The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, December 7-13
Dracula, the Dirty Old Man (1969)
Directed by William Edwards
The initial “why” of Dracula the Dirty Old Man perplexes less than the eventual “how.” Clearly an attempt to accrue sweet, sweet drive-in circuit moolah, Edwards remembered to meet the exploitation film minimum: genre elements and breasts. Who cares if the shoddy lighting, cheap bat effects, and immorality of using rape scenes as a delivery service for nudity are on full display? Somewhere along the way, be it from poor audio recording or a change of heart, Edwards decided to turn his film into a comedy. The opening shots of a mountain range is accompanied by poetic flourishes parodic of literary pretension. We meet an unfair-haired Drac, who is less an aristocratic lothario than Borscht-belt hack, with an overdubbed hammy Jewish accent and one-liners (“I’m gonna give you a kiss like you wouldn’t believe right here on your good part!”). As though anticipating somebody would give him the What’s Up, Tiger Lily? treatment, Edwards went ahead and sabotaged his own film further, thus saving it. Watching from an era where YouTube allows overdubbing and bad lip readings of newly released media only makes it more fascinating. Max Kyburz (December 7, 9:30pm at the Alamo Drafthouse; hosted by filmmaker Alex Ross Perry)