Movies
Love at First Bite
George Hamilton has his moments in the role of a Count Dracula who migrates to New York when the Romanian government commandeers his castle as a training facility for Nadia Comaneci and the rest of the Romanian Olympic team. But on balance, this vampire spoof, with its ignorant and arrogant stereotyping of communists, blacks, Jews, and other minorities, ranks well below Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers and Paul Morrissey's Andy Warhol's Dracula, closer to, but still lower than, Clive Donner's Old Dracula. The numerous allusions to TV advertising ("Flick my Bic," Morris the Cat, etc.) may be interesting in light of director Stan Dragoti's long association with a top ad agency, and the characterization of a high-paid fashion model (Susan Saint James) as an addicted pill popper and insecure career woman ("Sometimes I feel like a career to a woman is like fooling around to a man: it's a lot of fun until the right person comes along") may be interesting in light of Dragoti's marriage to Cheryl Tiegs; but only his analyst, if he has one, would know for sure how interesting any of this is. And if he indeed has one, then the characterization of a wishy-washy Freudian (Richard Benjamin) may be interesting as well. 1979.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: PG
