Paul
Naschy had a lot of success in a wide range of film genres,
playing an even wider range of characters, but he is mostly remembered for his
brand of gritty and beautiful Spanish gothic horror films. These movies had their
low budget and pacing issues, but there was still something so attractive about
them, with a reverence for the classic monsters, most especially the
wolfman, and the inclusion of plenty of female vampires and femme fatales in
general. Plus, with his charisma and sincerity to the material, it’s always a
joy just seeing Naschy; whenever he
makes an entrance in these movies, he causes viewers’ eyes to light up like
they’re seeing a dear old friend. For me, it was always interesting to see what
a zombie movie, or a mummy movie, or a cannibal movie, or even a giallo would
be like after getting the Paul Naschy
treatment.
It was my tendency to read other people’s takes on Paul Naschy movies, be they positive or
negative, that inspired me to eventually take up the quill to see if I’d have
anything interesting to contribute as a genre film blogger.
With Count Dracula’s Great Love, a costume
horror drama with a satiable amount of violence and eroticism that according to
Naschy in his memoirs was a critic
and box office success,* we have one of my favorite classic monsters done by one
of my favorite filmmakers. It was directed by Javier Aguirre (Hunchback of
the Morgue) but was written by Paul Naschy
who also stars as Dr. Wendell Marlow and (forgive the spoiler) Count Dracula. I
believe it is also the first in a short but notable line of horror films with Naschy and actor Victor Barrera (sometimes credited as Vic Winner or Victor Alcazar);
the other three Naschy movies with Barrera are Hunchback of the Morgue (1973), Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973), and Vengeance of the Zombies (1973).
Considering movies like Barbarella (1968), Top
Sensation (1969), and Russ Meyer’s
Vixen! (1968), it would seem that
the late ‘60s, the peak of the sexual revolution in the western world, was a
turning point for erotic movies. Sexually charged films from this era were not
only challenging censorship but were also challenging the monolithic wall of
puritanical behavior that associated sex solely with marriage, which also
mirrored the changing attitudes towards sex during the revolution.
With both “the
pill” and penicillin on the market, pregnancy and STDs were less of an issue,
and a woman’s sexuality outside of marriage was becoming more widely accepted,
unlike the vicious double standard from before when it was more permissible for unmarried men to have sex. Naturally, sex began to saturate the media, was
used to sell products, and became a big part of mainstream culture. In
addition, more and more married couples began experimenting with extramarital
sex.
After the Hays Code was put to sleep in 1968 sexploitation cinema would really
begin to thrive. With hopes of being free from the restraints of
censorship, erotica would be used to explore new creative avenues of
film making.
Inevitably, a lot of these so called sexploitation movies were taken
to court, but a good way erotic filmmakers could get passed this was to not only make their
movies sexually explicit but to make them intellectual and artful as well, which
was particularly more common in foreign sex movies. On the VH1 documentary Sex the Revolution, John Waters said that in order to win in
court you had to prove that a prosecuted sex film was socially redeeming, which
would then make it acceptable.
David, Ray Lovelock, is riding free with the wind in his hair and the beautiful ocean in the background. He is an eloper of society looking for freedom in a new world. What he ends up finding is more or less an exaggeration of what his free spirit has always desired in this rarely seen but marvelous film.
Following the music-video-like intro-credits, night falls and a shot of the lead character riding down a pitch black foggy highway in the middle of nowhere gives off a dark and uneasy feeling as he stops to help a stranded older looking gentleman, Gianni Santuccio, with a flat tire. A conversation of conflicting beliefs ensues, and while still expressing appreciation for the help, this older man lights a cigar and takes no time to criticize David’s long hair, hippie clothes, and free-love ideals (Remind you of a similar moment with lovelock in THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE?), which are a strong contrast to the older man’s short grey hair, suit-and-tie, and enthusiasm for matrimony.
Nonetheless, David holds onto his pride while the well kempt man, who hasn’t given his name (he’s known as L’uomo/Il diavolo on the IMDB which is Italian for Man/The Devil), attempts to provoke him to ‘betray his ideals’ by making suggestions that are a forecast to a very provocative situation that David later finds himself in. The old man’s drawn-out advice feels too premeditated to not raise the suspicion that he may’ve been planning on meeting David all along. It doesn’t help that he stuck a nail in David’s
motorcycle tire while he was working either.
