Original subtitles

It was 1972.

Enrico Job called me one evening

to ask if I was available to work as his art director on two films.

I was hesitant at first, without even knowing what it was all about.

At the time I was more focused on my career as an architect.

Out of curiosity, I asked Enrico to tell me more about those two films.

He said they were both directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol.

I said yes on the spot, without a second thought.

So we started working on these two Warhol-produced films.

They were supposed to be shot in 3D,

which at the time was pretty unusual.

The only 3D films before then were just done with gimmicky glasses.

I remember those flicks from my childhood, like FORT TI.

The idea of making a film with Warhol and TRASH'S Morrissey was enticing,

especially to my twenty-something self of the time.

I couldn't have refused it, no matter what.

So me and Enrico had a meeting,

and the first thing we did was to immerse ourselves deep into American trash.

Both Warhol and Morrissey would arrive a few months later,

so we thought we'd better prepare ourselves.

Our production manager was Mara Blasetti,

and she provided us with the films to watch.

We saw TRASH, FLESH, and HEAT,

which I believe was released just the year before.

We wanted to tune ourselves in to the American underground cinema approach.

Being able to watch those three features,

which of course were hard to get, was a great experience.

I brought a little of that experience

to my time collaborating with the Politecnico Cinema.

But that is another story, of course.

We didn't have a real transition between shooting

BLOOD FOR DRACULA and FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN.

Different films, but the crew was the same.

Most of FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN was filmed at Cinecitta,

except for a few exterior bits here and there.

Back to BLOOD FOR DRACULA.

I love that funny bit when Dracula decides to move to Italy.

This exterior sequence was probably one of the first scenes we did.

I love this detail of the car on the bridge.

We were in the Tuscia area.

A beautiful sequence, I love Dracula's coffin strapped on top of the vehicle.

Anyway, we moved from the comfort of shooting at Cinecitta,

with everything we needed at our fingertips, to this villa in Frascati.

The entirety of BLOOD FOR DRACULA was shot on location.

It was a real villa,

which at the time was managed by a man

who also owned a costume shop for stage productions.

The place is known as Villa Parisi, but it was originally called Villa Borghese.

As a matter of fact, on the ceiling of the hall with the pool table,

there's a painting of Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

Years later, Paolina Bonaparte, who had married a member of the Borghese family,

was added to that same work of art.

The family sold the villa after the war.

I've gone a little off topic but it's an interesting piece of info.

Back when we made the film, the villa was directly managed by the owners,

but I don't know what has changed since then.

The villa was used as a location for the whole film.

The main interiors served as the house of this impoverished nobleman

looking to find a husband for his daughters,

while the farm buildings served to recreate the village tavern and so on.

These of course looked so different from the main building.

It felt a little like being an office worker,

since we were going to the same place every day.

And, of course, even all the exterior scenes were done on location.

There were plenty of surrounding buildings within the property,

from a farmer's house to barns, stables and so on.

We managed to use every ladder and every door,

as long as it was part of the Villa Parisi property.

We even used an area that was later deemed too dilapidated.

That's where we did the tavern scenes,

with Dracula looking for a room after arriving in Italy.

We created the tavern in one of the stables.

The stable used for the carriages, not the one for the horses.

There's a funny story connected to that location.

Roman Polanski agreed to do a cameo out of friendship with the director.

After joining us on set, he even invented a comedy bit for his character.

Let me tell you about this gag he invented.

After Dracula arrives at the tavern,

Polanski's character frantically tells the others that a little girl

has been mauled in some freak accident.

That's when Dracula's servant steals two slices of bread

to supposedly dip them into the poor child's blood to give his master.

And of course, being nine, there's no risk the child wouldn't be a virgin.

So it was Polanski who invented this breakfast with blood-dipped bread.

I don't know if anybody has ever recounted it.

I'm telling you, you should have been on set when Polanski came up with this gag.

Witnessing that in person was really something else.

Now, 50 years later, or actually almost 50 years later,

we can finally reveal this sequence originated with Polanski himself.

Quite a macabre gag, I must admit,

but it's not like those two films lacked dark humor,

even more so in the original English version.

I mean, I'm not saying Tonino Guerra wrote a weak script,

but it somewhat lacked the brilliance of the English version.

It was such an incredible experience for me.

Besides, it even did wonders for my professional future,

as it allowed me to practice my English skills a lot.

I had a good teacher in high school,

but being forced to use it every day for work was totally different.

I've put those skills to good use when

I worked with several English-speaking international productions.

Without that baptism by fire,

and don't forget I also had to master the technical jargon,

I would have certainly had a radically different career.

Besides, word of mouth was key when it came

to hiring a foreign crew member for an American production.

An American production coming here to shoot a film

will already have some local names lined up,

from drivers to actors. Even restaurants, mind you.

Word of mouth is pivotal in this industry,

and it works like this in every country of the world.

The presence of Vittorio De Sica was a source of great amusement for us.

He was such a seasoned pro that

he could have done the film with his eyes closed.

He always liked a good laugh, but of course he behaved with utmost professionalism.

I have this wonderful story about his role,

and I think his son also recounted it recently on TV, yet changed some details.

De Sica had us place several cue cards all over the room,

because he had trouble memorizing his lines.

His eyesight was pretty poor, so those cue cards looked huge!

Every card was progressively numbered,

so he didn't have any trouble reading them in the right order.

He specifically asked for the cards to be numbered,

in order for the delivery to be as smooth as possible.

I wrote them myself, using chalk.

De Sica wanted every word to be gigantic and I happily obliged!

My, he had an incredible personality.

It was a small role, of course, but you can still feel his charisma.

That's how it always is with such masters of the trade.

Their greatness is tangible.

De Sica probably stayed on set for just a couple of days.

He didn't have that many scenes, after all.

By the way, I've got a personal anecdote.

One of the actresses playing the daughters

was an old university friend of mine.

Yes, I studied architecture with Stefania Casini herself.

We were colleagues.

Stumbling upon each other on set,

with her playing a lesbian scene with another character,

wasn't embarrassing, but a little weird, to be honest.

We hadn't seen each other since getting our degrees.

However, when you're working in a professional environment,

there's no reason to feel embarrassed.

Not even while doing erotic scenes, lesbian or not.

Another amusing detail was the massive amount of sour cherry syrup

we used to simulate the blood.

Proper fake blood wasn't yet that much in fashion at the time,

since it hadn't been perfected yet.

Nowadays, fake blood or blood-related effects are just outstanding.

Fake blood back then was sticky and messy,

and since it didn't matter if it looked realistic or not,

we resorted to sour cherry syrup.

Fabbri brand, to be precise.

Not trying to advertise anything, just wanted to give all the details.

By the way, those massive amounts of Fabbri syrup

were also used to prepare some delicious drinks,

which helped us combat the sweltering summer heat.

We all loved those and often enjoyed them in the garden.

It was my first time meeting Luigi Kuveiller, but

to be honest, it was my first time meeting everyone.

It was only my second feature.

He was a rather calm individual, very quiet.

He never got mad, no matter the reason.

Sometimes it looked like he was sleeping,

and I witnessed this even on another film.

He always leaned against something, but always not too far from the camera,

with a cigar stub in his mouth and a smile on his face.

Anyway, it looked like he was having these micro naps,

but who knows if he was really asleep. He closed his eyes, at least.

Yet he didn't miss anything that was going on.

Maybe he pretended to be asleep, I don't know.

As soon as his crew had finished prepping the camera, the lights,

and all the other technical stuff he needed,

Luigi opened his eyes and got to work.

He never, ever raised his voice for anything or against anyone.

By the way, I wasn't yet experienced enough to understand

if anyone deserved to be chewed out for something.

However, I never witnessed anyone being reprimanded.

N0 one was ever reprimanded on set.

It was an almost unique behavior,

which I've rarely encountered over the course of my career.

Almost never, if we talk about DOPs.

And I've worked with many incredible DOPs, mind you. Luigi was one of those.

He was also a pretty humorous guy.

I don't mean he was a joker, but he had a sunny disposition.

Working with him was always a rather pleasant experience.

Working 12 hours a day becomes heavy if your colleague is a martial type.

We usually worked 1O hours a day, but American contracts usually called for 12.

If I must say something about Andy Warhol,

it's that he didn't have much of an interaction with the crew,

except for Enrico Job.

Aside from Enrico being the production designer,

they knew and respected each other as artists,

well before working in movies.

Warhol popped up from time to time to check how filming was going.

He was almost never on set.

He was the producer, after all, so his presence on set wasn't required.

Still, he appeared every now and then to check on things.

He never exercised any artistic control over Paul Morrissey,

who could do anything he wanted.

They probably did some brainstorming at the end of each shooting day,

and there's no doubt Warhol watched the dailies.

That's when I usually met him, as I also had to watch the dailies every day.

Warhol was there with me almost every night.

Those dailies had been shot about a couple days before,

since back then developing the negative was often a bit of a slow process.

I wonder why Warhol didn't come to set that often.

Well, we might have actually just missed each other,

since Villa Parisi was such a big location with many different buildings.

It wasn't like being at Cinecitta, of course.

NOW that I think 0f it,

me and Warhol spent quite a long time together on set

during the scene where Dracula arrives at the tavern.

He was mainly there to hang out with his friend Roman Polanski.

We were all dressed Beatles-style, such was the trend at the time.

But, like Warhol himself used to say, trends don't last long.

I guess I too had my 15 minutes of fame while hanging out with that lot.

But I was able to turn that experience into a full-fledged job.

The Factory's core group had a tight relationship.

Jed Johnson watched over Paul Morrissey, developing the stills and such.

He also followed the editing process of the film.

Johnson, Warhol, and Morrissey were inseparable.

Don't forget that Paul Morrissey was one of the main names

in the American underground cinema movement.

What I knew about him was mostly tied to the films

Mara Blasetti made us watch before the first meeting.

I actually find it quite difficult to judge Morrissey's directing style,

because as I already said I wasn't experienced enough at the time

to properly understand what was going on.

I couldn't fully understand it back then.

I couldn't really understand how he used the camera or his overall style.

I can do it now in retrospect,

but it would feel like an average viewer commenting on the film he's just seen.

I didn't have enough experience during my time on that set.

I didn't have the means to understand the whole picture of what he was doing.

It was actually easier for me to understand Ridley Scott's directing style,

but by that point I already had decades of experience and 30 films behind me.

Compared to my youth, I finally had the means to understand a director's style.

However, I must admit I couldn't tell the difference between

the approach he had on his two Roman films and his trilogy of trash.

He probably kept the same approach with handling the sets and the actors.

The only difference is that he was now working on a much bigger scale.

He had this, let's say, erotic approach with his subjects.

It's one of the many things I couldn't understand back then.

And this erotic approach had evolved as he was now able to use dollies and cranes,

something he didn't have on his previous films.

A tri-dimensional erotic approach, we could also say.

BLOOD FOR DRACULA was such an amusing film to make,

and I'm speaking for the entirety of the cast and the crew.

Not to mention that the four virgins were all gorgeous women,

including Milena Vukotic who had to play the ugly one.

The other three were simply divine, not to mention the erotic scenes.

So we were in this beautiful location,

surrounded by beautiful girls and even having fun on the job.

Oh, that poor Count Dracula puking his guts out

every time he bites a girl he mistook for a virgin!

Admit it, it's wicked fun, especially if you're physically there to witness filming.

Poor Udo Kier had to keep puking sour cherry syrup

for at least two hours straight during the filming of each bite scene.

Wicked fun, I tell you,

even though cleaning up the floor was a big ordeal I was luckily spared from.

It was the silliest thing, with this poor guy having to take care

to not mess up his costume too much,

because cleaning it every time would waste too much time.

A good actor must even be able to vomit the right way, if you can believe that.

All these stories are all part of the total experience I had.

I truly learned a lot on that film.

And that's how you really learn things. There's something new every day.

I also witnessed different blood and vomit concoctions.

I've even had a chemist prepare some, actually.

But it's not stuff you learn in a day.

Sour cherry being used as fake blood was a nice detail, though.