Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.
As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, which is the season I am in now, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also stared as Nancy part way through season two when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the lack of parts that were being written for her character.
This time around, I am tackling The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula. This was a two-part episode with both Nancy and the Hardy Boys, so it was essentially a movie.
I don’t know why it took me so long to get back to rewatching and then writing about these two episodes. I know that most of my blog readers do not read these recaps, which really makes the fact that I still write them a bit sad, (haha!) but I can’t seem to stop writing them. Writing them is a funny and light distraction from the tougher parts of life so I shall keep writing them.
I was watching the first episode of this two-parter last week to get ready for this blog post, when I saw that one of the podcasters I listen to had also watched these episodes and was sharing her own view of them on her most recent I thought that was neat timing. Yes, I wrote the word neat. Yes, I am old.
The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula was the start of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries second season. The two-part character crossover aired on September 11, 1977, and was the first (but not the last) time the sleuths teamed up on the show.
Our story starts in Transylvania with Fenton Hardy, the dad of Frank and Joe. He’s being driven up to the entrance of a very creepy castle at night. Why at night? Who knows…maybe the taxi driver wouldn’t take him up during the day. Either way, he arrives at night. On the way up a very rocky, out of shape road, the taxi driver complains about some American rock singer coming to the castle to perform.
When they arrive at the castle, Fenton gets out and starts to walk up to the front with a flashlight. The man tells him not to go in, but when Fenton mocks him, asking if he believes in the living dead and Dracula, he says it’s just an old building and he doesn’t think he should go in. Fenton asks the driver to wait, but the driver says he will drive to the bottom of the hill and wait for him. Fenton rolls his eyes and heads inside.
Inside Fenton is sneaking around, clearly looking for something, and being followed by someone wearing boots and who has a very white hand with ruffled sleeves and a ruby ring.
Eventually Fenton almost falls into a hole with human bones and drops his flashlight. This leads him to pick up a torch on the wall and light it with the lighter he apparently carries around with him.
He is making his way down a flight of stairs when he is hit on the back of the head by someone and falls down the stairs.
(Avery from the True Drew Podcast said she always hates to see the dad figure in a show get hurt because it makes her think of her own dad and I have to agree. I didn’t like the way Fenton Hardy fell or the way his head bounced on the way down.)
Next, we switch to Paris with Frank and Joe. It is June 9th we are told. We find out that Fenton has now been missing for two weeks.
“We’ve got to follow every lead, no matter how thin,” Frank tells Joe.
“You’ll forgive me if I pray this one doesn’t work out,” Joe says.
The next thing we see is a door to the morgue. The boys are both dressed in suits and a man is telling them a body was pulled up from the river. Thankfully, the body is not that of Fenton’s.
The boys are relieved and head back to the hotel where their dad was staying to see if they can find out anything else about where he is.
They see a band performing across the street and that will come into play later.
When they go back to the hotel room, they hear someone searching their father’s room. They break in and find an older man with a very thick Romanian accent who asks them who they are and why they are in the room.
“Isn’t that our line?” Frank asks.
“Only if this is your room,” the man responds.
“It’s our father’s room,” Joe says.
The man double checks who their father is and then introduces himself as Inspector Hans Stavlin (portrayed by Lorne Greene – a well-known actor from the original Battlestar Galactica, Bonanza, and many other shows).
He says he is with the Romanian police and Frank says he’s a long way from home.
The inspector is looking for their father too and tells them he will fill them in on what he knows. After the “commercial break” we are at a small café and Stavlin is telling the boys that their father was working on a case with Interpol of “international importance.”
“A series of spectacular thefts of paintings which emptied the museums in Europe,” Stavlin says. “I believe you father was on the verge of a breakthrough when he disappeared.”
He says he received a phone call from their father saying he had a lead in Paris and then the phone went dead.
The boys want to know why Fenton would call him and Stavlin says their father was the liaison between all the police departments in Europe. (Ummm..ooookaaay. If he says so.)
Stavlin encourages the boys to go back home and wait for news on their father.
They aren’t very interested in that but ask him how they should reach him if their father does reach out. He says he is going home to a small town in the provinence of Transylvania and they can reach him there or through Interpol.
The boys discuss the fact he just said Transylvania and say they weren’t even aware it was a real place. They go back to their dad’s hotel room and look where he normally hides things — under the dresser drawer. There they find his notebook and a list of dates and locations. Each one corresponds with the robbery dates.
“Meet at Ritz Hotel, Munich, 5 o’clock,” Frank reads in the his dad’s planner. “Book for 301 in the name of Fredericks.”
They also see a note about the town Punare and a “Dracula Festival.” It’s the same town Stavlin just said he was from.
The boys decide they need a cover to get into the festival and offer money to a band they see performing outside to travel with them across Europe.
The band agrees, saying they’re going to the Dracula Festival to perform with American Rockstar Alison Troy, who in real life is singer Paul Williams. Nope, never heard of him either.
The group hops in a little 70s-style van, first to Munich to meet whoever their dad was meeting at the hotel and then on to Transylvania for the festival. As they travel we listen to them singing Ob-la-de-obla-da by The Beatles and as the scenery flies by them I had to laugh a bit and wonder if that is the only song they sang the entire drive.
Anyhow, they arrive at the hotel on June 10 and I thought this was probably impossible but a quick search online revealed that they could have driven from Paris to Munich in that time frame.
They check in at the hotel and get another room for their band friends.
So here is where things get weird with the people at the hotel. The bellman is repeatedly calling the man at the front desk “capitan” and then saying “Ooops.” He also gives him the Nazi salute more than once. I am truly not sure what this was all alluding to — other than these are former Nazis who have escaped being punished? I have no idea.
It’s just weird.
The boys get to their room but still have two hours before the person who was supposed to meet their dad is due to show up so they head downstairs to get some lunch.
While they are gone in enters Nancy Drew looking stylish as all get out with a long white cape, matching calf length skirt, knee high black boots, and stunning reddish-brown hair.
She turns a lot of heads as she confidently marches to the front desk and asks to be taken to room 301.
The man at the front desk lets her know the other five have arrived. She’s taken aback. “There are five people in room 301?”
He tells her there are only two and three are on the second floor.
She is, of course, bewildered and even more so when the man points out that she forgot to mention a rock-n-roll group would be arriving with them.
Nancy acts like this is all normal and requests a bellman to be sent up with her. She then turns and calls out, “Bess.”
Aha. So now we get George’s cousin Bess Marvin.
In the books, George and Bess are a package and help Nancy solve her crimes. George is a bit of a tomboy and more bold and Bess is plump and more timid.
In the first season of this series, they didn’t show us Bess and George took on more of Bess’s character of being afraid of everything and a more cautious confidant to Nancy — warning her to be careful or suggesting she avoid going here or there.
We didn’t see Bess at all.
I’m not sure if this means we will be getting Bess this season or not.
I will say that I know we will be getting a different Nancy later in this season when Pamela Sue Martin chooses to leave because she felt the Hardy Boys were getting more airtime — and they pretty much were because Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy were teen heartthrobs at the time.
Back to the show, though. Nancy is taken to the room and instructs the bellboy (who is actually an old man) to take the Hardy Boys bags away. She says she’s pretty sure the hotel has been pranked by the rock band who is trying to get a free room.
She tells Bess that she was to meet a man with the last name Fredericks, who is really Fenton Hardy, at 5 p.m. and that Fenton Hardy is clearly not a rock band. She was to meet Fenton because her dad sent her since she was already on vacation in France and Fenton needed help with his investigation.
Down in the restaurant, the boys are trying to get some food when Frank sees their luggage being carried to the lobby. He takes off while Joe (always the hungry one) is trying to order.
Frank tells the bellman to take his luggage back upstairs. When he and Frank reach the room they find Nancy and Bess’s luggage and Frank tells the man to remove their luggage.
He does and then we switch back to the restaurant where Joe is still trying to order. He finally gets a hold of the waiter but Nancy swoops in with Bess and tells the waiter they need to get food and fast.
Joe stares at Nancy in bewilderment all while Frank comes back down in a huff. Nancy and Bess then see their luggage being carried down by the overworked bellman. Nancy rushes off to stop him and orders him to take them back up. Back in the restaurant Frank declares there is no time to eat because they have to meet with whoever their dad was meeting with. He snatches the menu from Joe and off they go. Nancy tells Bess she’s going to meet with Fenton Hardy in the room.
The three meet in the elevator but don’t know who each other is until they end up walking to the same room.
An argument ensues and Nancy threatens to flip Frank on his back if he tries to move her bags. He puts his hand on her luggage and she flips him onto his back.
The boys are bewildered by her aggressive behavior but want her out of their room.
After some back and forth, and showing of passports, the trio finally get to the truth about why they are both there.
Calming down some (Pamela certainly played Nancy highstrung, but….well…she was that way in the books too), Nancy explains what information she has about the case and the boys tell her that their dad is missing.
She tells them she was attending a summer extension course with her friend when a friend of her fathers was also in Paris to pick up a rare painting he had purchased to donate to a museum back home. The painting was stolen so the client called Carson Drew (Nancy’s dad) to ask for help. Carson learned that this was one of many paintings that had been stolen for the past six months.
Nancy explains she does investigative work for her father and came up with some pieces to the puzzle that Fenton was interested in.
She was going to meet and compare notes with Fenton. Now the boys show her Fenton’s notes. She says the dates in Fenton’s books coincide with concerts held by Allison Troy.
The boys scoff at this. Allison Troy has tons of money. Why would he want to steal paintings?
Nancy says that the paintings were always stolen during an Allison Troy concert so the theory was that maybe it was someone from his entourage.
Nancy tells them that once she solves the case they’ll be able to find Fenton. This gets their back up and they say she’s threatening their dad’s case. Nancy doesn’t like to be challenged, so when they tell her they are sneaking into Transylvania and Allison Troy’s concert with a rock band and will report back to her what they find, she tells them she’s headed there on her own to do a thorough, well-thought-out investigation like her dad taught her to do.
She flounces off with a confused Bess in tow.
“What was all that about?” Bess asks as they reach the exit to the hotel.
“Amateur hour,” Nancy says. “Come on we have an appointment.”
“With who?” Bess asks.
“Dracula,” Nancy responds as creepy music and a wolf howl plays out the scene.
Next we see the boys pulling up to the castle in their van but they decided to head back to the little town because they are a day early and the castle is creepy.
The next scene we see is Stavlin telling the town council that the rock concert shouldn’t be held. The kids coming in will trash the town, he claims. Frank and Joe overhear him and then approach him and he smiles, though he looks a little uncomfortable with their appearance.
The concert will be filmed by an American television station (we see later it is ABC, which is where the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries aired, the mayor of the little town tells them. Allison Troy has leased the castle for a week and during that time the town does hold a festival Scavlin says. It is a tradition he says.
The castle was owned by someone called The Prince of Wallachia or The Beserker or “Count Dracula” because he killed thousands of people in the 1400s.
He was not actually a vampire, but he was a torturer and dictator and horrible man and committed many of his crimes at his castle. He was later killed by the Turks, Scavlin says.
Scavlin says that some say the monks buried his body on an island near there and others say his body was brought back to Transylvania to rest there and then rise again.
Meanwhile, Nancy and Bess have also snuck into the caverns and eventually find Frank locked in the cell.
Greene, by the way, is amazing in this role. I know this show can be cheesy at times but this episode is fairly good because of him. He is downright creepy with his Transylvania accent and makes the viewer wonder what his real story is. What is his connection to the castle? To Dracula? Is there any?
When the boys sign in they see their dad’s code name “Fredericks” in the sign-in log and know he was staying there. They feel the are on the right track to finding him.
The next night we are at the Allison Troy concert, or at least one of a couple that will be held at the festival. The real singer, Paul Williams, is singing some weird song about a man who was “bad in bed and would be better of dead.”
I don’t know what all that was about but the rest of the song talks about how so much of our life is a waste and “that’s the hell of it.”
While he sings, adults dressed as various monsters and creepy creatures are dancing while ABC cameras film it all.
Joe and Frank arrive with their band and eventually talk to Allison who is pretty arrogant. There are a few things he wants them to know. First, he wants them to help with music so there is music going on all night and ABC will be filming them as well but when the final show airs it will be 90 percent him because he’s the star. He also wants them to know they can’t go beyond the main hall of the castle, into the caverns below. The owner said it was one of the rules for the castle being leased.
The boys immediately know that they are going into those caverns to search for their dad, though.
Eventually, Joe will stay with the band to sing (what’s a Hardy Boys episode without teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy singing??), while Frank sneaks off to find out what is in the basement of this castle. The mayor and other council members have already set off to find out what is downstairs. This is when the taxi driver/castle caretaker from before reappears and gives them a tour. Problems arise when he accidentally leads them to a closed door with the coat of arms of Dracula on it. He tells them they must get away fast and they mayor chuckles. When they leave we see the door open and the leather boots we’ve seen before step out.
Before long, though, the council members realize they’ve lost one of their party.
Frank, wandering around on his own, stumbles onto the lost member unconscious in a cell. When he goes to check on him, someone closes the cell door and locks him in.
My daughter (who I call Little Miss on here) watched this scene, including when Frank tried frantically to open the door to the cell. She said, “Bro didn’t even try to act. He was like ‘how do I make this look realistic’ I know let’s hold the door and then violently shake my head instead the rest of my body.”
She cracks me up.
Meanwhile, Nancy and Bess have also snuck into the caverns and eventually find Frank locked in the cell. Frank tells Bess to go upstairs and get help and Nancy works to pick the lock. Frank is impressed with her work. Then they both inspect the man and find out that he has –dun-dun-dun….a bite mark that looks like fangs on this neck!
Episode one ends with the words ‘to be continued.’ I am going to plow ahead with part two in this same post, though, because my daughter said she hates when you have to go somewhere else for the second part of a story and advised that I recap both parts in the same post. Yes, I take advise from a 11-year-old. You’re point?!
I’m “stealing” this next section from Avery, the host of the True Drew Podcast. I like when she shares in her episodes what she liked or didn’t like about the book or episode she is talking about.
What I liked about episode one :
I enjoyed the verbal sparring between Nancy and Frank and Joe. I loved Nancy’s outfit. I thought the dancing in the castle was fun and quintessential 1970s. I enjoyed the music even though it was a bit cheesy.
What I didn’t like:
I wasn’t a huge fan of the weird “Nazi-like” behavior of the characters in the hotel. I’m not sure I like that they have gotten rid of George and replaced her with Bess, instead of leaving them as a team like they were in the books. Otherwise, I didn’t have a ton of dislikes in this one.
Part 2
We start right where we left off on part one. Scavlin and others arrive after Bess called them. Frank shows them all the bite marks and Scavlin orders an ambulance because the man is not dead, only unconscious.
At this point, Nancy says she and Frank and Joe should start working together and Frank agrees.
Upstairs, the teen heartthrob is singing his heart out and shaking his hips while all the ghosts and ghouls dance away on the dance floor.
When Nancy gets the two together, she lets them know she has some news for them. She’s found their father and he’s at a monastery. The monks found him and called for a doctor. The doctor advised them not to move Fenton, but said he was in stable condition and would recover.
Nancy drives them to the monastery and a touching scene unfolds as the boys look down at their unconscious father in a small, plain bed with a monk standing next to them.
The monk, Frank, and Nancy leave and Joe has a tender moment with his father, telling the sleeping man to hold on.
“We need you dad.”
They do too because in this iteration of the series, their mom is dead. In the books, however, their mom is still alive.
Before the boys leave the monk tells them the only thing their father has said since he’s been there has been the word “caverns.”
This makes the boys think they need to inspect the caverns more thoroughly, but when they go back there isn’t much to see, other than a door marked Dracula. They’re still leaning toward Allison Troy, the singer, somehow being involved with the thefts of the paintings, but their tired and go back to the hotel.
The figure with the boots, ruffled sleaves, and ruby ring is following them this whole time as well.
The next day Nancy, Bess, Frank, and Joe walk the streets as the townspeople put garlic up outside their homes and business, sure that Dracula is coming back.
That night at the next concert performance of the festival they split up and inspect Troy’s room and car.
Nancy and Frank go to his room and while there a bit of flirting unfolds as Nancy excitedly discovers a lock picking kit.
“Do you always get like this when you’re excited?” Frank asks her.
“When I get excited, you’ll know about it,” she responds.
“I’m looking forward to that,” Frank tells her with a grin.
To speed things up a bit I’ll list what happens next:
There is more dancing with Allison Troy (Williams) singing;
The people of the town grab pitchforks and march to the castle to demand the concert be stopped because it is a descretation of Dracula’s resting place and he will come back for revenge for that desicration;
Scavlin tells them all to go home and he, as the inspector of the town, will keep them safe (even though he was against the concert in the beginning);
Scavlin tells them that there is no vanmpire and that there have been accidents but no deaths;
Finally the town people leave;
Nancy and Frank ask the mayor if they can meet with him and he agrees but brings Scavlin because they were already talking;
The mayor says his home is part of an old jail and it could protect him but he’s not afraid of anyone hurting him;
The four talk and then Nancy, Frank, and Scavlin leave and urge the mayor to lock his doors. The mayor laughs but after they leave he does lock his doors.
Later the mayor is found unconscious in his locked office and, yes, he also has the bite marks. When he is hospitalized, Scavlin temporarily takes over as mayor.
Mixed in the middle of all this will be an incident where a bat suddenly shows up in Nancy’s locked room, terrifying her and causing her to scream for help. Frank comes to her rescue (much to the joy of those of us who would like the two to get into a relationship) and she falls into his arms before remembering she’s tough-girl Nancy Drew and pulls away.
Skipping ahead some, we will eventually see Scavlin arresting Allison Troy fr the thefts. He says he has found the lock picking kit in the hotel room and plans of the museums where paintings were stolen from in Allison Troy’s car.
Joe says that’s ridiculous because he and Bess looked in Troy’s car and didn’t see any plans, so the plans have to have been planted.
Reluctantly, Scavlin agrees and then suggests that maybe there are supernatural things unfolding in the community. He releases Troy and the foursome return to their hotel, with Joe and Frank dropping the girls off at where they are staying first. While sitting outside in the boy’s van, with Nancy and Frank in the front, and Joe and Bess in the back, an awkward and giggle-inducing scene evolves as Frank and Nancy say, “well” a few times to each other and Joe comments on how articulate his brother is.
He then announces that he knows how to say goodnight properly to a lady and leans over and kisses Bess.
Nancy and Frank never get further than a couple more utterances of “well, well…” before the scene ends and we fans are denied our Nancy and Frank kiss.
The boys head back to the castle and while there go right to that door with Dracula’s coat of arms on it. They enter the room and find a fully furnished room, a lit fire, and a coffin, but also a pile of stolen paintings.
Just as Frank is about to open the coffin, Scavlin walks in behind them and says in a very creepy, Dracula-like voice, “You should not have come here.”
Ah-ha! Scavlin! He’s the guilty party. He’s been following Allison Troy on his tour and stealing paintings to get himself some money since he was being forced out as the inspector. He was using the castle so he could play Dracula and scare everyone away from it since that was where he was storing the paintings.
Stavlin was making marks on people’s necks and tried to remove Fenton Hardy from the equation so he couldn’t find out about the stash. He didn’t want anyone to die, but he did want them frightened enough to stay away from the castle.
That’s why when the people from town wanted to burn the castle down, he had to stop them.
Stavling says the boys are correct in their assumption and now they have to go too. That’s when he opens a trap door in the floor. The boys move aside and it is Stavlin who starts to fall when he’s startled by the mayor, Fenton, and Nancy and Bess rushing in to confront him.
It turns out that Nancy came up with the same theory as the boys and ran to get the police and mayor (and I guess Fenton too?) to go to the castle to see if they found Stavlin there.
The police officer has handcuffed Stavlin to him but Stavlin wants to get his hat from the wardrobe before he leaves and when he opens the door — are you ready for this?
Joe notices that he can’t see Stavlin’s reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe door.
No kidding.
Joe begins to stammer, overwhelmed by what he is seeing.
“F-f-rank…”
Frank ignores him and Stavlin makes some comment about not being in jail long.
He disappears down the hallway with the officer and they all watch him go while Joe continues to stammer. They walk down the hallway after them and the door with the Dracula coat of arms closes slowly.
Cue scene and episode.
What I liked about episode two:
There was a lot to like about this one. Nancy and Frank flirting. Joe and Bess’s kiss. Lorne Greene’s great acting as “Stavlin/Dracula.”
There was a couple of fun songs too.
What I disliked:
They listed Pamela Sue Martin as a guest star when she was supposed to be a star of the show. Ummm…..no wonder the woman finally left the show. Otherwise I thought this one was pretty good.
That brings us to the end of this one. Like Avery on True Drew Podcast, I will probably continue to watch season two, even though Pamela Sue Martin leaves part way through and we get a new actress for Nancy. Avery says she thinks it is interesting to see how different actresses portray Nancy and I tend to agree with her.
Yes, Avery has become my Nancy Drew guru, apparently.
So up next for our recap will be The Mystery of King Tut’s Tomb with The Hardy Boys.
If you want to catch up on my other recaps, you can catch them here:
A couple of my favorites:
Episode Recap: The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Mystery of the Fallen Angel
Hardy Boys Episode Recap: Wipe Out (Did the Hardy Boys just rob the hotel?!)
