My notes on Vampira (1974) – NB: you get actual notes this time.
An evening’s ‘good grief’ viewing – the laugh-free but terminally funky 1974 David Niven Dracula skit Vampira, with Teresa Graves at least looking splendid as his Countess …
Things you get in Vampira # 1: David Niven’s Dracula wandering around Soho verite style checking out porn cinemas, while his wife is impressed by Jim Brown in Black Gunn.
Things you get in Vampira # 2: young Kenneth Cranham as a mugger attacking Carol Cleveland in an underground car park, and seen off by Dracula in a Count Yorga bit with a sword-stick.
Things you get in Vampira # 3: Linda Hayden as Helga the German vampire tourist executed in a joke scene comprehensible only to those who remember 1970s quiz show The Golden Shot but not funny even to them.
Things you get in Vampira # 4: Bernard Bresslaw representing the Playboy organisation and Nadim Sawalha as the man from Transylvania Airways. Plus a LOT of scenes shot at Heathrow Airport and its adjacent anonymous hotel.
Things you get in Vampira # 5: 70s starlets/pin-ups Veronica Carlson, Luan Peters, Andrea Allan, Minah Bird, Cathy Shiriff.
Things you get in Vampira # 6: the inimitable nostrils of Ben Aris as a policeman appalled by the single most embarrassing blackface makeup ever applied when Drac turns black at the end of a highly dubious racial subplot.
Things you get in Vampira # 7: a theme song by Anthony Newley, performed by The Majestics.
Things you get in Vampira # 8: a pretty cool score from David Whittaker.
Things you get in Vampira # 9: a weird cameo from Freddie Jones, who spent 1973 accepting parts in any movie featuring Dracula … see also The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Son of Dracula.
Things you get in Vampira # 10 … an invite to this endless but lively party scene.
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