#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! THE BOX SAYS... 'Recently discovered CAMP CLASSIC! UNRELEASED for 25 YEARS!' ..Yeah, there was a reason for that delay 🙂 I wonder how much those critics were paid, or how much they drank before the screening??? ..It's a classic alright 😉
Anyone else have this release? This is one of those rare times where
the box and packaging is more exciting and impressive that the contents!
HOW CAN A FILM, that gives us great images like the one above, get it so wrong??? I
have said here many times, it almost seems that the budget and
imagination needed for the creation of the film, was diverted into the
publicity. The press and lobby photographs,
were printed on hi quality colour paper, the photographer who took
them, knew what he was doing.
THERE ARE SOME EXCELLENT photographs, the
press kit was pretty lush-deluxe too! In 1976, I was at a meeting where a
short promo reel was screened... it was made up entirely of the 'My
grand father was a grave digger' scene. Cushing (MacGregor) was playing
his character's grandfather, a young boy, actor Robert Edwards, played
Cushing in a wonderfully atmospheric scene. Horse drawn hearse, the
black feather plumes, wind howling... 'It took 40 years to bury my
grandfather! For a grave digger that is tragic!....' The tragedy is the
premise of Cushing playing a retired Horror film actor, holed up in a
creepy castle, playing the 'I could really be a vampire' card, was a
good idea. The props department even used actual press photographs of
Peter from his own films, to add back story evidence of MacGregor's
career on the screen.
THIS FILM PROBABLY gets more interest here at PCAS than it rightly deserves, and that is
probably because, we don't know WHY Cushing signed on the line. There have been well documented instances in the past, where Cushing, questioned details in script, The Brides of Dracula and The Mummy for example, I would think he would have almost certainly declined to be
involved with a film like this in his earlier years. And, I don't think we can lay the blame
at the director shooting extra scenes in PC's absence or an editor
putting a spin on the footage. I have never seen a full shooting script
for Tender / Tendre Dracula.. but I am pretty sure the scene of PC's
dashing out some buttock slapping (!!) to cast member Miou -Miou, was down in black and white, even if it was on a yellow or pink
rewrite page !
WE ASKED YOU AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE what YOUR opinion and thoughts on the film were. Here are some of your comments from the post at the page:
S. ALEXANDER: 'A venture that Peter would have declined to be involved with in his earlier years. Remember his initial objections and reluctance over 'The Brides of Dracula'? Obvioulsly the finished cut differed from the scripted scenes too.'
R.JOYCE: 'I to have confess...it's the only Cushing movie I can't sit through. Beautiful box art. But it's a disjointed, pseudo erotic flick. Er, not even that erotic, actually'.
WE ASKED YOU AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE what YOUR opinion and thoughts on the film were. Here are some of your comments from the post at the page:
S. ALEXANDER: 'A venture that Peter would have declined to be involved with in his earlier years. Remember his initial objections and reluctance over 'The Brides of Dracula'? Obvioulsly the finished cut differed from the scripted scenes too.'
R.JOYCE: 'I to have confess...it's the only Cushing movie I can't sit through. Beautiful box art. But it's a disjointed, pseudo erotic flick. Er, not even that erotic, actually'.
J.PLAYER: 'I
watched it there last year...everytime I thought that I couldn't
believe I was watching that crap and was ready tonight it down,
something would happen that made me want to keep going to see how it
would end up!'
R.SMITH: I
have a fondness for films like this that are so bad they're not even
funny, just jaw dropping exercises in disbelief! Similar to the Bond
knock-offs of Lindsay Shonteff (you have to see these to believe their
creative ineptitude) I do feel there's a real need to see TENDER DRACULA on Blu-ray someday. The version I have on VHS is pretty shabby.
G.GRANT: I watched this on YouTube a few years ago😱It was really bad. I mean it had novelty value, because Mr Cushing was in it. But just awful
T.TUTTLE: I got 20 minutes into it and had to stop! My pain threshold wasn't high enough to make it!
OUR FULL FEATURE AND GALLERY ON TENDRE DRACULA
CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING : HERE
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