Blood on the Soapsuds

Poland's Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water) is hopping mad about The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck. Alleging that his U.S. producers cut 19 minutes of footage and otherwise tampered with his handiwork, he sputters: "What I made was a funny, spook fairy tale, and this is a sort of Transylvanian Beverly Hillbillies!"

Polanski has requested that he not be mentioned in any connection with the movie. The difficulty is that there are so many connections: he not only directed but also helped write the film, plays one of the principal parts himself, and his girl friend (Sharon Tate) is the female lead. But it is easy to see why Polanski would prefer to blush unseen. Neither spooky nor spoofy, Vampire Killers never manages to get out of the coffin.

Hunting the wily vampire, a batty professor (Jack MacGowran) and his simpleton assistant (Polanski) come to Dracula country and put up at an inn suspiciously festooned in garlic--a well-known specific against bloodsuckers. Things augur well when the luscious Sharon Tate is savagely fondled and fangled in her bath by caped Count Krolock, who makes off with her into the snowy night, leaving a sinister splash of blood on the soapsuds. But by the time that professor and assistant totter to the rescue with their bag of crucifixes (to ward off the vampires), the plot creaks even more than the doors and floor boards of Krolock Castle.

There are some pretty snowscapes, though, shot in the Italian Dolomites. And there is one hilarious reprise of an old burlesque gag: girl in bed raises crucifix to thwart approaching snaggletooth, who merely chuckles. "Baby," he says in a richly Yiddish accent, "hev you ever got the wrong vempire!"

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