Viewed either as the second in a vague trilogy or the second of three interpretations of the same story, Jimmy Sangster's second major directorial effort (he'd done some TV work on 'Ironside' in the late 60s and was fairly prolific in second unit work in the early 50s) is even worse than his first, 'Horror of Frankenstein' (1970), despite which it's still a likable enough early seventies vampire movie from the great house of Hammer. It is pretty hard not to not to notice the problems which start with the glaringly obvious reflection of the film crew in the carriage door early on in the film and continue with continuity errors. For example, we see a full body shot of the dire Mike Raven, supposed Karnstein vampire, followed instantly by a close up of what are clearly Christopher Lee's eyes complete with blood red contact lenses, then back to Raven who's eyes aren't red at all! Next, a victim has her throat cut and blood pours into a receptacle for the purposes of reviving Mircalla / Carmilla, then a longer shot has the victim in the background with no blood at all on her neck! And on it goes right up until almost the entire crew plus various cables and a camera decide to put in an appearance during the final scenes when the vampire coach driver decides to charge into the crowd of torch wearing villagers. Add to this the laugh out loud performance by erstwhile DJ Mike Raven and you get a far funnier film than 'Horror of Frankenstein' which was at least meant to be a sort of comedy. The second time he says 'heart attack' is a guaranteed to make you guffaw. On those grounds, the movie sounds terrible, but somehow it's not. Sangster wrote some good scripts for Hammer; 'Curse of Frankenstein', 'Revenge of Frankenstein', 'Dracula', 'The Mummy', 'Brides of Dracula' and so on amongst others as well as providing sterling work in other guises, whether as producer, story editor, consultant or whatever so it would clearly be contemptuous and wrong to consign him to the scrap heap because his direction may have seemed a little weak on this one movie. Apart from which, he always seems to manage at least one nice moment. I was particularly struck by the image of Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard) walking gracefully off into the low lying fog after her cruel treatment of Giles Barton (Ralph Bates), again, like a brief moment in 'Horror of Frankenstein' (1970) there is something almost poetic about it. Ralph Bates is fine in his role as is Michael Johnson as Gothic author Richard Lestrange. There's a nice moment when the two first meet and Barton is describing the students, one of whom he mentions is a member of the 'Hampshire Courtley's. An interesting family' which may be a reference to his role as Lord Courtley in 'Taste the Blood of Dracula' (1970) although he might be saying 'Courtney' in which case my observation is pointless! Suzanna Leigh is good as Janet Playfair and, to be honest, had I been Lestrange it would have been her I'd have shown an interest in rather than chasing after a school girl, although Yutte Stensgaard is more than beguiling as the doomed vampire. One point about her vampire status; It has been noted that she walks abroad in daylight, something we presume vampires are incapable of but it must be remembered that in LeFanu's story 'Carmilla' (1872) upon which the movie is loosely based, the vampire, although practising most of her vampirism at night, is not in any way confined to nocturnal activities. Mike Raven. I don't know what to say about Mike Raven. My brother and I came across him on a train in London in the early seventies and thought he was the devil. He was completely dressed in black, complete with goatee beard and hair drawn back across his head. My brother, being somewhat more daring than me, decided to ask him if he was in fact the devil, to which he replied that, no he was Mike Raven. I don't really know why they dubbed his voice in the movie as he certainly sounded creepy enough to us as kids. Helen Christie as Miss Simpson adequately portrays a woman who, although initially appearing to be strong and in control, soon suffers an emotional collapse as her world begins to crumble about her. Other performances range from the adequate to the weak but collectively achieve the aims of the script. Apart from the glaring errors mentioned earlier, most of the technical work is OK. Music by Harry Robertson (as Harry Robinson) is good and the 'Strange Love' song doesn't do any particular harm with the melody efficiently incorporated into the sound track at later key stages and most of the photography is highly effective and very attractive. It would have been interesting to see what kind of film would have emerged if original plans had prevailed. Tudor Gates had initially made a number of references to aspects of 'The Vampire Lovers' (1970) so continuity to that film would have been more relevant, Terence Fisher was due to direct and Peter Cushing was due to do the Ralph Bates role. On top of this it was hoped to do the interiors at Bray, all of which may have resulted in a very different film. Notwithstanding these potential differences, the film as it stands probably doesn't entirely deserve the intense negativity that it often encounters and does offer many enjoyable moments. It's the sort of film you can watch again a couple of years later and think 'that wasn't so bad after all!'.
Review of Lust for a Vampire
