Good old horror movies (Part 2) : Vampire vs. Bathing Beauty

This is not just the only vampire movie I really liked. In fact, "The Fearless Vampire Killers" is also firmly on my top list of the best 20 movies I've ever seen (although, I am still working on the list :-) In the ex-Yugoslavia the film was distributed under the title "Bal vampira" ("The Ball of the Vampires"). By my opinion, the best Polanski's movie, although not the scariest. For me, his scariest movie is "The Tenant".
The film is a beautiful mixture of a fairy tale, horror, excellent cinematography, clever screenplay, supreme directing and editing and a nice film score. Humour and satire are an extra asset.
Believe it or not, but this little cartoon character scared me at the very beginning of the movie when he had suddenly replaced the roaring lion.

 "The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (shortened to The Fearless Vampire Killers; originally titled Dance of the Vampires) is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and co-starring Polanski with future wife Sharon Tate. It has been produced as a musical named Dance of the Vampires." (Wiki)

The odd couple of vampire killers (before the Buffy):

This one is.... The Count:

The Italian distribution movie poster. Of course, the poster scene is just a symbolic expression and wasn't part of the film.

Obviously an European release movie poster (UK?). Of course, there wasn't such a scene in the movie.

The local naive beauty (Sharon Tate) who enjoys long baths in the antique bath tub, each and every evening. However, there wasn't any nudity in the film.

At the Ball...

I prefer painted movie posters, which unfortunately went extinct in the recent decade. They were much more expressive and informative and served as a sort of a quick teaser. Quite often, especially in the 60's and 70's the posters themselves were much better then the movies they represented and quite often they featured some scenes that were not included in the movie or were cut out by the censors.

One of the places were you can watch the movie on line.

The creepiest film by Polanski: "The Tenant"

Nudity sells

It is interesting how some nations are sensitive about nudity, while other are more or less easy about it. The great rush of nudity in the cinematography started in the mid 60's and now most of the movies have it in smaller or larger quantity.  Since the film nudity was a novelty in the movie theatres of the 60's and 70's and the censorship only started to loosen its grip, the film makers started to exploit the "novelty" in the various ways. Often, the nude scene still or expressive, suggestive painting was displayed on the movie poster, to tease the audience who wanted to see the "forbidden" stuff. The movie goers were usually taken for a ride and saw much less than expected. The scene was either very short, taken from another ankle or cut from the film by the censors. The modern public living in the world flooded with more or less free Internet information wouldn't understand the "good, old innocent times" of "sexual revolution". The nudity was available in very, very small quantities at the time. In today's measures, speaking in the chemistry jargon, it was present in traces. The newly acquired freedom soon took off and some of the movie makers started doing with the nudity what today's producers are doing with the special effects and cgi: overusing it! If you clogs the movie with the "special" stuff, there is no time left for the story, plot, characters, and all the other elements that make the movie interesting to watch. Over flooded with the excess nudity, the bad films couldn't become better. Indeed, they managed attracting more audience, anyway. But usually not for long. The clever way to "smuggle" a lot of naked actors and extras into the movie was to package the scenes into a comedy film. Thus, so many sexy humorous films from that time. I remember Danish erotic comedies being smashing hits at the beginning of the 70's. The so called "bedside-films" with the main male star. Later, the audience grew tired of the same old jokes and repeated stuff. Several films were produced using the "same formula for success" and basically the same plot and cast, but only a couple of first ones managed very well at the box office. The audience got tired watching stupid movies regardless of the naked actors, in a relatively short time.

Yet another idea was to make a musical with naked singers and dancers. I remember watching that rather boring musical comedy filled with nudes, shot from far away, so it   would probably even not be PG rated by today's standards. It was the American "The First Nudie Musical" (1976)
Quoting IMDB: "This movie should define the genre, with nudity and predictable plot but done in a way that the nudity is not the major theme, only spice. It would be worth watching without nudity, though it would not be as entertaining. If you like movies with stereotypical characters and lots of nudity, this is the one.
I have found only the last chorus line dancing act amusing. The rest of the film is not worth wasting time on.

The poster for the Danish sexy comedy "Mazourka in bed" bares an interesting resemblance with the poster for the "Graduate" from 1967:

 

... and there's a certain similarity with this poster for a flop starring Raquel Welch: