Across the street from the bookstore, Marlowe waits for Geiger to materialize, viewing the store from the front window of the Acme Book Store with a spectacled, antiquarian bookseller clerk (Dorothy Malone) who is quickly charmed:Clerk: Is there something I can do for you?Marlowe: Would you do me a very small favor?Clerk: I don""t know.The undaunted young Englishman insists on carrying out his plans to go on to Castle Dracula:Englishman: Well, I""m sorry, but there""s a carriage meeting me at Borgo Pass at midnight.]Director Romero and co-writer John Russo acknowledged hat Richard Matheson""s 1954 novellaI Am Legend(adapted into the filmThe Last Man on Earth (1964)) was an inspiration for their apocalyptic sci-fi script.Plot SynopsisPlayful Banter Between Crusty Old Sir Wilfrid Robarts, His Assistant Carter, and His Nurse Miss Plimsoll:The setting was Britain in 1952, where an aging, distinguished, crafty, cynical, near-retirement age London barrister/defense attorney Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) was returning to his home in the back of a chauffeured car after two months of hospitalization for a heart attack, due in part to his wo habitual vices: smoking cigars and drinking brandy.