his friends arrive, break in, and free Dorian. Cast Production Operation: Titian In 1963, while on vacation in Europe, Roger Corman made a $20,000 deal to distribute an as-yet unproduced Yugoslavian espionage thriller titled Operacija Ticijan/Operation: Titian. Corman also insisted on involvement in the production to ensure it could be adequately "Americanized", and provided two well-known English-speaking cast members, William Campbell and Patrick Magee for lead roles. In addition, Francis Ford Coppola, then fresh out of "film school" and formerly associated with Corman in the Americanization of Nebo Zovyot, was installed as the production’s script supervisor. Unfortuantely, the completed film was deemed unreleasable by Corman, although a redubbed, slightly re-edited version would eventually be released directly to television under the title Portrait in Terror. Reconception as Blood Bath Meanwhile, in 1964, Corman asked director Jack Hill to salvage the film. Hill wrote numerous new principal scenes, and filmed them in Venice, California, in order to match the original movie’s European look, and turned the former spy thriller into a horror movie about a crazed madman who kills his models and makes sculptures out of their dead bodies. Campbell was available for the reshoots but insisted on a sizeable paycheck to appear in the film, reportedly angering Corman, who nonetheless agreed to the actor’s demands. Hill added all of the beatnik-related scenes shot with Sid Haig and Jonathan Haze, and was responsible for what many fans believe is the single most effective sequence in the film, the hatchet murder of Melissa Mathes. Magee’s role was more or less retained intact in this version. However, the resulting film, now titled Blood Bath, was not released, as Corman once again was unhappy with the results. In 1966, Corman made another attempt to create a workable film from the footage already shot. He hired another director, Stephanie Rothman, to change the story as she saw fit. While retaining much of Hill’s material, she changed the plot from a story about a deranged, murderous artist to a story about a deranged, murderous artist who is also a vampire. Because Campbell refused to participate in yet another reshoot, Rothman was forced to use a completely different actor (unidentified) for the new vampire scenes. This meant Rothman now had to provide the Campbell character with the ability to magically transform his physical shape whenever he turned into a vampire, in order to explain why the vampire-killer looked