Just found this. A very handsome Christopher Lee in footage from Scream and Scream again, 1969, set with some really nice music. Great fan stuff. Make sure you watch this full screen!!
Additional note: This film was shot in May and June 1969, released in December that same year. Both Peter Cushing and Vincent Price hold roles in this thriller. Lee comments in Films of Christopher Lee:
"The only time that Vincent and Peter and I ever appeared in the same film. [Written before House of the Long Shadows] However, we were all threevirtually defused. I had about eight minutes of screen time(...) I shot one whole sequence in Trafalgar Square. If you can remember your lines with all the traffic, and the crowds of people behind the camera watching - you can do anything."
It got mixed reviews. Some really, really good ones, some ... not so good.
Horror of Dracula from 1958 is to be released in Blu Ray on 18th March.
Needless to say, I have ordered this special, uncut edition. New, perviously censored scenes are included such as Dracula's seduction of Mina and the disintegration of Dracula.
I just CANT wait!!! You can pre-order it on Amazon. Do it!
Ahhhhaaa!!! Just one day ago, someone posted the entire film Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966) on You Tube. That is a fab film. Has a great feeling to it, and as I have written before, Lee was complemented on his performance by no one else than Maria Rasputina. The daughter of the starets himself. (No, Rasputin was no monk.)
I just rewatched Dracula Prince of Darkness. The sets of the films are very similar - they were made neck to neck at Hammer Studios in 1966. Even the actors are the same. (However, there is no doubt what character Lee prefers to play...)
I have, a couple of times, been to the palace in St. Petersburg - in the cellar - where the murder took place. The room has a cold feeling to, it is daunting, and I assure you it has nothing to do with the waxfigures placed there.
Enjoy that voice like thunder, the dancing, the sex and and the very violent death scene.
Additional note: you can see a promotional clip on the release of Rasputin togehter with The Devil Rides Out. Lovely footage from the films and comments from co-actors!!! Recommended!!!
Bizarrly enough, I have watched the Dracula-series in the reverse order. Last of all DPoD - but I can't say I was overwhealmed by this hizzing character. On the contrary, I actually do think later films in the Dracula-series are a great deal better.
Can't help but thinking of the different versions on how this came about: According to SCL a bad dialogue which he just plainly refused to say. According tho Hammer that there never was any for him in the script in the first place. I must say find it difficult to believe that Hammer would be calling in one of its big stars - not offering him anything to say at all. Anyone whith the origial script on his or her hand, please stand up!
DhRftG and TtBoD are not at all bad when it comes to plot and dialoge. DPoD seems a bit simplyfied to be honest. The scenery outside the castle is however quite magnificent and the ice-scene holds some nice moments. Now I have to watch DhRftG again, just to watch the priest and the waterscene. Noooo, this never ends!!! :)
Nice Hammer-film, this. Just what you'd expect. The actor playing Dr. Weiss, Arnorld Marle, is a gem. Good old-fashioned suspense and horror. And yayyy! Another "goodie"-role!
You can watch the film here - if you are not too disturbed by Spanish subs.
Night of the Big Heat (1967) is one sweaty film. As it is to portray an unnatural heatwave on the Brittish island of Fara, the cast weares wet clothes and open shirts - though it was filmed in the midst of the winter. The scientist Goodfrey Hansen (Lee) has come to suspect there is something un-earthly going on on the island, and he is quite right.
"The entire cast wore the flimsiest of clothing, and we were covered in artificial sweat (...). This was physically very demanding on the cast..." Lee comments in Films of Christopher Lee.
As it is directed by Terence Fisher, it maintains high quality. Sweaty Lee is quite a distraction. Half of the time trough this film I just can't help thinking: Ok, so it's hot. Why don't you just take your shirt off?
It was released in US under the theatrical title of The island of the burning damned or The island of the burning doomed, which makes me think of those C-movies made in Hollywood in the mid 50's. Charming as they can be, that title is misleading. This is a well-made film with a great cast. And yayyyy! Cushing is in it. But they should have made better use of him.
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*Spoiler alerts:*
I had high hopes for SCL to survive this film. He is after all a "goodie". He lives until 1:26 of 1:30. So - another death, incinerated by aliens. That must be one of the oddest ones - together with him being quartered inTorture chamber of Dr. Sadism, yuck!
So not even when he is a "goodie" he gets to survive. All heroes must survive, that is the unwritten law of pop-culture. Well, there is always one exception to the rule, and that exception in this case is Christopher Lee. *sigh*
"The idea is an excellent one and it's a good picture right until the very end, when they made the great mistake of introducing the ailiens. (...) To me, they looked like badly fried eggs."
Not an egg I would like to have on my plate, anyway. (I'd rathter have Lee there.)
Now going on vacation for a couple of days.
To keep you company, you can watch this until I'm back...
Fun facts: According to Lee, it couldn't be named the Devil Rides out in the US "because some executive genius decided that the American public (...) would believe that this film could only be a Western. No comment."
The haunted Sir Henry Baskerville! This part is seems so much better suited for Lee, I think, than him playing Sherlock Holmes. He needs space when acting. As soon as he is crammed into a typcasted role, he looses that *mmpfff* he usually has.
Bitter Victory (1957) with Richard Burton. Filmed between Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula. Synopsis as follows: A romantic triangle between one female and two male caracters in the film. It culminates in murder and is set against the background of the North African campaign in WWII.
Lee comments: "The only film I ever worked on in the whole of my life that I instantly wanted to leave after one day of shooting. A nightmare - there's no other word for it. Everybody got the parts they either didn't want or somebody else wanted. I was told all the time not to bring any British Army nonsense into my part. It was very strange."
You can see Lee in this clip - right at the start and then some.
... and it drips of stars as well! My gosh! Cushing, Lee, Josh Ackland (at a young age) and Denholm Elliot (Raiders of the lost Ark amongst other films, more than 200 of them.)
Lee is in the second part of the film. Nice feeling to it. Love Cushing in his dream-sequence.
From 1971.
"That's what's wrong with present day horror films! There is no realism! Not like the old ones - the great ones! Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, Dracula... The one with Bela Lugosi of course, not this new fellow!"
Fact: The horrorfilmstar-part was written for Lee, but was played by another actor. Just as well, one might add. That part of the film is the weakest. They ought to have cut it out. I think.
Ok, don't say I didn't warn you. I feel obliged to.
This film from 1969 is quite horrendous. I know that some of my friends on Twitter disagree with me, but this film is a mess. Starts of really nicely, really eerie, then it is downhill from there.
When Lee finally gets into the picture, he acts like he is made of concrete and the plot is terrible. And the title The torture chamber of Dr Sadism sounds like it is a mad mans invention. Why not The snake pit and the pendulum, which it was named in other parts of Europe? As it actually has references to EA Poe.
Anyways. "Made a lot of money in Germany, but I would call it rather indifferent."
This also arrived today. My lucky day, I guess!! Film time tonight, no doubt about it. And this Mario Bava film is the uncut version. It was mutilated in almost any country it was released in, in 1963. Can imagine that.
In US it is called What!, and as I can understand, that seems absolutely logical concerning what was left of it after the censorship had sunk its teeth into it.
Here are some sequences from it. The uncut version!!
Additional note: Oooooohhh Myyyy Gooooooddd.
If you are only to buy one, I say one film with Christopher Lee – buy this one!!! It is fantastic!!! Best of him I have EVER seen! Part suspense, part gothic horror, a great deal of eroticism, beautiful acting and wonderful music. But make damned sure you buy that UNCUT VERSION. I can very well understand that the censors went berserk when they had seen the original movie. And this was1963! Jeeesuus!
Sorry for that outburst. Now back to my normal, collected disposition. But seriously. Buy it!!!
I don't know from where I got the idea that Hands of Orlac (1960) is about a pianist who commits horrible crimes. It is not at all. It is much more refined than that. It a drama about a pianist going through a self asteem crisis due to an accident.
And a man trying to take advantage of that. Guess who?
Christopher Lee appears as Nero 20-25 mins into the picture, but when he eventually does he takes over the film. He plays with great confidence and black irony.
When we enter the following clip, Neros assistant Leila is seducing Orlac to help Nero to get to him. Below the clip, I have linked to all parts of Hands of Orlac, should you wish to watch the whole film. The sound is unfortunately quite bad.
It was made in a french version as well. "I think my performance in French was probably far better than in the one in English because I could do more with the language. (...) It was the first time that I did a motion picture in two languages with totally different casts" writes Lee in Films of Christopher Lee. It is a gem!
Horror Express, made in 1971-72, was recieved with great reviews from the Brittish press, in which Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee stars together. It was made the years just before The Wicker Man, The Three Musketeers and TMWTGG. It is, in short, a story of strange murders on a train crossing Siberia, set in pre-revolutionary Russia.
It marks a great break, I think, from the by then very diluted Dracula-series. I've always loved this side of Lee, playing the seemingly ordinary man getting into trouble. It is kind of amuzing. Cushing: "Miss Jones, I should need your assistance." "Yes, well, at your age, I am not surprised." Cushing: "With an autopsy!!"
"I won't say it's a horror comic - it's hardly the word - but entertaining and amuzing adventure. Peter and I play a couple of intrepid British explorers who are great rivals in the scientific sense. They strike sparks off each other."
CL himself in The Films of Christopher Lee.
I only have one major objection. "Moscow says..." No. In those times, St.Peterburg said. But never mind. Lee
looks great in that moustache!
Lee writes in Tall, Dark and Gruesome, that Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) was made during a time when he was immensly unhappy with his life and his filmcareer. He lived in Switzerland at the moment. He had just made Sign of Satan with Hitchcock, but not much seemed to be going his way.
"I brooded savagely. I tried to write, and found myself producing an account of an execution with a guillotine. I walked miles. The snowy slopes seemed to jeer at me - I didn't dare ski in case I broke something and should be unfit for work if it was suddenly offered."
Dr Terror's House of Horrors is a film wich is arranged like the classic medieval Decamerone-stories. This time people doesn't gather in a house, though, but on a train. They have their fortunes told by a Tarot-reader. There are five stories in this film, this is the Christopher Lee segment.
This episode of Alfred Hitchcock hour: The Sign of Satan was filmed and broadcasted 1964 in US. It took until 1968 before it was aired in Great Britain. Lee got some pretty good reviews. Sunday Mail wrote: "Most gripping episode in the series so far. Christopher Lee was horribly superb." Glascow Evening Times: "Lee, of course, was the logical choice for a story about a horror movie actor, having captured the market."
I myself think it's OK, but sometimes it feels as Lee is restricted in his action because of the expectations on him. As always he is at his best when he is allowed outside of the "horror-acting". Well worth a look though - it is a legendary series with a legendary actor!
Lee thinks this is one of his best performances ever. I must say, that the character Paul Allen in Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll really isn't that far behind this. (Personally, I think that film is even better.) Here Lee playes Mr. Marlow at a very low key. I have never seen him that constrained before.
There are som really great scenes: The first time he shoots himself with the dangerous drug. Out comes a nutty person, slightly wacky, and as if he was high on something. Wonderful to watch! I, monster, takes 80 minutes. I would have preferred it longer!
And certainly no crappy transformations. This is much better done.
