Horror of Dracula(1958) directed by Terence Fisher
Hammer followed up Curse of Frankenstein with this revival of Dracula featuring Christopher Lee as the ur-vampire. Dracula was now in color and he had fangs and the brooding eyes of Christopher Lee.
Lee is a cool customer as you would expect, even if he doesn’t have quite as good writing backing him up as he did later (and I don’t believe I’m saying this) in Jess Franco’s Count Dracula. This is a gentlemanly Dracula we have here.
As with all Dracula adaptations the details of Stoker’s novel are twisted out of all recognition. In this case, Jonathan Harker is the fiancé of Lucy Holmwood (like I said, twisted beyond recognition), and Lucy's brother Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) is married to Mina. And the worst part is that we don't even get a Renfield, which just leaves you feeling a bit cheated.
But the plot here makes up for it in one huge way because....
Dracula has hired Harker (John Van Eyssen) as a librarian.
“There are a large number of volumes to be indexed.” Dracula actually says this...in a menacing way.
The idea of Dracula needing someone to rearrange his card-catalog is just charming.
“I’ve been having a devil of a time finding my copy of Martin Chuzzlewit and I think it’s time for a reorganization of the stacks. What do you think, Harker?” "I suppose so, Count Dracula..."
But all is not as it appears to be, and it turns out Harker is perfectly aware that Dracula is a vampire and is there to hunt him down. Harker is able to take out Dracula’s bride/minion (the gothically named Valerie Gaunt) but he’s too late to get Dracula and is himself bitten. Should have stuck to sorting books, Harker.
I like how this is a Dracula film where the Vampire starts out on the defensive. He’s just a man with a cataloguing problem and Harker is out to get him. This is a great reversal of other versions where the non-vampire world is essentially passive and quite unaware of the danger facing it and people stumble about blindly into Dracula’s lures. However, lest anyone think this film is an endorsement of preemptive war, please note that Harker’s preemptive strike on Dracula is more or less a failure. (Sure, he takes out Dracula’s bride, but he doesn’t succeed in taking out Dracula and he’s manages to piss off the Count.) Also, after Harker is killed off the rest of his friends and family are caught as ignorant of the danger as any of the victims in other versions of the tail. So much for fighting the vampires there so we don't have to fight them here.
Cue the entrance for Van Helsing, who is played by none other than Peter Cushing who can now turn the same clinical scientific coldness that served him so well as Victor Frankenstein to the white hat side as Van Helsing. In a way, Frankenstein and Van Helsing are of a piece.
Now we get to line up behind the good doctor as he sets out to bring down Dracula.
First, he has to take out Harker, but Dracula is on the loose in…where are we again? It does take a while to remember that despite all the British actors the action never goes to London or Carfax Abbey, but stays on the continent here in lovely Karlstadt on the Main. (Dracula, meanwhile is from Klausenburg, which is the German name for the Romanian city of Cluj which was, in a rare bit of historical/geographical accuracy for a horror film, one of the important centers of Transylvania. (Stephen Bathory founded a Jesuit academy there and Matthias Corvinus, the King of Hungary, whose cousin was Vlad the Impaler’s second wife, was born there.)
Anyhow, now we get Van Helsing bringing everyone up to speed on vampires.
Vampire lore here includes:
Vampires are allergic to light
They can’t change themselves to bats or wolves
They are repelled by the odor of garlic
During the day they must sleep in their native soil
The crucifix, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil, protects the normal human but reveals the victims of vampires as well as puts a hurt on the vampires themselves.
I like the idea that Vampires are allergic to light because instead of it being a fatal problem this implies a kind of chronic issue that is more annoying than deadly. "My eyes are itchy and my sinuses are all stuffed up because I peeked at the sun today. Damn these allergies!"
Meanwhile, Dracula has gotten the bite on Lucy (Carol Marsh) who must be killed because she’s been going out and murdering children.
This prompts a bit of theology from Van Helsing regarding the separation of body and soul:
“It’s only a shell. Liberate the soul and destroy the shell.”
Lucy is liberated, but Mina (Melissa Stribling) is still in danger. (Because Dracula is quick on the rebound.) They have to destroy Dracula in order to free Mina before she loses so much blood that she also becomes undead.
Van Helsing and the Von Scooby Gang track down (thanks to a funny customs officer played by George Benson) a shipment that has been sent to 49 Friedrichstrasse, which is an undertaker's place. The undertaker (Miles Malleson) is, by the way, the second funniest part of this film. Dracula's coffin isn't at Friedrichstrasse and the gang tracks it back to Mina's basement. (Why didn't we check there first?) The coffin is there, but Dracula has taken off with Mina and has to get back to his native soil before the sun comes up over Transylvania. So, the chase now begins, and it takes us through the frontiers of Ingolstadt, because everything happens in Ingolstadt. (Welcome again to Ingolstadt, where we expect to be hosting a werewolf and a mummy soon.)
The funniest part of this film is the chase scene from Karlstadt to Klausenburg which includes the awesome gag of having a toll station operator befuddled by people running through his barrier. If you think this gag ever gets old, just watch Stripes again. It never gets old.
Also, keep an eye out for Geoffrey Bayldon, (who would go on to turn down a role as Dr. Who and then play an 11th century time travelling wizard named Catweazle) in a bit role here as a porter. He would later feature in an amusing role in Hammer's Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.
The ensuing mayhem in Castle Dracula (which is quite a pretty set) in the tradition of old-school horror films is way too short and ends rather abruptly, but suffice it to say that Christopher Lee’s Dracula meets his ultimate fate in a reasonably interesting fashion. (He's is held off with a pair of crossed candlesticks until a curtain is pulled showering him with sunlight that makes him crumble into dust--a pretty good fx sequence for 1958.)
In the end, Horror of Dracula is a pretty decent Dracula outing. It makes no pretense of being “faithful” to Bram Stoker or anything else. It just tries to tell a decent vampire story with the characters from Dracula and, with the help of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, it does a good job of that. Horror of Dracula would be a solid vampire film even if it wasn’t marked by the first pairing of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula. But then, it is and, because it represents the second phase of the revival of classic horror, this film is a classic of cinematic history as well as a must see for students of cinematic horror. Christopher Lee’s Dracula is a much better character in Jess Franco’s Count Dracula, but that came a decade after this outing and with many reprises in the interim. This was his first, and it launched a Hammer vampire avalanche (for those who like horribly absurd metaphors). Seriously, though, think about what you think of as iconic vampire/Dracula imagery and you have Bela Lugosi, John Carradine and Christopher Lee who form the real basis for everything we think of when we think of Dracula. Everything else is just commentary.
Special Features
Cast & Crew
It is easy to dismiss the importance of director Terence Fisher in crafting these eminently watchable films. It is easy, and it is wrong.
Brief bio essays, here.
Dracula Lives Again!
Hammer made a pile of vampire pictures, and 7 of them featured Christopher Lee as Dracula.
Trailer
Another old school trailer. Dracula is back, and this time he’s in color. Have library card, will drink your blood.
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