Kyrsten Brad
Senior HTF Member
Brad here. Taking a cue from the "Save the ALAMO" thread. Well here's one I surprisingly forgot to include on my 70 Wish List thread (will update it later) but I felt this movie deserved its own thread as there is surprisingly currently no Blu for Love at First Bite (1979). How could MGM completely miss this 1979 classic starring George Hamilton, Susan St. James and Richard Benjamin (who I sometimes confuse with Jeff Goldblum), Arte Johnson, Dick Shawn and directed by Stan Dragoti (whom I'll always remember as a lucky husband, if only for a time, of supermodel Cheryl Tiegs).
I call for us Home Theater fans to petition MGM (on their FB page) to give this movie a proper, remastered Blu release, strong emphasis on proper here as you'll see. Or maybe farm it out to Criterion or Twilight Time (Note to TT, if you were to get this, better make it a 5000 print run).
There is a OOP DVD available on Amazon but those jokers want $60. And as you'll see here, that DVD edition contains a real travesty to the legacy of the film.
The travesty occurs during George Hamilton's awesome disco dance routine with Susan St. James and it has to do with, what else, the musical score. The theatrical release and subsequent broadcasts on TV used the song I Love the Night Life by Alicia Bridges. This song really helped this scene hit home with the viewers as I found myself shouting Go Drac Go!!
In the VHS and DVD versions though, this song was replaced with some lame generic disco tune (per reviewers on Amazon) which is a total atrocity as far as I'm concerned. Which is why I will probably not buy the DVD to tide me over. (Funny though in the trailer on the DVD, the song is there in its proper place).
Let's all head over to MGM and, very politely, petition MGM for a full 4K transfer/remaster and a Blu release with Alicia Bridges' song in its proper place in the film.
From Wiki:
The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (the head trainer declares that it will include Nadia Comăneci). The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating manservant, Renfield, and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem. While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from modern life in the Big Apple as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker).
Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Fritz (sic) van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg "for professional reasons". Rosenberg's numerous methods to combat Dracula - mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis - are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula's coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security. Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg's increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist's claims and gets him released.
I call for us Home Theater fans to petition MGM (on their FB page) to give this movie a proper, remastered Blu release, strong emphasis on proper here as you'll see. Or maybe farm it out to Criterion or Twilight Time (Note to TT, if you were to get this, better make it a 5000 print run).
There is a OOP DVD available on Amazon but those jokers want $60. And as you'll see here, that DVD edition contains a real travesty to the legacy of the film.
The travesty occurs during George Hamilton's awesome disco dance routine with Susan St. James and it has to do with, what else, the musical score. The theatrical release and subsequent broadcasts on TV used the song I Love the Night Life by Alicia Bridges. This song really helped this scene hit home with the viewers as I found myself shouting Go Drac Go!!
In the VHS and DVD versions though, this song was replaced with some lame generic disco tune (per reviewers on Amazon) which is a total atrocity as far as I'm concerned. Which is why I will probably not buy the DVD to tide me over. (Funny though in the trailer on the DVD, the song is there in its proper place).
Let's all head over to MGM and, very politely, petition MGM for a full 4K transfer/remaster and a Blu release with Alicia Bridges' song in its proper place in the film.
From Wiki:
The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (the head trainer declares that it will include Nadia Comăneci). The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating manservant, Renfield, and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem. While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from modern life in the Big Apple as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker).
Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Fritz (sic) van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg "for professional reasons". Rosenberg's numerous methods to combat Dracula - mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis - are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula's coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security. Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg's increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist's claims and gets him released.
