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Released by: AGFA/Something Weird Video
Released on: May 30th, 2023.
Director: William Edwards
Cast: Vince Kelly, Libby Calculus, Ann Hollis, Billy Whitton
Year: 1969
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Dracula The Dirty Old Man – Movie Review:
Clearly made fast and cheap with an eye for cashing in on the nudie cutie and sex film craze that was proving very popular across America in the sixties, director William Edwards’ 1969 film, Dracula The Dirty Old Man, stars Vince Kelly as the Alucard, a vampire who lives inside an abandoned mine out in the middle of the desert. He needs blood to survive.
Meanwhile, a real estate agent named Mike (Billy Whitton) is dating a stone cold fox named Ann, who, as you could have probably guessed, catches Alucard’s attention when they meet. See, Mike is visiting the mine to help Alucard get it back up and running, or something like that. In the process, he somehow turns poor Mike into a werewolf dubbed Irving Jackalman who he essentially uses as a slave to head out into the nearest town to abduct pretty, nubile young women for him to feast on.
Trying to make sense out of this movie is a bit of a challenge .Produced by Whit Boyd, this movie is insane. Reportedly the original soundtrack as either lost or discarded and replaced with looped/dubbed dialogue that would seem to have been made up as the voice actors went along. As you can imagine, the results are fairly insane and don’t necessarily abide by anything even remotely resembling logic.
Set to an insane soundtrack and loaded with the corniest of corny jokes and one-liners, the movie doesn’t skimp on bondage or nudity, the movie feels like it is from another planet. Women are bound and abused and what should be mildly disturbing winds up bizarrely comedic thanks to some baggy pants style old timey comedy hijinks and the otherworldly atmosphere of it all.
Reasonably devoid of style and containing no convincing special effects whatsoever, that acting is over the top and leans towards the scenery chewing side of the spectrum. The movie was shot without a whole lot of style but there are occasionally little bits of atmospheric lighting and some interesting camera angles at play, which gives things some visual polish, though not a whole lot of it.
Overall, if this isn’t an especially good film in the traditional sense, it is a high water moment in the history of ‘what the fuck cinema’ and for that reason alone, if you’re a regular reader of this website and appreciate sleazy, regional oddities, it’s a movie that is absolutely worth your time….despite the padding and the fact that it’s entirely nonsensical.
Dracula The Dirty Old Man – Blu-ray Review:
AGFA brings Dracula The Dirty Old Man to Blu-ray on a 50GB disc framed at 1.85.1 taken from a scan of the only known 35mm print in existence. There’s some print damage here and some color fading but we get a nice improvement over the older DVD release, released by Something Weird. Detail doesn’t hit reference quality but it’s not bad at all and the image is free of compression artifacts. A natural amount of film grain is present throughout, there are no problems with noise reduction or edge enhancement. Skin tones look okay, if slightly orange in spots. The previous DVD was fullframe but the framing here looks fine, there aren’t a lot of missing heads or anything like that and given that it did play theaters it isn’t such a crazy assumption to make that it would have played in a widescreen aspect ratio.
The feature gets a 24-bit English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track with optional subtitles available in English only. Quality here is more or less on par with the video presentation – imperfect, but better than we’ve had before and not bad considering the elements. Dialogue isn’t always easy to understand but it’s fun to try. There’s a bit of hiss here and there and the occasional snap, crackle and pop but nothing that should really upset anyone familiar with the material at all.
Extras include an audio commentary by Texploitation film historians Melinda Belles and Dennis Campa is quite interesting, going over distributor Whit Boyd’s life and times in a fair bit of detail but doing what it can to deliver information about anyone involved in the movie (there isn’t a lot out there). We also get information on the movie’s theatrical release, where the movie was shot, what the independent filmmaking scene was like in Texas during this period in film history and an interesting possible connection to none other than Bat Pussy! It’s an amusing and interesting track worth listening to.
The disc also includes the alternate version of the movie, the same sixty-nine minute cut that was included on SWV’s DVD edition years back, which runs five minutes longer than the feature version. The credits are different on both versions (the feature version shows a breast before the blood drips down and forms the title and omits the opening credits scrawl) and each has bits and pieces of footage not included in the other version.
Also included here is a bonus movie in the form of the sixty-four minute Tales Of A Salesman from 1965, also taken from the only known 35mm Technicolor print in existence. Directed by Don Russell, the movie follows a salesman named Herman (David C. Reed) who really would love to do anything other than the job he hates. When he's setting up to ply his wares on a street seemingly populated only by gorgeous women, he can't help but want to try his luck with the fairer sex. Herman, however, is an absolute klutz and more than a bit of a buffoon. He's also guided by some sort of bizarre poltergeist/ghost creature.
He first knocks on the door of a house occupied by a buxom blonde (Terry Collins) in a towel which leads to him accidently disrobing her with a vacuum cleaner. The second housewife (Vickie Rin) invites him in and then models a slinky red dress for him. When she asks him to help her with the zipper, well, you can probably figure out what happens. The story goes on from here, with Herman encountering a beautiful woman only to screw up his chances until things take an insane left turn into psychedelic territory when, after he's almost strangled to death by an angry husband, Herman and the various ladies wind up in a series of hallucinatory fantasies where we various vignettes play out.
This one was shot in 'Nudavision' and 'Lusticolor' by none other than Vilmos Zsigmond and it's seriously strange stuff that's completely worth a watch for anyone with an interest in vintage sexploitation movies of the sixties.
Finishing up the extras are some ‘Trailers from Dracula’s dirty old cave’ (Night Of The Witches/Dr. Frankenstein On Campus, Witchcraft, The Vampire And The Ballerina and The Terror At Orgy Castle), menus and chapter selection options. It’s also worth pointing out that this release comes packaged with some very cool reversible cover sleeve art.
Dracula The Dirty Old Man - The Final Word:
Dracula The Dirty Old Man is gleefully dumb and chock full of naked ladies and nonsense! A must-see for fans of vintage sexploitation movies and antiquated trash films, it’s definitely unique. AGFA has done a great job bringing the movie to Blu-ray with a nice selection of extra features including an alternate version, a solid commentary and an equally bizarre and entertaining second feature. Highly recommended!
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Dracula The Dirty Old Man Blu-ray screen caps!
