Kolchak: The Night Stalker/The Vampire

The Vampire
Season 1, Episode 4
Airdate	October 4, 1974
Teleplay by	David Chase
Story by	Bill Stratton
Directed by	Don Weis
Produced by	Cy Chermak
Stream
← 1x03 They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be	1x05 → The Werewolf
Kolchak: The Night Stalker — Season One

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The Vampire is the fourth episode of the first season of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Starring: Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak)

Also Starring: Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo)

Guest Stars: William Daniels (Lt. Jack Matteo), Suzanne Charny (Catherine Rawlins), John Doucette (Deputy Sample), Jan Murray (Ichabod Grace)

and Larry Storch (Swede)

Special Guest Star: Kathleen Nolan (Faye Kruger)

Co-Starring: Milt Kamen (Gingrich), Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke)

with Anne Whitfield (Girl), Army Archerd (Man), Selma Archerd (Woman), Noel de Souza (Chandra), Bill Baldwin (1st Reporter), Alyscia Maxwell (3rd Reporter)

Plot Overview

Los Angeles, California (May 2, 8:15 PM) Elaine Munios, a flight attendant, sees hands reaching out of the ground and calls police. The police return to find nothing. They put her on their crank list.

Back in Chicago, Jim "the Swede" Brytowski pays Kolchak a visit at the INS offices. He has information about a vampire story in Los Angeles. He would go himself, but he's a TV anchorman and can't get time off.

That same night the vampire, a woman, lures a man into taking her home to his apartment where she kills him. She also kills his wife, when she comes home unexpectedly.

In a rather skillful manipulation of Tony Vincenzo, his boss, Kolchak is assigned to do a story on trancendental meditation in Los Angeles; beating out Ron Updyke for the story.

Kolchak doesn't work on the assigned story though. Instead he investigates the murders. He attends a police press conference, and reveals that he believes that all the victims have two puncture marks on their necks ... like those that a vampire might leave. The room is abuzz with the notion, and Kolchak leaves rather abruptly, having worn out his welcome.

Kolchak gets a lead to check out Katherine Rollins, a prostitute at Grace's Catering. He believes that Katherine Rollins is the vampire. So he calls the company, and arranges to have Katherine sent over. At the appointed time, Kolchak is ready. He has a cross, a wooden stake, and a mallot. But Katherine was sent to another client at the last minute. He gets another girl instead.

Kolchak learns from her "boss", Ichabod Grace, that she was sent to the home of a football player for the Los Angeles Rams: Clayton "Stacker" Schumaker. He heads to Schumaker's house, and lands right in the thick of things. The vampire kills Schumaker and his teammates who arranged the meeting. Kolchak is only saved by a makeshift cross. The police arrive just as the vampire flees. They order Kolchak to leave town.

But Kolchak is not daunted. He enlists the help of Faye Kruger, a reporter-turned-real-estate-lady that he met earlier while trying get material for his assigned story (about transcendental meditation). The two of them look through real estate listings for ten hours to find which house Katherine Rollins has rented.

Kolchak finds the place and goes there alone at night. The vampire woman attacks him, but he is able to hold her at bay with his cross. He retreats out into the darkness, where he loses his cross in another attack. He clambers a few more steps up a hillside, and in what is apparently a trap of his own design, he lights the cross on fire. He also sets a perimeter fire to contain her in her weakened state. He then drives a wooden stake through her heart.

The police arrive and charge Kolchak with murder, but later release him. Kolchak discovers that it was because the coroner's report stated that the woman in question had been dead for at least three years.

Trivia

The Show

• Jim "The Swede" Brytowski owes Kolchak's boss $500 from Las Vegas.
• Since the cross he burned was a local landmark, Kolchak has to pay for it himself. He couldn't figure out how to put it on his expense report.

Allusions and References

• Kolchak says the Capitol Tower the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles looks like a stack of flapjacks.
• At the Los Angeles Rams murder scene Kolchak tells Lt. Matteo that the killer must have been female and makes a reference to Veronica Lake.

Quotes

When Kolchak drops off Faye at his hotel room, he stays in the car, yelling to her, "It's room 212. Start without me."