Jean Rollin (uncredited) Production In 1967, French retailer Jean Lavie, owner of a Paris network of small theatres including The Scarlett, Styx and Midi Minuit, commissioned a short film from Rollin on the theme of vampires. It was to serve as a prologue to an old American fantasy film of the 1940s, The Vampire, a Creature of the Devil, which he had bought the rights to and planned to rebroadcast. At the time, Rollin was still an apprentice film director, having only done his early short films and documentaries, but he wanted to embark on more ambitious projects and specialize in particular in the fantasy genre. He accepted the proposal from Lavie enthusiastically. With producer Sam Selsky, he was given a budget of 200,000 francs, which gave him the opportunity to assemble a small team and start shooting the film. Casting Rollin could not bring in professional actors due to the low budget. Among the cast playing the four vampire sisters were Ursule Pauly, a model, and Nicole Romain, a stripper. Pradel, Letrou and Polho, who played the three heroes, had never acted in a movie before; nor had the rest of the cast. None had undergone training in drama except Ariane Sapriel. Filming The filming of Le Viol du Vampire began in 1967 and took place almost entirely around an old abandoned house which served as the home of the four vampire sisters. The surrounding woods and fields furnished the framework for the outdoor sequences. This abandoned house, Château de Gressy, was located in the Paris suburbs at Gressy, Claye-Souilly. According to Rollin, this château was destroyed in a fire. Later, the city hall of Gressy was built on this location. Only the death scene of Thomas and the vampire sister was not filmed in Île-de-France. Instead, Rollin chose Pourville-lès-Dieppe, a beach near Normandy which was dear to his heart since his teens and had already been used as a setting in 1958 for his first short film, Les Amours Jaunes (The Yellow Lovers). The beach was seen again on numerous occasions throughout the filming, and the same beach was used as a setting in his later films. During the scene, in which the four vampire sisters were attacked, the peasants were played by Polho and several members of the crew, who had been employed for the occasion as actors because Rollin could not hire extras. Release Controversy On