Horror of Dracula

I finally got my mitts on Horror of Dracula (1958), the first in the Hammer Dracula series, thus the first to star Christopher Lee as the Count. Other than Bela Lugosi, he is probably the actor most identified with the role. What I'm finding out in these Hammer films is that he doesn't have to talk much, he just has to look scary, which he does.

Simply titled Dracula in the UK, but renamed in the US to avoid confusion with the 1931 film, Horror of Dracula is based on Bram Stoker's novel, barely. As I've watched these many adaptations of Dracula I've been amused by the way they change things around. In this one Jonathan Harker is not a real estate agent, but instead a librarian hired by Dracula. But he's undercover, knowing full well Dracula's evil ways and committed to destroying him.

The film also jumbles up the characters' names. Harker is not engaged to Mina, instead to Lucy Holmwood, who is not married to Arthur Holmwood, as in the novel, but his sister. He's married to Mina, who is Harker's fiancee in the book. There is no Renfield, but there is z Dr. Seward, who instead of being a 29-year-old who runs the local insane asylum, is a middle-aged doctor tending to Lucy, who is being fed on by Dracula. There is also a Dr. Van Helsing, ably played by Hammer regular Peter Cushing.

The film also, despite being a British production, is not set in England, but in Germany (and Romania, of course). I would love to know what went on in deciding all this. Why switch the women's names like that?

Anyway, Harker has a chance to kill Dracula but stupidly kills his bride instead, allowing the sun to set and Dracula to escape and kill him. Van Helsing finds Harker in his coffin, fangs out, and destroys him, and then heads back to tell the Holmwoods of his death. Arthur (played by Michael Gough, later famous for playing Alfred in the first run of Batman pictures) is dubious, but believes all after he sees Lucy, quite dead, wandering around outside her crypt. He and Cushing then try to track down the Count and destroy him once and for all.

As noted in my review of Dracula A.D. 1972, the Hammer films didn't stint on blood. We see Dracula asleep in his coffin, blood dripping out of his lips. You'd think he'd wash his face before bed. There are also lots of women in diaphanous gowns, and Lee, who is pretty imposing, also has his own sex appeal. He is first seen at the top of the stairs, wrapped in his cape, and it's striking.

In this film Dracula is destroyed by sunlight, which begs the question, if you were a vampire, wouldn't you brick up the windows in your house?