To say that Christopher Lee was a busy actor during the Sixties would be an understatement. Playing Fu Manchu, Sherlock Holmes, corrupt English Lords, and smaller parts in pop culture pastiches like "The Magic Christian," Lee returned to the role of Dracula after a two-year absence, employing his dynamic blend of restrained evil, and surges of blood-thirsty rage.

Hammer Films was a near-classic family outfit, with the sons of the company's founders assuming various production roles. Screenwriter John Elder (aka Anthony Hinds) managed to freshen up the franchise by adding some deliciously bawdy humour between the film's leading lovebirds and a hungry barmaid, and former ace cinematographer/genre director Freddie Francis gave the film a classic touch by altering the film's colour timbres from the coldness of Dracula's northern village, to the warm flesh tones for the afflicted township in the second half.

Recalling some of the early two and three-strip Technicolor experimentation of the Thirties, Francis uses a hallucinatory camera filter once Dracula sets up shop near a pub, and Warner Bros' crisp transfer preserves the weird 'VampireVision' effect that frames shots with graduated red-green-blue colour rings.

Hammer's treatment of classic Hollywood monsters of the Thirties remain entertaining for grown-ups because of the British celebration of sexual innuendo. The quantity of BPS [bosoms per scene], mixed with mild splatters of violence, certainly separates the Hammer films from the older Universal classics, so it's rather surprising to see this DVD now classified by the MPAA with a "G." Who knew Bambi and Dracula would one day share the same ratings umbrella?

This Warner Bros title is also available as part of the Hammer Collection that includes “The Curse Of Frankenstein,” “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave,” “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed,” “Horror Of Dracula,” “The Mummy" (1959) and “Taste The Blood Of Dracula.”

© 2004 Mark R. Hasan