Trivia for
Dance of the Vampires (1967) More at IMDbPro »

• Producer Martin Ransohoff discovered Sharon Tate on the set of "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962), and insisted that director Roman Polanski use her instead of Jill St. John as Polanski had planned.
  
  
• Sharon Tate replaced 'Jill St John', who withdrew shortly before shooting.
  
  
• Amongst the ancestral portraits in the castle is a depiction of an ugly old woman inspired by a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci and since the 18th century frequently connected with Margarete Maultasch, countess of Tyrol (1318-1369).
  
  
• The original format of the film was to be spherical widescreen. However, at the early stages of production the format was changed to wider, anamorphic Panavision. This results in some of the spherical shots having to be reframed and cropped in order to be as wide as Panavision.
  
  
• The film's original release in the United States was so severely re-edited against Polanski's wishes that he disowned it entirely.
  
  
• The portrait on the wall in Alfred's bedroom in Count von Krolok's castle is of Richard III, king of England from 1483 to 1485.
  
  
• The murals in Count Krolock's hall show motifs of Peter Brueghel the elder's "Triumph of Death" (c. 1562).
  
  
• For the ballroom scene (when the music stops and only three people are visible in a huge mirror despite of a few dozen vampires in the room) Polanski had the room completely copied behind a fake mirror with three doubles acting as the human protagonists.
  
  
• Originally Polanski wanted to shoot his film on location in and around a castle in Switzerland which he saw during a vacation, but as this was impossible, other locations in the Alps were found, along with studio shoots in England. While on location, Polanski employed dozens of local artisans to make the large numbers of coffins needed in the film. Unfortunately tourists were rather unnerved by the sight of these, and hotels had to erect signs to assure their guests that the area hadn't been struck by plague.
  
  

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