Dracula (1958)

Dracula (aka Horror of Dracula) (Terence Fisher, 1958) Jimmy Sangster's screenplay for the initial Hammer version of Dracula starts out much as Bram Stoker did—with an entry in the diary of Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen). Castle Dracula (in Klausenburg) is a good deal cleaner than previous domiciles (no cobwebs, no dust, but then the Count (Christopher Lee) does state his housekeeper is "away"), although it does an ever-present atmosphere of mist—one can even see Jonathan Harker's breath in his quarters.

 

But, Harker is not there to sell the place (as in the novel and so many versions). He announces that he is pleased to be accepted as the castle's "librarian" but he writes that he wants to "stop his reign of terror forever." You'd think, then, that he'd be a bit more wise to night-gowned beauties asking for help in the middle of the night, or that he might have come with holy water or a crucifix or a bible or some garlic of something. Or to choose his priorities on whom to stake a bit more wisely. 

Within days after Harker's arrival, Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) arrives at the Klausenburg Inn inquiring about Harker, and is stonewalled until he goes up to the castle. Upon entering the grounds, he sees a coach leaving in a big hurry, and investigating further, he finds two coffins in the basement, one holding a staked vampire woman turned old with age, and in the other, Jonathan Harker. Van Helsing makes quick work of him with a stake through his heart.

Returning to Karlstadt (Karlstadt?), Van Helsing informs the family of Harker's fiancee, Lucy (Carol Marsh), of the young man's death. Lucy has taken ill...with anemia...and her brother Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and his wife Mina (Melissa Stribling), who rebuff the doctor despite his reputation as "a very eminent man." They choose to delay telling her the terrible news until she recovers. There's not much chance of that, as it turns out.

Van Helsing may be "very eminent" (as Stoker described him as a philosopher a "metaphysician") but he seems to have a weird specialty. We seem him dictating his thoughts on vampirism, and it gives us a veritable "Vampire Rulebook" for this film's iteration of the myth. He tells us that vampires are allergic to light (and that sunlight is fatal), that vampires are "repelled" by the odor of garlic, that the "power of the crucifix symbolizing the power of good over evil, protects the human being but exposes the vampire or victim when in advanced stages."

"Victims consciously detest being dominated by a vampirism but are unable to relinquish the practice, similar to addiction to drugs. Ultimately, death results from loss of blood, but, unlike normal death, no peace manifests itself for they enter into the fearful state of the Undead." Changing into bats or wolves is dismissed later as "a common fallacy." It's in the Stoker, but sometimes a vampire's weakness is actually budgetary.

That also may be why so many of the characters from the Stoker novel are missing (as they are in the stage play), or switched out. Lucy Winestra and Mina Murray are transferred to a more nuclear Holmwood family, Quincey Morris is sent to a farm, and Dr. John Seward's presence is minimal and there's no Renfield or mention of an asylum. Then, again, there's no transcontinental travel, either. Everybody stays on the continent. Stoker's novel is boiled down to the minimal, but in a different way than the Hamilton Deane/John L. Baldeston play (which was copyrighted and held by Universal). And, of course, it being Hammer, there are bit-pieces for character actors, some of which are rather comic.

The treatment of the Count is a bit different. Christopher Lee has 16 lines, all of them in the first fifteen minutes. The rest of the time, he is silent and menacing, baring his fangs and growling—it IS difficult to deliver dialogue when you're slurshing through fangs. There is no pretense that he is a nobleman, or even having the manners of a member of the upper class. He is a monster, a hunter, with no motivations other than to feed. And his close-ups are animalistic, with reddened eyes, wolfish fangs and without the thought of even wiping his mouth to take away the blood of his victims. But, despite that, there is a carnality to him that enflames the ladies (it is Hammer, after all) and makes them toss garlic, doff crucifixes and open balcony doors in lustful invitation to him.

There is also an overt physicality to this Dracula, as well, no doubt owing to the lack of dialogue. During the first confrontation between Harker and Dracula, Lee leaps over a large dining room table to attack Harker, at one point, running up stairs three at a time to make an escape, and, during the climactic confrontation, Van Helsing—or Cushing's stunt-double—goes full-on Douglas Fairbanks to rip down the drapes to let in the sun-light in order to reduce Dracula to ash. Talk about leaving a carbon foot-print!

Lee is quite amazing in the movie and makes a stark contrast to the cool, collected Cushing, but, the most remarkable performance belongs to Carol Marsh as the poor, unfortunate Lucy, who exhibits a wily lust before she is dispatched and then, abject terror when she is stopped from attacking her brother-in-law by a relentless Van Helsing (Marsh was also noticeable as "Rose" in Brighton Rock). She's quite amazing, especially considering the performances of Lee and Cushing, which could overshadow anyone, and which are considered—even without the benefits of vampirism—immortal.

Brighton Rock (1948)

Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1948) Brighton is a seaside resort town on England's southern coast, a holiday spot for the working class, and the subject of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock," a story of the dark side that can infest a tourist attraction, where money can be loosened in many ways and in great amounts, which would attract the criminal element in the same amounts that they attract the punters.

When a film was made of Graham Greene's novel, the resort was, understandably, nervous, preventing the film-makers from shooting at the local racetracks, and to use hidden cameras during the crowd scenes on location. Oh. And there was enough of a nervousness that a calming opening card is used:

"Brighton today is a large, jolly, friendly seaside town in Sussex, exactly one hour's journey from London. But in the years between the two wars, behind the Regency terraces and crowded beaches, there was another Brighton of dark alleyways and festering slums. From here, the poison of crime and violence and gang warfare began to spread, until the challenge was taken up by the Police. This is a story of that other Brighton - now happily no more."

Quite happily. The film takes place in 1935—Greene had written a previous book "A Gun For Sale" and the events of that one are a bit of prologue for Brighton Rock, involving the death of the gangster Kite after a newspaper article has exposed the corruption involving slots and race-tracks and the resulting turf wars that have blighted Brighton. Kite's gang is now run by by a 17 year old tough and psychopath named "Pinkie" Brown (played by a 24 year old Richard Attenborough, with the deadest eyes in the world). And the film begins with a bit of news about a contest with lots of potential winners. They never gave any thought to anybody losing.

The Daily Messenger newspaper arrives at the boarding house populated by the Kite gang with news of a promotional contest; "Kolley Kibber" is coming to Brighton. A promotional stunt, a representative from the paper comes to town distributing cards to various businesses that lucky patrons can turn in for cash rewards...and the first person who finds the person posing as "Kolley Kibber" and says "You are Kolley Kibber and I claim the Daily Messenger prize" you win a bigger more desirable prize. So who does the messenger send out to be "Kolley Kibber?" Reporter Fred Hale (Alan Wheatley), the one who broke the story on the Kite gang. I suppose, at least, they didn't also fasten a target to his back, but, really, that's like sending Salman Rushdie on a book-tour to Iran.

But, it's an opportunity for the Kite Gang, now under Pinkie's control, to take revenge. After all, as one of the mob says "Pinkie loved Kite and Kite trusted Fred. And if Fred hadn'ta written that paragraph about slot machines Kite would've been alive now." Pinkie is informed of the contest and it's his intention to kill the reporter.

It isn't long before Hale arrives in Brighton, before he realizes he's being hunted. Trying to blend in with the seaside visitors, he runs into a theater performer Ida Arnold (Hermione Baddeley) and when he ends up dead, she informs the local constabulary that the reporter's death is more than suspicious, but when they rule that the man died of an apparent heart attack, she begins her own amateur sleuthing.

It becomes a cat-and-mouse game as Ida busy-bodies her way into the investigation, while Pinkie tries to cover his tracks, using one of the gang to distribute the cards to confuse the police. But, one of the cards is left at a restaurant where a waitress (Carol Marsh) can identify who left it. Pinkie chats up the girl, asking her out, but when he finds out she can identify the accomplice, he starts a plan to kill the man. And, if anybody gets suspicious, he'll marry the waitress to keep her from testifying against him in court. 

It's an odd combination of an Agatha Christie-like amateur against the most vicious of sociopaths—Miss Marple against Hannibal Lecter—and the Boulting Brothers production team construct it in the manner of a Hitchcock-like stylist, contrasting the most innocent of local color and injecting pure menace into it. Greene was the most Catholic of writers, adept at creating angels and devils, and in Pinkie, he created a terrifying monster with savage intent and no remorse, a wolf among sheep (and a teenager!). Although the film ends with a note of deluded sanctity—Greene has a wonderful phrase "You or I cannot fathom the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God"—even Greene didn't believe in it, only providing a note of hope to get past Britain's supervisory boards.

"You asked me to make a record of me voice. Well, here it is. What you want me to say is 'I love you.'
Here's the truth. I hate you, you little slut. You make me sick."

And Attenborough creates a memorable villain, contained and malicious without a thread of decency, making one think that the sympathetic, cherubic characters he'd play for the rest of his life may have been some form of atonement.