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Christopher Lee: A Sinister Centenary - NUMBER ONE

Welcome to the last entry of Christopher Lee: A Sinister Centenary! Over the course of May, I have been counting down My Top 31 Favorite Performances by my favorite actor, the late, great Sir Christopher Lee, in honor of his 100th Birthday. Although this fine actor left us a few years ago, his legacy endures, and this countdown is a tribute to said legacy!

We’ve come to the finale of this special event. I’ve discussed Christopher Lee’s two favorite pictures, “Jinnah” and “The Wicker Man,” and I’ve discussed some of his most well-known characters, such as Saruman and Count Dooku. But today, we discuss my personal favorite Christopher Lee Performance…or rather, my favorite Christopher Lee Character: Count Dracula.

Who else could it be?

The Creature – Frankenstein’s Monster – was the role that officially put Christopher Lee on the map. It got the attention of Hammer studios, and made audiences curious…but if that had been Lee’s one standout role, I doubt he’d be as revered as he is today. A bit like how it took “Empire Strikes Back” to TRULY cement Darth Vader’s place in the annals of villainy, I think it is fair to say that it took “Horror of Dracula” to cement Christopher Lee as an actor. However, Lee really only got the part because of Frankenstein, and on closer inspection, this is clear: for most of the film, Dracula is not onscreen, and after the opening sequence with Jonathan Harker, he never speaks again for the remainder of the movie. Ironically, however, these same qualities were part of what made the character so fascinating: the mystery and the power Lee carried, doing so much with so little, made his Dracula instantly memorable, and from that moment on, his reputation was set in stone.

This was as much a blessing as a curse. Lee would, in the end, play Dracula a total of TEN TIMES in theatrical films: seven times for Hammer, once in the Jess Franco picture “Count Dracula,” once in a (bad) comedy/parody film called “Dracula and Son,” and once in a cameo appearance in the film “One More Time,” directed by Jerry Lewis and starring Sammy Davis Jr. (Not the place you’d usually expect Dracula to show up, but whatever.) On top of that, he would end up playing the real-life inspiration for the Count, Vlad Dracula, in a documentary entitled “In Search of Dracula.” And even THAT is not the end, as Lee would narrate an (abridged) audiobook of the Bram Stoker novel in 2009. Put it all together, and you can make a case for Lee tackling the Count a whole dozen times. Even if you only count the initial ten, that’s more than any actor has EVER played Dracula, at least in movies: that’s more than Bela Lugosi, Adam Sandler, and John Carradine COMBINED.

If you will pardon the expression…HOT. DAMN.

Carving out a name for himself as the King of the Vampires was something that Lee would always have something of a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand, Dracula was the role that brought him fame and recognition beyond any other, and to this day he is one of the most iconic and lauded interpreters of the character, especially through the Hammer Horror franchise. On the other hand…if we’re being completely honest, out of all ten of his film appearances as the Count, there are really only a couple that I would solidly and honestly consider to be good movies, with few major flaws to speak of. The rest all range from “okay” to “OH GOD WHAT IS THIS TRAVESTY MAKE IT STOP.” Lee, himself, was well-aware of the flaws in the material for most of his pictures, and as a fan of the Bram Stoker novel, he hated how the writers – especially with the Hammer features – never seemed to use the character to what he felt was their full potential.

Perhaps more important and tragic than the lackluster material, however, was what it did to Lee’s career, and it was this, above all else, that proved to be Lee’s ultimate bitter point with the role and the movies he was in for it: no matter what else he did, for decades upon decades, Lee – like the aforementioned Lugosi – was seen as Dracula. This lasted well into the modern day: while younger viewers of today will probably recognize him better for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or his Tim Burton film appearances, the directors of those same movies never failed to remind Lee with jokes about his role as the Count…something which seemed to mildly frustrate the great man, even then. In fact, any time a director DIDN’T make a joke about Dracula, or only did it once, Lee would point this out as being something that endeared them to him. All the way to the end, the vampire lord dogged this man, and Lee’s commentary on his tenure was, for the most part, quite sour.

Having related all this, the ultimate question one must ask about Christopher Lee and Count Dracula is…why? Why, when the actor so clearly had resentment against so many of the films, and repeatedly stressed his desire to put that character aside and move on, did he keep coming back to it, again and again and again? With Hammer, Lee has gone on record saying he was basically blackmailed into doing most of those movies…but this doesn’t explain his appearances in the non-Hammer properties. And for all the bitterness he had, when Lee was actually asked about the CHARACTER, and his approach to the role as an actor, he always spoke of it fondly, with enthusiasm and analytical intensity.

I think the ultimate answer is that, for all the ups and downs Dracula provided Lee, it was, nevertheless, a role he legitimately cared about. He may not have liked the movies, but he liked the Count, and he was protective of the part. Even in the worst of his Dracula outings, he is always A+ in his delivery of whatever material he’s given. He took steps to try and inject something special into the character, when even the writers often clearly hadn’t the foggiest idea of what they were doing. And in every story you hear about the movies, in every clip from behind-the-scenes you see, he’s having fun. Whatever curse Dracula brought to Christopher Lee…perhaps the pains, in the end, were worth it. Lee may or may not have been proud to see Dracula take the top spot on this list…but it’s the spot his Dracula deserves.

Thank you all for joining me on this adventure through the wild and wonderful career of Sir Christopher Lee. What countdown shall I do next? Only time will tell. ;)

Once again, Happy Birthday, Sir Christopher. I hope that yourself, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price are having fun up there in that big mystery movie in the sky.

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Count-Down: NUMBER ONE

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE! The hour has come. It’s the final day of October – the spookiest day of the year – and the last of my entries for Count-Down. I’ve been covering my favorite portrayals and reimaginings of Count Dracula from virtually every form of media. With so many to choose from, my selections weren’t easy, but we’ve finally reached my number one pick. If you don’t know who that number one is yet, I guess I’ll have to Hammer it in. NUMBER ONE IS…Christopher Lee.

It’s been six-going-on-seven years since Sir Christopher Lee left us at the ripe old age of 93. After all this time, I still miss him as if it was only months ago. I’ve honestly never missed an actor more in my life. Lee was one of the people who made me want to be an actor, and while he lived a long and very full life, the fact that I could no longer look forward to future appearances by him in anything was still rather disheartening, and will always be so. If there is any Dracula portrayer who can challenge Bela Lugosi for iconography, it is undoubtedly Christopher Lee. Lee’s relationship with the role was just as tumultuous as Lugosi’s, albeit for different reasons. Lee was actually a fan of the original Bram Stoker novel, and the popular Hammer Horror Dracula series – in which he featured as the Count - strayed much too far from Stoker for his liking. The first two films he basically did for money and glory, but by the time the third film rolled around, he was well-established and getting steady work from all sorts of other avenues, and didn’t want to continue the part. However, Hammer was able to entice Lee back again basically via blackmail: contract negotiations with Hammer’s distributors in the United States stated that Lee NEEDED to play Count Dracula in the films in order to have their backing. These distributors were a HUGE source of income, and without them, a large number of people at the studio risked losing their jobs. While there may or may not have been other extenuating circumstances that caused Lee to return to the part time and time again – not only playing Dracula for nearly all of the Hammer films in that lineup, but also in a couple of other pictures that were deliberate parodies of the Hammer Dracula – this, ultimately, was the main reason he claimed that he kept coming back to the franchise time after time. At least in movies, Lee has probably played Dracula more than any other person – almost a dozen times, seven of them being for Hammer Horror productions – and while Lugosi’s voice and certain aspects of his design may forever be iconic, Lee is just as responsible for the popular perception of Dracula. Firstly, it was with Lee that the idea of Dracula having a “true form” – a more monstrous appearance under a human façade – was arguably originated; this Dracula, seemingly depending on the shifts in his mood, would occasionally be seen with visible fangs and/or blood red eyes, while in other scenes he seems totally human. The blood red lining of the cape was also a Hammer invention; earlier Draculas usually had capes of pure black, or lined in colors such as silver, and in the very first Hammer Dracula film – released as “Horror of Dracula” in America – this was the same. Starting with the second film, however, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness,” the character was shown wearing a gigantic cape that was lined in vivid, sumptuous scarlet. In the Hammer films, Lee’s Dracula goes in essentially the opposite direction of Lugosi. Lugosi’s Dracula is similar to a Bond Villain (before Bond Villains were even a thing), or perhaps an undead Moriarty. He may be rather uncanny, but he is, at his core, a human being. He’s simply an evil one. Hammer’s Dracula is different: this version plays with the Count in a way that I feel is in some ways closer to the one in the books. This Dracula is an animal in a human skin; a bloodthirsty, violent beast who hides his inner savagery under a veneer of dignified humanity. Dracula says very little throughout all his movies; in the second film, in fact, he never says anything at all. However, it is Lee’s charisma and intensity that makes the character powerful; a towering, imposing figure of authority and danger, who is just as intimidating when standing perfectly still and statuesque as he is leaping at you with his gory fangs bared. When he DOES speak, you therefore feel it’s important, as Lee’s infamously resonant voice carries immense amounts of weight. While I love the Hammer Dracula, I feel another Lee portrayal deserves equal credit: as I said, Lee hated how far Hammer strayed from Stoker’s character and style, and longed to play a version of the Count closer to that in the story. In 1970 – the same year he did two of the Hammer films, “Taste the Blood of Dracula” and “Scars of Dracula” – Lee got his chance in a super-low-budget feature simply entitled “Count Dracula.”

“Count Dracula” – directed by the unlikely Jess Franco – is by no means a perfect movie. Its cheapness is pasted all over the place, and the script is something of a roller-coaster ride. Much of it feels very accurate to the book and captures all the necessary elements, but then other parts of it sag and differ considerably. It is helped immeasurably by its cast, and especially Lee as Dracula. In a way, I think THIS is the most book-accurate take on Dracula out there: not only is this the only live-action screen Dracula to look more or less exactly like the one Stoker described, but Lee brings to the character a personality and nuanced depth that one could argue is better than the film deserves, while never straying far from Stoker’s initial vision. This is by no means the most iconic Dracula, but he is perhaps the closest anyone has come to giving us the character the author always envisioned. This Count has the cold, calculating, corpse-like qualities actors like Frank Lederer brought to the role, as well as the power and refinement actors like Lugosi brought to it, mixed with the animalistic duplicity that Lee himself mastered in the Hammer films. He’s not a sex symbol nor a tragic hero, but he has just enough depth and attraction that you can still feel the gravity of the character come through.

There’s a subtle but palpable loneliness to Lee’s Dracula in ALL of his appearances, which Lee himself said was intentional, as he wanted to try and give the audience something that was – at the time – largely unexpected. Whichever take on Dracula you prefer – the powerhouse madness of Hammer, or the surprising complexity of the Franco film – Lee brought them both to life, and the role would forever be one that haunted him. Unlike Lugosi, however, Lee was able to shake off the shackles of the King of the Vampires to a degree: his career never really drooped, as he remained steadily employed all his life, and even appeared in major franchises long after Hammer shut down the Dracula series, with roles in things like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. No matter where he went or what he did, however, Dracula always dogged him. For Lee, this was likely a curse more often than a blessing…but however stormy the actor and his most famous role’s relationship with each other were, what cannot be denied is that he remains definitive for a reason. For me, and many others, Christopher Lee simply IS Count Dracula. For better or worse, that will never truly change. I hope you’ve enjoyed this countdown; thank you all for joining me.