From Oui (July 1974). I was able to make my dislike of Blood for Dracula more apparent here than I could when I interviewed Paul Morrissey around the same time in Paris (and for the same magazine), for what proved to be the March 1975 issue. -– J.R.

Blood for Dracula. A Dracula movie by the director

of Flesh, Trash, and Heat (all of which, incidentally,

are currently playing in Paris)? That’s what the credits

say. Blood for Dracula, a grisly number shot in Italy

by Paul Morrissey and coproduced by Andy Warhol,

combines Factory superstar Joe Dallesandro with a

host of authentic European weirdos, including a Count

Dracula (Udo Kier) who puts a lot of greasy stuff in his

hair and sets off for Italy in search of virgin blood.

Unfortunately, the first two damsels he samples aren’t

exactly chaste, leading to a couple of spectacular

vomiting fits. Dallesandro plays a revolutionary peasant

with a a Brooklyn accent who filches most of the available

feminine goodies before the count can get to them, and

then turns hatchet man for the Grand Guignol finale.

Directors Vittorio De Sica and Roman Polanski are also on

hand for comic cameos. –-J.R.

The Wedding. The time is 1900, the place a cottage in

Bronowice — a small village not far from Krakow, the old

capital of Poland, and even closer to the Russian frontier,

where World War I is to break out 14 years later. The

event is a boisterous wedding party following the

marriage of anaristocratic poet to a peasant woman.

Andrzei Wajda’s The Wedding is an adaptation of a

turn-of-the century verse drama by Stanislaus

Wyspianski that has been described as he most

celebrated literary work in Poland. Wajda, known

in the West principally for his bittersweet Polish trilogy

about World War II (A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and

Diamonds) offers on this occasion a colorful pageant

overflowing with traditional folklore. Past, present,

and future intermix with fantasy. and all the characters

whirl about to festive polkas as the party drunkenly

wends its way from dusk to dawn. The Wedding is not,

however, all joy.  Anti-Semitism and class conflict form a

central part of the intrigue. Particularly notable are the

dreamlike naturally lighted nocturnal landscapes and

a striking redhead named Maja Komorowska, a Polish

Stella Stevens. –- J.R.