Fearless Vampire Killers
Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck
1967 Sharon Tate
Production Notes for "The Fearless Vampire Killers"
Among the non-human actors appearing with Jack MacGowran and Sharon Tate in MGM's take-off on horror films, "The Fearless Vampire Killers Or Pardon Me, But Yonr Teeth Are in My Neck," were a pair of wolves shipped from the Rome Zoo to the film's location site in the Italian Dolomites.
When scenes were filmed 2,000 feet above the village of Ortisei, the wolves were transported to the lofty location via cable car and then were loaded on to small horse-drawn sleighs.
Several track records for the funicular-location run were broken by the sleigh horses when a tail wind wafted the strong scent of wolf into their quivering nostrils!
Lovely Sharon Tate is seen as a girl who has a positive obsession for taking baths in "The Fearless Vampire Killers Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck," MGM's hilarious satire on vampires and horror dramas. The Martin Ransohoff.Roman Polanski production filmed in Panavision and color in the Italian Dolomites, also stars
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Jack MacCowran, Alfie Bass, Ferdy Mayne and Terry Downes.
A motion picture company's penchant for coffins recently played havoc with the ski tourist trade in the famed Italian winter resort of Ortisei.
This nnique situation was precipitated by the filming of "The Fearless Vampire Killers Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck," a Cadre-Film-ways Production for MGM in Panavision and color, filmed on locations in the Italian Dolomites.
This Fang-tastic comedy-horror drama abont a couple of people who go hunting for a castle full of batty vampire Killers Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck," a CadreFilmways Production for MGM in Panavision and color, filmed on locations in the Italian Dolomites.
Since coffins are essential to a story about vampires because they are the daytime abodes of the nocturnal bloodquaffers, Polanski had to have dozens on hand for the various scenes involving them.
Ortisei and its adj acent villages are noted for their carpenters and wood sculptors, so the director was able to put these artisans to work producing coffins. Unfortunately for the tourist association, however, the effect of this on visitors was nnnerving. In virtually every woodcarver's shop in which they searched for hand-carved trolls, donkeys or madonnas, they found the artist at work faashioning a coffin.
Some of the tourists hurried back to their hotels to inquire if an epidemic had hit the valley, while anxiously scanning train departure schedules. Others thought there had been a landslide or some other natural disaster. And a few novice skiers, ready for their first slide down the slopes, assumed in horror that these were the normal preparations for accommodating skiing enthusiasts.
To make matters worse, the coffins were transported from the workshops in the village to the "The Fearless Vampire Killers Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck" location on the mile-high Alpe di Suisi on horse-drawn sleds. As the sleds, each
bearing a pinewood box, slithered along one after the other, often at dusk and sometimes illuminated by pitchbrands, they resemble a funeral cortege headed for some mass interment ceremony. Both natives and tourists were seen to cross themselves as the empty boxes slid by.
In self protection, the management of the Hotel Posta and other hostelries iii the neighborhood tacked up the following notice:
"Newly arrived guests should not be alarmed by the large number of coffins in evidence in and aronnd the village. No disaster or epidemic has struck the area-merely a motion picture company."
"After all," explained one boniface, "the porters with wheel-chairs who meet the ski trains in Milano and Paris add a bit of glamour to the sport. A ski-broken leg may have a status symbol. But coffins have quite a different effect!"
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