Blacula (1972)

On a dark and stormy night on an undesignated date in the year of 1780, the ominous atmosphere outside suddenly pales when we're told the mountain castle we've been zooming in on belongs to none other than the Prince of Darkness himself, Count Dracula. We then cut inside, where the Count is entertaining some special guests: a Nubian Prince by the name of Mamuwalde (Marshall), and his wife, Luva (McGee), who have been sent to Europe as emissaries to try and convince those with influence to bring an end to the African slave trade. 

But talks almost immediately breakdown as the Count (Macaulay) scoffs at any such notion, saying the slave trade has merit. And when he offers to buy Luva, Mamuwalde, of course, is both insulted and incensed. But after assuring his guest that this was just a warped, backdoor compliment on Luva's beauty, their host’s loutish behavior continues to degenerate, eventually showing his true nature -- no, not his vampirism, but his scathing bigotry.

And with that, declaring this palaver is over, Mamuwalde announces they're leaving. The Count, however, begs to differ and sics his servants on his guest, who puts up a good fight but is soon overwhelmed by numbers and knocked unconscious. Luva, meanwhile, must deal with Dracula himself, who finally bares his fangs as he calls up some undead reinforcements.

Thus, as his vampire brides seize the woman, the Count ultimately ignores her and takes a bite out of Mamuwalde's neck instead -- and we all know what that means, right? Right. But! Not satisfied with just turning the noble Mamuwalde into a blood-sucking ghoul, Count Dracula has an even more sinister fate in store for his two guests.

Placing his victim in a sturdy coffin, Dracula then curses Mamuwalde with his name -- and so, from now on, the African Prince will be known only as Blacula. But the Count still isn't done tormenting him yet; and, being the bastard that he is, he locks the coffin shut, meaning his latest victim, unable to satiate his need for blood, will spend an eternity trapped in agony. As for Luva? She is to be left alone, but will be sealed up in a secret room with the coffin, where she will spend the rest of her short life in eternal darkness, listening to her beloved's cries as he tries to get out!

And as this very room plunges into darkness, that truly inspired and nasty beginning dissolves into some rather spiffy animated credits courtesy of Sandy Dvore. An odd combination of Saul Bass and Edward Gorey, we watch as a large black bat hunts down a red dot through a phantasmagorical maze, which magically transforms into a naked woman before being sucked off the screen!

We are then hurtled forward in time to 1972, where, still in Transylvania, a local estate agent is having trouble convincing two openly gay antique dealers from the States that the old and decrepit castle they're currently touring really and honestly belonged to thee Count Dracula (-- dispatched a hundred years ago in London by Van Helsing and his crew).

Now, these doubtful dealers, Bobby McCoy (Harris) and Billy Schafer (Metzler), really run rampant with their raging queenish behavior just in case we didn't get it on the first salvo (-- alas, this film isn't very subtle with any of its stereotypes). And despite this earnest sales pitch, they still don't believe that Vlad Dracula was an actual vampire -- except in the movies, ‘natch, but just the notion that all of this furniture and decor was once owned by the Count gives it a kitsch value that will bring top dollar back in Los Angeles -- especially a large coffin found in a secret, walled-off room during the castle's recent renovations.

Then, after the soundtrack wocka-cha-wockas us back to the States, Bobby and Billy are now in a warehouse, working to uncrate all of their European booty. Morbidly curious, and ignoring his lover's protests to just leave it alone, Bobby goes to work on that coffin's padlock; but while breaking the clasp, Billy accidentally gets cut, resulting in a deep gash on his forearm.

Meantime, as Bobby tends to the wound and Billy frets and bleeds, in the background, we see the lid of the coffin slowly open, seemingly on its own. Slower still, his features turned most fearsome, Blacula emerges from the coffin, bares his fangs, and attacks the two men! Violently tossing Bobby aside, he seizes Billy and feasts upon the open wound -- draining all the blood, and then he retrieves Billy and sucks him dry, too.

And with his hunger finally satiated after two-hundred years, Blacula returns to his coffin, dons his cape, and recalls Dracula's curse before he sealed him inside. Knowing he'll soon have to feed again, this stranger in a strange land still manages a sardonic laugh as he crawls back inside the box, where he will now sleep in peace until that eternal hunger rouses him once more…

Lo, these many years later, the argument unsettled remains over whether Gordon Park’s urban-action showcase Shaft (1971) or Melvin Van Peeble’s independently produced tale of a framed man’s flight from the law in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song (1972) was the true originator of the Blaxploitation movie -- a portmanteau of Black and Exploitation. Both films would inspire many imitators in style -- if not necessarily in substance. And in an amazingly short time-span -- in less than a calendar year, someone already had an itch to mash-up this burgeoning subgenre with some old school horror tropes.

Of course, and as a surprise to absolutely no one, the scratching of this particular itch would be done by American International Pictures, who had been mashing-up disparate genres since the company’s inception back in the early 1950s, trying to wring-out a few more box-office dollars before things petered out.

Now, the production company was in the middle of a massive shake-up in 1972 with the impending departure of co-founder James Nicholson, whose recent divorce had left his partner, Samuel Arkoff, as the majority shareholder. No longer equals, Nicholson would soon leave AIP and sign on with 20th Century Fox, where he would establish his own production company, Academy Pictures Corporation, but would only get two features into production, The Legend of Hell House (1973) and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), before his tragic, cancer-related death in December of 1972. Both films would be released posthumously.

Arkoff, meanwhile, kept things rolling along at AIP -- though things were never quite the same after Nicholson left. And the studio’s first official entry into the Blaxploitation market would be one of Nicholson’s last as an executive producer for his old studio: Slaughter (1972), featuring ex-football star turned actor Jim Brown, which was about an ex-Green Beret turned secret agent out to avenge the death of his family, and which was successful enough to warrant a sequel, Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off (1973).

More Blaxpo films would follow, with titles like Black Jack (1972), The Mack (1973), Truck Turner (1974) and The Monkey Hu$tle (1976), as well as several vehicles for Fred Williamson -- Black Caesar (1973), Hell Up in Harlem (1973) and Bucktown (1975), along with AIP’s crown jewel, Pam Grier, who went from answering phones at the studio’s main office to headlining the likes of Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), Sheba, Baby (1975) and Friday Foster (1975). Now, while all of these were exploitative action films that were produced for the sole purpose of tapping into and, yes, exploiting and under-served minority audience, AIP wasn’t averse to being more “socially responsible” with films like Cooley High (1975) and Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975) for the same urban audiences -- but they were the rare exceptions that proved the rule.

Thus, usually reserved for whenever whatever particular genre or subgenre was sputtering out at the time, hoping an infusion of horror trappings or shambling monsters would help lure audiences in one last time to lap-up a few more dollars before the box-office teet went dry, as I said before, AIP seemed a little ahead of their usual 'law of diminishing returns' schedule on this go-round, thanks to producer Norman Herman.

Now, normally, American International would come up with a title, an idea, or a promotional campaign and then hammer out a script to fit it if -- and only if, these ideas drew interest from their distributors. Nicholson had been a master of such shenanigans -- I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), X -- The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966); and while this whole reverse-engineering process seems kind of ass-backwards to the casual observer it had served the company well for nearly two decades. Herman was a holdover from those halcyon days of AIP; and from the youth rebellion of Hot Rod Rumble (1957), to the counter-culture craze of Psych-Out (1968), to the outlaw bikers of Angels Unchained (1970), to the eco-disaster of Frogs (1972), the producer had proven he could adapt to whatever genre was popular at the time.

Enter novice screenwriters, Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig, who pitched their completed script for The Vampire to Herman, who in turn presented it to Arkoff. “Most screenplays have just a kernel of an idea, and a lot of rethinking and rewriting is necessary,” said Arkoff in his autobiography, Flying through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants. “But [Herman] put [The Vampire] on my desk, [and] I read it in one sitting.” Loving the camp and humor infused into this urban take on the old Dracula mythos, after he finished reading it, as the legend goes, Arkoff personally delivered the script to Larry Gordon, the new head of production at AIP, and immediately got the film on their production schedule for ‘72. “It was a remarkably clean script.”

And me, personally, I like to think it was Nicholson, as he was headed out the door, who rechristened The Vampire as Blacula (1972). But as clean as the script was, it would only serve as a basic road map to what eventually wound up on screen due to the massive overhauling efforts of William Crain, who was hired to direct Blacula by the film’s producer, Joseph Naar.

However, it should be noted when Naar first called Crain and offered him the job, Crain uttered a four-letter expletive and hung up on him. As to why he was so resistant? Well, that’s going to take a bit of explaining. “The tragic thing is that I drew the assignment because I am black,” said Crain in a February, 1972, interview with Bob Thomas for the AP.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Crain had grown up in Los Angeles and had graduated from UCLA’s film school in the mid-1960s. But with no union connections, and no real opportunities for minorities, no jobs in the industry were to be found. And so, Crain moved north to Canada, where he worked in television and as an actor and theatrical roustabout until 1970, when he decided to return home. “I came back to Los Angeles because I heard the business was opening up for minorities. I combed the town but I still couldn’t find a job. I couldn’t even get an agent.”

All Crain could get was a couple of unpaid internships observing the production on several sit-coms until he was finally given the chance to direct one single episode of The Mod Squad (1968-1973). When he wasn’t asked back to do any more, Crain felt his career was essentially over through no fault of his own. And so, when Naar called with an actual, bona fide opportunity to direct a feature, of course it would be for a film called “Blacula” -- stress on the Black. “I would much rather have gotten it because of my abilities, rather than the color of my skin,” said Crain, as Naar was persistent and eventually talked him into at least reading the script and coming in and giving Arkoff his pitch on how he would make the film.

“Though the title is worrisome,” Crain admitted, “I can’t see anything wrong with a black horror movie that plays it straight.” Here, the novice director took a chance and immediately began making suggestions on how to improve the script and make it more in-tune with their target audience. As originally written, the main vampire was named Andrew Brown -- for the ready-made tagline, “The First Vampire with Soul, Count Brown is in Town!”

Now, I sincerely doubt Andrew Brown was a name pulled out of thin air by Torres and Koenig, as it would probably ring familiar to most folks at the time as half of the comedy duo, Amos and Andy. Based in the tradition of a minstrel show, the Amos and Andy radio program was written and performed by two white actors, Freeman Gosden, who played Amos Jones, and Charles Correll, who played Andrew “Hogg” Brown. The show would go through several permutations but was essentially on the air from 1928 until 1960. 

Gosden and Correll then took these characters to the big screen with Check and Double-Check (1930), playing the characters in black face. Somewhat ironically, though the film made money -- it was RKO’s biggest grosser until King Kong (1933) came along, audience members who were curious to see what the radio characters looked like in real life were startled to see it was all a fake. And this reaction was so jarring, RKO immediately cancelled any plans for a sequel.

And after getting the same reaction after appearing in The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935), it should come as a surprise to no one that when Gosden and Correll tried to bring the show to television as early as 1946 it was decided they would hire black actors to play the roles but then dub them over with their voices. This idea was eventually abandoned, and when the show finally hit the air in 1951, Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams took over the roles, with instructions to make their version of Amos and Andy sound just like the radio program.  

All iterations of the Amos and Andy shows rightfully took a lot of heat from several civil rights groups, including the NAACP, for the character’s blatant Stepin Fetchit stereotyping and their constant “coonery and buffoonery” behavior, feeling it was an unfair representation of African Americans. And after two seasons, the TV show was cancelled but remained in syndication until it was finally banned from being rebroadcast in 1966.

Thus, the name Andrew Brown carried a lot of baggage -- and none of it good. Thus and so, it was one of the first things to go as Crain cooked-up a new origin for his vampire, turning him into a Swahili Prince named Mamuwalde, who was betrayed while trying to negotiate an end to slavery, was stripped of his name and branded with another, and then enslaved himself by his new master’s vampire curse.

“I remember how much I enjoyed horror pictures when I was growing up, even though I could never identify with the monsters as much as I wanted to,” said Crain. And to remedy that, “What I’m aiming for is sympathy. I remember seeing those Mummy pictures when I was a kid and feeling sorry for Lon Chaney Jr. because he didn’t want to turn into a monster.”

Initially, there was a lot of resistance to these changes, and Crain was convinced he would be fired before he could film a single frame. But he wasn’t, and as he set out to flush all elements of “Count Brown is in Town” and capture his version of the film, as the rushes started coming in, all that opposition quickly withered away -- but not all. “I guess they decided they really had something,” said Crain in an interview for Ashlee Blackwell’s Horror Noire Uncut. “They didn’t like it … but they loved the film, so they were in constant conflict over what we were doing.”

And while facing down all kinds of passive-aggressive prejudice behind the camera as the production played out, Crain deliberately kept in what he called the required “shuck and jive” elements to keep his producers happy. So there is some friction between what Crain wanted and what Arkoff wanted as Blacula plays out. On the surface, it’s about an ebony Dracula strutting his stuff on the streets of 1970s era Los Angeles to a gloriously funkified beat, but just below the surface there’s some interesting things going on underneath that Blaxpo veneer as Crain plants the seeds of a tragic love story when we next spy Mamuwalde lurking at a funeral home, where he’s traced the body of one of his victims -- who wasn’t as dead as the coroner thought.

But as he starts to exert his long dormant powers by putting the hypno-whammy on Bobby McCoy, who, enthralled by his new master, starts to stir, they’re interrupted by the arrival of several of the [un]dead man’s mourners, sisters Michelle (Nicholas) and Tina Williams (McGee again). As they view the body of the dear family friend, Michelle is comforted by her boyfriend, Dr. Gordon Thomas (Rasulala), who, as part of the forensic investigation branch of the LAPD, promises to catch whoever murdered Bobby and bring them to justice.

Watching all this from the shadows, Mamuwalde isn't too concerned with these assertions. No, he's more interested in Tina, who (of course) is the spitting image of his late wife, Luva. Meanwhile, wanting another look at the body, Thomas stays behind when the others leave. Confused by the coroner’s report as to why the victim's veins had collapsed and the complete lack of blood at the crime scene, Thomas discovers two small puncture wounds on the deceased's neck. The mortician, who apologizes for not having the body embalmed yet, figures the coroner assumed this was just a rat bite. The body was found in a warehouse after all. Thomas, however, isn't so sure.

Later, as Tina walks home alone, she senses someone is following her. She picks up the pace, which quickly accelerates into a full-out sprint, but then runs right smack into Mamuwalde, who mistakes her for Luva and becomes confused and belligerent when she doesn't recognize him.

Assuming he's some kind of nutcase, Tina manages to get away. Thus, the chase is on, which ends rather bluntly when the vampire gets blindsided by a taxi, allowing his prey to get away. Meantime, Juanita Jones (Lester), the sassy, motor-mouthed cab driver, isn’t so lucky when she gives this errant pedestrian all kinds of hell for chasing a piece of tail right into the street in front of her, and then takes the brunt of Mamuwalde’s wrath over losing the other girl as the vampire once more feeds on another hapless victim.

Meanwhile, Tina makes it back to her apartment, locking the door behind her; but before she can even catch her breath, someone -- or something, starts knocking on the door! Luckily, it’s only Michelle, who listens as Tina recounts what happened. And sure that her attacker has her purse, ID, address, and keys, which were lost in the initial scuffle, Tina is needling toward hysterics until her sister eventually gets her calmed down.

The following morning, Thomas is called to the County Morgue to examine another body, whose suspicious cause of death by exsanguination was eerily similar to those two stiffs found in that warehouse. And when Sam (Cook Jr.), the morgue attendant, rolls what’s left of Juanita Jones out of the freezer, a cursory examination of the body finds the same peculiar puncture wounds on her neck. (Man, that rat really gets around.)

Here, Thomas has to laugh at his initial notion on what might be responsible for those bite marks, but doesn't dare discuss his preternatural suspicions with his boss, Lt. Peters (Pinsent), who is leading the investigation into this rash of bizarre homicides. For while Peters thinks they all might be gang related, Thomas sees no real connection between a cab driver and two gay antique dealers -- except in the way they died. And believing they need another crack at all the bodies on an autopsy table, Thomas calls the funeral home and makes arrangements to collect Bobby’s body for reexamination.

But that will all have to wait until tomorrow. For tonight, Thomas will be at The Club, celebrating Michelle's birthday, where The Hues Corporation has things a-movin’ and a-groovin’ most righteously as Thomas, Michelle and Tina find a table. Mamuwalde arrives next, who approaches their table, properly introduces himself, and then returns Tina’s purse as he profusely apologizes for frightening her so badly the night before, claiming he saw her at the funeral home, mistook her for his recently departed wife, and just lost his head.

With his forlorn story and sincere charm quickly winning her over, Tina invites Mamuwalde to join them. He agrees, and insists on buying a bottle of champagne to help celebrate Michelle's birthday. When the club’s owner, Skillet (Cumbaka), brings the champagne and a birthday cake, his girlfriend, Nancy (Yancy), starts taking pictures of the celebration. And as Mamuwalde cringes with each flash of the camera, Thomas is called away to the bar for a phone call -- and it's bad news. Seems Bobby's body has disappeared from the mortuary.

Back at the table, Nancy's constant photo-taking has finally driven the agitated Mamuwalde off. But Tina catches him before he leaves, who appears to be smitten with the handsome stranger. Obviously feeling the same way, he promises to meet her again, here, the following night. Then, their eyes lock as Mamuwalde starts to bring her under his spell -- until another bright flash from Nancy's camera, who was sneaking a candid shot of them, saves Tina, at least for now.

After Mamuwalde leaves, Skillet snarks on the man's oddball behavior but really digs his tailor and openly covets one of those stylish capes. With the party winding down, Nancy excuses herself and heads across the street to her home and private darkroom. But as she waits for the snapshots to develop, the photographer hears something. Thinking it's just Skillet trying to scare her, a quick but suspenseful tour finds the house apparently empty. 

Back in the darkroom, that last picture she snapped of Tina and the mysterious stranger is done -- but something went wrong: Tina is there, but Mamuwalde is nowhere to be seen. Befuddled, the girl collects the photo to show the others but gets ambushed on the way out, where her attacker seizes and crushes the photographic evidence as he chomps down on her neck.

After a long night of failing to track down Bobby’s remains, Thomas checks in with Peters, asking if some important files he had requested ever showed up. Told by Peters that he sent a Sgt. Barnes (Fields) to personally deliver them to Thomas last night, they realize that both the files and the courier are now missing. Of course, they don’t realize that Barnes did make it to the nightclub, but he was attacked and bitten by the recently turned Nancy before making the delivery. 

Thus unaware, and in an attempt to get their case back on track, since the other body has apparently gotten up and walked away -- if he only knew, Thomas requests a court order to exhume Billy Schafer and autopsy him instead, assuring a reluctant Peters that he has a working theory on who is doing the killing -- more like what is doing the killing, but just needs a little more time to confirm a few things before elaborating.

Returning to the forensics lab, Michelle is there waiting for him with a huge stack of books. And as they start to go through them, Michelle laughs, saying the librarian thought she was crazy for requesting all of these old tomes on ghouls and vampires. This research is then interrupted by a phone call from Peters, who informs the Schafer family has refused the request for an exhumation. Here, Thomas declares it’s time for some drastic action and reveals his plans to dig the body up anyway.

And while they’re off preparing to do just that, Mamuwalde shows up at Tina's apartment, who lets him in, hoping for some answers as the girl admits to being oddly attracted to him -- yet frightened at the same time, and hopes he can explain why. Here, Mamuwalde tries, confessing to everything; how he is two-hundred years old; how he was cursed by Dracula; and how he lost his wife. But now he has found her again in Tina, whom he believes is Luva reincarnated and begins quizzing her, seeing if she remembers anything about their past life together in Africa -- before Dracula.

Trying to absorb all of this, Tina counters, saying Dracula and vampires are just myths and make believe, even though Mamuwalde assures her they are as real as he is, standing before her. And he needs her, and wants to spend all of eternity with her, his true love. But, she must make this decision freely. And to those ends, the vampire assures he will not use his powers of persuasion to trick Tina or take her by force. Thus, the decision is hers. But, Mamuwalde keeps on pitching, saying he cannot bear the thought of losing his true love twice. And that does the trick; Tina tells him to stay; and as they embrace, Mamuwalde surprises us all by gently kissing her on the lips instead of gnawing on her neck.

Meanwhile, at the graveyard, Thomas finally unearths Schafer’s coffin. When Michelle asks what he expects to find inside, he answers, hopefully, just a dead body. But then, almost on cue, Billy Schafer springs from the grave and attacks. As Michelle screams and retreats, Thomas beats him back with a shovel, jams a wooden stake into his heart, and then uses the spade to hammer it home. Fearing her boyfriend just killed someone, Thomas insists the boy wasn’t really alive; and he didn’t kill him; he just put the poor soul out of his misery. When Michelle asks if Bobby McCoy is now the same kind of ghoul, he solemnly nods an affirmative.

And he’s not the only one as Thomas rounds up Peters and heads to the morgue, where he phoned Sam to pull Juanita Jones’ body out of the cooler with strict instructions to leave it alone and to lock the door behind him. Peculiar request, Sam thinks, leaving the body to thaw out as he fumbles with his keys but fails to lock the door when the phone rings. And before Thomas and Peters can get there, a defrosted Jones wakes up and goes on the prowl, throwing that unfettered door wide open, and then charges down the long hall toward an unsuspecting Sam, fangs bared, screaming her head off.

Thus, when the others finally arrive, they find Sam's desk covered in blood. Trailing the same blood back to the morgue proper the men spy a conspicuous body covered with a sheet; and when Peters pulls this back, Jones once more springs to the attack. But Thomas came prepared with a crucifix, quickly cowers her into a corner, opens the blinds, and sunlight floods the room, which quickly kills the vampire.

Speaking of vampires' aversion to sunlight, back at Tina’s apartment -- more specifically, the bedroom, Mamuwalde and Tina are currently getting dressed after a night of non-connubial bliss. She doesn’t want him to go, but he must; for to stay is to die because the sun has already started to rise. Also of note, Tina, despite his assurances that her conversion will not hurt, still isn’t sure if she’s ready for an eternity of sucking blood. Promised all the time she will need to decide, as Mamuwalde leaves, Tina professes that she loves him.

Thomas, meanwhile, lays it all out for Peters; how they must do something immediately because the vampire plague will spread exponentially -- with each victim in turn creating more vampires, and will soon spiral completely out of control. Still, despite all the evidence, no one will ever believe them; and so, all Peters can do at this point is double the night patrols with orders to watch for any “suspicious” activities. Here, Thomas suggests they put out an APB on Bobby McCoy, despite the fact that he’s already dead. [Adam 12/] "Attention all units. Attention all units. Be on the lookout for an effeminate black male, 5'8", @ 20 years of age, sporting a huge pair of fangs. Approach with caution and crucifixes. Over." [/Adam 12].

Thomas also has another hunch he would like to play out, which he does -- and it's a dangerous one, too, because he has to wait until the sun goes down before he meets up with Michelle, Tina and Mamuwalde back at The Club (-- who orders, I kid you not, a Bloody Mary). Here, Thomas is rather blunt when he starts asking if Mamuwalde believes in the occult, which quickly leads to a discussion about vampires. Mamuwalde is no fool, and quickly deflects, scoffing at any notion that vampires are real -- let alone behind the recent rash of murders. But Thomas keeps pressing until Skillet stops by, asking if anyone has seen Nancy lately, who has been missing since the birthday party. He then offers to buy the aggravated Mamuwalde’s cape, who is so offended by this constant harassment he leaves, taking Tina with him.

Despite his suspicions, Thomas lets them go and heads over to Nancy’s place instead, where he finds her dark room has been torn apart and all of the photos and negatives are missing -- save one strip, which was still in the imager. And when Thomas sets the projector back upright and brings the last image into focus, he sees the picture of Tina talking to a blank space -- right where Mamuwalde should be! That clinches it: Mamuwalde has to be the head vampire -- and Tina's with him!

Back at her apartment, with their time running out, Tina seems ready to commit to their eternal relationship but the sound of approaching police sirens interrupts them. Here, Tina stops Mamuwalde from killing Thomas, who then flees but is pursued by two patrolmen; and when they split up, the vampire angrily attacks one of them and savagely breaks his neck before making his escape.

Meantime, Michelle consoles a heartbroken Tina as Thomas breaks the news that her new lover is also a mass murderer. He then receives a report that a prowl car has spotted Bobby with a new boyfriend. Thomas says to not apprehend but follow them, hoping they’ll be lead back to Mamuwalde’s lair, where, according to the lore, his coffin should be -- a rare vulnerability to a vampire. And while the patrol loses track of Bobby, they’re so near the warehouse where he and Billy Schafer were killed, Thomas feels that must be the place. He meets Peters there, and they’re surprised to find the not-so-missing Sgt. Barnes is already there, too.

Thus, five men enter the darkened warehouse. Led by Thomas, the first sign of trouble comes when the door slams shut behind them, trapping them inside. The second sign of trouble is the body of the man Bobby was last seen with, whose throat has been torn out. And the third sign of trouble is when Bobby attacks them! And he’s not alone, as Mamuwalde has been busy as at least a dozen fang-baring ghouls join this melee, including Barnes, who quickly overrun the two patrolmen, leaving Thomas and Peters as the last ones standing.

Armed with only Thomas’s crucifix, luckily, they come upon a crate full of highly volatile oil lamps, which miraculously explode on impact. And so, using these impromptu Molotov cocktails to firebomb the vampire horde, those not immolated are staked through the heart with the splintered wood from the crates they kick apart as the two men make their way back toward the door. And they almost make it out before Mamuwalde presents himself, who, thanks to Thomas's persistent questioning at the nightclub, has moved his vulnerable coffin to a different and safer locale. He'd also love to stay and chat more, but the dastardly vampire claims to have an urgent appointment elsewhere, who then turns into a bat and flies away.

Knowing full well where he’s headed, they hightail it to Tina’s apartment, where she is currently confessing to Michelle that even though Mamuwalde has killed all those innocent people, she still loves him. Having beaten the vampire there, Thomas decides to set a trap for him using Tina as bait. But he doesn’t realize Mamuwalde is already there, on the roof of a nearby building, watching the police cordon off the area. Realizing what's up, he breaks his promise and uses his psychic-hypno-whammy to summon Tina from her bedroom unnoticed. And once this deed is done, he transforms back into a bat and flaps away.

But someone managed to spot him and raises an alarm. Inside, Thomas checks on Tina but she's long gone, having snuck out the bedroom window. But a patrol car quickly spots Tina and tails her to some kind of massive industrial plant. Ahead, Tina enters and rendezvous with her undead lover. They kiss, but soon hear more sirens approaching and retreat further into the twisting and turning metal structure.

Outside, as the sun comes up, several patrol cars arrive. Then, Thomas, with his crucifix at the ready, cautiously leads Michelle, Peters, and about a dozen officers into the plant. Once inside, with too much ground to cover, they split-up and continue the search. One of the officers spots the fugitives first, and opens fire when they refuse to halt. These spent bullets do no harm to the vampire but Tina is also hit. 

An enraged Mamuwalde quickly dispatches the officer but it’s too late; Tina’s wounds appear to be fatal; and when she begs him for help, robbed of her choice to do it willingly, Mamuwalde asks for her forgiveness for what he's about to do. A truly wonderful and touching moment, to be sure, tragic even, which is then completely undone by a >slight< tactical error on the filmmakers part when her lover bites down on her neck and the girl suddenly rolls her eyes in a fit of orgasmic glee.

Anyways, as the others continue to search, Mamuwalde's booming voice suddenly echoes throughout the building, promising that no one, especially Thomas, will get out of here alive and this building will now be their mass tomb. True to his word, the enraged vampire starts buzz-sawing through the cop fodder. But as they all meet their gruesome fate, this gives Thomas and Peters time to find Mamuwalde's coffin.

Peters takes up a stake, ready to strike, as Thomas prepares to open the lid. Yanking it open, Thomas sees it’s Tina inside, not Mamuwalde, but Peters strikes before he can stop him, plunging the stake into her heart. Tina, fangs bared, jumps up and screams over this fatal development. Michelle joins in on this screaming, too, while her sister writhes in pain until finally falling silent.

Mamuwalde hears her screams, too, who then orders them all to move away from the body. Thomas and Peters refuse and move to intercept -- but Mamuwalde stops them, saying there is no more reason to fight. With Tina gone, he has now lost his beloved Luva for a second and final time. And with nothing left to live for, spying a staircase that leads to the roof, Mamuwalde leaves and starts his final ascension. 

When Peters tries to pursue, Thomas stops him. Above, Mamuwalde makes it outside, where he embraces the pain as the sunlight slowly destroys him until he collapses and pulls his cape over the top of himself as he expires, bringing our tragedy to an end.

Now, usually, a film like this -- based on a novel idea, or bizarre gimmick -- fizzles out by the second reel. Here, not only does Blacula succeed but flourishes thanks to Crain, who wisely chose not to rely on the hook of "Dracula's soul brother" but focused, instead, on the tragic and doomed romance between Mamuwalde and Tina.

Sure, the vampire as a tragic figure was nothing new. As far back as Dracula’s Daughter (1936) a person could see that certain strains of the infected openly fought to reverse the curse, who fed only reluctantly, and who were consumed with guilt whenever they did cave in and took a bite. A pharmaceutical mix-up leads to a narcotic-induced ghoul in The Vampire (1957), who struggles to keep those he cares about at arms length while he struggles and fails with his addictions. And in Curse of the Undead (1959), gunfighter turned vampire Drake Robey has to pay for his earthly sins as one of the maligned undead after he commits suicide, who’s main goal is to regain his family birthright and stolen lands by any means necessary.

Blacula's anti-hero is no different, but what the film added to the mix was a stronger emphasis on the sensuality and sexual magnetism of the vampire, who no longer needs to enthrall his victims when they'll give themselves over willingly -- beating John Badham's disco Dracula (1979) to the punch by almost a decade. And, let's face it, Francis Ford Coppolla’s version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) owes a lot to William Crain, Torres, Koenig, and Blacula. 

E’yup, the cinematic origins of the 'woe is me' "I lost my true love' and 'cursed to walk the Earth alone' vampire trope can also be traced to Blacula. For it was Crain who pilfered the notion of a reincarnated lover from the Universal Mummy franchise that he loved so dearly and shoehorned it into the vampire mythos, where the prospect of spending an eternity with your ever-renovated soulmate became a distinct possibility. From Kharis and Ananka to Mamuwalde and Luva/Tina. And when Mamuwalde declares he will not force or coerce Tina into joining him, the vampire movie would never be the same again.

And while Crain deserves a ton of credit for bringing all of these novel ideas together and creating a brand new subgenre, what really makes Blacula work is the stellar performance by William Marshall, who infuses so much gravitas into these proceedings it helps the audience get over that initial “Blacula” hump and puts us squarely in the film’s corner. With his resonating baritone voice and a deceptive, sensual grace of movement for a man that big -- Marshall stood at 6’5”, he brings such a quiet dignity of presence to Mamuwalde; but when the switch is flipped to Blacula mode, snap, just like that, he is a menacing and terrifying presence despite some janky make-up effects.

A product of the Actor’s Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse, Marshall made his Broadway debut in Carmen Jones (1944). He would also serve as Boris Karloff’s understudy as Captain Hook in the 1950 revival of Peter Pan, but would really make his mark playing the lead in Othello, including an original jazz version called Catch My Soul (1968), with Jerry Lee Lewis playing Iago that sounds ah-mazing and I would hope someone, anyone, captured that on tape for posterity. And if so, could they loan it to me?

He made the jump to Hollywood with a supporting role in Lydia Bailey (1952), and followed that up co-starring with Victor Mature in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). He would also headline the short-lived TV series, Harlem Detective (1953), which was immediately cancelled when Marshall was named a communist during the red-baiting furor of the era. But despite being blacklisted, Marshall still got work, mostly on the small screen, throughout the 1950s and ‘60s; most notably on Star Trek (1966-1969), where he played Dr. Richard Daystrom, who invented the M-5 Multitronic system, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968). And, of course, he would go on to play the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986-1981).

But before that, Marshall would return to the big screen with minor supporting roles in The Hell with Heroes (1968), The Boston Strangler (1968), Skullduggery (1970), and Zig Zag (1970), but there were no leading roles offered until Naar called for Blacula. And like Crain, Marshall was initially aghast when he was offered the role of a black Dracula. But he did look it over and, “To my surprise, it made sense,” Marshall told Stanley Eichelbaum in a February, 1972, interview for the San Francisco Chronicle. “It wasn’t a put-on. I could see going about it quite seriously.”

And one of the main reasons Crain was able to make all of those changes he wanted was because he had Marshall’s full support, who insisted on them before he would sign on. “The script needed considerable adjustment to insure its blackness,” said Marshall. “We were given carte blanche to rewrite our dialogue … Some people will be offended, [but] the majority of blacks will accept it and be pleased to see themselves mirrored in a fashion they’re not accustomed to.”

Like Crain, Marshall’s co-star Vonnetta McGee also couldn’t find any work in Hollywood and wound up moving to Italy, where she starred in Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence (1968) and The Big Bust Out (1972). After Blacula, she would become a fixture in the Blaxploitation cycle, co-starring with Fred Williamson in Hammer (1972), Richard Roundtree in Shaft in Africa (1973), and would appear in Detroit 9000 (1973) and the offbeat western, Thomasine and Bushrod (1974), before kicking all kinds of ass in Repo Man (1984).

Thalmus Rasulala had mostly acted on television before making his big screen debut as a bit-player in The Out of Towners (1970). He would take the lead in Cool Breeze (1972), where he would engineer a diamond heist. And he’s pretty great as the no-nonsense second lead in Blacula -- that scene in the graveyard, where he beats the vampire to death with a shovel might just be my favorite part of the film. He would later appear in Willie Dynamite (1974), Mr. Ricco (1975), Cornbread, Earl and Me, Friday Foster and Bucktown. And I wish Denise Nicholas was given a little more to do, here, besides scream because she was absolutely great in Lets Do it Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977). And Gordon Pinset will always and forever be the (late) Constable Robert Frasier in Due South (1994-1999).

Still, with all this support in front of the camera, Crain would struggle behind it to keep his vision on track during the film’s three week shoot. When Arkoff agreed to let him make the picture, the first week of shooting would involve all the myriad chase scenes to see if the novice director could keep his head above water. And while he initially fell behind, Crain soon caught up.

But resistance from the front office continued; and as a case in point, Crain wanted to use a high speed camera to capture the film’s most memorable shot -- the scene where Ketty Lester defrosts in the morgue and then comes barrelling down the hallway in slow-motion, fangs bared, her hair all akimbo, screaming like a rabid banshee, which almost didn’t happen because the studio dragged their feet, saying this wasn’t in the budget. But Crain held off on the shot, and as the rushes kept coming in and, realizing they really had something here, the needed camera suddenly showed up.

And yet the studio dickering didn’t end even after the film was finished, as they mandated an insert to gore-up the climax a bit, tagging it onto Mamuwalde’s suicide by sunlight, where the cape is pulled back to reveal a not-very-convincing replica of his head, complete with maggots crawling in his eye sockets, which slowly smolders away until all that’s left is a skeleton. Crain had nothing to do with any of that and felt it torpedoed the tragedy of the scene.

I would assume Crain also influenced the selection of Gene Page to do the score for Blacula. A Motown staple, Page had worked with the likes of the Supremes, the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Barry White, and he infused the soundtrack with a scratchy funk baseline and then rounded it out with several tracks by The 21st Century Ltd, and The Hues Corporation, who would also appear in the film and go on to have a huge Top 40 hit with “Rock the Boat.” (And I still have that 45.)

Budgeted at $500,000, AIP’s shaky faith in Crain soon paid off as the film would gross $3.4 million at the box-office in its first eight weeks. Thus, a sequel was in order. Marshall would return for Scream Blacula Scream (1973) but Crain did not, replaced by Bob Kelljan, who had directed Count Yorga (1970) and The Return of Count Yorga (1971) for AIP. Here, a resurrected Mamuwalde teams up with a voodoo priestess played by Pam Grier, whom he feels can free him from Dracula’s curse.

And when that also proved successful, the studio would try several different variations on the Blaxpo-Horror formula to cash in, starting with mad science gone amok in The Thing with Two Heads (1972), where a white bigot’s noggin is grafted onto the body of a soulful black prisoner; voodoo and zombies and preternatural revenge with the criminally underrated Sugar Hill (1974); demon possession with Abby (1974), which hewed so close to The Exorcist (1973), Warner Bros successfully sued it out of theaters -- though AIP would have the last laugh as the picture made back five times its budget on the opening weekend alone and voluntarily removed it from circulation to avoid any legal fees; and finally, the supernatural with J.D.'s Revenge (1976), where the ghost of a dead criminal slowly takes control of a new host body. The studio was also tangentially involved with the birthing process of Blackenstein (1973), but the film was so dire it quickly lost favor and they cut it loose because, yes, it really is THAT bad.

Somewhat unfairly, despite the box-office success of his inaugural feature, Crain never really got any traction after Blacula. More episodic TV directing followed on the likes of Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979), which was also produced by Naar, S.W.A.T. (1975-1976) and The Rookies (1972-1976). And he would only direct one more feature, another Blaxpo horror hybrid, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde (1976), where a scientist’s attempt to find a cure for anemia turns him into an albino killing machine, which wasn’t nearly as good or as financially successful as Blacula but proved a much more pleasant experience for Crain due to finding total simpatico with his star, Bernie Casey, and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto.

It’s kind of amazing to me that in the twenty years since I first reviewed Blacula for 3B Theater way back in 2002, how much this film has gone from a bit of an outdated embarrassment to a cultural touchstone. Sure, it has plot-holes a plenty and is littered with inexplicable anachronisms. I mean, How does Mamuwalde know how a camera works? Why doesn't he suffer from a bad case of jet-lag or culture shock? Or what a Bloody Mary is for that matter? Pfeegh. Minor details. And just like with it's other gonzo-titled brethren, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958), or Kill, Baby, Kill (1966), no film with a title like that has any business being this good.

Originally posted on October 2, 2002, at 3B Theater.

Blacula (1972) American International Pictures / EP: Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, Mark L. Rosen / P: Joseph T. Naar, Norman T. Herman / D: William Crain / W: Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig / C: John M. Stephens / E: Allan Jacobs / M: Gene Page / S: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Thalmus Rasulala, Denise Nicholas, Gordon Pinsent, Ted Harris, Rick Metzler, Ji-Tu Cumbuka, Ketty Lester, Elisha Cook Jr., Charles Macaulay