Christopher Lee, Prince of Darkness

This just in from the "prestigious" British newspaper, The Guardian:

Lord of the Rings star Christopher Lee has been awarded a prestigious BFI Fellowship. The presentation will be made on 19 October at Banqueting House, Whitehall, during the London film festival, the BFI's premier event.

The BFI Fellowship is an award given "to individuals in recognition of their outstanding contribution to film or television". 2012's honorees were actor Helena Bonham Carter and director Tim Burton. In 2011, writer-director David Cronenberg and actor-director Ralph Fiennes were recipients.

Wankers.

First of all, it's SIR Christopher Lee. Second of all...LORD OF THE RINGS star? He also "starred" in 1941. What was Dracula...a footnote?

I have great love for this icon of my youth. Obviously, since I wrote an ode to he, Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood in my book IN THE DARK entitled "The Good, the Bad and the Undead". Since Sir Christopher is receiving his award next week and Halloween is coming up, here is an excerpt from ITD all about the man, the fangs and the cape.

The heroes of my life were all killers.

Oh. I’m sorry. It appears that I’ve upset you. Let me assure you that you have nothing to fear from me. If your hackles have been raised since reading those words, you can go ahead and lower them now…slowly. Don’t make any sudden moves. For God’s sake, get that judgmental look off your face…It really disturbs me…

Aw, relax, would ya? It’s not as if I worshipped at the shrine of Charles Manson, traded baseball cards with The Boston Strangler or harbored a lifelong dream to open up the Ed Gein Culinary Academy.

Hardly.

My heroes were a dapper, debonair government assassin, a monosyllabic bounty hunter who brought ‘em in mostly dead not alive and a bloodsucking Lord of the Undead. To better identify them, you might recognize the names James Bond, The Man with No Name and Count Dracula.

In every one of his movies, the last member of my trifecta started out dead. Okay, okay…UN-dead. (Must we have this conversation? It’s all semantics anyway.) He was, of course, Dracula, the Vampire’s Vampire, embodied by the legendary Christopher Lee.

From the mid-fifties to the early seventies, Lee, along with Peter Cushing, was one of the main stars of Hammer Studios, England’s chief producer of horror films. It was there that Lee recreated a couple of Boris Karloff’s greatest roles, namely the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy. However, it is the character most closely identified with Bela Lugosi that Lee found his fame as well. His interpretation of the Count was vastly and radically different from his predecessor’s. Physically, Lee was taller and certainly more athletic than Lugosi, so Dracula became more of a swashbuckler, albeit an evil swashbuckler. He would use his cape as an extension of his own body, flowing behind him as he strode away or would wrap it around his long frame like a black shroud. He tossed the Transylvanian accent out the window and instead utilized those stentorian tones of his with complete and absolute authority.

But, in my personal favorite of the Hammer/Dracula series and the first I had ever seen, DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, Lee has no dialogue at all and it is extremely effective. Dracula is virtually silent during the course of the movie, save for the occasional scowling hiss that seemed to come from deep within where his soul used to be. Never before or since has Dracula been portrayed so frighteningly. This was raw, savage evil incarnate, a truly vicious demon from hell. Legend has it that Lee played it in this manner because his dialogue was so trite. It doesn’t matter to me because, as far as I’m concerned, it worked. It made such an impression on me that when Lee spoke in the follow-up film, DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, I remember being very disappointed in the change.

Lee had help from the Hammer makeup department that outfitted him with a great set of sharp fangs and, best of all, bloodshot contact lenses. He could have been a poster boy for Visine. He was also provided with another set that were solid red indicating that after a night’s feasting, this dude was full.

The movies themselves contributed greatly to his success in the character. Hammer pictures, while low budgeted, benefited from good to excellent production values. The acting was always decent, the stories fairly exciting and the bottom line was, for an assembly line, Hammer put out a very respectable and reliable product. Naturally, what really stirred my juices were the two ingredients I began to crave…good ol’ sex and violence.

My first memories of blood on the big screen, before then almost a taboo, were in Hammer films. These weren’t overdone splatter effects, but for that time, they didn’t hold back much either. A stake through the heart was no longer just hinted at, projected as a shadow on the wall or executed off camera. There it was in all of its gory glory. When the blood flowed in the resurrection scene of Dracula, Prince of Darkness,  director Terrence Fisher made it almost a character itself, perhaps the essence of all that is unholy.

The icing on my boyhood cake was that these Hammer pictures were so damn lusty which, along with the sexuality portrayed in the Bond pictures, meant I was doing A-OK for my age in the sexual awakening department. I was exposed, in both senses of the word, to many a bursting bodice and plunging peasant blouse that revealed enough cleavage to fill both sides of the screen. Several times too was that camera shot of the undraping of a lusciously voluptuous woman tuned away from the camera, revealing only her naked back that outlined her curvaceous female form, making my increasingly horny little mind believe that I had just seen everything!

Since Dracula is one of the great sex symbols of all time, Lee’s version of the Count fit right into this atmosphere.  You knew damn well this guy was getting a lot more action than the monkey bites he was doling out. It has been said that no one could resist the will of Dracula, but it always seemed that Lee’s victims wanted to give up more than their jugulars.

Christopher Lee will always be the perfect Dracula to me. Unfortunately, I feel like I’m betraying a fellow Hungarian by not giving Bela Lugosi his due, but that’s part of the problem I have with him. Bela always came across to me like a creepy uncle, the one the family didn’t talk about much.  Granted, Lee’s Dracula was more of a product of my era and I accept that. There was no getting around that overpowering presence of his when he donned the cape. Lee gave the world’s greatest vampire his unmistakable signature, the distinction of a great actor that makes him totally identifiable with a given character. As Dracula, he dominated the screen to the point of making all else in the film before, after or even during his screen time seem inconsequential, save for him.

 Lee had a bumpy road ahead of him once he left the cape behind. Fortunately, he was able to make a class A horror film, THE WICKER MAN, a sensational picture from director Robin Hardy and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer. From there, he continued on as a villain in a better grade of films like Richard Lester’s THE THREE and FOUR MUSKETEERS where he held his own against Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston and Faye Dunaway. A dream damn near came true for me when Lee played the James Bond villain in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, an unfortunately weak entry in the series. He managed to shine when the movie didn’t. But now, here he is over the age of ninety appearing in some of the biggest movies of recent times time, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (though Peter Jackson callously cut his scenes from the theatrical version of RETURN OF THE KING) and the Star Wars prequels , where George Lucas kept him for all three films even if he had the unfortunate name of Count Dooku. And Lee’s still working. That, my friends, is called longevity.

Once and forever, I live with the memories of these indelible images. Connery, Sean Connery is Bond, James Bond, saving the world once again from a maniacal madman before tumbling off to the sack with another spectacular babe. Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name except Blondie takes a puff off his cheroot after drawing his six-shooter and blowing away a pack of ornery cowpokes with names like Umberto and Giuseppe. Finally, standing on the grand staircase of a cobweb ridden castle is a statuesque aristocrat with crimson eyes, an ebony cape and pointed ivory fangs that glisten in the light of the full moon, for he is Christopher Lee as Dracula, the Prince of Darkness…and it’s supper time…

Copyright 2009 by Scott Cherne

UPDATE 6/11/15: Today we learned that Sir Christopher Lee has passed away at the age of 93. If his movies have taught us anything, he shall return. Until he does, his legacy on screens large and small have made him immortal.

IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIME IN A MOVIE THEATER is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. It can be found on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions. 

SCOTT CHERNEY'S AMAZON PAGE

KONG-founded

Each year I give myself the birthday present of attending a movie in an honest to God cinema. For three years in a row, it was Peter Jackson’s adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. This year, I reserved this special for Jackson’s remake of KING KONG. I must say that I wasn’t very moving. Well, not moving in the figurative sense. Literally, I did squirm.

After all the deserved awards and acclaim Jackson received for his triumphant Middle Earth saga, he decided to revive, KING KONG, his pet project. This re-imagining (as it’s now called) of the classic film inspired him to be a filmmaker in the first place. For something that has been burning in his soul for so long, how could Jackson have treated the whole thing so ham-handedly? The whole enterprise is one big bloated, overblown mess. It is clearly a half hour too long, if that little. The “new” characters and makeover of the originals are so bland that Jackson doesn’t seem to care for them himself. Bruce Baxter, the male star of the movie within the movie, starts out as a jerk, then a coward, performs a heroic act, then reverts to cowardice again in the final reel with no pay-off. Jack Driscoll is now a playwright, a botch of an idea that never pans out. Driscoll should have been the Kyle Chandler character, the actor who was a coward off-screen until he becomes a hero on the island. As for Carl Denham, Jackson is even more clueless. By casting Jack Black, he could have been a lovable rascal but instead turns into a half-baked charmless creep that can’t sustain a whole picture with (again) no comeuppance. The allusions to Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS are ill-advised as well, thrown in for no other good reason than to perhaps show that Jackson has read something else besides Tolkien. Much has been praised for the hour long Skull Island sequence and its non-stop action. To me, it wasn’t so much relentless as it was endless, and not much more than an amped up JURASSIC PARK. The brontosaurus stampede was not only cheesy, but pointlessly absurd as well. The giant insects would have been enough without Jamie Bell stupidly shooting them off of Adrian Brody with a tommy gun. Nice grouping! The highlight of the action scenes, Kong’s triple threat match with three T-Rexs, also drug on far too long. Everything had been put together with gaming in mind and that non-stop action is fine in that context, but it’s bad filmmaking and I grow weary of it all. Can’t someone just make a fucking movie anymore?

However, what is good about Jackson’s KING KONG is great, especially when he concentrates on his two lead characters. Naomi Watts is quite wonderful as Ann Darrow, the only character who is fleshed out satisfactorily. She is luminescent and her sincerity carries whatever scene she’s in. As far the star of the show, he is the reason Jackson made this damn movie in the first place. The big boy is stellar, a balls out action hero of the first order. Andy Serkis and the CGI team transform him into a star for the ages. One can’t help but cheer for the big lug whenever he gets his dander up, especially fighting back against the biplanes that eventually do him in. The love story at the core of this Beauty and the Beast tale cuts through all the fat and blubber that surrounds this three-hour supposed epic and almost makes the whole experience worthwhile.

The outcome is that this is not as cheesy as the 1976 version nor is it anywhere as horrific as its sequel KING KONG LIVES. Anyone remember this jewel from the eighties with Linda Hamilton where Kong gets an artificial heart? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? This is simply the second best KING KONG. Sorry to be a purist. The original rules.

As for Peter Jackson, well, I hope he starts to scale it down a little. I think I’ll get my wish for his next project, an adaptation of THE LOVELY BONES. After this blockbuster decade of his, I’d really like to see him pull back, regroup and perhaps get back to basics. I prefer to continue admiring the work of the man who made HEAVENLY CREATURES. I don’t need another George Lucas in the making. But with the release of this film, along with the concurrently released "Peter Jackson Production Diary DVD set" and the goddamn video game with his name above the title, perhaps he's taken a turn for the worse.

Instead of becoming George Lucas or even Steven Spielberg, maybe Peter Jackson, with his newly acquired, King Kong sized ego, might have tragically reinvented himself as Carl Denham himself.

Monkey see. Monkey do.

My Year in Movies-Part Two

Yeah, Part Two...because this is just too damn important for only one. Isn't that right, Quentin? You know

where I'm coming from, man...

Okay continuing on with this 2004 wrap-up that could be subtitled "Who Gives a Rat's Ass What I Think?"

CATCHING UP

Here are some of films that have slipped through my fingers over time that I finally got to see this year.

Michael Powell's THE RED SHOES...The great ballet movie that I actually had taped years ago and finally got around to viewing. It's BALLET, therefore like exercise or medicine, I avoided it even though it's supposed to be good for me. As for the verdict? I see why it's a classic but I prefer Powell's BLACK NARCISSUS. However, procrastination may have dampened my overall impression. It certainly deserves a better shot than I gave it.
TO CATCH A THIEF...Minor Hitchcock but still Hitchcock.
SQUIRM...A drive-in "classic" about killer earthworms.
KNIFE IN THE WATER...Polanski's first feature, a more subtle precursor to DEAD CALM.
VANISHING POINT...70's car chase saga, a bit of a letdown after all this time.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE...A great little comedy from the Thirties. I've finally seen an Ernst Lubitch film other than TO BE OR NOT TO BE.
THE HILLS HAVE EYES...Early Wes Craven. Eh.

CLEOPATRA JONES...1970s blaxploitation starring the great Tamara Dobson. Whatever happened to her?
BLOODY MAMA...One of Roger Corman's last efforts at AIP. Shelley Winters, Robert DeNiro (as a glue sniffer!), Don Stroud and Bruce Dern in the saga of Ma Barker and her boys, riding in on the coattails of BONNIE AND CLYDE. Wow.
DIRTY LITTLE BILLY...Michael J. Pollard not only stars...he gets a love scene! Ewwww!
BURN!-From the director BATTLE OF ALGIERS, a lost Marlon Brando film that packed quite a wallop.
COWBOY...A fine Delmer Daves western from the Fifties with Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon
JOHNNY O'CLOCK...Film noir with ultra-hard boiled dialogue that just tickled me to death. Yes, that really was the character's name...Johnny O'Clock. Doesn't exactly roll over the tongue very well, does it?
CLASH BY NIGHT...Kitchen sink melodrama with a sensational, sexy, unaffected performance by Marilyn Monroe.
and...
Rouben Mamoullian's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE...A film I thought was lost forever finally turns up on a double disc on DVD, pairing with the inferior 1941 version which, as it turns out, was the reason the former was "lost". Even though Frederic March won an Oscar for his superb performance, MGM ditched the 1932 edition on purpose when they remade it in order to attempt to erase any reference to the earlier version. Idiots.

CRAP...CRAP...AND NOTHING BUT THE CRAP

DREAMCATCHER...Adapted from a Stephen King novel, adapted by William Goldman and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this is just pitiful garbage. It isn't even worth cult status, even though the aliens that enetr human bodies exit out the ass. How do you screw that up?
THE HOURS...Just an awful bore. If this is really the reason why Virginia Woolf killed herself, I would have helped her find bigger rocks. Talk about your angry lesbians...
DEAD OR ALIVE...Disgusting Japanese actioner with the most vile scene even put on screen that I refuse to even make any allusions at all here or anywhere.
ANYTHING ELSE...No, Woody. Nothing else. You can stop making movies now. It's over.
OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS...Pedophiles and child hustlers do not make for fine motion picture entertainment.
THE STEPFORD WIVES...Did no one who signed on for the piece of dung not read the goddamn script first? Maybe Frank Oz should hook up with Miss Piggy again. Hey, Nicole Kidman made another appearance on this list. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't see COLD MOUNTAIN.
FAR FROM HOME...Then again, here's Julianne Moore again as well...and I tend to like her work for the most part. This is is the most well made of all the shitty movies on this list. The cinematography is superb, the Elmer Bernstein is fabulous (yes, I said fabulous. Eat me.) but this remake of Douglas Sirk material is pretty much why this genre of film has been relegated to the Lifetime Network. Overrated to the Nth degree.
BUT...
the worst of the worst had to be...
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN...This movie is so putrid, I cannot even bring myself to say anything all other than I may have to punch Steve Martin in the kidneys if he doesn't stop making shit like this. I tend to hold him to a higher standard and maybe it's time I didn't. He and the director of this cinematic hemorrhoid are remaking THE PINK PANTHER. Happy happy joy joy. CHEAPER is everything that is wrong with American movies all wrapped up in one package...and it made a small fortune.

NOW...and not a moment too soon...

ON TO THE BEST

TOY STORY 2 and FINDING NEMO...Pixar rules the waves. They will thrive on their own without Disney. Eisner may have to kill them if they decide they leave.
WINGED MIGRATION...Fantastic documentary that gave me a whole new appreciation of geese. No, really. This is extraordinary. Watch the DVD, but catch the extras as well which are just as fascinating as the film.
LORD OF THE RINGS:THE RETURN OF THE KING...Every year for the past three, I've caught each segment on my birthday. What the hell am I going to watch this year?
SEABISCUIT...Not just a great movie, but a great AMERICAN movie. This is what Hollywood is capable of accomplishing. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN is unfortunately what they choose to do as well.
AMERICAN SPLENDOR...This is the kind of quirky comedy that plays right into my sensibilities.
MY VOYAGE TO ITALY...Professor Martin Scorsese's ongoing film tutorial continues with this fascinating overview of Italian cinema
SPIDERMAN 2...I go along with the majority on this one. Well done, Sam Raimi. You redeemed yourself from the first.
TALK TO HER...Pedro Almodovar is a freakin' genius.
KILL BILL-Indeed, a blast from both barrels, parts one and two and Uma Thurman gave the best female performance I saw this year. But honestly, if we're all done worshipping at the Altar of Tarantino, did this REALLY need to be a two part movie?
HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT...A really sleeper from France. If Audrey Tatou annoys you with her coquettish takes, her big brown doll eyes and silly little grin, watch this movie. She plays the same character...only in a psychotically. She'll give you the creeps. A nice little thriller.
CITY OF GOD... The last film I saw in 2004 was this incredible Brazilian gang film. Similar to MEAN STREETS but with a voice all of its own, this was superb.
SIDEWAYS...Alexander Payne, you've won my heart. This spoke to me as no other movie has in a long, long time. When Paul Giamatti's character was told his book wasn't being published, my heart sank along with his. Maybe it just hit so close to home. And the best writing this year had to be Virginia Madsen's speech about the nature of wine. Fan-fucking-tastic.

and THE NUMBER ONE MOVIE I SAW IN 2004

HERO...This is brilliant filmmaking on every level. Yimou Zhang just leaps into Heavens with this absolute masterpiece. I really wanted to see this in the theater, but it kept eluding me for one reason or another. Finally, on the same week it was released on DVD, I opted to catch it at a second run theater here in Portland called the Laurelhurst. I'm so glad I chose wisely for a change. Now, maybe the auditoriums in this theater are nothing more than screening room size, but I was so glad I saw it in this setting, no more than three rows back from the screen. Because I am a dork of the highest order, I stopped at Trader Joe's and picked a little packet of sushi and a beverage to enjoy while watching the movie. (The Laurelhurst serves pizza and beer as well, but I wanted sushi, damn it. They also have little tables to place your food. Nice.) Anyway, I sat back and let this picture overwhelm me. It took me to another time, another place, another state of being and swept me away as movies are supposed to do. The artists in front and behind the cameras worked their magic on me and reminded me, once again, why the hell film so much to me in my life.

As for 2005, I'd like to say I'm going to see nothing but great movies but I know that's not going to happen. Sometimes a little crap make the cream rise to the top...Uh, maybe I should re-phrase that... Perhaps what's best is improve my film diet. Try not to consume as much junk. A little fast food is okay now and then, but not everyday certainly. Just to prove my heart is in the right place, I started out the year on the right note. On New Year's Day, I saw a revival of Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL at Portland's Cinema 21.

But then again...as I type these words, THE POSTMAN with Kevin Costner is taping on my VCR.

Happy New Year.