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Ms. Taylor-Barnes died this month at age 88.

She's better known today mainly because she made an unforgettable impact in one classic film, and the film survived to be revived and celebrated, along with her. She was a wonderful talker and marvelous interview when she was in the mood, which also helped because she became a go-to person for people like the great silent film historian Kevin Brownlow. But she wasn't a premier flapper star of the time, although she was well known enough to help popularize the style of bob now identified mainly with her. Her self-celebration - which is what it was - in her own memoir certainly helped. I can't begrudge her its success when you consider the depths to which she had sunk in the interim since the end of her film career, but as movie history it wasn't much to speak of and I found its tone annoying. (Veronica Geng, from memory: "My integrity, like my beauty, came so naturally that I was mystified by the attention it drew whenever I happened to mention it." She also makes an impact in Hollywood pictures like "The Canary Murder Case," and it is a real shame that she self-destructed.

Thank you, Cristian, and tell us about anything you see in Berlin! Gym time may have to wait until January. The candy and fruitcake onslaught has already begun and likely won't let up till December 25. Happy Thanksgiving, all. Look forward to hearing more from you, KarenAG, and congratulations on your retirement!

I meant that Brooks was not a star at the time and she wasn't the embodiment of the era in the way that the stars of the time were, although she was on her way up and had made an impact before decamping for Europe. Now, of course, even Bow is hardly remembered and Moore's name is known only to buffs.

That's right. And a couple of episodes before that, it's Vicki who twigs to the resemblance between the illnesses of Willie and Maggie. Even so, she was always a bit of a weenie IMO. (If they were going to update Jane Eyre, they could have given her a little more of the original's nerve and brains.) Then all the young female leads gradually lost agency, getting locked up, carried off, etc. Of course, a certain amount of......obtuseness is helpful in soap opera characters, so that it's possible to wonder what's in the water. I remember Days of Our LIves fans calling it Salem Stupid Juice.

You are very welcome, mille-feuille, and yes please do tell us what you eventually choose!

It was actually Colleen Moore and Clara Bow who epitomized the reckless, restless spirit of the Jazz Age, but let it pass. Thanks, pherank, I'm now curious about it. I saw the title while channel-flipping, but something named "The Chaperone" on PBS did not sound promising.

Many thanks for the post, On Pointe. I did not watch. Nice exposure for Copeland and Hall.

This episode was a very big deal – hurtling the entire cast for months on end into a new storyline with characters that were either 2.0, with Barnabas now as our romantic hero, for the present anyway, or entirely new, generally for the better (Joel Crothers is liberated from playing Good Old Joe and is now naval hottie Nathan Forbes, complete with sideburns). Vicki doesn’t change much, true, but then what can you do with Vicki? The episodes were now in color and while the creepy sequences were never as creepy as they were in black-and-white, advantage was taken to create a new color scheme for the new story; Collinwood the Old House is now bathed in a rosy glow. Think Pink!

Enough DS posts accumulated on the Halloween thread to justify a new one. I have moved them over. Talk about all things "Dark Shadows," past and present, here. Barnabas bids you welcome to the discussion:

An essay on the life and art of Loie Fuller by Rhonda K. Garelick for The Public Domain Review.

There was also Joan Bennett's big Wedding Confession where she just seems to give up mid-scene and turns dramatically to look right at the prompter and read. Unsurprising, given that she had had to appear on every show that week (I assume it was a week).

Frances Schreuder was charged and convicted. Robert Gottlieb sent her gifts while she was in jail, and had Balanchine lived, who knows, he might have had to testify. I trust the vetting procedures for Board members have improved since then. It's been many years since I read it but I remember Shana Alexander's book on the case as being a good one, with interesting tidbits about SAB and NYCB in that era (Schreuder's daughter attended the school).

He did send von Aroldingen out to stage Liebeslieder and he also left it to her in his will if I remember correctly. She staged it for the company not long after he died, with Farrell in her old role. I wouldn't expect anyone to accept my opinion over Garis' but it does seem to me there's more going on in Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, which is probably how we should refer to it, than "pencil sketch" implies. BTW I think the video represents von Aroldingen's most appealing performance on commercial video, and Farrell looks wonderful, too.

True, BalanchineFan, but I'd suggest the similarities don't go very far or deep. The subject matter is very different, and even the group dancing isn't social dancing in the same sense. '

We're very lucky to have this video (it was also released on laserdisc, unseen by me), which has all of the original cast save Kay Mazzo, who had retired, I believe. Sara Leland dances her role. This inexpert ear did not care much for the playing of Gordon Boelzner, but the dancers are all wonderful and the chamber style of the ballet made it well suited to video. Certainly the roles danced by Farrell and von Aroldingen suggest tantalizing similarities to the roles they played in Balanchine's life. Von Aroldingen's devoted wife is a different kind of Balanchine woman, displaying a tenderness and selflessness that makes the role unique in his repertory, I think.

There are of course multiple lists of "classical music for weddings" available on the web, and the same pieces do tend to appear on them. I must say the Thais "Meditation" doesn't shout "happily ever after" to me, but who knows. Please, mille-feuille, tell us what you eventually choose.

I don't know, BalanchineFan. I'm American too, and all I can say is that when I see "double-barrelled" in reference to surnames I know what it means. I agree, in the U.S. I've only ever seen it in use by married women or in rarer cases the husband will take the, ahem, double-barrelled surname as well. I used to wonder what would happen to family names if their children persisted in the practice - names could get quite unwieldy after a generation or two. That's interesting, Quiggin, thanks. We have an example in the current royal family of hyphenation - the family name became Mountbatten-Windsor when Philip married into the family, as a sort of consolation prize for his wife not taking his name. Of course, had his wife's family kept their own name, it would have become a quadruple-barrelled name, e.g. Mountbatten-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (or Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). But I digress. There may be something intrinsically comic about hyphenated names that encourages joke-making. I think of Monty Python's Gervaise Brooke-Hampster and Vivian Smith-Smythe-Smith. More recently I think it was Jesse Green who called Harry Hadden-Paton Harry Ham 'n' Bacon.

Yes. That's what I assumed when I read what Macaulay wrote. I'm sure he meant no harm, and it's just a social media post, but it's not as cute as he thinks it is.

Miss Crawford in the “Letty Lynton dress" of white organdy, which set a trend in broader shoulders for evening frocks. This was a man unafraid of ruffles:

Thanks, canbelto and Buddy. Not terribly happy with the move to HBO and PBS by rights should have done the anniversary special, but all the same this is truly an annivesary worth celebrating.

I might give the nod to the Carpenters' hardy wedding perennial "For All We Know," a very nice song If You Like That Sort of Thing which was also a hit for Shirley Bassey at the same time across the pond. Beautifully sung by Karen with a nice arrangement by Richard, and only lacking an intro from Jose Feliciano because Feliciano's manager was a jerk. In the same vein, The Beatles, "The Two of Us." Great idea, sidwich.

What Helene said, including the congratulations. Continuing with Mr. B: Andante from Divertimento No. 15 Preghiera from Mozartiana Prélude from Emeralds Not from Balanchine: Confession: I like the Pachelbel Canon for this occasion. Yes, there will be people in the congregation secretly or not-so-secretly sniffing at your lack of imagination and middlebrow taste, but if you like it, go for it, and remember that big names like Handel and Mozart liked the bass line enough to borrow it. I think the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra did the best-known recording although I remember liking Musica Antiqua Köln. It's also just right for the march down the aisle, building to a nice crescendo just as the bride arrives at home plate. Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary Bizet's Carmen Act III interlude Recessional: Can't think of anything better than Mendelssohn offhand. After party: Mozart's divertimenti Again, congrats! I'm sure there are others out there who have more imaginative suggestions than I do.

It is very well done. I also like Frid's canny use of the teleprompter.

Interesting news, Deflope. Is there anything CW hasn't tried to reboot? I may check it out. With the old series so readily available now in all its cheesy glory I don’t know why they bother, though. I didn't know about the Chastain version. I will have to check out the clip.