I'd mentioned, in an earlier post, that I was not a big fan of Bela Lugosi. And, as he was the first, and most famous, film version of Dracula, it should come as no surprise that my favorite onscreen Dracula was Frank Langella. Gotcha! No, it was Christopher Lee. The best, of course, was Klaus Kinski's Dracula in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, Phantom Of The Night (recall, the original Count, in F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu was named Orlock). But, my favorite was Christopher Lee.
Kinski's take was, dare I say it?, too realistic to be enjoyed in a campy way. But, Lee's take on Dracula, in a long series of films for the Btitish Hammer Studios, was both more violent and sexual than Lugosi's, well, shall I say laconic take?
What is notable about Lee's takes on Dracula is that, unlike Lugosi, Lee did not speak that much. In fact, in some of the films he barely spoke at all. Rumor is that Lee did not like the scripts, so refused to speak them, but did the films because they were what made him a star. But, this fact also had two beneficial side effects: 1) unlike Lugosi, Lee lacked a non-English accent, and therefore his lack of speaking made him more mysterious and feral as a character, whereas Lugosi simply stupefied many into sleep. 2) by not imposing himself so deeply into the role, in any intellectual way, Lee avoided the typecasting that doomed Lugosi's post-Dracula career.
As a boy, my pals and I would sneak into theaters to watch the Hammer films, or the latest from Roger Corman or Ray Harryhausen, and rarely would we not be entertained. We would discuss the 'finer points' of each film vs. the previous one, and anticipate what was to come.
Sadly, that is rarely done now. In an odd way, I think that's because so many 'film franchises' are run as such, the way fast food restaurants are franchises- they are all the same. Yet, looking back at the Hammer films and their varied series, or the Universal films before them, each had its own stamp. Yes, many were silly, corny, or just plain bad, but they tried to vary things up.
Lee's career, as said, did not suffer post-Dracula blues, like Lugosi's, and having starred in over 250 films he's had a varied career, and has starred in two of the most successful film franchises in history: Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings. But, to me, and many other kids born in the mid-20th century, he will forever be Dracula, and the coolest one....if not the best.
