The Devil's Wedding Night (Luigi Batzella & Joe D'Amato, 1973)

Though the title's a bit of a misnomer (this is a vampire movie), The Devil's Wedding Night is an entertainingly campy bit of Gothic horror, despite the second half having too many pad-the-running-time scenes of characters wandering confusedly through a castle in the dark. Those scenes aside, we get some hilariously arch dialogue, knowingly heightened performances, one of those great scenes in an old-timey inn/tavern where the locals get weird when the out-of-towner says he's going to the spooky castle (I never get tired of that), blood, copious nudity, an amulet vs. ring accoutrement showdown, a Pazuzu namedrop (shoutout to Pazuzu and my fellow Exorcist II defenders), and lots of vampire action. It's a reasonably good '70s b-movie time.

The movie begins with playboy archeologist Karl (Mark Damon, in one of his final roles before he became a big-shot movie producer) in his cozy library/study, researching the existence of the Nibelungen in the ancient tomes. He's convinced the ring is is real, has been used by a succession of historical figures (Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, etc.) to control the world, and is most likely somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania at present. He impulsively decides to find it, seize it, and put it on permanent display at an archeological museum, where it will be free from the hands of men. This begs the question, if the ring is so powerful, wouldn't there be constant attempts to steal it from the museum? Maybe put it in a safe and bury it in a secret location?

Karl's twin brother Franz (also played by Damon) enters the study and begins razzing Karl with some poetry from hot new talent Edgar Allan Poe. Franz doubts the ring is real, but if it is, he thinks Karl should make some money off of it instead of donating it to a museum. He's also mildly concerned about Karl's impending journey to Transylvania, especially when Karl tells him he's going to Castle Dracula. Just in case vampires are real, Franz gives Karl an amulet that wards off their power and says he'll make the trip, too, if Karl gets in any trouble. Why does he have that amulet? These are some strange dudes.

Karl makes the long trip to Transylvania on horseback, where he fails to notice a creepy man in the woods smiling at him. He arrives at the inn, spooks the locals by asking about the castle, and orders a "very tall beer and a warm bed." The creepy smiling guy is there, too, but Karl again does not notice. The innkeeper's attractive daughter Tanya (Enza Sbordone) takes him to his room, where she warns him about vampires and tells him he's arrived the evening before the Night of the Virgin Moon. Every 50 years, five virgins make their way to the castle and never return. She's scared. Karl tells her vampires aren't real and he's got a pretty sweet amulet to ward them off if they are. He also apologizes about prioritizing his own safety "when (dramatic pause) I should be (dramatic pause) worried about (dramatic pause) yours." With each dramatic pause, Karl moves closer to the woman's lips. You don't need to be the Psychic Friends Network to know what happens next.

Fresh from bedding down Tanya, Karl hops on his horse and rides to Castle Dracula. Guess what? He left the amulet at the inn. (Oh shiiit!) A creepy servant named Lara (Esmeralda Barros) answers his knocking. He presents the lie that he's an architect studying the castles of Europe and would like a tour. She allows his entry and tells him the mistress of the house is away. Bored of waiting, Karl wanders the castle, checks out the crypt, and finally meets Countess Dracula (Rosalba Neri). After some amusing banter, they have a late dinner together. Karl does his best playboy seduction routine, the countess reciprocates with some hilarious dialogue that goes over Karl's head. Soon, they're knockin' boots, but the countess turns into a bat mid-coitus and gives Karl the ol' neck-chomp. Karl's one of the gang now. And, oh yes, the countess has the ring.

It's going to be a great Night of the Virgin Moon. The countess thinks Karl will make a fantastic new husband, and she can finally move on from the dear departed Count Dracula. First, she'll bathe in the blood of the five virgins with the assistance of Lara, a big bald vampire enforcer dude, and five hooded vampire men who will take the dead virgins as their coffin brides for the next half-century. Then, Karl will make a blood sacrifice of Tanya (kidnapped while attempting to bring the amulet to Karl), and the wedding will ensue. The countess and Karl will live happily ever after.

These plans are complicated when Franz shows up. Though Franz told his brother he'd make the trip if he heard that something went wrong, he seemingly left mere hours after his brother. I don't know if a scene explaining this quick move was cut from the print I watched or what. Whatever the case, the countess tells Franz his brother visited but abruptly left. She then asks him to stay the night and the creeping smiling guy brings some wine. Smiley guy turns into Lara, everyone starts cackling like mad, and Franz, Lara, and the countess possibly have a threesome, though this segment is so confusingly/artily edited that it may all be a hallucination in Franz's mind.

Unexpected brotherly visitations handled (sort of), the countess and her cohorts finally get the Virgin Moon ceremony underway, the important first step of which involves Lara ripping the tops off the virgins and rubbing their breasts. You may think this is gratuitous, but I believe in trusting the process. It's an important part of the ceremony and can't be skipped. Will the rest of the ceremony proceed as planned? What do you think?

As I mentioned earlier, there are too many minutes of one character or another walking through the dark castle in the second half of the film, but the rest of the pulpy, Gothy, vampy biz mostly makes up for the repetitive bits. The movie has so many of the '60s and '70s Euro-horror pleasures, and the cast know exactly what kind of movie they're in and pitch their performances accordingly. The ridiculous multiple-twist ending is pretty damn fun, too.

The Devil's Wedding Night credits list Paul Solvay as the director, though that name is an Americanized pseudonym for Luigi Batzella. Rosalba Neri said Batzella's direction seemed like two people "going different directions and rarely meeting." The producers must have reached the same conclusion, because wildly prolific Italian b-movie filmmaker Joe D'Amato (real name Aristide Massaccesi) was called in for extensive reshoots, which were extensive enough to see him credited as co-director years after the film's release. It doesn't hurt the movie much, and there are no wild clashes in visual style, though I'd like to know who to blame for the castle-wandering scenes. I have to mention this every time Joe D'Amato's name comes up, but he used dozens of pseudonyms over the course of his career, my favorite being his spaghetti western name: Arizona Massachuset.

King of the Zombies (Jean Yarbrough, 1941)

King of the Zombies, a reliably entertaining b-movie horror-comedy, is also a classic example of white supremacy's perversity. The movie is simultaneously racist and anti-racist. The white characters, heroes and villains alike, and, to a lesser extent, the filmmakers, treat the black characters with bemused condescension, and the black actors are placed in stereotypical roles. However, the movie also regularly highlights and criticizes the primary villain's racism, and the black characters, played by a stacked cast of pioneering black actors, have more vitality and personality and are quicker to understand what's happening in any given situation than their white counterparts. The black actors carry the movie, and their characters are the ones who connect with the audience. It's a fascinatingly contradictory stew, and the product of a country that may never stop being insane.

The film opens with a small U.S. transport plane, en route from Cuba to Puerto Rico, encountering some fierce weather. The three men onboard are pilot James McCarthy (Dick Purcell), Bill Summers (John Archer, fellow native of my home state of Nebraska and father of famous actress/Scientology wingnut Anne Archer), and Bill's valet Jefferson "Jeff" Jackson (Mantan Moreland). Bill's profession is a bit of a mystery the film never solves. He works for the government in some capacity, but that work is possibly some kind of secret. I had a sinking feeling during this opening scene. Moreland has to do the stereotypical bug-eyed scaredy-cat routine while calling his boss "Massa Bill," and the white men are mildly condescending while being steady and calm. It's the usual Hollywood racism of the period, and I worried we'd be in for a long 67 minutes. Thankfully, this is the worst of it.

The men realize this is the same general location where a Navy admiral's plane recently went missing and decide they need to make a quick plan. The weather is too rough to make Puerto Rico. After picking up a radio signal from a nearby island, James makes an emergency landing. The rough landing damages the plane, and James gets a gash on the head, but otherwise the men are alive and kicking, though they've landed next to a graveyard. After regaining their composure and getting their bearings, they see a spooky mansion. Jeff is the only one who expresses hesitation about entering it. He's way ahead of his peers from now on.

The mansion is owned by creepy exiled Austrian Dr. Miklos Sangre (Henry Victor, third choice for the part after Bela Lugosi couldn't get his schedule aligned and Peter Lorre and the producers couldn't agree on the salary), a racist weirdo who takes an immediate interest in James and Bill and an immediate dislike to Jeff. Sangre tells them a supply boat will arrive on the island in two weeks. In the meantime, they can stay with him. James and Bill accept the offer. Sangre offers the men fine brandy from Europe, but when Jeff reaches for his glass, it isn't there. Only the white guys get the brandy. Sangre also makes it clear that Jeff can't stay in the large room prepared for James and Bill and must stay in the servants' quarters.

Jeff is lead to the quarters by Sangre's butler Momba (Leigh Whipper, the first black performer to join the Actors' Equity Association and the co-founder of the Negro Actors Guild of America), where he meets the maid, Samantha (Marguerite Whitten, frequent co-star of Moreland's), and the cook, Tahama (Madame Sul-Te-Wan, the stage name of Nellie Crawford, the first black actress to sign a film contract; Crawford was the daughter of former slaves whose mother became a laundress for a Louisville theater company, which is where the younger Crawford fell in love with acting). Moreland, Whitten, Whipper, and Sul-Te-Wan are the lifeblood of the movie, and their performances keep it from being just another generic b-movie.

Moreland and Whitten have great rapport and comedic timing honed from working together so often, and their characters immediately settle into a friendly antagonism, exchanging affectionate insults and teasing. Samantha tells Jeff about the zombies on the island and tells him he just has to clap twice and they'll come running. She illustrates her point, some zombies come shambling into the kitchen, and Jeff runs away. He tells James and Bill about the zombies, and they respond as condescendingly as you'd expect. Sangre responds with barely concealed anger, and again tells James and Bill to send Jeff back to the servants' quarters. The guy's not just a racist, he's also got some secret zombie hordes. What a dick.

At this point, we meet our final two characters, Sangre's wife Alyce (Patricia Stacey) who is stuck in some kind of weird trance, and Alyce's niece Barbara (Joan Woodbury), who is Sangre's secretary but is not too happy about it.

What follows is layer upon layer of secret intrigue, zombie mayhem, evil plans, and voodoo rituals, and James and Bill finally realizing Jeff was right about everything. Moreland really gets to cut loose comedically in the scenes where Jeff is hypnotized into believing he's a zombie, delivering my two favorite lines in the movie. First, after repeating the phrase "I am a zombie," he zombie-walks over to a line of fellow zoms and says, "Move over, boys. I'm one of the gang now." Second, after much conversation with Samantha about his new zombie lifestyle, she tells him that he can't be a zombie because zombies can't talk. He responds, "Can I help it if I'm loquacious?" To my great delight, I was familiar with some of these scenes from watching them on my prized VHS copy of Horrible Horror. I got it for Christmas when I was 10 or 11, and I've watched it roughly 37,000 times in the years since. It's a compilation of scenes from b-movie horror and sci-fi from the '30, '40s, '50s, and '60s, hosted by the late, great John Zacherle aka Zacherley the Cool Ghoul, a rock DJ and, for years, horror host of late-night creature feature shows Shock Theater in Philadelphia and Chiller Theatre in New York City. "Can I help it if I'm loquacious?" pops into my head about once a week since the late 1980s thanks to this videotape.

Back to the movie. King of the Zombies is pretty damn entertaining, despite the racist moments and despite Jean Yarbrough's pedestrian visual style (see my review of Yarbrough's The Devil Bat a few months ago). The black cast members really pull this one up and give it the life and energy the milquetoast white characters are lacking, though Victor makes a pretty good villain. In some ways, I'm glad he got the part instead of Lugosi or Lorre because he's less immediately readable as a classic baddie. You're left wondering what the hell he's up to for quite a while.

Before I bid you adieu, I have to say a few words about Mantan Moreland. Moreland was a showbiz lifer, working in vaudeville from his teen years, performing live comedy, and acting in dozens of movies until his film career hit a snag in the 1950s. An understandable backlash to the kinds of roles black actors were forced to take in the first half-century of film and how those roles contributed to the perpetuation of racist stereotypes unfortunately led to many of these same actors struggling to find roles in the '50s. Moreland turned to live performance in the '50s to make a living, though he came close to being a Three Stooge after the death of Shemp Howard. Moreland was Moe Howard's choice to replace Shemp, but the Columbia execs told the surviving Stooges they needed to use someone who was already under contract with the studio, so Joe Besser got the gig. Though he popped up in bit parts and cameo roles in the '60s and early '70s in movies including Carl Reiner's Enter Laughing and The Comic, Jack Hill's Spider Baby, and Melvin Van Peebles' Watermelon Man, Moreland's main focus for the remainder of his career was live comedy performance and comedy records, often as part of a duo with Roosevelt Livingood. It's on one of these 1960s Moreland and Livingood comedy records, That Ain't My Finger, that Moreland utters the immortal line, "Shit, if this is gonna be that kind of party, I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes," famously sampled by the Beastie Boys on their 1994 song "B-Boys Makin' with the Freak-Freak" to the delight of 1990s teens worldwide.