Blacula

[Art]

For a while right after I started working for the 'gubmint I lived in the YMCA in Newark, New Jersey on the advice of the fellow who interviewed me in New Orleans. I was totally dependent on public transportation and didn't have a lot of money. Since my fiance was in Louisiana I didn't have anyone to do stuff with on the weekends so I went to the movies on weekends.

In Newark you had three basic options - Chinese Kung Fu movies, Black Exploitation (Blaxploitation,) or porn. I saw a good bit of Blaxploitation and it ran from reasonably good quality to awful.

That's where I first saw "Blacula." I had trouble sleeping last night and watched it again on TCM.

the movie stars William Marshall, a physically imposing, classically trained actor who began his career in the 1950s playing dignified black men before phasing into a long career as a character actor.
Blaxploitation veterans Vonetta McGee, and Thalmus Rasulala
Denise Nichols
and the reliably creepy Elisha Cook Jr.
The Hues Corporation performs in an extended scene in a night club because back then no band missed the chance to perform in a movie.

The premise is straight up vampire fare. An African prince named Mamuwalde is on a trip to Europe where he and his wife meet Count Dracula with predictable results. Fast forward to the 20th century where two interior designers order a casket from Europe as a prop not knowing the undead prince is in it and "Blacula" is unleashed on Manhattan.

The movie is toward the high end of its genre which means is just "decent," not "Shaft" "Cotton Comes to Harlem" or "Superfly" at the absolute top end, but definitely not awful like "Black Caesar" either. It did win the Academy of Science Fiction and Horror Film Makers Association for Best Horror Film in 1973, Pickings must have been a bit lean that year.

An enjoyable and a little different period piece if you don't have a lot to do.