Vampira

This is a comedy about Dracula. Most comedies about Dracula are funny. This one is not. If a Dracula movie is not going to be funny then is should at lest be scary. This movie is not scary. It as an awful story line. The ending is awful. There are good actors in this movie. But they wasted there talent being in this awful movie. Do not wast your money. Do not see this movie. Do not wast your time. Do not see this movie. It is the comedy movie that sucks. There are a lot of comedy movie that suck. And this is one of them. This movie is pooh pooh. Do not see this movie. I need more line and I am running out of thing to say.

This movie is rather offensive. Not because I am Black and that I should take offense to the premise, but that they should spoof Dracula to the point where even a card carrying Van Helsing club member would be offended. This movie seemed as if it was a British writer trying to compete with Mel Brooks. I am not offended with the premise because I must defend the actors who chose to do such a dreadful movie. Ms. Graves found popularity by being a beautiful funny Black woman on Laugh In. She needed work and wanted to also be accepted by the public and further her career. She was one of the few Black women to play a lead role with the great David Niven. David Niven, on the other hand, was in his last days as a lead and his last years on earth. He valiantly tried to make something out of nothing. I don't think he (Dracula) was concerned with the color of his bride's skin more than seeing her the way he remembered her. Vampira was sexy enough to grace the last scenes of the movie and even seduce the two lead men. It seems as if the writer was celebrating the new times and he wanted to join the party of real race relations. Ms. Graves went on to have her own series for a short while and I think she made an impact on many young girls and taught them to stand for themselves. The only thing that was disturbing to me was that the young actor playing the Don Juan like character looks a lot like Jeremy Pivens. The end was very predictable and it made the whole thing look like what it was meant to be; A meaningless pursuit of the old ways while change to the new ways ended up not being so bad. In fact the change helped in the end. This movie was fun and the limited nudity expressed some class. I would recommend it to only those with an affinity to the art of movies and you should remember the times when this was done. I believe this was just at the start of Blacksploitation, disco and spoofs. In conclusion, it was a failed attempt to suck blood from the new times and still win favor of the old school. I think I would watch it again, though.

David Niven's career hit rock bottom when he played the one and only Count Dracula in Vampira. Niven's dapper English charm is truly put to the test her and it fails.

Times are tough in Transylvania and Castle Dracula is now being rented out as a tourist attraction. The money's good and one can take an occasional bite out of a tourist. But Niven's real mission is to find the right blood to revive the Countess who's been asleep since the Roaring Twenties.

He finds the right blood from one of the tourists, but lo and behold the countess wakes up and turns black into someone that looks a whole lot like Teresa Graves. What to do, Niven's a most conservative Dracula and apparently interracial marriage is frowned on.

The rest of the film is spent on Niven trying to find a cure for Graves. And listening to Graves calling Niven such things as 'jive turkey' with both of them wondering where she's pick up the latest slang.

A few years earlier Godfrey Cambridge did Watermelon Man which laid a giant ostrich egg with the same kind of humor. It's not any funnier with Teresa Graves.

And David Niven should have been ashamed of himself.

David Niven has a role that is clearly beneath his stature (in his first scene, he is reading a Playboy magazine), and Clive Donner's direction is almost embarrassingly crude (the dreadful copy I saw made it look even worse than it is, but it's crude nonetheless). Still, the movie has some unexpectedly clever lines (Dracula's assistant to his master: "I cross my fingers, sir" - Dracula's response: "I'd rather you didn't"), and (don't crucify me for this) I really found it more enjoyable than Polanski's overrated "Fearless Vampire Killers" - mainly because it has no pretensions of greatness. (**)

Almost so bad it's brilliant, this is one of the more strange versions of Dracula. Set in London in the seventies we see an older Dracula (David Niven) hosting parties for young people at his castle. He's searching for suitable blood to bring his former lover Vampira (Teresa Graves) back to life. Only trouble is when it works she is now black much to Dracula's distaste. They must try again with the help of Marc (Nicky Henson) who unwillingly gets samples of blood from girls.

It's certainly a camp version of the Dracula story, but it has a certain charm and is obviously being played for laughs.