Crew
Director/Screenplay/Producer – Laurence Merrick, Photography – Robert Caramico, Music – Des Roberts, Art Direction – Michael Minor. Production Company – Laurence Merrick International.
Cast
Des Roberts (Count Adrian), Claudia Barron (Angelica), John Landon (Guy Howard), Robert Branche (Dr Harris), Yvonne Gandry (Gypsy), Angela Carnon (Nurse)
Plot
Count Dracula has relocated to Los Angeles where he now runs a club he calls Dracula’s Dungeon. He fixates on Angelica and determines to woo her.
In the 1950s and 60s, the Vampire Film had a major boost as a result of the Hammer Dracula films starring Christopher Lee. There was an outpouring of vampire and Dracula Films ranging from modernisations like The Return of Dracula (1958) to the nudie Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969) and tv’s Dark Shadows (1966-71). Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? came out just at the start of a period when the vampire film was trying to adjust to the present-day with the like of Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), The Velvet Vampire (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Night Stalker (1972), George Romero’s Martin (1976) and Salem’s Lot (1979).
Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? is a forgotten obscurity that was made during this period. None of the actors involved have ever gone on to do anything again. The film was barely seen until it was revived some years later. Director Laurence Merrick (1926-77) had previously made the biker film Black Angels (1970) and went on to make the documentary Manson (1973) about Charles Manson. His career was cut short when he was apparently murdered by a stalker.
The plot on which Dracula comes to the US after being forced out of Transylvania by the Communists and fixates on a girl is surprisingly similar to The Return of Dracula and especially the subsequent comedy treatment Love at First Bite (1979). As Dracula, Des Roberts looks like an off-duty Abraham Lincoln impersonator with a very fake looking Shenandoah beard. This is also a Dracula that is shown smoking cigarettes and who runs an exclusive Los Angeles nightclub that he calls Dracula’s Dungeon.
Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? is shot and directed in a way that feel like it was made by amateurs using 16mm. The pacing in the film is inert – scenes drag and it seems like nothing ever really happens. As a vampire film goes, it feels dull to the point of soporific. Des Roberts’ Dracula lurks around and appears in the room of Claudia Barron but nothing much happens there either, while the boyfriend (John Landon) and doctor (Robert Branche) fail to amount to much in the way of vampire hunters.
Trailer here