Vampires (7 page)

Barry Andrews would have another high profile role as Ralph Gower in genre movie, The
Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971),
one of the greatest devil movies in history.
Zena works at the inn with Paul. She is the likeable tart with a heart that makes her a victim by default. She is friends with Paul and jealous of his love for the virginal Maria. She laughs the loudest when Paul spills ale all over himself as he is dressed to meet her parents. He arrives at the inn later looking very dejected and orders three shots of the strongest schnapps. Keeling over very quickly, Zena helps him to his room and undresses him for bed, stealing a kiss –
“I bet she doesn’t kiss you like that”
– as Maria enters seconds later she leaves the lovebirds to their own devices. As she winsomely makes her own way home through the forest she is followed by a runaway coach
en route
seemingly driven by a man in priests robes. Further into the forest she is intercepted by a tall man with burning eyes who seems to kiss her all night! Back in the tavern the next night, she finds herself snapping at Paul and hiding the strange marks on her throat. She has found herself strangely allied with the Priest in servitude out of her love for the Master. Problems abound when the Master rejects her in favour of Maria whom she has kidnapped for him. When the girl escapes, Zena is thwarted again as the Count orders that she bring her back and decides to give the dark man a piece of her mind. He gives her one final kiss draining her completely and has the Priest feed her husk to the flames in the baker’s oven. Although Zena and Paul are the only barstaff at the inn, it is strange that no one seems to go looking for her and Max puts her disappearance down to taking off with a student.
New Zealand born Barbara would go on to guest star in the Donald Sutherland mystery
The Eye of the Needle (1981),
following this with many credits in UK dramas and soap series on television.
Director Freddie Francis always admitted that his work on
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave
was strictly by the numbers. He took on the role when Terence Fisher fell ill. Mr Francis had a plethora of genre films behind him in a very distinguished career both as director and cinematographer. High profile films – as director – include
The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965),
and
Tales From the Crypt (1972).
He died age 89 in 2007.
Christopher Lee maintains that Sir James Carreras went on his knees to get the actor to play Dracula in this movie and Lee’s distaste at having to pull the stake from his chest is now common knowledge. To the actor’s detriment however, the two scenes – the second being the impalement on a large crucifix – that he hated the most are the best sequences and the most memorable of the film. A stake through the heart is the end of the vampire, but Hammer needed Dracula to rise again. Filled out with deftly directed action sequences,
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave
is perhaps the most grim of all their Dracula output. The religious additions leaving aside the notion of comedy being brought into the proceedings, but it was rife in their advertising campaign, particularly in the USA. A black and white photograph of a girl with two pink plasters on her throat and the title:
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave!
Below this, the one word:
“Obviously.”

Marking many turning points, a shift in management at Hammer and a change of residence for the company, the film suffers and benefits in perhaps equal measure. Handing the larger portion of the film over to the young leads is a crippling move, but necessary as the studio failed to see the opportunities inherent in the titular character. One would have liked to have seen The Monsignor himself take on the vampire in the finale in the best Van Helsing tradition. As would be evidenced in further outings it is only those boy‘s own set–to‘s with Cushing and Lee that would be the saving grace of some pretty average movies. Veronica Carlson is the first in this line of new Hammer women. Beautiful to watch, but having no discernible motives and the character of Maria becoming as nondescript as the heroines in the old silent movies; relegated to being tied to the tracks in the wake of an oncoming train: the perennial damsel in distress.

The Count’s Castle is an improvement and the fine matte paintings by Peter Melrose lend a brooding Gothic look to the gaudy landscape that was missing in Terence Fisher’s storybook fantasies. Unfortunately, these same paintings would be used in the next two additions in the series, making them quickly
clichéd
cutaways.
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave
was the first Hammer Dracula film to be shot at Elstree Studios in London and the first Hammer Dracula to pass the censor in Australia where it played with slight cuts for three weeks at Sydney’s Capitol theatre in January 1970. The two previous Lee/Dracula films had been banned outright.

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

Christopher Lee as
Count Dracula
, Geoffrey Keen as
Hargood
, Peter Sallis as
Paxton
, John Carson as
Secker
, Ralph Bates as
Lord Courtley
, Linda Hayden as
Alice
, Anthony Corlan as
Paul
, Isla Blair as
Lucy
, Martin Jarvis as
Jeffrey
and Roy Kinnear as
Weller
. Screenplay based on the character created by Bram Stoker; John Elder (Anthony Hinds), Director; Peter Sasdy.    

Synopsis
A coach journeys through large but open woodland. Its occupants are three gentlemen. One of the men identifies himself as Weller, a travelling salesman to his fellow passengers. Stuffing himself with vitals, he cannot resist the opportunity of another quick sale and produces a snow globe from his bag. Stating that they cost him six crowns, he offers the reduced rate of three crowns to the prospective buyers. Their seeming lack of interest forces him down to two crowns. The younger of the two suddenly makes a grab for the globe and throws the salesman from the moving coach, followed by bag and baggage. Weller wakes hours later and the moon is high in the sky. He wanders nervously through the woods to the accompaniment of a hooting owl and then three piercing cries of untold agony. He begins to run blindly through the woods and eventually trips and falls onto a ledge of rocks. Gazing over the side of the mountain he sees a man below clawing at the air and impaled on a large golden crucifix. Blood seeps from the man’s eyes and then the whole body melts away. The black cloak falling from the cross and the surrounding area running with the dead man’s blood. Picking through the pieces, the salesman quickly identifies the remains to be those of Dracula, the Prince of Darkness.
Meanwhile three Victorian Patriarchs Hargood, Paxton and Secker, visit the East end of London the first Sunday of every month to indulge their sexual fantasies whilst keeping a respectable facade amongst their peers. On their latest wanderings they cross the path of the decadent aristocrat, Lord Courtley, who entices them to perform a black mass ceremony with the acquisitions from Weller’s stock, Dracula’s cape, his clasp and his blood. The three agree and the ritual begins. When Courtley proves that he is deadly serious, the men are repulsed by their own debaucheries. Courtley drinks the blood of Dracula and expires as the three gentlemen return home vowing never to discuss the matter again. However, the body of Lord Courtley undergoes a transformation and he stands erect as Count Dracula. The Count vows vengeance on the men who have destroyed his underling and extracts it through their children. He first takes Alice Hargood under his power and uses her to entice her friends, Lucy and Jeremy Secker and Lucy’s brother and Alice’s beau, Paul Paxton. Throughout the course of the next few nights, Dracula decimates the three families. Alice murders her father with a shovel and kidnaps Lucy who is bitten by Dracula. When Paxton and Secker search for the missing Lucy, they find her laid out in a coffin. Secker immediately knows to stake the vampire, but the heartbroken father has brought a gun and chases his friend from the cemetery. As the night falls, Lucy rises and both she and Alice stake the old man with his own stake. Secker wakes the next day and writes his theories in a letter to Paul Paxton. Passing out from his gunshot wound, he awakens and hands the letter to his son Jeremy who has been bitten by Lucy. Jeremy kills his father with a dagger as Dracula looks on. In the forest, the Count bleeds Lucy dry, killing her. At the Secker household, the inspector hands Paul the letter and after reading the instructions therein, he sets off in search of Dracula and Alice. Approaching the old church in daylight, he makes it Holy again by adding the correct ornamentation, a white altar cloth and candles and tearing down the dusty curtains that bring God’s light into the church. When Dracula and Alice appear, Paul tries to convince Alice to escape with him. Dracula and Paul struggle as Paul is knocked unconscious. As Alice tries to follow her master, the Count tells her that he has no more need of her and she traps him between two crosses. When Paul wakes, Dracula is trying to kill the pair by throwing large candle holders at them. His back comes into contact with the stained glass windows and burns him. The priest is heard uttering the prayer that killed him and Dracula is overcome by the ornamentation of the newly consecrated church. He falls onto the altar and crumbles to dust as Paul and Alice, now free of his power, embrace and leave the church.

Review

Taste the Blood of Dracula
is my own personal favourite of the sequels in that it sets the Count squarely in the Victorian society that Bram Stoker originally envisaged. Hungarian Peter Sasdy’s deft direction made me wonder what he would have made of a straight telling of Stoker’s novel. In this film he takes many key points from Freddie Francis and blends them uniquely into his story. Most notable aspects are the furtherance of Dracula’s victims enjoying his advances and lounging on the lid of his sarcophagus in the drafty churchyard and replaying the final closing moments of the previous installment to better theatrical effect.

Opening with a coach rushing through the forest we meet Weller (Roy Kinnear), -
“What a way to travel. Barbaric!” -
A travelling salesman being ejected mid-run by two psychotic passengers. He awakes as it begins to grow dark and hears a series of blood curdling screams. Falling down a steep incline, he sees a man impaled on a huge golden crucifix. The man cries blood and quickly disintegrates to nothing. The blood dries to a fine red powder and, as Weller investigates, the salesman realizes he has chanced upon the death of Count Dracula (Christopher Lee). This is a great opening sequence, although it fails to mention where the young lovers and the Priest from the previous film have disappeared to, but that matters little. After the credits we are introduced to three Victorian families as they leave the church after Sunday mass; The Hargoods (Geoffrey Keen, Linda Hayden and Gwen Watford), The Paxton’s (Peter Sallis, Anthony Corlan and Isla Blair) and the Seckers (John Carson and Martin Jarvis). Certainly one of the more esteemed cast lists of the whole series. The action begins when the three patriarchs meet for their monthly trip to the east end to hand out charity for those less fortunate than themselves. This consists of throwing a few coins to the beggars that surround their coach with wonder and envy as they disembark in the red light district. Felix, a very camp Russell Hunter, greets his best customers with girls and champagne. One of the girls is doll like Madeline Smith in her first Hammer role. As they indulge in their fantasies, their party is gatecrashed by the devious Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates) who arrogantly steals Hargoods’ girl. Angered at this, the three men question Felix about this
‘arrogant young puppy’
and he informs them that the girls are fascinated by him and that some would say that he is possessed of the devil. Intrigued by this, Hargood approaches Courtley and offers to buy him a drink at the Café Royal. It is there that Lord Courtley asks the question;

“Would you be willing to sell your souls to the Devil?”

Meanwhile, their children are living in their own circle, Alice Hargood is engaged to Paul Paxton whose sister Lucy is engaged to Jeremy Secker. Their lives are very uninvolving. Only Alice is unhappy because her father refuses to accept Paul as her lover and berates her in public for displaying herself like a harlot and sending her to bed without supper. None of the families are aware of their father’s depraved trips to London.