MICHAEL HARRIS' HAMMER CLASSICS - DRACULA (1958)
**This review may contain spoilers**
Transylvania 1885: Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) goes to Castle Dracula posing as a librarian with the intention of destroying Count Dracula (Christopher Lee), the monarch of all vampires. Unfortunately, Harker succumbs to the bite of the Count's vampire bride and realises that it is only a matter of time before he himself joins the ranks of the undead. While his senses are still his own, Harker realises that he must find the tomb of Dracula and drive a wooden stake through his heart before it is too late. He succeeds in finding Dracula's lair in a dark crypt with two sarcophoguses, one for his bride and the other for him. Harker begins by staking the bride who lets out a grisly scream before her corpse degenerates from that of a beautiful young woman into that of an old crone. But what Harker does not realise is that the sun is going down and Dracula has woken up. He turns to the Count's coffin and to his horror he has gone! Then suddenly the Count appears from the shadows -Harker has been overpowered. Enter Dr Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), a friend and colleague of Harker's who has come into the country to investigate his disappearance. He finds the villagers at the local Inn reluctant to give him directions to the castle as they are afraid of the evil that lurks there. Nevertheless, Van Helsing discovers the castle's location and finds to his horror that his oldest friend has joined the ranks of the undead and he duly releases his soul by driving a stake through his heart. Back home in Klausenberg, Van Helsing goes to Harker's fiancee', Lucy Holmwood (Valerie Gaunt) and her brother Arthur (Michael Gough) to inform them of Jonathan's death. Lucy has been struck with a strange sickness that shows symptoms of amnemia but the local GP, Dr Seward (Charles Lloyd-Pack), is unable to get to the bottom of what is causing it. Arthur Holmwood's wife, Mina (Mellisa Stribbling) calls Van Helsing in for a second opinion and he believes that Dracula is seeking to avenge the death of his bride by selecting the late Jonathan's fiancee' as a replacement as there are two puncture marks on her neck - the trademark of the vampire's bite! Van Helsing tells Arthur and Mina to keep all doors and windows locked shut at night and to place garlic flowers in Lucy's room. Unfortunately, Lucy pleads with the maid to take the flowers away and to open the window and the next morning she is found dead. Van Helsing enlists the help of Arthur Holmwood to whom he explains about vampirism and how it relates to the deaths of both Lucy and Jonathan. At first, Arthur is reluctant to trust Van Helsing but after the two men keep a moonlight watch on Lucy's tomb, Arthur realises that the doctor is right because as he predicted, Lucy has risen from her grave as an undead at night in search of victims. To their horror, Lucy is preying on the young daughter of the Holmwood's maid. They succeed in luring Lucy back to her tomb and driving a stake through her heart before the child can become a victim of the Count's new bride in blood. But little do they imagine that the Count has now turned his attention to Mina. Dracula has abducted her and Holmwood and Van Helsing realise that they must trace the Count back to his lair and destroy him before it is too late to save Mina from becoming a member of Dracula's obscene cult...
Following the runaway success of The Curse Of Frankenstein, Hammer turned their attention to another classic of English gothic literature, Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is perhaps the best horror film that the company ever produced and it is certainly the most significant of all Hammer's Dracula films. Director Terence Fisher's feeling for the gothic and period atmosphere was never better than it was here and he succeeded in bringing out the sexual element within the story in that Lee's Dracula, tall, dark and handsome as opposed to the elderly man with a white moustache who progressively gets younger as he drinks more blood in the novel, is attractive to his female victims. For example, the scene where Valerie Gaunt's Lucy Holmwood lies waiting in her bed for Dracula to come is a good example of this. Mina and Arthur bid her goodnight and as they exit the room she says "Jonathan will be coming back soon I know it" as if she is longing for her lover's return. But after they have gone with a sudden burst of energy, she has been struck by amnemia where the vampire has taken blood from her, leaps out of bed to open the window so that her nocturnal visitor can enter before returning to lie on her bed and feels the puncture marks on her neck. There is an expression of wild, sexual excitement on her face in that she is longing for the Count to come and romance her prior to taking blood from her. This scene also displays another theme in Fisher's work that evil is more seductively attractive than good. The significance here is that in life, Jonathan Harker was a man on the side of virtue, but Lucy has now succumbed to the evil of Dracula and could no longer care less about Jonathan.
In a genre that veered heavily towards gore and sex, many critics attacked Fisher's work including this one as "crudely sensational" at the time. But time has revealed Fisher's approach to the tale as anything but crudely sensational. In fact, it shone a whole new light on the story. In the original novel, the sexual side of the story was practically non existent, but it was without doubt there and waiting for somebody to place an emphasis on how Dracula's evil was attractive to his victims. In Fisher's hands, it is handled in an inteligent way and much of it is suggested rather than going all out for sensationalism. One of the joys of Fisher's films was that they always had more style and inteligence in their material than one might have expected from a genre that was attacked as being "poorly made trash for specific audiences". The whole film has the feel of a Victorian gothic romance in terms of Jack Asher's lush Technicolor cinematography, Bernard Robinson's lavish sets and the attention to period detail such as costumes. Hardly the low budget tosh some spoke of back then. Peter Cushing makes a perfect screen hero as Dr Van Helsing and Lee was arguably the screen's greatest Count. Unfortunately, although the actor would go on to repeat the role six times, he was increasingly given little to do as the scripts tended to reduce his appearances to a supporting character whilst he hypnotised others to carry out his bidding for him.
The film has recently been re-released in selected cinemas across the UK for Halloween and to celebrate fifty-years of Hammer horror in a newly remastered print. Let's hope it finds its way on to Region 2 DVD some time soon.
Transylvania 1885: Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) goes to Castle Dracula posing as a librarian with the intention of destroying Count Dracula (Christopher Lee), the monarch of all vampires. Unfortunately, Harker succumbs to the bite of the Count's vampire bride and realises that it is only a matter of time before he himself joins the ranks of the undead. While his senses are still his own, Harker realises that he must find the tomb of Dracula and drive a wooden stake through his heart before it is too late. He succeeds in finding Dracula's lair in a dark crypt with two sarcophoguses, one for his bride and the other for him. Harker begins by staking the bride who lets out a grisly scream before her corpse degenerates from that of a beautiful young woman into that of an old crone. But what Harker does not realise is that the sun is going down and Dracula has woken up. He turns to the Count's coffin and to his horror he has gone! Then suddenly the Count appears from the shadows -Harker has been overpowered. Enter Dr Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), a friend and colleague of Harker's who has come into the country to investigate his disappearance. He finds the villagers at the local Inn reluctant to give him directions to the castle as they are afraid of the evil that lurks there. Nevertheless, Van Helsing discovers the castle's location and finds to his horror that his oldest friend has joined the ranks of the undead and he duly releases his soul by driving a stake through his heart. Back home in Klausenberg, Van Helsing goes to Harker's fiancee', Lucy Holmwood (Valerie Gaunt) and her brother Arthur (Michael Gough) to inform them of Jonathan's death. Lucy has been struck with a strange sickness that shows symptoms of amnemia but the local GP, Dr Seward (Charles Lloyd-Pack), is unable to get to the bottom of what is causing it. Arthur Holmwood's wife, Mina (Mellisa Stribbling) calls Van Helsing in for a second opinion and he believes that Dracula is seeking to avenge the death of his bride by selecting the late Jonathan's fiancee' as a replacement as there are two puncture marks on her neck - the trademark of the vampire's bite! Van Helsing tells Arthur and Mina to keep all doors and windows locked shut at night and to place garlic flowers in Lucy's room. Unfortunately, Lucy pleads with the maid to take the flowers away and to open the window and the next morning she is found dead. Van Helsing enlists the help of Arthur Holmwood to whom he explains about vampirism and how it relates to the deaths of both Lucy and Jonathan. At first, Arthur is reluctant to trust Van Helsing but after the two men keep a moonlight watch on Lucy's tomb, Arthur realises that the doctor is right because as he predicted, Lucy has risen from her grave as an undead at night in search of victims. To their horror, Lucy is preying on the young daughter of the Holmwood's maid. They succeed in luring Lucy back to her tomb and driving a stake through her heart before the child can become a victim of the Count's new bride in blood. But little do they imagine that the Count has now turned his attention to Mina. Dracula has abducted her and Holmwood and Van Helsing realise that they must trace the Count back to his lair and destroy him before it is too late to save Mina from becoming a member of Dracula's obscene cult...
Following the runaway success of The Curse Of Frankenstein, Hammer turned their attention to another classic of English gothic literature, Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is perhaps the best horror film that the company ever produced and it is certainly the most significant of all Hammer's Dracula films. Director Terence Fisher's feeling for the gothic and period atmosphere was never better than it was here and he succeeded in bringing out the sexual element within the story in that Lee's Dracula, tall, dark and handsome as opposed to the elderly man with a white moustache who progressively gets younger as he drinks more blood in the novel, is attractive to his female victims. For example, the scene where Valerie Gaunt's Lucy Holmwood lies waiting in her bed for Dracula to come is a good example of this. Mina and Arthur bid her goodnight and as they exit the room she says "Jonathan will be coming back soon I know it" as if she is longing for her lover's return. But after they have gone with a sudden burst of energy, she has been struck by amnemia where the vampire has taken blood from her, leaps out of bed to open the window so that her nocturnal visitor can enter before returning to lie on her bed and feels the puncture marks on her neck. There is an expression of wild, sexual excitement on her face in that she is longing for the Count to come and romance her prior to taking blood from her. This scene also displays another theme in Fisher's work that evil is more seductively attractive than good. The significance here is that in life, Jonathan Harker was a man on the side of virtue, but Lucy has now succumbed to the evil of Dracula and could no longer care less about Jonathan.
In a genre that veered heavily towards gore and sex, many critics attacked Fisher's work including this one as "crudely sensational" at the time. But time has revealed Fisher's approach to the tale as anything but crudely sensational. In fact, it shone a whole new light on the story. In the original novel, the sexual side of the story was practically non existent, but it was without doubt there and waiting for somebody to place an emphasis on how Dracula's evil was attractive to his victims. In Fisher's hands, it is handled in an inteligent way and much of it is suggested rather than going all out for sensationalism. One of the joys of Fisher's films was that they always had more style and inteligence in their material than one might have expected from a genre that was attacked as being "poorly made trash for specific audiences". The whole film has the feel of a Victorian gothic romance in terms of Jack Asher's lush Technicolor cinematography, Bernard Robinson's lavish sets and the attention to period detail such as costumes. Hardly the low budget tosh some spoke of back then. Peter Cushing makes a perfect screen hero as Dr Van Helsing and Lee was arguably the screen's greatest Count. Unfortunately, although the actor would go on to repeat the role six times, he was increasingly given little to do as the scripts tended to reduce his appearances to a supporting character whilst he hypnotised others to carry out his bidding for him.
The film has recently been re-released in selected cinemas across the UK for Halloween and to celebrate fifty-years of Hammer horror in a newly remastered print. Let's hope it finds its way on to Region 2 DVD some time soon.
posted by Michael Harris | 2:05 pm
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