HORROR BRITÁNICO - Tarjeta #38 - Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde - ASESINO

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BRITISH HORROR COLLECTION - Individual Card from Unstoppable Cards 2017. The British Horror Collection features images from a great many classic British Horror Movies: BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB; LUST FOR A VAMPIRE; TO THE DEVIL... A DAUGHTER; SCARS OF DRACULA; CIRCUS OF FEAR (released as "PSYCHO-CIRCUS" in the USA); HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN; HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM ; DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE; I, MONSTER; KONGA! Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is a 1971 British film starring Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, and James Villiers. This was director Seth Holt's final film, and was loosely adapted from Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars . The film was released as the support feature to Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde . Another film based on Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars , The Awakening , was released in 1980.

An expedition led by Professor Fuchs (Keir) locates the unmarked tomb of Tera (Leon) an evil Egyptian queen. A cabal of priests drugged her into a state of suspended animation and buried all of her evil relics with her. Fuchs is obsessed with Tera and takes her mummy and sarcophagus back to England, where he secretly recreates her tomb under his house. For days "before her birthday," his daughter Margaret (also Leon) - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Tera and was born at the instant they recited her name - has recurring nightmares. Fuchs gives her the old queen's ring and tells her to "wear it always." Of course, this only makes matters worse. Queen Tera's evil power begins to tempt Margaret, as she learns how she's feared by her father's former colleagues.

Margaret notices a man lurking in the vacant building across the street. He is Corbeck (Villiers), an expedition member who's now her father's rival. Corbeck wants to restore Tera to life and he persuades Margaret to help him gather the missing relics. The problem is, each time one is given up the person who'd held it dies. When they have all the relics, Corbeck, Margaret and Fuchs begin the ancient ritual to reawaken Tera. At the last moment Fuchs learns that the queen's revival will mean Margaret's death. Together Fuchs and Margaret overpower and kill Corbeck, as the house quakes above them. Queen Tera awakens and kills Fuchs, but not before Margaret stabs her. Margaret and Tera are grappling over an ancient dagger when the house finally collapses on them.

Later in the hospital, we see a woman whose face is wrapped in bandages. We're told she's the sole survivor, and that all the others in the Professor's basement were "crushed beyond recognition." The bandaged woman slowly opens her eyes and struggles to speak. But who is she, exactly - Margaret Fuchs or Queen Tera?

Production

Besides providing a rare leading role for Valerie Leon, the film is notable for its troubled production. Peter Cushing was cast in the film and completed one day's filming before leaving the production after his wife was diagnosed with emphysema. Cushing was replaced by Andrew Keir. The R1 DVD of the film released in the United States by Anchor Bay Entertainment contains still photographs of Cushing's day on the production. Director Seth Holt died of a heart attack five weeks into the six-week shoot, collapsing into cast member Aubrey Morris's arms and dying on set. Michael Carreras directed the final week's filming.

According to the book Hammer, House of Horror: Behind the Screams by Howard Maxford, the budget for the film was £200,000.

The film was shot at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.

Cast
  • Andrew Keir as Julian Fuchs

  • Valerie Leon as Margaret Fuchs/Queen Tera

  • James Villiers as Corbeck

  • Hugh Burden as Geoffrey Dandridge

  • George Coulouris as Berigan

  • Mark Edwards as Tod Browning

  • Rosalie Crutchley as Helen Dickerson

  • Aubrey Morris as Doctor Putnam

  • David Markham as Doctor Burgess

  • Joan Young as Mrs. Caporal

  • James Cossins as Older Male Nurse

  • David Jackson as Young Male Nurse

Critical reception

AllMovie's review of the film was favourable, commending its "glamorous style" and "creepy atmosphere". Blood from the Mummy's Tomb currently holds an average three star rating (5.8/10) on IMDb.

Lust For a Vampire (also known as Love for a Vampire or To Love a Vampire (the latter title was used on American television)) is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Yutte Stensgaard, Michael Johnston and Barbara Jefford. It was given an R rating in the United States for some violence, gore, strong adult content, and nudity. It is the second film in the so-called Karnstein Trilogy loosely based on the J. Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla . It was preceded by The Vampire Lovers (1970) and followed by Twins of Evil (1971). The three films do not form a chronological development, but use the Karnstein family as the source of the vampiric threat and were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes.

Production of Lust For a Vampire began not long after the release of The Vampire Lovers .

The film has a cult following although some Hammer Horror fans have accused it of being overly camp and silly. Its most noted scene shows Yutte Stensgaard drenched in blood and partially covered by blood-soaked rags, although the filmed scene is not as explicit as that shown in a promotional still.

Other notable actors in the film are Ralph Bates, Harvey Hall (who has a different role in each film of this series), David Healy and popular radio DJ Mike Raven as Count Karnstein. Karnstein's voice, however, is dubbed by an uncredited Valentine Dyall.

Synopsis

In 1830, at a finishing school in Styria, Mircalla arrives as a new student. A visiting author, Richard Lestrange, instantly falls in love with her; but Mircalla is a vampire—Carmilla Karnstein—who has been resurrected by her vampiric family. As students in the school, inhabitants of the nearby village and those who suspect Mircalla is responsible start to die, suspicion turns toward the Karnsteins and their ominous castle.

Cast
  • Yutte Stensgaard as Mircalla Herritzen/Carmilla Karnstein

  • Michael Johnson as Richard LeStrange

  • Ralph Bates as Giles Barton

  • Barbara Jefford as Countess Herritzen

  • Suzanna Leigh as Janet Playfair

  • Helen Christie as Miss Simpson

  • Mike Raven as Count Karnstein

  • Harvey Hall as Inspector Heinrich

  • Michael Brennan as landlord

  • Pippa Steel as Susan Pelley

  • Judy Matheson as Amanda

  • David Healy as Raymond Pelley

  • Jonathan Cecil as Biggs

  • Erik Chitty as Professor Herz

  • Jack Melford as bishop

  • Christopher Neame as Hans

  • Kirsten Lindholm as peasant girl

  • Luan Peters as Trudi

  • Christopher Cunningham as coachman

  • Nick Brimble as 1st villager

  • Sue Longhurst as schoolgirl

Production

Jimmy Sangster replaced Terence Fisher as director at very short notice. Partially due to censorship restraints from the British Board of Film Classification, this film and the next one, Twins of Evil , had increasingly less overt lesbian elements in the story than did The Vampire Lovers . Carmilla, for example, in this film falls in love with a man. Ingrid Pitt was offered the lead but turned it down. Peter Cushing was supposed to have appeared in the film but bowed out to care for his sick wife. Cushing was replaced by Ralph Bates, who described Lust for a Vampire as "one of the worst films ever made". Bates had earlier appeared in Taste the Blood of Dracula with Madeline Smith, who starred in the previous Karnstein film, The Vampire Lovers . The song "Strange Love" was recorded for the film by Tracy, a teen singer from Wembley, produced as a 45" by Bob Barratt.

Critical reception

The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films panned the film, calling it a "cynical and depressing exercise...", noting that "...one can only imagine what Fisher, Cushing and Bray's craftsmen might have made of Gates' reasonably literate draft." However, The Hammer Vampire: British Cult Cinema by Bruce G Hallenbeck, says that "there is much to recommend it. I think it was a very good script," Tudor Gates told me (Hallenbeck), "I think, in a way, it was the better of the first two", with Hallenbeck noting that Gothic atmosphere is "ably evoked".

To the Devil a Daughter is a 1976 horror film, directed by Peter Sykes and produced by Hammer Film Productions and Terra-Filmkunst. It is based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Wheatley, and stars Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Nastassja Kinski and Denholm Elliott. It was the final Hammer production to feature Christopher Lee until The Resident in 2011.

Plot

American expatriate occult writer John Verney (Widmark) is asked by Henry Beddows (Elliot) to pick up his daughter Catherine (Kinski) from London airport. Catherine is a nun with the Children of the Lord, a mysterious heretical order based in Bavaria and founded by the excommunicated Roman Catholic priest Michael Rayner (Lee), where Beddows is allowed to come to visit Catherine only on her birthdays. But after Catherine arrives, Beddows then insists that she stay with Verney. The order, however, under Father Michael, makes all efforts to get Catherine back and uses black magic to stop Verney as he protects her. Verney learns that the order really harbours a group of practicing Satanists, who have prepared Catherine to become an avatar of Astaroth upon her eighteenth birthday. The priest kills Verney's friends, and tries to get Verney. Verney battles the priest and his henchmen and is able to rescue Catherine.

Cast
  • Richard Widmark as John Verney

  • Christopher Lee as Father Michael Rayner

  • Honor Blackman as Anna Fountain

  • Denholm Elliott as Henry Beddows

  • Michael Goodliffe as George De Grass

  • Nastassja Kinski as Catherine Beddows

  • Eva Maria Meineke as Eveline de Grass

  • Anthony Valentine as David Kennedy

  • Derek Francis as The Bishop

  • Izabella Telezynska as Margaret

  • Constantin de Goguel as Kollde

  • Brian Wilde as Black Room Attendant

  • Howard Goorney as Critic

  • Frances de la Tour as Salvation Army Major

  • Petra Peters as Sister Helle

Production

The film was adapted by Christopher Wicking and John Peacock from the 1953 novel of the same name by Dennis Wheatley. It was the second of Wheatley's "black magic" novels to be filmed by Hammer, following The Devil Rides Out , released in 1968. Wheatley disliked the film because it did not follow his novel and he found it obscene. He told Hammer that they were not to make another film from his novels ever again.[citation needed ]

This was Michael Goodliffe's last film, made shortly before he committed suicide while suffering from depression.

Christopher Lee's line "It is not heresy... and I will not recant!" was sampled by heavy metal band White Zombie for the song "Super-Charger Heaven". The movie's title was also referenced by White Zombie in the song "Black Sunshine" ("To the devil, a daughter comes...")

Kinski was fifteen years old at the time of filming her frontal nude scene.

Critical reception

To the Devil... A Daughter has been negatively received by critics, and currently holds a 38% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on eight reviews. Time Out called it "a good deal more interesting than the rest of the possession cycle, but still a disappointment."

Scars of Dracula is a 1970 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker for Hammer Studios.

It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, along with Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Patrick Troughton, and Michael Gwynn. Although disparaged by some critics, the film does restore a few elements of Bram Stoker's original character: the Count is introduced as an "icily charming host;" he has command over nature; and he is seen scaling the walls of his castle. It also gives Lee more to do and say than any other Hammer Dracula film except its first, 1958's Dracula .

This film breaks the continuity maintained through the previous entries in the Hammer Dracula series: whereas at the end of the preceding film, Taste the Blood of Dracula , the Count met his end in a disused church near London, this film opens with a resurrection scene set in Dracula's castle in Transylvania, with no explanation of how his ashes got there. The British Film group EMI took over distribution of the film after Warner Bros. and other American studios refused to distribute it in the U.S. It was also the first of several Hammer films to get an 'R' rating.

Storyline

Prologue

In the opening scene, Dracula's remains are seen lying on a stone plinth in a chamber in his Castle, having been defeated in the previous entry. The chamber can be accessed only through the window, set high in his Castle wall. It is not explained why his remains are there or how he came to die there. Suddenly, a large bat flies in and hovers over the plinth, regurgitating blood onto the vampire's remains. Almost immediately, the remains start to interact and bond with the dripped blood. Within seconds, Count Dracula is once more resurrected...

Plot

Soon afterwards, the local villagers are enraged that yet another young woman has been murdered by the Count. With a priest's blessing, they rise up and set fire to Castle Dracula. However, the Count is safely asleep in his solid stone chamber, When the villagers return home, they find that every single woman and child in the village has been slaughtered in the church by bats.

Falsely accused of rape by the burgomasters's spurned daughter, libertine Paul Carlson flees the Kleinenberg authorities by jumping into a nearby coach which, though driverless, heads off at great speed. He is deposited near Count Dracula's mountaintop castle. Initially he is welcomed by the Count and a beautiful woman named Tania, who later reveals herself to be imprisoned by Dracula as his mistress. Paul later has a liaison with Tania, who concludes their lovemaking by trying to bite his neck. Dracula enters and, casually throwing off Paul's efforts to stop him, savagely stabs Tania to death with a dagger for betraying him. The vampire's servant Klove dismembers her body and dissolves the pieces in a bath of acid. Locked in the room high in the castle, Paul uses tied-together bed curtains to climb down to a lower window, but the line is withdrawn by Klove, and he finds himself in the Count's chamber.

Paul's more sober brother Simon Carlson, and Simon's fiancee Sarah Framsen, come searching for him. A maid at the tavern directs them to the castle and they investigate. Dracula immediately has designs on the lovely Sarah, but Klove, who has fallen in love with the young woman after seeing her photograph amongst Paul's possessions, helps the young couple escape by refusing to do Dracula's bidding and remove Sarah's crucifix. The servant pays a terrible price for his disobedience as he is sadistically burnt by Dracula with a red-hot cutlass.

Simon, having enlisted the help of the village priest, goes back to the castle to look for his brother. However, the priest is attacked and killed by a large bat, and Simon is betrayed by Klove, ending up in the same locked room as his brother. Opening the coffin in the middle of the room, Simon discovers the sleeping Dracula, but the vampire's power reaches through his closed eyelids, causing the young man to collapse before he can take action against the Count.

When Simon recovers, the vampire has vanished. Investigating the room further, he is horrified to find his brother's drained corpse on a spike. Looking out of the window, he is amazed to see the Count running up the wall outside like an insect. With a rope let down by Klove, Simon climbs up the sheer outer wall to go after Sarah, knowing that Dracula may use her as his new mistress.

Sarah, meanwhile, has made her way back to the castle battlements as a storm approaches. Suddenly, she is confronted by Dracula, who this time uses his bat familiar to remove her crucifix. Just then, Klove arrives on the battlements and attacks the Count with the dagger the vampire used to murder Tania, but the servant is hopelessly outmatched by the vampire's inhuman strength and is thrown over the side of the castle.

Simon arrives and throws a heavy iron spike at Dracula with the intention of staking him in the heart. The spike pierces the Count, but on the wrong side of the chest. Unharmed, Dracula raises the spike to impale Simon, but the spike is struck by lightning and Dracula is immediately engulfed in flames. Staggering in agony, the Count collapses and topples over the castle's battlements, falling to the ground far below, where his corpse continues to burn fiercely...

Continuity

A character called Klove had previously appeared in Dracula: Prince of Darkness as played by Philip Latham, in which he served Dracula as a butler. In that film, Klove was shot in the chest by Charles Kent (Francis Matthews) using priest Father Sandor (Andrew Keir)'s hunting rifle. It is never established that the character Klove in this film is meant to be the same character as in the previous film.

Cast
  • Christopher Lee as Count Dracula

  • Dennis Waterman as Simon Carlson

  • Jenny Hanley as Sarah Framsen

  • Christopher Matthews as Paul Carlson

  • Michael Gwynn as The Priest

  • Michael Ripper as Landlord

  • Patrick Troughton as Klove

  • Anouska Hempel as Tania

  • Wendy Hamilton as Julie

  • Bob Todd as Burgomaster

Release

The film was released theatrically by EMI Films and American Continental Films Inc. in Great Britain and the United States respectively.

It was released in some markets on a double feature with The Horror of Frankenstein .

The film was released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2004. This version is currently out of production. It has since been released as part of "The Ultimate Hammer Collection" DVD range. The disc also features a running commentary, with Christopher Lee and director Roy Ward Baker hosted by Marcus Hearn (co-author of The Hammer Story ) . Also revealing are Baker's anecdotes of his arguments with BBFC executive of that time - John Trevelyan. The running time has long been erroneously stated as being up to 96 minutes, usually 95 in most books including the book The Hammer Story . It is in fact short of 92 minutes listed on the Thorn EMI PAL VHS release of the 1980s. Anchor Bay's release has it correctly at 91 minutes.

Reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews upon its release and holds a four star rating (6.2/10) on IMDb.

Circus of Fear (German: Das Rätsel des silbernen Dreieck or Scotland Yard auf heißer Spur , also Circus of Terror ) is a 1966 Anglo-German international co-production thriller film starring Christopher Lee, Suzy Kendall, Cecil Parker, Klaus Kinski and Victor Maddern. The U.S. title was Psycho-Circus . It was based on the novel The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace (1926).

When an armoured car is robbed, in a daring daylight raid on Tower Bridge, one of the gang hides the money in Barberini's Circus. The police also investigate people being murdered by throwing knives. Gregor (Christopher Lee), is a facially scarred lion tamer, one of the many suspects in the case investigated by Scotland Yard's detective Elliot (Leo Genn). His examination of all the clues leads to a final denouement in front of the assembled suspects during a knife-throwing act.

Cast
  • Christopher Lee - Gregor

  • Leo Genn - Elliott

  • Anthony Newlands - Barberini

  • Heinz Drache - Carl

  • Eddi Arent - Eddie

  • Klaus Kinski - Manfred Hart

  • Margaret Lee - Gina

  • Suzy Kendall - Natasha

  • Cecil Parker - Sir John

  • Victor Maddern - Mason

  • Maurice Kaufmann - Mario

  • Lawrence James - Manley

  • Tom Bowman - Jackson

  • Skip Martin - Mr. Big

  • Nosher Powell - Red (as Fred Powell)

  • Gordon Petrie - Man

  • Henry B. Longhurst - Hotel porter

  • Dennis Blakely - Armoured van guard

  • George Fisher - Fourth man

  • Peter Brace - Speedboat man

  • Roy Scammell - Speedboat man

  • Geoff Silk - Security man

  • Keith Peacock - Security man

  • John Carradine - Narrator (uncredited)

Production

The film was partially shot at Billy Smart's Circus .

Release

The film premiered in Germany on 29 April 1966 and in the UK in November 1967.

Reception

The Radio Times wrote, "the stalwart efforts of the cast including Klaus Kinski and Suzy Kendall act as a welcome safety net for the shaky plot" ; while Britmovie called it "fairly suspenseful." 

The Horror of Frankenstein is a 1970 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions that is both a semi-parody and remake of the 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein . It was produced and directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Ralph Bates, Kate O'Mara, Veronica Carlson and David Prowse as the monster. The original music score was composed by Malcolm Williamson.

Plot

Victor Frankenstein, a cold, arrogant and womanizing genius, is angry when his father forbids him to continue his anatomy experiments. He ruthlessly murders his father by sabotaging the old man's shotgun, consequently inheriting the title of Baron von Frankenstein and the family fortune. He uses the money to enter medical school in Vienna, but is forced to return home when he impregnates the daughter of the Dean.

Returning to his own castle, he sets up a laboratory and starts a series of experiments involving the revival of the dead. He eventually builds a composite body from human parts, which he then brings to life. The creature goes on a homicidal rampage until it is accidentally destroyed when a vat where it has been hidden is flooded with acid.

Cast
  • Ralph Bates as Baron Victor Frankenstein

  • Kate O'Mara as Alys

  • Veronica Carlson as Elizabeth Heiss

  • Dennis Price as The Graverobber

  • Jon Finch as Lieutenant Henry Becker

  • Bernard Archard as Professor Heiss

  • Graham James as Wilhelm Kassner

  • James Hayter as Bailiff

  • Joan Rice as Graverobber's wife

  • Stephen Turner as Stephan

  • Neil Wilson as Schoolmaster

  • James Cossins as Dean

  • Glenys O'Brien as Maggie

  • Geoffrey Lumsden as Instructor

  • Chris Lethbridge-Baker as Priest

  • Terry Duggan as First Bandit

  • George Belbin as Baron Frankenstein

  • Hal Jeayes as Woodsman

  • Carol Jeayes as Woodsman's Daughter

  • Michael Goldie as Workman

  • David Prowse as The Monster

Production

The film was entirely financed by EMI.

Credits
  • Produced and directed by Jimmy Sangster

  • Screenplay by Jeremy Burnham and Jimmy Sangster, based on the characters created by Mary Shelley

  • Production manager: Tom Sachs

  • Music by Malcolm Williamson

  • Photography by Moray Grant

  • Art direction: Scott MacGregor

  • Edited by Chris Barnes

  • Make-up by Tom Smith

Cast notes

Ralph Bates was cast as Victor Frankenstein, the role having, five times previously, been played by Peter Cushing. Soon afterwards, he did a take on Dr. Jekyll in the Hammer film Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), which co-starred Martine Beswick.

In the mid-1960s, David Prowse, later famous for his portrayal of Darth Vader in the first Star Wars trilogy, had actually gone into the Hammer offices to express his desire to portray one of their movie monsters, but was rather abruptly dismissed. As several years passed by and he went about building a larger body of work through various film roles, he was eventually approached by Jimmy Sangster about being cast as this revisionist Baron Frankenstein's laboratory creation. Prowse has the distinction of being the only actor to have portrayed Frankenstein's monster in more than one Hammer film: this production marked his first such appearance; the second occasion was Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), where his overall appearance was much more horrifically elaborate. He also appeared briefly in the traditional Frankenstein's monster make-up and costume in a gag appearance in Casino Royale (1967).

Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) is a British-American horror film starring Michael Gough and directed by Arthur Crabtree.

It was the first film in what film critic David Pirie dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy" (the other two being Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom ), with an emphasis on sadism, cruelty and violence (with sexual undertones), in contrast to the supernatural horror of the Hammer films of the same era.

Frustrated thriller writer Edmond Bancroft (Michael Gough) owns a private "black museum" of torture instruments. He hypnotises his assistant Rick (Graham Curnow) to commit increasingly horrific crimes for Bancroft to write about.

Cast
  • Michael Gough as Edmond Bancroft

  • June Cunningham as Joan Berkley

  • Graham Curnow as Rick

  • Shirley Anne Field as Angela Banks

  • Geoffrey Keen as Superintendent Graham

  • Gerald Anderson as Dr. Ballan

  • John Warwick as Inspector Lodge

  • Beatrice Varley as Aggie

  • Austin Trevor as Commissioner Wayne

  • Malou Pantera as Peggy

  • Howard Greene as Tom Rivers

  • Dorinda Stevens as Gail Dunlap

  • Stuart Saunders as Strength-Test Barker

  • Hilda Barry as Woman in Hall

  • Nora Gordon as Woman in Hall

  • Vanda Godsell as Miss Ashton

  • Gerald Case as Bookshop Manager

  • Geoffrey Denton as Sergeant at Jail

  • William Abney as Patrol Constable No. 1

  • Howard Pays as Patrol Constable No. 2

  • Frank Henderson as Medical Examiner

  • Garard Green as Fingerprint Expert

  • Sydney Bromley as Neighbour

  • John Harvey as Man in Bookshop

  • Marianne Stone as Neighbour

Production

Producer Herman Cohen said he got the idea for the film after reading a series of newspaper articles about Scotland Yard's Black Museum. He arranged through a contact to visit the museum, then wrote a treatment and later collaborated with Aben Kandel on the screenplay. Cohen says the use of binoculars as murder weapons, and all the other instruments of death in the film, were based on real-life murder cases.

Half the money for the budget was provided by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy of Anglo-Amalgamated in the UK, the other half from American International Pictures. It was the first movie from AIP in CinemaScope and colour.

The credited producer was Jack Greenwood, but Herman Cohen says this came about to ensure the film qualified for the Eady levy, and in fact, Greenwood was more of an associate producer assisting Cohen.

Cohen wanted to hire Vincent Price for the lead and also considered Orson Welles, but Anglo-Amalgamated pushed for a British actor in the lead, as it would be cheaper, so they decided to use Michael Gough. Arthur Crabtree was hired on the basis of his work on Fiend Without a Face ."The price was right, and the old guy needed a job and I hired him," recalled Cohen. "And he was exactly what I wanted and needed as a good craftsman."

A thirteen-minute prologue featuring hypnotist Emile Franchele and HypnoVista was added for the US release by James H. Nicholson of AIP, who felt the movie needed another gimmick. "We tested it in a few theaters, and the audience went for it like crazy...hokey as it was," recalled Cohen. "It helped make the picture a success, I guess, 'cause people were looking for gimmicks at that time."

Release

The film was given a wide release in the US on a double bill with The Headless Ghost . It was very popular and earned over $1 million in profits. Cohen estimated 72% of the audience for this sort of film was aged between 12 and 26.

Cohen says when the movie was released on television they had to take off the hypnotism prologue "because it does hypnotize some people."

The film was later inducted into the Museum of Modern Art at the behest of Martin Scorsese.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a 1971 British film directed by Roy Ward Baker based on the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film was made by British studio Hammer Film Productions and was their third adaptation of the story after The Ugly Duckling and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll . The film is notable for showing Jekyll transform into a female Hyde; it also incorporates into the plot aspects of the historical Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare cases. The two characters were played by the film's stars, Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick.

A remake of the film was reportedly under consideration as of 2011.

Plot

Dr. Henry Jekyll dedicates his life to the curing of all known illnesses, however his lecherous friend, Professor Robertson, remarks that Jekyll's experiments take so long to actually be discovered, he will no doubt be dead by the time he is able to achieve anything. Haunted by this remark, Jekyll abandons his studies and obsessively begins searching for an elixir of life, using female hormones taken from fresh cadavers supplied by murderers Burke and Hare, reasoning that these hormones will help him to extend his life since women traditionally live longer than men and have stronger systems. In the apartment above Jekyll's lives a family: an elderly mother, her daughter Susan Spencer, and Susan's brother Howard. Susan is attracted to Jekyll, and he too returns her affections, but is too obsessed with his work to make advances. Once mixing the female hormones into a serum and drinking it, it not only has the effect of changing Jekyll's character (for the worse) but also of changing his gender, transforming him into a beautiful but evil woman. Susan becomes jealous when she discovers this mysterious woman, but when she confronts Jekyll, to explain the sudden appearance of his female alter ego, he calls her Mrs. Hyde, saying she is his widowed sister who has come to live with him. Howard, on the other hand, develops a lust for Mrs. Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll soon finds that his serum requires a regular supply of female hormones to maintain its effect, necessitating the killing of young girls. Burke and Hare supply his needs but their criminal activities are uncovered. Burke is lynched by a mob and Hare blinded. The doctor decides to take the matters into his own hands and commits the murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. Dr. Jekyll abhors this, but Mrs. Hyde relishes the killings as she begins to take control, even seducing and then killing Professor Robertson when he attempts to question her about the murders.

As Mrs. Hyde grows more powerful the two personalities begin to struggle for dominance. Dr. Jekyll asks Susan to the opera, however when he is getting dressed to go out, he unconsciously takes Mrs. Hyde's gown from the wardrobe instead of his own clothes, realizing that he no longer needs to drink the serum in order to transform. Susan is heartbroken when Jekyll fails to take her out to the opera, and she decides to go alone. However, the evil Mrs. Hyde decides that innocent, pure Susan's blood is just what she needs to finally overtake Jekyll's body. She stalks Susan through the dark streets, but Jekyll's will only just manages to thwart Mrs. Hyde's attempt to kill Susan. He then commits one last murder to find a way to stabilize his condition, but he is interrupted by the police after a comment by Hare leads them to realize the similarity between Jekyll's earlier experiments on cadavers and the Ripper murders. As Dr. Jekyll tries to escape by climbing along the outside of a building, he transforms into Mrs. Hyde, who, lacking his strength, falls to the ground, dying as a twisted amalgamation of male and female.

Cast
  • Ralph Bates as Dr. Henry Jekyll/Jack the Ripper

  • Martine Beswick as Sister Hyde

  • Gerald Sim as Professor Robertson

  • Lewis Fiander as Howard Spencer

  • Susan Brodrick as Susan Spencer

  • Dorothy Alison as Mrs. Spencer

  • Ivor Dean as William Burke

  • Tony Calvin as William Hare

  • Philip Madoc as Byker

  • Paul Whitsun-Jones as Sergeant Danvers

  • Virginia Wetherell as Betsy

Hammer Horror actress, Caroline Munro was the first choice to play Sister Hyde, but she declined because the role required nudity.

I, Monster is a 1971 British horror film directed by Stephen Weeks (his feature debut) for Amicus Productions. It is an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , with the main characters' names changed to Dr. Charles Marlowe and Mr. Edward Blake.

Plot

Psychologist Charles Marlowe (Lee) invents a drug which will release his patients' inhibitions. When he tests it on himself, he becomes the evil Edward Blake, who descends into crime and eventually murder. Utterson (Cushing), Marlowe's lawyer, believes that Blake is blackmailing his friend until he discovers the truth.

Cast
  • Christopher Lee – Dr. Charles Marlowe / Edward Blake

  • Peter Cushing – Frederick Utterson

  • Mike Raven – Enfield

  • Richard Hurndall – Dr. Hastie Lanyon

  • George Merritt – Mr. Poole

  • Kenneth J. Warren – Mr. Deane

  • Susan Jameson – Diane Thomas

  • Marjie Lawrence – Annie

  • Aimée Delamain – Landlady

  • Michael Des Barres – Boy in Alley

  • Lesley Judd – Woman in Alley (uncredited)

  • Ian McCulloch – Man at Bar (uncredited)

Production

It stars Christopher Lee as the Doctor and his alter ego, and Peter Cushing as Frederick Utterson, a central character in Stevenson's original story. Mike Raven and Susan Jameson also star. It was photographed by Moray Grant, with music by Carl Davis.

Peter Duffell who had previously worked for Amicus was offered the movie to direct but turned it down. Finance came from British Lion and the NFFC.

It was intended to be shown in 3-D utilizing the Pulfrich effect but the idea was abandoned upon release.

Reception

The film performed poorly at the box office. Time has been kinder to the film and it is now seen as a very faithful adaptation with Drew Hunt of Chicago Reader listing it as one of Christopher Lee's five best roles.

Konga is a 1961 British/American international co-production science fiction horror film directed by John Lemont and starring Michael Gough, Margo Johns and Austin Trevor. It was shot at Merton Park Studios and in Croydon for Anglo Amalgamated, then distributed in the United States by American International Pictures (AIP) as a double feature with Master of the World . Anglo Amalgamated and AIP each provided half the funding for the US$500,000 film with each studio receiving distribution rights in their respective hemispheres.

Konga was the basis for a comic book series published by Charlton Comics and initially drawn by Steve Ditko (prior to Ditko's co-creation of Spider-Man) in the 1960s.

Plot

British botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) comes back from Africa after a year, presumed dead. During that year, he came across a way of growing plants and animals to an enormous size. He brings back a baby chimpanzee, Konga, to test out his theory. Decker goes insane after he discovers a serum that turns his chimpanzee subject into a ferocious gorilla-sized ape. To further his hideous experiments, he mesmerizes the ape and sends it to London to kill all his enemies who have more credit in the scientific community than he already has. Among his targets is Dean Foster (Austin Trevor) Professor Tagore (George Pastell) and Bob Kenton (Jess Conrad), the lover of Sandra Banks (Claire Gordon), the woman the doctor wants for himself.

After Konga strangles Bob Kenton to death, Decker attempts to make Sandra his own. This does not sit well with Margaret (Margo Johns), the botanist's assistant and current girlfriend, who attempts to get even by giving Konga an enormous amount of the strange serum and turns him into an enormous monster, although she becomes his first victim.

Just before going on a rampage, the super-sized ape grabs Decker in one of his enormous hands, while Sandra's arm is eaten by Decker's carnivorous plants. His rampage comes to a stop when he and Decker are killed by the British army. Upon his death, Konga changes back to a baby chimpanzee.

Cast
  • Michael Gough as Dr. Charles Decker

  • Margo Johns as Margaret

  • Jess Conrad as Bob Kenton

  • Claire Gordon as Sandra Banks

  • Austin Trevor as Dean Foster

  • Jack Watson as Superintendent Brown

  • George Pastell as Professor Tagore

  • Vanda Godsell as Bob's Mother

  • Stanley Morgan as Inspector Lawson

  • Grace Arnold as Miss Barnesdell

  • Leonard Sachs as Bob's Father

  • Nicholas Bennett as Daniel

  • Kim Tracy as Mary

  • Rupert Osborne as Eric Kenton

  • Waveney Lee as Janet Kenton

  • John Welsh as Commissioner Garland

  • Paul Stockman as Konga (uncredited)

Production

Following the incredible success of Herman Cohen's previous British made film Horrors of the Black Museum that also featured Michael Gough, Nat Cohen (who was no relation to Herman) of Anglo-Amalgamated asked Cohen for another exploitation film.

As Cohen had long admired King Kong he thought of a giant ape film shot in colour. Due to Cohen's success with his I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), AIP used "I Was a Teenage Gorilla" as the working title. Cohen paid RKO Pictures $25,000 for the rights to the name of Kong for exploitation purposes. Cohen recalled that the special effects for the film that was one of the first giant monster movies shot in colour (Eastmancolor) took 18 months to complete. The climatic scene in London streets was possible when the producer was able to convince a police precinct captain that the scenes could be effectively staged late at night on essentially empty streets.  A combination of miniature sets, an actor in a gorilla suit and use of studio mattes also made the technical aspects of the production look better than its meagre budget would allow.

Reception

Konga appeared as part of a program double-bill with Master of the World (1961). The film was reviewed in The New York Times , where the film critic Eugene Archer noted it played to "misplaced guffaws" and was further described as: "... the British 'Konga' is nothing more than an overblown 'King Kong,' hammily played by Michael Gough and an improbable-looking ape."

In a later Time Out film review, Konga was considered: "Inept, silly, and ludicrously enjoyable monster movie, with Gough as the mad boffin who injects a chimp with a growth serum, only to see it turn into an uncredited actor in a gorilla suit. Thereafter the ape grabs a Michael Gough doll and heads for Big Ben. Deeply political."

A novelization of the film was released in paperback at the time of its original release (Konga by Dean Owen (Monarch, 1960)).

From 1960 to 1965 Charlton Comics published 23 issues of the comic Konga . It included work by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. The series was renamed Fantastic Giants with issue #24, which turned out to be the last issue of the series.

Konga also appeared in a three-issue mini-series that started off as The Return of Konga , before it was renamed Konga's Revenge with issue #2. The series ran from 1962-1964. This was followed by a one-shot reprint issue in 1968.

In 1990, Steve Ditko illustrated a back-up story in Web of Spider-Man Annual #6 called "Child Star". In this story, Captain Universe creates huge versions of toys based on Gorgo and Konga to battle giant monsters that are attacking the neighborhood. For copyright reasons Konga's name was altered to "Kongo". This sequence was Ditko paying homage to his earlier work with these characters from the 1960s Charlton Comics comic books.

Some of these issues were reprinted (in black and white) in a trade paperback in 2011 called Angry Apes n' Leapin Lizards .

In August 2013, IDW Publishing reprinted all the issues that artist Steve Ditko worked on (Konga #1 and #3-15 and Konga's Revenge #2) as a deluxe hardcover collection called Steve Ditko's Monsters: Konga .

INFORMATION ABOUT SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE:

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English character actor, singer, and author. With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee initially portrayed villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a sequence of Hammer Horror films. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014), and Count Dooku in the second and third films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002 and 2005).

Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011, and received the BFI Fellowship in 2013. Lee considered his best performance to be that of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998), and his best film to be the British horror film The Wicker Man (1973). He frequently appeared opposite Peter Cushing in Hammer Horror films, and late in his career had roles in six Tim Burton films.

Always noted as an actor for his deep, strong voice, Lee was also known for his singing ability, recording various opera and musical pieces between 1986 and 1998, and the symphonic metal album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010, after having worked with several metal bands since 2005. The heavy metal follow-up Charlemagne: The Omens of Death was released on 27 May 2013, Lee's 91st birthday. He was honoured with the "Spirit of Metal" award at the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards ceremony. Lee died from complications of respiratory problems and heart failure on the morning of 7 June 2015, at the age of 93.

Lee was born in Belgravia, London, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee (1879–1941) of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano; 1889–1981). Lee's father fought in the Boer War and First World War, and his mother was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan; her lineage can be traced to Charlemagne. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, whose wife, Lee's great-grandmother, was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess). He had one sister, Xandra Carandini Lee (1917–2002).

Lee's parents separated when he was four and divorced two years later. During this time, his mother took him and his sister to Wengen in Switzerland. After enrolling in Miss Fisher's Academy in Territet, he played his first role, as Rumpelstiltskin. They then returned to London, where Lee attended Wagner's private school in Queen's Gate, and his mother married Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, a banker and uncle of Ian Fleming. Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, thus became Lee's step-cousin. The family moved to Fulham, living next door to the actor Eric Maturin. One night, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the assassins of Grigori Rasputin, whom Lee was to play many years later.

When Lee was nine, he was sent to Summer Fields School, a preparatory school in Oxford whose pupils often later attended Eton. He continued acting in school plays, though "the laurels deservedly went to Patrick Macnee". Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M. R. James. Sixty years later, Lee played the part of James for the BBC. His poor maths skills meant that he placed eleventh, and thus missed out on being a King's Scholar by one place. His step-father was not prepared to pay the higher fees that being an Oppidan Scholar meant, and so he did not attend. Instead, Lee attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in the classics, studying Ancient Greek and Latin. Aside from a "tiny part" in a school play, he didn't act while at Wellington. He was a "passable" racquets player and fencer and a competent cricketer but did not do well at the other sports played: hockey, football, rugby and boxing. He disliked the parades and weapons training and would always "play dead" as soon as possible during mock battles. Lee was frequently beaten at school, including once at Wellington for "being beaten too often", though he accepted them as "logical and therefore acceptable" punishments for knowingly breaking the rules. At age 17, and with one year left at Wellington, the summer term of 1939 was his last. His step-father had gone bankrupt, owing £25,000.

His mother separated from Rose, and Lee had to get a job, his sister already working as a secretary for the Church of England Pensions Board. With most employers on or preparing to go on summer holidays, there were no immediate opportunities for Lee, and so he was sent to the French Riviera, where his sister was on holiday with friends. On his way there he stopped briefly in Paris, where he stayed with the journalist Webb Miller, a friend of Rose, and witnessed the execution of Eugen Weidmann, the last person to be executed in public in France. Arriving in Menton, he stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families. It was arranged that he should stay on in Menton after his sister had returned home, but with Europe on the brink of war, he returned to London instead. He worked as an office clerk for United States Lines, taking care of the mail and running errands.

Military service during the Second World War

When the Second World War broke out, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War in 1939. He and other British volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, but they were issued winter gear and were posted on guard duty a safe distance from the front lines. After a fortnight, they returned home. Lee returned to work at United States Lines and found his work more satisfying, feeling that he was contributing. In early 1940, he joined Beecham's, at first as an office clerk, then as a switchboard operator. When Beecham's moved out of London, he joined the Home Guard. In the winter, his father fell ill with bilateral pneumonia and died on 12 March 1941. Realising that he had no inclination to follow his father into the Army, Lee decided to join up while he still had some choice of service, and volunteered for the Royal Air Force.

Lee reported to RAF Uxbridge for training and was then posted to the Initial Training Wing at Paignton. After he had passed his exams in Liverpool, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan meant that he travelled on the Reina del Pacifico to South Africa, then to his posting at Hillside, at Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. Training with de Havilland Tiger Moths, Lee was having his penultimate training session before his first solo flight, when he suffered from headaches and blurred vision. The medical officer hesitantly diagnosed a failure of his optic nerve, and he was told he would never be allowed to fly again. Lee was devastated, and the death of a fellow trainee from Summer Fields only made him more despondent. His appeals were fruitless, and he was left with nothing to do. He was moved around to different flying stations, before going to Salisbury in December 1941. He then visited the Mazowe Dam, Marandellas, the Wankie Game Reserve, and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Thinking he should "do something constructive for my keep", he applied to join RAF Intelligence. His superiors praised his initiative, and he was seconded into the Rhodesian Police Force and was posted as a warder at Salisbury Prison. He was then promoted to leading aircraftman and moved to Durban in South Africa, before travelling to Suez on the Nieuw Amsterdam .

After "killing time" at RAF Kasfareet near the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal Zone, he resumed intelligence work in the city of Ismaïlia. He was then attached to No. 205 Group RAF before being commissioned as a pilot officer at the end of January 1943, and attached to No. 260 Squadron RAF as an intelligence officer. As the North African Campaign progressed, the squadron "leapfrogged" between Egyptian airstrips, from RAF El Daba to Maaten Bagush and on to Mersa Matruh. They lent air support to the ground forces and bombed strategic targets. Lee, "broadly speaking, was expected to know everything". The Allied advance continued into Libya, through Tobruk and Benghazi to the Marble Arch and then through El Agheila, Khoms and Tripoli, with the squadron averaging five missions a day. As the advance continued into Tunisia, with the Axis forces digging themselves in at the Mareth Line, Lee was almost killed when the squadron's airfield was bombed. After breaking through the Mareth Line, the squadron made their final base in Kairouan. After the Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943, the squadron moved to Zuwarah in Libya in preparation for the Allied invasion of Sicily. They then moved to Malta, and, after its capture by the British Eighth Army, the Sicilian town of Pachino, before making a permanent base in Agnone Bagni. At the end of July 1943, Lee received his second promotion of the year, this time to flying officer. After the Sicilian campaign was over, Lee came down with malaria for the sixth time in under a year, and was flown to a hospital in Carthage for treatment. When he returned, the squadron was restless, frustrated with a lack of news about the Eastern Front and the Soviet Union in general, and with no mail from home or alcohol. Unrest spread and threatened to turn into mutiny. Lee, by now an expert on Russia, talked them into resuming their duties, which much impressed his commanding officer.

After the Allied invasion of Italy, the squadron was based in Foggia and Termoli during the winter of 1943. Lee was then seconded to the Army during an officer's swap scheme. He spent most of this time with the Gurkhas of the 8th Indian Infantry Division during the Battle of Monte Cassino. While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted three days later. During the final assault on Monte Cassino, the squadron was based in San Angelo, and Lee was nearly killed when one of the planes crashed on takeoff, and he tripped over one of its live bombs. After the battle, the squadron moved to airfields just outside Rome, and Lee visited the city, where he met his mother's cousin, Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian resistance movement. In November 1944, Lee was promoted to flight lieutenant and left the squadron to take up a posting at Air Force HQ. Lee took part in forward planning and liaison, in preparation for a potential assault into the rumoured German Alpine Fortress. After the war ended, Lee was invited to go hunting near Vienna and was then billeted in Pörtschach am Wörthersee. For the final few months of his service, Lee, who spoke fluent French and German, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals. Of his time with the organisation, Lee said: "We were given dossiers of what they'd done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority ... We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not." He retired from the RAF in 1946 with the rank of flight lieutenant.

Lee's stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps, but it is unlikely he had any influence over Lee's military career. Lee saw him for the last time on a bus in London in 1940, by then divorced from Lee's mother, though Lee did not speak to him. Lee mentioned that during the war he was attached to the Special Operations Executive and the Long Range Desert Group, the precursor of the SAS, but always declined to go into details.

I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like.

Career

Returning to London in 1946, Lee was offered his old job back at Beecham's, with a significant raise, but he turned them down as "I couldn't think myself back into the office frame of mind." The Armed Forces were sending veterans with an education in the Classics to teach at universities, but Lee felt his Latin was too rusty and didn't care for the strict curfews. Having lunch with his cousin Nicolò Carandini, now the Italian Ambassador to Britain, Lee was detailing his war wounds when Carandini said, "Why don't you become an actor, Christopher?" Lee liked the idea and after assuaging his mother's protests by pointing to the successful Carandini performers in Australia, which included his great-grandmother Marie Carandini, who had been a successful opera singer, he met Nicolò's friend Filippo Del Giudice, a lawyer-turned-film producer. The head of Two Cities Films, part of the Rank Organisation, Giudice, "looked me up and down... [and] concluded that I was just what the industry had been looking for". He was sent to see Josef Somlo for a contract, who immediately announced that he was "much too tall to be an actor". Somlo sent him to see Rank's David Henley and Olive Dodds, who signed him on a seven-year contract.

A student at Rank's "Charm School", Lee and many of the others had difficulty finding work. He finally made his film début in Terence Young's Gothic romance Corridor of Mirrors (1947). He played Charles; the director got around his height by placing him at a table in a nightclub alongside Lois Maxwell, Mavis Villiers, Hugh Latimer and John Penrose. Lee had a single line, "a satirical shaft meant to qualify the lead's bravura".

His "apprenticeship" lasted ten years, as he mostly played supporting and background characters.

I was around a long time – nearly ten years. Initially, I was told I was too tall to be an actor. That's a quite fatuous remark to make. It's like saying you're too short to play the piano. I thought, "Right, I'll show you..." At the beginning I didn't know anything about the technique of working in front of a camera, but during those 10 years, I did the one thing that's so vitally important today – I watched, I listened and I learned. So when the time came I was ready... Oddly enough, to play a character who said nothing [The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein ].

Also in this early period, he made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet (1948), as a spear carrier (his later co-star and close friend Peter Cushing played Osric). A few years later, he appeared in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) as a Spanish captain. He was cast when the director asked him if he could speak Spanish and fence, which he was able to do. Lee appeared uncredited in the American epic Quo Vadis (also 1951), which was shot in Rome, playing a chariot driver and was injured when he was thrown from it at one point during the shoot.

He recalled that his breakthrough came in 1952, when Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. began making films at the British National Studios. He said in 2006, "I was cast in various roles in 16 of them and even appeared with Buster Keaton and it proved an excellent training ground." The same year, he appeared in John Huston's Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge . Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30 films, including Cockleshell Heroes , playing mostly stock action characters.

Lee's first film for Hammer was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's monster, with Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein. It was the first film to co-star Lee and Cushing, who ultimately appeared together in over twenty films and became close friends. When he arrived at a casting session for the film, "they asked me if I wanted the part, I said yes and that was that". A little later, Lee co-starred with Boris Karloff in the film Corridors of Blood (1958), but Lee's own appearance as Frankenstein's monster led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the film Dracula (1958, known as Horror of Dracula in the United States). Lee accepted a similar role in an Italian-French horror picture called Uncle Was a Vampire (1959).

Lee returned to the role of Dracula in Hammer's Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965). Lee's role has no lines, he merely hisses his way through the film. Stories vary as to the reason for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script did not contain any lines for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Lee went on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work, if he did not take part.

The process went like this: The telephone would ring and my agent would say, "Jimmy Carreras [President of Hammer Films] has been on the phone, they've got another Dracula for you." And I would say, "Forget it! I don't want to do another one." I'd get a call from Jimmy Carreras, in a state of hysteria. "What's all this about?!" "Jim, I don't want to do it, and I don't have to do it." "No, you have to do it!" And I said, "Why?" He replied, "Because I've already sold it to the American distributor with you playing the part. Think of all the people you know so well, that you will put out of work!" Emotional blackmail. That's the only reason I did them.

His roles in the films Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do. Lee said in an interview in 2005, "all they do is write a story and try and fit the character in somewhere, which is very clear when you see the films. They gave me nothing to do! I pleaded with Hammer to let me use some of the lines that Bram Stoker had written. Occasionally, I sneaked one in." Although Lee may not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, worldwide audiences embraced the films, which were all commercially successful.

Lee starred in two further Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful: Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973). The film was tentatively titled Dracula Is Dead... and Well and Living in London , a parody of the stage and film musical revue Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris , but Lee was not amused. Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce the film, Lee said, "I'm doing it under protest... I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives – fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got a comic title. I don't see the point." The Satanic Rites Of Dracula was the last Dracula film that Christopher Lee played the Dracula role in, as he felt he had played the part too many times and that the Dracula films had deteriorated in quality. Hammer went on to make one more Dracula film without him: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), with John Forbes-Robertson playing the Count and David de Keyser dubbing him.

In all, Lee played Dracula ten times: seven films for Hammer Productions, once for Jesse Franco's Count Dracula (1970), uncredited in Jerry Lewis's One More Time (1970) and Édouard Molinaro's Dracula and Son (1976).

Lee's other work for Hammer included The Mummy (1959). Lee portrayed Rasputin in Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966) and Sir Henry Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). Lee later played Holmes himself in 1962's Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace , and returned to Holmes films with Billy Wilder's British-made The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), in which he plays Sherlock's smarter brother, Mycroft. Lee considers this film to be the reason he stopped being typecast: "I've never been typecast since. Sure, I've played plenty of heavies, but as Anthony Hopkins says, "I don't play villains, I play people."" Lee played a leading role in the German film The Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962), speaking German, which he had learned during his education in Switzerland. He auditioned for a part in the film The Longest Day (1962), but was turned down because he did not "look like a military man". Some film books incorrectly credit him with a role in the film, something he had to correct for the rest of his life.

Lee's friend Dennis Wheatley, a noted author, was responsible for bringing the occult to him. The company made two films from Wheatley's novels, both starring Lee. The first, The Devil Rides Out (1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements. According to Lee, Wheatley was so pleased with it, that he offered the actor the film rights to his remaining black magic novels, free of charge. However, the second film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976), was fraught with production difficulties and was disowned by its author. Although financially successful, it was Hammer's last horror film, and marked the end of Lee's long association with the studio that had a major impact on his career.

Like Cushing, Lee also appeared in horror films for other companies during the 20-year period from 1957 to 1977. Other films in which Lee performed include the series of Fu Manchu films made between 1965 and 1969, in which he starred as the villain in heavy oriental make-up; I, Monster (1971), in which he played Jekyll and Hyde; The Creeping Flesh (1972); and his personal favourite, The Wicker Man (1973), in which he played Lord Summerisle. Lee wanted to break free of his image as Dracula and take on more interesting acting roles. He met with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, and they agreed to work together. Film director Robin Hardy and British Lion head Peter Snell became involved in the project. Shaffer had a series of conversations with Hardy, and the two decided that it would be fun to make a horror film centering on "old religion", in sharp contrast to the popular Hammer films of the day. Shaffer read the David Pinner novel Ritual , in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village, and decided that it would serve well as the source material for the project. Shaffer and Lee paid Pinner £15,000 for the rights to the novel, and Schaffer set to work on the screenplay. However, he soon decided that a direct adaptation would not work well, and began to craft a new story, using only the basic outline of the novel. Lee was so keen to get the film made, he gave his services for free, as the budget was so small. He would later refer to the film as the best he had ever made.

Lee appeared as the on-screen narrator in Jess Franco's Eugenie (1970) as a favour to producer Harry Alan Towers, unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes were shot separately.

I had no idea that was what it was when I agreed to the role. I was told it was about the Marquis de Sade. I flew out to Spain for one day's work playing the part of a narrator. I had to wear a crimson dinner jacket. There were lots of people behind me. They all had their clothes on. There didn't seem to be anything peculiar or strange. A friend said: 'Do you know you are in a film in Old Compton Street?' In those days that was where the mackintosh brigade watched their films. 'Very funny,' I said. So I crept along there heavily disguised in dark glasses and scarf, and found the cinema and there was my name. I was furious! There was a huge row. When I had left Spain that day everyone behind me had taken their clothes off!

In addition to making films in the United Kingdom, Lee made films in mainland Europe: he appeared in two German films, Count Dracula (1970), where he again played the vampire count, and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967). Other films in Europe he made include Castle of the Living Dead (1964) and Horror Express (1972). Lee was a producer of the horror film Nothing But the Night (also 1972), in which he also starred. It was the first and last film he ever produced, as he did not enjoy the process.

Lee appeared as the Comte de Rochefort in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973). He was wounded in his left knee during filming, an injury he still felt many years later. He also appeared in the sequel film The Four Musketeers (1974), which was actually shot at the same time. Although "killed" in the latter film, he reprised the role in The Return of the Musketeers (1989), with his character given token dialogue explaining that his wound in the earlier film's climactic sword fight wasn't fatal.

After the mid-1970s, Lee eschewed horror roles almost entirely. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels and Lee's step-cousin, had offered him the role of the titular antagonist in the first Eon-produced Bond film Dr. No (1962). Lee enthusiastically accepted, but by the time Fleming told the producers, they had already chosen Joseph Wiseman for the role. Lee finally got to play a James Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), in which he was cast as the deadly assassin Francisco Scaramanga. Lee said of his performance, "In Fleming's novel he's just a West Indian thug, but in the film he's charming, elegant, amusing, lethal... I played him like the dark side of Bond."

Because of his filming schedule in Bangkok, film director Ken Russell was unable to sign Lee to play the Specialist in Tommy (1975). That role was eventually given to Jack Nicholson. In an AMC documentary on Halloween (1978), John Carpenter states that he offered the role of Samuel Loomis to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, before Donald Pleasence took the role. Years later, Lee met Carpenter, and told him that the biggest regret of his career was not taking the role of Dr. Loomis.

Lee appeared on the cover of the Wings album Band on the Run (1973), along with others including chat show host Michael Parkinson, singer Kenny Lynch, film actor James Coburn, world boxing champion John Conteh, and broadcaster Clement Freud.

1977: Move to Hollywood

In 1977, Lee left Britain for the US, concerned at being typecast in horror films, as had happened to his close friends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. He said in an interview in 2011:

Peter and Vincent made some wonderful serious movies but are only known for horror. That was why I went to America. I couldn't see anything happening here except a continuation of what had gone before. A couple of friends, Dick Widmark and Billy Wilder, told me I had to get away from London otherwise I would always be typecast.

His first American film was the disaster film Airport '77 (1977). In 1978, Lee surprised many people with his willingness to go along with a joke, by appearing as guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live . As a result of his appearance on SNL , Steven Spielberg, who was in the audience, cast him in 1941 (1979). Meanwhile, Lee co-starred with Bette Davis in the Disney film Return from Witch Mountain (1978). He turned down the role of Dr. Barry Rumack (finally played by Leslie Nielsen) in the disaster spoof Airplane! (1980), a decision he later called "a big mistake".

Lee appeared in The Return of Captain Invincible (1982), a comedy-musical film. Lee plays a fascist who plans to rid America (and afterwards, the world) of all non-whites. Lee sings on two tracks in the film ("Name Your Poison" and "Mister Midnight"), written by Richard O'Brien (who had written The Rocky Horror Picture Show seven years previously) and Richard Hartley. Later, he appeared alongside Reb Brown and Sybil Danning in Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985). Lee made his last appearances as Sherlock Holmes in Incident at Victoria Falls (1991) and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1992).

In addition to more than a dozen feature films together for Hammer Films, Amicus Productions, and other companies, Lee and Peter Cushing both appeared in Hamlet (1948) and Moulin Rouge (1952), albeit in separate scenes; and in separate instalments of the Star Wars films, Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, Lee decades later as Count Dooku. The last project which united them in person was a documentary, Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994), which they jointly narrated. It was the last time they saw each other, as Cushing died two months later.

In 1998, Lee starred in the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of modern Pakistan, in the film Jinnah . In 2002, while talking about his favourite role in film at a press conference at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, he declared that his role in Jinnah was by far his best performance.

Lee was considered for the role of comic book villain/hero Magneto in the screen adaptation of the popular comic book series X-Men , but he lost the role to Sir Ian McKellen, his co-star in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit .

He had many television roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries, based on Mervyn Peake's novels, Gormenghast (2000), and Stefan Wyszyński in the CBS film John Paul the Second (2005). He played Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, in the BBC/A&E co-production of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1997). He played a role in the made-for-TV series La Révolution française (1989) in part 2, "Les Années Terribles", as the executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, who beheaded King Louis XVI, Maximilien de Robespierre, and others.

Lee played Saruman in the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. In the commentary, he states he had a decades-long dream to play Gandalf, but that he was now too old, and that his physical limitations prevented him from being considered. The role of Saruman, by contrast, required no horseback riding and much less fighting. Lee had met J. R. R. Tolkien once (making him the only person involved in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy to have done so) and made a habit of reading the novels at least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album The Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J.R.R. Tolkien in 2003. Lee's appearance in the final film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , was cut from the theatrical release, but the scene was reinstated in the extended edition.

The Lord of the Rings marked the beginning of a major career revival that continued in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), in which he played the villainous Count Dooku. He did most of the swordplay himself, though a double was required for the long shots with more vigorous footwork.

Lee was one of the favourite actors of Tim Burton, and became a regular in many of Burton's films, working for the director five times, starting in 1999, where he had a small role as the Burgomaster in the film Sleepy Hollow . In 2005, Lee played Willy Wonka's strict dentist father, Dr. Wilbur Wonka, in Burton's reimagining of the Roald Dahl tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , and voiced the character of Pastor Galswells in Corpse Bride , co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnson.

In 2007, Lee collaborated with Burton on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street , playing the spirit of Sweeney Todd's victims, called the Gentleman Ghost, alongside Anthony Head, with both singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", its reprises and the Epilogue. These songs were recorded, but eventually cut since Burton felt that the songs were too theatrical for the film. Lee's appearance was completely cut from the film, but Head still had an uncredited one-line cameo. In 2008, he was offered the role of King Balor in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army , but had to turn it down due to prior commitments.

In late November 2009, Lee narrated the Science Fiction Festival in Trieste, Italy. Also in 2009, Lee starred in Stephen Poliakoff's British period drama Glorious 39 with Julie Christie, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai, and David Tennant, Academy Award-nominated director Danis Tanović's war film Triage with Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, and Duncan Ward's comedy Boogie Woogie alongside Amanda Seyfried, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Skarsgård, and Joanna Lumley.

In 2010, Lee marked his fourth collaboration with Tim Burton by voicing the Jabberwock in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland , alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. While he only had two lines, Burton said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character, because of Lee himself being "an iconic guy".

Lee won the "Spirit of Metal" award in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2010. The award was presented by Tony Iommi. In 2010, Lee received the Steiger Award (Germany) and, in February 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship.

In 2011, he appeared in a Hammer film for the first time in thirty-five years, the last being 1976's To the Devil a Daughter . The film was called The Resident , and he gave a "superbly sinister" performance alongside Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Whilst filming scenes for the film in New Mexico in early 2009, Lee injured his back when he tripped over power cables on set. He had to undergo surgery, and as a result, he was unable to play the role of Sir Lachlan Morrison in The Wicker Tree , the sequel to The Wicker Man . Very disappointed, director Robin Hardy recast the role, but Lee was determined to appear in the film, so Hardy wrote a small scene specially for him. Lee appears as the unnamed "Old Gentleman" who acts as Lachlan's mentor in a flashback. Hardy stated that fans of The Wicker Man would recognise this character as Lord Summerisle, but Lee contradicted this, stating that they are two unrelated characters. Also in 2011, Lee appeared in the critically acclaimed Hugo , directed by Martin Scorsese.

On 11 January 2011, Lee announced on his website that he would be reprising the role of Saruman for the prequel film The Hobbit . Lee had originally said that he would have liked to have shown Saruman's corruption by Sauron, but that he wouldn't be comfortable flying to New Zealand at his age. The production was adjusted to accommodate Lee's travel concerns, thereby allowing him to participate in the film from London. Lee said he worked on his role for the films over the course of four days, portraying Saruman as a kind and noble wizard, before his subsequent fall into darkness, as depicted in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

In 2012, Lee marked his fifth and final collaboration with Tim Burton, by appearing in Burton's film adaptation of the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows , in the small role of a New England fishing captain.

In an interview in August 2013, Lee said that he was "saddened" to hear his friend Johnny Depp considering retirement from acting, noting that he himself had no intention of retiring.

There are frustrations – people who lie to you, people who don't know what they are doing, films that don't turn out the way you had wanted them to – so, yes, I do understand why Depp would consider retiring. I always ask myself "well, what else could I do?". Making films has never just been a job to me, it's my life. I have some interests outside of acting – I sing and I've written books, for instance – but acting is what keeps me going, it's what I do, it gives life purpose... I'm realistic about the amount of work I can get at my age, but I take what I can, even voice-overs and narration.

Lee narrated the feature-length documentary Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics , which was released on 25 October 2013. In 2014, he appeared in an episode of the BBC documentary series Timeshift called How to Be Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces of a Master Detective . Lee and others who had played Sherlock Holmes discussed the character and the various interpretations of him. He also appeared in a web exclusive, reading an excerpt from the short story The Final Problem . He also narrated an advertising campaign for Age UK, reading a poem by Roger McGough.

A month before his death, Lee had signed to star with an ensemble cast in the Danish film The 11th .

His final performance was the independent Angels of Notting Hill directed by Michael Pakleppa. A comedy about an angel trapped in London who falls in love with a human being. Lee plays The Boss/Mr. President and the film premiered in the Regent Street Cinema, London on Saturday October 29, 2016 

Lee recorded his final word film at his Redwood Studios in Soho, London on 17 May 2015 just 3 weeks before his death on the 11 June 2015.

Voice work

Lee spoke perfect English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German, and was moderately proficient in Swedish, Russian, and Greek. He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs of the Danish 1986 animated film Valhalla , and of King Haggard in both the English and German dubs of the 1982 animated adaptation of The Last Unicorn .

Lee provided the off-camera voice of "U. N. Owen", the mysterious host who brings disparate characters together in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (1965). The film was produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee had worked repeatedly in the 1960s. Even though he was not credited on the film, his voice is unmistakable. He also provided all the voices for the English dub of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953).

He contributed with his voice as Death in the animated versions of Terry Pratchett's Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters , and reprised the role in the Sky1 live action adaptation The Colour of Magic , taking over the role from the late Ian Richardson.

Lee provided the voice for the role of Ansem the Wise/DiZ in the video games Kingdom Hearts II , Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days , and Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix , but veteran voice actor Corey Burton (who would also take over for Lee in Star Wars: The Clone Wars ) took over for Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories , Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep , and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance , as well as the version of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days that was released as part of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix . He was the voice of Lucan D'Lere in the trailers for EverQuest II .

Lee reprised his role as Saruman in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth along with the other actors of the films. He also narrated and sang for the Danish musical group The Tolkien Ensemble, taking the role of Treebeard, King Théoden and others in the readings or singing of their respective poems or songs. In 2007, he voiced the transcript of The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien for the audiobook version of the novel.

In 2005, Lee provided the voice of Pastor Galswells in The Corpse Bride , co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. He served as the narrator on The Nightmare Before Christmas' poem, written by Tim Burton as well. Lee reprised his role as Count Dooku in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008 animated film, but Corey Burton took his place for the character in the TV series. In 2010, he collaborated again with Tim Burton, this time by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book Alice in Wonderland .

Some thirty years after playing Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun , Lee provided the voice of Scaramanga in the video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent . In 2013, Lee voiced The Earl of Earl’s Court in the BBC Radio 4 radio play Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Lee recorded special dialogue, in addition to serving as the Narrator, for the Lego The Hobbit video game released in April 2014.

  • Condition: Ungraded
  • Subject Type: TV & Movies
  • Card Size: Standard
  • Autographed: No
  • Set: British Horror Collection
  • Custom Bundle: No
  • Year Manufactured: 2017
  • Material: Card Stock
  • Age Level: 16+
  • Franchise: British Horror Collection
  • Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
  • Modified Item: No
  • Type: Non-Sport Trading Card
  • Language: English
  • Manufacturer: Unstoppable Cards
  • Features: Individual Card from Base Set
  • Genre: Cult British Movies, Fantasy, Horror
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom

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