Our host drops his debonair demeanor for a surprise attack in THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA.
“My Dinner with Yorga: The Robert Quarry Rue Morgue Inter- view” (13m 4s) is an audio reen- actment of an interview Sullivan conducted with Quarry at North Hollywood Diner in 2003, with Del Valle providing the voice of Quarry. But the inner diamond of this Blu-ray disc is the Fangirl Radio tribute to Robert Quarry (45m 59s) featuring Sullivan, who offers a very heartfelt summary of the late actor’s troubled eld- erly years. Filmmaker Fred Olen Ray singlehandedly kept Quarry afloat toward the end of the actor’s career, but Sullivan reveals the difficult living conditions that plagued the retired actor, whose caregivers actually stole from him. As mentioned on the com- mentary track, Frank Darabont spearheaded the striking of new 35mm prints of COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE and its sequel. The re- stored films played as a double feature at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on December 5th, 2004. Quarry was present and received a standing ovation.
Sullivan says many horror fans made contributions to remind Quarry he was fondly remem- bered by enthusiastic fans, who all shared the same wish that Quarry’s last year of life would be “one of comfort and love, and awareness he mattered.” As a life- long fan of the horror category, I often find myself attempting to justify my affection for the genre. “What kind of people would like that sort of stuff?” people ask. Sullivan points out those willing to acknowledge the darkest depths of cinema are, interest- ingly enough, among the nicest and most giving people one could meet.
A still gallery from MGM’s archives includes indisputable evi- dence of the feature film’s soft- core heritage (via the lovemaking sequence in the van). Another gallery was culled from Sullivan’s personal collection. There is also an original theatrical trailer (59s), an MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (2m 6s), an isolated score track, the Twilight Time catalogue, and
a booklet with an essay by the consistently reliable Julie Kirgo. The Count did not fare well in the original film’s concluding se- quence, but profitable movie monsters almost always find res- urrection, so THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA hit theaters the following year. AIP’s flamboyant (more so, this time) lead vampire now occupies an old mansion near Westwood Orphanage, where Cynthia Nelson (Mariette Hartley) senses something omi- nous in the Santa Ana winds. Her anxious feelings are not without reason; while playing in the area, a boy named Tommy (Philip Frame) stumbles into Count Yorga (Quarry), with an uprising of the dead in the background. Later at a costume party Dr. David Baldwin (Roger Perry, again in the Van Helsing role), dressed in Sherlock Holmes garb, is the first to show interest in the chances of vampires being more fact than fiction. None of the other denizens in attendance want to buy into the notion, save for one
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