REMEMBERING:
Melissa Stribling who was born today November 7th 1927. Stribling
appeared in just the one film with Peter Cushing...but boy did she pick
the right one! She also got to play in one of Hammer films most iconic
scenes in their 1958 'Dracula', where Christopher Lee's Count, in the
dead of night, visits her home and..without a word.. seduces her. The
scene is so super charged with sexual tension, it almost crackles off
the screen and as a result got the scissors treatment from the censors
at the time. In 2013, in Hammer's restored print the exorcised footage
was replaced, giving us the full picture of what Director Terence
Fisher, Stribling and Lee had originally intended and created.
I've
read in several reviews of 'Dracula' both from the time of the films'
release in 58 and in more recent times, that Stribling was a curious
choice for the role of Mina Holmwood, that compared to the likes of
Valerie Gaunt and other Hammer actresses,
even though she was only in early 30's when she appeared in Dracula,
many thought her slightly ordinary and plain. I totally disagree...but
if that was the case, I can't help thinking that, director Fisher's
choice in Stribling was intentional. That subtext in the story of Arthur
Holmwood's wife being frustrated and bored, suddenly being charmed and
seduced by the exotic and erotic Count, Stribling was...the perfect
choice.
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