6.-9. Dracula, Brides, Kiss and Prince - Beyond Hammer Glamour rewatches
As mentioned last weekend ( LJ / DW), I'm going to be a guest on a live webcast next Sunday. I spent last weekend rewatching the Hammer vampire films we'll be talking about, and noting down things to discuss about gender, sexuality and subtext in them. But these are films which I've already spent more time than is really healthy geekily over-thinking, so obviously I spotted loads of other things while watching which won't be relevant to our webcast. This post is a place to get those down on (electronic) paper. I wouldn't call what follows 'reviews' as such - more just a record of spots and comments.
Dracula (1958)
I was looking carefully at Valerie Gaunt during this viewing, as she's a nice example of one of the things Gothic horror has to offer female viewers, despite the objectification and gender-essentialism which is also rife in these films. She has agency and power of her own, including a great capacity for manipulating Jonathan Harker and no compunctions about pursuing her own agenda which conflicts with Dracula's. Sure, so the audience is meant to view all this with horror, and we soon see her being punished for it and put safely out of action. But female horror viewers are quite used to watching 'around' this sort of framing. It's everywhere, but at least horror puts the transgressive women on screen in the first place.
Anyway, thanks to thinking about this I got a better view this time of why it is that Jonathan Harker stakes her first in the crypt, rather than Dracula. It's often viewed by fans as a stupid mistake, and of course it's a mistake he has to make if the story isn't to end rather prematurely. But I could see much better why he does it this time. It's because, for all that he knows she is a vampire, her manipulation has nonetheless clearly hit home with him and caused him to feel sympathy for her. You can see it in his face during every interaction they have, while the idea that staking a vampire is an act of kindness which puts them at rest is developed quite explicitly with Lucy later on. So that's why he does it. It isn't a stupid lack of pragmatism, but an act of gallantry where his priority is to help the vampire he sees as more pitiable first - and this is totally clear on his face too when he approaches her for the staking.
Other things... I will have a lot to say in our webcast about how doors work in this film. This is something which came to me on viewing Dracula in 2019 at the IVFAF festival (LJ / DW), but it's become a little clearer for me now. Basically, doors in this film operate as symbols of (sexual) invitation and power. When they stand unguarded and half-open, or we see people actively opening them, that’s an invitation. When people lock doors or slam them shut, it’s an act of power. And bursting through doors is an assault. Once you’ve noticed this, it is very marked, and maps very directly onto the emotions and motivations of the characters.
All this thinking about doors added something for me to the name of the inn in Klausenberg, too. After we have seen the terrifying climax of the first act, in which Dracula standing at the top of the steps into his crypt slams the door behind him in a show of (sexual?) power, trapping a trembling Jonathan inside with him, we cut directly to the sign for this inn - a paired of crossed keys - and then meet Van Helsing as he enters it. I'd never quite picked this up before, but actually that inn sign is acting like a sort of introductory caption for him, telling us who he is and what he is going to do. Obviously he's the guy with the crosses - Peter Cushing himself joked that he felt like he was at risk of coming across as a crucifix salesman, he has so many of them. But he's also metaphorically the guy with the keys, who is going to unlock the doors behind which evil lurks and solve the problems we have been shown in the first act of the film.
Finally, I've talked about the zodiac wheel on the floor in Dracula's library before, which I think adds a lot to the film and deserves its own special slot on its Wikipedia page. There, we are told that 'Dracula's ring is left on the glyph of the sign of Aquarius on the Zodiac wheel', which TBH I can't really get very much out of, but I can get something out of the fact that it's also left on the word 'estin' in the quotation from Homer. In context, the subject of the verb is 'the mind' (of men), but we can no longer see that context in the final shot. It's just a 3rd person present indicative which could equally mean 'it is' or 'he / she is'. I like the implications of either of those, which could equally mean 'that's it' (it's all over) or 'he (still) is', indicating that you can never really get rid of Dracula. Guess which I prefer!
Brides of Dracula (1960)
Ahead of this watch, there had been some Twitter discussion about why Baron Meinster doesn't just turn into a bat and escape from the chain which is keeping him secure in his rooms. There were two main schools of thought: a) it's silver so saps his vampiric powers preventing him from transforming and b) it's all part of the ruse and isn't really constraining him at all. With that last suggestion in particular in mind I decided to keep a very close eye on the subterfuge and manipulation being performed by both the Baron and the Baroness, because I have definitely found it confusing before, and I think have generally ended up concluding that it doesn't fully make sense and is an artefact of the multiple rewrites which the script went through before production. It is all very confusing, because everyone has hidden agendas and there are additional layers of misdirection being presented to the viewers too. But I am happy to say that I have finally figured it all out, and it does all make total sense. In fact, the whole film is tighter and better-plotted than I think I've previously given it credit for.
So. After Marianne has arrived in the inn, it's clear that the landlord and his wife know full well what is going to happen to her. The reason they say they haven't got a room and Johan rushes off to get a farm cart instead isn't just because they don't want to incur their own risks by having her around on their premises. It's because they know her only hope lies in getting her entirely away from there. But Johan isn't quite quick enough - the Baroness' carriage arrives just after he gets back with the farm cart and before he can take Marianne away. There is some doors = power business going on at this point. They know they have to open the door to let the Baroness in, because they are ultimately her tenants. The wife says "don't open it", but Johan says "I must". Then, when Marianne mentions to the Baroness during conversation that she can't stay at the inn, the wife rushes forward to say that they do have a room after all. That's because at this point, keeping her in the inn has become a better chance for her survival than letting her leave with the Baroness. But it's too late.
Once in the castle, a trail of crumbs is left for Marianne. When she turns back into her room after seeing the Baron from her balcony, Greta is waiting right inside, evidently to make sure that this part of the plan has worked and she did see him (though she denies that Marianne can have seen anyone). Over dinner, the Baroness then deliberately brings up the fact that Greta said Marianne had seen someone, takes the opportunity to spin a sad tale about her son and specifically points out the door through which his rooms are reached. Marianne then duly sneaks into the Baron's rooms at night, as the Baroness had planned. Where things start to go off-piste, though is that she agrees to the Baron's request to get the key to unlock the chain restraining him, and successfully does so. Perhaps she is braver and more resourceful than his previous victims?
The bit I have never quite grasped before is the Baroness' behaviour while Marianne is stealing the key, but I've got it straight now. While Marianne in the Baroness' room opening her bureau, the Baroness goes into Marianne's room (without knocking!), sees that she's isn't in bed, and heads back to her own room. There, she evidently hears a noise inside as she approaches (which is Marianne). But she doesn't find Marianne in the room. She realises the key is missing, walks to the window and looks grimly out, but doesn't open it, and thus doesn't realise that Marianne is outside, huddled out of sight in the ivy. This is the bit I've misinterpreted before. Because the Baroness evidently hears a noise before going into the room, I've assumed she knows Marianne is in there and deliberately doesn't look properly out of the window in order to avoid disrupting her key-theft. But in view of what then unfolds, I no longer think that's right. The Baroness genuinely doesn't want her son unlocked, and is merely neglectful about not investigating the source of the noise in her room properly.
Marianne climbs from the Baroness' balcony straight to her own balcony, and from there throws the key to Baron. Meanwhile, the Baroness returns to Marianne's room, evidently following up on her suspicions about the noise. Perhaps she did know Marianne was on the balcony, and decided the easiest way to intercept her was to catch her on coming back into her own room, but she didn't count on Marianne throwing the key to the Baron on the way? Anyway, by the time she gets there, Marianne is back inside, and the Baroness confronts her, demanding back the key. This isn't a charade - she genuinely wants it back. What she wanted was for Marianne to go into the Baron's rooms, but not for her to get the key to his chain and unlock it.
And indeed that action has horrible consequences for the Baroness. Immediately on being freed, the Baron enters into the hall, where the Baroness sees him from the top of stairs. She knows to avert her gaze to avoid being hypnotised by him, but the power of his spoken command is too strong, and the next thing we know she is under his power and unable to resist his command to come to him. The result is her death - as Greta wails, "She's dead and he's free". The Baroness definitely didn't want that, and knew it was a danger, hence the chain in the first place. It is not a ruse.
I also finally figured out on this viewing that another common fan criticism of this film's continuity is also unfair. Why, people have asked, does Marianne agree to get engaged to the Baron after everything she's seen at the castle? In the novelisation, this is explained by hypnotism, but in the film that explanation isn't needed, because instead she actually doesn't see quite enough to really put two and two together. I mean, she can fairly stand accused of a certain degree of denseness, but we are specifically shown that she doesn't realise the Baron has killed his mother.
When he comes out into the hall and starts working his powers on the Baroness, he tells Marianne to go back up to her room and wait. She must realise there's a rather nasty showdown going on, but she also believes the Baroness has been unfairly keeping her son prisoner for years, so I guess she concludes it's reasonable for him to assert his authority after all this time and is willing to leave them to it. The next thing which happens for her is that she hears Greta's mad wailing and goes back down to see what's going on. Greta shows her that the Baroness is now dead, but Marianne doesn't ascribe this to the Baron. Instead, she asks Greta in shocked tones, "What have you done?" She then runs away in horror before Greta launches into her monologue (directed at the Baroness) about the family backstory, so never understands what has happened. And this is why she's willing to get engaged to the Baron when he comes to the Academy - because she doesn't yet know that he is a vampire who has killed his own mother. (Though she might at that point have expressed condolences about his mother's death and asked what's happened about Greta!)
I'm not sure I've ever really tracked the details of the Baron's movements after gaining his freedom, either. Greta says that he has to return to the castle eventually because his coffin is there, but by the time Van Helsing gets there the next night, the coffin is gone from its niche. The Baron himself is still there, but after a brief scuffle with Van Helsing, he heads off in the family carriage. Presumably it contains not only his coffin but also Marianne's luggage, since he then turns up at the Academy on the pretext of bringing it back for her. After that, we next hear of him in the windmill, which is where he has moved the coffin to.
Other minor points:
Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
This is the film I've seen least out of this group - basically once when I was about 20 and once in 2018 ( LJ / DW). So I'm starting from a different place with it.
Here's my understanding of what's going on in the film - not so much the main plot of the Ravnas entrapping Marianne Harcourt, which is clear enough, but mainly with a view to clearing up the things going on around that which puzzled me last time. Anna and her husband Bruno at the Grand Hotel have lost their daughter Tania. Bruno seems to want to suppress the memory and be cheerful; Anna can't get over it but has to mourn in secret because of Bruno's position. They don't seem to connect the issue with the Ravnas at first, and are genuinely kind to Marianne and Gerald, including well-meaning when they encourage them to go up to the Ravnas' castle for dinner and the ball. But after Marianne has been initiated into the cult and Gerald gets kicked out, the Ravnas send a message to them by coach, telling Anna and Bruno that they have their daughter Tania, and they must play along in denying any knowledge of Marianne if they value her life.
The Ravnas themselves are a little cautious and selective. They don't inveigle even Marianne into the cult straight away, but check her out via an evening of dinner and piano-playing first before ramping things up at the ball. It does seem a bit silly, though, to go through the rigmarole of kicking Gerald out and instructing everyone in the local area to gaslight him about Marianne's very existence if they were only then going to initiate him into the cult anyway when he came back to try to rescue her. I guess by that stage it seems like the easiest way to neutralise him as a threat.
I was puzzled last time by why the vampires didn't chase Gerald, Marianne and Professor Zimmer when they escaped together from the Ravnas' castle, but having paid a bit more attention to that sequence this time, the reason is that Harcourt smeared the blood gouged from his own chest into a cross, and then Zimmer puts crosses all on the doors and sealed them with garlic as they left. Also, part of the reason the Ravnas wanted Marianne in the first place was because they knew Zimmer was planning to destroy them using a ritual which could only work on a particular night, and they wanted her at the castle on that night to assure their safety. This isn't very well worked through, as we don't see enough evidence that Zimmer cares about Marianne or Gerald understands the risk to her for them to cancel the ritual because it might endanger her. But it is at least supposed to be part of what's going on.
This was also the first time I had watched this film in sequence as part of Hammer's evolving vampire oeuvre, and I really came away feeling that I should have done that before. It is a very distinct bridge between Brides and Prince, rounding out the Hammer vampire-verse and showing all sorts of little developments in their approach to telling these stories. I'm going to switch into list mode to enumerate all that:
It also has some points of connection with other, non-Hammer texts. The appearance of the car and the way it conks out of petrol at the beginning of the film felt a bit Genevieve (1953) to me. Room 13 doesn't appear and disappear like in the M.R. James story, but it is occupied by someone practising the dark arts (Professor Zimmer). The masked ball at which evil is afoot must have been filmed before The Masque of the Red Death, and indeed the film had its US release in September 1963, a full nine months before Masque in June 1964 (but the two production teams may well have known about each other's plans). And Professor Zimmer's ritual initially summons up a great wind which is depicted a lot like Karswell's in Night of the Demon.
I don't think it will ever quite stand alongside the Dracula films for me, but it did have some clever little touches which reflect well on its producers. One was good use of uncanny sound. Examples of this include the rising whine of violins overlaid onto Carl's piano music to convey its hypnotising effects, Marianne hallucinating the sound of a young girl sobbing to lure her into opening the drapes on Ravna's tomb (I was puzzled last time by why we never see the source of the sobbing, but this is why - it's uncanny, unreal sound), and the deliberate absence of any soundtrack music during the climactic attack so that full prominence can be given to the whirring, flapping and screeching of bats instead. It also does some absolutely great stuff with the cinematic gaze - but I will save my comments on that for our webcast.
Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
There's less to cover here, because I have watched it more often! But I'm not sure I've ever noticed before that the first post-credits shot is of a body of water (the lake which the funeral procession passes), foreshadowing Dracula's icy demise at the end. Nice use is also made of red lighting to indicate evil, which is seen through an opening in the castle corridor when Klove is dragging the trunk containing Dracula's relics around, and then later on the gallery over the hall when the Kents return to the castle.
I do have a list of connections with other Hammer films, though (in addition to some already listed above under Kiss):
OK, that's it, I am done!
Dracula (1958)
I was looking carefully at Valerie Gaunt during this viewing, as she's a nice example of one of the things Gothic horror has to offer female viewers, despite the objectification and gender-essentialism which is also rife in these films. She has agency and power of her own, including a great capacity for manipulating Jonathan Harker and no compunctions about pursuing her own agenda which conflicts with Dracula's. Sure, so the audience is meant to view all this with horror, and we soon see her being punished for it and put safely out of action. But female horror viewers are quite used to watching 'around' this sort of framing. It's everywhere, but at least horror puts the transgressive women on screen in the first place.
Anyway, thanks to thinking about this I got a better view this time of why it is that Jonathan Harker stakes her first in the crypt, rather than Dracula. It's often viewed by fans as a stupid mistake, and of course it's a mistake he has to make if the story isn't to end rather prematurely. But I could see much better why he does it this time. It's because, for all that he knows she is a vampire, her manipulation has nonetheless clearly hit home with him and caused him to feel sympathy for her. You can see it in his face during every interaction they have, while the idea that staking a vampire is an act of kindness which puts them at rest is developed quite explicitly with Lucy later on. So that's why he does it. It isn't a stupid lack of pragmatism, but an act of gallantry where his priority is to help the vampire he sees as more pitiable first - and this is totally clear on his face too when he approaches her for the staking.
Other things... I will have a lot to say in our webcast about how doors work in this film. This is something which came to me on viewing Dracula in 2019 at the IVFAF festival (LJ / DW), but it's become a little clearer for me now. Basically, doors in this film operate as symbols of (sexual) invitation and power. When they stand unguarded and half-open, or we see people actively opening them, that’s an invitation. When people lock doors or slam them shut, it’s an act of power. And bursting through doors is an assault. Once you’ve noticed this, it is very marked, and maps very directly onto the emotions and motivations of the characters.
All this thinking about doors added something for me to the name of the inn in Klausenberg, too. After we have seen the terrifying climax of the first act, in which Dracula standing at the top of the steps into his crypt slams the door behind him in a show of (sexual?) power, trapping a trembling Jonathan inside with him, we cut directly to the sign for this inn - a paired of crossed keys - and then meet Van Helsing as he enters it. I'd never quite picked this up before, but actually that inn sign is acting like a sort of introductory caption for him, telling us who he is and what he is going to do. Obviously he's the guy with the crosses - Peter Cushing himself joked that he felt like he was at risk of coming across as a crucifix salesman, he has so many of them. But he's also metaphorically the guy with the keys, who is going to unlock the doors behind which evil lurks and solve the problems we have been shown in the first act of the film.
Finally, I've talked about the zodiac wheel on the floor in Dracula's library before, which I think adds a lot to the film and deserves its own special slot on its Wikipedia page. There, we are told that 'Dracula's ring is left on the glyph of the sign of Aquarius on the Zodiac wheel', which TBH I can't really get very much out of, but I can get something out of the fact that it's also left on the word 'estin' in the quotation from Homer. In context, the subject of the verb is 'the mind' (of men), but we can no longer see that context in the final shot. It's just a 3rd person present indicative which could equally mean 'it is' or 'he / she is'. I like the implications of either of those, which could equally mean 'that's it' (it's all over) or 'he (still) is', indicating that you can never really get rid of Dracula. Guess which I prefer!
Brides of Dracula (1960)
Ahead of this watch, there had been some Twitter discussion about why Baron Meinster doesn't just turn into a bat and escape from the chain which is keeping him secure in his rooms. There were two main schools of thought: a) it's silver so saps his vampiric powers preventing him from transforming and b) it's all part of the ruse and isn't really constraining him at all. With that last suggestion in particular in mind I decided to keep a very close eye on the subterfuge and manipulation being performed by both the Baron and the Baroness, because I have definitely found it confusing before, and I think have generally ended up concluding that it doesn't fully make sense and is an artefact of the multiple rewrites which the script went through before production. It is all very confusing, because everyone has hidden agendas and there are additional layers of misdirection being presented to the viewers too. But I am happy to say that I have finally figured it all out, and it does all make total sense. In fact, the whole film is tighter and better-plotted than I think I've previously given it credit for.
So. After Marianne has arrived in the inn, it's clear that the landlord and his wife know full well what is going to happen to her. The reason they say they haven't got a room and Johan rushes off to get a farm cart instead isn't just because they don't want to incur their own risks by having her around on their premises. It's because they know her only hope lies in getting her entirely away from there. But Johan isn't quite quick enough - the Baroness' carriage arrives just after he gets back with the farm cart and before he can take Marianne away. There is some doors = power business going on at this point. They know they have to open the door to let the Baroness in, because they are ultimately her tenants. The wife says "don't open it", but Johan says "I must". Then, when Marianne mentions to the Baroness during conversation that she can't stay at the inn, the wife rushes forward to say that they do have a room after all. That's because at this point, keeping her in the inn has become a better chance for her survival than letting her leave with the Baroness. But it's too late.
Once in the castle, a trail of crumbs is left for Marianne. When she turns back into her room after seeing the Baron from her balcony, Greta is waiting right inside, evidently to make sure that this part of the plan has worked and she did see him (though she denies that Marianne can have seen anyone). Over dinner, the Baroness then deliberately brings up the fact that Greta said Marianne had seen someone, takes the opportunity to spin a sad tale about her son and specifically points out the door through which his rooms are reached. Marianne then duly sneaks into the Baron's rooms at night, as the Baroness had planned. Where things start to go off-piste, though is that she agrees to the Baron's request to get the key to unlock the chain restraining him, and successfully does so. Perhaps she is braver and more resourceful than his previous victims?
The bit I have never quite grasped before is the Baroness' behaviour while Marianne is stealing the key, but I've got it straight now. While Marianne in the Baroness' room opening her bureau, the Baroness goes into Marianne's room (without knocking!), sees that she's isn't in bed, and heads back to her own room. There, she evidently hears a noise inside as she approaches (which is Marianne). But she doesn't find Marianne in the room. She realises the key is missing, walks to the window and looks grimly out, but doesn't open it, and thus doesn't realise that Marianne is outside, huddled out of sight in the ivy. This is the bit I've misinterpreted before. Because the Baroness evidently hears a noise before going into the room, I've assumed she knows Marianne is in there and deliberately doesn't look properly out of the window in order to avoid disrupting her key-theft. But in view of what then unfolds, I no longer think that's right. The Baroness genuinely doesn't want her son unlocked, and is merely neglectful about not investigating the source of the noise in her room properly.
Marianne climbs from the Baroness' balcony straight to her own balcony, and from there throws the key to Baron. Meanwhile, the Baroness returns to Marianne's room, evidently following up on her suspicions about the noise. Perhaps she did know Marianne was on the balcony, and decided the easiest way to intercept her was to catch her on coming back into her own room, but she didn't count on Marianne throwing the key to the Baron on the way? Anyway, by the time she gets there, Marianne is back inside, and the Baroness confronts her, demanding back the key. This isn't a charade - she genuinely wants it back. What she wanted was for Marianne to go into the Baron's rooms, but not for her to get the key to his chain and unlock it.
And indeed that action has horrible consequences for the Baroness. Immediately on being freed, the Baron enters into the hall, where the Baroness sees him from the top of stairs. She knows to avert her gaze to avoid being hypnotised by him, but the power of his spoken command is too strong, and the next thing we know she is under his power and unable to resist his command to come to him. The result is her death - as Greta wails, "She's dead and he's free". The Baroness definitely didn't want that, and knew it was a danger, hence the chain in the first place. It is not a ruse.
I also finally figured out on this viewing that another common fan criticism of this film's continuity is also unfair. Why, people have asked, does Marianne agree to get engaged to the Baron after everything she's seen at the castle? In the novelisation, this is explained by hypnotism, but in the film that explanation isn't needed, because instead she actually doesn't see quite enough to really put two and two together. I mean, she can fairly stand accused of a certain degree of denseness, but we are specifically shown that she doesn't realise the Baron has killed his mother.
When he comes out into the hall and starts working his powers on the Baroness, he tells Marianne to go back up to her room and wait. She must realise there's a rather nasty showdown going on, but she also believes the Baroness has been unfairly keeping her son prisoner for years, so I guess she concludes it's reasonable for him to assert his authority after all this time and is willing to leave them to it. The next thing which happens for her is that she hears Greta's mad wailing and goes back down to see what's going on. Greta shows her that the Baroness is now dead, but Marianne doesn't ascribe this to the Baron. Instead, she asks Greta in shocked tones, "What have you done?" She then runs away in horror before Greta launches into her monologue (directed at the Baroness) about the family backstory, so never understands what has happened. And this is why she's willing to get engaged to the Baron when he comes to the Academy - because she doesn't yet know that he is a vampire who has killed his own mother. (Though she might at that point have expressed condolences about his mother's death and asked what's happened about Greta!)
I'm not sure I've ever really tracked the details of the Baron's movements after gaining his freedom, either. Greta says that he has to return to the castle eventually because his coffin is there, but by the time Van Helsing gets there the next night, the coffin is gone from its niche. The Baron himself is still there, but after a brief scuffle with Van Helsing, he heads off in the family carriage. Presumably it contains not only his coffin but also Marianne's luggage, since he then turns up at the Academy on the pretext of bringing it back for her. After that, we next hear of him in the windmill, which is where he has moved the coffin to.
Other minor points:
- The Meinsters' castle is noticeably more opulent and Rococo than Dracula's. It speaks of Austro-Hungarian imperial wealth rather than that of a feudal / military lord. This fits nicely with the Baroness showing a knowledge of the Empress' wine-cellars when she talks to Marianne in the inn.
- Van Helsing appears around the 30-minute mark after we have seen the horrors of vampirism in action, in a way which is structurally very similar way to Dracula. Both films move distinctly into a second act at this point which begins with his arrival.
- The locks falling from Gina's coffin are undoubtedly an M.R. James 'Count Magnus' reference, but there are only two of them rather than three, so we don't get the same rising three notes of tension (a classic and very effective horror device).
Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
This is the film I've seen least out of this group - basically once when I was about 20 and once in 2018 ( LJ / DW). So I'm starting from a different place with it.
Here's my understanding of what's going on in the film - not so much the main plot of the Ravnas entrapping Marianne Harcourt, which is clear enough, but mainly with a view to clearing up the things going on around that which puzzled me last time. Anna and her husband Bruno at the Grand Hotel have lost their daughter Tania. Bruno seems to want to suppress the memory and be cheerful; Anna can't get over it but has to mourn in secret because of Bruno's position. They don't seem to connect the issue with the Ravnas at first, and are genuinely kind to Marianne and Gerald, including well-meaning when they encourage them to go up to the Ravnas' castle for dinner and the ball. But after Marianne has been initiated into the cult and Gerald gets kicked out, the Ravnas send a message to them by coach, telling Anna and Bruno that they have their daughter Tania, and they must play along in denying any knowledge of Marianne if they value her life.
The Ravnas themselves are a little cautious and selective. They don't inveigle even Marianne into the cult straight away, but check her out via an evening of dinner and piano-playing first before ramping things up at the ball. It does seem a bit silly, though, to go through the rigmarole of kicking Gerald out and instructing everyone in the local area to gaslight him about Marianne's very existence if they were only then going to initiate him into the cult anyway when he came back to try to rescue her. I guess by that stage it seems like the easiest way to neutralise him as a threat.
I was puzzled last time by why the vampires didn't chase Gerald, Marianne and Professor Zimmer when they escaped together from the Ravnas' castle, but having paid a bit more attention to that sequence this time, the reason is that Harcourt smeared the blood gouged from his own chest into a cross, and then Zimmer puts crosses all on the doors and sealed them with garlic as they left. Also, part of the reason the Ravnas wanted Marianne in the first place was because they knew Zimmer was planning to destroy them using a ritual which could only work on a particular night, and they wanted her at the castle on that night to assure their safety. This isn't very well worked through, as we don't see enough evidence that Zimmer cares about Marianne or Gerald understands the risk to her for them to cancel the ritual because it might endanger her. But it is at least supposed to be part of what's going on.
This was also the first time I had watched this film in sequence as part of Hammer's evolving vampire oeuvre, and I really came away feeling that I should have done that before. It is a very distinct bridge between Brides and Prince, rounding out the Hammer vampire-verse and showing all sorts of little developments in their approach to telling these stories. I'm going to switch into list mode to enumerate all that:
- Builds on Brides by showing the funeral rites for a local girl affected by vampirism; points towards Prince by specifically starting with this.
- Gerald and Marianne Harcourt look and act a lot like Charles and Diana Kent from Prince.
- The Ravnas' castle contains the globe and the top lintel of the fire-place in the library from Dracula (used as decorative trim on Ravna's tomb), the dragon sculpts from both Brides and Prince, the sofa with cords tying up the drop arms from The Devil Rides Out, and the round window from the crypt in Prince (though with different coloured glass in it).
- Ravna saying 'You have a singularly lovely wife, Mr. Harcourt' recalls Dracula telling Jonathan Harker that Lucy is 'charming'.
- Zimmer burning his wrist to purge the effect of Tania's vampire bite sits in a chain of connection between Van Helsing branding his own neck in Brides and Sandor burning Diana's wrist on a lamp in Prince.
- Ravna clearly uses hypnotic thrall to draw Marianne to him for her initiation and towards the end to summon her from her hotel room up to the castle, just as Dracula and the Baron Meinster can do.
- The notion of vampirism as a cult builds on Brides.
- Zimmer finds an exhausted and muddy Gerald by side of the road in the forest, just as Van Helsing found Marianne in Brides and Sandor finds Charles and Diana in Prince.
- There is a policeman in Austro-Hungarian uniform which clearly isn't really interested in investigating a missing person, just as in Scars.
- The bat attack must also had fed into Scars.
- Zimmer explaining the reality of vampirism to Gerald, who's vaguely heard of the bats, is a lot like Sandor explaining it to Charles, who thought it was the product of an over-active imagination, in Brides.
- Ravna corrupted Zimmer's daughter in 'the city' which is implicitly what happened with the young Baron Meinster too.
- Zimmer's ritual uses astrology, recalling the zodiac wheel on Dracula's floor, and perhaps anticipates the ritualistic overtones of Klove's resurrection of Dracula in Prince.
- The phenomenon of generic Hammer names is in full force. We have Marianne the beautiful victim in Brides and this; Tania the daughter in Dracula, the daughter-who's-a-vampire in this, and just the vampire in Scars (an interesting semantic shift); and Anna the landlord's wife in Brides and this.
It also has some points of connection with other, non-Hammer texts. The appearance of the car and the way it conks out of petrol at the beginning of the film felt a bit Genevieve (1953) to me. Room 13 doesn't appear and disappear like in the M.R. James story, but it is occupied by someone practising the dark arts (Professor Zimmer). The masked ball at which evil is afoot must have been filmed before The Masque of the Red Death, and indeed the film had its US release in September 1963, a full nine months before Masque in June 1964 (but the two production teams may well have known about each other's plans). And Professor Zimmer's ritual initially summons up a great wind which is depicted a lot like Karswell's in Night of the Demon.
I don't think it will ever quite stand alongside the Dracula films for me, but it did have some clever little touches which reflect well on its producers. One was good use of uncanny sound. Examples of this include the rising whine of violins overlaid onto Carl's piano music to convey its hypnotising effects, Marianne hallucinating the sound of a young girl sobbing to lure her into opening the drapes on Ravna's tomb (I was puzzled last time by why we never see the source of the sobbing, but this is why - it's uncanny, unreal sound), and the deliberate absence of any soundtrack music during the climactic attack so that full prominence can be given to the whirring, flapping and screeching of bats instead. It also does some absolutely great stuff with the cinematic gaze - but I will save my comments on that for our webcast.
Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
There's less to cover here, because I have watched it more often! But I'm not sure I've ever noticed before that the first post-credits shot is of a body of water (the lake which the funeral procession passes), foreshadowing Dracula's icy demise at the end. Nice use is also made of red lighting to indicate evil, which is seen through an opening in the castle corridor when Klove is dragging the trunk containing Dracula's relics around, and then later on the gallery over the hall when the Kents return to the castle.
I do have a list of connections with other Hammer films, though (in addition to some already listed above under Kiss):
- The castle is literally the same as Castle Ravna, which is a bit hard to explain on any in-story level! It's hard to say which film is supposed to take place first chronologically, though. The key would lie in when the model of car which the Harcourts are touring in was first produced.
- It also has the same round window in the crypt as had been in the tower-room at Castle Ravna, except that only the frame is the same - the glass is plain coloured glass without alchemical symbols. That's OK - it can just be explained as the outcome of a consistent local architectural style.
- At the beginning of the film, we see a flashback to the end of Dracula to remind us how Dracula met his demise. Of course that's necessary in a world without home-video and in which even attentive Hammer fans have seen two other completely different vampire films in between. I only noticed this time, though, that the final shot of it isn't actually taken directly from Dracula. This should have been Dracula's ring lying on the zodiac wheel, but it isn't. Instead, it shows the slightly different ring Lee wears in this film, and is no longer against the zodiac backdrop - presumably that was too much trouble to recreate just to show the right ring.
- Charles doing a yard of ale in the inn anticipates Paul doing the same during a drinking game in Risen.
- Klove's explanation about Dracula's instructions include the observation that the Draculas were 'an old and distinguished family', which is much the sort of thing Klove II also says about him in Scars.
- Dracula throws Charles towards the fireplace during his fight with Helen, very much like Jonathan Harker during the scuffle with Valerie in Dracula.
- Sandor says the same Roman Catholic prayer of absolution over the dead Helen as the priest says over Marianne in the forest to purge her of the vampire cul in Kiss - 'Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus.'
OK, that's it, I am done!