Just in time for Halloween, let us gather and worship one of the masters.
Christopher Lee, my first crush. Darling of the Hammer Horror set, lead villian in one of my favorite Bond movies (cue Lulu: 'He’s got a powerful weapon, he charges a million a shot…). I am so pleased that he is having this renaissance in his career. If anyone had asked me at anytime in the past 30 years who should play Sauruman,I would have said he’s the only actor who could.
Some of my favorite CL roles:
Lord Summerisle in “The Wicker Man”
Rochefort in “The Three Musketeers”
Dracula in “The Horror of Dracula”
Scaramonga in “The Man With the Golden Gun”
I am very much looking forward to LOTR, and among the scenes I anticipate the most are any with Lee and McKellen. Woo-hoo, there’s a battle of the Titans. Two great voices that sound great together!
I may even have to go see Episode II - early rumor says he is the best thing about it.
Gotta agree with you about Lee being great (although I disagree about The Man with the Golden Gun – one of the worst Bond films, but Lee was one of the best things in it. Damn, with the proper script and with Lee that film could have been great!), and I like your choices.
I have to add at least one – Count Dracula. The first version of “DRacula” I saw that really was faithful to the book, and Lee played the Count. A lot of references put this film down, at least in part because Jess (Jesus) Franco directed it, and because it peters outnear the end, and it has practixcally no budget. But when I first saw this on TV (having never heard of it before) I was blown away! Worth looking up.
Also – if you can find it, check out the episode of Saturday Night Live he hosted about the time TMWTGG was released. There’s some very good stuff in it.
Finally – House of Long Shadows. Not a great movie, but the cast is incredible – Chistopher Lee, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Peter Cushing (And Desi Arnaz, Jr., but we can overlook that)
Those Hammer Dracula flicks really ruled–it always pisses me off when vampire films take the cheap way out and play it for eroticism. Lee is probably one of my favorite Draculas.
Gotta agree with you about Lee being great (although I disagree about The Man with the Golden Gun – one of the worst Bond films, but Lee was one of the best things in it. Damn, with the proper script and with Lee that film could have been great!), and I like your choices.
I have to add at least one – Count Dracula. The first version of “DRacula” I saw that really was faithful to the book, and Lee played the Count. A lot of references put this film down, at least in part because Jess (Jesus) Franco directed it, and because it peters outnear the end, and it has practixcally no budget. But when I first saw this on TV (having never heard of it before) I was blown away! Worth looking up.
Also – if you can find it, check out the episode of Saturday Night Live he hosted about the time TMWTGG was released. There’s some very good stuff in it.
Finally – House of Long Shadows. Not a great movie, but the cast is incredible – Chistopher Lee, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Peter Cushing (And Desi Arnaz, Jr., but we can overlook that)
My favorite Christopher Lee moment happened when he was hosting Saturday Night Live. The musical guest was Meat Loaf. Lee obviously never heard of him, and misread the cue card: “Ladies and Gentlemen…LOAF!” (pause–eyes the cue card) “Yes, of course, MEAT loaf!”
Yes, a very good actor who has often made a lot out of limited material. Very clever guy too – speaks about half a dozen languages (his mother was an Italian aristocrat, so that helps I s’pose). Hear him introduce himself as Dracula in this link.
I think that was an intentional joke. If my memory serves, what Lee actually said was something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet…Loaf.”
If you want to see some less famous performances of his that show off some versatility, check out his supporting role in TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL. He doesn’t play the title role but a drunken ne’er-do-well friend of the doctor – a much more human performance instead of the imperios threatening Dracula thing he did so often. He’s also quite good in heroic roles in THE GORGON and THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.
A fine, fine actor. I just watched him in an episode of The Avengers (“Never, Never Say Die”) last night. BTW, he and Patrick Macnee went to school together.
On the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon site, IIRC, it is acknowledged that Lee that has the greatest number of “connections” in the acting world, and that Bacon really ranks something like 790.
I really don’t understand it when people pick on The Man With the Golden Gun. It may not be a great movie, but if we’re going to heap criticism on the Bond franchise, Moonraker and View to a Kill should be the lightning rods that absorb it all.
I’m not very familiar with Christopher Lee’s work, because he mainly made horror movies and I’ve never been much for horror.
However, I did enjoy his guest spot on The Muppet Show. In his opening monologue he complained about getting typecast as villains and monsters: “In my whole career, I have never once gotten to say ‘Have a nice day.’”
Certainly “The Man with the Golden Gun” was not a great Bond film, but it remains my one of my favorites because of Mr. Lee and it’s theme song.
I just recently caught “Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors”, a Hammer clone starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, on AMC. Fun, silly little anthology movie that also featured a very young Donald Sutherland. Lee does a nice job as an a**hole art critic who gets his just rewards.
Aw yeah, I love Christopher Lee. All of the early Hammers are great, “Horror of Dracula” “Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Mummy”. I also like “The Hound of the Baskervilles” with Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes. He’s made a lot of crap, God love him, but he classes up everything he’s in.
slortar, dear, I don’t really understand what you’re saying here. Chris Lee as Dracula is one of the most erotic things imaginable! Hell, he’s STILL sexy at, what, 70+? He’s still got that voice and those eyes…
Perhaps Slortar meant “romanticism” rather than “eroticism.” It’s the Harlequin romance elements that undermine BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, whereas Lee’s Dracula, although erotic, was never romantic.
You know, I love Chris Lee also. His Dracula is probably the best of them all. Also, one thing that wasn’t mentioned, he’s one of the few actors who played the part of most of the classical film monsters (all, except a werewolf). I think that only Lon Chaney jr played more different classical monsters than Lee.
Christopher Lee had a great performance as (a very thin) Mycroft in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Turns out he made another 10 movies that same year.
Anybody ever seen The Devil Rides Out? Cheesy satanist pic with Mr. Lee as the good guy and Rocky Horror’s very own criminology expert Charles Gray as the servant of Satan. Supporting role by Paul Eddington of “Yes, Minister”/“Yes, Prime Minister” and “The Good Life”/“Good Neighbors” fame. I’ve got it on a tape at home with Legend of Boggy Creek and Westworld. Now that’s an evening of TV if ever there was one.
Nope. I meant eroticism. You know, that cheap Anne Rice garbage you find cluttering video store horror racks these days. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Hot chicks with fangs, etc.
I’ve never found the classic dracula movies all that sexy–they’ve always seemed to convey the impression to me that under the very thin veneer of beauty (if any), the gloss of sensuality is concealing a corpse and that corpse is hungry. If anything, that adds to the horror for me.
