S3E22: The Reluctant Vampire Speaks!

The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast

Let’s revisit our friend “The Reluctant Vampire”. MALCOLM MCDOWELL. When I was a kid, just beginning to acquire a “taste for cinema”, one of the first movies that gave me that taste was STANLEY KUBRICK’s “A CLOCKWORK ORANGE”. But, there was another Malcolm McDowell movie that struck me even more round about the same time: Lindsey Anderson’s “IF” (that’s the old “If“, not the new “If”).

When I was 16, I took part in a little research study. A group of the smart kids from my high school were shown “If” and then asked a bunch of questions about it.

The movie’s about a boy’s military school in England and what happens when one of the students – Malcolm’s character – begins to plot against the uptight upper class toffs who run the place.

Malcolm’s entrance is fantastic! So’s the rest of his performance. In fact, his work in “If” is what got him cast in Clockwork Orange.

As Stanley Kubrick said when he saw If – We found our Alex!

As I’ve said here frequently, one of the great thrills of making TALES FROM THE CRYPT for HBO was getting to work with actors and directors and everyone in between from all those movies I’d fallen in love with while I was falling in love with the movies.

Clockwork Orange was a double header. I also got to work with – and became quite close with AUBREY MORRIS. He plays Mr Deltoid, Alex’s counselor-slash-parole-officer. Aubrey appeared in Bordello Of Blood.

Malcolm epitomized our approach to casting Crypt. We always wanted to cast against type – especially with our stars. Malcolm was still building a career playing dark characters and villains when we met him.

Later in his career, he went on to play Sauron in Star Trek: Generations – that’s the guy who kills Captain James T. Kirk – you can’t get more villainous than that.

We cast Malcolm as THE RELUCTANT VAMPIRE. A vampire who, frankly, hates killing people. So he gets a job as a night watchman in a blood bank.

It’s a very sweet episode.

In addition to talking Crypt and Clockwork and If, we’ll touch on another part of Malcolm’s canon:

CALIGULA.

Here on the podcast, we’ve focused on Caligula as an example of both how not to make a movie and how not to make porn.

Boy, does Malcolm have Caligula stories!

But, first, we’re gonna talk a little footie…