The Vampire Sextette Read online

  Dissolve

  9. A Drawbridge

  Over the wide moat, now stagnant and choked with weeds. We move across it

  and through a huge rounded archway into a formal courtyard, perhaps thirty feet

  wide and one hundred yards deep, which extends right up to the very wall of the

  castle. Let's see Toland keep all of it in focus. The landscaping surrounding it has

  been sloppy and casual for centuries, but this particular courtyard has been kept

  up in perfect shape.. As the camera makes its way through it, towards the lighted

  window of the castle, there are revealed rare and exotic blooms of all kinds:

  mariphasa lupino lumino, strange orchid, audriensis junior, triffidus celestus.

  The dominating note is one of almost exaggerated wildness, sprouting sharp and

  desperate—rot, rot, rot The Hall of the Mountain King, the night the last troll died.

  Some of the plants lash out, defensively.

  Dissolve

  10. The Window

  Camera moves in until the frame of the window fills the frame of the screen.

  Suddenly the light within goes out. This stops the action of the camera and cuts

  the music (Bernard Herrmann) which has been accompanying the sequence. In the

  glass panes of the window we see reflected the stark, dreary mountainscape of the

  Dracula estate behind and the dawn sky.

  Dissolve

  11. Int. Corridor in Castle Dracula—Faint Dawn—1885

  Ornate mirrors line both walls of the corridor, reflecting arches into infinity. A

  bulky shadow figure—Dracula—proceeds slowly, heavy with years, through the

  corridor. He pauses to look into the mirror, and has no reflection, no reflections,

  to infinity. It seems at last that he is simply not there.

  Dissolve

  12. Int. Dracula's Crypt—Faint Dawn—1885

  A very long shot of Dracula's enormous catafalque, silhouetted against the

  enormous window.

  Dissolve

  13. Int. Dracula's Crypt—Faint Dawn—1885

  An eye. An incredible one. Big impossible drops of bloody tears, the

  reflections of figures coming closer, cutting implements raised. The jingling of

  sleigh bells in the musical score now makes an ironic reference to Indian temple

  bells—the music freezes—

  DRACULA'S OLD VOICE

  Rose's blood!

  The camera pulls back to show the eye in the face of the old Dracula, bloated

  with blood but his stolen youth lost again, grey skin parchmented like a mummy,

  fissures cracking open in the wrinkles around his eyes, fang-teeth too large for his

  mouth, pouching his cheeks and stretching his lips, the nose an improbable bulb.

  A flash—the descent of a guillotine-like kukri knife, which has been raised above

  Dracula's neck—across the screen. The head rolls off the neck and bounds down

  two carpeted steps leading to the catafalque, the camera following. The head falls

  off the last step onto the marble floor where it cracks, snaky tendrils of blood

  glittering in the first ray of the morning sun. This ray cuts an angular pattern across

  the floor, suddenly crossed with a thousand cruciform bars of light as a dusty

  curtain is wrested from the window.

  14. The Foot of Dracula's Catafalque

  The camera very close. Outlined against the uncurtained window we can see a

  form—the form of a man, as he raises a bowie knife over his head. The camera

  moves down along the catafalque as the knife descends into Dracula's heart, and

  rests on the severed head. Its lips are still moving. The voice, a whisper from the

  grave

  DRACULA'S OLD VOICE

  Rose's blood!

  In the sunlight, a harsh shadow cross falling upon it, the head lap-dissolves into

  a fanged, eyeless skull.

  Fade Out

  Count Dracula Cast and Credits, as of January 1940

  Production Company: Mercury Productions. Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures.

  Executive Producer: George J. Schaefer. Producer Orson Welles. Director Orson

  Welles. Script: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles. From the novel by Bram

  Stoker. Director of Photography: Gregg Toland. Editors: Mark Robson, Robert

  Wise. Art Director: Van Nest Polglase. Special Effects: Vernon L. Walker.

  Music/Musical Director: Bernard Herrmann.

  Orson Welles (Dracula), Joseph Cotton (Jedediah Renfield), Everett Sloane

  (Van Helsing), Dorothy Comingore (Mina Murray), Robert Coote (Artie

  Holmwood), William Alland (Jon Harker), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Westenra),

  Lucille Ball (Lucy), George Couloris (Dr. Walter Parkes Seward), Paul Stewart

  (Raymond, Asylum Attendant), Alan Ladd (Quincey P. Morris), Fortunio

  Bonanova (Inn-Keeper at Bistritz), Vladimir Sokoloff (Szekeley Chieftain),

  Dolores Del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Rita Cansino (Vampire Brides), Gus Schilling

  (Skipper of the Demeter).

  "Mademoiselle Dieudonné," intoned the voice on her answering machine,

  halfway between a growl and a purr, "this is Orson Welles."

  The voice was deeper even than in the 1930s, when he was a radio star.

  Geneviève had been in America over Halloween, 1938, when Welles and the

  Mercury Theatre of the Air broadcast their you-are-there dramatisation of H. G.

  Wells's "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid" and convinced half the Eastern

  seaboard that the country was disappearing under a writhing plague of vampire

  blossoms. She remembered also the rhetorical whisper of "who knows what evil

  lurks in the hearts of men?," followed by the triumphant declaration "the Shadow

  knows!" and the low chuckle which rose by terrifying lurches to a fiendish,

  maniacal shriek of insane laughter.

  When she had first met the man himself, in Rome in 1959, the voice hadn't

  disappointed. Now, even on cheap tape and through the tinny, tiny amplifier, it

  was a call to the soul. Even hawking brandy or frozen peas, the voice was a

  powerful instrument That Welles had to compete with Welles imitators for gigs as

  a commercial pitchman was one of the tragedies of the modern age. Then again,

  she suspected he drew a deal of sly enjoyment from his long-running role as a

  ruined titan. As an actor, his greatest role was always himself. Even leaving a

  message on a machine, he invested phrases with the weight—a quality he had

  more than a sufficiency of—of a Shakespearean deathbed speech.

  "There is a small matter upon which I should like your opinion, in your

  capacities as a private detective and a member of the undead community. If you

  would call on me, I should be most grateful."

  She thought about it. Welles was as famous for being broke as for living well.

  It was quite likely he wouldn't even come through with her modest rate of a

  hundred dollars a day, let alone expenses. And gifts of rare wine or Cuban cigars

  weren't much use to her, though she supposed she could redeem them for cash.

  Still, she was mildly bored with finding lost children or bail jumpers. And no

  one ever accused Welles of being boring. He had left the message while she was

  resting through the hours of the day. This was the first of the ten or so days

  between the Gregorian 1980s and the Julian 1980s. She could afford to give a

  flawed genius—his own expression—that much time.

  She would do it.

  In leaving a message, Welles had given her a pause to think. She h
eard heavy

  breaths as he let the tape run on, his big man's lungs working. Then, confident that

  he had won her over, he cut in with address details, somewhere in Beverly Hills.

  "I do so look forward to seeing you again. Until then, remember… the weed of

  crime bears bitter fruit!"

  It was one of his old radio catchphrases.

  He did the laugh, the King laugh, the Shadow laugh. It properly chilled her

  bones, but made her giggle, too.

  She discovered Orson Welles at the centre of attention, on the cracked bottom

  of a drained pool behind a rented bungalow. Three nude vampire girls waved

  objects—a luminous skull, a Macbethian blooded dagger, a fully articulated

  monster-bat puppet—at him, darting swiftly about his bulky figure, nipping at his

  head with their Halloween props. The former boy wonder was on his knees,

  enormous Russian shirt open to the waist, enormous (and putty) nose glistening

  under the lights, enormous spade-beard flecked with red syrup. A man with a

  handheld camera, the sort of thing she'd seen used to make home movies, circled

  the odd quartet, not minding if the vampires got between him and his director-star.

  A few other people were around the pool, holding up lights. No sound

  equipment, though: this was being shot silent. Geneviève hung back, by the

  bungalow, keeping out of the way of the work. She had been on film sets before,

  at Cinecittà and in Hollywood, and knew this crew would be deemed skeletal for a

  student short. If anyone else was directing, she'd have supposed he was shooting

  makeup tests or a rehearsal. But with Welles, she knew that this was the real film.

  It might end up with the dialogue out of sync, but it would be extraordinary.

  Welles was rumbling through a soliloquy.

  It took her a moment to realise what the undead girls were doing, then she had

  to swallow astonished laughter. They were nude not for the titillation of an eventual

  audience, for they wouldn't be seen. Nonreflecting nosferatu would be completely

  invisible when the footage was processed. The girls were naked because clothes

  would show up on film, though some elders—Dracula had been one—so violated

  the laws of optics that they robbed any costume they wore of its reflection also,

  sucking even that into their black hearts. In the final film, Welles would seem to be

  persecuted by malignly animated objects—the skull, the dagger, and the bat Now

  he tore at his garments and hair like Lear, careful to leave his nose alone, and

  called out to the angry heavens. The girls flitted, slender and deathly white, not

  feeling the cold, faces blank, hands busy.

  This was the cheapest special effect imaginable.

  Welles fell forward on his face, lay still for a couple of beats, and hefted

  himself upright, out of character, calling "cut." His nose was mashed.

  A dark woman with a clipboard emerged from shadows to confer with the

  master. She wore a white fur coat and a matching hat. The vampire girls put the

  props down and stood back, nakedness unnoticed by the crew members. One

  took a cloak-like robe from a chair and settled it over her slim shoulders. She

  climbed out of the pool.

  Geneviève had not announced herself. The vampire girl fixed her eye. She

  radiated a sense of being fed up with the supposed glamour of show business.

  "Turning was supposed to help my career," she said. "I was going to stay

  pretty forever and be a star. Instead, I lost my image. I had good credits. I was up

  for the last season of Charlie's Angels. I'd have been the blonde."

  "There's always the theatre," Geneviève suggested.

  "That's not being a star," the girl said.

  She was obviously a newborn, impatient with an eternity she didn't yet

  understand. She wanted all her presents now, and no nonsense about paying dues

  or waiting her turn. She had cropped blonde hair; very pale, almost translucent

  skin stretched over bird-delicate bones; and a tight, hard, cute little face, with

  sharp angles and glinting teeth, small reddish eyes. Her upper arm was marked by

  parallel claw marks, not yet healed, like sergeant's stripes. Geneviève stored away

  the detail.

  "Who's that up there, Nico?" shouted one of the other girls.

  Nico? Not the famous one, Geneviève supposed.

  "Who?" the girl asked, out loud. "Famous?"

  Nico—indeed, not the famous one—had picked the thought out of

  Geneviève's mind. That was a common elder talent, but unusual in a newborn. If

  she lasted, this girl might do well. She'd have to pick a new name though, to avoid

  confusion with the singer of "All Tomorrow's Parties."

  "Another one of us," the starlet said to the girl in the pool. "An invisible."

  "I'm not here for a part," Geneviève explained. "I'm here to see Mr. Welles."

  Nico looked at her askew. Why would a vampire who wasn't an actress be

  here? Tumblers worked in the newborn's mind. It worked both ways: Nico could

  pick words up, but she also sent them out. The girls in the pool were named Mink

  and Vampi (please!), and often hung with Nico.

  "You're old, aren't you?"

  Geneviève nodded. Nico's transparent face showed eagerness.

  "Does it come back? Your face in the mirror?"

  "Mine hasn't."

  Her face fell, a long way. She was a loss to the profession.

  Her feelings were all on the surface, projected to the back stalls.

  "Different bloodlines have different qualities," Geneviève said, trying to be

  encouraging.

  "So I heard."

  Nico wasn't interested in faint hopes. She wanted instant cures.

  "Is that Mademoiselle Dieudonné?" roared the familiar voice.

  "Yes, Orson, it's me," she said.

  Nico reacted, calculating. She was thinking that Geneviève might be an

  important person.

  "Then that's a wrap for the evening. Thank you, people. Submit your expenses

  to Oja, and be back here tomorrow night, at midnight sharp. You were all

  stupendous."

  Oja was the woman with the clipboard: Oja Kodar, Welles's companion and

  collaborator. She was from Yugoslavia, another refugee washed up on this

  California shore.

  Welles seemed to float out of the swimming pool, easily hauling his enormous

  girth up the ladder by the strength of his own meaty arms. She was surprised at

  how light he was on his feet.

  He pulled off his putty nose and hugged her.

  "Geneviève, Geneviève, you are welcome."

  The rest of the crew came up, one by one, carrying bits of equipment.

  "I thought I'd get Van Helsing's mad scene in the can," explained Welles.

  "Neat trick with the girls."

  The twinkle in his eye was almost Santa Clausian. He gestured hypnotically.

  "Elementary movie magic," he said. "Georges Méliès could have managed it in

  1897."

  "Has it ever been done before? I don't recall seeing a film with the device."

  "As a matter of fact, I think it's an invention of my own. There are still tricks to

  be teased out of the cinema. Even after so many years—a single breath for you,

  my dear—the talkies are not quite perfected. My little vampires may have careers

  as puppeteers, animators. You'd never see their hands. I should shoot a short film,

  for children."

  "You've
been working on this for a long time?"

  "I had the idea at about seven o'clock this evening," he said with a modest

  chuckle. "This is Hollywood, my dear, and you can get anything with a phone call.

  I got my vampires by ordering out, like pizza."

  Geneviève guessed the invisible girls were hookers, a traditional career option

  for those who couldn't make a showing in the movies. Some studio execs paid

  good money to be roughed up by girls they'd pass over with contempt at cattle

  calls. And vampires, properly trained, could venture into areas of pain and

  pleasure a warm girl would find uncomfortable, unappetising, or unhealthy.

  She noticed Nico had latched on to a young, male assistant and was alternately

  flirting with him and wheedling at him for some favour. Welles was right: she could

  have a career as a puppet mistress.

  "Come through into the house, Geneviève," said Welles. "We must talk."

  The crew and the girls bundled together. Oja, as production manager, arranged

  for them to pool up in several cars and be returned to their homes or—in the case

  of Nico, Mink, and Vampi—to a new club where there were hours to be spent

  before the dawn. Gary, the cameraman, wanted to get the film to the lab and

  hurried off on his own to an all-night facility. Many movie people kept vampire

  hours without being undead.

  There was an after buzz in the air. Geneviève wondered if it was genius, or had

  some of the crew been sniffing drac to keep going. She had heard it was better

  than speed. She assumed she would be immune to it; even as a blood drinker—

  like all of her kind, she had turned by drinking vampire blood—she found the idea

  of dosing her system with another vampire's powdered blood, diluted with the

  devil knew what, disgusting.

  Welles went ahead of her, into the nondescript bungalow, turning on lights as

  he went. She looked back for a moment at the cast-off nose by the pool.

  Van Helsing's mad scene?

  She knew the subject of Welles's current project. He had mentioned to her that