"Blood Of Dracula," AIP's 1957 camp classic of girlish high jinks, which should really have been titled "I Was A Teenage Vampire," would definitely be one film I would feature on my "Spook Show" lineup.
It opens with a hoot, almost parodying those social service films of the Fifties. A car is en route, taking Nancy Perkins, who has just lost her mother, six months before, to a girls private school, a real lesbo enclave, run by a Miss Thorndyke (Wink! Wink!). Sandra Harrison, the frumpy, over aged teen in the yellow rain slicker, tries to run the car off the road.
Her father slaps her, and slutty Doris, played brilliantly by Jean Dean, delivers the film's opening line--"Give her another one!"
Doris is as cheap as they come. Hey, she's appearing in an AIP film, so that is cheap, for starters. You can bet her jewels and fur are fake. But not her slutty voice, and her round heels attitude. Doris wants Nancy ditched, so she can drain Daddy of everything. It is not clear if she was a secretary, or some floozy in a sleazy bar. I would go with the latter. She has the class and manners of one.
It is a pity Doris disappears from the scene, after Nancy lands at school. Because once repressed lesbian Chemistry teacher, Miss Branding, played by Louise Lewis, resident bitch until Louise Fletcher came along, turns Nancy into a stylishly glam vampire monster, with the most fabulous make-up this side of Elizabeth Arden, I would have loved to have seen Nancy, in monster form, confront Doris, and the two go at each other!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bet Doris would have ended up in some back alley, which she was destined for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But, honestly, girls, when it comes to bitches, this film almost outdoes itself!!!!!!!!!
What a hoot Jean Dean is, as Doris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Bitch Meter on this film is definitely off the charts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would love to see the bloopers!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSo would I? They'd
probably be as entertaining
as the movie!