“You’re seeing a creature that doesn’t exist. You’re looking at a legend.”
There have been some deaths in Bakunda. Four so far. They were found with bite marks on their necks and were drained of blood. Roy Hendrick (Charles Gordon), his fiancée Julie Vance (Peggy Stewart), Julie’s father Thomas Vance (Emmett Vogan) and the local priest, Father Gilchrist (Grant Withers) have been discussing it. The subject of a vampire comes up. The natives believe it the work of one. The jungle drums say so. The idea is dismissed by those present as superstition.
Roy decides to visit a fairly new citizen of the village, Webb Fallon (John Abbott). He runs the local bar and gambling establishment and has his finger on the pulse of the village. Roy thinks that Fallon may be able to help identify a suspect. Roy invites him to dinner with the Vances and Father Gilchrist. After dinner they decide to visit the Maconga village for more information. There is a witchcraft cult in Maconga.
On the way the natives on the safari realize that Fallon is indeed a vampire. Two of the natives, Simon Peter (Floyd Shackelford) and Taba (Zack Williams) decide that Fallon must die. To kill him they dip the head of a spear into melted silver and stab him. Roy is with him when he is stabbed. He removes the spear and sees that there is no blood on it. Fallon tells Roy who he is and turns Roy into a slave to do his bidding.
Back at the plantation, Roy is sick with fever. Fallon’s control over him prevents him from doing anything against the vampire. Two more people die. A dancer at Fallon’s club named Lisa (Adele Mara) and a sea Captain named Barrett (Roy Bancroft), who has been causing problems for Fallon. The jungle drums begin talking again. They say that Fallon is the vampire. Father Gilchrist goes to visit Roy. He convinces him to go to church and pray to be free from Fallon’s spell. Roy finally breaks Fallon’s hold on him.
Now Fallon has set his sights on Roy's fiancée Julie.
“The Vampire’s Ghost” was released in 1945 and was directed by Lesley Selander. It is a rather obscure low budget “B” movie by Republic Pictures and an interesting one. It’s a combination vampire movie and jungle movie.
The vampire isn’t really a ghost just your average four hundred year old vampire. Still making the movie in an African jungle adds some spice to the film. Our vampire doesn’t don a cape but a white jungle suit and pith helmet. It’s a nice touch to the standard vampire story.
Low budget yes, but well done. Even the natives are given more respect than is usual in a forties jungle style movie. They know that the deaths are the work of a vampire and they know who the vampire is. They even know how to kill it. It’s the white people that stumble around refusing to see the obvious.
I’ve seen more than one vampire movie where the black people figure out what’s going on quicker than the white people. If there is any moral to this story it would be: If you are white and a black person tells you someone is a vampire, believe them, because you are an arrogant, stupid white person who wouldn’t know a vampire if he bit you on the neck. It’s a lesson I’ll remember.
Supposedly Jim Thorpe has an uncredited part in the film. Thorpe was a Native American Olympic athlete, player, coach and part time actor. A movie about his athletic career was made in 1951. He was played by Burt Lancaster. He was actually part Irish, Sac and Fox, French and Potawatomi. His Sac and Fox name was Wa-Tho-Huk which roughly translates as “Bright Path”.