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.

The Full Treatment [Stop Me Before I Kill!] (Guest 1960)

As you will notice from the heading of this review, the film under discussion today has two titles. The proper title for the film and the one which the film was originally released under in the UK, is The Full Treatment, while the North American release title (and the one included on the DVD edition of the film here in region one) is Stop Me Before I Kill! While both titles reflect the content of the film, neither title is totally successful in reflecting the ironies and complexities of this psychologically and sexually focused thriller. Director Val Guest has, as the second title suggests, crafted a pulpy film that sets out to titillate and shock, but the film is more than just a cheap thriller, as it explores male fears of emasculation and the complexities of psychoanalysis through playing with audience identification, voyeurism, and the audience's desire for control over the narrative's meaning.

The Full Treatment is the story of a famous English race car driver named Alan Colby (Ronald Lewis) and his wife Denise (Diane Cilento), who on their wedding day are involved in an accident. Nearly a year later, the couple are reattempting their honeymoon in Cannes, but Colby is afraid that sexual desires seem to be manifesting in a desire to kill his wife. During their trip, they encounter Dr. David Prade (Claude Dauphin), a French psychiatrist who operates out of London, who takes a interest in the couple, an interest which unsettles Alan. However, with his violent urges growing, and a push from his wife, Alan agrees to undergo treatment with Dr. Prade, a treatment which turns out to be more than Alan and Denise ever expected as Dr. Prade‘s own desires come into play.

The plot of the film is deceptively simple, with the surface narrative suggesting a tale of a man who loves his wife but is afraid to harm her do to his own personal guilt, who manages to salvage himself by submitting to analysis and finally proving his worth as a healthy male. This surface narrative however is unable to truly contain the underlying contradictions and ambiguities, which transform the film into an exploration of male misogyny, driven by fears of emasculation by women and the comforts of the homosocial environment. These themes are further complicated by the films explicit guidance of the audience to perform a psychological analysis on the film, whilst at the same time pointing out the failings of such an approach.

The opening scene of the film is overwhelming in the information it reveals to the audience. Filmed as a long tracking shot, the opening scene reveals several important details: first, that the accident happens on the wedding day of Alan and Denise, as revealed by a “just married” sign on their badly damaged car; second, Denise, while injured, is conscious and able to move, only collapsing after checking her husband; lastly, we discover that Alan is a famous race car drive from his picture being on the side of a petrol tanker which stops at the crash. This opening scene reveals much about the complicated existence of its protagonists, as the spectacle of the accident also is imbued with the spectacle of celebrity, and the couple’s marriage becomes correlated with the accident.

This correlation is one of the most vital points of the film with regards to subtext, as Alan’s inability to drive and function within a sexual relationship begins with the accident. Alan’s sense of masculine identity is tied to his abilities of a race car driver, a profession noted for dangerous driving while remaining “in control.” This profession brings Alan fame, and as the film points out, large numbers of women with whom to engage sexually. The event of marriage, an event in which the individual becomes part of a larger unit, requires a degree of relinquishing a sense of control over ones life to that of another, as well as sexual freedom. Thus, the wedding/crash becomes a double site, and “sight” for the audience, of Alan’s emasculation both sexually and professionally, the latter seemingly being the result of the former. Furthermore, since Denise is the only one with memory of the accident, she holds a level of control over Alan who lacks this knowledge.

Were the film to stop here with regards to exploring/explaining Alan’s drive to violence, the film would simply be reflecting a sense of gynophobia which emerges in acts of misogynistic behaviour on the part of the filmmakers as well as the characters. However, I am not sure that film is this this conservative and regressive. Given that the central dramatic thrust is focused upon Alan and Prade, in which Alan undergoes a further emasculation by the lecherous drives of Prade, Denise is sidelined, and serves mostly as a figure of victimization by both Prade and Alan, Denise is less a character and more of a figure onto which Alan and Prade project their desires and fears. Mind you, this victim status and Denise’ willingness to be subjected to abuse and manipulation by both reveals a sexist attitude on the part of the filmmakers which leaves her a weak character, but it does manage to avoid outright misogyny by focusing its attention squarely upon two heavily flawed men.

Then again, perhaps I just reworking the film to my own ends, creating a narrative subtext that fits my views and attitudes in order to give me a sense of mastery over the text. At least, the film wants the viewer to reflect on this possibility with its most subversive tactic: the inclusion of psychoanalysis in the narrative proper in the figure of Dr. Prad. As noted, Alan and Denise are not merely any couple, but celebrities who very existence becomes something of a spectacle for the public at large. In this sense, the Colby couple become evocative of the spectacle of cinema itself, and through Prade, the film challenges the audience’s voyeuristic drive and meaning generating agendas. If there is any doubt about this, consider that Prade first encounters the Colby couple in Cannes, the site of the world famous film festival that has taken place since 1946.

Prade’s voyeuristic desires to know and understand Alan’s psychology and ultimately substitute himself in place of Alan mirrors the audiences own voyeurism and the identification process with the film‘s characters. Prade’s psychoanalysis of Alan mirrors the audience’s own desire for understanding of the character and his behaviour, a point made by the repetition of Prade looking upon the couple at a distance. However, as Prade’s own desires become increasingly obvious Prade’s analysis and its results come into question: to what degree is the analysis “true,” and to what degree is it tainted by Prade’s obsession? Prade’s desire to gain “possession” and control over Denise begins to mirror our own desire to control the film’s meaning, disrupting the process of analysis and forcing a reflection upon the degree to which we bend a given text to fit our own needs. It is complex meta material, far beyond what the lurid title of Stop Me Before I Kill! would suggest.

The film’s pleasure are not entirely intellectual however. Director Guest has crafted a tense film filled with visual flair, which only manages to stubble in its resolution, which requires the smartest character in the film to make a foolish decision and a moment of chance in which a character witnesses something they more than likely would not. Moreover, Guest manages to pull serviceable performances from Lewis and Cilento, while giving Dauphin room to steal the film from everyone around him in a performance which recalls (and predates) Anthony Hopkins’ take on the character of Hannibal Lecter.

It should be noted that the version I watched of the film is 108 minutes in length and found on the Icons of Suspense Collection of Hammer Films. If the IMDB is too be believed, the original UK version of the film is a full 12 minutes longer than the American cut, though for the life of me I cannot figure out what material would be missing, as the film is tightly constructed without feeling incomplete. This means that the biggest complaint I have with the film is the American title, and it is not often that the title is the only thing to complain about. Highly recommended.