Dracula [The Horror of Dracula] (Fisher 1958)

(NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

Dracula (known as The Horror of Dracula in North America) (Fisher 1958) is not an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s famous novel in a traditional sense. Rather, the Hammer Films' production is a total subversion of Stoker’s novel, parodying the underlining paranoia found in the novel about “uncontrolled” female sexuality, the loss of Western male agency, and the supposed threat of the racial “Other.” This subversion results in Dracula being less a horror film than it is a black comedy of cuckold husbands and lovers trying to secure their own feeling of sexual prowess, and in the process, explores the dysfunctional nature of heterosexual relationships within Western society.

This parody of Stoker’s concerns starts immediately as the film begins, with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arriving at Dracula’s (Christopher Lee) castle to act as a librarian. In the first of many major shifts from Stoker’s text, Jonathan has arrived at Castle Dracula with the full intent of killing the Count, a complete inversion from the usual opening of Harker arriving to help the Count move to London, with Dracula posing the threat to the Western world by bringing his evil into London. The Dracula of this film shows no such signs of leaving his home anytime soon, or that he wants anything from Jonathan other than for him to look after his books. This Dracula is, oddly enough, a rather domestic individual, with a single female companion as opposed to several brides, and a rather warm and friendly décor (for a castle) in the central hall. He shows no special interest in Jonathan, and seems content to just let Jonathan settle in and get to work. The worst that can be said of Dracula is that he is a little perfunctory as a host, but that is hardly a crime.

As such, Jonathan is the invading monster, not Dracula. Jonathan’s particular threat is the domestic, heterosexual home which Dracula has established, and to the phallic power of Dracula as Jonathan attempts to give Dracula‘s companion the “help“ she begs for, help which turns out to be Jonathan’s blood. The scene in which she partly succeeds is rather remarkable, shot in a manner that is not unlike a seduction, giving the scene a rich subtext, which explodes as Dracula catches this act, resulting in the first shot of Dracula in “vampire mode.” Vampirism as a metaphor for sex and sexuality has a well documented history, but with this scene director Terrance Fisher underlines it in a fairly explicit manner, as Dracula attempts to reassert his phallic power over his companion, taking her out of the room and leaving Jonathan alone.

In fact, Harker finds himself the next morning back in his bed, seemingly treated with care. So naturally, Jonathan decides the logical thing to do is to make his way into the lower levels of the home, to the tomb of Dracula and his companion, and then kill the companion. The murder is a fairly loaded moment, as Jonathan attempts to reassert his own phallic power, brought into question by falling for the companion’s charms, and is the final violation of Dracula’s own heterosexual power as Jonathan “cuckolds” him.

The visual importance of Harker’s decent into the tomb, to the castle’s very foundations adds further complexities to the already complex opening act of the film. As noted, Dracula’s home is a rather domestic site in this film, and the placement of Dracula’s tomb/bedroom at the foundation of the home, shared with his companion, acts a visual metaphor for how heterosexual coupling is the foundation for the traditional Western family structure, and by extension the social/cultural structures that flow from this foundation. Yet clearly the relationship between Dracula and his companion is a strained one, a strain where the mere presence of Jonathan is enough to break the relationship down.

It is this strain and anxiety within the heterosexual relationship that becomes the central point of the rest of the film, and the weak point which Dracula strikes at in achieving his revenge against Jonathan (as well as shoring up his wounded phallic power). Dracula’s targets are the Holmwood family, which include Harker’s fiancée Lucy (Carol Marsh), her sister-in-law Mina (Melissa Stribling), and most importantly, Mina’s husband Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough). It is at this point that the film becomes almost a bedroom farce, as Dracula sneaks into the Holmwood home and attacks/sleeps with Arthur’s sister and wife to the near obliviousness of Arthur and Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), the seeming protector of the heterosexual relationship. But more on Van Helsing further on.

Long time Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and director Fisher construct the Dracula “attack” sequences in a manner that plays off of the audience’s familiarity with the Dracula legend, and furthers their probe into heterosexual anxiety. In the past, Dracula has been given the ability to hypnotize his victims, and one could assume that is what is happening in this film. Yet at no point is it suggested that Lee’s power-reduced Dracula even has the ability to hypnotise his “victims.” Instead, it is more than likely that Mina and Lucy willingly (and with great pleasure) go alone with Dracula and his escapades. Consider the looks on the women’s faces as they are confronted by Dracula: is it terror in their eye, or excitement? Why is it that Mina seems so happy after her encounters with Dracula? The brilliance of the film is that it allows the audience to take either possibility as being the case, while never actually giving any real evidence to suggest the hypnotic power of Dracula is to blame. As such, Arthur and Van Helsing’s conviction that Dracula is to solely blame comes across as them being in denial to the women’s dissatisfaction with their intended lovers, a denial likely to be shared by some of the audience.

One of the sharpest choices made in the film is how Arthur is set up as a mirror to Dracula and his failed relationship with his companion. It is not merely that Arthur’s marriage comes under threat from the sexual dynamo that is Dracula, but how the strength of Arthur’s agency and relationship with Mina is brought into question before Dracula’s arrival through one little detail: the absence of children. Mina and Arthur are a slightly older couple, and the implication is that they have been married for some time. Yet, if the point of marriage, both at the time the film was made and within the time frame the narrative takes place, the key point of marriage was for the act of procreation. We are never given a reason for the lack of children. In fact, it is easy to miss, given that Arthur and Mina spend their time looking after Arthur’s younger sister Lucy. Yet the absence of children is a striking omission, and in the absence of other answers, begins to lay the ground work for Arthur’s later impotency in the face of Dracula.

Of course, there is still the question of where Van Helsing fits into these issues of sexuality and agency. More than any other figure in the narrative, Cushing’s Van Helsing complicates and subverts Stoker’s attempts at shoring up the power of male heterosexuality. While Stoker’s Van Helsing was an elderly male helping to guide the young, virile men in the protection of “their” women, and thus maintain the “normalcy” of white, male heterosexual privilege in sexual relations, the Van Helsing of Hammer's Dracula is a powerful foe to Dracula because he is asexual. At no point are we given any indication that Van Helsing holds any interest in sex or sexual relations: he resists the female vampires that Arthur cowers from, and whom Jonathan is seduced by with ease. More importantly, we see Van Helsing living out of a well kept bachelor pad, with no sign of their ever having been a lover of any gender in his life. He is still fairly young, is highly intelligent, and as the conclusion of the film makes clear, he is a physical match for Dracula. Yet Van Helsing’s life is seemingly dedicated only to his work, and the somewhat predictable path of Van Helsing substituting for Jonathan in Lucy‘s life is never even hinted at as a possibility. Given all of this, Van Helsing is a figure who sits outside the heterosexual family dynamic, a point made clear early on when he is distrusted and ignored by the sneering Arthur: he just does not seem to belong.

Yet, like the cowboy figures who could bring civilization to the west, yet not be part of it, Van Helsing is a protector of the heterosexual lifestyle while living apart from it. Given that vampirism is connected to heterosexual desires in the film, Van Helsing’s clinical study of vampirism can be read as an understanding of human sexuality, a study which like so many others necessitates a level of detachment from the subject. Interestingly, and somewhat contradictory, if read in this manner, Van Helsing is not merely the protector of heterosexuality and male privilege, but also its destroyer as he hunts Dracula. What is more, given that Van Helsing sent Jonathan ahead to take care of Dracula at the start of the film, he is the instigator or the whole chain of events!

Given this, is it possible to read Van Helsing as the true site of horror, and thus ascribe a conservative reading of the film where the “aberrant” sexuality is the “problem” in the film? Possible, yes, but I do not believe that is what is quite going on here. Remember, the cracks in the heterosexual relationships were present before the start of the film for these characters: Van Helsing’s actions merely brought the problems to the surface, and did not cause them. In this context, Van Helsing is the bringer or light, both figuratively and, at the conclusion of the film, literally, exposing the problems at the very heart of Western social structures such as the family, upon which the rest of society is built.

He is not, however, the individual designated to solve these problems. No one is. As Dracula comes to a conclusion, we are left on an ambiguous note, with Mina “returning” both to humanity and Arthur, yet no attempt is made to resolve the complex issues raised in the film. There is no final child born, as in the Stoker novel, to suggest a supposed return to “normalcy.” Stoker’s traditional conceptions of good and evil are instead tossed out the window, and the audience is left to sort out the pieces that remain. It is this refusal to contain these issues that not only transforms Hammer’s Dracula into a subversion of Stoker’s classic work, but allows it to be a superior work to its source as well.

Cash on Demand (Lawrence 1961)

While audience discussions of film might seem to indicate otherwise, rarely ever is it the overall plot which makes or breaks a given work. After all, take a look at perhaps the most popular genre in film at the moment, that of the superhero. Breakdown these films to their bare basics, and you will find a similar overall structure and story which repeats time and again, be it Superman, Batman or Spider-man. This is the same of all genres.

No, what most often makes a work is not the plot, but the details, which shape a work and give it the texture that makes it memorable. It is in the details where the subtext is to be found; it is in the details where the subtleties of character and drama are to be made or lost.

Take the film we are examining today, Cash on Demand. This 1961 suspense thriller from director Quentin Lawrence sounds like a typical heist film, with an innocent bank manager (Peter Cushing) blackmailed by a cunning crook (Andre Morell) into robbing the bank during operating hours. However, instead of being a standard bank heist film, Cash on Demand is a crime thriller update of Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol, exploring class relations in post war Britain, with Andre Morell’s criminal character acting as a twisted, but likeable, amalgamation of the three ghosts of Christmas. This is achieved by smart writing, acting and directing which places emphasis on character and cinematic craft over cheap thrillers and violence, elevating the finished work into something more than a simple genre retread.

Played out real time, the first fifteen minutes or so have little to do with the robbery, but rather focus on the relationship between the bank’s chief executive Fordyce (Cushing) and his staff at a small town bank. A former soldier, Fordyce brings a military style of discipline to his branch and its operations, frequently noting that their job is to service the people of the community in an efficient and morally upright manner. However, Fordyce is totally detached from the very people he serves and, by extension, the people he works with. His service to the community is based in a very vapid ideal, believing in the structures of community, society, and most importantly, authority, without any actual understanding as to what those structures are designed to serve. This lack of understanding seems rooted in a sense of class distinction and generational difference, revealed by his contempt for the younger members of his staff and his obsession with his establishment remaining “dignified.” As played by Cushing, Fordyce is a man who conducts himself as if he were a lord, pronouncing judgments on his staff and believing in fear and respect as the most effective methods of conducting his trade.

It is these complex social and societal dynamics surrounding Fordyce’s authority and personality which explode with the arrival of Hepburn (Morell), and which become the real basis of the drama in the film. Hepburn is not a threat so much because he desires the bank’s money, but because he systematically disrupts, subverts and destroys the very symbols and structures which empower Fordyce, emasculating him and revealing his moral and ethical failings. It is here that the similarities with A Christmas Carol become increasingly apparent, as Hepburn becomes, in a perverse manner, a moral guide for Fordyce. This is all the more peculiar in that the audience is invited to not only like Hepburn, but actively root for him, despite the fact that Hepburn is threatening the lives of Fordyce family in order to gain the bank's funds.

No scene perhaps captures the central drama of the film more than a moment where Fordyce tries to stand up to Hepburn, making a declaration about how he will kill Hepburn if anything happens to his family. In what is a case of perfect acting, writing and directing, what would normally be a moment of heroic rebirth for Fordyce instead becomes a moment of great pity, as we are witness to how empty Fordyce’s threat is: it is pure posturing, with no real authority to be a credible threat. It is a magnificent scene for both Cushing and Morell, as Cushing, normally the most powerful of actors, allows himself to be shown at his most vulnerable, while Morell actually manages to subtly suggest a sense of pity on the part of Hepburn for Fordyce. It is a wonderfully layered scene, demonstrating a level of craft and intelligence missing from most modern thrillers, where the characters are often vapid stock types.

Director Lawrence in fact deserves a great deal of credit here. Working from a script from David T. Chantler and Lewis Greifer, based on a television script from Jaques Gillies, Lawarence careful utilizes the cinematic space, transforming the three room set into a rigidly defined areas designed to segregate and confine, mirroring the class and interpersonal dynamics between Fordyce and his staff. Moreover, the camerawork designed by Lawrence and cinematographer Arthur Grant is careful and controlled, at first distancing the viewer from Fordyce as we observe him, then gradually drawing the viewer into his point of view as his world falls apart.

Where the film fumbles slightly is with its conclusion, which creeps far too close towards sentimentality for a story which begs for a cynical and ambiguous conclusion. While it is a bit much to say the filmmakers cop out at this point, given that the ending was likely crafted to appease censors, it is hard not to feel slightly cheated as the film comes to a close. It isn’t a horrible ending by any stretch, but it is not nearly as satisfying as it could have been.

Regardless, Cash on Demand is well worth a rental, if not an outright purchase. Tense and well written, Cash on Demand is an example of how a stale genre can be transformed into something more by avoiding cheap, gimmicky twists and embracing character and an attention to detail that is often forgotten about in such films.

Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (Flemyng 1966)

Finally, we reach the end of the Doctor Who film reviews, with the sequel to Dr. Who and the Daleks (Flemyng 1995), Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (for the sake of readability, from now on I am just going to write 2150 A.D. when it comes to the title). Again adapting a Terry Nation script from the series as the basis for the film, the Dalek story “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” the story of both the film and television versions follow the crew of the TARDIS as they land in London of the 22nd century, only to find the Daleks have invaded and now occupy Earth, transforming various citizen’s into Robomen, squads of mind controlled humans who police the streets of London,rounding up humans to work in mines. The reason for the Daleks digging to the core of Earth is unknown, but the TARDIS crew find themselves caught up in events and fighting alongside the resistance in a desperate hope to solve the mystery of the Daleks plan and save Earth.



The original television version of the story is an excellent and significant serial in the history of show, if perhaps undermined by some poor science. Whereas the first Dalek story was a moral and ethical drama, the second story addresses the issues surrounding being a country occupied by a military force, and how it corrupts human values. Furthermore, the story is a character driven piece, addressing issues of identity and how we define who we are. The Doctor (William Hartnell) is very much an individual who defines himself as being the outsider: no true home save the TARDIS, living outside the bounds of time and space and in the early days refusing to name just where he was from, the Doctor revelled in the freedom his lifestyle provided. In stark contrast to him is his granddaughter Susan, who from the beginning of the series has been looking for a place to belong. “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” is really her story, as she finds a home and place among the human’s of the 22nd century, resulting in the first ever companion leaving the series in a touching and iconic scene, as the Doctor says goodbye to his only existing blood relative (that we know of) in his own peculiar, yet perfect, fashion.

Once again, all of this wonderful character and thematic material is gutted from the film adaptation, with 2150 A.D. being nowhere near the equal of its television original, just like Dr. Who and the Daleks. The darker elements of the story are toned down and the characters are reduced to stock adventure types. However, unlike its predecessor, 2150 A.D. manages to function well enough given the simpler goals it sets out to achieve. While Dr. Who and the Daleks’ narrative suffered from the simplification of the moral complexities upon which the original story hinged, 2150 A.D. manages to function well enough as an adventure yarn to be entertaining, if totally hollow and ultimately forgettable.




While hardly the grim yet hopeful narrative of the television original, 2150 A.D. noticeably takes itself more seriously than Dr. Who and the Daleks, cutting back on the forced slapstick and camp humour that was totally out of place in the last film. While some out of place humour crops up from time to time here, it is more tolerable this time thanks to the presence of actor Bernard Cribbins as the character Tom Campbell, a police officer who accidentally ended up in the TARDIS on its journey into the future. Campbell is a replacement for the character of Ian, apparently written out of the film due to the unavailability of actor Roy Castle. This is an absolute blessing, as Castle’s performance as Ian was the case of an actor simply trying too hard to make the material work, playing the character as a walking cartoon. Cribbins’ Tom by contrast is a competent man in a situation he didn’t ask to be in, and the moments of comedy involving Tom are more natural as he tries to work out the situation he has found himself in. Cribbins’ is good enough that a painful scene involving Tom trying to behave like a Roboman almost works. Oh, and for the record, I am not praising Cribbins’ acting in the film only in light of his wonderful work on the modern Doctor Who series as the character Wilf.

The returning actors also seem to be making a stronger effort here, with Peter Cushing being noticeably more energetic and lively compared to the last outing, though the weaknesses of that performance may have been the result of the script’s failings to make the warm and cuddly Doctor Cushing played make the darker decisions that Hartnell’s initially anti-heroic Doctor did in the original episodes. Once again promoted to the forefront of all the action, Cushing makes his Dr. Who quirky and fascinating enough to engage the viewers through the entire running time.

The biggest step up however is on the part of director Gordon Flemyng, who seems far more at ease with the large scale set pieces in this film than he was dealing with the various conversation scenes in the last film. While he still has no understanding of subtly, Flemyng does manage to keep the pace moving this time out, packing in enough modestly budgeted spectacle to temporarily overcome the failings of the rest of the film.




Still, when it is all said and done, 2150 A.D. is really nothing to go out of your way to see. Along with the major flaws noted earlier, the film is internally inconsistent with regards to the Daleks, who apparently can take direct explosions from high powered bombs, but will be destroyed when smashed gently by a small truck or thrown off a ramp. Furthermore, the major flaw of the television version returns to plague the film adaptation as well: the Daleks’ plan makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. At least the television version bothers to make its character drama interesting enough so that the reveal of the plan doesn’t result in laughter on the part of the viewer during the final few episodes. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the film.

Thus, we arrive at the end of the series of Doctor Who film reviews begun in December. The final verdict on all three films is the same: each is a well meaning attempt to expand the audience and awareness of the Doctor character, but each ultimately fails for a variety of reasons. As such, I highly recommend letting the show do the talking for itself, be it the classic series or the current revival. Trust me when I say it is well worth the investment of time and effort to watch.

Dr. Who and the Daleks (Flemyng 1965)

Is there such a thing as a “just war”? If so, who gets to decide what is or isn’t just? That is the central question at the heart of the original television serial “The Daleks”, the second ever story from the television series Doctor Who, back in 1963. Despite its original intended function to serve as both an adventure series and partial educational program, “The Daleks” radically altered the series by giving it not only its most famous foe in the Nazi inspired Daleks, which became an outright phenomenon, but also delved heavily into ethical debates and social commentary in a fairly mature and dark manner for what was intended as a children’s program. So naturally, in hopes of expanding the awareness of Doctor Who and the Daleks across outside of Britain, a film adaptation was done, in full colour and with a decent, though not large, budget. Thus, Dr. Who and the Daleks was born.

In the film, Dr. Who (Peter Cushing), a human inventor rather than alien Time Lord as in the series, is introduced by his eldest granddaughter Barbra (Jennie Lindin) to her boyfriend Ian (Roy Castle), a bumbling and accident prone young man. Dr. Who takes Ian and his granddaughters (including a young girl named Susan played by Roberta Tovey) to visit his latest invention, the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension Space), a space and time machine housed inside a British Police Box. Thanks to one of Ian’s accidents, the TARDIS lands on the planet Skaro, where a hateful species known as the Daleks have evolved into mutant creatures, housed in protective, tank-like armour, after the fallout of a massive nuclear war. Another group, known as the Thals, are committed pacifists and have found a drug to prevent the effects of the radiation poisoning. Running out of food, the Thals wish to make peaceful contact with the Daleks in hopes of helping one another. However, the Daleks seek not only the drug, but the extermination of the Thals entirely. Trapped on Skaro and in need of a vital component for the TARDIS, Dr. Who and his fellow travellers become involved in order to find a way to get home.

While the conflict that drives the story is one of war vs. pacifism, the main question raised and debated in the television version is if there ever is a right reason to go to war. The question comes to the forefront in the television version as the TARDIS crew debates asking the Thals to fight the Daleks: the Doctor (William Hartnell), seeking to recover a portion of his ship the Daleks have, believes they are fully within their right to ask the Thals to fight; Ian (William Russell), a school teacher and strong moralist, believes that they have no right to ask the Thals for help. Rather, the Thals have to come to fight for their own sake, rather than that of others. The debate is vital not only to the themes of the story, but crafts real characters out of the TARDIS crew as they face an ethical dilemma. Furthermore, when Ian puts a plan in action to try and convince the Thals to fight for their own good, the parallels in his plan to the Doctor’s own earlier manipulation of the TARDIS crew leave the viewer in conflict over whether Ian is right or not.

Such moral complexities and rich characterization are not to be found in Dr. Who and the Daleks, which simplifies the conflict down and transforms most of its characters into stock types. Rather, the film becomes an unquestioning salute to human (ie Western) values, as our characters sweep in and become a “guiding light” to the “poor Thals” who have taken pacifism too far. The film thus becomes oddly colonialist and paternalistic, reducing the Thals as a race and society while the film ironically tries to decry the Nazi-like racial hatred of the Daleks.

Central to this problem is the character of Dr. Who. While Cushing, ever the professional, delivers a solid performance and makes his character into a quirky and loveable grandfather figure, he cannot overcome the problem in the film handing over too much moral authority to the character. Not only does it dramatically hurt the film as there is no one for Dr. Who to talk to on the same level, but in transforming the character of the Doctor into a human rather than alien, he becomes an embodiment of Western values and ideals, a “proper” man to whose example should be followed. Ironically, this is the exact opposite problem the series tends to run into these days, where the Doctor is often transformed into some osrt of alien messiah.

The end result of these alterations makes Dr. Who and the Daleks a rather hollow experience, rather than the rich one the television version is. However, that isn’t to say that Dr. Who and the Daleks is entirely devoid of value. One of the flaws of the original story, the pacing, is dealt with, offering a far brisker telling of the tale that adds some life to the events. Furthermore, Dr. Who and the Daleks benefits from its larger budget. A colour production, the film gains a level of scope that was entirely unachievable on television, from the trek to the city through the wastelands of the planet, too even the Dalek’s city, which, while not the stuff of legends as far as production design goes, does manage to impress.

The film also does manage to have a few nice touches throughout, such as the opening scene of the film which introduces Dr. Who reading a comic book in contrast to the physics texts his granddaughters are reading. And while the score of the film will never be as iconic as the Doctor Who theme proper from the series, the music by Barry Gray and Malcolm Lockyer is a fun little jazz score which gives a little punch to the events of the film.

As it stands though, I have to make my recommendation the same as the last Doctor Who review I did, and state that the film will probably only be of interests to hardcore fans of the show as a historical oddity. Of course, the film was successful enough to spawn one sequel. Could it be any better? I wonder...