Die Herren Dracula

Possibly the worst dubbed film I have ever seen, miserable acting to boot makes this one of Lee's worst Vampire attempts. Skip this film in English, maybe the original language version redeems. Catch Love at First bite for a better attempt at satire. good luck.

Count Dracula had a son, by the name of Ferdinand. He's a shy and a good nature young man, not very happy to be a vampire. He don't want to bite people because he don't want to hurt them. So he bites rats and cats. His father becomes a movie star - playing, of course, a vampire - and fells in love with a young woman who reminds him his wife. But Ferdinand's in love with the girl too and don't want his father to bite the woman. Fun story of black humour, with great Christopher Lee making fun of his famous role of Dracula. But images are a little bit too dark and sometimes there's dull moments. Watch for funny lines like: Ferndinand, finish your blood and go to bed. Or : Ferdinand, don't play bowling with your mothers ashes. Good bloody fun could have been better, but it's pleasant to watch,

"Dracula Père et Fils" was never an excellent film. At the most, it was a sometimes funny vampire satire with good psychological aspects out of the Oedipal conflict father/son and sociological criticisms concerning the immigrants, not so well treated in France.

But to be honest, I admit it was a bit of a deception. The film director Edouard Molinaro himself has lately called it a "failure", despite the fact he had succeeded in hiring Christopher Lee to incarnate ' the Count" (Dracula is never mentioned in the original version) opposing him to a totally different kind of an actor (Bernard Menez, who is actually very proud of this film). The concept here is quite similar to another unfunny vampire comedy "Tempi Duri Per i Vampiri" where Lee was opposed to Renato Rascel.

One should see this movie just to appreciate the almost perfect French accent of the British star who has almost entirely shot it in that foreign language.

Mister Lee has claimed on several occasions he did dub the English version.

I must be one of the rare French moviegoers to have seen the quite different American version and to be able to evaluate the mess they did on the soundtrack.

Most of the dialog has been changed to some ridiculous vulgar trash. The haunting music score by Vladimir Cosma has been misplaced or changed in favor of new music bits, supposedly to speed up the rhythm of the film.

But they didn't hesitate the butcher the editing either: from the 100 min. in its original form, they reduced it to 79. Not only they shortened it, but added some repetition of Lee opening a door and speaking to a concierge with several stupid accents. Not only unnecessary, but very dull! This scene was initially part of the story and is suddenly supposed to be an hilarious illustration of movie shooting. Appalling!

I have heard Roman Polanski had to suffer similar treatments on his masterpiece "Fearless Vampire Killers" (never try to compare this one to Molinaro's flick, by the way!)

Not every one has the talent of Woody Allen to transform a Japonese spy movie into a comedy as he did once (admitting it in a prologue) with "What's up Tiger Lily?".

In conclusion, here are two different films out of the same celluloid: "Dracula Père et Fils" is a not so good film worth seeing however. "Dracula and Son" is just awful and should be placed alongside with the Raymon Burr's version of "Godzilla".

If you enjoyed FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS probable will like this similar flick based in a homonymous French novel wrote by Patrick Cauvin/Claude Klotz about a comic story of Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his half-hybrid son Ferdinand (Bernard Menez) set in 1770 at Transylvania when he was born feeding by blood, nonetheless never bite anyone until nowadays, turns out that they are spelled from Romania, Ferdinand ends up on France and Count Dracula in England.

They meet again when Count Dracula became a famous movie star, meanwhile Ferdinand survives with immigrants on France on lowest jobs, everything going upside down when both compete for same gorgeous girl Nicole (Marie-Hélène Breillat) although by opposite proposals, Ferdinand looking for a girlfriend and Dracula for a mistress of night.

Many funniest gags are scattered along the picture, often floating in Ferdinand's character in astonishing instances like as he has to give blood, trying bit corpses at morgue or working in a slaughterhouse aiming for feeding by beef's blood, once only Ferdinand bite an animal, a fluffy cat which was a tasty snack, actually it was a Christopher Lee's Dracula departure for good, underrated black comedy.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.

This is not a movie I would consider terrible, since it stars the great Christopher Lee. I was introduced to this movie in a different and strange way, I picked up a copy at a outdoor trading market called "Traders Village" in Fort Worth, Texas in the early 90s when I was probably 12 or 13. I had a thing for the supernatural and in particular vampire movies, so I purchased it on VHS for $3 or so. I had no idea that this was a dubbed foreign movie, but being a young teenager was captivated to watch it multiple times because of the nudity, mainly,at first. Later on through learning who Christopher Lee was, and seeing his characters portrayed in many Hammer horror films, I subsequently returned later to search for what movie I had seen in my youth through nostalgia. Unbeknownst to me at this young age, I had no idea who Christopher Lee was but it probably subconsciously figured into my love for him as an actor in later life, watching his earlier films. LOL. Finding Dracula and Son somewhat difficult to locate, I have ended up here on IMDb, reading the history of the release through the comments section. Though this film may be bad, I look upon it as being special to me and it holds a nostalgic place in my mind and I will always be fond of it.I would recommend watching this just because Christopher Lee is in it, and also it is actually his unique,and last performance as Dracula.