“Salems Lot” first aired on November 17 and 24, 1979. Having acquired the rights to the same-named 1975 Stephen King novel, Warner Brothers struggled to adapt the 400-page work into a screenplay. The project eventually found its way to Warners television producer, Richard Korbitz. Thinking the lengthy book would work better as a mini-series, Korbitz contracted Paul Monsash - producer of 1974s “Carrie”, the first film adaptation of a King novel - to write a teleplay. Korbitz himself had a hand in the work and is credited with reinterpreting the novels urbane vampire leader Kurt Barlow into a speechless but chillingly demonic vampire whose appearance copies “Nosferatu”s (1922) Count Orlok. Two versions were shot by “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) director Tobe Hooper - one for domestic broadcast TV distribution on CBS and the second for theatrical distribution in Europe and Japan. The main difference between the two was the level of onscreen violence and the running time, with the TV version clocking in at over three hours and the film at 112 minutes. David Soul - who played Hutch in the 1975-79 ABC cop drama, “Starsky and Hutch” - stars as Ben Mears, a writer who returns after many years to his small hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine, to find it infested with vampires. (spoilers ahead) Though by the end of the story, Mears kills the vampire leader, Barlow (Reggie Nalder), and his human henchman, Richard Straker (James Mason), he’s presumably only able to rid the town of vampires by burning it to the ground, and in an epilogue is shown as thereafter relentlessly pursued to South America by the surviving undead. The two-night CBS mini-series was nominated for three Emmys and received generally positive reviews. Especially memorable are the Barlow vampire, and a creepy scene in which a child vampire floats outside a friends window and scratches at the glass asking to be invited in. The latter has been included on more than one list of all-time scary movie moments. (See brief clips of the scene in the trailer below.) The film wasnt especially well-received, although Stephen King is said to prefer that adaptation. An NBC sequel television series was planned, in which Ben Mears continues his vampire hunting adventures, but the show never came to fruition. The novel was adapted again in 2004 for a TNT mini-series. The full 183-minute CBS version of “Salems Lot” is available on DVD from Warner Home Video, and for streaming on Netflix.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 01:14:36 +0000
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