All about "The Vampire's Ghost"

By Doug Gibson

This is an interesting 1945 vampire tale, only 59 minutes, from Republic Pictures. It's semi-obscure and few retailers carry it (I've been waiting years to catch it on Turner Classic Movies) but it's just interesting enough to have a chapter in McFarland's "Son of Guilty Pleasures of the Horror Film" and Frank Dello Stritto gives it a couple of pages in his collection of essays "A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore."

Plot involves saloonkeeper Webb Fallon, a haggard-looking white man with impeccable manners, who runs a small saloon in an African port. There have been vampire attacks on the natives, and they are getting restless. They speak the language of drums, and the drums spell Fallon (John Abbott) as their chief suspect.

They are right of course. Fallon is a vampire, centuries old and very tired. He bemoans his fate but also accepts it with chilling simplicity. When he sets his sights on the pretty fiance of a young Englishman, it looks as if nothing can stop him.

What makes The Vampire's Ghost so interesting is that it deviates from the standard vampire plot made famous by Bela Lugosi. Vampire Fallon can move around in the light and sleeps in a bed with native soil from his grave by the bed.

As mentioned, he's sympathetic early but Webb is able to give his vampire a sort of polite heartlessness that underscores the undead sociopath that lies beneath his gentleman English exterior. In one scene, Fallon ruthlessly and quickly dispatches a boat captain and saloon dancer who have cheated him at cards. He also plays with the boyfriend (Charles Grodin) who knows that Fallon wants his fiance (Peggy Stewart). Fallon the vampire seems detached, as if he is repeating a game he has played many times before. He relies on sapping the inner strength of his potential victims. The languid, remote location of his life (Africa) underscores his soft deadly power.

If you can find this film, it's worth a buy, particularly if you enjoy the changing genres of vampire film. Surprisingly, in its own quiet way, The Vampire's Ghost predates Twilight. It's an example of well a fiilm can be made on a tiny budget. This would be an excellent addition to UEN's Sci-Fi Friday roster.

Notes: The Vampires Ghost was written by Leigh Brackett, who wrote Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back. Roy Barcroft, who played the doomed boat captain, later played a sheriff in the 60s cult film Billy the Kid versus Dracula. The Vampire's Ghost, directed by Lesley Selander, was released on May 21, 1945. In the early 1970s, it played on the TV movie show Creature Features paired with House of Frankenstein. Another good blog review: http://houseinrlyeh.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-short-vampire-ghost-1945.htm

In the Twilight Zone

This editorial originally ran in the Feb. 13 Standard-Examiner.

Twilight! Twilight! Twilight! Bad! Bad! Bad!

Move over, all you evangelicals in the deep South; some Utahns have another bone to pick with children's literature, and it sure ain't "Harry Potter"!

It's the "Twilight" series they are in a snit over.

That's nonsense, of course, but given that today is Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day is just around the corner, we thought vampires, shape-shifters and love an appropriate topic.

To the uninitiated, "Twilight" is Arizona author Stephenie Meyer's clever series of chastity and love between a human girl and a gorgeous, "vegetarian" creature of the undead. We kind of like "Twilight" and its sequels, in which Bella and Edward meet, fall in love, get married and live forever. (There's a lot more to it than just that, but we'll let you read the books.)

Apparently the marriage between Bella and Edward in "Breaking Dawn," the final book in "Twilight," has rankled the folks at Covenant Communications Inc., a Utah publisher. In a news release it pitched to journalists this week, Covenant used some of its writers to attack "Twilight."
Here are some gripes:

"... I am convinced it is none other than pornography for women ..."

* "The book is ... is illicit because the protagonists are of different species."

* "I've asked them (my kids) not to read the 'Twilight' series and had them consider what my husband and I have taught them ..."

OK, time for a chill pill here. First, we have no problem if parents tell their kids no to "Twilight." That's their right as caretakers of their kids. But the idea that the series is pornography or promotes sex between different species is just nuts.

You want to read pornography? Check out the lyrics of a song from Eminem; you won't find pornography in "Breaking Dawn."

The "Twilight" series, including "Breaking Dawn," is full of passion, but they are chaste tales, in which Edward and Bella, in love, regard the after-marriage honeymoon as the appropriate time for sexual intercourse. Despite being inherent opposites, characters in "Twilight" -- beyond just Bella and Edward -- reconcile their differences and resolve long-standing disputes.

And as for that ridiculous claim of "illicit" sex between "different species," only the foggiest mind would read "Breaking Dawn" and compare Bella and Edward's child, Renesmee, to something akin to the growling, bloodthirsty, man/beast Minotaur of Greek mythology.

We've kept our tongue planted in our cheek through much of this editorial, and this may be the last time we respond to a booksellers' pitch, but we think there's a lesson here: All of us -- adults and teenagers -- are going to fantasize about romance. "Twilight" -- in its own passionate manner -- keeps our brains stimulated as well.