Fans, towards the end of a somewhat stressful weekend, I felt in need of a treat, and pulled out my ageing (getting on to 15 years old now) VHS of Roger Vadim's film "Blood and Roses" (originally titled in French, "Et mourir de plaisir"--To die of pleasure!). I'd forgotten just how many of the elements we know and love in DS were present in this early 1960s feature film. A family curse, a resemblance to a mysterious portrait, a costume ball, a mystical melody that heralds the appearance of the vampire, the withering of a rose as a sign of the vampire's touch, a symbol-laden prophetic dream (brilliantly filmed by cinematographer Claude Renoir), 18th century personalities impinging on a 20th century setting, and, most strikingly, [spoiler]the appearance of a bloodstained white dress in a mirror, a sequence restaged in the 1795 storyline in the scenes where Angelique was preparing for her wedding to Barnabas.[/spoiler]
Maddeningly, the movie appears to be unavailable in any format. The Paramount VHS release is the US theatrical print which is missing something like 15 minutes of footage that was in the original European release. For years, I've been hoping that a restored print would be made available. I can only guess that the source materials for this simply do not exist.
Nevertheless, the movie is something to keep your eye out for, if you're in the mood for something "in the vein of" DS (Patti, I honest-to-Goddess did not mean to commit that tacky pun!). I actually think scenes from this movie play more like the original television DS than either hoDS or NoDS did.
G.
