In the late 1950s, Hammer Films
got into making horror movies in a big way.
Their first horror production, The
Curse of Frankenstein [more on that movie in another blog], came in
1957. Its importance can’t be
understated – it’s the first horror movie to be filmed in color. Of course, critics at the time hated it [they
hate everything I like – a good barometer for quality film], but it made a lot
of money anyway. Since then it has been
hailed as a horror classic. Don’t you
love revisionist history? Hammer horror
movies had Gothic romanticism, melodrama and overtly sexual themes [no wonder
critics hated them], unlike the Universal horror movies of the 1930s. Add to those elements, Hammer films were
extremely English. The stars of the early Hammer films were
usually Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee.
They were the pre-eminent horror film actors of their generation. Lee was the “sexy” one, Cushing was the more
“austere” one, always consumed by his “work” in whatever role he played. Terence Fisher directed the movies, Jimmy
Sangster wrote the scripts, James Bernard did the music. All contributed to the Hammer “brand.” Because of the work of these men, within 10
seconds of seeing or hearing one of their movies, you knew it was a Hammer film.
After the success of The Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer went
after another classic horror character, Count Dracula. In The
Horror of Dracula (1958), Christopher Lee is Dracula [best Dracula ever,
BTW…]. Béla Lugosi practically created Dracula’s image in
1931 with his charm, heavily-accented English [“I don’t drink…wine”] and hypnotic stare. He played Dracula on Broadway before he
played him on-screen, so he had all the mannerisms down. Christopher Lee’s Dracula is very tall,
handsome, charming, very much like an English aristocrat no Hungarian accents
here]. Peter Cushing is Van
Helsing. Edward Van Sloan’s Van Helsing
is a much older guy, but Cushing’s Van Helsing is an intense, dynamic younger
guy who is very intelligent. He can mix
it up with anybody. The dynamic between
Lee’s Dracula and Cushing’s Van Helsing is fun to watch.
Jimmy Sangter’s script keeps the
same characters as Bram Stoker’s novel, but the story is a lot different. Instead of taking place in England and in
Transylvania, this Dracula story takes place in place called Klausenberg. Jonathan Harker is not trying to help Dracula
buy a house in England. He’s there to be
Dracula’s librarian. He is also an
associate on Dr. Van Helsing. He also
knows what Dracula really is, and he’s there to kill him, or as he puts it in
his diary, to put an end to his reign of terror. Before Harker meets Dracula, he’s confronted
by a desperate young lady who pleads with Harker for his help in escaping
Dracula. Then Dracula approaches and she
disappears. Dracula welcomes Harker and
shows him to his room, but as Dracula leaves he locks Harker inside. Eventually Harker frees himself, and is met
by the desperate young lady again. She
again begs for his help, but then bites his neck. Suddenly, Dracula appears with bloody lips,
bloodshot eyes and fangs bared in all their glory. He pulls the girl away from Harker, and
knocks him out. Harker wakes up hours
later, and notices he has bite marks on his neck. He’s doomed and he knows it. Before he turned, he mailed his diary to Van
Helsing.
Whoa! Moments
Whoa! Moment #1 – This is more like an Oh Shit! moment. Harker goes in search of Dracula to kill
him. He finds the desperate woman who
tried to bite him sleeping in her coffin.
After he stakes her, he finds Dracula’s coffin…empty. The sun goes down, and Dracula enters the
room at the top of the stairs, shutting the door. Don’t these smart vampire hunters wear a
watch? Don’t they know when sundown
is? How come they always try to kill
vampires right at dusk? You’d think
they would know better.
Most of the usual Dracula
suspects are in the movie – Arthur Holmwood, Mina, and Lucy, but no
Renfield. Each assumes their respective
roles in the Dracula story. Dracula is
pissed because Harker tried to kill him.
He wants revenge on Harker’s family.
The first thing he does is to drink Lucy dry. Then he wants to make Mina his bride. He bites her a couple of times, just enough
to have her under control. Arthur and
Van Helsing search for Harker – they find him.
He’s sleeping in a coffin, fangs bared, blood dripping on his lips. Van Helsing stakes him. Then they found Lucy. She gets staked as well. Dracula lured Mina away from her house and
took him to his castle. That’s where Van
Helsing found them, which brings us to Whoa! Moment #2…
Whoa! Moment #2 – The climactic scene between Dracula and Van
Helsing. As Van Helsing and Dracula
battle to the death, Van Helsing acts as if he’s dead, but when Dracula’s about
to bite him, he breaks free. He sees a
large window with curtains closed. He
jumps up on this very long table, runs to the end of said table, jumps at the
curtains and pulls them down. As Dracula
is exposed to the rays of the Sun, he slowly turns to ashes and blows away.
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