joe-pearce-1 There are some benefits to growing older, and one of them is when I read the kind of reviews which more or less permeate the entries for this particular film, THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, since many of those reviews refer over and over again to the 'minor' cast in the film, one even going so far as to call it a film starring nobody you ever heard of, and in a film that nobody ever heard of. This just isn't so. All the time I was growing up and going to double features (say, 1946 to 1956), THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST was in almost constant revival at our neighborhood theaters, an unusual thing where non-John Wayne Republic films were concerned (Universal, and even RKO with their Lewton films, were dedicated to keeping most of their horror backlog out there, but Republic was issuing Westerns by the gross back then and had no real need to fall back on earlier product), so one must assume that this particular film kept making money for Republic. In any case, it was actually the first vampire film many kids of my age ever saw (vampires were out of fashion until Abbott and Costello ran into Bela Lugosi in 1948), and John Abbott, with those absolutely bulging eyes, did a good job of scaring us (actually, a lot more so than did Bela Lugosi when they finally revived the 1930 Dracula around 1951), so much so that Mr. Abbott is not just a character actor I know, but one who seems to have traveled the long road of life with me ever since 1946, a never-to-be-discarded-from-the-caravan kind of actor. But as for actors nobody ever heard of, the reviewer is betraying his age. Abbott was not a star actor, but certainly a well-known one, and the year after THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, gave one of the best character performances of that year as the cellist who cannot be corrupted in a major A film of 1946, DECEPTION, where he was acting against the very considerable likes of Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains, and more than holding his own (as he had as an on-the-lam spy in Bob Hope's THEY GOT ME COVERED a few years earlier, playing deadly serious against Hope's constant barrage of one-liners). Our female lead, Peggy Stewart, was THE leading 'cowgirl' actress of the period circa 1943 to 1952 (although Dale Evans, by virtue of being Mrs. Roy Rogers and appearing - and singing - in a number of his excellent Republic Westerns, became known as "The Queen of the West"; yeah, right), and was still in an occasional film as recently as in 2012! The missionary priest was Grant Withers, who was both a well-known leading man (early on) and character actor in film from the very late silent days up to his death (via suicide) in 1959, and had at one time been married to Loretta Young. (He was particularly noted for playing the police lieutenant in all the Boris Karloff "Mr. Wong" films, and for appearing in any number of John Wayne movies over the years.) Roy Barcroft was the quintessential Western villain or lead henchman in every second Saturday afternoon Western I ever saw as a kid, and was as well known to the audiences as were Allan Lane, Bill Elliott, etc., etc. Emmett Vogan, playing Miss Stewart's father, amassed almost 500 feature film credits, perhaps not being known to the masses so much by name, but certainly by face, to anyone who entered a movie theater for the quarter-century commencing around 1933. Adele Mara, who does that wild and crazy dance (noted elsewhere)in this film, played both featured and starring roles in about 50 movies during the 1940s and 1950s (the one I recall best being in the 1950 ROCK ISLAND TRAIL, which managed to inflame my still-immature loins at the time), and also did a lot of TV work in the first two decades of that new medium. The leading man in this one was, I admit, a cipher, and appeared in only a few films, but anyone who calls the rest of the cast 'nobody you ever heard of' really needs to see more films of that period. As for the movie itself, having seen it again periodically over the years, I find that despite its low budget, it continues to hold a strange fascination, thanks to John Abbott's demonstration of how to be totally evil while being truly sympathetic at the same time (and the bulging eyes don't hurt!). And as for the lack of 'action', I dare any reader to name another vampire film that has a full barroom brawl in it (especially one in which the vampire actually takes part and can more than hold his own with all those great Republic stunt men; when Lugosi throws a knife in THE BLACK CAT, he looks like he spent his youth pitching for the Budapest Little League Girls' Team! Oy!). Anyway, yes, a very minor classic, indeed, but certainly worth seeing, if only to realize that 70 years down the line your grandkids may be watching films with actors "nobody ever heard of" - you know, like Kevin Spacey, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, Robert Duvall, etc.!

Prichards12345 The Vampire's Ghost is an involving and atmospheric movie; John Abbott gives a melancholic and compelling portrayal of an Elizabethan vampire cursed to live out his existence preying on those who cross his path.The film is set in Darkest Africa, amidst voodoo drums and restless native tribes. Abbott plays Webb Fallon, owner of a bar frequented by sailors and bar-flies, and possessing an uncanny ability to win at cards. The surrounding countryside is all a shiver as a series of vampire killings have taken place. Indeed the movie is permeated by the sounds of drums in the jungle. And at the climax Fallon is even trapped by the use of them giving away his location!The doom-laden air Fallon gives off is very reminiscent of Gloria Holden in Dracula's Daughter, but the script contains several original touches, including an atmospheric sequence where the wounded Fallon is revived by being placed directly in the moonlight. The movie proceeds in a stately yet logical manner, and one can almost detect the influence on the lethargic vampires of Anne Rice. Although cheaply made by Republic Studios, this a fine little B flick well worth the trouble of seeking out.

Mike Newton I had never seen or heard of the Vampire's Ghost until I attended a Western film festival where Peggy Stewart was a guest star. She was a popular Western heroine at Republic, making films with Bill Elliott, Sunset Carson and Allan Lane. When they announced they were going to run it, she made a face and said, "Oh no, you're not." Peggy never attends screenings of her old films because it brings back memories that make her cry. She says she always recalls what went on behind the scenes and would rather talk with the fans. When I saw it, I recall one particular scene where she is supposedly walking in a trance. She had shoulder length hair and a beautiful face. It's no wonder her co-workers and fans love her. At the awards banquet, they presented her with a plaque which had the figure of a ghost on it. She got a big laugh out of that.

MARIO GAUCI While the title hadn't struck me as being familiar when I read Michael Elliott's positive review here, I later found out that it was in fact listed - albeit meriting only a single sentence! - in "Horror Films", a compendium of the genre written by Alan Frank and which basically served as my introduction to many horror classics as a child.As Michael has said, the script (co-written by Leigh Brackett, future collaborator of the great Howard Hawks) is unusually literate for a low-budget horror film of the Forties, suggesting that its main influence may have been the Val Lewton horror cycle being made contemporaneously at RKO; though it never quite achieves their level of quality, it was a very pleasant surprise and it ought to be better known and, more importantly, seen (alas, given its virtually non-existent reputation and the fact that it's a Republic production, whose catalogue has recently been acquired by Paramount, its official release on DVD anytime soon seems a highly unlikely prospect...though I would love to be proved wrong).Anyway, the combination of vampirism and voodoo is an intriguing one - though we don't really see much of either. The largely unknown cast responds remarkably well to the fanciful proceedings (which offer some new and interesting variations on the standard vampire lore) - but it's John Abbott as Fallon, the world-weary and rather sympathetic bloodsucker who obviously steals the show. The film features a number of effective sequences during its brief (a mere 59 minutes!) but thoroughly engaging running time: a booby-trap shotgun is fired and the bullet goes right through Abbott (shades of SON OF Dracula [1943]) and lodges itself in the arm of one of the natives; only the vampire's clothes are reflected in a mirror (an effect borrowed from Universal's Invisible Man films) and when he looks at it, the mirror shatters of its own accord; the vampire attacks which mainly rely on Abbott's uneasy glare for their impact; the climax set in an ancient temple.Looking at Lesley Selander's busy filmography (but whose work I had never seen before now), I'm left with the assumption that he was one of the innumerable unassuming journeyman directors who specialized in B-movies and Westerns in particular (at least 6 of his films are called "Fort Something Or Other"!); as a matter of fact, he inserts the obligatory poker game, followed by a bar-room brawl, even in THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST - having made Abbott the unlikely proprietor of a tavern (albeit using this identity merely as a cover for his true and sinister self). Still, given my enthusiastic reaction to the latter, I'm willing to give his FORT ALGIERS (1953; which has been available for some time at my local DVD outlet, without generating much interest to me personally) a chance - even if I'm pretty sure it won't be anywhere near as satisfying...