Bob Basso | Through the Shattered Lens

Disco Dracula!

In 1979’s Love At First Bite, George Hamilton plays Dracula, who goes from living in Transylvania to trying to make it in New York City. Even when you’re the King of the Vampires, it turns out that New York can be a difficult place to live. No one has much respect for the tanned man in the cape, even after he shows off his powers. He falls in love with a model, Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), but she doesn’t buy into the idea that he’s a vampire. She’s a New Yorker and she’s in therapy. Her therapist, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin), is a direct descendant of Prof. Van Helsing and he does believes that “Vladimir” is a vampire but he can’t get anyone to believe him. When he takes his concerns to the NYPD, Lt. Ferguson (Dick Shawn) dismisses him as being insane. Which, to an extent, he is but only because no one will believe him….

Meanwhile, Dracula’s faithful servant, Renfield (Arte Johnson), starts every morning by leaning out of his apartment window and pretending to be a rooster. It’s his signal to let Dracula know that it’s time to come home. Dracula is so in love with Cindy that he sometimes forgets to keep track of time. It’s a New York love story….

Love At First Sight is a comedy that essentially gets a lot of mileage out of a handful of jokes. The main joke is the idea of George Hamilton, with his perpetual tan, playing Dracula and speaking with a Bela Lugosi-style accent. Hamilton plays Dracula as being very confident and very smooth but also rather befuddled by 1979. He’s a gentleman of the “old world” after all. The other big joke is that Dracula is in New York, a city where no one is impressed by anything. This is very much a “New Yorkers Will Be Rude To Anyone” movie, a genre that was very popular in the 70s. Some films, like Taxi Driver, used the rudeness of New York as a metaphor for paranoia and detachment. Love At First Bite uses it for laughs.

(For the record, my favorite “New Yorkers Will Be Rude To Anyone” movie is the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Also, the last time I briefly visited New York, everyone was very nice and polite to me. Only once did someone yell, “Look out, lady!” and I’m still not really sure what I was supposed to be looking out for.)

There’s a lot to like about Love At First Sight. Susan Saint James and George Hamilton don’t exactly have a ton of chemistry but Hamilton himself is fun to watch. “Children of the night — shut up!” he yells at the wolves and it’s hard not to smile. It’s just so goofy. Hamilton and Arte Johnson are a good comedic team and, for that matter, so are Richard Benjamin and Dick Shawn. It’s a film of set pieces. Dracula and Renfield rob a blood bank. Jeffrey confronts Dracula at dinner. Dracula pops out of his coffin at a church. Some of the set pieces work better than others and this is very much a film of its time but overall, it’s a genial and amusing send-up of the vampire genre.

And it features Dracula at a disco! It’s a 70s movie and it stars George Hamilton so it’s not really surprising that the action moves to a disco. Still, if you can’t appreciate the sight of a caped Dracula showing off his best moves, I don’t know what to tell you.

Love At First Sight is a reminder that not every Halloween movie has to be terrifying. Some of them can just make you laugh.

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, St. Elsewhere observes a holiday.

Episode 2.5 “A Wing and a Prayer”

(Dir by Bruce Paltrow, originally aired on November 23rd, 1983)

It’s Thanksgiving in Boston! While everyone else is watching the Patriots and celebrating with family, 15 residents are stuck at St. Eligius, working during the holiday. To make it even worse for them, Dr. Craig puts himself on the schedule to teach them a lesson about what it means to be a doctor. (It’s also subtly suggested that Craig is looking for an excuse to get out of visiting his in-laws.) When Craig learns that Ehrlich is planning on make a “California-style” turkey, Craig insists on making a turkey of his own.

Meanwhile, Dr. Auschlander is reading a book on “dying with dignity.” It’s a British book, one that makes the case for euthanasia. (Anglicans are so pessimistic!) Auschlander is convinced that this will be his last Thanksgiving. He becomes obsessed with the case of Joe Dempsey (Cory Yothers), a little boy who might have Hepatitis or who could just as easily be suffering from Leukemia. Neither option is great but Joe can recover from Hepatitis. Death-obsessed Auschlander spends the entire episode convincing himself that Joe is going to die. Fortunately, Auschlander is wrong. When the test results come back, it turns out that Joe does have Hepatitis. Auschlander’s hope is renewed. He tosses away his assisted suicide book. He tells his wife he’s looking forward to next Thanksgiving. It’s kind of predictable but Norman Lloyd’s performance sells it.

Did I cry during this episode? Yes, I did. Last year, at this time, I was fighting with an insurance company to keep my dad from getting kicked out of his rehab center. I knew, deep in my heart, that if he was sent home, he would die. The insurance company wanted to kick him out on the 4th of July. I successfully appealed their decision, just as I would appeal several more of their decisions. I won countless battles and I felt pretty proud of myself but ultimately, I lost the war. My Dad was eventually evicted from the rehab center and, as I feared would happen, he died a few weeks later. Every holiday since August of last year has been my first without my Dad. So, yeah, when I watched an episode of a hospital drama with Dr. Asuchlander obsessing on death while Dr. Morrison experienced his first holiday since the passing of his wife …. you better believe I cried.

Can I fairly judge this episode, all things considered? Probably not. Watching it, I could tell that this episode was shamelessly manipulative and there were a few moments that were a bit overwritten. There wasn’t much subtlety to be found. But, dammit, it got to me. The emotions got to me. It earned my tears and, to be honest, I felt a little better after I cried. Joe Dempsey’s going to live. Yay!