OCCASIONALLY, photographs pop up or are found on contact sheets from #PeterCushing films, that just by the random or weirdness of their content, when posted and shared, they cause a bit of a chorus of head-scratching or sometimes, stunned silence. The one above, has caused quite a rash of more questions than answers. Not that long ago, a small faded postage stamp sized exposure on a 50 year old publicity stills contact sheet I spotted, gave the answer to a plot hole, that had teased fans of #Hammerfilms, 'Dracula AD 1972' for decades.
ONE OF THE MANY entertaining plot points in this film is, all the pop picking, trendy youngsters in the film, fall victim to the bite of 'the Count', and we have a nice, wrap to their fate, with a shot of them either dead, dying or staked, a good few years before the trend of the 'teen slasher' movies, that would soon by the dying diet of most horror films of the late 70's and eighties. All the victims get gnarled and knocked off in style. But, we get kinda cheated in the case of actor, Phillip Miller's role of Bob, boy-friend of Stephanie Beacham's character, Jessica Van Helsing. We are aware in a reveal of Bob having been pecked and made part of the Vamp klan, during a set up scene with Johnny Alucard and Jessica at the night club.
FULL UNCUT INTERVIEW with #CAROLINEMUNRO from 2000 RIGHT HERE!
BUT SHORTLY AFTER, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing stumbles upon him, dead and life-less in among the tombstones of St Bartov's cemetery. How he got there and what finished him off, was a mystery and a bit of whimp wrap. Hardly fast forwarding, but decades later, that little exposure on that very contact sheet, reveals all. An image of Bob, holding his hands to the sun and covering his face, in the cemetery where Van Helsing found him, points and hints to, Bob got fried in the sun... how and when, we may never know. So feast your eyes on the colour contact sheet exposure, at the top of this page.
1970'S ACTRESS AND SINGER, Marsha Hunt is being laid upon the altar, by Christopher Lee, either having already been bitten or ..about to. This shot if it was ever filmed would have been very similar to the fate that almost fell Van Helsing grand-daughter Jessica, same location, same altar. It's hard to know which was filmed first, but if this was shot with Hunt, Beacham one the day and Hunt's footage hit the floor, instead meeting her end, by being bitten standing, in the church... ahem.. similar to Laura Bellows, as played by Caroline Munro. If the shot was filmed and included in the film, that would have made all three actress, spending sometime on THAT altar! I know, Hammer loved to get their monies worth out of props, costumes and sets, but that may have been going a bit tooooo far, maybe?
ABOVE : DIRECTOR Alan Gibson and production designer Don Mingaye on THEIR knees at the altar at the set of 'Dracula AD 1972
WEEK, I GUESS script writer Don Houghton, was maybe running out of ideas, tough with all that action with Dracula taking place in Christopher Lee's ONE location in this film... INSIDE the desecrated church of St Bartolph's! If this shot was never taken, then maybe it was the result of a set up by the film's studio publicity photographer George Whitear. Maybe, one day will will find out? Over at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page this pic has certainly got friends and followers thinking though . . 😏
TRIVIA:
IMDB credits 'a picture of Peter Cushing's recently deceased wife
Helen Cushing can be seen on the desk in Professor Lorrimer Van
Helsing's study'. . . it ain't her at all, it is a random photograph
form a photo library, not Helen Cushing. At the the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page we are asking, Can you name the film where
Helen Cushing's photograph WAS used???
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