When Dracula Got Hammered (Part II)

 

Note: The first week of September in the United States is recognized National Blood Donation Week. Please donate, if you can. (I promise it won't go to feed Dracula!)

 

Quoted from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally:

"After being lampooned by Abbott and Costello, it seemed the classic monsters were done for good. As the 1950's dawned, American horror movies were no longer being produced by major studios, but by smaller companies like American International Pictures and Lippert, companies that made cheap black-and-white "quickies"  for the entertainment of teenagers at drive-ins. But in England, one company decided to take a chance on reviving the old gothic monsters in lurid, living color."  

                                                                                                      -from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally 

This is part 2 of a series on the Hammer Films Dracula movies from the 1960's and 1970's. Go to When Dracula Got Hammered: Part 1 if you haven't read it yet, or you may be lost...

 

 

 

 

Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966): 

We got back to having Christopher Lee in his customary role as the dental assistant's nightmare in Hammer Films' 1966 entry in the Dracula saga. Having taken a brief hiatus in the second installment (see previous entry), Lee returned with a vengeance. Yep. The bloodsucker was not truly dead, after all... (Surprised?)

Van Helsing must have been on vacation. Or else he was still tracking other minions of Dracula as he had been in The Brides of Dracula, because he is nowhere to be seen in this outing. Instead we get Father Sandor (Andrew Kier) as a vampire hunter. 

 

 

Sandor is an expert on who (and apparently who is not) a vampire. First we have a brief introduction relating the demise of Dracula at the hands of Van Helsing (as seen in Horror of Dracula), with a voiceover telling us the background:

"After a reign of terror spanning more than a century the king of the undead was finally traced to his lair high in the Carpathian Mountains.Though the decades many had sought to destroy him all had failed.Here at last was an adversary armed with sufficient knowledge of the ways of the vampire to bring about the final and absolute destruction. This then was his fate thousands had been enslaved by to obscene cult vampirism now the fountain head himself perished only the memory remained the memory of most evil and terrible creature to have ever set his seal on civilization." 

We come upon a scene where a group of people are attempting to drive a stake through the corpse of a young girl. They are interrupted by Sandor who chastises them as "barbarians", insisting that the girl is not a vampire, telling them that Dracula himself was killed 10 years earlier.  The priest present refuses to perform the burial, but Father Sandor says he will do it instead.

 

At the local pub a couple of married couples are drinking, at least one of them is. Charles Kent (Francis Matthews) is partying like there's no tomorrow, and buying drinks for the entire pub, albeit with the disapproval of his wife, Diana (Suzan Farmer) and sister-in-law, Helen (Barabara Shelly). Charles' brother, Alan (Charles Tingwell) is a bit more accepting of Charles' nature, or at least is resigned to the fact that he is incorrigible. 

 

Enter Father Sandor, whose first response is to disparage the owner from hanging garlic in the inn. He reiterates that 10 years have gone by and Dracula is dead... not just "mostly dead", but really really dead. He meets up with the Kents and discovers that they are on their way to Carlsbad, the former home of Dracula. An amiable sort at the start, if a bit off kilter, Sandor becomes positively adamant that the four should NOT go to Carlsbad, but won't say why.

 

But the vacationers think Sandor doesn't know what he's talking about and head out,regardless of his warnings. But it seems more than just Sandor doesn't want them to go... neither does there driver, who dumps them out of his cart still 2 km from their ultimate destination. Fortunately there is a castle nearby (one that no one seems to want to acknowledge exists, even Sandor). At this point you or I would probably say "Let's just camp over here under this tree..." But not our intrepid (or clueless) vacationers. They go on up to the castle.

 

Or more specifically, are taken there. They find a driverless carriage, and after boarding it with the intention of using it to get to Carlsbad, the horses on their own take the carriage to the castle. Where it seems at every turn they are expected. It's too bad no one listens to Helen, who is very suspicious of the whole situation. They might have avoided what comes next.

 

It turns out that the castle is inhabited by a servant of the former Dracula, Klove (Philip Latham), and he has some air of mystery about him, and a sort of subdued sinister attitude. This is not just a personality thing. He is actually involved in a plan to revive his dead master (who was reduced to dust in the first movie, which we saw replayed in the introduction). 

 

He dispatches Alan and uses his blood to give Dracula newly revived body, and Dracula's first victim, of course, is Helen. See? She was right to be suspicious...

 

Enter Sandor who, along with Charles and Diana, ends up in a struggle with the revived count. (I guess he wasn't entirely convinced by his own insistence that Dracula was entirely out of the picture...) Safety is assured when Sandor takes Charles and Diana to the monastery, because, as a new twist to the legend is added, the vampire cannot cross the threshold of the monastery unless someone invites him. Unfortunately, even in the monastery the vampire has some of his non-vampiric minions, specifically Ludwig (Thorley Walters), who, somewhat like Renfield from the classic novel, is a bit unhinged and lets him  in.

 

Ultimately we get a new twist on another way (besides crucifixes and sunlight) that can defeat the Count; running water. So Dracula is finally defeated... And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'm selling.  

 

This third film was released on a double bill with The Plague of the Zombies. It originally was budget at £100,000 and pulled in almost $2.5 million in ticket sales. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 82% approval rating. Some of the critics pointed out there wasn't much new about the film, although one of them noted that the "Instant Dracula" part (where Klove uses the blood of Alan mixed with the ashes of the Count to create a new body) was fairly interesting.

This would make the third and final Hammer Dracula film that Terence Fisher would direct. Those three films, in my opinion are the best of the lot, as we will see. It turns out that production delays were the real reason we didn't get a return of Cushing as Van Helsing. By the time filming began he was obligated elsewhere. Kier, in his place, is acceptable, although hardly has the chops to be a great replacement. 

The film was made at the same time as Rasputin - The Mad Monk, which also starred Lee in the title role, as well as Shelley, Farmer and Matthews. Despite a rather contrived way to revive the Count, this has some things going for it. This despite the fact that Lee's lines in the film consist of only a few hisses. (I guess the revival process didn't include the vampire's vocal cords...)

 

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968):

You can't keep a bad man down (especially if there is money in the sale of sequels...)

So, if you watched the previous film, you know that Dracula had supposedly once again been dispatched (this time by drowning... or something like that). 

A year after an incident at a local church where a young boy found the body of a woman stashed in the church bell tower, the priest finds no one is willing to come to the church to attend Mass. The superstitious townspeople are afraid of going to church because Dracula's castle stands close by and the shadow of it touches the church. 

 

So a Monsignor (Rupert Davies), with the help of the local priest (Ewan Hooper), journey to the castle to perform an ritual exorcism.

 

Unfortunately the priest gets cold feet the closer he comes to the castle, so the Monsignor has to go on alone. While he is performing his rites on the castle a storm blows in. The priest, who has remained back a ways, is startled and falls, cutting a gash on his head. The blood from his wound drips into the river where Dracula has ended up. And, of course, said blood revives the Count.

 

Dracula is incensed that his castle has been defiled by the priest and has his new slave, the priest, dig up a coffin for him. Meanwhile, back at the village a party is underway, Paul (Barry Andrews), who intends to marry Maria (Veronica Carlson), the niece of the Monsignor, is celebrating with the town for her birthday. A lot of this outing centers on Paul and Maria, with the added third wheel of a girl named Zena (Barbara Ewing). Zena is thrown in almost as an afterthought, however. Zena is not Dracula's primary target.

 

What Dracula wants is revenge against the Monsignor, because he put up a giant cross at the doorway of Dracula's castle and performed his religious rites on the place. But instead of getting revenge on the Monsignor himself, Dracula intends to subvert his niece Maria. Ultimately he stops Dracula in his first attempt, but there is still a need to subdue the monster. And that may be a bit of a problem.

 

Because Paul is an atheist. And his would be partner is the now lapsed priest who has become Dracula's stooge. When push comes to shove, although they stake Dracula, neither has the faith to perform the ritual prayer that would end Dracula's reign of terror.

 

Dracula goes back to Maria and kidnaps her, taking her to his castle, where he wills her to remove the cross and chunk it over the parapet. It lands, conveniently, pointing straight up in the ground. Then, in a final battle with the Count, Paul throws him over the ledge, where the vampire lands (guess where...) And THAT ought to do it, don't you think?

 

 

Then again... maybe not...

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave doesn't measure up to The Brides of Dracula in terms of sheer terror. Most of the time is spent on character development of the subsidiary characters, although at least in this outing Lee as Dracula is granted some dialogue.    

Rotten Tomatoes gives this one an 80% rating, and, as would be expected, the franchise is starting to wear thin per the critics. Variety sums up the overall critical view with "[t]he story's slight, the horror and the bloodcurdling essential to these pix is minimal and even Dracula himself appears bored at being resurrected yet again." 

There were changes, as seem to be typical when dealing with Dracula movies. You will remember from the above movie that it was established that Dracula needed permission to cross the barrier into someone's house, but apparently they dispensed with that for this outing because he enters Maria's room without any preamble. Also is the added need for a prayer to be said over the staked Count. (Why the heck didn't they do that  the first time? It might have been over for Dracula by now...)

The production costs went up slightly for  this time. Much of it may have been to secure the services of Lee, but it had a budget of £175,000. There is no indication of exactly how much profit the film made, but wikipedia notes that it was the highest grossing film of all of Hammer Studio's output. An interesting note: In Dracula FAQ, Bruce Scivally notes that Lee wore a ring in the film that had been given to the actor by the renowned Forrest J. Ackerman.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave was to have been directed, once again, by Terence Fisher, the director of the previous three films, but he had been in an accident earlier, and was unavailable. The services of Freddie Francis were thus acquired for the work. Francis had a decent career as a workmanlike director for Hammer and Amicus, helming such films as The Evil of Frankenstein and They Came from Beyond Space. 

But many of you will know him better as the Academy Award winning cinematographer, which he won for Sons and Lovers in 1960, and Glory in 1989. He was also a BAFTA nominee for cinematography, getting noms for his cinematography on The Elephant Man (which lost to All That Jazz), The French Lieutenant's Woman (which lost to Tess), Glory (which lost to  The Sheltering Sky) and Cape Fear (which lost to The Last of the Mohicans). Clearly he was a great cinematographer, and even though he did not fill that role here, he still had an eye for what he wanted.

Well, tune in for the next installment tomorrow. And get thee to the bloodmobile.

Quiggy

 

 

When Dracula Got Hammered (Part I)

 

Note: The first week of September in the United States is recognized National Blood Donation Week. Please donate, if you can. (I promise it won't go to feed Dracula!)

 

 Quoted from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally:

"After being lampooned by Abbott and Costello, it seemed the classic monsters were done for good. As the 1950's dawned, American horror movies were no longer being produced by major studios, but by smaller companies like American International Pictures and Lippert, companies that made cheap black-and-white "quickies"  for the entertainment of teenagers at drive-ins. But in England, one company decided to take a chance on reviving the old gothic monsters in lurid, living color."  

                                                                                                      -from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally 

 

When the average person hears the name Dracula, it is almost always Bela Lugosi they think of, even though he only played Dracula twice; once in the original Universal movie Dracula, and then once again in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. (Those other vampires he played in movies you are thinking of right now were not Dracula, but some other vampire...) 

 

Lugosi in the original Dracula

Lugosi w/ Costello

 

 

More studious film aficionados may think of Max Schreck from the silent film Nosferatu (in which the vampire was actually named Count Orlok, but was still essentially Dracula), or Bill Skarsgård, who recently starred in a remake of Nosferatu. 2025 also saw yet another incarnation of the bloodsucker with Caleb Landry Jones, directed by Luc Besson.

Max Schreck as Orlok

Bill Skarsgård as Orlok

 

Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula

Even more obsessed fans of Dracula may recall some others from bygone days, such as Klaus Kinski, Jack Palance, Frank Langella and John Carradine in serious Dracula roles, and George Hamilton, Adam Sandler, Leslie Nielsen or even David Niven (yes THAT David Niven...) in comedic portrayals. One of the best portrayals would have to be Gary Oldman in the Francis Ford Coppola venture into the vampire legend. 

Gary Oldman as Dracula

 

But the most prolific actor in the role of the famous vampire would have to be Christopher Lee, who essayed the role in the Dracula movies that Hammer Films issued in the 60's and 70's. And without a doubt, in the opinion of your humble blogger, Lee was the scariest of the toothy menace to ever appear on screen. Lugosi was interesting, but really, he didn't really frighten me one bit. 

Christopher Lee as Dracula

 

Lee made 7 movies for Hammer Films starring as the title character, and his cohort, Peter Cushing also made films with him as Professor Van Helsing  (there were actually 9 Hammer Dracula films in total). Of course, both of them together only shared the spotlight 3 of them. Which was surprising to me because I thought they had been together in more. But then I realized that the source of that misconception was that they had indeed made many movies together, 24 to be exact, but they weren't all Dracula movies. They also were in The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Scream and Scream Again and House of the Long Shadows (both of those last two with Vincent Price) among others, although not all with Hammer Studios.

You could be forgiven if you thought that Hammer films only produced horror movies, since that is what the movie buff would call to mind if "Hammer Films" came up as a topic, but the fact is up until the early 50's most of the output of the studio was either comedy, science fiction or film noir. The first genuine horror Hammer film did not appear until 1955. If you'd like to check out my other reviews of Hammer films (up to this point), both of them on film noir movies you can see them here and here. Surprisingly (and unfortunately, in my opinion) this is my first foray into Hammer horror movies, however.

 

 

 

 

Dracula  [re-titled Horror of Dracula in the U.S.] (1958):

The first foray into the Hammer studios oeuvre of the Dracula saga was an attempt to translate the original Bram Stoker novel to film. As such, some of the story makes it's way into the film, although quite often the script takes some liberties. If you weren't blessed with the assignment to read Dracula in a high school English class like I was, you may not even notice some of the differences. But some of them stand out like a sore thumb.

The most striking piece of trivia about this version of Dracula is that, believe it or not, it was the first ever vampire movie to be filmed in color.  The bloody fangs of Dracula in all their red glory were on display for the first time. Hammer doesn't waste time in gently nudging you to this new color concept, either. In the first scene, directly after the opening credits, the camera focuses on a crypt with the name "Dracula" emblazoned on it, as red blood drips from somewhere off camera onto the coffin.

Bloody tomb

 

Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arrives at Castle Dracula. Ostensibly he has come to take on a role of cataloguing the library of Dracula (Christopher Lee). But at the outset we find out that, unlike the character from the Stoker novel, Harker knows full well who and what Dracula is and has come with the express intent to rid the world of this cursed fiend.

Van Eyssen as Harker

 

A woman approaches Harker and begs him to help her escape from Dracula's evil clutches. But the woman (Valerie Gaunt) is really a vampire, one of Dracula's minions (although, technically, there are no "minions" in the film. One could easily get the idea that he can only control one victim at a time, as that is all he ever seems to amass during the course of the film. However, that may not be the case, as later films imply that he has a larger following). 

Valerie Gaunt as "Vampire woman"

 

Harker ends up being bitten by both the vampire woman and Dracula, but he still retains some sense of his own independence and faithfulness to his mission as he dispatches the woman in her coffin with a stake. But, too late, Dracula has come awake and traps him in the cellar, and that's the last we see of him alive.

Death of "Vampire woman"

 

Dracula tries to get his revenge on Harker for dispatching his vampire bride by making Harker's fiancee his new victim. Lucy (Carol Marsh) has been feeling out of sorts recently and has been diagnosed with a case of anemia by her doctor. Lucy is the sister of Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and sister-in-law to Mina (Melissa Stribling).. The film combines characters from the novel in a seemingly haphazard fashion, but at only 82 minutes in length, I guess some concessions had to be made... The fly in the ointment of Dracula's nefarious plans, however, is the arrival of an old enemy, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). He is tasked with telling both the Holmwoods, and Lucy about the death of Harker.

Stribling, Gough and Cushing

Carol Marsh as Lucy

 

Van Helsing knows of Dracula's true nature, but he has the devil's own time in trying to get anyone to take his suggestions seriously. (What? Put garlic flowers up in the room? And lock all windows and doors after dark? And what's this all about that stupid superstition about keeping a Christian cross lying about in plain sight?) Eventually, of course, Van Helsing does convince Holmwood of the necessity, but only after his wife starts to exhibit strange behaviors.

Ultimately, of course, it appears that Van Helsing is successful at dispatching Dracula, but if you know anything about horror cinema, you know that somehow this is not the final end for our villain. You know the old saying "you can't keep a good man down"? Well, apparently you can't do it with a vampire either...

 

The film was released in it's home nation of the U.K. as Dracula, but U.S. distributors were worried that the American public might confuse it with the 1931 Tod Browning version of the character. (Although how that might happen is confusing to me... surely no one would mistake Christopher Lee for Bela Lugosi, but then maybe they were worried that people wouldn't get past the title to realize it couldn't possibly be a re-issue of the classic Universal movie...)

The film was a box office success. It originally cost £81,000 (which converts to about $275,000 in 1958 monies) and grossed well over $3 million in ticket sales. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds at 89% Fresh, pretty damn good for an independent film by still virtually untested studio. 

Both Lee and Cushing stand out in this film: Lee all the more so, because his brief scenes are memorable even in and of itself. Apparently. according to someone who has WAY more time on their hands than I do, Lee as Dracula only occupies about 7 of the 82 minutes running time of the film. Cushing, who got top billing in the credits, as needs be, occupies much more screen time, but if you want to be honest about it, you are likely to remember the villainy and  menace of Lee's Dracula more than you are of Cushing's mild sympathetic Van Helsing. 

The rest of the cast is pretty much workman like. Even Michael Gough who made a fairly big impact in the Batman movies of the late 80's / early 90's as Bruce Wayne's butler almost seems to fade into the woodwork here as Holmwood. The rest of the case don't have much impact at all. Wikipedia articles on each of the main cast members say that they are each "most well-known" for having appeared in this film. But then you don't come to a Hammer horror film for Oscar worthy performances: you come to them for the straightforward shock of the evil characters.

Lee, who was a stickler for faithfulness to the original concept in the Stoker novel would eventually become  disenchanted with the Hammer version of Dracula. He was quoted as saying about Dracula that his regret was that he had  "never been able to present the Count exactly as Bram Stoker described him." This may have been part of what convinced him to step away from the vampire role when the second film was being produced.

 

 

The Brides of Dracula (1960): 

The second Dracula feature film from Hammer did not have Christopher Lee in it (more's the pity), but it did have Peter Cushing reprising his role as Prof. Van Helsing. Lee, for his part, was afraid of getting typecast if he were to reprise the Dracula role (among other reasons.) The script had been already plotted with the idea of Lee returning, but since he declined a new script was written, focusing more on Cushing's Van Helsing. The result was that the first script was one that even Cushing wanted nothing to do with, so I guess a panicked production team immediately cranked out a new one, one that was more pleasing to their potential star.

To draw in the paying crowd, an attempt to connect Brides to it's predecessor included the Dracula name. And, while there is indeed a vampire in the film, it is not named "Dracula", nor is there any real hint of the character being even related to the character. All you essentially get is the Van Helsing character continuing his own quest to eradicate the world of the scourge of un-dead bloodsuckers.  

The film picks up somewhere after the events in the previous film. Dracula himself is still dead (and not just un-dead, but really, really dead...) But he has left behind some remnants of his reign of terror. As the narrator at the beginning says "his disciples live on, to spread the cult and corrupt the world". 

Note: In many of the vampire film lore traditions, the descendants of the original head vampire are usually destroyed (or revert to normality, if not too far along...) when the head vampire is dispatched. (See the ending of the previous movie...) But not in the context of this film. Hammer tended to play fast and loose with the traditional rules when it came to the sequels...

The movie begins with the arrival of Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) at an inn on her way to a teaching position at a school for girls. The coachman drives off and abandons her, leaving her to the mercy of the innkeeper, but the innkeeper professes that "there is no room at the inn."

Luckily (or unluckily), the appearance of a Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) saves her from having to sleep in the stable. She takes Marianne to her castle, which is conveniently nearby. 

 

There Marianne discovers that the Baroness' son, Baron Meinster (David Peel) is also a resident at the castle.  

 

 

It appears that the Baron is being kept prisoner. He is chained up in his own lodgings in a remote part of the castle. Despite the fact that the villagers think he is dead, and the Baroness says he is nuts, the Baron convinces Marianne to steal a key from his mother's bedroom and free him. Bad mistake! Because the Baron is actually a vampire, and the shackles were what was keeping him from roaming free.

The Baron kills his mother (or more to the point, turns her into a vampire). He has an ally in a servant, Greta (Freda Jackson), who along with his mother had been luring young girls for him to feed off their blood.  With mom out of the way, the Baron has plans to get as many women for his concubine (the titular brides). He gets a couple, but his real designs are  on Marianne.

 

As usual, the fly in the ointment is the appearance of Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Van Helsing, having dispatched the head honcho vampire, Dracula, in the previous film, is now trying to rid the world of the rest of the scourge, including Baron Meinster, whom he is aware is one of the vampires.

 

The Baron manages to lure and turn a couple of girls before Van Helsing traps him at an old mill. In the ensuing battle the Baron knocks out Van Helsing and puts the bite on him. For all intents and purposes it seems that Van Helsing may become a vampire himself, but he seems to find a way to stop it from happening. (And if it was that easy, then why doesn't he do the same thing for the victims he encounters prior to their succumbing to vampirism? This is the only quibble I have with an otherwise very entertaining entry in the series.)

 

The Brides of Dracula was released as a double feature (paired with The Leech Woman) . It was not entirely well received. Many critics were along the same lines as The New York Times crtic, Bosley Crowther, who said "another repetition of the standard tale of the vampire ... There is nothing new or imaginative about it."

On the other hand, there were a few who had some good words for it. Leslie Halliwell is quoted as saying "The best of the Hammer Draculas, with plenty of inventive action, some classy acting and good sense of place and period." On a budget of only £120,000, it cleaned up with well over it's cost. It holds a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it 4th overall in the list of 9 Hammer Dracula outings.

My personal opinion is that I think it is better than the first one, although I may be in a minority there. (The first one comes in at #3). I am withholding my opinion of it overall until I wrap this series up later this week, but I still think it held my interest much more. Part of that may be due to the fact that I found Monlaur such an attractive female victim for the bloodsucker.  Hey, if I was the Baron I would have chosen her over any of the others as my primary future bride myself...

 

Tune in tomorrow for part II, when I will be reviewing Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.

Until next time, drive safely folks. And it is night time now, so be on the lookout for bats and charming entrancing men on the road.

Quiggy

 

   

Blood Drive

 

 

 

This is my entry in the 4th Annual Spooky Classic Movie Blogathon hosted by Hoofers and Honeys.

 

 

 

 

 

The Midnite Drive-In has played host to quite a few movies of varying caliber from the 1950's over it's ten year existence. The '50's. in the opinion of your humble blogger, is they heyday of the essence of what I term as the "drive-in movie".  Elsewhere on this blog I have mentioned that the drive-in was essentially a venue for low quality sci-fi, horror and motorcycle films, the kind of stuff that the average 20-25 year old male drive-in patron would be enticed to see. Below is a typical newspaper ad for films discussed in this entry. Note the draw of "All New! Never anything like them before!" Not entirely true really. Many of the drive-in features had the same recurring plots, but that doesn't mean they didn't each have some entertainment value in their own right.

 

 

 

The year 1958 had lots of movies like the ones previously mentioned in the opening of last week's entry, the 10th Anniversary piece. If you read that piece, you know what you are in for here, because these movies feature the same "high" standards of quality film making that the three movies featured in that post had. Of course, I'm not so isolated that I don't know that some of you probably won't find these two films in your own bailiwick. But they do have their own following, even so. Years ago I gave up the hope of getting my sister to watch these kinds of movies. But some of my friends really get a kick out dancing under the limbo bar required to sit through them, and those are my kind of people...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood of the Vampire (1958):

 

"The most loathsome scourge ever to afflict this earth was that of the Vampire.  Nourishing itself on warm living blood,  the only known method of ending a vampire's reign of terror was to drive a wooden stake through its heart."

 

As the credits roll, the opening features a ritual, circa 1874, as a corpse is being buried. But prior to the burial a stake is driven through it's heart. After everyone else has left the scene, the gravedigger begins the process of competing the burial. But he is stopped by a hunchback (Victor Maddern), who kills him. 

 

 

 

The next scene features a pub in riotous gaiety as the hunchback enters. With every suspicious and wary eye on him he approaches a man and gestures that the man must leave with him. It turns out that the man had been previously hired to do a heart transplant on a body. As if you couldn't guess, it's the body of the grave victim that the hunchback had rescued from being buried. The man, a surgeon, completes his task, but makes the grievous error of demanding more money, with the threat of exposure of the illicit activity, and the hunchback dispatches him, too.

 

The scene shifts to a courtroom, 6 years later, where Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is convicted of having committed "malpractice leading to manslaughter" of a man, through supposed "incompetency" as a surgeon. His grievous error involved him trying to do an early form of blood transfusion, but the patient died. He claims innocence and requests that the court contact a fellow doctor in Vienna to corroborate his testimony. Unfortunately a letter from said doctor claims he has no knowledge of Pierre, and requests that the courts give him the maximum penalty available. He is sentenced to a penal colony, but someone has used his influence to get Pierre committed, instead, to a prison for the criminally insane.

 

 

 

No, Pierre himself is not insane, but he has a knowledge of certain medical processes, including his experimental work on blood transfusions, a new idea on the frontier of the medical community at the time.  This reason is why the director of the prison has manipulated the system to get Pierre committed to his prison. 

 

 

You see, the director of the prison is, (surprise, surprise), the character that the hunchback rescued from being buried and had the hapless surgeon perform a heart transplant on in the first part of the picture. The prison director, now going by the name of Dr. Callistratus (Donald Wolfit), is being kept alive by blood transfusions. The poor denizens of the prison cells are the unwilling blood donors.

 

 

Pierre is put in a cell with fellow inmate Kurt (William Devlin). (Devlin looks a heck of a lot like The Howling Man from the Twilight Zone episode, but it's not the same guy...) 

 

Kurt tells Pierre that there are some strange things going on in the prison, that he, Pierre, is in "the bottomless pit of Hell itself". Kurt later tells Pierre that many, if not all, of the prisoners are there through the manipulations of forces that the outside world is helpless to combat. For instance, like Pierre, Kurt was also innocent of the crime that got him convicted. Kurt tells him that once Pierre realizes that no help from the outside is going to be of any use, perhaps they can help each other.

 

Meanwhile, on the outside, Pierre's fiancee, Madeleine (Barbara Shelley) tries her best to find a way to prove Pierre is an innocent man.  In doing so she contacts Dr. Meinster (Henry Vidon), who insists that he had never received any contact from the courts or the Prison Commission. He tells the head of the Prison Commission, Auron (Bryan Coleman), that he is going to reopen the investigation into Pierre's trial. But Auron was not the person he should have told this. Because it was Auron who, working with Callistratus, managed to get Pierre convicted and also sentenced to Callistratus' prison. He also sent the forged letter that denied any knowledge of Pierre from Dr. Meinster...

 

 

Auron informs Callistratus that the Commission has ordered that Pierre be released, but Callistratus tells Pierre a different story: that the Commission found no evidence that would overturn his conviction. Meanwhile Pierre has come across some clue as to what is going on in the prison when a patient is discovered whom Callistratus is draining his blood. The truth of the sinister goings on is that Callistratus is draining blood from his prisoners in order to have the blood injected into himself, to keep him alive.

 

 

 

Eventually Pierre has had enough of this folderol and works with Karl to escape the prison. Unfortunately Callistratus is wise to the escape and Karl ends up supposedly killed.  Pierre comes away from the attempted escape alive, but Callistratus rigs the report of the attempt to read that Pierre had died in the escape attempt, too.  Back at home, fiancee Madeleine is suspicious of this report and manages to get a job at the prison as Callistratus' housekeeper. (Callistratus has as high turnover rate for housekeepers as he does for inmates...) As would be expected, Madeleine runs into Pierre in her duties as housekeeper, which not only is not good for job security, but also not a conducive atmosphere for continuing to exist on the planet. 

  

If you've noticed by now, there is no "vampire" in this film, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. No fangs, no midnight rendezvous with dulcet dames, no avoiding direct sunlight or religious icons, none of the trappings of the vampire trope one comes to expect. This is more of an intense psychological horror, with more emphasis on science than any supernatural horror. The film seems awfully similar to something that might have been produced by the Hammer Studios, although the Hammer name is not associated with it. 

 

In actuality, the scriptwriter, Jimmy Sangster, did have some work with the early Hammer films this movie seems to emulate before this film, and continued to crank out stuff for Hammer afterwards.  The film actually seems to be more of a science-fiction film as opposed to a horror film, what with all the "new" science of blood transfusions, and the added emphasis on discovering why certain victims' blood are more harmful than good. (In case you are one of those people who slept through biology class, you can't mix A+ blood with B- blood... it can be deadly.)  

 

Despite that, the film is intriguing in it's own right.  Donald Wolfit, the sinister Dr. Callistratus. is one of the better actors in the film. Apparently towards the end of his career he had to take on many roles in the motion picture industry, including The Hands of Orlac and Dr. Crippen, a significant step down from his years as the leader of an acting troupe that did touring productions of Shakespeare. Most of the other actors a pretty much run-of-the-mill type. Vincent Ball, who played Dr. Pierre, probably had the more prolific career, although much of his output was in the realm of second or third tier credits.

 

If you like the old Hammer Films horror output, it's not a bad imitation. It drags in some points, especially when Callistratus and Pierre start talking about the difficulties of blood type incompatibilities.  And if you can get over the disappointment that there is no actual "vampire"... 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Monster on the Campus (1958): 

 

You could be forgiven if you thought you were going to see a light hearted family movie with the opening scene. With a lilting happy score, Jimmy (Troy Donahue), drives up in a van marked "Dunsfield University Science Department" to his fraternity house to pick up Samson, a German Shepherd. 

 

 

 

He then drives to the university, where Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) is creating a mask of one of his assistants, Madeline (Joanna Moore), who is also Blake's fiancee, to be used to represent the "modern woman" display of an exhibit on the evolution of man.

 

 

 

Blake, a bit of a pessimist, expresses his opinion that the human race may be doomed if they can't figure out how to control "the animal-like instincts from our ancestors". (We seem to have survived for thousands of  years, so far, doc, but maybe we ARE just around the corner from self-destruction...)  

 

Jimmy shows up with a coelacanth, a fossil from the bygone prehistoric age. A coelacanth is a prehistoric fish, BTW.  

 

 

 

Some of the water that was in the crate leaks out on the ground and Samson licks at it. Jimmy pulls him off of the puddle, but it is too late for Samson. He transforms from a docile dog to a vicious mutt that tries to attack Madeline and does attack Jimmy.  

 

They take Samson to another doctor, Dr. Oliver Cole (Whit Bissell) who tells Blake to keep him under observation to see if he has developed rabies.  He wants Blake to get a sample of the dog's saliva for further investigation. While having Samson under observation, Blake notices Samson's teeth, which oddly are a throwback to an evolutionary earlier form of what we now call a "dog". 

 

 

When Blake tries to move the coelacanth to the refrigeration to preserve it he accidentally cuts his hand on it's teeth. Then, while moving the crate, his grip on it slips and he ends up dunking his hand into the water (the same water that Samson tried to drink...)

 

He starts to feel woozy, so Molly (Helen Westcott), Dr. Cole's assistant who happens to be helping Blake, offers to take him home. When they arrive, Molly finds Blake has passed out in the passenger seat, so she goes in to his house to call for help. But she is attacked by some creature we can't see. Meanwhile Madeline is waiting on Blake to show up for a prearranged date. When he is still a no-show, she firsts checks the lab to see if he lost track of time and is still working, but with no sign of him there, she heads over to his house.  What she finds there is that the house is in a shambles, as if some wild creature had gone berserk in it. Which apparently it has... 

 

 

 

 

She finds Donald out on the back yard lawn, apparently a little groggy. She finds Molly dead, also, hanging from a tree. When the police investigate, naturally Blake's story of being unconscious and not remembering anything after getting in the car with Molly at the lab becomes a little suspicious. Plus the fact that they found a tie clip which Blake admits is his in the grip of dead Molly's hand.  But to cast suspicion on those conclusions are some hand prints and fingerprints that the investigators find which are not only not Blake's but unlike any they have ever seen before.

 

 

 

Back at the lab, Samson appears to have lost the characteristics of a throwback that Blake had observed earlier and has reverted to its former normal self. Even though Blake swears he had pointed the dog's canine teeth out to Molly, since she was the only other person to have seen them, Blake feels inclined to admit to Cole that he probably imagined it, although he doesn't really believe that. 

 

The lieutenant in charge of the murder investigation, Lt. Stevens (Judson Pratt) shows up, inquiring whether Blake had any enemies that could enlighten the investigation, but Blake is like a saint as far as he himself is concerned. Lt. Stevens reveals an interesting fact in the murder investigation; Molly did not die of injuries, she died of fright. 

 

Several strange events happen over the next few hours, including a situation where a dragonfly comes into the lab and is checking out the coelacanth. Later, you guessed it, the dragonfly ends up being reverted to a form of it's ancient biological ancestor, and becomes several times it's normal size, and ends up attacking Blake and Jimmy and his girlfriend. (The two had come to collect Jimmy's dog). Samson had reverted back to his normal self, so is no longer a threat. And, eventually, that dragonfly reverts back to its normal state.

 

 

 

Apparently that coelacanth, or at least the water it was in, has some kind of power to cause whoever comes into contact with it to become a savage ancestor of it's evolutionary past. At one point it is revealed that the coelacanth had been subjected to gamma radiation, ostensibly to help keep it preserved. (Ah! The dangers of the atomic age!  In the 50's, Hollywood's biggest bugaboo was the new and mysterious atomic science...)  As it slowly dawns on Blake that all this regression into primitive state is connected with contact with the blood of the irradiated coelacanth, he decides to performs an experiment to prove his theory.

 

 

 

It all comes to a head when Madeline and his colleagues and the police come to a cabin where Blake has gone to perform an experiment on himself to prove his theory. Then, as with any good man who realizes that he himself is unwittingly responsible for the havoc that has been caused, he arranges it so the police can shoot him while he is still in the regressive state.

 

I saw another movie a few years ago, (one which I am still getting around to reviewing, BTW), called The Monolith Monsters. (And if that title is highlighted at some future point, you'll know I finally did it.) That movie, like this one, has what may seem like a fairly ridiculous plot, but it is in the execution of the plot and in the acting of the cast that makes the whole thing remarkably well done.  

 

One of the reasons this movie turns out so well, in my opinion, is that it was directed by... Jack Arnold.  Many films that Arnold had a hand in became classics of the genre, but if these films had been in the hands of some other director I doubt they would have turned out as well. That's because Arnold was a stickler for making the science in these films plausible. You actually believe there could be a remnant of a prehistoric age living in the jungles of Brazil in The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  The idea that a lab developed nutrient to help the human populace in need could, in it's undeveloped stages, cause a lab spider to grow to enormous size is not entirely unbelievable in Tarantula! And, despite the strangeness of the idea, a strange mist could actually cause a man to shrink in size in The Incredible Shrinking Man becomes fairly realistic.

 

The reviews of the day considered the film "very good". It is only in retrospect of time that the film has gone down in it's  reception. The modern public, as evidenced by another review website, the Popcornmeter, only gives the movie a 27% rating.  A lot of the bad reviews seem to center on the makeup used for the monster, as it is compared to the makeup in The Wolf Man and found wanting. Even it's director was not entirely enamored by his final product. An interview with Arnold. quoted in a Wikipedia article, claims that he "really didn't hate it, but [he] didn't think it was up to the standards of other films" he had done.

 

Other than the somewhat overemphasized philosophical sub context, that man needs to curb his irrational aggressive nature before he becomes no better than his prehistoric ancestors in the emotional state, the movie is well worth checking out, in my opinion.

 

Well, folks, that wraps it up for today. Time to crank up the old Plymouth and head home.  Drive safely.

 

Quiggy