Dance of the Vampires [The Fearless Vampire Killers] **** (1967, Jack MacGowran, Roman Polanski, Alfie Bass, Ferdy Mayne, Sharon Tate, Iain Quarrier) – Classic Movie Review 1739

This splendidly silly but gloriously witty and exceptionally good-looking 1967 English vampire spoof film Dance of the Vampires finds the right film-maker in co-writer/director Roman Polanski. The film-maker casts himself and his future wife Sharon Tate alongside Alfie Bass, Ferdy Mayne, Jack MacGowran and Iain Quarrier as a ground-breaking gay vampire called Herbert von Krolock. Both MacGowran and Iain Quarrier are re-cast from Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac (1966).

In the lively, screwy plot of these high-spirited Transylvanian capers, mad old bat researcher Professor Abronsius (MacGowran) and his helpless helper Alfred (Polanski) go to a remote Transylvanian village looking for vampires. Alfred falls in love with the local inn keeper Shagal (Bass)’s cute young daughter Sarah (Tate). The vampire hunters soon find that the toothsome Count Von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne) and his son Herbert (Quarrier) live in a dark and eerie castle outside the village, and they end up going there and trying to rub out the family of vampires. 

Terry Downes (Koukol, the Servant), Ronald Lacey (Village Idiot), Fiona Lewis (Magda, the Maid) and Sydney Bromley (Sleigh Driver) co-star, with Andreas Malandrinos, Otto Diamant and Matthew Walters as Woodcutters.

It is a great credit to Polanski that the movie is exactly what in a perfect world it should be – sophisticated screwball slapstick comedy that’s funny, spooky and daring, always affectionate and sometimes hilarious. It has the look that a Sixties Hammer Films movie would have had with a decent-sized budget and the feel a Hammer film would have had if they were invested with a clever sense of humour and irony.

The no-expense-spared film is impressively made on a lavish scale, with colour cinematography, huge sets in England, location filming in the Alps, elaborate costumes and choreography, all just exactly right for a period epic. Noted choreographer Tutte Lemkow was hired for the film’s climactic danse macabre minuet.

It was shot in the MGM British Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, for the vampire ballroom scene; and at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England; as well as in Dolomites, Trentino, Alto Adige, Italy; Cortina d’Ampezzo, Belluno, Veneto, Italy; Fischburg Castle-Castel Gardena, Santa Cristina Valgardena, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy (standing in for Castle Krolock); and Val Gardena, Trentino-Alto Adige, Bolzano, Italy, for the exterior scenes.

Admittedly it lingers fondly in the memory perhaps slightly better than it plays on a re-viewing, but it is still enormous lots of fun. Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography and Wilfrid Shingleton’s production designs are wildly imaginative and totally tip-top.

When Dance of the Vampires was released in the US, Polanski was angry as MGM marketed it as a farce and retitled it The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck, cutting and remixing it to make it seem kooky and cartoony. The original runs a long 124 minutes, but the cut version runs 98 minutes and the director’s cut runs 108 minutes.

Polanski has the MGM lion transforming into a vampire in the opening credits.

Slocombe said: ‘I think he put more of himself [Polanski] into Dance of the Vampires than into any other film. It brought to light the fairy-tale interest that he has. It is very much a personal statement of his own humour, as he used to chuckle all the way through the scene.’

It has been produced on stage as the European musical Tanz der Vampire.

Sharon Tate met her future husband Roman Polanski on the set of Dance of the Vampires. They married on 20 January 1968.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1739

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