Taglines: Dracula takes a bite of the Big Apple!
Love at First Bite movie storyline. The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (including Nadia Comăneci). The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating manservant, Renfield, and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem.
While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, sex clubs, and discotheques, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from life in the Big Apple in the late 1970s as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker).
Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim’s psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula’s old nemesis Fritz [sic] van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg “for professional reasons”. Rosenberg’s numerous methods to combat Dracula – mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis – are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula’s coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security.
Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg’s increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist’s claims and gets him released.
Love at First Bite is a 1979 American comedy horror film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker. It stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson. The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein. The film’s tagline is: “Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!”
Love at First Bite (1979)
Directed by: Stan Dragoti
Starring: George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin, Arte Johnson, Dick Shawn, Isabel Sanford, Barry Gordon, Ronnie Schell, Bryan O’Byrne, Michael Pataki, Hazel Shermet
Screenplay by: Robert Kaufman
Production Design by: Serge Krizman
Cinematography by: Edward Rosson
Film Editing by: Mort Fallick, Allan Jacobs
Set Decoration by: Ethel Robins Richards
Makeup Department: Dorothy J. Pearl, Bren Plaistowe, William Tuttle
Music by: Charles Bernstein
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: American International Pictures
Release Date: April 13, 1979
Visits: 130