The Count is also extremely cunning like the wolf. As Harker puts paid to his nympho missus, Dracula nips out of his coffin while the avenger composes himself, standing like the king of the castle barring the exit to the outside world. If Harker wishes to fight for the girl, now is the time.
Dracula is the ultimate jealous lover in this film. He may have beaten Harker senseless in the tomb, but he was already dying from the girl’s bite and Dracula can't bear to be under the same roof with the man - off-camera, he pedantically wrecks the guest room and swipes a picture of Lucy Holmwood, Harker's fiancée.
Dracula's lovemaking informs her that there is a whole world out there and soon, sporting fangs and a flimsy nightdress, she's out searching for it. This is too much for her toffee-nosed relatives and they enlist the services of Van Helsing to make her stay put - permanently!
Another girl gone, Dracula tries the next one, Mina Holmwood, even to the point of moving in with her while the men hold vigil outside. Mina hands him the key to the cellar, it seems, as he locks Van Helsing away while grabbing Mina to go and live with him. While evading her relations, he decides that Mina can keep in the garden, six feet under, so that she won't be tempted to stray like his previous conquests.
In the ensuing climax, Van Helsing dynamically stares down the bully and beats him on his own ground. Caught in the sun's rays under the glare of the doctor's makeshift crucifix, Dracula melts down like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Peter Cushing made another career best when he was given the part of Doctor Van Helsing - a first name is never mentioned. Dropping Sangster's original double-dutch dialogue for crisp Cambridge tones, he makes the part his own; as memorable a study as his Victor Frankenstein in Hammer's parallel franchise.
Van Helsing is on a mission to stamp out the cult of vampirism, a fight he has sustained as his life's work. The first Van Helsing to link the curse of vampirism to drug addiction, he quotes the greatest authorities in Europe as his allies, but only he and Jonathon Harker seem to provide the legwork, as no one else comes looking for him at Karlstadt.
Icily cool and authoritative in his own right, Van Helsing stabs his finger into the air to make his points. When handing out medicines, he doesn't mince his words: "If you don't, she will die!" he proclaims, when questioned about his eccentric remedies.
He is engaging to the weaker members of society and there is something very fatherly in his bedside manner. But he is also very cold to the point of covering up a young child to keep her warm while, with machine-shop finished stakes, he pins her erring auntie into her resting place to keep her off the streets.
Van Helsing is awkward in company and prone to receiving chides from the people he professes to help. At heart, he is a consummate loner, in the same mould as his nemesis. He prefers to natter away to himself into his phonograph, punctuating the evil of Dracula, if not to the masses, at least to himself. He utilises friend and partner Jonathon Harker, in much the same way as Renfield is used in the novel: to prepare the way.
He discovers that Harker is weak, however, when it comes to handling women. It was a woman, Inga (Barbara Archer), who had returned his diary instead of burning it because he seemed like
"...such a nice gentleman".
When gazing at Harker's corpse in the coffin, the look on Van Helsing's face says it all, as he glares at the old crone and then his friend, before he mercifully hammers the stake home.
When finally confronting the Count, Van Helsing recognises similar traits to himself, omitting the need for the idle boasts and bravado rampant in other film versions.
The final standoff becomes one of the most intimate in the Count's cinematic history. Van Helsing's Victorian personification of manhood halts the Count as he prepares his final kiss. The doctor is able to vanquish the ancient knight, not with a sword or stake, but with the more economical sunlight and two crossed candlesticks.
Dracula is dead. What will Van Helsing do now? The evil is over. His life's work complete. So where does he go? Staring through curtainless windows in Dracula's sanctified castle, surely these thoughts must go through his own mind as he squints at the morning sun? Perhaps he becomes, as Cushing himself often joked, a crucifix salesman?
A true giant of the British horror cinema, Cushing would continue to immortalise the role of Van Helsing in four more Hammer films, his last appearance as the doctor being in The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974). An OBE recipient, he died on 11th August 1994, three weeks after completing a narration for a documentary on the studio that he helped to make famous, Hammer: Flesh and Blood!.
The first third of the film is taken up with the segment allocated to Jonathon Harker. In the novel, he is a twenty-something Solicitors’ apprentice trying to earn his spurs in the rat race of Victorian society. In this film, as played by John Van Eyssen, he has already gained his experience to go into business for himself; namely vampire hunting. At his partner's behest, he infiltrates the Count's lair, posing as a smug, Eton bred librarian.
Smarter than most Harkers, he arrives at the monster's home in broad daylight. He gains the Count's trust, enough to be left alone in his castle with his employer's young, voluptuous bride. But it seems that women and Harker draw each other like mustard plasters and, no sooner is the Count out of sight, she is eagerly snapping at his throat.
Harker proves not only a lousy lover, but his fighting instincts leave a lot to be desired. He fails to save his new girlfriend from the clutches of her partner and finishes by sleeping alone in his own rooms. Still bearing her marks, he decides to seek vengeance. When Harker locates the two vampires, his first choice for the stake is not the embittered Count, but the girl who has ruined his own future, telling him lies and giving him burning kisses.
Finding her still sleeping with Dracula, he viciously bangs the stake into her chest and watches her wither into an old hag - probably mentally registering the lucky escape that he's just had! Unable to stop the vampire he is left to rot with Dracula's scheming Jezebel.
From his smug satisfaction at gaining entry to the castle, to his thoughtful meanderings in his diary, to the final look of grave acceptance on his face in the crypt, we feel Jonathon's relief when Van Helsing finally releases his soul.
The un-named vampirette, Valerie Gaunt, flaunts enough sexual energy to out-do all three of Stoker's giggling nymphettes. She is a true predator of the classical type. She and Dracula fight incessantly locked away in their mountaintop retreat. One can imagine, but, thankfully, what we see is kept to a bare minimum, the incredible lust that they have for each other.
Dracula has had many brides, but obviously has to keep his eyes on this little goer. She parades around the castle wearing the flimsiest of dresses and, to entrap other men, talking blatant lies with tearful, breathy excitement, out of the side of her face.
"He keeps me a prisoner!" she moans, but is reluctant to explain why.
It becomes obvious as she makes a pass at Harker. When her initial advance is rejected, her next step is to scratch Harker's eyes out. But she is held fast by the Count who serves her a quick slap off-camera to quieten her down. When Jonathon next sees her, she is laid with a face full of suffering after a long life of torment with Dracula. Valerie Gaunt had earlier been seen scene-stealing The Curse of Frankenstein, as Doctor Frankenstein's blackmailing mistress, Justine.
Carol Marsh portrays Lucy Holmwood as a rebellious teenager. Forced to live with her foppish brother and his no-nonsense wife, one gets the feeling that she spends a lot of time pretending to be ill. Harker is her lover but he is rarely home these days and takes extravagant trips around Europe. Returning home, he dismisses her nagging that she accompanies him, giving his reasons for the trips as “business“.
When Dracula appears on the scene, she welcomes the freedom that the change brings. Even the Count's mention of Jonathon's death is utilised as a shock tactic by her to gain more attention. As for Gerda's brat, Lucy wakes her in the middle of the night and lets her walk until her legs fee
l like lead. Then, with a wicked cackle, intends to drain her completely! Serves her right!
But, it's hard finding ones feet with Dr Van Helsing around. He seems nice enough, at first, but then he gives orders to have her cooped up in her room and stifles her with poisonous odours from his wretched plants. The Count can't gain access to make love to her. Gerda has always been a trustworthy friend, maybe she...?
And then, Arthur, playing those ridiculous games when they were children. How she would like to make those games a reality for him. But this time she can play better than him. All it takes is one kiss.
Curses! Van Helsing again!
A frustrated leer crosses her face as the doctor pounds in the stake. But, did you notice? She screamed and writhed and cursed, but they never made her cry. Not once, heh, heh! Interestingly Carol Marsh, who hated wearing her vampire fangs, seemed to corner the market on doomed and gullible waifs. She had been seen opposite Richard Attenborough's streetwise thug, Pinky, in Brighton Rock (1947).
Arthur Holmwood, played with extraordinary camp by Michael Gough, and his wife Mina (Melissa Stribling), are meant to be the picture of Victorian perfection. This is soon dashed when Lucy takes ill and the family surgeon, Dr Seward, can't ascertain the symptoms. He prescribes medicine and plenty of fresh air.
Meanwhile, Lucy's suitor, Jonathon Harker, dies suddenly on a business trip to Europe and Arthur uses the excuse that he can't rip into this Van Helsing fellow as he would like, because he is held back by his over-bearing wife. She chides him for the smallest things and always in company. Pampering to her attention-seeking sister-in-law, Mina goes over his head and consults Van Helsing to give a second opinion on Lucy's illness. Even when Lucy dies, Arthur's impotent nature only allows the small admonishment that Van Helsing must go "...and leave us in peace".
On reading the diary that the doctor leaves, Arthur is suddenly stricken with the fact that he has a secret all of his own. He doesn't have to tell Mina where he's going, but he must allow her the courtesy of letting her know when he'll be back.
When Lucy dies, he over-reaches himself by following her to her tomb and almost succumbs to her incestuous charms. His chance to become a hero has been foiled again as Van Helsing beats the monster back with his iron will and a crucifix. Again, Arthur is a broken man when his decision to stake Lucy turns out to be the wrong one and Mina is defiled by Dracula in her place. He whines to Van Helsing, "...why didn't I listen to you?"
But at the final fadeout, he does get to rescue his wife, even though it is Van Helsing who conquers the beast.
To catalogue Michael Gough's horror films would require an extra chapter. My favourite choices of his roles are in Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Konga (1961) and as the un-credited, creepily mummified corpse, Emeric Belasco in The Legend of Hell House (1973). He also played Alfred, Butler to Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne, in Batman (1989), and its three sequels. This was a pretty amazing feat as I have a review book that states that Mr Gough actually died in 1985!
Mina herself seems to be trapped. The marriage is a sham, especially when it appears that Arthur is as camp as a row of tents, with no children to speak of. Arthur is her first lover and now she's tied to him forever.
When Lucy dies for a second time, Mina seems to be blissfully unaware of the incidents that have suddenly given new fire under her husband. But it doesn't matter, because the Count makes her feel more alive than she's ever been. Attractive. Like a real woman. She probably believes that she is the Count's first conquest and hence agrees to move him in with her - all the while mentally making up the small attic room for her ineffectual spouse.
She plays with Gerda's child, Tanya, but can be dismissive enough to allow her to roam around in the cemetery at all hours of the night. Mina secretly eavesdrops on her husband to learn of his colleagues’ plans to destroy her lover while feigning interest in her crewelwork. She misunderstands her abhorrence of the crucifix that brands its accusations into the flesh of her hand.
Realisation of the real horror of Dracula becomes instantaneous as he covers her in soil from his native birthplace, blotting out her presupposed images of living a fairytale existence in a land far, far away.
As Van Helsing triumphs over Dracula, the cross on her palm fades, but our eyes, and Mina's, are involuntarily drawn to the overlarge, accusatory wedding ring. The Count is destroyed but Mina doesn't register happiness on her face at the fadeout. In fact, as she looks at Arthur, her face is unreadable.
Dr Seward is brought to life in just a few scenes. He is played by Charles Lloyd Pack - Roger's father and Emily Lloyd's grandfather. Trusting his instincts as the local sawbones, he treats Lucy in the only way he knows and, as a result, finds her slowly slipping away from him. The interfering child asks obvious questions like "if you know what's wrong, why don't you help her?"
Planting the suggestion that Mina gain a second opinion, he is able to pass the buck when Lucy dies in the care of Van Helsing, and carries a slight smirk on his face when he proclaims that there was "...nothing else I could do".
Finally, there is live-in housekeeper Gerda (Olga Dickie), and her daughter Tanya (Janina Faye). Ignoring the fact that raving Gerda seems older than Arthur, and that Tanya must have come along very late in life, we're resigned in the knowledge that Sangster has written her in to propel the story along. Gerda makes Mrs Westenra's mistake of removing the garlic flowers for Lucy and Tanya is the child lured astray by the bloofer lady.
One minor setback to a movie that begins as a Grimm's Fairy Tale and culminates into a Boy’s Own adventure yarn, on the surface, is the fact that every person speaks either perfect English or, as in the case of the over-used comedy relief characters, broad cockney! And this in an undefined, middle-European setting! Though I must personally doff my hat to Miles Malleson as the forgetful undertaker, a regular Hammer staple in the early years and always welcome.
But, as history has shown, it did bring us the definitive Count Dracula in Christopher Lee. Continuing his success in sequel after sequel - all of diminishing quality, my own favourite being Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), - the actor has only very recently been able to relax and downplay the image. Now, rightfully recognised for a film career that has spanned sixty years, with a filmography that is one of - if not - the longest in British cinema history - and is still growing; one of his more recent portrayals being the mystic, Saruman, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
His Dracula was, and still is, rightfully wowed by fans across the world and at the time of writing, Mr Lee has passed his 88th year and still shows no sign of slowing down, scooping a knighthood in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours list.
After his comrades of the horror film have all succumbed to the final sleep, he reluctantly carries the banner of the greatest living horror star.
His definitive character portrayals - The Creature, Kharis the Mummy, Rasputin, the Duc de Richleau, Lord Summerisle, Scaramanga, Fu Manchu, Father Michael Rayner and, indeed, Count Dracula himself - are forever linked to this fine actor.
An interesting footnote: like Universal before them, Hammer's sequel, The Brides of Dracula (1960), only retained Peter Cushing as Van Helsing from the original cast. Even more strange, when Christopher Lee donned the cloak again in Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), Peter Cushing was replaced by Andrew Kier as Father Sandor.
CHAPTER SIX
Christopher Lee
BRAM STOKER'S COUNT DRACULA (1970: Fenix/Corona/Filmar/Towers of London Films) aka: El Conde Dracula, Count Dracula
Director: Jess Franco
Synopsis
The camera pans over a sinister landscape as the credits roll in gothic, blood red fonts. A declaration states that:
"Over fifty years ago, Bram Stoker wrote the greatest of all horror stories. Now for the first time, we retell, exactly as he wrote it, one of the first - and still the best - tales of the macabre."
Transylvania 1897.
A bell ringer tolls a train arrival at a station. We see a young m
an picked out by a zoom lens. He is Jonathon Harker. Another man, also picked out by a second zoom, is a businessman sharing his compartment. Harker explains to the mistrustful passenger that he is a solicitor on his way to see Count Dracula. The passenger stares wild-eyed and tells Harker that he will need God's help if he is visiting Dracula. Harker muses silently over this advice and arrives in a downpour to a local inn by carriage. The innkeeper seems fairly easy-going and informs Harker that the Count has bade him to take good care of him while at the inn.
The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid Page 8
