#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY! 😀
Here is a NICE freebie! Today is Frankenstein Friday here at the PCASUK
Facebook Fan Page AND and at our website... We have a quite a few NEW
FREE TOP PRIZE competitions coming up soon and what better way to pave
the way, to 'giving goodies, blu rays and stuffs away..' than another
free contact print, from a fav Peter Cushing Hammer film.
THIS SCENE with Peter Cushing from 'Frankenstein
Must Be Destroyed' where these rare and hi res contact prints /
photographs were taken, was VOTED your favourite Peter Cushing
Frankenstein Scene, a few years ago...
ABOVE are TWO very large exposures, featuring Peter as Baron
Frankenstein in that scene... unwater-marked, in hi res and ready for
you to copy, edit and add to your digital collection OR print off and
maybe frame... I know many of you have done that before😉What a great way to end the week and start the weekend.. Thank FRANK it's Friday 😀 Have fun 😄 - Marcus
WHAT WAS IT LIKE to be Christopher Lee? Well, if you watch this short,
raw, unedited footage from a candid chat with Lee back in 2001, you get
an idea! Being in the spotlight certainly exposes you to everyone and it
seems, everyone wanted something! The press, weird attention, fans,
critics and . . . babies? Poor Christopher got it all. Lots to hear and
see here. Certainly worth your attention, if you ever wondered why Sir
Christopher could be a little blunt or guarded . . now you KNOW why . .
THE ABOVE IS FOR TERI SPEIRS in Grand Junction, CO US, here is a request she made
yesterday at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE on Christopher Lee's Birthday, but we just didn't have time to
fit in! Teri wanted anything that was from the 'staking scene' in
Hammer films, Dracula Has Risen from The Grave' ... but if possible an
'on-set' shot, but not a dvd frame or press photograph 😩😫😂Ok, well I think this fits the bill! It's from a contact sheet, so never published, a little grainy, but look at THAT face! 😮 Hope this does the job, Teri - Marcusl
#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY! RETURNS! The year 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the publishing of
Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, and even though we make a Cushing
Frankenstein themed post most weeks, today sees the return of one of
Peter Cushing's most popular characters, to it's weekly spot. To MARK
the Frankenstein Anniversary in the remaining month of 2018 and the
return our Baron Friday Themed posts, here is an EXCELLENT short video,
sent to us by our good friend and regular supporter of the PCAS sites,
ANDY WINWARD, a master of the short video... and starring his very cute
and talented daughter. Please give yourself a 'Friday Treat' and his
short video a watch!
OUR FIRST photo for our return of #FrankensteinFriday
today... Peter Cushing on set, boom over-head at the ready, camera
waiting to roll in a rare unpublished photograph from a contact sheet of
'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' at Elstree film studios. In just over 7
years time, he would be back, on the spot at this studio, appearing as
Grand Moff Tarkin in 'Star Wars'. . .
I
LOVE press books and ad campaigns... the 'Must Be Destroyed' newspaper
ads are some of my favs of the whole Hammer Frankenstein series! 😀
IT'S WELL DONE AND CONGRATULATIONS to our FIVE WINNERS, each bagging a copy of
Warner Brothers stunning Remastered blu ray of The Satanic Rites of
Dracula. Having seen this film sooo many times on dodgy dvd's and VHS
recordings, on this blu ray, it becomes an almost completely different
film...one reason is no doubt, because I can SEE everything sooo
clearly! And the soundtrack score, is magic!
AGAIN MANY THANKS, to everyone
at Warner Bros who were so generous and helpful...and to everyone, the many, many who entered! I really do wish you could ALL win 🙂 BUT more competitions to come NEXT week, so it's never too late 😉
Just a reminder that Warner's blu ray is now OUT and PROWLING ... and
waiting for you to purchase it and SHOCK you at home, with it's amazing
remastered quality 🙂 Wanna order or purchase: JUST CLICK HERE!
AS PROMISED ON at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE today, above is a RARE HI RES press office CONTACT SHEET from 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' featuring both Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and the rather worryingProfessor Julian Keeley, played by the excellent Freddie Jones! A thank you, to everyone who entered the competition over the past two weeks, who may also be collectors. This one is unwatermarked, will download and print off quite large and in super quality! ENJOY!
#CUSHINGTUESDAYTOUGHY! WHO is this with Christopher Lee and WHICH Hammer Dracula film, was this
image used to promote?? We'll have the ANSWER here on Friday 🙂 Feel free to post your answer and join in the fun over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE have fun 😉 MEANWHILE below is LAST WEEK'S TOUGHY answer! - Marcus
ABOVE: DON'T FORGET to enter our DRACULA AD 1972 Warner Brothers REMASTERED BLU RAY competition! It's LIVE and OPEN until NOVEMBER 14th 2018!
AND SO, HERE WE ARE with another Saturday, which for THIS website, means something CHRISTOPHER LEE connected, to meet your #ChristopherLeeSaturday shopping list!! LAST WEEK we started our short season of CHRISTOPHER LEE: THE HAMMER DRACULA FLICKS: THE MOMENTS WE LOVE, and dipped into 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' and 'Scars Of Dracula', and very popular they were too! Thank you! This week, we have PART TWO and another two Hammer Dracula films.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
Last week, I also received a few emails asking, why is a Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, giving so much space to films that AIN'T really anything to do with Mr C? Well, even before Lee passed, we were already making regular space and time, to covering Lee's career, and why? The Official Christopher Lee Fan Club, sort of folded and with that so did any regular official internet presence. Good Lee photographs can be rare and expensive, so no 'official fan' was going to be posting and sharing their goodies. Lee of course made twenty two great films with Peter Cushing, plus he and Peter were very close and long time friends. So, I tested with the posting of Lee material at our now, closed PCAS Facebook Fan Page, and the results were good. On posting the series of rare clips called, THE LAST MEETING where Cushing and Lee worked and met for the last time, it proved there was much interest and many many people who came to PCAS, who wanted to see more from THE LAST MEETING and basically ANYTHING that connected to Christopher Lee.So, as always I give you, what you ask for. AND here it is! This week we are looking at the BITS WE LIKE from another two GREAT Christopher Lee Hammer Dracula films. I hope you like this week's contents!
THE AMAZING CAST:Andrew Keir (Father Shandor), Christopher
Lee (Count Dracula), Francis Matthews (Charles Kent), Barbara Shelley
(Helen Kent), Suzan Farmer (Diana Kent), Charles Tingwell (Alan Kent),
Philip Latham (Klove), Thorley Walters (Ludwig)
THE TERRIFIC PRODUCTION CREW:Director – Terence Fisher, Screenplay – John Sansom, Story – John Elder [Anthony Hinds],
Producer – Anthony Nelson-Keys, Photography – Michael Reed, Music –
James Bernard, Music Supervisor – Philip Martell, Special Effects –
Bowie Films Ltd, Makeup – Roy Ashton, Production Design – Bernard
Robinson. Production Company – Hammer/Seven Arts. UK. 1966.
DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS dramatically opens with the final sequence from Hammer Films 1958 'DRACULA',
showing the spectacular demise of Christopher Lee's Count Dracula at the hands of Peter Cushing's Van
Helsing. This sequence is enclosed in a smoky frame because the earlier
movie was shot in a different aspectic ratio - DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS was one of the few Hammer movie to be shot in 'scope. Little did they know, come the release of the LIONSGATE blu ray of the film, the smokey ratio would cause a few probs, that would how ever be solved.
EVERYONE in this DARKNESS, does a very good job and has their time in the LIGHT!! Maybe the pace of the first half of the film, lays out time, for us to understand the characters and beleive the performances, Something that most Hammer films, hardly ever did, for anyone other than the top layer of performers. CHRISTOPHER LEE as DRACULA, is very good, BUT not quite as feral and rabid as in his first performance.
THE KENT'S trip and their time on the journey finally arriving at CASTLE DRACULA does take a little time . . . it ALL takes time.
DRACULA,PRINCE OF DARKNESS DOES take a little while to get started, but once the the FIRST SPATS of BLOOD start following, director Terence Fisher makes sure the horror pace doesn't stop. Personally, I feel the long fist half of the film without DRACULA, I think was probably caused by several thing, two nothing to do with the script and building tension, more maybe to do with Lee's opinion and resistance to play the Count again for Hammer, and maybe the COST per scene, of actually getting him to do that!
OVERALL IT EMERGES as a fine
sequel to Hammer's first DRACULA / HORROR OF DRACULA. Andrew Keir as Father Sandor makes a
fine character, stepping in as the Vampire Hunter, as Peter Cushing did as Van Helsing, in the previous movie. It's kind of a shame
that Hammer didn't run two series in parallel, one with Dracula against
various savants and one with Van Helsing against various villains, but I
guess Cushing was already quite busy with their FRANKENSTEIN series.
AS FOR MOMENTS WE LIKE . . one of the most remarkable sequence in the film is
the scene where Barbara Shelley is held down on a table, hissing and
writhing, as a stake is hammered into her heart by the dispassionate
priesthood. It is perhaps the most potent image of sexual repression in
all of British horror cinema. Indeed, Dracula - Prince of Darkness,
more than any of the Hammer Draculas, embodies the recurrent image of
sexual repression threatening to emerge to tear Victorian society apart
and its dispassionate elimination by men of reason.
THE TRAVELERS, played by Shelley, Farmer, Matthews and Tingwell are
deliberately set up as representatives of 'English genteel' in order to be
torn apart – the strongest image of this polarity is the turning of the
prim, uptight and anxious Barbara Shelley into a voluptuous vampire,
begging Francis Matthews “Give us a kiss.” The sexual overtones in the
scene where Christopher Lee causes Suzan Farmer to kneel and drink from
the cut he opens with his fingernail in his chest are incredibly vivid.
ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT would have to be Farmers shock and terror, on seeing Lee's Count, unknown to her, standing in the room. Personally, I fond her reaction THE most genuine and terrified reaction I have EVER see. Totally convincing. AND there is of course DRACULA bowing out horribly in the ICY RUNNING WATER . . .
AND WE MUST MENTION Thorley Walters. I have seen some odd comments on blogs and websites, annoyed that Walters doesn't play a very good, RENFIELD. Well, firstly that is because, this isn't the character of Renfield, it's LUDWIG, and second, this is Thorley not Dwight Frye. Take a faff through the flicks featuring vampires, as well as DRACULA and you will often find a suspect individual who isn't called Renfield, BUT does eat FLIES!
OUR SECOND DRACULA FEATURE has several fine moments and a great cast. TASTE also has moments where the story and reasons, do drift and stray from what made the previous Hammer DRACULA's so great. The element that makes TASTE fall short, is the fall out from some of the pre production problems that effected the script and stability of the film. Sadly, we don't get to see Christopher Lee as DRACULA, as many times as we should, and when we DO it's those preproduction issues, that make his presence wobble . .
THE CAST: Geoffrey Keen (William Hargood), Linda Hayden (Alice Hargood), Anthony Corlan (Paul Paxton), Christopher Lee (Count Dracula), John Carson (Jonathan Secker), Peter Sallis (Samuel Paxton), Ralph Bates (Lord Courtley), Isla Blair (Lucy Paxton), Martin Jarvis (Jeremy Secker), Gwen Watford (Martha Hargood), Roy Kinnear (Weller), Michael Ripper (Cobb)
ABOVE: A RARE CONTACT SHEET of photographs from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA taken on set by the production photographer
PRODUCTION CREW: Director: Peter Sasdy, Screenplay: John Elder [Anthony Hinds], Producer: Aida Young, Photography: Arthur Grant, Music: James Bernard, Music Supervisor: Philip Martell, Special Effects: Brian Johncock, Makeup: Gerry Fletcher, Art Direction: Scott MacGregor. Production Company: Hammer.
SYNOPSYS: Three Victorian men who lead upstanding and moralistic lives, sneak out to a brothel on the pretext of conducting charity work. Their pleasure is interrupted by the libertine Lord Courtley who offers to show them far greater pleasures. He takes them to an antique shop where he gets them to purchase Dracula’s cape, signet ring and a vial of his powdered blood. Courtley conducts a ceremony in an abandoned church. But when he asks the men to drink the blood, they are disgusted. Drinking it himself, he collapses. The men kick and beat Courtley to death and then flee the scene. But Courtley’s spilt blood revives Dracula who swears vengeance on the other men for killing his disciple. Dracula then seduces each of the men’s children, making them vampires and turning them against their fathers.
ABOVE ANOTHER RARELYseen never shared, CONTACT SHEET from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
was the fifth of the Hammer Dracula films and by for many fans, it was the last Hammer Dracula worth seeing. It saw the entry of a promising
new director Peter Sasdy. A Hungarian immigrant, Sasdy had come
from noted tv work during the 1960s, including episodes of the sf
anthology series Out of the Unknown (1956-71) and the acclaimed BBC
adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1970). The problem with Taste the Blood of Dracula
is, like many it doesn’t always work – as usual with the Hammer Dracula sequels, the
script has difficulty coming up with worthwhile motivation for Dracula.
The vengeance theme that drives the story, isn't well connected – it does seem overly generous of
Dracula to swear vengeance for Ralph Bates's Courtley’s murder, having not even MET
Courtley!
CONSIDERING that Courtley’s death was necessary for him to
be resurrected it does seem slightly irrational of Dracula to then
swear vengeance on Courtley’s murderers. Further it makes Taste the Blood of Dracula
into a Hammer Dracula, that is something really different from the other Hammer Drac films. It now becomes a film about vengeance rather
than one about vampirism. Throughout the focus is on Dracula corrupting
the children and turning them against their parents and the usual
business of blood-letting hardly even figures at all.
BUT AGAIN, LIKE ALL the Hammer Dracula films that followed the 1958 production, it's MOMENTS and VISUALS that make the films watching. I have selected several of these moments in our GIFS and images, of the moments that worked for me personally. IF you have seen either of these films, MAYBE you would like to send me an email, about your thoughts and opinions..and I will ADD THEM to this feature, as they arrive. I hope you have enjoyed our latest DOUBLE BILL of Hammer Dracula Flicks. We have just one MORE DOUBLE next week... Please JOIN US then!
