Planet of the Vampires 1965: Mario Bava's Budget Beauty

As always there are spoilers ahead!

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Planet of the Vampires was directed by Mario Bava and released in 1965. American International Pictures had made money with Italian films such as Black Sunday (1960) but would often need to oversee many changes to make the films suitable for an American audience. Their solution was to provide a script and co-produce a film so they could control the content.

The film had a small budget of around $200,000 and although it definitely has its fair share of Schlock, Bava had a reputation for doing a lot on a small budget.

My guests unravel why Mario Bava's reputation and love for this film continue to grow.

Scott Higgins is Professor of Film at Wesleyan University as well as being the Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives.

Russ Hunter is an Assistant Professor in Film & Television Studies at Northumbria University. He has a special interest in Italian genre cinema.

Scott says Eugenio Bava (Mario's Father) invented the Schüfftan process before Eugen Schüfftan after whom it was named. You can read more about this here: https://dcairns.wordpress.com/tag/schufftan-process/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:46 AIP involvement

04:14 Italian cinema in 1965

09:01 Dubbing

14:31 Names changes and US appeal

17:28 Mario Bava

21:51 Scott's love for this film

27:12 Bava and Barry

29:22 Special Effects and the Schüfftan process

33:39 Production and Set Design

35:21 Style over coherence

38:33 The alien

41:35 Influences and origins

43:40 Vampires in name

44:20 Legacy

49:06 Recommendations

Recommendations:

The Green Slime (1968) by Kinji Fukasaku

Tu Vuo' Fa' L'americano by Renato Carosone

Danger: Diabolik (1968) by Mario Bava

Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas

NEXT EPISODE:

As we approach 1966 on the podcast it is time to talk about my favourite franchise which will be 60 years old this September! A little detour into the beginnings of Star Trek in two week's time.