Count Yorga, Vampire

Count Yorga, Vampire was originally conceived as a soft core porno horror film under the title The Loves of Count Iorga, Vampire. The script was by Bob Kelljan with Michael Macready serving as producer and co-star. Robert Quarry, a friend of actor George Macready (best known as the husband of Rita Hayworth in Gilda, 1946), was visiting the actor in 1970 and recalled that his son Michael wanted him to read something. "Michael gave me the script to read, not really wanting me to play the part at the time. So I read it and said, 'This is a neat little horror film. Why don't you cut out the soft porno sh*t and just do a straight horror film. And that's when he and his father George said, 'Okay, we'll do that if you play the lead role." And I said, 'Sure. Just cut out the porno sh*t.' They still left a couple of 'unexplainable' scenes just in case they couldn't sell the film as a straight horror movie. Like there was a secretary with Roger Perry [Dr. Hayes in the film], and if the film didn't work, they could cut to a shot of her bopping her buns off in the outer office, with a lesbian or a male client." Quarry was making the Stuart Rosenberg film WUSA (1970), starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins, at the same time he was making Count Yorga, Vampire. Recalling that time, Quarry remarked, "Well, Paul [Newman] always quit at 6 o'clock, and since we were shooting Yorga on location, and as vampires only 'work' at night, we could only shoot when the sun went down right up until it came up. So I was shooting Yorga from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. on weekdays and weekends." During an interview with Steve Biodrowski for the Hollywood Gothique website, Quarry stated that "I quit the first night. They called me at 12:30 in the afternoon. We were on location in Agora [a fairly isolated area northwest of Los Angeles], where it was about 110 degrees. So I got there and put on all that vampire drag. I sat there, and waited, and waited. They said , 'We can't shoot you until the sun goes down.' I thought, 'Well, why did you call me at 12:30?' So I sat there patiently and ate some cold pizza. Around four o'clock in the morning, I was called to come on the set. The first shot that I did was where the kids were in the station wagon or whatever you call it, and my feet walk across the grass. The director said, 'Cut, that's a print. That's it for the day.' I stormed off into the night – I was making a lousy exit, was what I was doing. I got out into the night, and I got lost. They came by in a car and said, 'Do you want a ride?' I said, 'No, I'm quitting this movie! I'm going home and I'm never coming back.' They said it was a mistake, so I said, 'Okay, you get your act together, and I'll come back.' Once I got off my high horse, we got to working together. But it was hard work. We had just four crewmembers – that's it. They were all happy on plum wine and grass! There was one make-up man and a few guys with little arc lights. You say the film was 'dark and mysterious' – the film was dark and mysterious because we didn't have enough lights." Quarry related another anecdote for the Hollywood Gothique website interview concerning his accent. "When we first discussed the picture, I asked if they wanted [me to sound like Bela Lugosi saying] 'Ah, the Children of the Night...' I didn't want to do that, but I could get some kind of European thing going. So I learned the whole part with an accent, with a dialect, and then just took it out. As a kid from California I had worked very hard with a good voice coach to learn that 'transatlantic' accent, so I could play something besides Kansas City or Brooklyn. I started with a voice in a register up [high], and I had to get it lower to work on the thing. Christopher Lee is still working on it." In terms of making Count Yorga, Vampire, "The hardest thing was being put in that coffin and having the lid lowered down on my face," Quarry confessed. "That was really tough, because I'm a little claustrophobic. Boom, down came the lid, sitting on my nose, and I thought, 'God, get me out of here!'" The character Brudah, Yorga's manservant, was of some concern to Quarry as well because of his disheveled, tattered appearance. "Here we are in this house all done up, and there's this incredible looking thing over there," the actor said to interviewer Steve Biodrowski. "I kept telling the director, 'Can't I take him to Sears for a new suit? We'll all chip in and dress him up a little bit.'" Although Quarry was initially embarrassed by the rough cuts of the film, he changed his mind when the movie was previewed. "I'll never forget the first test screening I went to at the Fox Wilshire Theatre," he recalled. "I was hiding in the balcony. But when the movie was over, the theatre goers were saying to each other how good this guy Quarry was and there I was, right in the middle of the crowd! But not a soul recognized me. It's very funny when you do something like that; it becomes your identity. And because it's a make-believe character, people don't think anybody human could possibly do it." In an interview with Steve Ryfle for Maniac Stuff, Robert Quarry was asked if he had any fond memories of the two Yorga films and he replied, "Yes, the second Count Yorga, because Mariette Hartley is a dear friend and a very fine actress...she's really one of the funniest ladies around. In the first [Count Yorga] movie, there was a line where I looked at the mother and said, 'Thoon we will be together, and thoon I will thuck from your veinth the thweet nectar of life.' Because with those fangs on, I couldn't talk; they made you lisp. They cut it [the line] out of the first movie, but they brought it back for the second one. Mariette was laying on the bed, and I come around quietly in the dark, and I say the line: 'Thoon I will thuck from your veinth the thweet nectar of life.'...It took 37 takes to get that scene, for me to say that line, and they cut it out of the movie, because it was such a terrible line! I can't remember a line of Shakespeare. But forever imbedded in my memory is 'Thoon I will thuck from your veinth the thweet nectar of life,' sounding like Porky Pig!" Interview with Steve Ryfle, Maniac Stuff Quarry also noted in the Hollywood Gothique website that he "enjoyed playing Yorga. The fun of making movies is the fun of getting outside yourself. I had been playing heavies all my life, but there were more real – just with or without a mustache. So it was fun to use some of the --what I hope were-skills I had developed by this time." Compiled by Jeff Stafford SOURCES: Psychotronic Video Number 33, "Robert Quarry – Count Yorga Rises Again!," Interview by Anthony Petkovich Video Watchdog No. 116, Count Yorga, Vampire & The Return of Count Yorga reviews by Richard Harland Smith Cinefantastique Winter 1971, film review by John R. Duvoli Hollywood Gothique, "Count Yorga Speaks" by Steve Biodrowski, hollywoodgothique.bravejournal.com/ IMDB

Robert Quarry, the star of Count Yorga, Vampire, has been a film actor since 1943 when he scored his first bit part in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. He has also appeared in various episodes of such television series as The Millionaire [1955], Mike Hammer [1958], Sea Hunt [1959], Perry Mason [1965], and The Rockford Files [1977-79]. Count Yorga, Vampire was Quarry's first major starring role and the film's surprise popularity encouraged producers James Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff to offer him a contract and groom him as a new horror star to rival their current heir to the throne, Vincent Price. After the two Yorga films, Quarry would co-star with Price in Dr. Phibes Rises Again [1972] and Madhouse [1974] but he soon discovered that being typecast as a horror star had its limitations. "...I remember when it started happening to me, it really pretty much ended everything," Quarry admitted in an interview with Anthony Petkovich. "They didn't develop me as a property at AIP. They just let me go down the drain...Sam [Arkoff] didn't know what to do. He knew how to buy movies, but that's about it." It was Robert Quarry's association with actor George Macready (Paths of Glory [1957], The Big Clock[1948]) that led to his involvement with Count Yorga, Vampire. Their collaboration was a huge success with Robert and Michael in key roles and George Macready as the voiceover narrator. The trio reteamed for The Return of Count Yorga. This time George Macready had a cameo (it was his last film, he died in July of 1973), Michael focused solely on producing and Quarry repeated his signature role. Despite Quarry's immense success as Count Yorga, it was the Macreadys and director/screenwriter Bob Kelljan who reaped the profits. In an interview with Psychotronic Video, Quarry admitted, "Bob [Kelljan] and Michael [Macready] got their $2 million cut from the film. And they were so grateful to me that they sent me a bonus check. I only made $1249 for the whole thing. We shot it over three or four weeks, and I charged them $5 more than minimum. Well, they sent me a check for $350 out of their $2 million...a check which I was going to tear up, I was so angry about the whole thing. But then I thought, 'Well, $350...I can take four people out to the best restaurant in town.' So I gave a dinner party on my $350 bonus. I was going to frame it and write under it, 'Their gratitude knew a lot of bounds.'" Between Count Yorga, Vampire and its sequel, Quarry made Deathmaster [1972], in which he played a vampire who becomes the Charles Manson-like cult leader of a hippie commune. The film was directed by former actor turned director Ray Danton but was not a success due to a poor script and erratic direction. One thing that Robert Quarry noticed about Count Yorga, Vampire was its popularity with Afro-American audiences. "I'd be in some restaurant," he said, "and the black waitress would go, 'Is you Count Yorga?' I was never Robert Quarry...I was always 'Count Yorga.'" Bob Kelljan, the director/writer of both Yorga films, went on to helm Scream Blacula Scream (1973), starring William Marshall and Pam Grier, right after The Return of Count Yorga. He also directed two other drive-in exploitation classics, Act of Vengeance [1974, aka Rape Squad] and Black Oak Conspiracy [1977], and TV episodes of such cult favorites as Wonder Woman, Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels. Roger Perry, who plays the Van Helsing counterpart to Quarry's Dracula imitation in both Yorga films, was better known as a television actor. He was briefly married to Laugh-In star Jo Anne Worley. The most famous actor to emerge from the Yorga films and break into mainstream Hollywood cinema is Michael Murphy, who plays the ill-fated Paul. He would become a regular ensemble player in director Robert Altman's films, beginning with Countdown [1968] all the way up to Tanner on Tanner (2004) for the Sundance Channel. He also made memorable impressions in The Front [1976] co-starring Woody Allen and the latter's Manhattan [1979], Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman [1978], Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously [1982], Oliver Stone's Salvador [1986], Batman Returns [1992] as the Mayor, and Away from Her [2006]. Edward Walsh, who plays the Igor-like Brudah in both Yorga films was at one time a part of the New York music scene and appears as himself in the short Exploding Plastic Inevitable [1967] which spotlights the seminal '60s group, The Velvet Underground. He would later carve out a character actor career in television and movies. His final film credits before his death in 1997 were Another 48 Hours [1990] and Walter Hill's Johnny Handsome [1989]. None of the main actresses who starred in Count Yorga, Vampire had very extensive film careers. D. J. Anderson who plays Donna, also starred in Werewolves on Wheels [1971] but her last screen credit was in 1993 for a bit role in the USA TV movie, Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story. Count Yorga, Vampire was the last film credit for Judy Lang who plays the vampirized Erica; she also starred in The Psycho Lover [1970] and Roger Corman's The Trip [1967]. Indications that Count Yorga, Vampire was originally intended to be a soft core sex/horror film appear to be confirmed by the conspicuous appearance of exploitation actresses Julie Conners as Cleo, Marsha Jordan as Donna's mother and Deborah Darnell. Ms. Conners has appeared in Narcotics: Pit of Despair [1967], Ray Dennis Steckler's Body Fever [1969], and The Curious Female [1970]. Deborah Darnell appeared in Pink Garter Gang [1971] but Marsha Jordan is the real veteran with more than 43 film credits for such "Adults only" features as Dr. Sex [1964], From Woman to Woman to Woman [1968], Infrasexum [1969], Her Odd Tastes [1969] and Breast Orgy [1972]. Often referred to as the "Queen of Soft Core" in the '60s, Jordan grew up in a Catholic convent and worked for awhile as a flight attendant for Delta. Robert Quarry later remarked on some of his live appearances at promotional tours for the Yorga films in Psychotronic Video: "Some really sick fans would show up at my guest appearances...really sick...When I went out on tour girls and women would crowd in on me to get my autograph, get right up to me, and just pee right down the front of my clothes. They'd be so beside themselves that they'd actually wet themselves. I never understood it...I'll also never forget this one theatre in St. Louis. The place was packed....and I sort of halfway turned my back, and I felt a kind of pressure. And then the whole back of me was wet. As it turned out, some guy had masturbated behind me and shamelessly came on my clothes...My favorite story, though, was when I was in Chicago...here was this little, slight, skinny guy. So I put my arm on his shoulder and he said, 'Smile.' So I turned to him with a smile and he turned to me and smiled and do you know that he filed every one of his teeth down into fangs? All of them! I'm sure the picture came out with him smiling at me with his mouth full of sharpened fangs and me looking down at him in horror with my jaw just dropping. And I thought, 'Two years from now, this kid's going to be the Vampire Killer of Chicago and they're going to find the picture of me...with my arm around him." by Jeff Stafford SOURCES: Psychotronic Video Number 33, "Robert Quarry – Count Yorga Rises Again!," Interview by Anthony Petkovich Video Watchdog No. 116, Count Yorga, Vampire & The Return of Count Yorga reviews by Richard Harland Smith Cinefantastique Winter 1971, film review by John R. Duvoli Hollywood Gothique, "Count Yorga Speaks" by Steve Biodrowski, hollywoodgothique.bravejournal.com/ IMDB

"...Count Yorga, which has snatches of seedy insight into the paraphernalia of vampirism and, in Robert Quarry, the best chief vampire I have seen in years. But the special appeal of Count Yorga may well be its Los Angeles locale...Count Yorga's ambience is pure Hollywood, and the seamy elegance of Robert Quarry's performance as a mysterious medium who has a handy supply of spirits of the dead lying around down-stairs exactly compliments that ambience. Bob Kelljan's direction, often resourceful, does especially well by Quarry's disdainful civility-particularly toward Dr. Hayes (Roger Perry), his principal adversary...There are other pleasures. Count Yorga's rented mansion features a gothic basement-complete with three toothsome female vampires breathing heavily in diaphanous gowns while waiting to do their master's bidding." - Roger Greenspun, The New York Times "This low-budget modern-day vampire movie is primitive but not unimaginative. ...The flip humour and gruesome effects have lost the novelty value that appealed to cult audiences in 1970, but Yorga remains an intriguing off-shoot to the vampire family tree." - Tom Charity, TimeOut "A semi-professional film that looks it but amid the longueurs provides one or two nasty frissons." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide "For most of the film's well-paced length, writer-director Robert Kelljan seems to have a good thing going. The script is literate, the situations well thought through and the dialogue natural and inventive. Something goes very seriously wrong near the end though, and the multiple trick endings which leave everyone either dead or a vampire is frantic, silly and not at all credible. Up until this we find ourselves believing in the film." - John R. Duvoli, Cinefantastique "This movie set in contemporary Los Angeles adopts a manner at once offbeat and strangely matter of fact...The low-key treatment offsets authentically nasty moments like that in which Lang is discovered devouring a cat, and Quarry.....cuts a commanding figure." - The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies "Low-budget horror film, which has awful lighting and make-up, was quite popular because genre fans were starved for a new vampire. Quarry is effectively evil as Yorga, but I wish there were more nuances to his character. Could this be the first horror film in which young lovers are attacked while in their van? (Probably not.) Lengthy, terribly directed, bloody finale in the Count's castle is amusing." - Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic "Originally planned as a sex film, this contemporary version of the tale was shot for just $65,000.....Director Kelljan works marvels with his limited budget and offers some genuinely scary moments. - Channel 4 Film Quarry makes for a very menacing vampire, one who is able to be charming at will, yet subject to fits of temper and animalistic behavior...the script has some interesting twists, such as the effort of the heroes to drop in on the Count in the wee hours of the morning and attempt to keep him up past sunrise. Quarry is at his most menacing here, with a barely controlled rage bubbling under the surface of his feigned civility. A number of points, including the ending, seem to be swipes from Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). This notably includes the odd makeup of the Count's deformed henchman, here called Brudah (Edward Walsh). There are a few sizable lapses as well. Dr. Hayes insists that there must be vampires because it has never been proven that there aren't. Aside from the logical silliness of this argument, it certainly sets him up to be laughably credulous." - Mark Zimmer, DigitallyObsessed.com "Goofy today, trendy when released." - John Stanley, Creature Features "Fast-paced and convincing" - Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide "In one of the best vampire movies of the early '70s, Quarry is excellent as the sardonic Bulgarian vampire....It's funny and scary in about equal proportions, with...a jolting, if predictable, surprise ending." - James O'Neill, Terror on Tape

Count Yorga to Donna: "Keep your eyes on the flame. Watch it as it flows seeping into darkness. You are beginning to feel a deep sense of soft comfort. You are now at peace. There is nothing to fear, nothing. You are safe, safe as long as you listen to all that I say. You will forget everything you saw at the séance. It will be wiped from your memory forever. Count Yorga to Erica: It's not very attractive to complain of a troubled stomach but I'm afraid I must. Perhaps I'll have a little snack later on. Count Yorga to Paul & Erica: Drive carefully. The old hill road to the gate is narrow and can be treacherous. Dr. Hayes to Erica: You've lost an unusual amount of blood. That's the reason for your dizziness. When you get home I want you to stuff yourself with steaks. Steaks! I want you to eat them as rare as possible. Count Yorga: Erica, my darling, I've come to offer you eternal love, to keep you with me forever. Love lasting centuries, magnificence beyond existence. This I now give to you. Dr. Hayes to Erica (as he examines a fresh neck wound): Absolutely fascinating. I've never seen anything like it. Are you sure you didn't fall against anything? Erica: Please don't hate me Paul. God, I'm so ashamed. Paul to Dr. Hayes: Now what you're saying is Count Yorga is responsible for Erica's condition and he's a vampire? Count Yorga: Doctor Hayes, what an unexpected surprise. Dr. James Hayes: Yes, so much so that I almost had a massive coronary. Count Yorga: Sometimes vampires get given rather a bad press which can be a little unfair. Dr. Hayes: Vampires have always fascinated me. Count Yorga: They should. Their intelligence is far superior to humans. Dr. Hayes: Are you saying a vampire isn't human? Count Yorga: They live forever. Humans cannot. Dr. Hayes: Michael, how would you feel about driving a stake through somebody's heart? Count Yorga to Dr. Hayes: Would you care now to see what you hope not to see? Count Yorga to Dr. Hayes: You enjoyed your little joke last night. You can see that tonight is mine. Count Yorga to Dr. Hayes (who flashes a crucifix at him): You really are naïve! Compiled by Jeff Stafford