HERE IS A TWO PART POST that was shared on the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE today. There were some very interesting comments and opinions, which you can contribute to and read by just CLICKING HERE!
#CHRISTOPHERLEE
SATURDAY! . . . PART ONE: Here's an interesting quote from the late
Christopher Lee, taken from an interview with the Daily Telegraph in
2015. It's the first time I can recall, reading a quote from Lee where
he compares his performance as DRACULA to other actors who played the
role. This was also at a time when the mention of the 'D' word, was
taboo in interviews, certainly interviews with the press. Lee ends this
interview with the request, ' “Please don’t describe
me in your article as a ‘horror legend’. I moved on from that.” . .
.Was Lee's performance as the Count, just too good, he made a role from
which he could not escape.. and that is why he became typecast? Or was
it really about the attraction of the films were then pushing
boundaries, in colour, blood, lust and horror, and that was the real
attraction? What do you think?
#CHRISTOPHERLEE
SATURDAY! PART TWO : As we have read in the previous post today and
along with your very interest comments and opinions.. the role of
Dracula was indeed one of Christopher Lee's finest. He often said, that
he made too many, should have quit playing the Count earlier. Budgets
and payments that should have been higher, better scripts . . he also
mentioned these factors too. Personally, I never tired of watching any
film that had Lee as Dracula and whatever he feelings were later about
the role, he could not dismiss the fact, it was always good, Very good.
For any actor, after a career as long as his indeed his was, in a
business so fickle and unpredictable ...that has to be, for this
actor... a sure victory?
"It had never been played properly before that." It's quotes like that which contributed to my adoration and admiration of Christopher Lee almost completely waning off. Nothing will ever change the fact that, as you say in the article, Lee was always good -- very good. Yes, he was. He's still my favourite Count Dracula, without question. But the man apparently had enough ego for 10 people. And the more I read him talking down about his horror roles, Dracula especially, and all the complaining about not enough this, too much that, "I moved on from that" -- which is pretty much 180 degrees polar opposite to Peter Cushing's public attitude about the same thing (he too may have held some resentment, but he certainly went out of his way not to come across like he did) -- the less I find myself enjoying his performances. I don't think Lee's interpretation of Dracula was any more "proper" than Bela Lugosi's, and his saying that is kind of a spoiled slap in the face to everyone else, don't you think? I still love Lee and to this day, I will watch ANYTHING if he's in it. But his open bitterness towards the very thing which made him legendary is why Peter Cushing will forever by my favourite, and not Lee.
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