Christopher Lee was tempted to don the cloak again after years of absence by a decent financial offer from Hammer (with a role as Rasputin to sweeten the deal). The workload was light for him – he’s not on screen that long and doesn’t have any dialogue – but when he does appear, it’s electric and terrifying.
This is one of my favourite Hammers, a terrifically scary vampire saga (although apparently it’s not that highly regarded by aficionados). The first half is basically one big long scary sequence about four English travellers (including Francis Matthews and Australia’s own Bud Tingwell) arriving at Dracula’s castle. It goes on a long time but is terrific.
The pace doesn’t slack off later as the survivors take refuge in a monastery headed by Andrew Keir, who makes an excellent antagonist for Lee, all muscular Christianity, impatient of superstition (in the opening scene he stops a woman being staked through the heart) but on top of the vampire situation. Dracula’s assistant Klove is almost as scary as Dracula (what a great combination these two are) and there’s even a Renfield type at the monastery.
It’s expertly done by director Terence Fisher with a logical script by Jimmy Sangster (who for some reason took a nom de plume – maybe out of protest with Dracula’s dialogue being removed, although it works better without it). Memorable, albeit awkwardly staged climax, on the ice. A deserved hit, which kicked off a new era at Hammer - the sequel era, where they cranked out upteenth versions of Frankenstein and Dracula until the studio went bust.
No comments:
Post a Comment