My notes on Beiss Mich, Liebling (Bite Me, Darling, Love – Vampire Style, The Amorous Adventures of a Young Postman) (1970)
In its international version, this German sex comedy has been pruned of whatever sexy content it might once have had – though the plot still focuses on an archetypal skinflick character. Handsome mailman Peter Busch (Amadeus August) cheerfully services the various women on his route, taking on a lusty lady dentist (Brigitte Skay, of Zeta One and Ecologia del Delitto/Blood Bath), two sisters who run a spa, and the odd neglected wife, though he flees from the comedy gay with his own indoor swimming pool. Peter tells contradictory stories about a family curse which obliges him to be a postman, but apparently also confers perpetual virility.
Weirdly, the film skips its genre track halfway through to bring on Hartlieb von der Wies (Patrick Jordan), a therapist who has had to have his long canines filed and self-diagnosed an oral-sadistic urge to bite. He becomes so jealous of the postman, who has caught the eye of his attractive niece (Eva Renzi, of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), that he tries comical, Wile E. Coyote-style murder methods which backfire. When Hartlieb – allegedly a descendent of Dracula – poisons himself by mistake, he rises from the grave as a vampire, does a standard gothic horror rampage through the female cast, and has to be tracked down by Peter and a goofy priest (Frederick Pressel) who shove a long spike through his heart.
Two cartoon bats modelled on Laurel and Hardy (!) flit through the opening credits and pop up occasionally thereafter to comment on the action. Its snowy, grim Northern European locale suggests naked romps might be rather uncomfortable – though, as often in krautsex, the forced cheer suggests no one is really enjoying themselves. Herbert Fux, familiar in everything from Jesus Franco to Fassbinder films, is the regular postman sidelined to allow the hero his shot at perking things up. Co-written and directed by Helmut Förnbacher, who at least has a good porn name.
Jordan, a familiar British face, spent his career in bit roles in the likes of The Prisoner, Crossroads, Star Wars, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) – this seems to be the closest thing to a lead he ever scored.
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