Ill-fated ship of film / WED 10-27-10 / 1920s chief justice / 1955 novel made into 1962 1997 films / QB's utterance

Constructor: Jay Kaskel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: COUNT DRACULA — four answers have a draculicious sound to them (clued with four "?"-style clues)


Word of the Day: "The POSEIDON Adventure" (9D: Ill-fated ship of film) —

The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 American action-adventure disaster film based on the novel of the same name by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tsunami caused by an under sea earthquake and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to journey up to the bottom of the hull of the liner before it sinks. // It won the Academy Award for Best Song for "The Song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'" (also known as "The Morning After"), which became a hit single for Maureen McGovern, as well as winning an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects. Shelley Winters was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film for the role. The cast of the film includes five past Academy Award winners - Winters, Gene Hackman, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine - as well as numerous Academy Award-winning off-screen artists and technicians such as the film's composer John Williams, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and editor Harold F. Kress, to name just a few. Parts of the movie were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary. (wikipedia)

[Wow, this song is Horrible]

• • •

Cute theme, interesting grid, not an obscurity in sight (with nifty little bonus theme answers in FANG — 62A: Part of a vampire — and GORIER — 34A: Displaying more violence). Tough getting started as the theme answers and theme-revealer are mutually referential (thus offering no initial help), but once I shoved REALITY BITES into place (square by square), and BLOOD showed up in the next theme answer, I had a good idea what I was dealing with. Still, struggled briefly in the NE (never saw "The POSEIDON Adventure," so that ship was Nowhere on my radar), and also briefly in the NW (tried NO DICE, NO SALE, and NO SOAP (!?!?) before NO DEAL (2D: "Sorry, Charlie")). But I absolutely killed the bottom half of the puzzle and ended up with a fairly normal Wednesday time in the end.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Comment on life by 52-Across? ("REALITY BITES")
  
• 28A: Deposit and withdrawal site for 52-Across? (BLOOD BANK)
  
• 43A: Crib plaything for a young 52-Across? (BAT MOBILE)
  
• 35A: Result of an encounter with 52-Across? (PAIN IN THE NECK)

I GUESS (46D: "Um ... OK.") you could consider ATHROB a nod to the horror theme (1D: Like the heart during a horror movie). Ditto HEROINE, as clued (49A: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, e.g.). Not a bad little Halloween-week puzzle, all in all.

Bullets:

• 16A: Makes less than a killing (DOES OK) — "a killing" is not on any scale that I'm aware of, making "less than" an odd direction.
  
• 60A: Frozen water, to Wilhelm (EIS) — Also, to Werner. And Waldheim. And presumably all Germans, whether their names begin with "W" or not.
  
• 39D: QB's utterance (HUT) — this may be the first time anyone's ever used "QB" and "utterance" in the same phrase. Fine word, but not a sports word. "Whilst we were in the huddle, Brett Favre once quipped..." Um, no.
  
• 47D: 1955 novel that was made into 1962 and 1997 films ("LOLITA") — teaching this in my 1950s Crime Fiction course this term. Movie-wise, I highly recommend the 1962 film [two Shelley Winters films in one puzzle!] and highly recommend that you avoid the horrid, humorless 1997 adaptation at all costs.
• 53D: 1920s chief justice (TAFT) — in four letters, I knew it was him, but I forgot that he was chief justice well *after* he was president. TAFT is from Ohio. Crosswords will ask you to know this at some point. Trust me.
• 54D: Subject of the book "Six Armies in Normandy" (D-DAY) — second "D" was the very last letter I filled in. Before I read the cross clue, the only answer that was popping into my head was DRAY...
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. "Puzzling Future" — article on crosswords featuring interviews with me and other Pomona College students/alums — is now online here.