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film

Better Off Undead: Uncle Was a Vampire

Following the success of 1958’s DRACULA [aka HORROR OF DRACULA] and his being recognized as the Count Dracula for audiences worldwide, Christopher Lee almost immediately followed up his second appearance in a Hammer Studios’ movie (and the first as Dracula) with a surprise turn in a comedic role. In 1959, he starred in the Italian-made TEMPI DURI PER I VAMPIRI (“Hard Times for A Vampire”). Also known as UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE, the film — primarily a vehicle for comedic actor Renato Rascel — is one of the first (but not the last) of Lee’s having fun with the role he made famous. It is also the first of many Italian film productions with which he would be involved in his career. Is it silly? Yes. Does imposing 6′ 5″ Lee play the straight-man to Rascel’s 5′ 2″ diminuitive, loveable clown? Yes. Is it funny? Ocassionally. Is it a horror movie? No. Nor was it ever really meant to be.

NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S DRACULA
Christopher Lee and Renato Rascel
A 6′ 5″ Christopher Lee with his nephew, 5′ 2″ Renato Rascel in UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (1959).

Not wanting to taint the serious nature of Bram Stoker’s legendary creation by playing him for laughs,* Lee insisted that the vampire not be referred to as Dracula in UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE. Instead, Lee plays Baron Roderico da Frankurten, uncle to Rascel’s Baron Osvaldo Lambertenghi. Seems Osvaldo was forced to sell his castle to pay debts, and now working at a bellhop at his former home — now a hotel — he receives a steamer trunk from a long-lost uncle and a letter that his uncle will arrive that night, at midnight. Inside the trunk? Baron Roderico da Frankfurten’s coffin. And inside that? The baron himself, a 400-year-old vampire that had his castle — believed abandoned — slated for demolition (to build a nuclear power plant!).

It isn’t long before Roderico is revealed to be a vampire (it seems he keeps a diary) and sinks his fangs into Osvaldo — hoping to pass along his curse.  We learn that a vampire’s bite can temporarily curse a human with a thirst for blood, as Osvaldo begins nocturnal activity that involves fangs of his own, a cape, and a marathon series of attacks on the hotel’s female guests (42!) [though surprisingly not including the character of Carla (Sylva Koscina), a girl in love with a teen idol — leading to the question: is a teen idol more hypnotic than a vampire?].

To their playboy boyfriends’ shock and consternation, two of the young women (played by Kai Fischer and Susanne Loret) behave differently, covering their throats, acting as if nothing strange has happened. Victims of a fumbling novice vampire, they are nonetheless mesmerized by him. And Osvaldo? His curse? His job? His unrequited love for a young gardener named Lillana (played by Antje Geerk)? His loyalty to his uncle? His wanting to reclaim his ancestral home? The slapstick? It becomes too much for the aristocrat turned bellhop.

UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE lobby card
UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE lobby card.

Becoming human again at daylight, Osvaldo eventually agrees to join the hotel owners and guests who are determined to save their women by finding and then staking the vampire. Only problem: unbeknownest to them, the vampire they are hunting is Osvaldo.

Christopher Lee shows Fangs in UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (1959)
Get the point? Christopher Lee shows his fangs in UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (1959)

Comedy ensues. And Christopher Lee plays it straight. Though his own English is dubbed** (with a disconcerting echo), he is arguably the only reason for any modern audience to watch the movie. Deadpan delivery. No hamming it up for the camera. No smiles. Of course, there’s some levity: first, when Roderico shows off his fangs. Then, when he confronts the townsfolk about their superstitions, telling them that Osvaldo is “no more a vampire than I am!” Lee’s timing is spot-on, and though his very presence can be menacing, one gets the impression that Lee was actually enjoying himself.

LESS-THAN SOPHISTICATED SATIRE

UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE is not a genre parody or spoof like the first well-recognized monster comedy ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). Instead, UNCLE is more of a satire — not so much satirizing the horror genre as a whole, but taking its tropes and then, intentionally or not, exploring themes of male/female relationships and a crumbling aristocracy vs. the middle class. Man and woman. Old and young. Rich and poor. Undead and alive.

Osvaldo, groomed to take the place of Roderico, just can’t get the knack of being a vampire, despite puckish enthusiasm. And being hunted is no fun. He learns from Roderico’s book that a woman’s kiss will free him from the curse. So it’s a good thing that Osvaldo loves the gardener; as their relationship grows, so do the chances of him being freed from the curse. He ultimately is cured, and the conclusion of the movie finds Osvaldo wrapping everything up (in Italian, oddly enough, and not dubbed English like the rest of the film). He stands above the steamer trunk, presumablty occupied by his uncle, when Christoper Lee walks past, arm and arm with the playboys’ girlfriends.

LEE GETS THE GIRL(S)

For once, Christopher Lee’s vampire truly gets the girl(s)! No need to bury one outside of the castle (DRACULA) or get revenge on an enemy by trying to turn his daughter into a vampire (1968’s DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE). No need to be the boogeyman. Instead, Lee’s Roderico closes out the film by curiously walking away from his nephew without a word, each of the playboys’ girlfriends at his side.

The movie ends wth Osvaldo noting comedically that some people are “better off undead.”

It seems Roderico certainly is. And the charismatic Christopher Lee — barely in the film except for a few memorable moments — makes it look cool. He’s a ladies’ man. And a new life awaits him with a young woman on each arm.

 

*Lee did his best to differentiate Roderico from Dracula, but a curious carryover from the movie is his red-lined cape — worn for the first time here — showing up in future Dracula films for Hammer. Lee played Dracula for Hammer a total of seven times, often in capes with the red lining. In UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE, Rascel, too, wears the red-lined cape, albeit a smaller size.

**The dubbed version is what’s currently available streaming on Tubi.

film, musings

On the Wings of Blood: Instances of The Bat-Like Dracula

LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (Vietnamese poster)

With the upcoming release of André Øvredal’s THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER — an adaptation of Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA and its “Captain’s Log” from a doomed ship carrying the Count from Transylvania (well, Varna, in Bulgaria) to England — Dracula is seen (in the trailers at least) as a bat-like man. Complete with leathery skin, pointy ears, and tremendous wings, this Dracula is less of a man and more of a monster. But was he such in Stoker’s novel? And if not, where did the Dracula as man-like bat (or bat-like man) come from?

In the novel, Dracula can command bats, and even turns into one on occasion, but his form is that of a slightly larger than normal bat, and one that flies in a straight-line more than flutters about. Nowhere does he appear as he does on the posters of DEMETER. In fact, a concordance of the novel shows that the word “bat” is only used 11 times in a book of over 160,000 words — and none of those occurs in the Captain’s log from the Demeter.

October 24, 1885 issue of Punch Magazine with anthropomorphized bat representing the Irish National League.

Regardless, Stoker may at least have been aware of man-bat / bat-man imagery. He most likely read Sir Richard Burton’s VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE (1870) with its mention of “The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five Tales of a Baital… the history of a huge Bat, Vampire, or Evil Spirit” from its Preface.  Stoker, an Irishman, may also have seen an 1885 issue of Punch magazine that used the vampire as symbolic of the Irish National League; there, a human face is given to a huge bat. Regardless, Stoker’s bats are just that: bats. Even when Dracula takes to the air as one.

Films more likely influenced (and evolved) the depiction of Dracula as man-bat / bat-man. What many consider the first horror film, 1896’s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL shows Satan transforming into a bat. Not a vampire. But close.

On the deck of the Demeter in NOSFERATU (1922)

The unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA that was NOSFERATU (1922), gave actor Max Schreck an animalistic, almost bat-like appearance. Still, his vampire is more rat-than bat, though the image of the vampire on the deck of the Demeter makes for one of the more chilling scenes from any vampire film. Jump to Lon Chaney Jr.’s on-screen transformation into a (normal sized) bat in SON OF DRACULA (1943) and at last we finally see an attempt at the transmogrification itself. But neither Universal Studios nor Hammer would go on to show the Count (or any vampire) as taking on the form of human-sized (or bigger) bat.

Was the bat / rat like Mr. Barlow from SALEM’S LOT (1979) one the inspirations for Dracula in LAST VOAYGE OF THE DEMETER?

Throughout the nineteen seventies and its dozens upon dozens of vampire films, there’s no undead bloodsucker with huge bat wings. Neither Jack Palance as Dracula in the 1974 adaptation, nor Louis Jordan (1977), nor Frank Langela (1979) transform into bat-men / men-bats. There’s an adaptation of Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT (made for TV) from 1979 that has a nosferatu-ish vampire named Mr. Barlow whose cloak appears much like bat wings, but’s he no full-blown bat.

The vampire bat that is vampire Jerry Dandridge, burning in the sun in 1985’s FRIGHT NIGHT.

In fact, it’s not until the highly original FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) that we see a revelation that within the man, there is large bat — and that, in the case of vampire Jerry Dandridge, his winged, pointy ears form is only revealed once the daylight strikes him and sets him ablaze.

Gary Oldman, in his bat suit, assisted by crew to get into position for a good scare in BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992). A Sony Pictures promotional still.

But Dracula himself? Perhaps one of the first and most memorable transformations of Count Dracula into a bat-man / man-bat is in (Francis Ford Coppola’s) BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992). There, when cornered by the film’s vampire hunters after some alone-time with Mina Harker, Dracula dramatically becomes a true amalgamation of man and bat. It is one of the more fantastic physical forms of Dracula in a film full of them.

Dracula as huge bat in the final fight scene from VAN HELSING (2004)

FROM DUSK TIL DAWN (1996) seemed to borrow from Coppola’s playbook, creating a whole crop of full-sized bat / human hybrids. And by the time we get to the twenty-first century, bat-men and man-bats abound. The most notable being VAN HELSING (2004). Yet this particular film is so far from Stoker’s source material as to not even be worth considering.

That is has taken thirty years to come back to a Dracula based on Stoker’s own words that depicts the titular Count as a bat-man / man-bat is somewhat surprising. And like Coppola’s depiction, DEMETER looks to use mostly practical effects to bring its Dracula to life.

The practical effects and Javier Botet’s performance look to be quite effective in LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (2023)

Javier Botet is the very talented man behind that mask, but will the bat -man / man-bat approach really work for LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER?  From a Captain’s log that only records the appearance of “a strange man,” and “a tall, thin man” at that, is it a leap to give that man pointy ears and wings? Critics and audiences will decide, but whatever the critical or box-office reaction, the choice is — pun intended — novel.*

*Sunday, August 13: like the Captain’s log itself, my blog post, if found, should tell the whole story. And it’s this: that I saw LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER a few days after I wrote the above essay. The film is atmospheric, claustrophobic, and, at times, even a little unsettling (fans of children and dogs might get upset). It’s not a perfect movie by any means (and depending on how much of a purist you are, the ending might prove disappointing).

Some problems with the script of DEMETER and an often turgid pace prevent it from become more than a b-movie; it’s essentially ALIEN meets MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, but it’s fun. Judged by its visuals alone — especially Botet’s creepy performance and Øvredal’s adept handling of the careful (and often scary) reveal of the creature — the film is a fine and highly original addition to depictions of Dracula on screen.