Love at First Bite

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Love at First Bite
Love at First Bite theatrical poster
Directed by	Stan Dragoti
Produced by	Joel Freeman
Written by	Robert Kaufman
Starring	George Hamilton Susan Saint James Richard Benjamin Arte Johnson Dick Shawn
Music by	Charles Bernstein
Cinematography	Edward Rosson
Editing by	Mort Fallick Allan Jacobs
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release date(s)	13 April 1979
Running time	94 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Love at First Bite is a 1979 comedy horror film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker. It stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson. The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein. The film's tagline is: "Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!"

Plot summary

The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into an athletics training facility. The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating assistant Renfield and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem.

While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from modern life in the Big Apple as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker).

Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. He is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Fritz (sic) van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg "for professional reasons". Rosenberg's numerous methods to combat Dracula - mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis - are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula's coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security. Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed and patiently explains that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg's increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist's claims and gets him released.

In the end, as a major blackout hits the city, Dracula flees via taxi cab back to the airport with Cindy, pursued by Rosenberg and Ferguson. The coffin is accidentally sent to Jamaica instead of London and the couple miss their plane. On the runway, Cindy finally agrees to become Dracula's vampire bride. Rosenberg attempts to stake Dracula, but as he moves in for the kill, the two fly off as bats together. A check drops down by which Cindy pays off her (enormous) psychiatry bill to Rosenberg, to which he remarks: "She has become a responsible person ... or whatever." Rosenberg keeps Dracula's cape - the only thing his stake had hit - which Ferguson borrows, hoping (since the cape makes the wearer look stylish) it will help him on his wedding anniversary. The last scene shows Dracula and Cindy, transformed into bats, on their way to Jamaica.

Main cast

• George Hamilton as Count Vladimir Dracula
• Susan Saint James as Cindy Sondheim
• Richard Benjamin as Dr. Jeffery Rosenberg/Van Helsing
• Dick Shawn as Lieutenant Ferguson NYPD
• Arte Johnson as Renfield

Notes

• Various serious attempts have been mounted at making a sequel to the film, but none have yet succeeded.
• The movie makes at various points open (and comedic) references to the TV series Roots, mostly in the context of African Americans trying to explore (or referring to) their African origins.
• For reasons never made quite clear by any of the producers or distributors of this film, the music in one pivotal scene was changed from the original theatrical song of "I Love the Nightlife (Disco Round)" as performed by Alicia Bridges to a cover of another disco-style song ("The Man That I Love") [???] which causes the mood of the scene to be lost. Oddly enough, even though every release of the film (both VHS and DVD) since 1979 contains the edited music in this scene, the credits were never changed to remove reference to the Alicia Bridges song and give proper acknowledgment for the song that was used.

Sequel - Batrimony: Love At Second Bite

Hamilton has been very eager to make a sequel to Love At First Bite. He recently stated: "It's terrific. It's all about old world school of Dracula in the Bela Lugosi 1940s up against the Twilight felons with humor, It's hard to do but it's great fun. I think 'Twilight' is a wonderful series of books. It's so important for these young girls with hormonal changes and this love that's worth giving your life for. But now I have to find a way to bring my 'Love At First Bite' character into that kind of story and make it funny and not be at all like 'Twilight' and I think I found a way to do that"^[1]

References

External links

• Love at First Bite at the Internet Movie Database
• Love at First Bite at Allmovie
• Love at First Bite at Rotten Tomatoes
• New York Times listing