Dracula, Prince of Terror

If you enjoyed yesterday's post on DRACULA A.D. 1972, here's a brief behind-the-scenes promo short. There was a time when these things popped up like nice little surprises before the main feature in theaters. Now we get full half hour versions of them on Showtime which, while well done and interesting, somehow still don't have the charm that these little half-reel wonders did.

R. Crumb's Cheap Thrills

A brief and relatively recent-looking clip of Robert Crumb discussing the story behind his famous album cover for Janis Joplin and why he did NOT do one for the Rolling Stones.

Jack Kirby Introduced by Harlan Ellison

Always fun to listen to Kirby talk and this clip, introduced by Harlan Ellison, is no exception. YouTube says this is from a long out-of-print documentary entitled MASTERS OF COMIC BOOK ART.

Harry the Hat

Before NIGHT COURT, Harry Anderson was a fast talking con man/magician in night clubs, on variety shows and a few episodes of CHEERS. Here, from an HBO special of the early eighties, is a version of his crowd-pleasing "geek trick," the Needle Through the Arm Gag. I prefer the SNL version I have on tape somewhere but couldn't find it online. Should you wish to destroy the illusion, there are also several YouTube videos by others detailing how the trick is done!

Roky Erickson

A couple years back, I discovered the Pretty Things and couldn't figure out how I had never heard their music before. Recently, it happened again with the Texas band, the 13th Floor Elevators. The Elevators can best be described as a proto-punk/surf/garage/psychedelic group with a lead singer who had one of the most amazing voices of the day! Roky Erickson was described somewhere as a Twilight Zone Buddy Holly and I can see that! The group was a major proponent of the creative powers of LSD and, like Syd Barrett, it exasperated what may have been an already present tendency toward mental illness in Roky. Unlike Syd, Roky received many years of treatment and, while still struggling with issues today, has continued to make music. Here's a video of him in 1985, 16 years after the 13th Floor Elevators disintegrated.

East Meets West--When Legends Gather, 1978

The last issue of Marvel's FOOM fan magazine came out in 1978 and was put together by David Anthony Kraft (who would many years later have me interviewed for his COMICS INTERVIEW) and Jim Salicrup (who is now one of my Facebook friends!). Buried within its pages for those still reading it was an interesting interview with a man named Gene Pelc who worked in marketing and licensing in Japan for Marvel's then-parent company, Cadence. Within the article, there were several rather murky reproductions of photos which now, all these years later, seem to take on slightly more significance. The photos are of Marvel's own Stan "the Man" Lee being introduced by Gene to a couple of Japanese manga cartoonists on a seventies visit to the Far East. The first here is Stan meeting the young artist Go Nagai (not "Nagai Go" as printed) whose most popular creation remains CUTIE HONEY. The other shows Stan being introduced to the legendary Dr. Osama Tezuka himself, the father of Japanese Manga and creator, to American audiences of the day, of ASTRO BOY!

Horroritual-1972

Okay, so me and my friend Terry, see, we'd been seeing all these TV ads for the new Christopher Lee Dracula movie back in '72, okay? All of the ads say that the audience will ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE in something called a "Horroritual!" COOL! We were all about the scary stuff at age thirteen, y'know? Hammer films, SCREAM IN on TV with the Cool Ghoul as host, FM, CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Alla that! And THIS particular Drac film was gonna update the series to our own modern world!! DRACULA A. D. 1972!! What a groovy idea! It just. Made. SENSE!

So anyway, we get to the theater, the RKO ALBEE in downtown Cincy. It was either opening day for the film or day two. Not sure. Now, the Albee had seen better days. Once the prestigious showplace of Cincinnati's Fountain Square, it had been just slightly up from a grindhouse for the last several years showing a mix of first run B movies, second run A pictures and blacksploitation flicks. It was kinda grungy looking by that point but with a nearly overwhelming air of lost grandeur.

VIDEO WATCHDOG's Tim Lucas informs me that his future wife Donna was most likely the person working the outside ticket booth that day. I wouldn't meet Donna officially for another two decades so we'll never know for sure. Inside the vast lobby behind the ticket booth, however, there was a coffin with a sign promoting the Horroritual! Next to it was a table with a mock newspaper promoting the picture and the Horroritual! We each eagerly grabbed one of THOSE babies as a collectors item! We were psyched, buddy! We had arrived way early and the auditorium was empty so we simply sat and rapped and read some of the stacks of comics we had both just bought on the next block at King's News. 20 cents! Jeez! Couldn't get nearly as many as we did just a couple years back for 12 or 15 cents! Maaaan!

Neither of us had a watch and eventually we had our bags and sweaters and all of our "stuff" just sprawled out across several of the hard, uncomfortable Albee chairs. No one else came in...ever. Well, that's not true--there were a couple old guys toward the back who seemed to have fallen asleep or somethin'. ANYhow, we knew time was getting close. We didn't know what the Horroritual would be but we were READY!

Then the lights dimmed....NO! As often happened in those days, then the picture started! It would be a few more minutes before the lights dimmed! The picture started...CRESCENDO! Awww, maaan! The second feature was on first! It was an okay suspenser with my favorite actress, Stefanie Powers and a creepy actor named James Olson ("Jimmy Olsen! Hahahahahhaha! We thought THAT was funny!). Awright, now...90 minutes later. That's out of the way! Bring on the Horroritual!


DRACULA, A. D. 1972! Wow! What an openin! All dark and gothic and creepy lighting with Van Helsing and Dracula tussling on a coach! One of the best scenes EVER in a Dracula picture! But then... Airplanes! Swinging London! Hippies! Just like real life in 1972! Hey, where's Chris Lee? We felt we knew him well enough to call him "Chris." Okay, THERE he is again...finally! What'd he do, just work, like, two days on this thing? Lots of distracting boobage, though. Good, good! Waitin' for the horroritual here. When's it happen?

After awhile, Drac gets killed...again...as expected. The lights come up aaaaaaaaaaand...nothin'! HUH??!! That must have BEEN the Horroritual, we thought...What a rip. What a cheezy way to sell a movie! Awww, maaaaan!

Cut to nearly twenty years later when I buy a cheap GoodTimes VHS of Zacherly introducing and just plain messing with a bunch of PD horror clips and trailers and what do I find hidden in this little gem? THE HORRORITUAL!!!! Well, at least the best parts of it.

The actual Horroritual which apparently the Albee projectionist simply decided not to run that day as there were only a handful of conscious people in the audience, is a short film made in conjunction with Dr. Donald A Reed's Count Dracula Society as away to cross-promote the film as well as the society. On-screen we see Barry Atwater (the vampire in that same year's TV-movie THE NIGHT STALKER) camping it up as a more traditional mittel-European-style vamp and he asks you to take the Oath to become...one of THEM!

In fact, as you probably already noticed, above is that very clip from that Zacherly tape--the Horroritual itself! The scans above are from the newspaper/flyer we picked up that day. Actor Atwater died 6 year's later. Donna and Tim Lucas got married and lived happily ever after. I haven't seen Terry since about 1990 now. Zach is in his nineties now and will probably live forever...assuming he was ever really alive at all! DRACULA A.D. 1972 is now rightly considered (except for that still awesome opening scene) one of the WORST and most dated Hammer films of them all and just last week, Chris...Ahem! Christopher Lee became SIR Christopher Lee! How time flies.