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Blacula
''Blacula'' is a 1972 American blaxploitation horror film directed by William Crain. It stars William Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire (and later locked in a coffin) by Count Dracula in the Count's castle in Transylvania in the year 1780 after Dracula refuses to help Mamuwalde suppress the slave trade. ''Blacula'' was released to mixed reviews in the United States, but was one of the top-grossing films of the year. It was the first film to receive an award for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards. ''Blacula'' was followed by the sequel ''Scream Blacula Scream'' in 1973 and inspired a wave of blaxploitation-themed horror films. Plot In 1780, African prince Mamuwalde goes to Transylvania to seek the help of Count Dracula in suppressing the slave trade. Dracula refuses, however, and insults Mamuwalde by making a pass at his wife, Luva. After a scuffle with Dracula's minions, Mamuwalde is bitten by Dracu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaxploitation Horror Films
Blaxploitation horror films are a genre of horror films involving mostly black actors. In 1972 director William Crain did the first blaxploitation horror film, ''Blacula''. History Blaxploitation films, regardless of subgenre, spawned from race movies. These were films that started appearing in the 1930s–1940s. They were meant to segregate films featuring an all black cast from mainstream Hollywood movies. Many of these films already had the element of horror integrated into them. Over time these films transcended into their own subgenre of film, blaxploitation horror films. In the 1950s to 1960s Hollywood started to integrate films produced and starring African Americans into mainstream media. There was backlash by several African American directors and actors that did not want to be integrated into mainstream media. They wanted to stay independent which caused them to create more of what were originally known as race movies. This happened during the 1960s–7 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scream Blacula Scream
''Scream Blacula Scream'' is a 1973 American blaxploitation vampire horror film. It is a sequel to the 1972 film ''Blacula''. The film was produced by American International Pictures (AIP) and Power Productions. This was the acting debut of Richard Lawson. Plot After dying Voodoo queen Mama Loa chooses adopted apprentice Lisa Fortier as her successor, her arrogant son and true heir Willis is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Prince Mamuwalde, otherwise known as the vampire Blacula, from the former shaman of the voodoo cult and uses voodoo to resurrect the vampire to do his bidding. However, while it brings Blacula back to life, he bites Willis upon awakening. Willis now finds himself in a curse of his own doing: made into a vampire hungering for blood and a slave to the creature he sought to control. Meanwhile, Justin Carter, an ex-police officer with a large collection of acquired African antiquities and an interest in the occult, begins to investigate the murd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Marshall (actor)
William Horace Marshall (August 19, 1924 – June 11, 2003) was an American actor, director and opera singer. He played the title role in the 1972 blaxploitation classic '' Blacula'' and its sequel '' Scream Blacula Scream'' (1973), and appeared as the King of Cartoons on the 1980s television show ''Pee-wee's Playhouse'' and as Dr. Richard Daystrom on the ''Star Trek'' television series. He was 6‘5” (1.96 m) tall and was known for his bass voice. Biography Early life Marshall was born in Gary, Indiana, to Vereen Marshall, a dentist, and Thelma (née Edwards). He attended New York University as an art student but transferred to the Actors Studio to study theater. He studied at the American Theatre Wing and with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Career Marshall made his Broadway debut in 1944 in ''Carmen Jones''. In 1950, he understudied Boris Karloff as Captain Hook in the Broadway production of ''Peter Pan.'' He played the leading role of De Lawd in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypical characters often involved in crime. The genre does rank among the first after the race films in the 1940s and 1960s in which black characters and communities are the protagonists and subjects of film and television, rather than sidekicks, antagonists or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s. Blaxploitation films were originally aimed at an urban African-American audience but the genre's audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines. Hollywood realized the potential profit of expanding the audiences of bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American International Pictures
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing films from 1955 until 1980, a year after its acquisition by Filmways in 1979. It was formed on April 2, 1954 as American Releasing Corporation (ARC) by former Realart Pictures Inc. sales manager James H. Nicholson and entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff and their first release was the 1953 UK documentary film ''Operation Malaya''. It was dedicated to releasing low-budget films packaged as double features, primarily of interest to the teenagers of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The company eventually became a part of Orion Pictures, which in turn, became a division of MGM. On October 7, 2020, four decades after the original closure, MGM revived AIP as a label for acquired films for digital and theatrical releases, with MGM overseeing ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hues Corporation
The Hues Corporation was an American pop and soul trio, formed in Santa Monica, California in 1969. They are best known for their 1974 single " Rock the Boat", which sold over 2 million copies. Group name and background Before achieving mainstream success they were the opening act for a list of headliners that included Frank Sinatra, Milton Berle, Nancy Sinatra, and Glen Campbell. The original band had a lineup of three singers and three sidemen. The sidemen were Joey Rivera from the Checkmates; Monti Lawston; and Bob "Bullet" Bailey, formerly of the Leaves. Bailey, Rivera, and Lawston left the band to form Goodstuff. The group's name was a pun on the Howard Hughes Corporation, with the 'hue' (a synonym of 'color'). The band's members at the time of their first album were St. Clair Lee (born Bernard St. Clair Lee, April 24, 1944, San Francisco, California; died March 8, 2011), Fleming Williams (born December 26, 1943, Flint, Michigan; died February 15, 1998) and Hubert Ann K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ji-Tu Cumbuka
Ji-Tu Cumbuka (March 4, 1940 – July 4, 2017) was an American actor. He is best remembered as "Torque" in the hit TV series ''A Man Called Sloane'' together with Robert Conrad and Dan O'Herlihy. In 2011, Cumbuka published his autobiography ''A Giant to Remember: The Black Actor in Hollywood''. He has a son and a granddaughter. Early life Cumbuka was born in 1940 in Helena, Alabama, to a Baptist minister. After Texas Southern, he moved to California to pursue his acting career, and went to Columbia College in New York City, earning a bachelor of arts in theatre and a master's degree in cinematography. He landed a role in the 1968 movie '' Uptight'' directed by Jules Dassin. Acting career Cumbuka appeared in such television productions as the ''Roots'' miniseries, ''Daniel Boone'', '' Young Dan'l Boone'', ''Knots Landing'', ''The A-Team'', ''The Dukes of Hazzard'', ''Murder She Wrote'', ''Walker, Texas Ranger'', ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', ''Amen'', ''227'', '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Dracula
Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant. One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and infecting them with the vampiric disease. Other character aspects have been added or altered in subsequent popular fictional works. The character has appeared frequently in popular culture, from films to animated media to breakfast cereals. Stoker's creation Bram Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities, and weaknesses are narrated by multiple narrators, from different perspectives. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Crain (filmmaker)
William Crain (born June 20, 1949) is an American film and television director. He was one of the first black filmmakers from a major film school to achieve commercial success. Crain was born in Columbus, Ohio. A graduate of UCLA's film school, Crain, unlike many of the so-called "L.A. Rebellion" filmmakers who made films of a deeply personal or political nature, made work consisting almost entirely of mainstream and genre driven works. Throughout the 1970s he directed TV shows and movies. In 1972, he directed Blacula. While largely ignored by critics, the film has become somewhat of a cult favorite and made a name for actor William Marshall who played the title character. Crain did other films, then returned to TV show installments which he continues to do today. Many sources confuse him with another Bill/William Crain who produced educational short films in the 1970s, and directed ''Mirage'' (1990) and ''Midnight Fear'' (1991).http://www.crainstudios.com/About(Note: Incorrec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vonetta McGee
Vonetta Lawrence McGee (January 14, 1945 – July 9, 2010) was an American actress. She debuted in the Spaghetti Western ''The Great Silence'' and went on to appear in blaxploitation films such as ''Hammer'', ''Melinda'', ''Blacula'', ''Shaft in Africa'', ''Detroit 9000'', and 1974's ''Thomasine & Bushrod'' alongside her then-boyfriend Max Julien. In 1975, she was Clint Eastwood's co-star in ''The Eiger Sanction''. She was a regular on the 1987 Universal Television situation comedy ''Bustin' Loose'', starring as Mimi Shaw for its only season (1987–88). Early life Born in San Francisco, California, to Lawrence McGee and Alma McGee (née Scott), McGee graduated from San Francisco Polytechnic High School in 1962. She enrolled at San Francisco State University and became involved in acting groups on campus. Career McGee landed her first role in 1968, when she performed alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant and Klaus Kinski in Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti Western ''The Great Silen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thalmus Rasulala
Thalmus Rasulala (born Jack Crowder; November 15, 1939October 9, 1991) was an American actor with a long career in theater, television, and films. Noted for starring roles in blaxploitation films, he was also an original cast member of ABC's soap opera ''One Life to Live'' from its premiere in 1968 until he left the show in 1970. Life and career Born Jack Crowder in Miami, Florida, and a graduate of the University of Redlands, he appeared in many films and made guest appearances on television shows. He also attended some classes at Shaw University, a historically black university in Raleigh, North Carolina in the late 1970s. Notable blaxploitation film roles include Sidney Lord Jones in '' Cool Breeze'' (1972), Dr. Gordon Thomas in ''Blacula'' (1972) and Robert Daniels in ''Willie Dynamite'' (1974); he also was the assistant director of ''The Slams'' (1973). On television, he was known as Skeeter Matthews on '' Sanford and Son'', Ned in ''The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vampirism
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been Vampire folklore by region, recorded in cultures around the world; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''shtriga'' in Albanian mythology, Albania, ''vrykolakas'' in G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
