Vampire Season - The Brides of Dracula (1960)

After an unrelentingly hot US summer that took its toll on this fair skinned red-head physically and psychologically (I am more acclimated to cold, dark places after all), Autumn kicked in full bore this past weekend with a cold snap that has me sleeping under mounds of blankets with the windows open… cause that’s how I roll. With the change in weather come the fragrant aroma of fallen leaves and the acrid smell of wood fires. Days are gloomy, nights are chilly, the dogs howl at sunset, and the bats are about – metaphorically, if not literally.

I’ve never actually put together a top ten list of favorite Hammer Films or favorite vampire movies for that matter, but Hammer’s 1960 The Brides of Dracula would rank high on either list. It’s probably sacrilege to say I don’t care for most of the Christopher Lee Dracula entries (the Peter Cushing Frankenstein series is consistently more creative and, if not frightening, at least disturbing), so what better way to kick off vampire season than with a repeat viewing of Brides of Dracula?

The story goes that Lee turned down the script, originally titled Disciples of Dracula, and that it was hastily rewritten in order to go before the cameras as scheduled. The final product shows some signs of dropped plot threads – but then, story continuity is not one of Hammer’s strong points.

What it lacks in story cohesiveness it more than makes up for with originality and some of the best set design, lighting, and cinematography of any of the Hammer entries thanks in part to the brilliant work of Director of Photography, Jack Asher.

A voiceover narration introducing the film informs the audience that Dracula is dead, but as the nineteenth century draws to a close, the cult of the undead is alive and well in Transylvania. Where else?

Our beautiful heroine, Marianne Danielle (played by “France’s newest sex kitten” Yvonne Monlaur) is traveling through the misty mountains by carriage when she is waylaid at a country village and meets the Baroness Meinster, a stiff shouldered aristocrat played to the teeth by Martita Hunt (Miss Haversham in the David Lean film version of Great Expectations). The Baroness convinces Marianne that she can’t possibly spend the night in the uncivilized country inn and whisks her away to her chateau in the mountains. Saucy French sex kitten, sinister Baroness, isolated castle – the stage is set for some vampire hanky panky.

The first act takes a surprising turn here with a brief detour into family psychodrama. It seems the mutton-sleeved Baroness has a son she keeps chained by the ankle in his tower room. To spice up the plot a bit, there’s an old family retainer on hand, Freda Jackson in a role as equally juicy as that of the Baroness. Scenes between these two women are some of the most dynamic performances in the movie, and Jackson as the young Baron’s nurse delivers a monologue that tells the back story of how the boy became a vampire.

Don’t blame me, mistress. It was none of my doing. Nay. I’ve always kept faith with you. Twenty years since I first saw you come to the castle here with the old Baron and your little son. A fine, handsome little imp he was, too. But you spoiled him. Oh, yes. He was always self-willed and cruel, and you encouraged him. Aye, and the bad company you kept, too. You used to sit and drink with them, didn’t you? Yes, and you laughed at their wicked games. Till in the end one of them took him and made him what he was. You’ve done what you could for him since then, God help you… keeping him here a prisoner, bringing those young girls to him keeping him alive with their blood.

There’s more than meets the eye in this three minute speech than is worthy of any Hammer horror flick. Just what were these wicked games, and why was the Baroness drinking with a bunch of vampires? To me, the implication is a deeper one, inferring that vampirism is a disease that is spread…well, the way diseases are spread… through, ahem…unprotected contact.

This theme of vampirism as disease was explored again in the 1963 follow-up, Kiss of the Vampire, and is what sets these two films apart from the Hammer Dracula series where Dracula is simply a vampire with no social commentary attached. If we look back at Stoker’s original novel, the fear of venereal disease was a palpable undercurrent… and it took more than 100 years for a film version (the 2006 Masterpiece Theatre version) to bring the theme literally to the forefront of the story.

There are some inventive moments in Brides of Dracula, particularly when old Greta lies atop a grave, coaxing the vampire bride to claw her way up through the fresh pile of dirt, and a shocking sequence where Van Helsing, after being bitten by the vampire, burns his throat with a fiery brand before dowsing himself with Holy Water.

The production values and unique story themes are strong enough to make up for the film’s weaker moments – an early, sinister character who follows Marianne to the village only to disappear from the movie altogether, and an embarrassing giant brown bat on a string. Whenever I watch this scene I am reminded of Nicholas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss: “Shoo, shoo.”

If you haven’t seen this entry, or haven’t seen it in a while, you’re in for a treat. If you’re into recreational psychedelics, the colors in this film just might cause you to burst a blood vessel in your eye, and that alone is worth the price of rental. It’s still easy to come by on DVD and is available from online streaming services. 

Dracula Deconstructed: Dracula (Masterpiece Theatre 2006)

Every few years, our favorite literary and cinematic icons pop up in new film incarnations, be it Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, or my personal favorite, Count Dracula. (Well, I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, especially when he arrives at Baskerville Hall, but that’s a story for another day.)

In 2006, the BBC took blond pretty boy, Marc Warren, put him in a wig that made him look like Jack White on a bad hair day, and tweaked the story we know and love into something… different.

I have my reservations about the casting of Marc Warren (although I love a pretty boy as much as the next guy). Seeing Warren’s Dracula mope around like an over-the-hill Emo boy  on the cliffs overlooking Whitby Harbor makes me giggle every time. But his appearance has the desired effect on Lucy Holmwood. She gets all hot and bothered and invites him back to dinner, much to the chagrin of her new hubby, Arthur.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. Arthur, you see, is the anti-hero in this one. Dracula himself takes a backseat to the rivalry between Lord Arthur Holmwood and Lucy’s other suitor, Dr. John Seward. Ten minutes into the movie (and this is no plot spoiler) we learn that Arthur’s father is a syphilitic madman kept chained in his Gothic manor house and that our bridegroom-to-be has contracted the fatal disease as well.

Here’s where my friend, Michelle, threw up her hands in despair and cried, “BS!” You might, too, if you’re a purist and would rather not subject yourself to literary reinvention.

But if you are able to set aside the Dracula tropes, the bats and the wolves, the graveyards and coffins, the capes and the fangs, the vampirism of the story can be read as a parable about Victorian fears of sexually transmitted disease. It spreads from victim to victim and brings about a rapid deterioration in both physical and moral health. The metaphor is clear.

In an attempt to cure himself of the Frenchman’s Disease, Arthur falls in with a group of devil worshippers who offer to cleanse him of the disease. Here’s where Dracula, and a lot of blood, black robes, inverted crosses, and Tarot cards, comes in – big points for quasi-satanic hooey.

Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens plays Arthur as a desperate man driven by his obsession to rid himself of the disease and consummate the marriage. Tom Burke as his friend-turned-rival, John Seward, is equally strong in his role as the jilted lover who champions Lucy to the grave and beyond. If there is a true Byron hero in Dracula, this is it. Take a look at that face; handsome, sad, bitter, and scarred for life.

It is this subplot and these actors’ performance which brings me back to Dracula for repeated viewings. But some things in the movie work for me while others don’t. I miss Renfield. I can’t quite embrace David Suchet’s Van Helsing which may have more to do with the way the character is written than the way the actor plays the part. Sophia Myles’ Lucy is a modern, assertive woman which is a refreshing change, but Stephanie Leonidas’ Mina is the weakest character in the script, and by weak I mean ineffectual. And for the character of Mina, this is wrong.

Overall, Dracula lives up to the BBC’s and Masterpiece Theatre’s perennially high standard, and since the movie is readily available in most streaming formats for home viewing, worth a look. You might find another classic Dracula to add to your collection.

Jonathan Frid, Exit Stage Left

I’m not certain how it began, but I imagine it went something like this:

It was late afternoon on a sunny, spring day and I had gone to another fourth-grade friend’s house to play after school. His mama was sitting in the recliner in the living room, smoking, watching a soap opera on the color TV. In those days, that’s what moms did. They stayed home all day. At my house, we didn’t have a color TV, my parents didn’t smoke, and my mother didn’t watch soap operas. Spooky music rattled out of the tinny TV speaker and people with anxious faces moped glumly around the living room of an immense, old mansion. And who was the scary guy with the weird haircut and the wolf’s head cane? Some people on the show were afraid of him. Others seemed to love him. His name was Barnabas Collins. What kind of name was that?

More than anything else, Dark Shadows was a product of its time. It was the mid-to-late 1960s. The Viet Nam War was in full sway, with gore being broadcast into living rooms on the evening news with frightening regularity. There was unrest on the home front as well in the form of race riots and campus rebellions. Teenagers, much to the horror of their parents, were tuning in, dropping out, and turning on. “What’s your sign?” was a common pick-up line and indicative of a movement where everyone seemed to be into Astrology and other more insidious manifestations of the occult.

It’s no small wonder that in the midst of all the madness, Dark Shadows became a runaway phenomenon with grade-schoolers and their moms. Who else would be found glued to the TV at 4:00 on even the sunniest of days, the curtains drawn, being sucked into the gloomy world of Collinwood? Today, ask anyone over the age of fifty about Dark Shadows and the first words out of their mouth will be, “I used to run home from school…” and once I was hooked, so did I.

Dark Shadows fans know this story well, but it bears repeating. Dark Shadows went on the air in June 1966, but despite being a Gothic novelty act on daytime TV, the ratings flagged. The story began as a television retread of the popular Gothic Romance novels of the time with a governess, Victoria Winters, taking a post at mysterious Collinwood which had no more menace than any other old house with creaky floorboards and drafts near the windows that sometimes made the curtains billow inexplicably. But about six months into the first year, with the threat of cancellation looming, producer Dan Curtis decided to shift the focus from Jane Eyre to Dracula.

Enter Jonathan Frid, a classically trained Shakespearean actor who had one prior TV credit as a psychiatrist on another soap opera. The cousin from England, Barnabas Collins, was only meant to be in the series for a month of weekday afternoons, but once he started sneaking into bedrooms and biting the necks of the female members of the cast, the ratings soared.

And soared, and soared. Looking back at the craggy face of Jonathan Frid in makeup, it is somewhat hard to believe that Frid became a sex symbol, but consider that in his day, Bela Lugosi was a sex symbol as well. And given the continued success of Barnabas’ grandchildren, Lestat de Lioncourt and Edward the Sparkler, it is clear that women are eternally and irresistibly drawn to a bloodsucker.

But what about the boys? At my school, other little boys on the playground played at being Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock during recess. I played Barnabas and bit the little girls on the neck. Who do you think had his priorities in the right place?

It is no secret that Dark Shadows has had a lasting influence on my life and art. I proudly display all 33 of the vintage Dark Shadows paperbacks in an old fashioned wire bookrack. I have all 1,125 episodes on VHS and DVD, I have the Robert Cobert soundtrack CDs, and I have autographs from three of the show’s stars, including Frid’s, from book signings.

My early experiences with Dark Shadows eventually led to harder things. I discovered Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. In my teen years I discovered Hammer Films and began to read Gothic writers such as Shirley Jackson, Lovecraft, and Poe. Today I am a writing a style of Gothic fiction which has its roots in the stories which inspired the plot arcs on Dark Shadows.

Jonathan Frid passed away quietly at the age of 87 on Friday, April 13^th. There was no funeral, and there is no memorial service planned by the family. The news was withheld from the media for seven days, breaking on the internet early this morning, Thursday, April 19^th.

Tonight, fans across the country will be lighting candles, holding séances, donning their vampire capes, popping tapes in the VCR, and remembering one of the 1960s quintessential pop icons.

Thank you, Jonathan Frid, for a lifetime of terror, intrigue, and a boat load of unintentional laughs. You had a good run.