El gran amor del conde Drácula

Oh this was almost a great flick. Firmly placed in the sexploitation Eurotrash genre, it just needed to push the envelope a little bit more. Sadly it is therefore only a 4/10 job.

So blood and guts were only quite good, when they had every ability to be better. Naschy is on form as the villain, but is just a bit wooden. The women are beautiful, but do not take enough of their clothes off to make the film truly sensual etc. We really need a touch of Jean Rollin on this one.

The DVD transfer I saw on Sinema Diable is a woeful effort direct from video. No extras. A bargain basement job that gives the film no chance to redeem itself. In summary, an also ran....

The inimitable Paul Naschy stars as the eeevil character of the title, living high in the mountains in his crumbling castle of solitude.

Uh oh!

Drac's serenity is interrupted when a carriage full of nubile lasses arrives. It's not long before these unexpected guests take a nice, naked dip in the castle pool. When one of the Count's vampire henchmen bites the lone male of the group, a bloodsucking plague begins.

Much nudity ensues as the Prince of Darkness attempts to resurrect his dead daughter.

A lot of this film is rather muddled, making little sense. Still, as Naschy films go, it's not bad. His fans will want to see it no matter what...

DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1972) ** ½ Paul Naschy, Haydée Politoff, Rosanna Yanni, Ingrid Garbo. Four women and a man wreck their stagecoach and must take refuge in a nearby castle. Unfortunately for the travelers, the castle's owner, Dr. Wendell Marlow (Paul Naschy), turns out to be none other than Count Dracula. After Dracula falls in love with one of the women, she must decide whether to live eternally as Dracula's bride or reject him and continue to live as a mortal. Her not-so-surprising choice leads to a strange and surprising ending. Like a lot of '70s European horror movies, the film suffers from slow pacing and a somewhat muddled plot. But there's lots of gothic atmosphere and a few creepy moments here and there to keep things interesting. Worth a look.

Paul Naschy authored the story and co-wrote the screenplay for this decent vehicle for himself. He plays Dr. Wendell Marlow, who offers sanctuary to five travelers on their way through the Carpathian mountains. They consist of four gorgeous babes and the studly male Imre (Victor Alcazar); Imre is certainly in enviable company. Of course, there are no prizes for guessing who Marlow REALLY is. He falls in love with one of the woman, and she will ultimately have to make a decision: "live" forever as his bride, or turn him down and live as a mortal.

Only the amusing ending lifts this above average for this genre. It does have a fair bit to offer Euro horror lovers, like the expected sex (some of the ladies bare their breasts), the violence (the camera really loves zooming in on the red stuff), and the sadism (virgin girls are whipped so their torturers can lick up their blood). And, of course, it's a Naschy film, so you can't really go wrong. The thing is, the film just doesn't have that great a story. Other than that ending, there's nothing nuanced or particularly interesting about it.

At least viewers can soak up that atmosphere common to so much Euro horror. Naschy, as usual, has a compelling presence, and it's nice that he was an actor who embraced being a genre star. The other performances aren't as effective, but it's doubtful that people are going to care too much, since it's such an attractive cast.

The opening credits are priceless, though. They play over a scene of a murder victim tumbling down some stairs. This sequence is reversed and then played again numerous times.

Not prime Naschy, but if you're a completist of his works, you'll still want to see it.

Six out of 10.

Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy's take on another traditional monster (making for the blood-sucking Count's beefiest incarnation since Lon Chaney Jr.'s turn in SON OF Dracula [1943]) results in one of his more enjoyable efforts, albeit given the "Euro-Cult" style's trademark languid approach and with a few weird touches all its own. This begins with the shot illustrating a man falling down the cellar steps of Dracula's castle after having his head split open with an axe being repeated ad nauseam all through the credit sequence! As the film opens, Dracula is hiding under the guise of a Dr. Kargos (presumably a play on the meshing of Karloff and Lugosi a' la our very own Joe Karlosi ) at an abandoned nearby sanatorium while also assuming the duties of butler at his own castle! Soon, his quest for peace and solitude is interrupted with a vengeance by the arrival of no less than five strangers – one man and four(!) women; the latter ostensibly serve the function of duplicating the count's three brides featured in Bram Stoker's original novel (and a handful of its myriad screen incarnations), with the remaining girl filling in the requirements of the title. Anyway, following some bed-hopping antics (the nudity being crudely inserted since the Spanish censor's repressive hand would only allow such fare to be released in "clothed" versions!), the cast of characters rapidly starts joining the ranks of the undead – leaving only the heroine (gorgeous, doe-eyed Haydee' Politoff whom I was recently impressed by in the obscure but fairly good erotic giallo INTERRABANG [1969]). Also in the cast are Rosanna Yanni (from Jess Franco's two "Red Lips" films from 1967) and others bearing such dubious names as Vic Winner and Ingrid Garbo (her character is named Marlene to boot)!; on a personal note, it was nice to see character actor Jose' Manuel Martin (who had been one of the beggars in Luis Bunuel's VIRIDIANA [1961]) as Dracula' first victim – subsequently 'residing' in his house, he notches up victims of his own and is even killed by the master (oddly enough, all vampires here contrive to dispose of one another) for daring to attack his beloved! Other unusual ideas, then, include: the fact that Dracula's prowlings occur on full-moon nights (as if he expects to turn into a werewolf?!); his having a dead daughter, which he intends to revive by mixing the blood of a virgin (Politoff, who rather than being vampirized has a knife driven through her throat in the manner of a conjuror's act) and an innocent (a village girl his brides abduct and present before him to be whipped)!; and, perhaps most baffling of all, Politoff's rejection of Dracula's offer to live eternally by his side throws him into such a dejected state (apparently, he has fallen hard for her) that not only is he willing to give up on his daughter's revitalization but actually commits suicide by piercing his own heart with a wooden stake! As I said, the film is certainly among the better of the star's vehicles that I have come across (though still not adding up to a completely successful work) and, in fact, this viewing inspired me to acquire another Spanish variant on the theme i.e. THE Dracula SAGA (1972), directed by frequent Naschy collaborator Leon Klimovsky but not involving the redoubtable Jacinto Molina himself