DRACULA AND HIS PALS

DRACULA AND HIS PALS,

This week Great Old Movies looks at films starring the venerable old baddie, Dracula. You can already find reviews of the original 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi, as well as posts on Dracula's Daughter; the first Hammer Dracula film starring Christopher Lee, The Horror of Dracula; and one of the best follow-ups, the excellent Dracula, Prince of Darkness; among many others. Just type in "Dracula" in the search bar above.

Now this week we have Francis Lederer in The Return of Dracula; Jack Palance doing his version of the count for Dan Curtis; Ingrid Pitt doing a turn as Countess Dracula; and even William Marshall as Blacula. There is also Italian director Dario Argento's version of the classic story; among others. Just scroll down to enjoy. And feel free to leave a comment whether you agree with my assessment or not.

Thanks for reading!

COUNTESS DRACULA

Sandor Eles and Ingrid Pitt

COUNTESS DRACULA (1971). Director: Peter Sasdy.

After her husband dies, Countess Elisabeth (Ingrid Pitt) bemoans her fading beauty, but accidentally discovers that fresh blood acts to rejuvenate her skin. Before long she can impersonate her own daughter, Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down), whom the countess has imprisoned in a cottage when she shows up in town. Elisabeth begins a passionate affair with Imre Toth (Sandor Eles of And Soon the Darkness), and he proposes. But each time her beauty fades she turns into a more hideous hag, and she needs to continually bath in the blood of virgins. Sooner or later this will catch up with her  ... Countess Dracula is loosely based on the life of the historical 16th century Hungarian figure Elisabeth Bathory, who apparently did murder and torture numerous servant girls, although other acts are shrouded in legend and there have been attempts to salvage her reputation and blame it all on men. (In one interview Ingrid Pitt claimed Bathory "was a wonderful mother. All this stuff they say about her I do not believe." Well ... ) Filtering her story through Hammer studios, you come up with an absorbing and very well-made Gothic horror tale that has handsome settings and excellent acting, especially from Nigel Green [The Face of Fu Manchu] as Elisabeth's long-time lover, Captain Dobi; Patience Collier as her generally loyal and complicit  lady-in-waiting, Julie; Maurice Denham as the scholarly Fabio, who seems deceptively gentle; Eles; and others. It is hard to judge Pitt's performance because she was dubbed by British actress Olive Gregg, which seems strange since Pitt's Polish accent would not have been out of place and she was a competent actress -- in any case, she is quite effective in the lead. Countess Dracula reminds one of earlier films in which women killed to regain their youth and beauty such as The Leech Woman and The Wasp Woman. Harry Robertson's (aka Harry Robinson) score also adds to the picture's impact. Some viewers were disappointed that the film wasn't gorier and didn't have many more murders.

Verdict: Excellent Hammer horror production. ***.

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD

Jon Pertwee tries out his cloak

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971). Director: Peter Duffell. Screenplay by Robert Bloch.

"Dracula -- the one with Bela Lugosi, of course, not this new fellow." -- Paul Henderson

A well-known actor in horror films has disappeared from an old house he had rented, and this leads into the telling of four tales centered around this creepy domicile. In "Method for Murderer" a fiction writer's creation, a maniac (Tom Adams of The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World), seems to come to life to cause havoc for which the writer (Denholm Elliott) is blamed. In "Waxworks," two men (Peter Cushing; Joss Ackland of Crescendo)  become obsessed with the wax figure of Salome, who reminds each of them of a lost love, whom -- you might say -- they lose their heads over. In "Sweets to the Sweet" the stern John Reid (Christopher Lee of The Horror of Dracula) hires a nanny (Nyree Dawn Porter) for his strange little girl, Jane (Chloe Franks), with terrible results. The fourth tale, "The Cloak," is an amusing black comedy in which actor Paul Henderson (Jon Pertwee) finds a cloak in a shop which turns him into a vampire each time he puts it on; Ingrid Pitt is Anderson's female lead in this and is fine. But the best performances come from Cushing, Lee, Pertwee, and little Franks. The House that Dripped Blood is very entertaining, and is one of the best of the horror anthologies, not lame as some of Bloch's other screenplays.

Verdict: Chills and laughs all served up with relish. ***.

THE WICKER MAN

Christopher Lee

THE WICKER MAN (1973). Director: Robin Hardy. Screenplay: Anthony Shaffer.

"You'll simply never understand the nature of sacrifice."

Sergeant Hardy (Edward Woodward) travels to a Scottish village on a remote island in answer to a letter claiming that a woman's young daughter has disappeared. The townspeople, including the woman who allegedly wrote the letter, claim that no one is missing and they never heard of the little girl in question. Seeing the free-spirited natures of the pagan villagers and their unashamed attitudes towards sexuality brings out the prig in the Catholic police officer, who is outraged by the licentiousness and confused by the weird rituals he sees all around him. On the other hand, Hardy is truly concerned with the welfare of the child he is searching for. Which makes his ultimate fate all the more troubling ... The Wicker Man, although conventional enough in its thinking at its core [substituting Paganists for Satanists], is an unusual horror suspense film. At times it plays like a weird musical with the villagers breaking out in song at the drop of a hat -- these sequences don't really work and were wisely cut in some versions -- and a scene with a naked Britt Ekland dancing and singing around her bedroom seems like nothing so much as a rock video [she even sings into the camera like a rock star!]. Ekland is the nubile daughter of the tavern keeper; Ingrid Pitt is a librarian; Diane Cilento is a teacher; and Christopher Lee is Lord Summerisle, leader of the Pagan cult. In general the cast is very good and Edward Woodward gives the performance of a lifetime. The version on the DVD is still not complete, as a documentary on the movie shows clips from scenes that are not included and were supposedly "lost." It's too bad that some fairly serious directorial missteps prevent this from being a true classic, although it certainly has many admirers, and once you get past the foolish moments it's actually quite good, with a chilling wind-up. Remade in 2006 with Nicolas Cage in the Woodward role.

Verdict: You just can't trust those Pagans -- and Edward Woodward's finest hour and a half. ***.

SOUND OF HORROR

SOUND OF HORROR (El Sonido prehistorico/1964). Director: José Antonio Nieves Conde. 

Professor Andre (Arturo Fernandez) heads a motley group of people who are looking for a treasure from the sacking of Athens that's hopefully buried in a remote cave in the countryside outside the Greek city. Unfortunately, they discover that the treasure is apparently guarded by a small but deadly dinosaur (probably a velociraptor, although never referred to as such, years before Jurassic Park) that has a chameleon-like ability to disappear into its surroundings, rendering it effectively invisible. Like a nifty fifties-style B picture, this little-known Spanish horror film is suspenseful, creepy, and fast-paced; a highly effective little sleeper. The jangling sound FX cooked up for the creature are unnerving, and Luis De Pablo's score adds to the atmosphere. Ingrid Pitt plays a very different role from her Countess Dracula and Carmilla in The Vampire Lovers; this was her first movie. 

Verdict: Dig in and enjoy! ***.