel Anker’s 90-minute documentary takes on over 60 years of a very complex subject: Hollywood’s complicated, often contradictory relationship with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The questions it raises go right the very nature of how film functions in our culture, and while hardly exhaustive, Anker’s film makes for a good, thought provoking starting point.
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
The Night Strangler
Dan Curtis
Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug
After being run out of Las Vegas, reporter Carl Kolchak heads for Seattle and another reporting job with the local paper. It's not long before he is on the trail of another string of bizarre murders. It seems that every 21 years, for the past century, a killer kills a certain number of people, drains them of their blood and then disappears into the night. Kolchak is on his trail, but can he stop him?
The Night Strangler
Our Fathers
Dan Curtis
Ted Danson, Christopher Plummer
In the '80s, priests and especially the Father Geoghan arrested for sexual abuse of minors. Cardinal Law, also indicted, and the diocese was aware of the actions of these men of the church and was kept secret for years, until the victims decide to seek redress.
Our Fathers
Trilogy of Terror
Dan Curtis
Karen Black, Robert Burton
A horror anthology containing three stories: a female college professor is aggressively pursued by one of her students; a prudish brunette determines that her free-spirited blonde sister is evil; and a woman's night turns upside down after she purchases an ancient Zuni fetish doll.
Trilogy of Terror
Burnt Offerings
Dan Curtis
Karen Black, Oliver Reed
A couple and their 12-year-old son move into a giant house for the summer. Things start acting strange almost immediately. It seems that every time someone gets hurt on the grounds, the beat-up house seems to repair itself.
Burnt Offerings
The Long Days of Summer
Dan Curtis
Dean Jones, Joan Hackett
In this sequel to his 1978 "When Every Day Was the Fourth of July" (and a pilot to a prospective series), producer/director Dan Curtis recalls more of his youth during the late '30, and follows a fictionalized family where the father has jeopardized a promising law career to defend a Jewish immigrant against the prejudices of a staid New England town.
The Long Days of Summer
Dead of Night
Dan Curtis
Ed Begley Jr., E.J. André
This anthology tells three stories: a man buys a car that takes him back and forth through time; a tale of vampires; and a distraught mother asks for her drowned son to come back to life and gets more than she bargained for.
Dead of Night
The Norliss Tapes
Dan Curtis
Roy Thinnes, Don Porter
A newspaper publisher listens to the personal tapes of investigative reporter David Norliss, who has disappeared during an investigation. The tapes tell the story of that investigation, involving a recent widow whose late husband has been seen working in his private studio. As Norliss and the widow investigate, they unravel a plot involving Voodoo and the walking dead.
The Norliss Tapes
