Eddie Butler

Boris Karloff and Vincent Price by Guest Author Eddie Butler

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Eddie Butler

William Henry Pratt would become world famous when he was billed as a question mark on the credits of James Whale’s classic horror movie Frankenstein (1931). The story goes that Mr Whale was enjoying lunch in a Hollywood canteen while mulling over the problem of who could take the role of the Frankenstein monster. Into the canteen walked English actor Boris Karloff, perennial bit player in movies since 1915 with only a handful of major roles under his belt. Two that stood out were the gangster in Scarface and as the murderous trustee in The Criminal code. His role as a mysterious hypnotist in The Bells had also shone in 1925. Whale studied the actor and made drawings of his skull adding edges where the make-up would be attached. He had found his monster and the rest is history as Karloff would become, arguably, the greatest horror star who ever lived.
But the actor only incorporated vampires into his resume three times. The first foray was as the psychotically deranged scientist Dr Niemann in Universal’s House of Frankenstein (1944). Neimann is an escaped convict who takes over Professor Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors travelling circus that boasts the remains of Count Dracula. Re-animating the Count by pulling the stake from his heart, he also unearths the bodies of The Wolfman, Lon Chaney and the Frankenstein Monster played by ex-cowboy star and stuntman Glenn Strange. The film was a lot of fun but barely raised a shudder as all the characters were thinly sketched caricatures of their former selves and only held shocks that a child of three years old could withstand. Karloff brought his usual professionalism and sepulchral whisper to the role in this mad monster marathon.
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Christopher Lee and Marc Warren from El Conde Dracula (1970) and Dracula (2006) by Guest Author Eddie Butler

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Author Eddie Butler Photo by Branwell Bronte

El Conde Dracula (1970) starring Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee plays the Count for the fifth time,discounting his token guest spot as Baron Rodrigo in the comedy, Uncle was a Vampire (1959). It is claimed that he made subtle differences to his performance in this film to avoid confusion with his Dracula character. Having already resurrected Sax Rohmer’s anti-hero, Doctor Fu Manchu, for Producer Towers  in the mid sixties, it was perhaps an obvious step to continue with Stoker’s ageless satyr.

That he is happy to be doing the film is so evident that he shrugs aside the idea that there may be anyone else acting with him and seemingly prefers to carry on undirected. Parading around in dark frock coats and sporting a grey drooping moustache, he does resemble the Count’s description to an uncanny degree. His resonant voice booms through the large mausoleum that doubles as his authentic-looking castle, as he accurately relates his bloodthirsty history to the wild-eyed Harker. Unfortunately, delivering his lines like a proud child exhibiting himself in front of his parents in his first school play, he comes across as incredibly camera-conscious in some sequences. This, coupled with the input of excruciating editing, robs his Count of the powers that had served him so well four times previously.

Gone is the tigerish ferocity with which he attacks his enemies. All we get are static glares with red contact lenses and a sibilant hiss. When the peasant woman beats on the Castle doors for the return of her baby, he never calls the wolves from the forest to have a midnight snack as is told in the novel. Even his sexual proclivities are dumbed down to an infinitesimal degree. There is no preliminary nuzzling. The scene with the wolves is dampened because of the fact that the wolves themselves are actually German Shepherds,  a case that has had reviewers unkindly guffawing at for years, as it is Lee’s best managed scene in the entire movie. The whole performance, which, conversely, still dominates most of the film, turns involuntarily to a parody of his earlier successes in the role. (more…)

George Hamilton and Leslie Nielsen by Eddie Butler

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Author Eddie Butler Photo by Branwell Bronte

A look at the two most famous comedy Counts.

George Hamilton

Love at First Bite (1979), directed by Stan Dragoti, is still the best comedy on the Dracula theme. It isn’t directly in line with the major Stoker versions, but it does slot itself very cheekily into the mix, by claiming sequelitis to the Bela Lugosi original. Pasty faced and sans fangs, Count George Hamilton is the total antithesis to his usual persona of his unique sun-tanned lothario.

Evacuated from his home by the Hungarian authorities -“We will be back with the trapeze, parallel bars and Nadia Comaneci!”- Dracula sets off for New York with his scene-stealing familiar, Renfield (Arte Johnson). Quote: “You carry the master,” intones a beleaguered cab driver.

“I always do,” quips Renfield.

Screwball comedy triumphs as the Count conducts his search for the reincarnation of his lost love, Mina Harker (Susan St James), and is perilously pursued by the grandson of Dr Fritz Von Helsing (Richard Benjamin – stealing the film). (more…)

Jack Palance and Louis Jourdan by Guest Author Eddie Butler

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Author Eddie Butler Photo by Branwell Bronte

The film was scripted by Richard Matheson, the Godfather of American horror stories; The Incredible Shrinking Man, I am Legend, and scriptwriter for a number of the best horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.

There had been talk in the early 1970s of a Hammer film titled Dracula Walks the Night, to be co-written by Matheson and resident Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were to continue in their roles as Dracula and Van Helsing as they square off in Victorian London. Van Helsing would team up with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to destroy the fiend. As a further plus, it was to have been directed by Terence Fisher. Unfortunately, with the advent of vampire saturation from the American market with films like Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and Blacula (1972), Hammer had to churn out more economical potboilers like Dracula AD 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), robbing fans of what would  have been the most interesting Dracula story conceived up to that time.

On viewing Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I came to the conclusion that I thought that  Matheson had meant his story to be set on a larger scale; maybe utilizing ideas from the ideas mentioned above. Although that is only conjecture on my part, but with the confines of the budget and only a promise of a television showing, the finished script had to be scaled down somewhat. What we are left with is a short film loaded with references to Producer/Director Dan Curtis’s previous explorations with vampires: The House of Dark Shadows (1970) and The Night Stalker (1972), also scripted by Matheson, with a smattering of dialogue and incident thrown in from Stoker.

Jack Palance probably seemed an odd choice to take the lead role, but, in frock coat and graying temples, he does his best effort to bring humanity to his ethnically correct Count, playing him as an obsessed tyrant yearning for his lost love, Marianne, and finding her in Lucy Westenra. (more…)

Guest Author Eddie Butler

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Jack Palance

The film was scripted by Richard Matheson, the Godfather of American horror stories; The Incredible Shrinking Man, I am Legend, and scriptwriter for a number of the best horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.

There had been talk in the early 1970s of a Hammer film titled Dracula Walks the Night, to be co-written by Matheson and resident Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were to continue in their roles as Dracula and Van Helsing as they square off in Victorian London. Van Helsing would team up with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to destroy the fiend. As a further plus, it was to have been directed by Terence Fisher. Unfortunately, with the advent of vampire saturation from the American market with films like Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and Blacula (1972), Hammer had to churn out more economical potboilers like Dracula AD 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), robbing fans of what would  have been the most interesting Dracula story conceived up to that time.

On viewing Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I came to the conclusion that I thought that  Matheson had meant his story to be set on a larger scale; maybe utilising ideas from the ideas mentioned above. Although that is only conjecture on my part, but with the confines of the budget and only a promise of a television showing, the finished script had to be scaled down somewhat. What we are left with is a short film loaded with references to Producer/Director Dan Curtis’s previous explorations with vampires: The House of Dark Shadows (1970) and The Night Stalker (1972), also scripted by Matheson, with a smattering of dialogue and incident thrown in from Stoker. (more…)

Dracula Kinski and Bergin by Guest Author Eddie Butler

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

Klaus Kinski

Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu the Vampyre/Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht (1979). With the addition of sound, Werner Herzog’s remake of Nosferatu (1922), is made even more distant than the original. Interminably long scenes slow down the action and don’t add any kind of apprehensiveness as in the original.

The Count shies away from crosses and yet runs through a whole churchyard full of them without the slightest harm. Harker walks to the Castle without Gustav Von Wangenheim’s earlier enthusiasm. In fact, everybody seems to be suffering from a severe case of lethargy before anyone is bitten.

With reservations, Herzog cast Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula. Generally, Kinski’s roles had amounted to little more than expressive character cameos and he would often refer to his films as “junk.” As Dracula, he was constantly required on screen, his unpredictable eccentricities causing numerous problems with himself and Director, Herzog.
Mainly, his interpretation of the Count.

Herzog had wanted Dracula to be swift in his movements. Kinski preferred the slow, labored characterization that eventually made it to the screen. He also denied seeing the silent inspirational film, taking credit for his original make-up of the blood sucking phantom. Massaging Japanese kabuki make-up into his bald pate and centralizing the vampire’s teeth, he cut a very disturbing figure kitted out in kinky midnight satin as he hurdles gravestones with his own coffin tucked under his arm.

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