Shadow of a Doubt Tagged Articles at Cinematical
RvB's After Images: The Return of Dracula (1958)
Filed under: Horror », United Artists », After Image », Columns », Cinematical Indie »
The least you can expect from a director, approaching a story as venerable as Dracula, is that he or she will have the guts to take it seriously. Updating the legend to modern day is even more possible when you figure out new versions of old terrors. The 1958 The Return of Dracula, an economical and effective black and white horror film released by UA, stars the ageless Czech-American actor Frances Lederer. Before Lederer's death in 2000, he claimed that his only regret as an actor was appearing in this film, possibly because of its gore content (it was gory by the standards of '58, that is). Apparently, his regret wasn't that Drac was some sort of anti-Eastern European stereotype, seeing as how Lederer reprised the Count as his very last role in "The Devil is Not Mocked," an episode of TV's Night Gallery directed by Legend of Hillbilly John's Manly Wade Wellman. (The plot of that episode is the perfect example of the first story that comes to a novice horror-writer's mind, and which has to be discarded right away: During World War 2, Nazi soldiers commandeer a certain castle, and...)
Well, it scared me, but it must have been the actor, not the story. Lederer is a Dracula to reckon with in The Return of Dracula as he helps himself to the denizens of Carleton, California (population 1162). "His sole purpose is to establish a chain of domination, " says the Van Helsing guy, an "European Police Agency" investigator called Meiermann (Jon Wengraff). This budget Drac was exhibited as The Curse of Dracula, and The Fantastic Disappearing Man--the latter title is an apt description of this one's modest special effects. But I've got an alternate title: I Was a Communist Vampire. Director Paul Landres zeros in on the Red Scare to give this Dracula some teeth.
Vintage Image of the Day: Happy Birthday, Hitch
Filed under: Classics », Drama », Thrillers », Noir », Mystery & Suspense », Fandom », Vintage Image of the Day »
Had Alfred Hitchcock been remarkably long-lived, he would have turned 107 today (in reality, he died at 81 in 1980). A brilliant self-promoter whose wonderfully droll way of talking about his career and works created a character -- we'll call him Hitch -- whose fame extended above and beyond even that of his films, Hitchcock had a remarkably light touch as a director. Able to move with no apparent effort from clever humor (The Lady Vanishes) to intense psychological horror (Vertigo, Psycho) and forbidden homoeroticism (Strangers on a Train, Rope), he left behind a complex legacy, arguably still unmatched among mainstream directors.
While I love a wide-range of his films (my favorites are probably Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt and Lady Vanishes; I'm terrible person for not really liking Vertigo), the best thing about Hitchcock for me is listening to him talk. I remember seeing a documentary (no idea what it was called, sorry) in which he discussed raising tension on his movies. He explained his approach by planting a theoretical bomb under a cinematic desk, and then letting the man working there go about his daily business: Talking on the phone, signing checks, going over his schedule. Within the film, everyday life is occurring, but the audience, Hitchcock said -- in his distinctive slow, emphatic way -- is frantic, muttering "But there's a bomb ... under ... the desk!" at the screen. The obvious glee with which he told that story is, for me, what's so endearing about Hitch -- he got as big a kick out of the nastiness in his films as we do.
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