Vampire Flicks: Love At First Bite (1979)

Maybe it was original back then but, when I look at that title after seeing and hearing so many variations of it, I think to myself, "Boy, has that become a cliche." Like a lot of movies, I first learned of it from the filmography in the back of that Monster Madness book, and also, when I read a book on horror films from a series published by Virgin Books (the book is just called Horror Films), it claimed that Love At First Bite was the highest-grossing vampire movie until Bram Stoker's Dracula. I was surprised by that, since it wasn't a movie I'd heard many people mention, but upon looking it up, I've learned it was one of the top twenty highest grossing movies of 1979 and was also one of the most successful independently-produced films for many years. In any case, this is another movie I'd never seen until I decided to review it as part of this year's October Fest, and after watching it several times now, I think it's perfectly fine. It's not a dynamo by any means but what it has going for it is a delightful performance by George Hamilton as Count Dracula, who manages to be charming, seductive, and funny, as well as rather sad when he laments his wretched existence, and an equally fun performance by Arte Johnson as Renfield, who does a nice impersonation of Dwight Frye's laugh from the original Dracula. It's also competently directed and fairly funny at points, although there are moments where it seems like it can't make up its mind whether or not it wants to be a farcical spoof in the Mel Brooks vein (that said, I enjoyed this a lot more than Dracula: Dead and Loving It). Also, the other characters are quite a mixed bag and the premise feels like it's running out of steam just over halfway through the movie, making the third act somewhat lethargic.

Count Dracula is in love with Cindy Sondheim, a New York fashion model whom he is convinced is the reincarnation of a woman he loved centuries before and encountered again in London in 1931. Unfortunately for the infamous vampire, the Romania government has decided to turn his castle into an athletic training camp and he's told that he and Renfield have 48 hours to get out. When he fails to sway the government officials, the two of them do depart Transylvania, much to the happiness of the local villagers, and head for New York City. Upon arriving, his coffin is accidentally taken to Harlem and he emerges in the middle of an African-American funeral. Making his way to the Plaza Hotel where he's supposed to be, he tells Renfield to learn of Cindy Sondheim's whereabouts while he's resting during the day. Using a cobra to scare Cindy's agent into telling him, he learns she has a photo shoot at Central Park that very night. Dracula thus arrives at the shoot but is unable to get close to Cindy due to a cop keeping the crowd back and winds up in the dog pound after he turns into a doberman and pees on the cop's leg in retaliation. He suffers further humiliation after he gets out when he tries to find someone to feed on as a bat, only for them to either be annoyed or so desperately hungry that they try to eat him. And when he does find someone to bite, it's a drunken hobo who gets him drunk as a result. Despondent, Dracula is about to give up even trying, when Renfield reveals he got the name of a nightclub Cindy frequents from her secretary. There, he finally meets her, and while it takes a little doing due to her jaded and rather flaky nature, he manages to spike her interest. The two of them go back to her apartment and he treats her to a night of incomparable sexual passion. Having bitten her once, Dracula now intends to bite her twice more to make her into a vampire too. But, he runs into an obstacle: Jeffrey Rosenberg, Cindy's psychiatrist and neurotic on-again, off-again boyfriend, who also happens to be the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis, Dr. Fritz Van Helsing.

Stan Dragoti

The idea for the movie came from both George Hamilton himself and producer and screenwriter Robert Kaufman, with the seeds being planted one day when the two of them were having fun and Hamilton began doing an impression of Bela Lugosi. Likely inspired by the enormous success of Young Frankenstein a few years before, they came up with the idea of Dracula coming to live in modern day New York City and Kaufman went on to write the script. Both men acted as producers on the movie, which was directed by Albanian-born Stan Dragoti. Dragoti, who was recommended for the movie by Kaufman's friend, Peter Sellers, had only directed one film beforehand, a 1972 western called Dirty Little Billy, which was the film debut of Nick Nolte, and an episode of a short-lived, Tony Curtis-starring TV show called McCoy. Love At First Bite was his first major success and, several years later, he had another one with Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton. However, his following three movies, The Man With One Red Shoe, She's Out of Control, and Necessary Roughness (I've never seen that movie but I always remembered the artwork on the VHS box at my town's video rental store), didn't do that well, with the latter being the last thing he would ever work on. Dragoti died in 2018 at the age of 85.

George Hamilton playing Dracula is the movie's biggest draw and, fortunately, he doesn't disappoint. Other than scary, he manages to be everything Dracula should be: handsome, suave, charming, and seductive. And, despite what Gene Siskel said at the time about Hamilton having no idea how to play comedy, he also manages to be quite funny, be it in his fair enough Bela Lugosi impression (although, he often sounds more Italian than anything else, to me), his being frustrated by Renfield's bungling, or finding it hard to be a feared vampire in 1970's New York, where thugs attempt to mug him, his outfit causes him to be mistaken for a waiter, his bat form is either seen as a pest or a potential meal by a starving family, he ends up in the dog pound while in the form of a doberman pinscher, and he feeds on the blood of a drunk and actually gets him drunk in the process! What really makes him distraught is how his attempt to get at Cindy Sondheim, whom he's admired from afar for a long time, is totally thwarted, and all of these indignities come one after the other following his being thrown out of his own castle and forced to relocate. After all of it, Dracula actually becomes depressed and laments his cursed existence, albeit in a humorous way, where he talks about, "Looking like a head waiter for 700 years," having to, "Dine on a warm, liquid protein diet" while seeing everyone enjoying even the simplest of foods, and not being able to enjoy Christmas presents, Easter egg hunts, and garlic bread. In fact, at the beginning of the movie, with his first line being, "Children of the night, shut up!", Dracula already has a sense of being fed up with everything, with looking at Cindy in her fashion magazines being the only thing that gives him joy anymore. Even though he's still feeding on the blood of innocent people (albeit offscreen, and it doesn't seem like he killed any of them, either), you actually do kind of feel pity for him, to the point where, when he finally does meet Cindy and she becomes drawn to him, you, more than likely, will find yourself rooting for him, especially given what a neurotic loser Jeffrey Rosenberg is.

It helps that Dracula does appear to genuinely love Cindy, whom he believes he's met in another life, from the start. Granted, at first he's maybe just intent on seducing her and making her a vampire, but as the movie goes on, he seems to grow to truly care about her, asking her about her career and her feelings toward Rosenberg. He even apparently tries to see to it that he won't have to feed on the blood of the living anymore when he and Renfield rob a blood bank, and basically rescues Cindy when she's sedated

and taken hostage by Rosenberg. The two of them plan to run off to London together, although they have to change their destination to Jamaica when Dracula's coffin is sent there by mistake, only to miss their flight. At that point, the only way for them to get there together is for her to become a vampire, a decision that Dracula leaves up to her rather than force upon her. When she's full of indecision about it, he's willing to destroy himself if she chooses to stay human, saying, "In a world without romance, it is better to be dead." In the end, though, she does accept and Dracula, who looks like he's about ready to shed a tear in happiness, bites her for the third time. The two of them then turn into bats and fly off together.

Look-wise, Hamilton's Dracula comes off really well. Granted, even as a vampire, he has his trademark tan (his legs and arms, which you see in a scene where he's wearing a muscle shirt and boxers, are actually paler than his face), but, regardless, he looks quite distinguished and aristocratic due to his good-looking face and the streaks of gray in his hair. Also, his white tux, black cape, that's silvery-white on the inside, and white gloves help him come off as very suave. As far as his

powers go, not only does he have his hypnotic stare, which he doesn't use that much, and is able to turn into a bat and other animals (I don't know why he didn't turn into a wolf rather than an actual dog), he's able to shoot a smoky mist out of his mouth, which he seems to use for atmospheric effect in one scene where he enters Cindy's apartment from the balcony, and also has telekinesis. He's able to make objects, including a car he's riding in, and people fly about and manipulate their movements, open doors, and is even able to twist a knife-blade around and make it droop like putty. And he's also a lot stronger than he looks, as well as quite agile.

Aside from her looks (though, while she definitely has them, I've seen much more attractive women) and his belief that he's known her from a past life, I don't quite get Dracula's attraction to Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James). She's a very flaky, somewhat neurotic, and jaded person who, when she first meets Dracula at a nightclub, is initially dismissive of him, thinking him to be a waiter when she first looks at him, only notes that his eyes are bloodshot when she looks into them, and when he says he can give her eternal life, she thinks he's an insurance salesman, of all things. Though she's, naturally, a bit put off by this strange man who professes to love her despite not knowing her, he manages to seduce her when he elegantly dances with her, and when they go back to her apartment, he forgoes her offers of champagne and a joint to go straight to the bedroom. She continues babbling, saying she's fully prepared for this to be a one-night stand and also that she's not on the pill, but Dracula manages to quiet her by biting her neck and giving her an amazing night of sexual satisfaction. It seems like she's prone to bouts of sexual promiscuity, likely due to her quasi-relationship with her own psychiatrist, but according to her, this was the best one ever. She's so ditzy that she makes no connection to the name "Dracula" or vampires, not that she believes Jeffrey Rosenberg when he tells her of it anyway, and when Rosenberg and Dracula have a face-off at her dinner date, Cindy gets frustrated and leaves. She's so frustrated, in fact, that she tries to rebuff Dracula when he shows up at her apartment afterward, and he thus proves that he is a vampire (she's very nonchalant about learning this) and also offers her a chance for experiences that will satisfy her like none before. While Cindy still cares enough about Rosenberg to arrange for him to be released from the nuthouse after he's arrested for trying to burn Dracula's coffin, she becomes more and more taken with Dracula, to the point where she realizes she loves and wants to be with him. She even goes as far as to bite him, something he hasn't experienced since he was first turned centuries ago. Because of this connection between them, and also because of Rosenberg's general craziness, you want the Count to escape with her, and when the two of them miss their flight to Jamaica, Cindy finally decides to become a vampire herself. After the two of them become bats and fly off, Cindy says she could get used to it, and when Dracula says they can only live by night, she says, "I could never really get my shit together till 7:00, anyway."

Again, while she is good-looking, and I don't think Susan Saint James' acting is as bad as some reviews have called it, I still find Cindy's character to be rather off-putting. For God's sake, when she and Dracula first go back to her apartment, she opens the refrigerator to find her missing cat inside it! That's not to say nothing of all of her other quirks I've mentioned, as well as how accepting she is of Dracula being a vampire. They do try to make her come off as relatable later on in the movie, where

she has moments of not knowing what she wants in life, despite really appreciating and loving Dracula's courting of her, as well as beginning to love him as well. She also feels she's not worth anything without her looks, which she frets about every day because of what it could mean for her career as a model. That's why, when Dracula asks her if she sees him as special and she says yes, she's quite happy when he says, "Then how can you think of yourself as nothing when I love you?", leading to her decision to be with him. Plus, after she becomes a vampire at the end, she's good enough to leave Rosenberg a check for the over a year's worth of unpaid psychiatric sessions she's had with him, so, as he says, she has become more responsible. But, still, I don't know. And they never go into whether or not she really is the reincarnation of Dracula's past loves or if she just happens to look like them, so we really just have Dracula's infatuation with her to motivate us into wanting them to end up together. (Rosenberg tells her that she did meet his grandfather at one point she was a little girl, though why exactly is never made clear. I doubt it has anything to do with that incident in London in 1931, given Cindy's age.)

Given the choice between Dracula or Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin), you can understand perfectly why Cindy goes with Dracula. Despite being a psychiatrist and the grandson of the famous Dr. Van Helsing, Rosenberg has a lot of issues himself and is quite an idiotic fool. When she first tells him of the great night she had with Dracula, he almost has a conniption over her past bouts of promiscuity and her various rationale for them, then figures this moment came about either because of his refusal to commit to a relationship or that it was a total fantasy. But, when she shows him the bite marks on her neck, he realizes it's Dracula due to his grandfather's work. He warns her about how she'll become a vampire herself if he bites her two more times and tries to protect her but, as the movie goes on, it's clear he really just can't stand the idea of Dracula being a better lover than him (he even screams that out loud when he's taken away following an attempt to kill Dracula by burning his coffin). That's another thing: Rosenberg becomes so determined to win Cindy back from Dracula that he makes himself come off as a madman. Following that failed attempt to torch him, he shoots him in the middle of a restaurant and gets put away again, this time in a padded cell while wearing a straight-jacket. And after he's gotten out of the institution by Lieutenant Ferguson, Rosenberg, after the two of them fail to get a search warrant for her apartment, kidnaps Cindy by sedating and attempting to spirit her away. This time, however, he gets beaten on by the people in a stuck elevator when they figure he's crazy from his actions and ranting, allowing Cindy to escape and reunite with Dracula. When all else fails, Rosenberg, more than once, tries to tell Cindy that he loves her, although he always adds some form of "maybe" to such declarations, and even tries to get her to marry him at one point, despite having told her repeatedly that she herself doesn't want to. In the end, she goes with Dracula, leaving Rosenberg with only a check for her unpaid psychiatric sessions and Dracula's cape, which he plans to put to good use over the coming weekend.

Aside from George Hamilton, one of the best things about the movie is Renfield (Arte Johnson). Johnson not only does a good imitation of Dwight Frye's famous "heh, heh, heh" laugh and plays up the character's habit of eating bugs, but he's also likable in how loyal he is to his master. He not only follows his orders and finds out everything there is to know about Cindy and her frequent hangouts, but he also listens to and sympathizes with Dracula's plight about the downsides of his existence, helps him whenever he's feeling low and stressed, and even, when he thinks about giving up and going to back to his coffin, refuses to let him do so, telling him something that pulls him out of his rut. He also assists Dracula in minute things like remembering various dates and letting him know what time sunset and sunrise is in New York, as well as saves him when Rosenberg tries to burn him in his coffin and later attempts to stop him from ruining Dracula's plan to escape the country with Cindy. All that said, Renfield isn't perfect, as he tends to bungle things badly, like when he buys Dracula a book of American slang that's over fifty years out of date or when, upon arriving in New York, he takes the wrong coffin with him to the hotel. Also, his urge to devour bugs and other such things enables Rosenberg to trick and knock him unconscious at one point. But those are actually rarities, as he proves to be far more competent than you might expect. In the end, he's bound for Jamaica just like Dracula and Cindy, though he doesn't seem all that excited about the in-flight movie, In Cold Blood, as he prefers movies featuring creepy-crawlies.

In trying to get rid of Dracula, Rosenberg seeks help from the police department and is directed to Lieutenant Ferguson (Dick Shawn). He walks in on Ferguson as he's questioning a young hood, preparing to lock him up. Intervening and introducing himself as a psychiatrist, Rosenberg says he believes the kid is sincere when he says he's sorry for stealing hubcaps, gives him a card for a clinic he advises him to go to, and talks Ferguson into letting him go. Reluctantly, he does, and when the kid walks out, promising to do good, Ferguson finds himself feeling pretty good about it. Then, Rosenberg tells him that Count Dracula is loose in the city, and Ferguson angrily has one of his officers go after the kid and has Rosenberg thrown out of the station. Some time later, though, when Rosenberg has gotten himself put away again, Ferguson visits him after reading about the blood bank being robbed and people reporting being bitten and not remembering what happened. Now believing there's a vampire, Ferguson gets Rosenberg out and has him help with finding Dracula. They try to do it the legal way, but when the judge, naturally, refuses to grant a search warrant for Cindy's apartment for such a crazy reason, Ferguson has no choice but to let Rosenberg do it his way. Not wanting to be party to breaking and entering, Ferguson waits in the lobby, only for the apartment building to get caught up in a power outage. While Ferguson deals with every single person around becoming a looter due to the blackout, Cindy manages to escape Rosenberg and reunite with Dracula. This leads to a chase where Rosenberg and Ferguson use a police motorcycle to chase after Dracula and Cindy in a cab as they make their way to the airport. In the end, they're unable to stop Cindy from becoming a vampire, but since Rosenberg gets paid for all of her sessions, he's fine with it, as is Ferguson. In fact, when Rosenberg takes Dracula's discarded cape, Ferguson asks to borrow it for his upcoming wedding anniversary in order to really dazzle his wife.

Several noteworthy cameo appearances include one from Barry Gordon, who went on to do a lot of cartoon voice work (he voiced Donatello in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and Razor in Swat Kats) and who appears here as a flashlight salesman during the blackout, and especially two from none other than George and Wheezy Jefferson! Sherman Hemsley appears as a reverend presiding over the funeral of a guy whose coffin was mixed up with Dracula's at the airport. He says

the knew the deceased to be a swinger, a boozer, and, "Most of all, he loved his Cadillac Seville, and it's a beaut. I know because he left it to me, hallelujah!" He then adds, "I showed him how God wanted him to have a swell time while he was alive. Because, brothers and sisters, when you is gone, you is gone. And ain't no way, no how, nobody's going to bring you back here, once you is dead!" And then, Dracula rises from the coffin, sending the mourners running and causing the reverend to fall out the stained glass window behind him in fright. Isabel Sanford, meanwhile, appears as Judge R. Thomas, whom Ferguson and Rosenberg go to for the search warrant. She, naturally, is dumbfounded when they talk about using it as a means of catching a vampire, and after asking them if they saw Roots, says, "Our people have come a long way for you to be coming in here with that voodoo, scary Dracula shit! Now, I want you to haul ass, out of my courtroom before I really get mean!" Rosenberg tries to placate her by saying he's a psychiatrist but Ferguson stops him before he can make the situation any worse.

Stan Dragoti isn't likely to be remembered as one of the best filmmakers ever but, if nothing else, he was a competent one, as Love At First Bite is a well-made movie. It's well-shot by cinematographer Edward Rosson, who manages to make the opening scenes in Castle Dracula (which are lit by numerous candles and a fireplace), the many nighttime exteriors in New York, and the sequence in the apartment building during the blackout look dark and, sometimes, fairly atmospheric, while other sequences like the dance between

Dracula and Cindy at the nightclub and the moments between them at Cindy's apartment are shot to look really cool and even romantic. Dracula himself is sometimes lit in a manner that makes him come off as mysterious and otherworldly, with special attention often being paid to his face and eyes when he's attempting to seduce Cindy. Also, when he and Rosenberg are having a standoff to see who can hypnotize who, they put a light around George Hamilton's eyes, no doubt meant to copy

those famous shots of Bela Lugosi's eyes from the original Dracula. Some other really good shots are those of Dracula's silhouette when he's standing outside of Cindy's window, and when Lieutenant Ferguson visits Rosenberg while he's being kept in a padded cell, to which they add a nice touch of a beam of light streaming through the window in the door.

Among the few actual sets built for the movie are those of Castle Dracula, which look pretty much how you'd expect them to: old, dusty, filled with cobwebs, lit entirely by all those candles and a large fireplace in the foyer, and with a lot of mist hanging in the air and right above the floor, enough to rival the look of The Return of the Vampire... and it's awesome. Granted, all you see of the castle are the foyer, which has a big grand piano that Dracula plays upon first rising, and the crypt below, where his coffin is kept, but it's enough to give you that

great, Gothic feeling. But, like the original Dracula, this doesn't last for too long, as the movie then relocates to New York for the duration. Much of it was actually filmed there, with the filmmakers shooting on 5th Avenue, at the Plaza Hotel, Bellevue Hospital, and Central Park, while other settings, like the blood bank Dracula robs, the psych ward Rosenberg gets himself thrown into a couples of time, and the police station where Lieutenant Ferguson is introduced, were probably also sets. Notable settings

include the mean streets of Harlem, where Dracula has to deal with some muggers; Dracula and Renfield's posh room at the Plaza Hotel; the disco club where Dracula first meets Cindy, which has a unique, rotating strobe light on the ceiling above the dance floor and tables that come complete with small telephones; Cindy's small apartment, where the bedroom, with its round bed sitting in front of some golden-colored curtains, and the kitchen are right across from each other; and the aforementioned police station, padded cell, and blood bank, with its refrigerator full of small blood packs.

Like Young Frankenstein, the movie is an affectionate send-up of old Dracula and vampire movies, especially the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie, albeit in a much less overt fashion. Instead of continuously winking at you about how much of a spoof it is, Love At First Bite instead tells the basic story of the original novel and film in a more comical manner, substituting period London for 1970's New York. That said, there are, indeed, many references to the 1931 movie, like George Hamilton's impression of Lugosi and Arte

Johnson's of Dwight Frye's Renfield, Dracula's first line at a bunch of loudly howling wolves being, "Children of the night, shut up!", Dracula mentioning having pursued Mina Harker in London in 1931, and the immortal, "I never drink wine." Both diehard fans and most casual viewers would probably get those references, but there are some more obscure ones, too. For instance, the moment between Dracula and some thugs in Harlem is similar to a moment from Scream,

Blacula, Scream (although, these thugs fare far better than those did) and, according to the IMDB trivia page, the plot is a virtual copy of a 1971 film I've never heard of called Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? (at least, the three bites gimmick is; looking up that movie's plot, it's about Dracula changing his name and opening a nightclub!). Also, whether or not it was intentional, there are aspects of the movie that feel like it's sending up the version of Dracula with Frank Langella, which

came out several months later, such as when Dracula comes through Cindy's window with a lot of mist and Dracula's being portrayed as a sad romantic rather than a frightening monster (maybe the filmmakers saw the play revival that movie was based on). And there's a moment where Rosenberg pulls out a Star of David pendant on Dracula, a take on a gag that appeared in Roman Polanski's own vampire comedy, The Fearless Vampire Killers. Speaking of which, they do also have some

fun with the various ways of killing or repelling vampires, like when Rosenberg puts a cigarette case's mirror in Dracula's face (which he quickly smashes; another reference to the Lugosi movie), gives Cindy a necklace made of garlic, attempts to burn Dracula's coffin (a sly reference to Son of Dracula), and shoots him with silver bullets, which Dracula then tells him are for werewolves. But, as silly as it gets, it never get to the point where it feels like the movie is taking place in a world of spoof...

...for the most part. However, there are moments that feel very much like the overt style of parody Mel Brooks employs. As much as I love the opening scene at Castle Dracula for its decor, it feels out of style to the movie that follows, given how over-the-top the Communist government officials who evict Dracula, despite apparently knowing he is a vampire and Renfield his bug-eating servant, are portrayed. Even more so is the scene afterward where, as he and Renfield are leaving, Dracula confronts the mob of villagers

who have gathered outside the castle. This is where you really see Brooks' influence, as the villagers are not only stereotypical in how they're wielding torches and pitchforks but one of them is crazily playing a fiddle, another can be heard yelling, "Get your wolfsbane! Get your wolfsbane!", and some of them yell random things like, "Punch him in the face!", and, "Yeah! Hang him by his heels!" Another villager calls out Dracula for biting his mother, to which Dracula, after learning who he is, tells him, "I bit your mother, and your grandmother."

And before he departs, Dracula tells them, "Remember this: without me, Transylvania will be as exciting as... Bucharest on a Monday night," with Renfield sticking his tongue out at them for good measure before they drive off in a carriage. But, no moment is more on the nose than when, during a confrontation with Rosenberg, Renfield lets it slip that Dracula is getting tickets so they can leave on a plane that night, and when Cindy asks him why he said that, Rosenberg explains,

"Because the bad guys always tell the good guys what they're going to do just before they try to kill them," with Renfield concurring, "He's absolutely right, Miss Cindy. That's part of the rules." That feels like it belongs in a more all-out, self-aware parody, either by Brooks or the Zucker Brothers, which this movie isn't for the most part. The same goes for the sequence during the blackout in the apartment building, when everyone suddenly becomes a looter and starts taking everything they

can see, including the payphone Lieutenant Ferguson is using at one point. These moments are few and far between and, while they're not that harmful overall, with some actually being funny, they do make it feel like the movie is confused about what kind of comedy it wants to be.

The main point of the movie is to watch the 700-plus year-old Dracula navigate and try to adapt to 1970's New York and there is some good comedy that comes about as a result. You have Dracula actually becoming a victim of luggage being lost, as his coffin is taken to a funeral in Harlem and he rises in the middle of it, horrifying everybody. You then see him wandering about Harlem and nearly get mugged, but he uses his powers to easily thwart his would-be attackers. Other aspects of modern life he doesn't take to as well, such as being forced

by a cop to stand back from Cindy during her photo shoot and then getting sent to the pound when he becomes a dog in order to get revenge, his bat form inspiring irritation and arousing the hunger of a desperately poor family rather than scaring people, his getting drunk and dealing with a hangover when he sucks the blood of a wino, and his initially being mistaken for a waiter by Cindy, who's also not impressed or taken with him right away. But then, you have him mastering eating

with Cindy at very high-class, modern restaurants, arranging for wake up calls so he can make it back to his coffin before sunrise, managing to get plane tickets, seeing a hearse as both a vehicle and a mobile home, and robbing a blood bank to keep from needing to feed on the blood of the living. And finally, if there's anything Dracula manages to remain master of in the 70's, it's cool dancing, even at a disco club, as in that epic scene between him and Cindy.

The big problem with the core premise is that it basically wraps up and switches gears at the end of the first act, once Dracula has begun his seduction of Cindy. After that, rather than watching Dracula continue to deal with the modern era, perhaps in struggling with the socially acceptable and expected ways to court a woman as opposed to his old-fashioned, Old World methods, we spend the rest of the movie watching Rosenberg's growing craziness as he tries to "save" Cindy from Dracula. It's still cool to see those moments where Dracula

masters aspects of modern life and easily thwarts his idiotic rival, but I really wanted to see more of the Count being befuddled by the customs, slang (maybe use that vernacular from that 1920's book, unaware that it's out of date), and technology of the modern era, or perhaps see Renfield struggling with it, rather than adapting as perfectly as he appears to (he's even wearing a jersey and sleeping with a big, plush spider in one scene). But no, instead much of the movie's latter two acts are

spent with Rosenberg and then Lieutenant Ferguson trying to stop Dracula, and I don't find either of them to be as entertaining to watch as Dracula and Renfield. In fact, it might have been a good idea to eliminate those characters altogether and focus on Dracula, but keep Cindy's dilemma about falling in love with a vampire.

In his brutal, zero stars review of the movie, Gene Siskel accused it of containing, "Some of the most cruel racial stereotyping you'll ever see." Rather hyperbolic, that statement, but regardless, there is a lot of humor here based around not so flattering depictions of black people, with them usually being depicted as thugs, crooks, or, in the case of Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford's respective appearances, over the top and sassy. There are a few references to Roots, which was only a couple

of years old at this point, as a means of alluding to both black power and progress in an exaggerated manner, like when one of the muggers uses it to tell Dracula the one threatening him has a Watusi ancestor, or when Judge Thomas brings it up to Lieutenant Ferguson, leading them to agree that Ben Vereen is a great dancer. You also hear "honky" and "mother" a few times, and when one of the hoods from the gang is being questioned about the others he was with, he says, "You know

we all look alike." Again, I don't think it's quite as bad as Siskel made it out, especially for the time, and I also don't see how anyone could take it seriously anyway, but, yeah, there is some stereotyping here. However, Jewish people don't get off easy, either. When Dracula, as a bat, flies into the apartment of a couple making out, the guy chases him out the window, describes the bat as, "His first wife," and yells, "You frigid, skinny-legged yenta!" Later, when Rosenberg mistakenly pulls a Star of David on Dracula and asks, "Well,

Count, what do you say to that?", Dracula comments, "I would say leave Cindy alone and find yourself a nice Jewish girl, Doctor!" That's to say nothing of how much of an idiot Rosenberg, a Jewish man, is, and when he gets stuck in the elevator during the blackout, one of the women in there with him, who later asks, "Why do you need a meshuggeneh blonde like that for?", is named "Mrs. Knockwurst." And that destitute family that mistake Dracula's bat form for a black chicken is Hispanic.

Most of the effects in the movie are physical ones, such as simple string pull gags for when Dracula uses his powers to send objects flying through the air and special props used for moments like when Dracula makes a knife-blade twist around like a screw and then become as limp as a noodle. There's also a moment early on where Dracula blasts some mist out of his mouth, which seems to have been done by just lining up a fire extinguisher or other such tool with the opposite side of George Hamilton's head. And, of course, there's a fake bat that is very

clearly a prop, as no part of it moves aside from its wings, and its rather cuddly face is obviously made of plastic. Since this is a comedy, that might have been intentional, so I'm not going to harp on it. Due to the low budget, you never see Dracula become a bat onscreen and vice versa, and though they try to do something cool with the latter through shadow, it doesn't work that well, as it's just Hamilton's shadow enveloping that of the prop bat. Also, because of this low-tech transformation method

that's done purely through editing, when Dracula becomes a doberman pinscher in one scene, I didn't know that was supposed to be him! I thought it was just some random dog he took control of in order to exact revenge on the cop and didn't realize it was him until he mentioned having to get out of the pound in the following scene. The only visual effects in the movie are an exterior matte painting of Castle Dracula (which I think is the shot of the castle from both The Raven and The Terror, only compressed; as this is an AIP movie, it's possible), a possible blue screen moment between Dracula and Cindy at the airport, and the very last shot showing them flying off into the horizon as bats, which has some bad matting of the elements but, again, since it's a comedy and is really the only shot of this type to be seen here, it's excusable.

After the movie opens with Dracula rising from his coffin and trying to play the piano up in the castle foyer, only to stop because the children of the night won't stop with the howling, he pours himself a drink but recoils when he takes a swig. He yells for Renfield, who comes running through the front door, telling Dracula he was getting his magazines in the mail. Dracula admonishes him for not keeping the blood he drank at body temperature, and when he's given the magazines, he dismisses

them as pornographic filth (though he seems interested in one particular cover) and tosses them into the fireplace, causing a big burst of flame. He demands his fashion magazine and Renfield hands him a copy of Pizaz, which has a photo of Cindy Sondheim on the cover. He tells Renfield how he's convinced he's known and truly loved Cindy in her past lives, claiming to have bitten her in Warsaw in 1356 and again in London in 1931, where he knew her as Mina Harker. Renfield says he remembers

how Dr. Van Helsing nearly succeeded in staking him that time but failed due to a cigarette case Dracula had on him, which Renfield himself had given him for his 650th birthday. Hearing this, Dracula asks, "So what do you want from me? A medal?!" He then heads downstairs to "take a little nap" with the magazine, when Renfield suddenly yells, "Master, please be careful!", adding, "You nearly stepped on my dinner," i.e. a beetle crawling around on the floor. As he follows it, Dracula tells him, "Bon appetit," and asks him to tidy up a

bit when he's through. Dracula heads back down into his crypt and coffin, reading articles with titles such as, "Cheating on your honeymoon can be fun," "How to get your gynecologist to tear up his bill by yelling, 'Rape!', in the office," "The ten best states to divorce your old man in," and, "Husband-beating: Ten men tell why they like it." Stepping into his coffin, he promises to one day take Cindy away from such sick filth, and lays back down, the lid shutting by itself. But, no sooner has he done so than Renfield comes running down, telling him to

wake up and knocking on the coffin's lid. In response, Dracula briefly rises up and smacks him across the face with the rolled-up magazine before closing the lid again. Renfield tells him someone is at the door, asking to see him, and says he thinks they're from the government. Dracula rises again and asks him how he knows this, to which Renfield answers, "They're wearing shoes."

Sure enough, they turn out to be government representatives: two men and a woman. The latter informs Dracula that it's been decided to turn his castle into a training camp for athletes and he has 48 hours to leave. They're about to depart, when Dracula stops them, declaring, "Wait one minute! This is my home. My people cleared the land. We tortured innocent peasants for it. We even murdered for it. By Romanian law, that makes it ours." The woman, however, is not swayed or

intimidated by him, insisting that he'd best not still be there in two days. And when Dracula asks where he's supposed to go, she says, "You have a choice, comrade Count: either you spend the rest of your life in an efficiency apartment, with seven dissidents and one toilet, or you gather your aristocratic shit together and split!" With that, she and her men leave. Dracula asks Renfield, "What is an efficiency apartment?", to which he counters, "I don't know, master. What's a toilet?" When it

comes time for Dracula and Renfield to depart, the Count notices a large crowd of villagers gathered outside. He thinks they've come to pay their respects, but finds that's not the case when a big stone comes crashing through the window. Renfield suggests he not appear before them but Dracula refuses to cower from them and leaves out the front door regardless. After confronting some of them and declaring that, without him around, Transylvania will be boring, he and Renfield depart on a horse-drawn carriage. The film cuts to a plane

heading for the United States, where onboard, the in-flight movie is something involving a bunch of rats. While everyone else is disgusted by this, Renfield laughs in maniacal delight, annoying the woman sitting next to him. The next day, the stewardess gives him a choice of various meals for lunch and he answers, "Everything you mentioned is dead. Don't you have anything that's alive... and kicking?" The woman next to him makes an order and then jokes by asking the stewardess to bring back a mouse for her cat, who's sitting in a carrier

next to her. Renfield asks, "Could I have one, too?", and the woman laughs at this, with him joining her, neither realizing the meaning behind their respective laughs. Renfield then hisses at the cat, who meows and looks at him with scared eyes. Meanwhile, in the luggage section in back, Dracula is looking through a book of American slang, when he's baffled by such phrases as, "Putting on the ritz," "Hotsy-totsy," and, "23-skidoo." Looking at the copyright, he sees the book is from 1926 and groans, "Renfield, you bungling moron, this book is as out of date as... I am."

After arriving at JFK airport, Renfield goes through customs, when a hippie-like guy ahead of him is stopped and searched, including in his orifices, simply for saying he has a sitar he bought in Bangladesh. When it's his turn, Renfield tells the customs officer that the large box he has contains the remains of his father, saying he was half-eaten by a lion in Africa and then vultures got much of the rest. Not wanting to look at such gruesome remains, the officer tells Renfield to go on ahead.

After that, a group of African-American mourners pick up a similar box, with the one woman crying, "Alvin, I told you to go find your roots... but who told you to drink the water?" However, we then see "TRANSYLVANIA" marked on the box's side, indicating that Renfield ended up with the wrong luggage. He gets a man to take them into New York for $10, but when he tries to speak with Dracula about it, the man thinks he's haggling and bumps the price down to $7.50. You then see why the car is so cheap, as it's a small, yellow, topless thing

that has barely enough room for the box, which is tied down in the backseat. After nightfall, Dracula rises from his coffin in the midst of the funeral for Alvin, scaring the mourners out the door and causing the reverend to fall back through the stained glass window behind him. Dracula then asks the obvious question, "This is not the lobby of the Plaza Hotel?"

As he walks the streets of Harlem, Dracula is called over by a group of African-American thugs. He innocently asks them where he may find a taxi, only for one of the thugs to say taxis are too afraid to come up there at night, then calls him a "honky." Dracula is confused by that term, saying, "I am not a honky. I am... Romanian." The head of the thugs says, "You mean you was a Romania, mother!", and prepares to deck him, saying, "The time is late, and the man is tall, but I got a date, so he must

fall." Dracula blocks his punch with his arm, which apparently is as hard as a rock, considering how the man recoils, grabbing his fingers and yelling in pain. Another thug rushes at Dracula but he easily casts him aside, causing him to bash his head against and dislodge a fire hydrant, and when a third one pulls a knife on him, he uses his power to twist the blade around and make it go limp, which sends the thug running down the street, plowing through some garbage cans. The last one claims he

wasn't with them and tries to run off as well, but Dracula uses his power to force him to come back and then leap through a storefront window. After the crash, the thug, before leaving, takes advantage of the situation and steals a TV set, telling Dracula, "It's dudes like you that the give the neighborhood a bad name." It then cuts to the Plaza Hotel, where Renfield is watching TV in his and Dracula's suite. He's watching an animated commercial for Raid (which is narrated by Casey Kasem) and is upset when it ends with the bugs dying. There's a knock

at the door and he answers to find Dracula standing there. He slaps Renfield a few times across the face before walking in and telling him he got the wrong coffin, making him look when he's skeptical about it. Renfield jokes that the man may just be a "late sleeper" and laughs, but Dracula glares at him, shutting him up immediately. He promises to get rid of the body and get his coffin instead. Dracula orders him to then find out where Cindy Sondheim is while he's resting during the day, which excites Renfield, as it means he can try out an American

suit he bought in order to look like everyone else; Dracula is skeptical at how much he'll succeed on that score. He tells him that, by the time he rises following sunset the next day, he wants to know where Cindy lives.

Renfield is shown walking around New York in a ridiculous, tacky suit, awkwardly following and copying everything an equally gaudy woman does. He goes to a talent agency and is allowed inside to see Cindy's agent (when he walks through the door, one of the receptionists remarks, "Didn't I see him on Fantasy Island?"). When he speaks with the agent, she's initially incredulous at how Renfield believes she would just up and let Cindy meet his employer, and when he says his employer is Count

Dracula, she cracks up laughing, thinking it's a joke. Renfield insists he's serious and tells the agent that Dracula might be willing to make her a colonel in the Royal Transylvania Army in exchange for her cooperation... at least, when the next free elections are held. Not finding it amusing anymore, the agent tells Renfield to get out or she's going to call security. Renfield, in turn, tells her that she has thirty seconds to tell him where Cindy is, as he places a black box on her desk. She asks,

"Or what? You'll eat your lunch in my office?", and he replies, "No. My lunch will eat you." He opens his box, revealing something that absolutely horrifies the agent: a hissing cobra. Backing up against the window and yelling, she tells him that Cindy will be at Central Park at 9:00 that night. Come nightfall, Dracula heads over to the park and comes upon a crowd who watch Cindy as she does a photo shoot, standing in front of a car with a pair of dogs. Leering at her, Dracula tries to get closer, when a cop tells him to step back into the crowd,

ignoring him when he says he's come a long way to see her. Irked at this, Dracula turns into a doberman pinscher and, before the cop knows what happened, pees on his leg. He then runs off, with the cop yelling at people to get him. He runs through the crowd and toward Cindy, barking and snarling to make the dogs she was posing with run off. Cindy motions for him to come over and he does, walking up to her and licking her ankles. She doesn't mind this at all, and is irked when the cop grabs the dog and puts him in the back of an A.S.P.C.A. van, which then drives off with him howling forlornly.

Dracula, wearing nothing but a muscle shirt and a pair of boxers, receives a shoulder massage from Renfield. He tells him to find Cindy's home and get him three new coattails the next day, then adds, "You better make that six. This city's like living in the jungle!" He gripes about having to pay $8 for a dog license in order to get out of the pound (I'd love to know how he pulled that off), then goes to get some nourishment (Renfield jokes that they could ring for the night-maid, before catching and

munching on a fly). He takes the elevator up to the hotel's roof, where he jumps off the edge and turns into a bat. He flies through the window of a couple who are passionately making out in bed, when the wife feels something scratching at her neck. At first, she thinks it's her husband scratching her with his cuff-links, but when he says he's not wearing any cuff-links, they realize it's a bat and freak out. Dracula promptly flies out of the window, as the man, after tumbling off the foot of the bed, chases

after and yells at him, before taking off his robe and jumping back into bed in just his pajama pants. Dracula then flies through another window, into the home of a poor, Hispanic family who start chasing him around, thinking he's a black chicken (they're either dumb or are so hungry that they're hallucinating he's a chicken). Again, Dracula quickly flies back out the window, with the man going, "Come back, black chicken! Leaves us an egg or something!" Finally, he comes across a guy boozing it up on a section of stairway and feeds on

his blood. He pays for that, as when he awakens the next night, he sings drunkenly before opening the coffin and then says, "What was that maniac drinking? Tastes like the Volga River at low tide." Renfield tries to help him out of his coffin but Dracula says he's through, lamenting how he's not remotely scary in a city like New York and how that family mistook him for a black chicken. He goes on to describe how lonely and pathetic his centuries-old existence has been, and is about to climb back into his coffin and never come out, but

Renfield stops him. He gives him a piece of paper with the address of the establishment Cindy visits almost every night on it, saying he got it from Cindy's receptionist. Elated and rejuvenated, Dracula asks how he managed to get that out of her, and then wishes he hadn't, as Renfield said he did it through, "Six black widow spiders, twelve fat earthworms, two hairy caterpillars, on rye bread with a slice of onion." Dracula promptly runs into the bathroom and slams the door behind him. As he blows chunks inside, Renfield asks, "Was it something I said, master?"

Dracula goes to a disco club, telling the doorman when he asks if he's a member that he's looking for someone. He's allowed in and walks down some stairs into the heart of the club, as a song called Dancin' Through the Night plays while people get down on the dance floor. Intrigued by what he's seeing, Dracula walks through the crowd and spots Cindy sitting at a table by herself, talking on a telephone. He makes his way over to her and attempts to introduce himself, when she mistakes

him for a waiter. She then continues the conversation she's having on the phone without paying him a second thought, so he uses his power to make her call drop. He introduces himself as an admirer of hers and asks if he can sit down. She allows him, then guesses that he's either a magician or a handwriting analyst. He says he's admired her from afar, which doesn't impress her, and when he asks her to look into his eyes and tell him what she sees, she comments, "Um, they're bloodshot and

you had too much to drink last night." He, in turn, tells her he loves her and can give her eternal life, prompting her to think he's an insurance salesman. Getting irked, he growls, "I'm Count Vladimir Dracula! I do not sell life insurance!", then says he knows secret things about her, such as that she enjoys having her ankles licked. That's enough to get her to suggest they go back to either his or her place, and when she realizes what she said, she's about to pack up and leave, but Dracula leads her out onto the dance floor, as the song, I Love the

Night Life, begins. That's when they go into the famous dance number, which is very well-choreographed and elegant, with Cindy proving to be just as good and smooth a dancer as Dracula, who dips, flips, and spins her around gracefully. The sequence ends with them standing in a spotlight in front of a red wall, with Cindy dipping down to the floor and smiling up at Dracula.

The two of them go back to Cindy's apartment, and when Dracula sees the disarray it's in, with clothes and undergarments lying and hanging everywhere, he suggests she might want to get a broom. She replies, "I hate housework. It killed my mother," then goes to put on more casual clothes. While alone, Dracula mills around the apartment, seeing a picture of Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg on a shelf, then uses his power to activate the record player. As some romantic, foreign music plays, he uses

Cindy's telephone to call Renfield, telling him to give him a 6:00 wake-up call. Meanwhile, in her bathroom, Cindy removes the wig she was wearing and gargles, before coming back out. When she does, she sees that Dracula is standing out on her balcony, so she takes the opportunity to fix them a drink. She opens her refrigerator to find her cat inside, remarking, "So that's where you've been for the last two days, and I thought you were lost, you little devil." (Seriously, you didn't know your cat

was stuck in the fridge for two days?) Lifting the cat out, she grabs a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses, but when she pours, she screws up badly, overfilling one glass, putting too little in the other, drinking straight from the bottle in a panic, and then filling the one glass with the extra from the other. She also lights up a joint and walks out onto the balcony with Dracula, telling him she's got champagne and some Maui Wowie, which she says is, "Really heavy shit." Dracula tells her, "I do not drink... wine, and I do not smoke... shit." With

that, Dracula puts the glasses away and Cindy, after taking a big puff of the Maui Wowie, tosses it. After he gives her a rose, she comes up with an idea for a drink she'd think would be perfect for him, but when she steps back into the apartment, Dracula takes her hand and kisses it. Cindy tries to tell him something but he silences her with a big one on the lips, then scoops her up into his arms and carries her over to the bed. She tries to tell him that she doesn't expect to see him again after this or for him to call her, but he admits he's not listening

and lays her down on the bed. She says she's trying to be honest but he says, "Don't be honest... Be beautiful. Be romantic. Be mine." He tries to go in for a kiss, when she starts babbling about not being on the pill and why she isn't. Again, he silences her mindless gab, this time by going in and biting her on the neck, which she really gets off on.

We're then introduced to Rosenberg, as Cindy tells him of her incredible night with Dracula during one of their psychiatric sessions. Rosenberg, who's not happy about her bragging about getting much more sexual fulfillment from someone else, has this to say about her bouts of promiscuity. "Let's see. The first time this happened, you blamed it on low blood sugar. The glucose tolerance test, which... which I paid for, proved negative. The time before that, you said you were having a

double crisis day due to your bio-rhythm chart... No, no! Last night, you were on a definite, optimistic upswing... So much for that bullshit." Cindy tells Rosenberg he's losing his objectivity, but he ignores her, saying, "Moving right along, the time before that, you claimed the CIA had planted a mind-bending drug in your feminine hygiene spray. But we checked it out. They never heard of you! So, what's left? What is it that causes you to behave with such rampant promiscuity, little

Miss... Hot Pants?!" He then goes as far as to suggest it was all a fantasy, when she shows him the "dynamite hickey" Dracula left on her neck. When he sees those tell-tale bite marks, he knows what it is, and tells Cindy she once met his grandfather, Dr. Fritz Van Helsing. He also asks how many times Dracula bit her, and when she says just the one, he grabs a book and reads from it that three bites from a vampire will turn the victim into one. Cindy, not taking it seriously, comments, "Look it, if last night was any indication of what

it's like to be a corpse, it sure beats the hell out of living." Rosenberg warns her that she's in danger and asks to meet Dracula. She reluctantly agrees to let him sit in on their having drinks before dinner but warns him not to screw things up for her. His watch then buzzes, signifying that their session is up. Before she leaves, Rosenberg tells her she hasn't paid for the sessions in over a year, but she says she forgot her checkbook and asks if she can pay him Tuesday. Rosenberg, falling for her charm, says yes to that, and once she's out of the office, he melodramatically says, "Dracula... alive... in New York. I won't let him get her. I won't."

That night, Dracula rides in a horse-drawn carriage down the middle of the street, ignoring the honking car horns all around him, as he's too busy sniffing one of the many roses he has with him. Arriving at his destination, he tells the horse, who was going without a driver, "Why don't you go and get yourself something to eat and be back in an hour," before disembarking. He walks on into the hotel, while the horse and carriage walk off, almost causing some accidents offscreen, all while the

hotel's doorman stands there, bewildered. Inside the hotel's restaurant, Cindy and Rosenberg wait at a table, when Dracula arrives. He kisses Cindy's hand and gives her the roses, through Rosenberg takes them and puts them away, telling Cindy not to touch the thorns. Dracula sits down and Cindy introduces him to Rosenberg, and while the two of them exchange pleasantries, there is undeniable tension between them, especially on Rosenberg's side. In the midst of small talk between Dracula

and Cindy, Rosenberg pulls out his cigarette case under the pretense of offering one to Dracula. When he sees the mirror inside, he promptly smacks the case out of his hand and to the floor, cracking it. Undeterred, Rosenberg gives Cindy a present, something he says is a good luck necklace. When Cindy takes it out of the wrapping, she's put off by the smell, while Dracula is positively repulsed by it. Rosenberg admits it's a necklace of garlic and Dracula quickly takes it and tosses it over his shoulder; it lands in a large pot being prepared by a

waiter behind them. Rosenberg then reveals to Dracula that Fritz Van Helsing was his grandfather and Dracula says, "Your grandfather was a very wise man. But, unfortunately for him, I was wiser." Cindy begins to wonder if Rosenberg is stoned, when he makes the mistake of pulling out a Star of David pendant rather than a crucifix, much to Dracula's amusement. With that, Dracula attempts to leave with Cindy, but Rosenberg tries one more thing. He attempts to hypnotize Dracula by making him look into his eyes, but Dracula, returning the

gaze, says, "Do not touch teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, Rosenberg. It is you who are getting sleepier and sleepier." They both sit back down and engage in a staring contest, each trying to put the other to sleep and even arguing who's overpowering who. At the same time, Cindy gets sick of this craziness and, when her threat about going home is ignored, she walks out. A waiter then comes by to ask if they're ready to order, only to get caught up in the hypnosis and immediately collapse to the floor.

Later, at her apartment, as she sits in bed, painting her nails, Cindy hears a knock at her window, which, of course, turns out to be Dracula. Not thrilled about seeing him following that scene between him and Rosenberg, she says she has a man with her and puts her pillows underneath her bed sheets to make it look as though someone is under there. Dracula blasts open the window with a gust of air, which Cindy isn't amused by. She, again, tells him she has a man in there, but he uses

his power to yank the sheet off the bed and send it flying, revealing that she's lying; he then says, "Now, you do." She, in turn, calls him an arrogant S.O.B. (seriously, she has no reaction to his doing that right in front of her), and when he goes on about being humble before her and that she belongs to him, she threatens to call the cops. She goes for the phone, only for him to send it flying and crashing by the window. He approaches her, telling her about how he knows she longs for a truly satisfying

experience, and takes her into a kiss, before hearing what sounds like a rooster crowing. It turns out the sound is being made by Renfield as a sort of warning for Dracula. He says he must go but Cindy tries to talk him into partaking in a "quickie," though he pulls away and says, "No. With you, never a quickie. Always a longy." Using his power to open her door behind him, he ducks out of her apartment, saying, "Until tonight," while she tells him that it'll be okay for him to use the front door next time. Dracula then rushes down the street and back to the Plaza Hotel, quickly making his way up to his room, using his power to open the door. He climbs into his coffin as the clock chimes and the sun begins to rise, using his power to close the coffin's lid (he randomly gives the finger while doing so).

This is when Rosenberg goes to the police station and tries to get the help of Lieutenant Ferguson, who happens to be interrogating Russell, a thug who was a member of the gang who tried to mug Dracula the other night. After Rosenberg steps in, declares Russell to be telling the truth when he says he's sorry about stealing hubcaps, and talks Ferguson into letting him go with a card for a clinic he wants him to visit, Ferguson actually feels good about it. But, when Rosenberg tells him there's a

vampire loose in New York, he yells for an officer named O'Brien to get Russell back and then starts yelling for another cop named Murphy. Rosenberg thinks he's calling for reinforcements, but when Murphy runs in, Ferguson orders him to get Rosenberg out of the station. As he's dragged out, Rosenberg tries to explain himself but Ferguson isn't having it and yells in his face to get out. Despite this, Rosenberg goes to the Plaza Hotel, dressed up in a nutty outfit that involves a

suit-jacket and bow-tie, shorts, knee-socks, and a fez (I didn't know at first but I now think he's dressed up as a Shriner). He's shown to a room by a rather enthusiastic bellhop who makes some innuendo-laced remarks to him about having a nice, long weekend and what not. Once the bellhop's gone, Rosenberg tosses away the fez and walks over to Dracula's suite, using a lock-pick to get inside, commenting, "Every now and then, it certainly helps to have a patient doing five to ten for breaking and entering." Inside, he finds

Dracula's coffin sitting in the living room but, just as he's about to do what he came to do, wonders if he's up to it, arguing with himself about how it's not something a Freudian would do, then remembers he's also a Van Helsing. He takes a keg of gasoline out of the suitcase and pours it over the coffin, then hops behind the sofa and lights a match. He declares, "In the name of all the Van Helsings who have ever lived... burn, baby. Burn," and throws the match onto the coffin, igniting it. Inside, Dracula awakens as the smoke wafts in; he

says, "Who's smoking? Renfield?" Renfield, who's sleeping in the bedroom, awakens, while Rosenberg says to himself, "This is a perfect example of a man taking charge of his own life. And I feel... pretty good." Dracula yells for Renfield, who jumps up and looks out through the door. Seeing what's going on, he makes a call about the fire, then jumps out of the bedroom and attacks Rosenberg from behind. Two bellhops and a cop burst through the door, the latter knocking out Renfield while the one bellhop uses a fire extinguisher on the burning coffin. Rosenberg starts yelling for them to let it burn, and that prompts them to drag him out the door.

Strapped to a gurney, Rosenberg is transported downtown in an ambulance, telling the paramedics in the back about Dracula, as well as ranting about the possibility that he sexually satisfies Cindy far more than he ever could. One of them prepares to sedate him, with Rosenberg at first arguing with him and then telling him to get rid of the air bubble in the syringe! Cindy later visits him at Bellevue Hospital, bringing a number of Kentucky Fried Chicken cartons with her for him and the rest of the patients, saying she didn't want to make them feel

left out. She says she's taken care of everything regarding his practice and office, when he suddenly asks her to marry him, despite having convinced that she herself doesn't want to. He rambles, "I was going to tell you next Tuesday, when you came into the office. I'm getting the house. Larchmont. 22 minutes from midtown. Good schools. No tennis court, but there's room for one. God, we'll love it there!" Cindy isn't taken with this sudden news, so he then tries to win her over by saying he's picked

out a dog for them, prompting her to loudly yell that he's getting hysterical and cause one of the attendants to glance up from his newspaper. Rosenberg then asks her to get him out of the hospital and she says it's already been arranged, then asks him not to carry on anymore. Yet again, she's a lot louder than he would like and he has to shush her. He assures her that he'll behave himself and not start any more fires, but doesn't say anything to her also asking him not to go on any more possessive tantrums. She leaves he and he goes back to what he was doing when she arrived: sketching a drawing of Dracula and then writing above it, DRACULA SUCKS!

Elsewhere, Dracula and Renfield pull over to a curb in a hearse, which Dracula compliments his servant on finding. After mangling a couple of types of slang, telling Renfield to, "Play it 'cold,'" and saying "hoist" instead of heist, the two of them walk to a nearby blood bank. Dracula knocks on the door a couple of times and a security guard answers. He tells him, "We've come to make a withdrawal. We have a very sick man in the car who needs blood, desperately." When the guard notes that the car is a hearse, Dracula comments,

"So maybe we're a bit late." The guard, for the second time, tells Dracula that they're closed but Dracula says to him, "The only thing closed are your eyes," before forcing his way inside. Coming to a nurse at a desk, she gives Renfield some cards and has the men follow her through a door. But, when she asks them what blood type they are, Renfield says they've come to take blood rather than give, while Dracula is impressed with seeing blood contained in small bottles... or, as he says

before Renfield corrects him, "Bills." He then tells the nurse, "Forgive me. We are new at this." The nurse tells them to get out before she starts screaming, only for Renfield to drop a mouse down the front of her uniform, sending her running off, wailing. Renfield opens up a freezer and finds numerous units of blood in plastic bags. Again, Dracula is amazed, saying, "Only in America. Plastic disposable bodies! It's like a supermarket!" Renfield starts emptying the freezer of the bags, saying it will be great for his and Cindy's wedding reception. Still holding a test tube full of blood, Dracula says, "I propose a toast: here's blood in your eye."

When he meets Cindy at the Plaza Hotel's restaurant again, Dracula presents her with a bat-shaped necklace that has a blood ruby in the center and is connected to a band of pearls. She puts it on her neck and starts to cry, saying she thinks she loves him but is conflicted about what it is she wants out of life and how she feels about herself. She tries to get him to light a cigarette for her but he tosses it away, telling her she was born in the wrong time and assuring her that, if he loves her, she's special. He also says, "I can arrange it so you

never have to look in a mirror again." He's about to kiss her, when Rosenberg shows up and pulls a gun on him, declaring, "The second way to kill a vampire, Count: three silver bullets through the heart!" He shoots Dracula in the chest three times, which does nothing, and Dracula tells him he's gotten him confused with a werewolf. A bellhop and a cop come running in and grab Rosenberg from behind. As they pull him away, he tries to say there was no harm done, again insisting, "I'm a

doctor. I know what I'm doing!" Dracula takes a nearby handkerchief and fans Cindy, who passed out from the shock of it. Back at her place, the two of them have another nice, romantic moment, one that's made Cindy realize once and for all that she wants to be with him. Dracula then gets quite a surprise when Cindy bites him, and it's one he's more than happy to have.

As he's being kept in a padded cell, Rosenberg gets a visit from Ferguson, who brings with him a newspaper about the blood bank robbery and the rash of people claiming to have been bitten by something lately. He lets Rosenberg have a look at the paper, though when he has to turn the page, it proves difficult because of the straight-jacket he's in, forcing him to use his mouth. All the while, Ferguson talks about not knowing what to do about something like this, and tells Rosenberg he's going to get him out so he can help him, though not

before falling over him from behind when he tries to get him on his feet. Once he's out, the two of them rush to Cindy's apartment building and make their way up to her door. When Cindy answers it after Rosenberg pounds it, he's taken aback when he sees her very pale face and feels it's too late. Cindy tells him she's just wearing an herbal mask, but says she and Dracula are in love and tells him to get lost. Rosenberg notes her neck, which now has another set of bite-marks, and he's about to

rush into the apartment to search for Dracula, but Ferguson stops him, telling him they need a search warrant. They head down to the elevator to go see a judge Ferguson knows, and Cindy slams the door, only to then peek back out to tell Rosenberg about her and Dracula's upcoming wedding and suggests he might want to get her some china and silverware as a present. Rosenberg, in turn, tells her that she's not going to get anything out of him. Following his and Ferguson's disastrous meeting with Judge R.

Thomas, they return to the apartments to find a hearse parked outside. Rosenberg says he knows it's Dracula, while Ferguson comments that it's either him or a rock group, and they head inside. But, when they get to the elevator, Ferguson tells Rosenberg he'll have to do it by himself and offers him his gun, which he declines, saying it won't work on Dracula.

Reaching Cindy's floor, Rosenberg bangs on her door and then, despite her angrily saying he can't come in, barges into the apartment. He starts searching the place for Dracula's coffin and finds evidence of his being there in the form of one of his misplaced shoes. He goes to a closet down the corridor by the kitchen, only to open it and find Renfield inside, wielding a broomstick. As he walks towards Rosenberg with the broom, he dumbly tells him that Dracula is currently at the airport, getting tickets for their escape that night.

Just when it seems as though they're about to fight, Rosenberg fools Renfield by telling him there's a large centipede at his feet, and when he looks, he takes the broom from him, jabs him in the gut with the handle, and then smacks him over the head with it. Renfield whines, "And you call yourself a doctor?", and collapses to the floor. By this point, Cindy is horrified by Rosenberg and refuses to go with him. He feigns understanding and acts like he's going to leave, only to grab her from behind, pull out a syringe, and inject her with a sedative.

Down in the lobby, Ferguson sees signs that a blackout is coming, as the lights start blinking. He pleads, "Please, God, not again. Please, don't mess with that big switch up there in the sky." Rosenberg carries the unconscious Cindy to the elevator, getting inside it even though it's filled with people, including a priest and a guy carrying a television set. He explains away Cindy's condition as jet lag, when the power goes out and the elevator stops. They talk about what they are supposed to, with

one guy saying he's got a lighter in his pocket, asking somebody to reach in and, "Flick my Bic." (I always thought that slogan sounded nasty.) An older woman in there does so, while back down in the lobby, Ferguson calls home on a payphone and has to deal with people walking about in the dark, with one looking for his cat and a woman kind of hitting on him before going with a bellhop. Back up in Cindy's apartment, Dracula flies through the open window in bat form, carrying the airline tickets. Finding Renfield on the floor, he becomes human again and awakens him. He learns what happened with Rosenberg and gives Renfield the tickets, which are for London.

Unfortunately for Rosenberg, Cindy awakens in the elevator and, once she realizes where she is and remembers what happened, starts fighting with him, threatening to scream. Upstairs, Dracula opens the shut elevator doors with his powers and calls down the shaft for Cindy. When she yells back at him, he tells her that he's coming to save her. The other people in the elevator yell for his help as well, irritating Rosenberg and making him admonish them for yelling for Dracula. Much to his amazement, the woman, Mrs. Knockwurst,

asks, "Dracula who?", and he starts ranting about it being the vampire and that he's after Cindy. This convinces the other men that he's totally whacked and they start beating on him, as Dracula descends down the shaft using the elevator's pulley. After a moment showing Ferguson talking with his son, only for a woman to steal the payphone for her den while he's using it, everyone in the elevator helps boost Cindy up through the panel in the elevator's ceiling, telling her that she owes them for knocking Rosenberg out. Reuniting with Dracula up above,

she grabs onto him as he climbs back up the shaft, telling her they can stop at her apartment so she can pack an overnight bag. At that moment, the power comes back on, and as everyone in the elevator celebrates, Rosenberg regains consciousness. They tell him he had it coming, with the priest telling him where he works in case he ever needs to talk, while Mrs. Knockwurst tries to hook him up with her niece. Leaving the elevator, Rosenberg reunites with Ferguson and, amid a crowd of looters, they head

outside. After Ferguson gives a flashlight salesman to bump his prices from $10 to $2 by telling him he's a cop, they run into a TV news crew. The reporter asks them what they did during the blackout, only for Rosenberg to grab the mic and attempt to warn everyone about Dracula, saying, "Lock up your wives, your sisters, your daughters, and your sweethearts." Ferguson tries to drag him away, while the reporter eventually manages to yank away the mic, but Rosenberg comes back briefly

and says, "He's already got my girl!" The two of them then see Dracula and Cindy getting into a taxi and rush back to Ferguson's squad car, with Rosenberg briefly stopping to, again, say to the news camera, "Protect yourself! He looks like a bat!" When they reach the patrol car, they find the tires are being stolen by none other than Russell, who walks off and says, "See ya at the clinic!" Ferguson glares at Rosenberg, growling, "I told you so!", when they spot a parked police motorcycle and use it to chase after the taxi.

In the cab, Cindy tells Dracula they're being followed and finds it exciting. Dracula, meanwhile, gives the driver some very detailed directions to the airport, as he's reading off a map. Annoyed at this, the driver invites him to come up front and help with the driving. Rosenberg and Ferguson follow them onto the expressway, which is jammed with traffic. Dracula is undeterred and takes control of the driver, telling him to defy the laws of centrifugal force. The taxi rushes through the traffic, balancing on its side to avoid the cars, the

driver mentioning he won't have to get his tires rotated. Dracula then has the car come back down and drive onto the grass under an overpass in order to reach the road on the other side. Rosenberg and Ferguson continue pursuing them, with the latter asking Ferguson how much Cindy owes him for her psychiatric sessions. He says it's $7,452, adding, "But it's not the money. There's a good chance I love her." The cab drives through a park, with Cindy yelling at the driver to watch out for an oak tree that pops up. He tells her to speak to

Dracula, as, "I haven't been driving for the past five minutes." They pull to the right and drive through a recreational area, actually managing to interrupt an attempted rape, and when they come to a hedge with a couple making out on a bench on the other side, Dracula levitates the car up. They pass right over the couple and come down hard on the ground ahead of them. The driver yells, "Eat your heart out, Burt Reynolds!", while Dracula and Cindy look back and see that the couple never missed a

beat in their make-out session. Dracula calls this romantic and has the driver turn on some music. Behind them, Rosenberg and Ferguson crash through the hedge and the left side of the bench; like before, the couple pays them no mind whatsoever. Rosenberg tells Ferguson to call for help but he says, "What am I supposed to do? Tell them, 'This is Lieutenant Ferguson, I'm on a stolen bike with a psychiatrist, chasing a vampire who's going to bite his girl on the neck so she can turn

into a bat?'" Rosenberg yells, "Yeah! Tell them that!", and Ferguson groans, "There goes my pension!" Back in the cab, the driver is having so much fun that he's disappointed when they make it to the airport and doesn't even charge Dracula, saying it's the first time he ever flew while driving his cab. He and Dracula shake hands and he pulls over to the curb to let them out.

Inside, Renfield learns that Dracula's coffin has accidentally been sent to Jamaica. When Dracula and Cindy show up, Renfield breaks the news to him, as Rosenberg and Ferguson pull up outside on the bike. Dracula and Cindy crawl under the desk and sit on the luggage belt, with Renfield telling them about the coffin. Dracula says, "So, what else is new? I'll see you in Jamaica!" While Rosenberg and Ferguson run out to the runway, Renfield books a seat on the next plane to Jamaica. Unfortunately, Dracula and Cindy are unable to

reach their plane in time and watch it take off. Now, the only way for them to escape is for Cindy to become a vampire, a decision she's still torn about making. Dracula tells her the choice is hers to make, adding that he'd rather be destroyed than go on living without love in his life. When Rosenberg and Ferguson come running, with the former yelling, "Cindy! I'm pretty sure I love you! What am I saying?! Of course, I love you... I think!", Cindy decides to take the plunge and tells Dracula to deliver the final bite. He puts his cape

around her and goes in for it, while Rosenberg comes at him from behind with a wooden stake. He attempts to put it through his heart, but when he lunges at the figure, it's revealed there's nothing there but the cape, which he futilely stabs into. Ferguson has to stop him from wasting his time, showing him that they're gone. Rosenberg is initially distraught at this, when a piece of paper floats down and he finds it's a check paying for all of Cindy's sessions. He says, "She left me, but she

learned something: she's a responsible person... or whatever." He and Ferguson begin to head for home, but Rosenberg still wonders why Cindy went for Dracula rather than him. Ferguson says he thinks it was the cape, which Rosenberg happens to be carrying with him. Rosenberg thinks that's a stupid idea at first, but Ferguson makes him put it on and says it confirms he was right, that it looks nice on him. While Rosenberg starts to really get into wearing it, Ferguson asks him to let him

borrow the cape for his upcoming wedding anniversary. Rosenberg allows him to have it, saying he wants it back for the weekend, and Ferguson says he'll even clean it for him. The two of them walk off together, while Dracula and Cindy, both transformed into bats, fly off into the moonlit horizon, bound for Jamaica.

Like the movie itself, Charles Bernstein's score is a mixture of traditional music and 70's disco-style tunes. For Dracula himself, the music is often of a classical romantic and poignant violin style, getting into the two sides of his character, with the main title theme in particular being a very sweeping such piece that then transitions into a more modern, rhythmic beat to emphasize the melding of styles you're about to hear for the next 96 minutes. The modern-style music is sometimes downright funkadelic, like the catchy beat you hear when Renfield is first driven into New York, when Dracula wanders the streets of Harlem, and a really funky bit that plays when Dracula drives down the road in a horse-drawn carriage. There's also a bouncing beat for when Dracula has to rush back to his hotel and coffin as the sun is about to rise, and the scene where Rosenberg attempts to burn Dracula's coffin is scored in a suitably melodramatic manner. Finally, the music that plays during the chase near the end is a delightfully silly and light-hearted piece, and when Cindy makes the decision to become a vampire herself, the music swells to a lovely violin climax as Dracula gives her the final bite.

Where the actual soundtrack is concerned, there was a bit of controversy for years because, on many VHS and DVD releases, the song that originally played during Dracula and Cindy's dance number, Alicia Bridges' I Love the Nightlife, was replaced by another song, The Man I Love, due to copyright issues (something similar happened with the VHS release of John Carpenter's The Thing). It wasn't until Scream Factory put the movie out on Blu-Ray with another vampire comedy, Once Bitten, that I Love the Nightlife was restored and, after listening to both songs, it definitely suits the scene better. The song they substituted is not a bad one at all, with a softer, romantic sound to it while still managing to be something you'd want to dance to, but I Love the Nightlife is just so much catchier and more energetic, as well as just so utterly 70's that it's awesome. Even more 70's and disco-flavored than that, though, are the song Dancin' Through the Night, which plays when Dracula first enters the club, and the ending credits song, Fly By Night, by Patricia Hodges. Both of those are nice to listen to as well, but I Love the Nightlife is definitely the best tune to come out of this movie in my opinion.

If you want a vampire comedy in general, as well as one that actually features Count Dracula, you could do far worse than Love At First Bite. While not everything about it works, like some of the supporting characters and the consistency of the style of humor, and the core premise starts to run out of steam fairly early on, making the latter parts of the movie feel a bit shaky, it benefits from great performances by George Hamilton and Arte Johnson, a nice sense of affection for the older Dracula movies, especially the classic one with Bela Lugosi, and the character himself, good art direction in the opening and use of locations in New York afterward, well-done cinematography and direction, and a nice music score that features some cool songs on the soundtrack. Like I said at the beginning, if Dracula: Dead and Loving It didn't do it for you, Love At First Bite might just be what you're looking for.