McCloud Meets Dracula
Murder
victims are found to be drained of blood, and an elderly star of vampire films is
suspected; Chief Clifford is on the hunt for a random sniper.
This
superb two-edged satire invokes the Hammer model at the outset and throughout,
pivoting on an interpolation established almost immediately.
Sundown
in New York. A candlelit chamber, a coffin on a bier, the lid opens, a figure
in evening dress (whose face is not seen) slowly emerges, takes a gibus and a
walking stick with a silver pomme, departs.
Another
figure is seen on a rooftop, armed with a military rifle and a nightscope. The
vampire strikes, the sniper shoots. Two dead, with more to follow.
Both
appear to strike randomly, but the vampire’s victims display a sort of pattern.
One is a “bloodsucker,” as Det. Grover describes him, which is to say he works
for a collection agency. The second is filling in on the job for her boyfriend,
who makes deliveries for a pharmacy. The third works for Con Ed shutting off
electricity.
The
sniper is not, as Chief Clifford theorizes, a crazed Vietnam vet, but a boot
camp washout.
Chris
Coughlin has received an advance to write a book about vampires, and is
greedily devouring Dracula films on television. The great actor Loren Belasco,
whose talents encompass Stratford-upon-Avon and Transylvania, is interviewed by
Tom Snyder, and Chris believes a fan of his is dementedly aping his hero.
All
are skeptical regarding vampires, except Belasco (who claims to be a descendant
of the original Count), and the medical examiner, whose interest in ancient
medicine provokes this riposte from the coroner: “Working in the morgue, I’m
not at all sure I believe in the virtues of modern medicine.”
McCloud
captures the sniper while chasing Belasco across the rooftops, and the ending
is correctly ambiguous.
|
John Carradine Loren Belasco |
Written by Glen A. Larson Directed by Bruce Kessler |
45607, 4.17.77
The Third Street Bridge where the final confrontation
takes place is evidently, and perhaps with some humor, another bridge entirely.
On the Late Night Manhattan Film Festival’s “Dracula
Week”, Chris Coughlin watches House of Dracula (1945, dir. Erle C.
Kenton).
McCLOUD: (To Sgt. Broadhurst.) Still and
all, I wonder if there’s anything in the whole world that would shake this town
up.
1st OFFICER: (Examining the first bloodless
body.) I figure a small-caliber bullet. What’s the sniper use?
(Chris Coughlin is raptly watching a Dracula movie on
television.)
McCLOUD: Ya got any blood t’ drink?
CHRIS
COUGHLIN: (Not listening.) Something to drink... in the
refrigerator, Sam.
McCLOUD: Any
particular type? A, or O?
CHRIS
COUGHLIN: There’s... milk... and beer... and some white wine.
McCLOUD: Well, I guess maybe I’ll just drift on over to a singles bar
and pick up some nice, warm, willing, New York lady.
CHRIS
COUGHLIN: You know where everything is, just help yourself.
ANGIE: What killed that guy, anyway?
DR.
HARVEY POLLICK: I don’t know, why?
ANGIE: I don’t
know, I’ve never seen anything like it, he didn’t have any blood in him.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (Of McCloud, to Det. Grover.) Some man
of action. I’ve seen shut-ins move faster than he does.
DR. HARVEY POLLICK: Marshal, since leaving medical
school I’ve had a rather checkered career. I mean, things have not gone well
for me. My father was a famous doctor, my grandfather was a famous doctor, my brother runs the biggest hospital in California. I mean,
as far as they’re concerned, I sew up stiffs.
DR. HARVEY POLLICK: Marshal, I’m not crazy. I’m a damn
good pathologist who just happened to turn up a victim of an honest-to-God
vampire.
(Starved for information about the case, the newspaper
prints a curious headline as “a joke to sell some papers”.)
CREATURE FROM SPACE
or Bureaucratic Snafu
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (Of McCloud.) How I
hate it when he makes sense.
(Dr. Pollick and McCloud are discussing the case when Chris
Coughlin enters the room.)
DR. HARVEY POLLICK: Who’s she?
McCLOUD: Oh, a
reporter.
DR.
HARVEY POLLICK: A reporter! What’s she doing here? Haven’t you said
enough to them already?
CHRIS
COUGHLIN: Gentlemen, gentlemen! I am sometimes a newspaper writer, never
a reporter.
McCLOUD: (To Chris Coughlin.) Chris, I
know you, ya got more sources than the Mississippi. Now, if you want to find
out somethin’, why don’t you just go to them?
McCLOUD: Sometimes a wounded cat’s the worst kind.
REPORTER: (To McCloud.) What happened to her isn’t
human. I’ve covered the freaks in this city for twenty years, and I’ve never
seen anything like that.
DR. HARVEY POLLICK: Marshal, with all due respect, we’ve
got more on our hands than a routine homicide. What we’re looking for is a
human vampire.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (To McCloud.) If
there’s anything drives me batty, it’s a random, indiscriminate homicide.
CORONER: Look, an ambitious young doctor in the coroner’s office
would be well advised to avoid worrying about the living dead and concentrate
on the dead dead.
DR.
HARVEY POLLICK: I guess you don’t believe in the values of ancient
medicine.
CORONER:
Pollick—working in the morgue, I’m not at all sure I even believe in the values
of modern medicine.
McCLOUD: (On telephone.) Chris!
Chris! (Hangs up. To Sgt. Broadhurst.) I think she’s lost her
doojies.
LOREN BELASCO: (On The Tomorrow Show.) Even in
jest, I take a dim view of daylight.
(Loren Belasco has just claimed to be descendant of Count
Dracula.)
LOREN BELASCO: Wouldn’t you say that a person who denies his heritage
would be doomed to everlasting damnation?
TOM
SNYDER: Wouldn’t I say it, why, Loren, I say it here night after night,
right, guys? You’ve heard me say it.
1st
CREWMAN: (Off-camera.) Right, Tom!
2nd
CREWMAN: (Off-camera.) Whatever you say.
TOM SNYDER: (To the camera.) I think
you’d agree that we certainly got our money’s worth here this morning.
(McCloud arrives at the Belasco mansion on a rainy night.)
LOREN BELASCO: Take those wet clothes, Morris, see if you can dry them
out.
McCLOUD: Oh, that
won’t be necessary, it’s just muh old sheepskin, it’s
been through a lot worse than that, just stand it up anywhere.
McCLOUD: (To Loren Belasco, who is warming himself at the
fireplace.) I wouldn’t stand too close to that fire there, that’s hot
enough to barbecue a four-ton steer!
DET. GROVER: (To McCloud, of the collection agency the
first bloodless victim worked for.) One o’ those high-powered outfits
that lean all over ya for a ten-buck debt.
McCLOUD: Joe, you’re a cop, not a social worker. Get tough! We got
a killer on our hands.
SGT.
BROADHURST: You sound more like Clifford every day, you know that?
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: (Walking up.) That a fact, Joe?
McCLOUD: (In the cavernous and candlelit Belasco
mansion.) This place has got more room than a porcupine at a love-in.
(Belasco’s butler, Morris, has a way of vanishing when your
back is turned.)
McCLOUD: (To Chris Coughlin.) I’ve been around dead cats that make
more noise than he does.
McCLOUD: (To Chris Coughlin.) Ya know,
I once knew a Missouri mule that I could talk to easier.
LOREN BELASCO: (After emerging from coffin, hearing her
scream.) Really, Miss Coughlin. I’d have thought you’d have been
more amused.
CHRIS COUGHLIN: (Terrified.) I really
must be going, Mr. Belasco.
LOREN
BELASCO: (Advancing upon her with his walking stick.) No, Miss
Coughlin, I’m going to give you immortality!
McCLOUD: Why are you doing this, Belasco? You’re throwin’ away a lot o’ years!
LOREN
BELASCO: (Holding Chris Coughlin by the throat.) How many
years? Fifty? A hundred? How many policemen, how many torchbearers in the
night, seeking out the soul of Dracula? They’re the bloodsuckers, not I!
McCLOUD: (Pursuing Belasco across the rooftops, he
literally stumbles on the sniper and captures him.) Well, if that don’t beat all.
(On the Third Street Bridge, McCloud and an officer are
climbing up a tower after Belasco.)
2nd OFFICER: Hey, cowboy, who does he think he is, Batman?
McCLOUD: Dracula.
(Atop the Third Street Bridge.)
McCLOUD: Ya know, you’ve got things confused with your films! This is no
role you’re playing now!
LOREN
BELASCO: Was it a role, or a convenient façade for the Prince of the
Undead?
LOREN BELASCO: (To a policeman advancing toward him.) We’ll fly
together to eternity! (Leaps from tower.)
McCLOUD: (Of the sniper, a humiliated boot camp washout.) What’s
gonna happen to the boy?
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: I suppose the same as happens to all the broken people.
We’ll sweep ‘im away.