The Vampire

Carl Kolchak(Darren McGavin) returns to Las Vegas(the setting of his debut case in "The Night Stalker") to investigate a resurrected vampire, a female victim of original vampire Janos Skorzeny, who has gone back to her old job as female escort, but who also kills anyone she needs to for their blood, including a football player! Carl traces her to her lair, much to the chagrin of local police Lt. Jack Matteo(played by William Daniels). Best episode of the series is quite exciting and action-packed, with a most memorable climax with the fiery cross and a most amusing performance by William Daniels, whose astonishment of Kolchak is quite a sight to see.

The two best episodes of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" are this one, and "The Ripper", about THE Jack the Ripper.

Some of the other episodes in the series weren't very good, like the one where aliens are sucking the bone marrow out of animals.

If you rent the first DVD in the series, it has "The Ripper " and "The Vampire" on it. You can rent the other DVD's, but none of them will be as good as the first.

I'm not sure why the episodes went down hill as the show went on, but they definitely did.

Kolchak was a real smart aleck, and it's easy to see why people in positions of authority would despise him. He was arrogant and abrasive, a real know-it-all. He would have been fired after every episode, if somebody in real life did the kind of things he did.

But he had an uncanny knack for cutting through the bull crap and figuring out what was REALLY going on. And that's the main reason why the police and other authorities didn't like him---he would poke holes in their phony explanations, and rub their nose in it. He intensely enjoyed showing them up.

But they always had it coming to them. The cops were always trying to cover their behinds, or protect some secret. But Kolchak tried to tell the truth, for the greater good of society.

"The Vampire" is that rare episode set outside Chicago, Kolchak making the trek out West to follow up his Las Vegas caper from the 1971 "Night Stalker" to battle one of the victims of Janos Skorzeny, its hands rising from a shallow grave in front of a terrified motorist. A better than usual guest cast kicks things off with Larry Storch as swindler turned newscaster Swede, reporting a series of blood drained corpses west of LA to a suddenly attentive Kolchak, Kathleen Nolan (THE REAL MCCOYS) as a real estate agent eager to forge a new career in journalism by helping out on Carl's assigned story (Vincenzo wise to the shaving razor game), John Doucette as a Barstow deputy who confirms that one victim had bite marks on his throat, plus a stolen car with the windows taped black on the inside to keep out the deadly sunlight. Acclaimed Broadway veteran William Daniels makes for a more distinguished police presence, as exasperated by Kolchak's methods as his predecessors yet a little more respectful in the end. Actual Los Angeles landmarks shown include the famous Capitol building shaped like a stack of records, the legendary Hollywood Sign in the Santa Monica mountains (originally built in 1923), and Cahuenga Blvd.'s Hollywood Cross, which will come in handy for the fiery climax (all still standing today). The original script was set in New York City, Barry Atwater's Janos Skorzeny intended to make his return, but the final result goes in a different direction and proves a worthy sequel to the events that introduced Carl Kolchak to viewing audiences back in January 1972.

In many ways this episode is an improvement over the full-length television movie that appeared two years earlier in 1972, although the monsters are the same -- vampires. For one thing, there is more of Simon Oakland as Kolchak's boss at the news service. Not much, but more. For another, and this may be a little difficult to grasp, the story is better structured. More thought has been woven into the script. I'll give one example of what I mean.

Kolchak is sent from Chicago to Los Angeles to interview a famous guru, similar to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that the Beatles were enthralled by. But the guy has flown the coop. Meanwhile Kolchak has picked up the scent of a local vampire. Still, in order to file his story about the interview and satisfy his boss, Kolchak visits the guru's now empty house, where a pretty real estate agent who majored in journalism tries to sell him the mansion. Kolchak recruits her. She will write stories about the guru under his name, while he pursues the vampire.

So far, so good. And so what? But here's what I mean by structure. The pretty agent works hard at putting the reports together, although Kolchak has to warn her against using "oft" and "nary" in a news report. Back in Chicago, Oakland gets the report and calls Kolchak. Yes, says Kolchak, I wrote it. Pretty good, eh? But no, it's not! shouts Oakland. It reads exactly like a REAL ESTATE AD. Three luscious bedrooms, an adobe gazebo, and so forth. It has nothing to do with the guru. And Kolchak is teetering on the brink of unemployment. One of the writers had to plant that joke, and to do it they had to take the context of the entire story into account. It isn't much, but it's evidence that some work had gone into the writing. It's the sort of thing that's completely lacking in the 1972 movie.

But then there is generally more humor sprinkled through the narrative, often no more than one liners. Kolchak makes a pest of himself with the police lieutenant (the splendid William Daniels) and when the lieutenant asks angrily what paper Kolchak works for, he answers blithely, "The Manchester Guardian", tips his hat and makes a hasty exit. Now known simply as "The Guardian," it's one of the most famous and respected newspapers in the world.

He passes himself off to a reluctant informant as an agent of the "I.N.S.", which sounds terrifying but only stands for International News Service. He arranges for a visit from a hooker he's identified as a vampire and when she enters his darkened hotel room, he suddenly switches on the light and lunges toward her, holding a big crucifix in front of him. But it's the wrong girl. She's startled and asks, "Okay, what's going on, Father." All of this is underplayed, not stressed.

I keep calling him "Kolchak" instead of "Darren McGavin" because it's hard not to. He inhabits the role, a hypermanic, stuttering Type A personality. He gets professional support from the other performers. The episode is fast and satisfying.

Darren McGavin gets an assignment from Simon Oakland to fly to Las Vegas to interview some Hindu guru who had a bit of a vogue at the time when the Beatles had one as a consultant. Ravi Shankar and his music were also popular at the time.

Instead he gets sidetracked with a vampire story, one who's killing her way to Los Angeles from Las Vegas. Kolchak wants to not just get the story, he wants to kill her permanently and by now he's read up enough on the occult to do it.

If he can avoid police interference like John Doucette as a redneck sheriff's deputy or William Daniels as an LA police captain. He has a way of rubbing law enforcement the wrong way, especially when they're covering up.

You'll have to see how he does it because I won't tell.