Tall, Dark and Grue­some: a cel­e­bra­tion of Christo­pher Lee’s Count Dracula

Christo­pher Lee’s icon­ic reign of ter­ror as Count Drac­u­la began in 1958 and last­ed for almost two decades. He played the role over ten times, sev­en of those in Ham­mer pro­duc­tions. Lee made his grand entrance in glo­ri­ous Tech­ni­col­or as Drac­u­la in the Ter­ence Fish­er-direct­ed film from Ham­mer Film Pro­duc­tions, allur­ing­ly descend­ing a stair­case in com­mand­ing yet extreme­ly polite fash­ion to greet his ill-fat­ed guest. In The New Bio­graph­i­cal Dic­tio­nary of Film, David Thom­son describes Lee as the ​‘sexy Drac­u­la’ – an inten­tion­al move by the stu­dio to tie togeth­er eroti­cism and vam­pirism and move away from Bela Lugosi’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the char­ac­ter; the posters even described Lee’s Drac­u­la as ​‘the ter­ri­fy­ing lover!’

In a News­night trib­ute to Lee who passed away in 2015 at the age of 93, CEO and Pres­i­dent of Ham­mer Film Pro­duc­tions, Simon Oakes, not­ed how Lee took the role of Drac­u­la and turned him into a ​‘sex­u­al preda­tor.’ This rad­i­cal cin­e­mat­ic shift and sexy demeanour have for­ev­er since bled into pop­u­lar cul­ture and vam­pire mythol­o­gy as seen in Twi­light, True Blood and Inter­view with the Vam­pire to name a few.

Film Crit­ic, author of the Anno Drac­u­la series and hor­ror expert, Kim New­man explains the character’s evo­lu­tion in cin­e­mat­ic terms, ​“Before 1958, the defin­ing screen image of Drac­u­la was Bela Lugosi – who tend­ed to stand there and stare, make hyp­not­ic ges­tures and elon­gate his vow­els in a Hun­gar­i­an man­ner that even­tu­al­ly inspired many, many com­e­dy imper­son­ators, from Grand­pa Mun­ster to Adam San­dler. Lugosi’s Count, a clas­sic in his own right, met Abbott and Costel­lo and became a straight man or a stooge and it seemed Drac­u­la would nev­er be fright­en­ing again.

With min­i­mal screen time in Drac­u­la (1958), Christo­pher Lee changed that, his Drac­u­la was dis­arm­ing­ly polite and busi­ness-like on first meet­ing, then sud­den­ly red-eyed, fanged and fer­al. Nos­fer­atu and Lugosi’s Drac­u­la creep, but Lee pounces – impos­ing, using his cape like a mata­dor or a swash­buck­ler, and dan­ger­ous, Lee’s Drac­u­la is a phys­i­cal as well as a spir­i­tu­al (and moral) threat, but he’s also a cru­el lady-killer. If any­thing, the char­ac­ter became more fero­cious over the sequels – always alter­nat­ing moments of still­ness with cobra-like attacks, casu­al seduc­tions and cli­mac­tic dis­in­te­gra­tions or impalements.”

The pub­lic may have been thirsty for more of Lee’s seduc­tive count but he didn’t mate­ri­alise in the next sequel, The Brides of Drac­u­la, and it wasn’t until 1966 that he was gori­ly res­ur­rect­ed in Hammer’s Drac­u­la: Prince of Dark­ness via a blood rit­u­al. In 1970 alone, four films were released where Lee appeared as Drac­u­la; a comedic hal­lu­ci­na­tion sequence cameo in Jer­ry Lewis’ One More Time, two Ham­mer Films, Taste the Blood of Drac­u­la and Scars of Drac­u­la, and Jess Franco’s adap­ta­tion of Bram Stoker’s novel.

Famous­ly, Lee was nev­er entire­ly enam­oured with the Ham­mer screen­plays for Drac­u­la, describ­ing his dia­logue as most­ly ​‘hiss­ing and spit­ting.’ He want­ed to show­case his act­ing chops and star in a film which was clos­er to the source mate­r­i­al. Franco’s most­ly respect­ful ver­sion, where Klaus Kin­s­ki played Ren­field, offered Lee the chance. As in the book, Drac­u­la gets younger the more he feasts on blood, and he first appears to wel­come Jonathan Hark­er into his lair, can­de­labra in hand with shock­ing white hair and mous­tache to match his pale com­plex­ion. He speaks the exact dia­logue from the nov­el, ​“Enter freely and of your own will!” Lee’s boom­ing tone and stat­uesque pose per­fect­ly mir­ror Stoker’s descrip­tion of the count.

To cel­e­brate the genre icon and the cen­te­nary of Lee’s birth in May, the inau­gur­al For­bid­den Worlds Film Fes­ti­val have pro­grammed a screen­ing of Drac­u­la A.D. 1972. The film opens in 1872, with a thrilling action sequence, as Drac­u­la and Van Hels­ing wres­tle with one anoth­er on a mov­ing stage­coach through Hyde Park. Fol­low­ing their deaths and buri­als in Chelsea, the open­ing cred­its announce the stars, Lee and Peter Cush­ing, in goth­ic font before quick­ly cut­ting to the mod­ern day with Con­corde whoosh­ing over­head and a funky track com­posed by Michael Vick­ers intro­duc­ing the swing­ing 1970s. It’s a fun reboot of Drac­u­la updat­ed for the times, and fifty years on from its release, it has become a charm­ing coun­ter­cul­ture time-cap­sule of hip­pies vs the stuffy British establishment.

Tom Vin­cent, a pro­gram­mer for the fes­ti­val, explains his love of Lee’s count and the rea­sons for show­ing Drac­u­la A.D. 1972, say­ing, ​“Whilst the theme of this year’s fes­ti­val is ​‘Films From 1982’ to help cel­e­brate the 40^th anniver­sary of Bristol’s beloved video shop 20^th Cen­tu­ry Flicks, we couldn’t help but notice that the fes­ti­val dates are so close to the 100^th anniver­sary of Christo­pher Lee’s birth. Screen­ing one of the Ham­mer Drac­u­la films was the obvi­ous choice. Lee was the defin­i­tive Drac­u­la. I remem­ber vivid­ly the first time I saw him as Drac­u­la. I was 8 years old, and my dad had taped off TV a well-past-my-bed­time BBC broad­cast of the ​‘58 Drac­u­la. I was mes­merised! Lee was not just scary, but also hand­some and dashing.

For­bid­den Worlds is about cel­e­brat­ing genre films and giv­ing a plat­form to not just the usu­al sus­pects, but to those films that deserve a spot in the lime (or moon!) light. I think Drac­u­la A.D. 1972 is one of Hammer’s most under­rat­ed. As it’s so very much 1972 – hip­pies, flares and blood – it’s become a peri­od piece in its own right.”

At this point it would be remiss not to men­tion Lee’s heart­warm­ing friend­ship with Cush­ing, who appeared oppo­site him as his adver­sary Van Hels­ing in three of the Ham­mer films. They had amaz­ing chem­istry, and he always fin­ished off the count in mem­o­rable fash­ion with Lee’s death scenes often a blood-cur­dling high­light of the films. Van Hels­ing kills the king of the undead twice in Drac­u­la A.D. 1972, the sec­ond time by shov­ing him into a grave of stakes. Their final show­down in The Satan­ic Rites of Drac­u­la (1973) how­ev­er is hilar­i­ous­ly bad, with Lee being led through a spiky hawthorn tree, and man­ag­ing to keep a straight face through a cring­ing elon­gat­ed bat­tle with tree branches.

The title of this piece takes its name from Christo­pher Lee’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Tall, Dark and Grue­some which speaks to the fun he had with his vil­lain­ous roles. Even if he was frus­trat­ed at being type­cast in his ​‘grave­yard peri­od’ as Drac­u­la, work­ing for Ham­mer Films was a launch­ing pad for his career and sparked an endur­ing rela­tion­ship with Cush­ing. 100 years on from Lee’s birth, and 64 years on from his first appear­ance as the Count, he lives on eter­nal­ly as a giant star of the sil­ver screen and the man who made Drac­u­la sexy.

For­bid­den Worlds runs 13 – 15 May at the for­mer Bris­tol IMAX.