Vampires (12 page)

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Ingrid Pitt as
Mircalla Karnstein.
Kate O’Mara as
the Governess
. John Finch as
Karl.
Pippa Steel as
Laura
, Madeline Smith as
Emma
. Douglas Wilmer as
Baron Von Harog
. Ferdy Mayne as
the Doctor
. George Cole as
Morton
. Dawn Addams as
The Countess
. John Forbes-Robertson as
The Man in Black
and Peter Cushing as
General Spielsdorf.
Screenplay from an adaptation by Harry Fine, Tudor Gates and Michael Style based on the novella
“Carmilla”
by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu: Tudor Gates. Director; Roy Ward Baker.

Synopsis

Baron Von Hartog narrates how he decapitated a vampire after stealing its power source, a burial shroud. The vampire is a beautiful young woman who is revealed as her breast touches the crucifix around the Baron’s neck. She shows fangs, but before she can attack, the Baron chops off her head.

A coach arrives at the home of General Spielsdorf as he throws a party for his daughter’s birthday. A strange woman identifying herself as the Countess asks that her daughter, Marcilla be allowed to stay for three weeks while she tends to urgent business. General Spielsdorf agrees when the Countess informs him that she is kin and as the Countess leaves the daughter sets her sights on the young Laura. Laura is soon having nightmares concerning her new friend that involve a large gray cat that changes into Marcilla. The girl seems to just fade away and Marcilla disappears. Later on the roads a man named Morton sees the coach tip and lose its driver. The Countess asks that he take care of Carmilla, her daughter whilst she hurries on as there has been a death in the family. Carmilla becomes friendly with Morton’s daughter, Emma and a strange love between the girls ensues as Emma starts to grow weaker by the day. To stop any resistance Carmilla also seduces the governess and kills the family doctor. Carmilla is unmasked when the general and Baron Von Hartog discover her tomb and Morton recognizes the girl in the painting of the Countess Mircalla. As the vampire is banished from the Morton home by Karl, she returns to her tomb and is staked and beheaded by the general as the painting withers into a fanged skeleton.

Review

The Vampire Lovers
had been on Hammer’s schedule for some time having been suggested in 1969 by collaborators Fantale and the film makes only slight alterations to LeFanu’s narrative. Like many other of their vampire movies, we are treated to a fine opening sequence and a grim narrative by the vampire hunter Baron Von Hartog as a card is placed between the pages of a large book:

“Thus ends my account of the fearsome Karnsteins. Before God, may we be spared from these supernatural happenings again.

- Joachim Von Hartog

I place this memories card in the pages of my history and the book is closed. I pray forever.”

In Memorium;

Isabella Von Hartog 1775-1794

Switch to a scene in a castle graveyard as an ethereal spirit searches the mist-enshrouded crypt. The Baron’s voice speaks over the action:

“I have written in full of how my sister died. How I, the Baron Hartog, avenged her death. The enemies I sought were no ordinary mortals. They were murderers from beyond the grave. For this ruined castle where I lay in wait had been the home of the Karnstein family and, at certain times, their evil spirits thrust out from moldering tombs and took a kind of human shape. To roam the countryside and seek for victims; to satisfy their need, their passion, their thirst for blood. Sometimes to court its victim, savouring its enjoyment. At other times to strangle and exhaust at a single feast. I knew the spectre, when satiated, would return to its grave. I also knew that without the shroud in which it was interred, woke its festering body, there could be no night of rest for any vampire. My heart pounded with apprehension as I watched the creature search around the grave. My limbs would scarcely obey, but I challenged the monster out there, whatever it may be. A vampire can be destroyed only by a stake through the heart or decapitation. I waited, sword in hand…”

He has stolen the shroud of the vampire – its power source – and the fiend appears to collect it. But the vampire is no fanged and horned
demon, but a beautiful young woman (Kirsten Lindholm) who's savagery shows when her breast touches the crucifix around the Baron’s neck as she tries to seduce him. The Baron swings his sword and decapitates the monster. Unfortunately, it is one of the very few dazzling moments that the film has to offer.

When the credits have rolled, we see a coach pull up outside the home of General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) who is throwing a party for his daughter’s birthday. The coach is occupied by
the Countess and her young daughter whom she identifies as Marcilla. Informing the General that she must leave due to a family illness, the Countess puts the General in the awkward position of asking him to take care of her daughter until she returns. The General agrees and the daughter becomes a house guest who has more than a passing interest in Laura Spielsdorf (Pippa Steel). Laura is suddenly taken with nightmares of large gray cats that seem to morph into her new friend. The friend, Marcilla, is just as mysterious. And who is the strange Man in Black who stands like a sentinel watching the drama unfold with a wicked grin? Laura worsens and the doctor is called. He notices two pin pricks on the young girl’s breast, but his fears cannot be given credence as Laura dies in the night and Marcilla vanishes seemingly without a trace.

The next sequence is possibly Hammer’s most iconic image of its later vampire movies and was first used in
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave
. A peasant girl carrying an obligatory basket of unspecified goodies is chased through the woods by the vampire’s coach. She enters the coach and smiles at the hooded figure inside. As the girl moves forward, her happy expression suddenly turns to one of fright and she lets out the obligatory scream. This is frustrating to the viewer, as we never see the horror in every movie that the sequence is used. Does the vampire change physically? It is all left to our fertile imaginations. When next we see the coach, it is on a mad dash through the forest and hits a rock, causing the coach to tip and lose its drivers, just as Morton, George Cole is happily riding along with the film’s young hero, Karl (Jon Finch). The Countess weaves another story about a dying relative and could he look after her daughter Carmilla? Morton agrees and moves Carmilla into his house to become friends with his own daughter Emma (Madeline Smith). In no time at all, Carmilla begins her seduction on the wild eyed Emma. She shows severe changes of mood and becomes angry when Emma acknowledges a funeral procession by humming the Christian songs. Soon, Emma is having nightmares and sharing experiences similar to Laura Spielsdorf. As her condition worsens the doctor (Ferdy Mayne) is sent for and prescribes garlic flowers. Again Carmilla is foiled and sets her sights on Kate O’Mara’s governess to create order. The governess orders that the garlic be taken away, but a wily butler disobeys this order and brings about the wrath of Carmilla who seduces him and then drains him. As the doctor persists in his suspicions and decides to prove his theories by taking his fears to the general, Carmilla hunts him down in the forest.

Carmilla’s true identity is unveiled by a painting that hangs in the ruined chapel of Karnstein Castle as Morton recognizes her likeness as the girl staying at his home. The general also recognizes the creature that stayed under his own roof and promises himself revenge. Both men have the blanks filled in by Douglas Wilmer’s grim hunter, Baron Von Hartog who recalls the first scene of the movie to them, stating that decapitation is the true end of the vampires. When Carmilla is tracked to her tomb – after being permanently banished from the Morton home by Karl – General Spielsdorf and the Baron Hartog perform the ritual leaving Morton to take a back seat.

“I know that my daughter is dead!”
intones the general as he slices off her head.

The painting of Mircalla withers from a beautiful woman into a fanged skeleton in the best Dorian Gray tradition.

Most of the action is witnessed by a strange dark figure known as the Man in Black in the credits. This character doesn’t appear in the novella and he seems to have no discernible use here except to smile showing large canines every time Mircalla goes for the breasts or jugular of her victims. He is played by John Forbes-Robertson who would go on to replace Christopher Lee as Dracula in
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974).

The film begins and ends on a decapitation. As mentioned earlier, these are really the only horrific points of interest. There is a decidedly creepy atmosphere to the whole film, but the drawing room scenes seem very forced and pedestrian. Ingrid Pitt is really too old to be the childlike Mircalla of LeFanu’s novel, but does react well when she is cornered like a caged tigress by the inverted cross shape of Karl’s knife. The men are used simply as mere plot devices and seem very detached from the whole thing as they have little or nothing to do for most of the time. This is a pity as all of them have incredible movie accolades under their belts. Peter Cushing was attached to the project to satisfy the US distributors AIP that a known face would appear in the finished movie for bankability. The grim Baron Von Hartog is essayed by Douglas Wilmer who sounds as though he is narrating even when his voice-overs have ceased. Ferdy Mayne plays a confused doctor who gets to roll around in the bushes with Carmilla when he proves to be a threat and intends to expose her and George Cole’s mystifying character Mr Morton just appears very confused about the whole thing and identifies the portrait as Mircalla/Marcilla/Carmilla at the end of the film that spurs the general into action.

As Emma is seduced by Mircalla, I just deduced that I had already seen this through the eyes of Laura Spielsdorf. The unclothed Pitt and Maddy Smith is titillating, but quickly
becomes totally boring and I felt that the film could have run at least thirty minutes less the running time that it actually did. On the plus side, all of Carmilla’s shape-changing antics are preserved; she appears as a large cat in the dream sequences and disappears through doors without opening them, but the sequels never hint at these powers again. Also discarded in the sequels are the vampires obtaining their strength from their grave shroud.

But the film would bring the lovely Ingrid Pit
t to the fore as Britain’s own horror heroine. She would go on to play Countess Elizabeth Bathory in the same years
Countess Dracula
and satirize her vampire
femme
in
The House that Dripped Blood (1970).
She also appeared with Christopher Lee in
The Wicker Man (1973)
Born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland in 1937, she was imprisoned in a concentration camp with her family in WWII. She married an American soldier in the 1950s and moved to California. When the marriage failed she went back to Europe and had a small role in a film that gave her the impetus to try for stardom in Hollywood. Making her film debut in
Doctor Zhivago (1965),
she went on to appear in a larger role opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in
Where Eagles Dare (1968).
The horror films made her a cult icon. But as the fad for horror dried up in the mid 70s, she found work in theatre and TV and even made a career as a writer. Other films of note include
Who Dares Wins (1982)
and
Wild Geese 2 (1985).
She also appeared in a small role in the James Bond film
Octopussy (1983).
She married three times and had a daughter, the actress Steffanie Pitt-Blake. She died on 23
rd
November 2010 two days after her 73
rd
birthday. Her autobiography,
Life’s A Scream
was published in 1999.

My own favourite vampire cat of literature appeared in 1936 in a story of the same name in the anthology
Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book
and was written by Lord Halifax’s nephew Mr Everard Meynell. This supernatural tale consists of a man who finds that his blood is being sucked from a war wound under his armpit by a satanic moggy. The story haunted me for years as I thought I had read it in one of the celebrated PAN books and it was only unearthed recently by an online friend. Like Carmilla’s victims, I thought that I had dreamt the whole thing!