Yet another Pirate Captain

The other night I watched The Devil Ship Pirates, filmed in 1963. The year before, in 1962, Lee had already starred in The Pirates of Blood River. This film is actually better put toghether, the screen writing and the scenery is more solid and better performed, and less studio. And no studio sounds! That is soo much better, since echoes in a studio has a somewhat cheep ring to it. Sure, I spot some of the usual Hammer faces, but not as obvious as in The Devil Ship Pirates.

SCL:s performance in this much better as well. More brooding and downplayed, and less overacted as Captain Robeles tended to be. This is less of "Tiger-tank", more of his usual, sinister and collected self.

 I enjoy Oliver Reed as Brocaire, a pirate involved in a sub-plot with one of the other pirates, fighting over the same woman, and fighting eachother in general. Oliver Reed was to star with Christopher Lee again, approximately a decade later, in The Three Musketeers - and the sequel, The Four Musketeers. In that, he played Athos. Great films, both of them!

Of course, there's some proper fencing and fighting in this film. What else? Here you can hear SCL talk of how to fence properly. Highly recommended!

Lee comments: "The Pirates of Blood River was in the top ten of that year in Britain as far as money was concerned." And he recollects the crossing over the lake, an enormously straining task, since the water was polluted to the point that Oliver Reeds eyes turned red. As he had to do a fight in the water, he had to be treated in hospital afterwards. Lee refused to film the crossing more than two times.

The Devil Ship Pirates

In the beginning, SCL's dark features made many filmmakers scratch their heads. 'To dark and to foreign-looking' was their somewhat daft conclusion. As 'not enough Brittish' he got to play lots of exotic characters. Captain Robeles in the Devil Ship Pirates from 1963 is one of them.

"CLOSE THE GUN PORTS!!!!"

This pirateflick is a Hammer production. Mostly associated with horror, this seems to be a bit of an odd one in their wardrobe. Nevertheless it is quite neatly put togehter. Basic plot is: Spanish ship gets badly damaged in the great battle with the Armada in 1588. The crue manages to get the ship close to land to get it repaired. Pirates (as they now are) are terrorising the nearby village. Captain Robeles - a.k.a SCL - is the chief crook and a really bad apple.

"You will have to kill me first!" "-As you wish!"

I enjoy watching this for a couple of reasons (other than Lee of course): The plot is not bad at all. With today's eyes it is a bit difficult to tell how it looked in the 60's when those pirate-flicks was legio. But I find the scenery quite acceptable as well. True, Lee plays his character with the subtelty of a Russian Tiger-tank, but I actually don't mind. It is a film on pirates, not a Bergman drama.

The other reason is actually, that they have contracted lots of the classic Hammer Studio's actors in this film. Well known faces from DPoD, Rasputin, DHRFTG and so on is on this set. Nice!

Besides that, I really enjoy the clothes. Red becomes him.

The Devil Ship Pirates was made just after The whip and the Body, and the Hitchcock production Sign of Satan.

Additional note: Obviously, Hammer Studios built the full- seized galleon on a steel structure that was placed under water. But it was important not to overload one side or the other, or it would tip over. Which it apparently did.

"The cables leading to the lights went into the water, and when the cables went, the lights went into the water and the electricians went with them", Sir Lee comments in The Films of Christopher Lee. "By sheer chance I managed to hold on to the rail and stay on the ship. I considered this a very valid reason for the captain not to desert the sinking ship", he comments.

"I had a pretty tough fight on the deck (...) and was bleeding all over the place."

Poor Chris.

Gormenghast at last

This night I started to watch Gormenghast (2000). Never knew of the story before I ran into it through reading about SCL. Call me illiterate, but to my defense I might say I do not belong to the anglo-saxon world. Not in that sense, anyway. Had no expectations what so ever, not knowing anyhting of the main theme.

But very atmospheric! Mr Flay!

Additional note: It is not like anything I have seen. Incredibly well set, acted and filmed. Terrifying, cruel. There are lots of criticism on society, lots of dark observations on human nature here. NOT a story for kids. Not in any way. It is acutally very odd. Is this really a children's story to begin with? Would they understand it? I know I would just have thought it to be very either odd or scary, or probably both at once. I will for certain see both part 3 and 4, but everything is so twisted and that evil, evil kitchen boy. I really hope he will get his in the end.

Serial - a shift in gear

OK, Saturday evening I got a question on Twitter if I knew what a certain picture with SCL was from. He is sitting on a bed, holding a telephone. And he is dressed in a leather jacket. What is this? Was the question.

The answer: I think it is a scene from Serial (1980). SCL plays a mc-cult leader - and he plays gay.

I am qouting the synopsis from Films of Christopher Lee [which was published in 1983]: "Christopher Lee plays a self-proclaimed "barracuda" (i.e, man-eater) of an American busineess tycoon, who moonlights as the ringleader of a marauding gang of gay motorcyklists, in this satire of modern California mores."

It is the last entry in that book before appendixes. Notes of the authors in the book:

"Lee is brilliantly funny here (...) Serial (..) seems a highly appropriate place for us to pause, since it epitomizes the transformation of an English to an international performer."

"Startling as it undoubtedly is to see Lee playing so off-type a role as that of a gay American business executive, one hopes that this is not the start of a new trend for him, since he played a somewhat similar character later in a two-hour episode of Charlies Angels!"

Lee's own comments: "A satirical, completely outrageous comedy. In it, I play a head-hunter, an American. I play it as an American, with an American accent, which was totally acceptable to the studio and the audience, which I regard as a compliment. (...) I can assure any doubters amongst the public that this is my own voice and I was not dubbed (...). On weekends, I play the head of a gay motorcycle gang. What one would call a shift of gear, perhaps."

Eh, yup. :-)

I havn't seen this myself, but here is a trailer, and a very short snippet of eight (!) seconds with Lee as the gangleader, so don't blink!

Additional note: The plot thickens. The picture causing this blogpost might not be from Serial after all. But that doesn't really matter. It was a good reason to post these wonderful clips! I'll be back to update this if anything crops up.