Genre star Barbara Shelley passed away on January 4, 2021. In her honor, I have chosen to discuss what I consider to be her best showcase.
Tagline: “The World’s Most Evil Vampire Lives Again!”
WTF Factor: ** [the ice rates an extra point]
Notable Dialogue:
- Klove: “You see, sir, my master is dead but instructions were left that the castle should always be ready to receive guests. I am merely carrying out his wishes.”
- Charles: “I see. Who was your master?”
- Klove: “His name was Count Dracula. An old and distinguished family. That is the coat of arms over the fireplace.”
- Charles: “Does no one hold the title now?”
- Klove: “My master died without issue, sir,… in the accepted sense of the term.”
Synopsis: We begin with footage from the finale of Dracula/Horror of Dracula (1958), where we see Dracula reduced to ashes in the sunlight. We move ahead ten years to see a funeral procession in the woods. Despite the protestations of her mother, the men plan to drive a stake through the dead girl’s heart. Father Sandor (Andrew Keir) rides up and prevents them, demonstrating that the girl shows no signs of being the victim of a vampire. He forcibly insists that he will preside over her burial in hallowed ground.
That night, in a local inn, we meet Alan Kent (Charles Tingwell) and his prudish wife Helen (Barbara Shelley), together with his younger brother Charles (Francis Matthews) and his wife Diana (Suzan Farmer). Charles and Diana [heh; total coincidence] are fun-loving, while Alan and Helen are much more staid. Father Sandor enters the inn and warms himself beside the fire. He invites the Kents to stay at his monastery in Kleinburg, instead of going to Carlsbad for the climbing. Helen insists that they have their itinerary and must go to Carlsbad. Sandor warns them to avoid the castle, which doesn’t appear on their map.
Two kilometers from Carlsbad, nearing nightfall, the coachman refuses to take the Kents any further. He says he will come back after dawn for them. They spot a castle at the top of the nearby hill and debate whether to stay in a shack or try their luck there, deciding on the shack. Suddenly a carriage without a driver rides up and they commandeer it to take them to Carlsbad. Unfortunately for them, the horses have a mind of their own and instead take them to the castle.
Helen is frightened and tries to warn the others, but they pay little attention to her. No one seems to be home, but there is a table set for four people. Charles finds their luggage delivered to the bedrooms upstairs. Suddenly a man appears to the women downstairs; it is Klove (Philip Latham), the servant, who serves them dinner. Klove tells them that his master, Count Dracula, is dead. He serves an excellent meal, but Helen is still frightened, with a foreboding of doom.
Later, in their rooms, Charles and Diana agree that Helen is usually a pain in the ass, but not easily scared. Helen begs Alan to leave the castle but he doesn’t take much stock in her fears.
Alan: “You forget about all of this in the morning, you’ll see.”
Helen: “There’ll be no morning for us.”
During the night, Helen thinks she hears someone calling her name. She and Alan both hear thumping down the hall. Alan looks out and sees Klove hauling a trunk into a side room. He goes to investigate and finds a secret passage hidden behind a tapestry. The passage leads to a room with the trunk, dominated by a large sarcophagus engraved “Dracula.” Alan snoops around the side rooms while Helen freaks out back in the room.
Suddenly Klove appears and stabs Alan. Klove removes the tapestry covering the open sarcophagus and strings Alan up by the feet over the opening. He then empties an urn of ashes into the sarcophagus, and cuts Alan’s throat so that the blood spatters over the ashes. A figure starts to form from the ashes until our vision is cut off by a lot of smoke.
As Klove stands by silently, a hand and then a naked arm emerges from the sarcophagus. [Luckily Klove has thoughtfully set out Dracula’s clothing and cape.]
Klove summons Helen and sends her down the passageway looking for her husband. She finds his exsanguinated body hanging over the sarcophagus. She is not pleased. Then Dracula appears [Finally!! And who else but Christopher Lee!!] and puts the bite on her.
The next morning, Charles and Diana cannot find the older couple, for obvious reasons, and Diana insists that they leave. Once they reach the crossroads, Charles goes back to the castle to look for Alan and Helen. He finds the secret passage and enters the sarcophagus room. Just as night falls, he finds Alan’s body in the trunk and hightails it out of there.
Meanwhile, Klove arrives at the crossroads and offers to take Diana to Charles. Once they arrive at the castle, Klove locks Diana in the main hall. Then Helen appears, looking gorgeous and not the least bit prudish.
Helen: “Come, sister.”
Diana: “Where’s Charles?”
Helen [baring her fangs]: “You don’t need Charles.”
Diana dodges Helen, and then Dracula appears, to claim Diana.
Charles arrives and Helen rushes to him, asking to kiss him. He fends her off but she blocks their escape and Charles grapples with Dracula. He grabs a sword from the wall but Dracula snaps it like a toothpick. Dracula then starts to strangle him. Helen leans into Diana and then screams; Diana’s cross necklace has burned her arm. Charles grabs the sword pieces and makes a cross with them, which holds off Dracula. Klove sneaks up and tries to stab Charles, who clobbers him. Charles and Diana escape in the carriage, as Dracula pushes Helen away.
The carriage crashes and Diana is knocked unconscious. Just as Charles can carry her no further, he encounters Father Sandor, who takes them to his monastery. Sandor expositions about vampires and how to destroy them. Meanwhile Klove arrives at the monastery with a darkened carriage containing two coffins, asking to stay the night. There are orders not to admit anyone to the monastery.
Sandor takes Charles to meet Ludwig (Thorley Walters), a craftsman who lives at the monastery. Something happened to him years ago, which he does not remember, that drove him mad. After they leave, Ludwig responds to a call from his “master” and works on an escape.
Sandor and Charles agree to send Diana back to England and then deal with Dracula and Helen. Diana is not pleased with his plan to return to the castle. Meanwhile Ludwig escapes and invites Dracula in. When Diana is alone, Helen appears at her window and begs to come inside. When Diana opens the window, Helen immediately bites her wrist. Dracula then appears and again warns Helen off his prey. Diana’s screams summon Charles and Sandor, who cauterizes Diana’s wound.
The monks catch Helen in the stables and Sandor stakes her, in a disturbing scene, as the brothers hold her down.
Ludwig has been ushered from the room but he clobbers the guard and goes to Diana, telling her that Sandor wants to talk to her in his study. Of course, he delivers her straight to Dracula. The Count hypnotizes her into removing the cross from her neck. He then opens a wound on his chest and tries to force her to drink his blood [in a very sexual scene]. The shouts of the men stop him and he carries Diana away with Ludwig’s help.
Sandor tells Charles that they will ride to Dracula’s castle to save Diana. They manage to get ahead of Klove’s carriage, and Charles shoots Klove. The horses spook and take off for the castle. As the carriage arrives, it tips and Dracula’s coffin slides out onto some ice. Diana is safe in the other coffin.
Charles goes onto the ice to stake Dracula, but naturally, night falls and Dracula awakes. Dracula and Charles struggle as Sandor remembers that vampires cannot survive running water and so he shoots out the ice surrounding Dracula, who sinks into the water as Charles escapes. The lovers embrace and that’s the end, as Dracula’s drowned face floats under the ice [not Christopher Lee’s, though].
Thoughts: Dracula Prince of Darkness is one of the best of the Hammer Dracula movies, especially if you can appreciate a slow, suspenseful build to the vampire elements. Dracula is missing in action for half of the movie while we get to know the central characters. The script, credited to “John Sansom,” was in fact written by Jimmy Sangster, who also wrote Dracula/Horror of Dracula (1958), among many, many other genre scripts (examples: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960)). Sangster actually liked the way this movie turned out. His use of an alias is probably due to his desire to avoid being “typecast” as a genre writer. He mostly worked on thrillers for the remainder of his career.
This movie is one of four that Hammer filmed back-to-back in 1965 in order to save money. It was followed in quick succession with Rasputin The Mad Monk, The Reptile, and The Plague of the Zombies. The movies featured many carryover cast and crew members; Rasputin The Mad Monk included Lee, Shelley, Farmer, and Mathews before the camera, with the same production designer (Bernard Robinson) and Director of Photography (Michael Reed), among others. Dracula Prince of Darkness was paired with The Plague of the Zombies for a highly successful double bill in 1966.
The acting in the film is excellent, even though the script doesn’t provide much to work with for several of the main characters. Father Sandor acts as a Van Helsing substitute and while Peter Cushing is always missed, Andrew Keir is excellent portraying a colorful vampire hunter. Philip Latham is another welcome presence as Klove, Dracula’s servant. He gets a great introduction scene, looming in the shadows and frightening the female characters, while viewers wonder if this is actually Dracula. Suzan Farmer and Francis Mathews do a commendable job of creating sympathy for their largely undefined parts.
Christopher Lee is, for my money, the definitive Dracula and his portrayal is impeccable in this movie. Nobody works a cape like Lee. He was particularly happy with the scene where Dracula opens his chest for Diana to drink his blood, since this scenario is straight out of Bram Stoker’s novel. Notably, Dracula has no dialogue in the movie. Depending on who you believe, there never was any dialogue written (Sangster’s version) or the written dialogue was so bad that Christopher Lee refused to say it (Lee’s version). The shooting script supports Sangster’s version of events. It is speculated that Lee mixed up this movie with one of the later Dracula movies, where he did have written (and bad) dialogue.
The true MVP of this movie is Barbara Shelley, whose Helen has the only real character arc. She starts out as prim, rigid, and rather annoying. When they get to the castle, she is the only character who seems to sense the evil within, and she is appropriately frightened, building sympathy from the viewer. When she is first confronted by Dracula, her range of facial expressions presents a fleeting variety of emotions, including a hint of happy anticipation. After her vampire transformation, she loses all traces of inhibition, pursuing both her sister- and brother-in-law.
Shelley started out as a model before moving into acting in the mid-1950s. While her obituaries invariably referred to her as a Hammer horror star, she worked for multiple studios, and the bulk of her work is not in the horror genre. Among her most memorable horror roles, in addition to Dracula Prince of Darkness, are:
- Blood of the Vampire (1957)
- Village of the Damned (1960)
- The Gorgon (1964)
- Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
After the excellent Quatermass film, Shelley fell out of favor with Hammer Studios, which began to prefer younger blondes in their leading roles (mind you, Shelley was only in her mid-thirties). Shelley’s acting career continued through the end of the 1980s, largely in television. She left behind many works that showcase her class and beauty.
Quick bits:
- The castle matte is the same as was used for Castle Ravna in The Kiss of the Vampire (1963).
- Barbara Shelley’s screams were dubbed by co-star Suzan Farmer, who has a distinctly higher voice. You can still hear Shelley’s own screams in the movie trailer.
- Barbara Shelley was the last surviving member of the cast.
Suggested double feature: You might watch this back-to-back with Dracula/Horror of Dracula (1958). Otherwise, you probably can’t do better than the original 1966 double bill with The Plague of the Zombies.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “Special Singing Guest Star NEIL SEDAKA!”
