{"id":726,"date":"2014-03-04T15:41:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T20:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bmoviemaniacs.com\/?p=726"},"modified":"2014-03-04T15:41:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T20:41:03","slug":"blacula-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/blacula-1972\/","title":{"rendered":"Blacula (1972)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blac\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1780 an African prince, Mamawalde of Abani (William Marshall) and his wife, Luva (Vonetta McGee) attend a dinner party at the home of the gracious Count Dracula.\u00a0 After the other guests have gone, Mamawalde and Luva remain for a private word with the count.\u00a0 After a brandy and some banter, the prince asks the count if he will side with him publicly in his mission to outlaw slavery in Europe.\u00a0 Instead of support or an argument, Prince Mamawalde gets laughter and a bite on the neck.\u00a0 The evil count imprisons the newly undead prince in a sealed coffin and his wife in an attic prison beside him.
\nCut to the 1970s and a couple of flamboyantly and stereotypically gay antiques dealers buy the entire contents of Count Dracula\u2019s castle and ship it to Los Angeles to sell in their shop.\u00a0 Of course they buy the coffin too and in doing so unleash Blacula on an unsuspecting Los Angeles.\u00a0 Blacula cuts a swath of murders across the city which prompts criminal psychologist Dr. Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) to investigate.\u00a0 Thomas\u2019 lab assistant and girlfriend, Michelle (Denise Nicholas) also happens to be the sister of Tina who looks amazingly like Blacula\u2019s long lost love Luva.\u00a0 So there you have it.\u00a0 Blacula and Tina\/Luva fall in love instantly and despite her friends\u2019 suspicions that Mamawalde comes on a little strong and creepy, Tina launches into a passionate affair with him.\u00a0 All hell breaks loose and then you have cops chasing a vampire through the nightclubs and warehouses of 70s LA.
\nBlacula is a fun film and despite the blaxploitation label and rather obvious title, the film isn\u2019t the racist mess I was expecting.\u00a0 The main characters have some depth and don\u2019t fall into Huggy Bear-like stereotypes.\u00a0 The story is compelling and the action scenes look great.\u00a0 William Crain who directed the Mod Squad and Starsky and Hutch television shows along with this film, knows how to move a story along and the cast, veterans of film and television, do a fine job in their roles.\u00a0 There\u2019s some real chemistry between the two main couples and even though it\u2019s an exploitation film, you care about the people in it.\u00a0 Elisha Cook even makes an appearance as a mortuary worker with a hook hand.\u00a0 You heard me.\u00a0 Gene Page, who arranged some of Barry White\u2019s biggest hits composed the soundtrack and The Hues Corporation, famous for the hit song \u201cRock the Boat\u201d perform in a few nightclub scenes.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1780 an African prince, Mamawalde of Abani (William Marshall) and his wife, Luva (Vonetta McGee) attend a dinner party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34,77,89,124,204,210,270,456,463,472],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1970s","tag-b-movies","tag-blaxploitation","tag-denise-nicholas","tag-horror","tag-hues-corporation","tag-la","tag-vampire","tag-vonetta-mcgee","tag-william-marshall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmoviemaniacs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}