Comments on: CAMP DAVID JUNE 2010: “WILBER WHATELEY HAS A GIRLFRIEND”

By: david del valle

david del valle — Sat, 14 May 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Thanks David
I have been trying to locate Donna Baccala for awhile now for an interview since she and Dean are the only surviving cast members still with us……the current dvd gives us the most complete account of her attack by Wilber’s cosmic twin thus far….with a flash of nipple…here and there…..more as it happens..

Cheers
David

By: David Dall

David Dall — Fri, 13 May 2011 15:32:41 +0000

I really enjoyed your article, this is an interesting movie. The first time I saw it was in pieces (I was getting ready for work, while it was on TV). Seeing it fragmented like that was very surreal and it would ne a few years before I watched it all the way through.
Did Haller have anything to say about Donna Baccala. I thought she gave the best perfomance in the movie and although her character barely made it past the first half of the movie, she is the person who saves the day. Her nervous concern for her friend is the srongest emotion expressed in the movie and she does alert Dr. Armitage to the waxing problem with the Nancy/Wilbur crisis. So, she basically saves the world. She must have ben a real trooper, putting up with all those snake headed tentacles.

By: david del valle

david del valle — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:17:02 +0000

Cedric
thanks so much for your kind words and especially for that correction which I will amend ASAP since this essay is going in my new book SIX REELS UNDER….you did me a service sir…..I love this film as well and I am glad I am not alone in this….

By: Cedric Klein

Cedric Klein — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:45:08 +0000

Saw this at the drive-in when I was probably 9-10 (1971-2), my parents loving this kind of stuff & passing it on to my brother & I. I was transfixed the moment the sillohetted figures struggled up the hill to work their dread rites, only to be consumed by the demon they were climbing the whole time- and that music!

Just one minor correction, Lavinia was Wizard Whateley’s daughter, not his wife. Wilbur was his grandson, not his foster son.

I did not know about Sandra Dee’s pregnancy & subsequent miscarriage. It makes the final scene of TDH very poignant & not a little more creepy. When I saw it re-broadcast on TV in the mid-1970s, the fetus scene was cut- probably for being too graphic for TV of that time.

So was the setting SUPPOSED to be in California? I always thought that even tho it was filmed there, the setting was still supposed to be in New England.

This remains a favorite of mine. And I must say that while I was disappointed in the Jeffrey Combs-Dean Stockwell re-do, I did not hate it. A Bava-Karloff-Lee (as Wilbur?) is awesome to imagine, while a Peter Fonda version would have been intriquing as well.

By: Cathy Miller Burgoyne

Cathy Miller Burgoyne — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:49:47 +0000

I’ve been looking for background information on this movie for years. There doesn’t seem to be much written about it, which is unfortunate because it really is a good movie. Your article is fantastic.

By: Russ Lanier

Russ Lanier — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:01:04 +0000

Outstanding job David. I remember when you first showed me those rare stills. Now I find myself planning an evening of Lovecraft where I will watch my DVD of “The Dunwich Horror”. Perhaps an Old One will come for a glass of wine and stay for the film.

By: Richard A. Ekstedt

Richard A. Ekstedt — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:35:20 +0000

Well done piece on a film that is now, for the most part (based upon the stills you put out, a fully restored movie that is a hoot to watch! Strange Dean didn’t remember his famed line as I asked him about “DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS”, working with Lionel Barrymore and Richard Widmark and “THE SECRET GARDEN” with Margaret O’Brien (he laughed when I brought up the famed ‘screaming’ scene). Ahhh the joys of ‘selective memory’, as my wife says!

By: Ted Newsom

Ted Newsom — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:01:14 +0000

Terrific article, David.