Rob Price
No! Not that Hamilton, George Hamilton, the perpetually tanned star of both the big and small screen who won a Golden Globe Award for his performance in Crime and Punishment USA (1969). Not actually known for comedy, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, George made two comical films that highlighted his wit and comic timing. The first, 1979s Love at First Bite and then specifically for Pride Month, 1981s Zorro: The Gay Blade.
Love at First Bite (1979)
After centuries of terrorizing the people of Romania, the Romanian Communist Party evicts Count Vlad Dracula (George Hamilton) and his assistant, Renfield (Arte Johnson) from his family castle so it can be used as a Olympic Sports training facility. The pair decide to take this opportunity to travel to modern day (1979) New York City to find Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), whom Dracula believes is the reincarnation of his true love, Mina Harker. Once there, the overly romantic Dracula has a hard time adjusting to the modern world and must contend with Cindy’s sort of boyfriend Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin) who is a descendant of the Van Helsing family and sees Dracula for what he truly is, and of course, everyone else believes Rosenberg to be crazy. Cindy and Dracula fall in love, but she is uncertain if she wants to become a vampire, but in the end it all seems to work out for all of the characters.
The film was a financial success costing only $3 million to make and grossing $44 million, ranking at 19 on the list of the top grossing films of 1979. It got mainly good reviews, specifically for George Hamilton’s performance which garnered him a Golden Glob Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. George and Arte also won Saturn Awards for their performances. George has since acquired the rights to the film and has planned a sequel involving the son of Dracula living in Hollywood and falling in love with a zoologist who comes from a family of televangelists. At this point in time, no sequel has started production.
I saw this film in the theatres when I was nine and absolutely loved it and I still quote the first line of the film quite a bit, “Children of the Night, Shut Up!”, but having rewatched it for this review, I realize that the film is somewhat dated, with many of the jokes relating to things specific to the 1970s and many of the ethnic and cultural characters are stereotypes.
Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981)
In the 1840s, Don Diego de la Vega (George Hamilton) and his companion Paco (Donovan Scott), return home to Los Angeles from Spain to find that his father has passed away and that his old school friend Esteban has become the Alcalde, the ruler of the town. Soon after his arrival, Diego meets Charlotte Taylor-Wilson, a political activist from Boston trying to help the people of Southern California fight the tyranny and oppression they are under, and instantly falls in love with her. When a large crate is delivered to Diego, he finds that his father was the hero known as Zorro and now that title has been passed down to him. Esteban is heavily taxing the peasants and Zorro springs into action to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, during one of his escapades, leaping out of a second story window, he breaks his foot. With Zorro out of commission, the people once again are persecuted in a reign of terror. Suddenly Diego’s twin brother, Ramon comes home to visit. Ramon is a gay, foppish, effeminate officer in the British royal navy and now goes by the name Bunny Wigglesworth. He is persuaded by his brother to take up the mantle of Zorro just until his brother’s foot is healed. Bunny’s Zorro, puts some twists on the classic black outfit, adding flare, color and tassels to the costume and uses a bullwhip instead of the traditional sword, but he is just as effective if not more so than his brother was.
This film was meant to be a follow-up vehicle for George and to solidify his stardom, unfortunately it did not become as popular as the earlier Love at First Bite. The critical response wasn’t quite as favorable, although George was nominated for another Golden Globe for playing the dual role of Diego and Ramon.
I was eleven when this film came out and I also saw it in the theater and loved it. I thought the humor was incredibly funny and I loved the action and adventure, being a fan of swashbucklers. When I got older, I still thought back on this film fondly, but as I began to accept the fact that I was gay, I saw how stereotypical and possibly offensive this movie could be. Forty years have passed since this movie was made and rewatching it for the first time in many, many years, I have come to realize that, although the Bunny character is stereotypical, he is also a hero. The character’s sexuality is never really demeaned and is just an aspect of the character. Diego is never derogatory or judgmental of his brother, which for an early 1980s film is something rare. I will say, I did not enjoy the film as much as I remembered, but that was mainly due to the performance of Ron Leibman’s Captain Esteban who just seemed to yell and scream throughout the film. As a man, now in my 50s, I found that very annoying. Some of the jokes were still funny, but a lot of the humor was also quite dated, and I am not sure this film holds up or would fly with a modern audience.
George Hamilton led an exciting personal life as well, having been in a relationship with Lynda Bird Johnson, the daughter of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, while he was still a sitting President. He was also involved with Imelda Marcos, the widow of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and had business ties to the Marcos family. Throughout the decades he worked both in front of and behind the cameras, but never quite achieved the fame that most of his co-stars, like Burt Reynolds, believed he was destined for.
