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Thursday, September 24, 2026
Dracula Schmacula (1974)
By Tom Dupreee
Zoo World
June 6, 1974
With searchlights, hearses, a hot air balloon, a Dracula makeup contest, a street dance, and assorted other promotional avenues, the new film Son of Dracula suddenly slid into town in its world premiere engagement, escorted by its two principal actors, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr. It wasn't the biggest party in Atlanta since Gone with the Wind, but they tried. They tried.
Nilsson, who has the title role, and Ringo, who plays an ancient Merlin the magician, hosted a press conference the afternoon of the initial showing to plump for the world's first rock and roll Dracula movie before attending the midnight preem at a North Atlanta shopping center.
Although the two were ready for an arsenal of flip answers ("Why did you decide to open the film in Atlanta?" Ringo: "Because nobody else would take it."), it was clear that Ringo had developed a serious interest in the technical side of filmmaking, perhaps as a result of his before the camera experience in the Magic Christian, 200 Motels, and the Richard Lester Beatles movies.
Ringo produced Son of Dracula after making a major script rewrite on the film, an experience which he doesn't particularly want to repeat, but which has made him anxious to direct a major project. His first attempt at film direction is a movie with Mark Bolan, which has not yet opened in the United States. "Film is a director's medium," says Ringo. "I have no desire whatsoever to produce any more. I want to stick with acting and direction, which is the extent of my interest, really."
The movie, which Nilsson describes as a "science fiction horror musical about a boy and his bat," is the first of what may prove a new film form: the rock and roll monster movie. Since rock and roll and horror were many years staples of the drive-in movie crowd, this genre has strong commercial possibilities. Rock and roll movies, in their now hipper presentations (Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Woodstock) are still vying with horror films in outdoor theaters across the country. Why not combine the elements? Already, we have Paul Williams' Phantom of the Fillmore ready for release, and if it or Son of Dracula makes anything like a respectable amount of money, the floodgates will open.
"It's not the best film ever made, but I've seen worse," says Ringo of the movie, and most who saw it would agree with him. Ringo says the original script, which was presented to him, was "too flower power. The audience would have been asleep in 10 minutes." He decided to add some friction to the plot, and takes full responsibility for what's on the screen. And though Son of Dracula is not bad for a first try, its problem largely rests with that script.
The movie centers around Count Down, the son of Dracula, who was born a vampire and must glom necks for sustenance, but he is also into just about every kind of music there is, and occasionally he takes a break from the action to rush downstairs and perform with his band, which includes Keith Moon on drums. When Count Down comes of age, he will be crowned Overlord of the Netherworld, an occasion for which the assorted creeps of the Nether have been waiting for years. Doctor Van Helsing, Drac's enemy in the Bram Stoker novel, now his ally, noting Count Down's uneasiness over the coming affair proposes an operation which would take away his vampirism and implant within him the capacity for love, but would also wreck his claim to the Netherworld throne, and probably hack off its residence in the bargain.
Count Down agrees, though some monkey wrenches are thrown occasionally by a jealous rival for the throne, one Baron Frankenstein. I'll not spoil the ending.
The film features outstanding set designs and photography, and professional direction by Freddie Francis, a member of the Hammer Films Horror Corps, the guys who have spewed out those 40 or 50 beautiful British remakes of American classics with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, is often lovely to look at, but the movie's stilted script sires uninspired and unbelievable performances. The dialogue is too earnest to be funny in most places. There are amusing moments, most of them coming when the idea of a rock and roll vampire is explored. Yet it's too showbiz and tongue-in-cheek to appeal to anyone unfamiliar with the career of its two stars.
If Son of Dracula didn't feature Ringo and Nilsson, in fact, it would have had about as much general- audience appeal as a dubbed Mexican monster movie on television. American horror fans are used to seeing corny Hammer plots pulled off with sophistication and personality and made believable. Among other weaknesses, with Ringo's first line, one irrevocably refuses to believe he is Merlin, but that's just the monster movie element.
It is a field day for Nilsson fans, including as he does nine songs. Added as an afterthought, according to Nilsson, the original script didn't have music, and only one new song, "Daybreak", written for the film, and accompanying them with film scenes of Nilsson lip-syncing to the album tracks, most of them coming from Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson. Since Nilsson does not perform in public, those who doted on the songs in their album incarnations will find it interesting to see Harry wailing away with his band with no interference from the movie plot.
All the songs are set pieces having nothing to do with the action, except for "Without You," which is played under the operation scene, and "Day Break," which, with its lyrical connection to the vampire theme. Harry has, of course, been photographed as a vampire before on the album cover of Son of Schmilsson. Although Ringo has played on the album (as Richie Snare) he has never seen the cover art until two weeks after he offered Harry the lead in Son of Dracula.
As is obvious from the cover and Ringo's work with SOD, both say they love monster movies and wanted to make one of their own. "We felt that it was time," said Harry. Both are careful to emphasize that musical element of the show because, as Ringo said, "There hasn't been a good Dracula movie made since Bela Lugosi." When asked if he thought Son of Dracula could compare with Lugosi's performance, he quickly said "No."
Nilsson and Ringo talked about other projects besides their movie. Both have Richard Perry-produced albums in the works, not counting Harry's new release, The Son of Dracula soundtrack, which includes all nine tunes and dialogue from the film. Ringo's to be cut in May. Did he have the cooperation from the rest of the Beatles, which marked his Ringo album? "The only one who's cooperated up to now is John, who says he's written a song for me," said Ringo, "But then the last one was largely coincidental. I was recording for the first time in America, and some of them wound up helping, and they're still my mates, aren't they?"
For the 50,000,000th time, Ringo answered a reporter's inquiry into whether or not the Beatles were planning to get back together rather officially. "I would like to say here and now, no". When asked about the lawsuits that surround the dissolving Beatles, Ringo made a distinction between "the thing between the four of us and the thing against Alan Klein," and said that the priorities dictated resolutions of the thing which separates the four Beatles. "That's the most important thing, and everybody knows it."
Although Son of Dracula is credited as an Apple film, it is being independently distributed in America by Cinematian Industries, the people who brought you Fritz the Cat and the Cheerleaders. The soundtrack is manufactured by RCA, Nilsson's record company on the Rapple label.
RCA took over after the press conference and turned Harry and Ringo over to a city that has been fairly throttled by publicists. The stars drove from their downtown hotel in a Son of Dracula hears to the premiere's theater, where hundreds of people waited on Nilsson Boulevard and Stare Drive to greet them. In front of a cardboard facade built to resemble the battlements of a castle, a huge hot air balloon was surveying the parking lot scene. A street dance punctuated by the glare of searchlights. A local radio station had promoted a contest. The outstanding 10 makeup jobs worn to the premiere would win Harry Nielsen watches. Each entrant won a watch.
Harry and Ringo bounded from the car to the bandstand and waved a few waves. They did a short advertisement for the movie. "All of you can't get inside the theater tonight, but come back next week and bring your friends." And then located themselves in the back of the house, where they had as much fun watching Son of Dracula as everybody else did
Ringo Considering a Spring or Summer Tour (1976)
Ringo Considering a Spring or Summer Tour
By John Rockwell
New York Times
September 26, 1976
Ringo Starr was always the least controversial of the Beatles, refreshingly unblessed with the creativity of John Lennon or Paul McCartney, or the brooding mysticism of George Harrison; he moved amiably through life, everybody's friend.
When the Beatles broke up, some people feared for his career. His drumming was suspect, his singing was primitive, his songwriting non-existent. But things eventually went well for Starkey (Richard Starkey is the name he started out with). He was warmly received in a couple of films, and his records were greeted affectionately by critics and the public. Enjoyable, totally unselfconscious collections of pop tunes at a time when the other three Beatles were flailing about in search of varying kinds of greatness.
The one thing Ringo didn't do was tour. Now, with a new record contract and his first disc on Atlantic due toward the end of the month, he is allowing himself to consider the prospects of live performances as well. "It was all the craziness the Beatles went through, holed up in boxes all the time," Ringo explained about his reluctance to tour until now.
"The playing was the only fun part. I really liked playing with musicians in the studio. Then I started going to concerts and seeing how easy it is now. I was living in the past. Now they'll carry you on stage and off again. Also, I don't think I was ready to take on the responsibility of a band. Now I don't want to just go out on stage for two hours and say 'Here I am.' I want things going on around me."
Ringo's first idea was sort of a rambling revue, full of all sorts of different kinds of performers. Then he discovered that to make such a cavalcade pay, he would have to tour steadily for four months or more. Now he's retrenching.
"We've really got to work and cut it down to size," he said. "I just want to go out for a month, and do a couple of days or three times a week. We're thinking now about spring or summer."
And the Beatles? "The four of us aren't talking," Ringo answered. "Others are talking, but we're not. Maybe in a couple of years, and maybe we'll get into the studio. The question is which way we'd play, like then or like now. If we went out with new stuff, I think it would be better."
The Generation Bridge (1974)
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| The original of the photo I cleaned up with A.I. |
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| I used A.I. to clean up this photo because the original was faded and the newsprint had turned yellow. |
By Len Epand
Zoo World
July 18, 1974
What do you do when Peggy Lee asks you to dinner? Well, if you're Paul McCartney, you don't just buy a bottle of rare champagne to show your appreciation. You sit at your piano and compose her a song. That's what Paul did when the McCartneys were to meet Miss Lee in London earlier this year, and that's why he and a most flattered Peggy, one of the greatest pop vocalists of the era, whose name is certainly known to as many people as the Beatles, were at the Record Plant Studio one day the first week in June.
McCartney was producing his song "Let's Love" for the title track to what must be Peggy Lee's 40th album. After a hard day's work, Paul, unmustached and dressed sharply in a black satin shirt and washed-out blue jeans, and Peg, looking trim in a tan suede suit, having recently taken off some weight, and youthful, though at 54 years of age she could be Paul's mother, held a mini press conference/photo session around Studio C's grand piano. In high spirits, they casually sang a couple of songs together, elaborated on their surprising collaboration, then took the small mob into the control room to hear the finished track.
"Well, of course," said Peggy to Paul. "I was a fan of yours before you knew about me."
"No, that's not right," answered McCartney. "No, I was a fan of yours before you knew about me, Peggy. Yeah, I used to have records of Peggy. I did 'Til There Was You' because I had Peggy's record of it. So I've been a fan of hers for a long time, you know.
"When she came to London, she invited us for dinner over at her hotel. So I thought, 'I'm going along to dinner. Well, I'm either going to take a bottle of champagne or a song.'"
" I'd rather have a song any time," added Peggy. "I can always get some champagne, but it would be very difficult to get a Paul McCartney song written, especially for me."
" So I took a song along, and Peggy said, 'Great, let's do it.' So we got a hold of Dave Gushin (who with Peggy is producing the rest of the album) and really that's all there is to it. The logistics were no problem."
"I was delighted, naturally," said Peggy, "and Linda didn't mind."
"Let's Love," recorded with Paul on piano, is a simple romantic tune, with characteristic McCartney production. From the lone piano introduction, strings and woodwinds enter in stages as Peggy sings in her rich, becalming tones, "Lover, let's be in love with each other. Tonight is the night of the butterflies. Let's love."
Paul and Linda stopped off in L.A. to record with Peggy and begin arranging for a future Wings tour. John Lennon visited them at the Beverly Hills Hotel before they left for Nashville, where Wings is presently working out material and breaking in a new drummer, Jeff Britton. During their six weeks stateside, they'll probably record. "When they tour," said McCartney's manager Brian Brolly, "they'll play in England and Europe before doing their first American concerts early in 1975."
When with Peggy, McCartney, very much the gentleman, flatly refused to draw away attention by answering nagging Beatles reunion rumors. But when alone, he did respond to some questions.
Does going to Nashville reflect a certain style he wishes to adopt? "No, no," he said. And will they record there? "We might actually. Yeah, you know why I seem a bit vague is I play a lot of stuff by ear. I don't really plan that much. So ostensibly, do you like that --ostensibly? We're going to rehearse." They've rented a farm and studio for that.
How does he feel after selling 2 million copies of Band on the Run? "Aha, good." That's not a new experience, though? "For me, solo it is."
When someone asks if he thought the Beatles were that good, Paul replied, "I think it was that good, but I mean, when you listen to the tapes now, it wasn't that good. But you've got to take them in context. I mean, you listen now. Well, I mean, it kills me. There's no drums, no bass, no nothing. But in context for the time, compared with the records that were out, it must have been good." As solo artists, have they received undue criticism? "No. If people don't like it, they say they don't like it. That's criticism. But I think it's fair criticism. Most of what's gone down, I don't like it, but it's pretty fair."
In May, when he was in town for the Academy Awards, Paul spoke to Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times about how the Beatles went full circle and are probably finished. "I think it did go full circle, and if you try to make the circle stretch, it'll go into a spiral or something. We started off as four kids from Liverpool who wanted to become famous. We became famous, made all the records, all the statements, did the whole bit. Eventually, we came to a point where we wanted to split up. That's the end of the circle. If we try to get back on the circle, there may not be any circle to jump back on. That's the point. We have all started other circles, and it could get very complicated. The Beatles thing could carry on in a way just like a hobby," he concluded. "Just to keep the friendship alive, cause there is friendship there. I mean, we like each other. We dig each other a lot."
Now Paul is understandably tired of Beetle's speculation. About to leave the studio, he was waiting in the parking lot for Linda, who was nowhere to be seen during the session, and he revealed how he felt about it. It's the same dumb questions all the time. I hate to say it, but it is with the same dumb leading answers. You know what I hate most of all, the same stupid answers every time. Yeah, uh, in mock serious voice. As far as I can see, the Beatles won't be regrouping.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Remote Indian Tribe Wild About the Beatles (1966)
Remote Indian Tribe Wild About The Beatles
By Copley New Service
Rio De Janerio
September 23, 1966
The influence of the Beatles' music has gone just about as far as it can go. While worried mothers across the world wonder what influence it is having on their children, worried officials of the Brazilian Indian Protection Service are wondering what final effects it will have on the Maxacali Tribe.
The Indians live on an isolated, thickly grown area in the interior state of Minas Gerais. They were only discovered and "pacified" a generation ago, but they have always been interesting to scientists of Indianology because of their customs. They have a different way of considering the hereafter, a different way of organizing their family relations, and their language varies so much from other Indians of the same area-- to be almost a separate dialect.
The tribe is dwindling. The present population is estimated at about 115 persons. This makes it all the more urgent for scientists to record all they can on these unusual people. It has increased the Indian Protective Services' determination to keep the tribe pure and apart from the influence of civilization, but it hadn't counted on the Beatles.
Recently, a tourist came to the tribe, and the braves were amazed to see a small black box that produced voices and sounds with just the flick of a finger. Some thought it was a way for jungle spirits to communicate with them. They especially liked the music. The ye-ye-ye was given a top rating. Beethoven and Brahms failed to move them. Frank Sinatra fared only a little better, but when the stomping, shouting, twanging of the Beatles came out of the little box, the whole tribe started dancing.
When it came time to leave the village, the Indians didn't want to let the radio go. There was much discussion back and forth. The visitor finally agreed to trade his transistor radio for a collection of bows and arrows and some ceramic pots.
The next time the Indian Protection Service men showed up with their tape recorders and their notebooks, they were appalled to find that the Indians were thumping out a Beatle beat on the tribe's five drums. The prayers for harvest and good hunting now sound like something from the soundtrack of "Help"; the solemn chants and mournful pace of the funeral rites have been replaced by a jazzed-up version that could very well wake the dead.
Paul and John Took Over His Beat (1986)
Paul and John Took Over His Beat
By Billy Sloan
Daily Record
September 23, 1986
Buddy Holly never knew what effect his appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium had on two young lads from Liverpool. The American singer's performance on the famous TV variety show in 1958 left teenage school pals John Lennon and Paul McCartney absolutely mesmerized, and this was the spur which made Lennon and McCartney form the Beatles and change the course of popular music.
The memory is revealed by superstar McCartney on a new video called "The Real Buddy Holly Story," released this month to mark the 50th anniversary of the singer's birth in Lubbock, Texas, on September 7, 1936. The former Beatle owns the rights to Holly's catalog of songs. Over the past five years, he has worked tirelessly to promote the speckled star who died tragically in a plane crash in 1959 at age 22.
McCartney insisted on narrating Holly's story personally because he's such a fan, and the video reveals some amazing recollections of those early Beatles days. Paul said, "I remember seeing Buddy on the Palladium Show. That was a big occasion for us. We watched his fingers to see how he played the chords and the solos.
"The very first songs John and I wrote were inspired by him. We used to bunk off school to do it. We got 'Love Me Do ' out of that.
"There were these guys like Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, really good-looking fellows. But then Buddy Holly came along, and he wore glasses, and John, who normally wore specs but took them off on stage, started wearing them again, and suddenly he could see the world."
Inspired by the Crickets, John and Paul copied the name by originally calling themselves the Beetles. They later changed the second E to an A to make it sound more trendy.
Holly was born Charles Harden Holly, and began singing and playing as a teenager at local high school hops. His first record was a song called "Love Me," which was released in 1956, and the singer, a prolific songwriter, soon notched up a string of hits, including such classics as "Peggy Sue," "Oh Boy," "That'll Be the Day," "Rave On," and "Heartbeat."
In fact, the Beatles' first-ever recording in a tiny Liverpool studio was a rough-and-ready version of "That'll Be the Day." Recently, more than a quarter of a century later, Paul McCartney was named an honorary citizen of Holly's hometown.
Rotogravure in Italy
September 23, 1976
I guess I didn't realize that Ringo and Paul were in Italy at the same time in 1976.
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