Anno Dracula Dracula Cha Cha Cha (60 page)

CHAPTER 27:
PROFONDO ROSSO

The chapter title comes from the 1975 Dario Argento film, also known as
Deep Red
or
The Hatchet Murders.

CHAPTER 29:
WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT?

The vampire twins were created by Jean Rollin as roles for actress sisters Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel (sometimes billed as Cathy and Pony Tricot). They first appeared in
La vampire nue/The Nude Vampire
(1970) and recur throughout Rollin’s filmography, notably in
Levres de sang/Lips of Blood
(1975). Alexandra Pic and Isabelle Teboul play non-identical variations on the roles in Rollin’s late
Les deux orphelines vampires
(1997).

CHAPTER 30: CINEMA INFERNO

The vampire trap. Invented for London’s Lyceum Theatre in 1820 — not the site associated with Bram Stoker, which took the name later in the century — the vampire trap is a stage trapdoor which allows instantaneous appearances and disappearances. It is so called because it was first used in a production of James Planché’s
The Vampire, or, The Bride of the Isles,
an adaption of Dr Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’.

CHAPTER 31:
PENELOPE PULLS IT OFF

The chapter title comes from the 1975 Anglo-German sex comedy starring Linda Marlowe and Anna Bergman.

CHAPTER 33:
LACHRYMAE

The four aspects of the Mother of Tears derive from pillars of European art cinema… the child is the Devil (Marina Yaru) from Fellini’s
Toby Dammit
(a segment of
Histoires extraordinaires
/
Spirits of the Dead,
1968); incidentally, Fellini was influenced by the child ghost of Bava’s
Operazione paura
(both, in turn, influence the Devil of Martin Scorsese’s
The Last Temptation of Christ
, 1988); the young woman is Viridiana (Silvia Pinal), from Luis Buñuel’s 1961 film; the mature woman is Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 film, though I was also thinking of the fleshy fantasy whores who recur in Fellini’s movies (especially in
Roma
); the crone is La Santona (Ida Bracci Dorati), from Vittorio de Sica’s neorealist classic
Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves
(1948). In Argento’s films, Mater Lachrymarum appears as a pouting model, played by Anna Pieroni in
Inferno
and Moran Atias in
La terza madre.

Jack Palance, Francis Lederer, Alex D’Arcy and David Niven have all played Dracula, appearing in
Dracula
(1974),
The Return of Dracula
(1958),
Blood of Dracula’s Castle
(1969) and
Vampira
(1975).

CHAPTER 34: THE JUDGEMENT OF TEARS

The original US editions of
Dracula Cha Cha Cha
were retitled
Judgment of Tears
; I’ve always preferred my title (as the UK spelling). Bibliographers and book collectors get frustrated by things like this: the Carroll & Graf US hardback of
Judgment of Tears
is the novel’s first edition though it contains a misleading ‘first published in the UK’ notice (schedules were rearranged and the British edition came out a year later).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Various thanks are due to Dario Argento, Mark Ashworth, Dana and Pete Atkins, James Bacon, Nicolas Barbano, Suzanne and Richard Barbieri, Martine Bellen, Sarah Biggs, Anne Billson, Sebastian Born, Faith Brooker, Jennifer Brehl, Monique Brocklesby, Sara and Randy Broecker, John Brosnan, Molly Brown, Gian-Piero Brunetta, Eugene Byrne, Susan Byrne, Mark Burman, Pat Cadigan, Jenny and Ramsey Campbell, Kent Carroll, Daniela Catelli, Valeria Cavalli, Jackie Clare, Jeremy Clarke, Lorenzo Codelli, David Cross, Darryl Cunningham, Les Daniels, Ellen Datlow, Julie Davies, Meg Davis, Martina Drnkova, Alex Dunn, Val and Les Edwards, Kris and Dennis Etchison, the staff of Fantafestival 1990, Martin Feeney, Leslie Felperin, Jo Fletcher, Martin Fletcher, Barry Forshaw, Chris Fowler, Christopher Frayling, Neil Gaiman, Tony Gardner, Lisa Gaye, Pandora Gorey, Paula Grainger, Charlie Grant (whose cat I’ve borrowed), the cast of
Gypsy Angel,
Carlos and Pia Hansen, Mike Harrison, Antony Harwood, Rob Holdstock, Andre Jacquemetton, Alan Jones, Rodney Jones, Stephen Jones, Laragh Kedwell, Mike King, Karen Krizanovich, John Phillip Law, Cathy Leamy, Christopher and Gitte Lee, Pat LoBrutto, Tim Lucas, Chris Manby, Paul McAuley, Maitland McDonagh, Lisa McGuire, Maura McHugh, Marie-Helene Méliès, Cindy Moul, Julia and Bryan Newman, Jerome Newman, Sasha Newman, David Newton, Quelou Parente, Katya Pendill, Marcelle Perks, Adriano Pintaldi, Stuart Pollok, Ann and David Pringle, Lorenzo Quinn, Alberto Ravaglioli, Andy Richards, Lisa Rogers, Kate and Nick Royle, Geoff Ryman, Jane and Russell Schechter, Dave Schow, Adam Simon, Helen Simpson, Millie Simpson, Sally and Dean Skilton, Robert Sklar, Mandy Slater, Brian Smedley, Michael Marshall Smith, Jane and Brian Stableford, Frank Stallone, Steve Thrower, Jean-Marc Toussaint, Tom Tunney, Caroline Vié, Nick Webb, Connie Williams, Doug Winter, Jack Womack, Kate Worthington, Mark V. Ziesing.

Books, films, CDs: Michael Anglo’s
Nostalgia: Spotlight on the Fifties
; Michelangelo Antonioni’s
L’avventura
and
L’eclisse
; Dario Argento’s
Profondo rosso, suspiria
and
Inferno
; Mario Bava’s
La maschara del demonio, Sei donne per l’assassino, operazione paura
and
diabolik;
John Baxter’s
Fellini
;
Beat at Cinecittà
(Crippled Dick Hot Wax); Peter Bonadella’s
The Cinema of Federico Fellini
and
Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present;
Antonio Bruschini’s
Bizarre Sinema!: Horror all’italiana 1957— 1979;
Antonio Bruschini and Antonio Tentori’s
Malizie perverse: il cinema erotico Italiano, Mondi incredibili: il cinema fantastico-avventuroso Italiano, Profonde tenebre: il cinema thrilling Italiano 1962–1982
and
Operazione paura: i registi del Gotico italiano;
Antonio Bruschini and Igor Molino’s
Made in Hell: A Pictorial Voyage Through the Italian Horror;
Simon Callow’s
Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu;
Charlotte Chandler’s
I, Fellini;
Costanzo Constantini’s
Fellini on Fellini; Eyewitness Travel Guides: Rome;
Roger Corman’s
A Bucket of Blood;
Donald P. Costello’s
Fellini’s Road;
Robert Day’s
The Rebel;
Federico Fellini’s
Le notti di Cabiria, La dolce vita,
8½,
Giulietta degli spiriti, Toby Dammit, Roma
and
Intervista;
the exhibition catalogue
Fellini: Costumes and Fashion
; Ian Fleming’s
Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice
and
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service;
Paul Ginsborg’s
A History of Contemporary Italy;
Jean-Luc Godard’s
Le Mépris;
Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger’s
Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture
; Barry Keith Grant’s
The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film
(which contains Robin Wood’s essay ‘Burying the Undead: the Use and Obsolescence of Count Dracula’); Peter Haining and Peter Tremayne’s
The Un-Dead: The Legend of Bram Stoker and Dracula
; Patricia Highsmith’s
The Talented Mr Ripley
;
Italy After Dark: Italia Nostalgica
(especially Romina Power’s ‘Que sera sera’); Kenneth Rayner Johnson’s
The Fulcanelli Phenomenon
; S. Masi and E. Lancia’s
Italian Movie Goddesses;
Clive Leatherdale’s
Dracula: The Novel & the Legend;
Bob Madison’s
Dracula: The First Hundred Years;
Pascal Martinet’s
Mario Bava;
Maitland McDonagh’s
Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento;
Vincente Minnelli’s
Two Weeks in Another Town
(in which Rosanna Schiaffino dances the ‘Dracula
Cha Cha Cha
’); Alberto Moravia and Sam Wagenaar’s
Women of Rome
(Patrizia Nappi, the girl in the first photograph, is what I think Geneviève looks like);
Murder For Pleasure: Giallo & Thriller Original Soundtrack Themes
(Gatto Nero Records); Amando de Ossorio’s
Malenka, la nipote del vampiro
(with Anita Ekberg); Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta’s
Spaghetti Nightmares
; Pier Paolo Pasolini’s
Mamma Roma
; Stewart Perowne’s
The Pilgrim’s Companion in Rome
; David Punter’s
The Literature of Terror
; Massimo Pupillo’s
Il boia scarlatto
(aka
Bloody Pit of Horror,
with Mickey Hargitay as the Crimson Executioner); Simon Raven’s
Doctors Wear Scarlet;
Piero Regnoli’s
L’ultima preda del vampiro
(aka
Playgirls and the Vampire);
Charles Richards’s
The New Italians;
Nino Rota’s
Greatest Hits;
Irwin Shaw’s
Two Weeks in Another Town;
Alan Sillitoe’s
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(Arthur Seaton really does rant about vampires), David J. Skal’s
V is for Vampire;
O.F. Snelling’s
James Bond: A Report;
David Thomson’s
Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles; Tutto Fellini
(Cam’s Soundtrack Encyclopedia); Leonard Wolf’s
Dracula: The Connoisseur’s Guide
.