All language subtitles for Black Cherry

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.