Hammer-Time!: Dracula (Dir Terence Fisher, 1h22m, 1958)

Cometh Halloween, and the month of spooks, frights and horror films that go bump in the night, so we turn, as we did last year with Universal, to another studio synonymous with cinematic spookiness, in the form of England's beloved Hammer, Over a four decade rampage across Britain and beyond, Hammer Film Productions Ltd reintroduced some of the genre's most beloved characters-in vivid technicolour!-and set them back to work doing what they did best - scaring audiences - whilst updating their stories for the entertainment of a less sensitive audience, with violence and sex promoting their films from the end of the 1950s onwards only for this to be their undoing into the Seventies, as they unsuccessfully fought for relevance, closing in 1979 only to resurrect themselves to frighten fresh blood in the internet age.

Over the next five weeks, we'll see Hammer tackle s prehistoric beasts, the diabolical doings of satanic cults, Dracula in the 1970s! and Hammer teaming up with Hong Kong action godfathers the Shaw Brothers. We must begin, though, with Dracula in more familiar surroundings, as Terence Fisher and Christopher Lee reinvent the Count for the modern age, and propel Hammer out of the darkness into the limelight.

The many lives of Hammer Films begin with comedian and businessman William Hinds (or, Will Hammer as he appeared on the boards, his stage-name taken from Hinds' home in Hammersmith). Hammer spend the first half of the 1930s making dramas, most notably Song of Freedom (1936), starring Paul Robeson, and the second half of the 1930s not existing as Hammer were bankrupt, and aquired their distributor, Exclusive Films, co-founded by Hinds and former cinema owner, Enrique Carreras. With Exclusive struggling to fill gaps in order to sate post-war audiences in the cinema, Carreras' son, James, and Hinds' son, Anthony, proceed to resurrect Hammer for 1947's Death in High Heels, making films quickly, and on the cheap, often adapting lesser known novels and radio serials, and turning to renting country houses to save even more on productions in 1948.

Hammer proceed to get a reputation for cheap, effective and occasionally innovative crime and thrillers, employing almost a repertory-style cast of directors and actors to star in & direct their films, including, from 1951, editor-turned-director, Terence Fisher. It is here, in their 1955 adaption of cult BBC television series, The Quatermass Experiment, already an instant hit when broadcast in 1953. Hammer hit on a successful formula by scaring their audiences. Deliberately of course, in search of that letter most synonymous with Hammer's horror output: "X", or, more accurately "Rated X". As a result, Quatermass, its sequel, Quatermass 2 (1957), and the gory The Curse of Frankenstein, in which Eastman Kodak's "Eastmancolor" stock first comes to the fore as a key part of the Hammer formula, thrill the public, and outrage the establishment, though some cannot help but be impressed, and their financial returns on tiny budgets on both sides of the Atlantic-and curiously in Japan, where a nascent horror cinema industry took Hammer to their hearts and made Hammer notably wealthy.

Thus, Hammer began work on an adaption of Dracula; as with the previous film, its script by Jimmy Sangster is a fairly loose adaption, partly due to Hammer's insistence that it run under 90 minutes (as it does, by a whole eight minutes!) use only Hammer's Bray Studios and surroundings in rural Berkshire, and come in under budget (an estimated £81,000). Sangster's script  dispenses with much of the comings and goings in Stoker's novel and its more fantastical elements, instead placing its action in Eastern Europe and with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen), travelling to Dracula's castle to destroy him, masquerading as the Count's librarian. It is here, shortly after Jonathan is begged for help by one of the residents of the castle, (later revealled to be a vampire), that the film's secret weapon enters the film, in the menacing form of Christopher Lee.

There's enough discussion of Lee's performance turning Hammer into a horror powerhouse to fill this article many times over, not to mention Lee's overall underappreciation by British cinema as a whole. Lee makes this film, not merely because of his imposing height and physique, nor his adherence to the original text (something Lee would stick to throughout the six further sequels he would appear in), nor because his Count is far more lively and welcoming that Lugosi's Dracula, but because, alongside the fangs and red contact lenses, Lee brought an undeniable sensuality and sexual danger (back) to the vampire. Dracula is, undeniably, a sexy creature. So too are the vampires he creates as sinister revenants, and the woman who begged Harker to rescue her is soon revealled as one, biting him, and, whilst destroyed, her actions curtail Harker's ambitions to destroy the Count, his quest passing to Peter Cushing's Van Helsing (a reunion of the co-stars of The Curse of Frankenstein), who arrives soon after on the trail of his friend.

A battle of wits begins between the vampire and the hunter-Cushing's Van Helsing is the perfect antithesis of Dracula, coolly calculating, and almost always one step in front of the other human characters, most notably Michael Gough's Arthur, the brother of Harker's fiance, Lucy, who plays second fiddle to Van Helsing as our hero for much of the film. No sooner has Van Helsing returned from Dracula's castle, an excellently tense scene that reveals the superstition of the locals, garlic, crucifixes and all, and the fate of the unfortunate Jonathan, than Dracula once again appears, now infatuated with Lucy. It is here, as Dracula appears at her window, and enters to drink from here, that the romantic allure of the vampire is on full display, Lee's performance capturing the eroticism of the vampire, even as his vampirism slowly kills Lucy, the cinematography (by Jack Asher) lingering upon throats, and necks, the scenes in which blood is drunk from unfortunate victims often potently blurring the lines, largely shot over the shoulder, or with Dracula leaning in as if to kiss. It's, at any rate, a sensuality, an allure, that surrounds Lee's version of Dracula in this film.

Despite Van Helsing's warnings, and with the very items and barriers intended to protect her thrown away on her request, Lucy dies, only to be resurrected as a vampire, who proceeds to lure a child into the nearby forest, only to be confronted by Van Helsing and Arthur, who defeat and stake her, and then chase Dracula, who has now set his sights upon Mina, Arthur's wife, and made off with her, leading to a final, spectacular confrontation in which Hammer's love of gore, special effects, and good triumphant over evil (though, not always, as we shall see in later instalments!) come together to provide a stirring ending to this iteration of Dracula. Or so our heroes think..for, of course, Dracula would return. The box office demanded it, for one.

Dracula is a wonderfully made film-despite, or perhaps forced to be inventive because of its low budget, it has a great sense of place, of period and, most importantly, of character-Cushing has long since become the cinematic Van Helsing, the last bastion against the armies of the undead, whilst Lee, alongside Lugosi, has become cinematic shorthand for Dracula to such a degree that almost every subsequent version of the Count has felt either beholden to, or shied away from these twin masters of their craft. Moreover, and crucial to its success, it put blood back in Dracula's veins, made him as much a figure of romantic allure as one of terror, and Lee's peerless command of this aspect of the character was instrumental to its success, and to its longevity. Whilst Quatermass and Horror of Frankenstein may have launched Hammer into the popular imagination, Dracula, Cushing, and Lee, would confirm it, in a smartly told, quickly paced, and beautifully shot adaption. of the Stoker novel that would reimagine a far more ensanguine Dracula for the Fifties and beyond.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Dracula is available to watch online in the UK via Amazon Prime and on DVD from Lionsgate. As The Horror of Dracula, it is currently available to stream via Amazon Prime, and on DVD from Warner Bros, in the United States.

Next week, we continue with Hammer Horror's rampage with One Million Years BC, in which two tribes must brave the prehistoric world, and face effects work from the legendary Ray Harryhausen...and each other.

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