Taste the Blood of Dracula (Peter Sasdy, 1970)

*******SPOILERS Included*******

Do you remember Jaws: The Revenge?  That was the fourth in the series, in which the shark avenged itself on the Brody family in Jamaica, quietly intoning after each of its victims, "The fuhst", "The second", "The thuhd"...  Taste the Blood of Dracula is at essence a pretty good movie but it suffers a number of missteps, and one of them is making Dracula as mechanical as Bruce the shark.

Picking up where Dracula Has Risen From the Grave ends, a merchant happens upon the (un)dying Dracula as he disintegrates.  The merchant, Weller (Roy Kinnear) gathers the vestments and some of the blood, which has turned to powder.  He knows who Dracula is, and his instincts tell him it's a mistake...but the mercenary in him can't turn away from a sure sale.  Someone is going to want these. 

Cut to an unknown time later.  A trio of family men and respected elders spend one Sunday night a month in secret debauchery.  These are monied men, to be sure, the finest that polite society can offer.  One of them, Hargood (Geoffrey Keen)  treats his wife and daughter especially cruelly in his guilt.  Secker (John Carson) is a decent man, learned, traveled, experienced: in a word, jaded.  He's the closest thing to a Van Helsing character in this movie, full of useful knowledge and will voluntarily  do the right thing, but it;s not his vocation.  Paxton (Peter Sallis)  is the weakling, easily cowed into going  along with anything the alpha dogs want.  Problem is, they've grown bored withe the same old thrills. 

Enter young Lord Courtley, snotty, arrogant, and much farther along their path than they reckon.  Courtley lives for satiation and offense.  His latest quest is to meet Satan himself - or, if not Satan, then the closest thing to him.  To that end he needs the unholy treasure waiting to be purchased in Weller's shop: the blood of Dracula.  To get it, he'll need the money of the three thrillseekers.  Lucky for him they want his services in guiding them into darker pastures. 

Pretty good stuff so far, right?  The movie doesn't actually belong to them but to their children, innocent bright young things with bright untainted futures ahead of them.  They laugh and smile and talk of their pending marriages and elopements.  Paul Paxton and Alice Hargood are madly in love with each other.  Neither can comprehend why the elder Hargood hates Paul with such depth.  That Paul's offense is simply being the son of Hargood's partner in vice is lost to them.  The film has a Christian theme that is a little muddy - the sins of the fathers and all that.  Children and parents alike are going to pay.  Like the previous Hammer Dracula, this one is targeted at the older adolescent audience but this time trusting them with stronger meet and an earned adult rating (stronger material, an early glimpse of nudity for Hammer, and more bright red blood).  The darker nature of the film is leavened by the forthright sweetness of the kids, backed by a tender ballad from composer James Bernard (replacing his usual theme for Dracula) and by beautiful locales.  Taste the Blood is the series peak for cinematography,  with natural colors, almost no use of gels, and baroque art design. Every frame is full of details and textures to keep your eyes busy. 

Courtley performs a ceremony at a lonely, abandoned cemetery  (Highgate Cemetery provides the exteriors, a highly photogenic location).  This involves flattering himself by donning the Count's cape, clasp, and ring.  Assembling his three conspirators, he fills their goblets with Dracula's powdered blood revivified into a foul brew with a few drops of his own.  If the drink looks muddy, the plot is even muddier on the mechanics of Dracula's resurrection.  Courtley doesn't know precisely what is supposed to happen, and is taken by surprise when the potable gives him intense pain.  Hargood, Paxton, and Secker had already balked at drinking, and when they see Courtley felled they proceed to kick and beat him to death in their horror and revulsion.  They go home vowing the night never happened. 

Into dead Courtley arrives Dracula, helped by a dubious fx shot.  Courtley's corpse transforms into Christopher Lee who vows revenge on the three who have destroyed his servant.  Let me stop there for a moment, because I've got a few questions.  First, drinking Dracula's blood has always been a part of every adaptation, but it already had a function - it seals the bond.  Hammer was never concerned with continuity, though, and here it seems to have a different use...and the script is unclear just what that is.  If Courtley wasn't supposed to die by the ceremony alone, then was Dracula not meant to return in person?  Else, what's the difference?  He's got a body, what's he bitching about?   A servant isn't much use if he's sharing his body with you.  And what of the other three who were supposed to imbibe?  Would this have resulted in four Christopher Lees running around London spouting wooden dialog and glaring a lot? 

In any case, Chris Lee is reduced to glowering a lot.  He's out for revenge, just like the last film only with even less flair.  There's is none of the usual lust for life, the passion, the ferocity.  When he drinks from a woman, the pleasure he takes from it is fleeting, almost perfunctory.  He's the addict whose fix no longer satisfies.  Like Hargood, Paxton, and Secker he's grown bored, his thrills are no longer strong enough.  But, no, actually, that's reading into it a more interesting film than it really is - he's just badly utilized by an otherwise engaging script, and played by an actor who really  is bored by what his script offers.  That's the biggest flaw in this Hammer entry, it's a Dracula film in which Dracula is a mere engine to get us from A to Z.  He's the least interesting thing in his own movie.  He gets by on Lee's presence alone. 

That's too bad because his revenge is an interesting idea to explore.  His choice is to use the children against their parents.  In short, he corrupts them before their parents can and aims them homeward again as killers.  The earlier theme of vampirism as sexual liberation is out the window for a more puritan take, as patricide becomes a DeSadean pleasure for the girls.

Taste the Blood comes to a close with more muddled writing, in which the grand conflict sees Dracula ineffectually throwing bits of church from as much distance as he can get inside the church.  Pretty disappointing from a led villain.  He's been using this crypt as a hangout as it's long since been desecrated by the likes of Courtely holding black masses.  We know he can't be on hallowed ground.  This makes his demise one of the more interesting, and had the potential to be satisfying were it handled better - the church is re-consecrated with him inside it, trapping and killing him.  That's the idea, anyway. but it's Paul doing the re-consecrating.  Not a priest, not anyone at all qualified...ah, that's okay, Jesus would instruct that all it takes is faith, and anyone is worthy, but the movie never builds Paul as a man of any particular faith.  In fact, all he does is light a couple of candles and that seems to redeem the whole building. 

I've identified three problems, all of them found in the writing.  A little tweaking would have helped. none of these flaws touch the core story, yet are enough to blunt the movie as a satisfying whole.  It took me time to warm to Taste the Blood.  Today I find the bulk of it to be worthy...more weighty and fully formed than Dracula: Prince of Darkness or Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.  It's just too bad that Dracula himself is upstaged by...just about everybody.

"The first!  The second!  The third, Aaaah-HA-HA-HA-HAAA!"

*     **     **     **     **     **     *
On a personal note, I'm more of a Secker than a Van Helsing (See review for Hammer's 'Horror of Dracula').

I am in the process of moving and have not had internet access for a while now, except a few minutes each week.  Also, a few of my titles are packed away.  So, I won't be putting these up in chronological order...pretty sure Jess Franco's Dracula should have been up before this.  Also, still no decent screencap capacity.  Apologies for the lack of shots.

Mystery and Imagination presents Dracula (Patrick Dromgoole, 1968)

At the cinemas Christopher Lee was the reigning Count Dracula, an increasingly mute and brooding predator of base impulses: revenge, hunger, and reproduction.   Television was getting in on the Stoker act as well.   British anthology playhouse Mystery and Imagination offered their take with Denholm Elliott as a more social monster.  It was an adaptation that, while truncated, was the first to include a few details from the novel that had been neglected before, and for a TV production was more frank with sexuality than even Hammer had been. 

A patient known only as Thirtyfour (for his room number at Doctor John Seward's sanitarium) escapes confinement and crashes the dinner party Seward is hosting.  Guests at the party include the Weston mother and daughter, a count from Transylvania, and arriving late will be Mina  Harker.  Thirty-four throws himself at the feet of Count Dracula, calling him "Master".  The Count declares they have never met, and Thirtyfour immediately walks it back and returns meekly to his cell.  The party goes on, Dracula dominating the room (and young Lucy Weston's gaze) with his presence. 


You may know Denholm Elliott from the Eighties as Marcus Brody, the schoolmaster who employs Indiana Jones, or as the butler to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places, or from any number of other character parts both more and less prestigious.  That's when he hit my own radar.  It's not easy to picture him as Dracula until you see the younger and slimmer Elliott rocking a Van Dyke and shades (eat your heart out, Gary Oldman).  Elliot's Count is highly urbane and has a confidence that's almost snide, quiet until talk of his heritage fires his angry pride.  If you think you know Denholm only from his late career, check this out. 

Dracula is the man of the hour.  Thirtyfour is easily swayed by a few words from him when the sanitarium guards are no match for the patient; Lucy breathlessly attends his every gesture, oblivious to her fiance Seward;  Seward has to hide his annoyance that his guests the Westons extended their invitation to the unexpected and unwelcome Russian royalty who has swayed them.  Mina is eager to meet the Count as her husband Jonathon Harker has gone missing after a stay at Dracula's home in Transylvania.    It's not the only question surrounding the Count - Thirtyfour was a passenger on the ship Demeter on the same voyage that brought Dracula to England.  After Dracula came ashore early the ship met with tragedy, the unidentified patient the sole survivor. 

Thirtyfour isn't just an amnesiac but a maniac obsessed with devouring insects and small animals for their life force while he awaits the arrival of "the master".   Seward consults his mentor,  esteemed Professor Abraham Van Helsing.  Mina meets the man, and things begin to fall into place.  Dracula sets his eyes on Lucy and begins to visit her each night.

What's interesting about this Dracula is that he comes across as a fairly skilled social manipulator, except for the lies that are easily exposed.  Seward is the first to suspect the Count of driving the tragedies that are unfolding around his clique, but Dracula has set him up to look the jealous lover and so his suspicions are dismissed by all.  Lucy and Thirtyfour are pitted against each other through yet more jealousy, the patient's for his lost place as the Master's favored pet.  Lucy's frail mother becomes a plot device as the vampire exploits her fears for her daughter (this is taken from the novel, and had never appeared onscreen before in earlier adaptations).  Later, after Lucy has become a vampire, Dracula will play off of Mina's grief and her depression, having driven her and her fiance apart. 

Under hypnosis, Thirtyfour recounts a little of his meeting with "the Master".  We see this in a dreamlike flashback in which three ghostly women stalk and  attack him in a castle.  The sequence is nearly silent but for the hissing of the women and the patient's narration.  The sequence stands out from otherwise staid camerawork and direction - not dull but not innovative.  The brides also stand out for their overt sexuality: for a television production, their sheer robes are shocking.  Now, I'm watching this on a bootleg disc made from an unrestored copy, so the image is not pristine...and that's from a production that had a constrained TV budget.  Its in black and white.  Plus, that sequence is murkily lit.  All the same, I can see that the the gowns become opaque only strategically, allowing glimpses of the actors' breasts that are nearly complete.  I couldn't get a screenshot to prove it.   Hammer took audience's breath away with decolletage - British TV took it further.  No one remembers.  Only Hammer is still known.

Later on Dracula will assault Lucy as she sleeps.  This is another sequence that is surprisingly frank for television.  Lucy writhes in bed, asleep and having a clearly sexual dream as Dracula kneels and watches.  When finally he penetrates her throat she climaxes.  Strong stuff for 1968 television. 

As the plot heats up, Dracula uses the undead Lucy as a proxy to seduce Mina.  The lesbian (well, bi really) attraction between them is undisguised for television.  Happily, this is depicted without bias, there is no vilification of sexuality in the film.  It's simply erotic. 

Looking back to the novel,  this is also the first production to allow the Count's facial hair, and the first time Lucy and Mina meet the old man Swales at the cemetery, where he engages in spirited talk of the town's seemier history.  In this, a colorful but inconsequential bit of the novel (a bit of mood-setting and character development) is spun into a clever twist that helps streamline the movie. 

I like this Dracula.  It's talky but neither slow nor stagebound (despite obvious, low-budget sets), and took me by surprise for a number of reasons: its sporadic fealty to the novel, its unadulterated sexuality, the revelation of Denholm Elliott.  More substantially, Dracula's crafty manipulations are given as much weight as his supernatural abilities, an innovative advance for the character.  Performances are good across the board - Bernard Archard is an engaging Van Helsing.  Corin Redgrave is a little affected as Thirty-four, suggesting he's more a stage than a screen actor.  James Maxwell (Seward) and Susan George (Lucy) are natural and fluid, easily sympathetic.