"Children of the Night, shut up!"George Hamilton is Dracula. Let that sink in for a minute. The tannest man in the world is playing an undead creature of the night.
It's Love at First Bite, a vampire comedy from 1979.
Unlike Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It, it's actually funny. A large chunk of the humor is Hamilton's deadpan portrayal of the Count, a fish out of water in New York City. He's been evicted by the Romania government so he goes to America in search of Cindy Sondheim, the fashion model who's captured his heart.
She's played by Susan Saint James, who will always be Mrs McMillan to me no matter how many episodes of Kate & Allie I see. "Oh, that's so kinky, are you biting me?". In the Count's way is Jeffrey, Cindy's ex-boyfriend and the grandson of Van Helsing, played by Richard Benjamin, who always struck me as the Jeff Goldblum of the seventies.
Since you can't have a Dracula without a Renfield, Arte Johnson steals the show with his manic re-interpetation of Dwight Frye's classic Renfield, down to the heh-heh-heh.
I'd put off watching Love at First Bite because I was worried it was going to be annoying like the Brook but it was cute- there was enough silliness to entertain someone who was watching it as a comedy, there were enough subtle references to the Lugosi version to entertain a purist.
(image snagged from Wrong Side of the Art blog)
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