DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[Contessa Donatella]

It was only one MOTW-type movie but I thought the one with Jameson Parker was quite good. She played a cougar to him, where he was her best friend's son. I think it was called Anatomy of a Seduction. It was complicated.

[Chris 2]

I don’t remember her talking about how she got Towering Inferno, but she stated that after the movie came out and was a hit, she went to NY to meet with the head of NBC and tell them that she wanted a chance to get some prime time guest spots. But not much came of this and when DOOL went to 60 min, she was done. She felt that the production pace for a 60-minute daily show was not conducive to good performances. She did six weeks of the hour shows as a transition and then she left.

I think three things prevented her from going further at the time: she was known to be outspoken (and women weren’t supposed to be outspoken back then), age (she was 36 when she left, and roles start drying up for actresses at 40), and homophobia.

[Contessa Donatella]

In November 2009, Emmy winner Susan Flannery (Stephanie, B&B) shared in an exclusive interview with We Love Soaps what her thoughts were on the change to the hour format on DAYS OF OUR LIVES: "I said to them, 'I’m glad I’m leaving. It’s so rushed that you’re no longer in control of your performance. And that doesn’t make me happy.' So I did the first six weeks when the show launched for an hour. That’s the reason I agreed to do BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL [a half-hour show]. I like that form. That was Bill's favorite form too. He hated the hour. He thought they had to pad too much story."- We Love Soaps Net

Well, that, the latter, would've sucked. But, it could have been.

 

[vetsoapfan]

I actually enjoy flashbacks (within reason), if they allow us to see important scenes again (or for the the first time if we missed them during their initial broadcasts).

It took Bill and Laura Horton YEARS to get married on DAYS, and fans had been clamoring to see it for so long, I was not surprised to see a flashback to the wedding a few months after it had originally taken place. I WAS surprised, however, that the show televised the ENTIRE WEDDING act in its entirity during the flashback. It took up a huge chunk of that new episode. 

UGH, no, you really don't. ROTF! When AW first went to an hour, there was a long, loooooooong scene between Steve Frame and Angie, discussing ordering a supply of chairs for a warehouse. Yikes.

[Contessa Donatella]

They, of course, were learning as they went how exactly to do 60 min. shows & OJT in front of an audience can be very painful. Ordering chairs, bwa ha ha.

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[AbcNbc247]

Understandable, about Susan Flannery preferring to do 30 minute shows over 60 minutes ones. It still must have really sucked though, that after years of Bill/Laura/Mickey and keeping Mike's paternity a secret that it wasn't her playing Laura when the secret finally came out. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by AbcNbc247

[carolineg]

I obviously liked the flashback in that episode because it was new to me, but it just seemed so long lol. I guess it gave MC a break for the day.  He had about 6 lines the entire episode.  Like you said, I don't mind flashbacks, but it's the length.  Only about 1/2 that episode was new material.  Anyhow, I sound like an ungrateful person who is criticizing an episode that is rare and I am so glad I could watch it.

I watched that AW scene mentioned about change/breaking a $10 and not only was it padding, but it was awkward padding.  You could tell the actors were uncomfortable with it too.  I can't imagine how bad the padding was in a 90 min episode.

[Contessa Donatella]

Wasn't it 8 yrs till the reveal? That number is stuck in my head. Not surprising that there would be some change in the players.

I was just re-reading about that time in the book Ken Corday put out back in the day. Actually that's not true. I was reading my blog of that book. And, even at that remove, my paraphrase - of Corday's writing (or whomever was ghosting if he had one) - of Bill Bell's storytelling, and it's just so heightened, complex but understandable, and elegantly stated.

If anyone wants to read the text I just referred to, lemme know & I will PM it to you. It's all typed up so it's easy. I feel like these episodes were my secret initiation into a society of soap farers.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Tonksadora
Offer of text.

[JAS0N47]

EPISODE # 3407: THE AFTERMATH OF JULIE GETTING BURNED:

 

Here's the rest of # 3407:

 

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I checked to see when Towering Infermo was filmed (it started being filmed in early May 1974). Then looking at the monthly charts, her only big break was no episodes from June 22-July 3, 1974, so that's the 12-day time frame when she probably filmed her scenes for the movie.

[Khan]

TBH, I hated how Susan Flannery's character in "The Towering Inferno" was killed off.  She basically burned to death in just her shirt and panties after an assignation with her married lover.  Even JER would have objected, lol.

[Franko]

It's worse in The Glass Inferno. In that book, Dan and Lorie are more pathetic. He makes trophies and other promotional materials and she's a never-was model. In the movie, they got some dignity, borrowed from The Tower and a pair of cut characters. An opposites attract pairing between a conservative-minded politican and a liberal woman, who are doomed because there's no way they're going to safely get out of the building in time.

[Vee]

Robert Wagner and Susan Flannery's deaths in The Towering Inferno always traumatized me. They were such nice people and they die very brutally. It's one of those classic childhood trauma movie moments, lol. All the great disaster movies have at least one of those.

[Khan]

And then there was Jennifer Jones, whose poor character (Fred Astaire's love interest) was killed trying to protect some children from falling out of the glass elevator after another explosion.  That one traumatized me as well.

[Chris 2]

“Well, I always wanted to die in bed.”

[AbcNbc247]

Loving all this Towering Inferno love lol Susan Flannery actually won a Golden Globe for that role. I wonder if SF was the one who introduced Wesley Eure to Richard Chamberlain.